Anger

he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armour
Queen jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted,
They quietly understand
Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready,
But wonder why the fight is on

But theyre all bold as love, yes, theyre all bold as love
Yeah, theyre all bold as love
Just ask the axis

My red is so confident that he flashes trophies of war and
Ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring,
But very unsteady for the first go round
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
In fact Im trying to say its frigthened like me

And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you

But, Im eh , yeah, Im bold as love
Yeah, yeah
Well Im bold, bold as love
I'm bold as love
Just ask the axis (he knows everything)

Talk About a Dying Breed

Speaking at our alma mater in 1991


If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

"I'd Like to Have a Racist, but Newsworthy, Word with You"

the title is these guys talking, not me of course

First off, wow. I think we should change our name from the Dissentators to the (Mothman) Prohpets, because this blog never ceases to write different things that synch up in a significant way. First, no sooner do I include Imus in one of my posts (which builds upon previous Dissentary about the use of language and offensive language / political correctness, than he becomes the talk of the town for offending the entire nation with his choice of words! Upon realizing this, I decide to write this post, about Imus and his language and the topic in general, continuing the language discussion, and no sooner do I think of that then I see Brooklyn's post about the top five uses of the word "jive" in movies. Brilliant. Now Brooklyn is en route so just incase he missed it, and for others of you who also have lives and haven't seen the footage of Imus apologizing to Al Sharpton, I will recount basically what I remember of part of the conversation. I don't remember the exact transcript but it went something like this:

Imus (trying to explain himself and apparently not getting anywhere): "I can't get anywhere with you people." (I know!!! Classic!!!!)
Al Sharpton: "What do you mean 'you people'?"
Imus: "You, and the other woman we're talking to."
Woman: "No, that's not what you meant."
Imus: "Oh no, don't try to say that, that's jive."

Jive!!!! How rediculous is it that Imus said that!!! Just refer to Trading Places, Aeroplane, or Tenenbaums (the other two movies use jive a verb so it doesn't really apply) and it looks like this comment is right up there with his other racist comments.

This brings us back to the subject of language, a subject that I don't want this post to be about, but it is worth a mention. I mean Imus I guess probably is racist but he is a professionally trained voice man and smart enough to know that he's not supposed to appear racist on his radio show. Even Kramer at the Laugh Factory, at least according to him, was trying to make a joke (by the way isn't it ironic that the place that produced one of the most horrifying things captured on film and then shown to the entire nation was called the "Laugh Factory"?). Okay well Kramer trying to make a joke is a bit of a stretch, but we can agree that before Imus and Kramer took to the stage/airwaves they probably weren't planning on saying anything racist, but the fact may be that society is changing (I would say, on the whole, for the better, although of course there are pros and cons to political correctness) faster than these old guys can keep up with. I mean these are pretty old guys and the majority of our society (or maybe just the intellectuals?) has left them in the dust, whether in terms of actual racism or comments that (even if the person speaking doesn't initially realize it) can be interpreted as racism. I mean we've all heard and many of us have told stories about how our adorable european-descendent grandparents made racist comments, but we don't get that mad at them, because they came from differnet times. Imus might be as old as some of our grandparents but he gets out more than most of them, plus there's that whole "he's talking to hundreds of millions of people and not just to our family at Thanks giving (btw - Thanksgiving: racist or hijacked by the PC police?) dinner" part, so we're going to bear down on Imus, and softsoap our grandparents. Howard Stern said that Imus should have just said "fuck you, it's a joke."

Anyway though, putting the PC language discussion aside for a moment, I also want to get everyone's opinions on what the hell exactly is going on in our country and in our society, and what exactly is the deal with our morality. One could sum up the last couple of months with the following: White southern boys at a renowned institution of higher learning accused of raping a black stripper, the biggest thing to hit the entertainment world is a comedy about a racist and dim-witted Kazakhstani (played by a Jewish Englishman) going to America and filming his conversations with other (some of which are also, apparently, racist and dim-witted) Americans played by themsleves, then one of the stars of maybe the best comedy series ever (although he was the Ringo Starr of Seinfeld) goes on a racist explosion at an LA Comedy club, and then one of the most famous morning radio hosts (is famous morning radio host an oxy moron?) comes under scrutiny for making racist comments. Now three of these things were pretty unanimously disgusting while one of them, not as much, so right there is another interesting topic of discussion, especially since, aside from the Duke story, everyone involved was an entertainer (well I guess you could say that the stripper was too and maybe even the star athletes), so right there is an example of the fact that there is a line which Sasha Baron Cohen I guess stepped right up to but didn't go over, while those other guys, well, they crossed the fuck out of it.

But I said I wanted to talk about our society and our culture and our morals, which is why I have the philosophers up there. I can't really decide what I think about the fact that the news is teeming with these isolated incidents concerning Kramer and Imus and the Duke Lacrosse players. If you go to Drudge Report (btw another topic for bloggery is whether Drudge is part of the problem or the solution to the (in my opinion extremely depressing and infuriating) problem of the conflation of news with entertainment) right now it is a bit rediculous: Imus, the Duke case, Imus talking about the Duke case, and then the 2008 presidential candidates talking about Imus (this is too far, no? I really don't know if the Imus thing is useful information to keep the public informed and aid in the discourse that shapes our culture and our society, but surely the 2008 candidates talking about Imus - two degrees of Imus if you will - is just three darts (by three darts I mean: too much (see Ace Ventura 2)).

So what I want to discuss is whether this a good thing or a bad thing, that this is our news. I mean we have injustice and racism every day and everywhere, that goes unnoticed and unremarked upon by the media, but when it involves celbrities / rich people the media can't stop talking about it.

Starbucks has started writing me messages when I buy coffee from them, and one of said messages presently comes to mind (don't worry it's not racist):

The Way I See It: #192
Many people lack a spiritual believe system and fill that void with obcessions about celebrities. The celebrities are raised to the rank of gods, and these earthly gods will always fail the expectations the masses set for them. The cycle runs thusly: adoration turns to obcession, obcession turns to disappointment, and from disappointment is just a short emotional jump to contempt.

Now when I first read that I thought to myself: why are you talking about celebrities? All of this can be said about religion, and about God (also a topic for another day on the blog). But now I finally see that it can also be said about celebrities! Of course we don't expect anything fancy from celebrities, we just expect them to be as cool in real life as they are when they're on stage or screen. This is where the disappointment sets in. For example: Michael Richards - definitely not as cool as Kramer. For our celebrities and also for talk show people like Imus I guess we just expect them not to be evil. Maybe part of the reason we are so angry and hurt when it turns out that our celebrities are evil or screwed up, is because we learn that we are better than them, and how the fuck did they get to be celebrities and us not? This can break down into two parts, one of which is our failure, and the other part is the failure of our society: wherein horrible people are able to achieve immense fame and fortune. Well, this and the whole "they are saying these things to hundreds of millions of people as opposed to just your family at Thanksgiving dinner" thing.

So does this explain our reaction? Does this explain, and does it justify, these isolated incidents, exactly the same as so many that happen constantly except that they're celebrities, getting media coverage ad nauseum?

Maybe the explanation is that we are making an example of these people. Oh sorry, let me rephrase that. Maybe we are making an example of Imus and Kramer and of the Duke parties (the parties to the lawsuit, not the keg parties, although, sure, them too). We aren't going to solve all of the millions of isolated incidents, but there are some that we will make known to all (lots of people are going to find out anyway but we will make sure everyone finds out) and then we are going to tell and retell the events and hear what everyone (political leaders and other celebrities and entertainers alike) has to say about it, and then we are going to watch what happens to the perpetrators, in order to demonstrate how we as a society feel about this behavior, and what we as a society deem fit as a response, and if necessary, a punishment.

Is this desirable? One one hand we are bringing social problems to everyone's attention, maybe the only way we could get everyone to pay attention and consider these issues is using celebrities? On the other hand, it glamorizes legitimate concerns of our normal everyday lives, and maybe even takes the focus off of them. Are there better ways to deal with social problems like racism than constant coverage of Imus-gate? If you answered yes to that last question, then couldn't all of the time and energy spent talking about the Duke case and Kramer and Imus be better spent on other endeavors, both in terms of what stories the media is covering and Matt Drudge is posting on his site, and in terms of what we are discussing in conversation and on our blogs?

Is this what we want? Are we happy with how these scandals come up, command national focus, play out, and then die out when another weird incident comes up (anyone heard anything about Kramer lately?)?

If something seems wrong, or strange, who do we blame? Do we blame ourselves for engaging in these discussions about Imus and Kramer that we complain about, and not doing anything to change things? Do we blame the media for rolling around in toxic goo with entertainment and fusing together to form the radioactive seven headed beast that it has become? Is it just us, the blogging intellectuals, who are disgusted with this phenomena, and do most news-watchers think that the news is just fine? If not, why does the news keep doing this? Have they to live up to their responsibilities to society? Or am I being too pessimistic, and do stories like the Kramer and Imus cases serve society in some beneficial way?

Dissentators, mount up.

Mental Accounting: Jive in Five

Im currently en route (no apostraphies), so I dont have time for for too much gibber-jabber. I did, however, manage to scrape together an answer to capetowns list of finishing lines. Here are my five favorite uses of the word jive in cienema:

1. It aint cool being no jive turkey so close to thanksgiving. (Trading Places)

2. When two cats dont jive, one of ems gotta go. (Waynes World 2)

3. You wanna talk some jive? Ill talk some jive. (Royal Tenenbaums)

4. Excuse me stewardess, I speak jive. (Airplane)

5. Were gonna jump and jive, bend and whirl. (Gap commercial circa 1997)

Top Ten Last Lines: Or An Invite For Comments

Considering the dust-up caused when BrooklynDissentator threw up his top ten movie lists a couple of weeks ago, I figure I toss my top ten last lines in film.

1. "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (Casablanca 1952)
2. "Hey, Dad! Do you wanna have a catch?/ I'd like that." (Field of Dreams 1991)
3. "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." (Babe 1995)
5. "Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool./So do you, Fast Eddie." (The Hustler 1961)
6. "Mein Fuehrer, I can walk!" (Dr. Strangelove 1964)
7. "Good. For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble." (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969)
8. "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted...He lived happily ever after." (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 1971)
4. "I guess we keep going through it cause most of us need the eggs." (Annie Hall 1977)
9. "Roads. Where we're going, we don't need roads." (Back To the Future 1985)
10. "I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope." (Shawshank 1994)


So, just to arouse some responses, I will not merely claim that these are MY top ten, but the objective greatest top ten. If you got better ones, let me here them. I dare ya. And also, these are not meant to reflect my top ten movies of all time. Some great films have mediocre last lines and visa versa. The only thing that I will say is that Babe just might creep into the top ten movie list as well.

Please Read to the End

The one truism that I have learned in my 24 years is that I will look back at my opinions in 5 years and think that I am a complete idiot. It's happened every 5 years, give or take, and it's one of the few things on which I will look back and think, "Hey, you were right about that." In the past, I've been known to throw out ideas -- some hairbrained, some off-color, short-sighted, nit-witted, etc. Some theories I posit with brazen passion and some just to fill the air during an awkward convo. Just so you get the idea, here are a few of my current gems: the existence of UFO's makes more sense to me than that of the people who witness them; I appreciate animals as much as any vegetarian, because I also love the way they taste; if Henry David Thoreau were alive today, Walden would be a blog; we'd be better off with fewer books out there and more readers; and, come to think of it, I may even appreciate animals more than vegetarians.

These thoughts, admittedly, are not deeply instilled and are most likely transient visitors -- trying to keep warm for a night or two in the soup kitchen of my head -- they do not make up, define or speak for all the rest. I have almost as many or as many good, honed, well-reasoned thoughts, as I do wild-eyed inanities. These 5 year retrospections of mine are moments of whimsy, not embarrassment. What I am trying to say is that I cannot dismiss all of my present-day ideas and beliefs because of a few wild turkeys clucking around my head. I don't think it unreasonable to assume that most of us are the same way, and yet in our current political climate, we engage, bolster, and promote this type of dismissal each day.

Senator Biden called Senator Obama "articulate" and that has been the defining moment in Biden's two-month-long presidential campaign; John Kerry voted for a spending bill before he voted against it and it cost him an election; so-and-so is pro-choice, soft on crime, French. In each of these examples an iota of a slice of minutia has defined the whole individual and a better part of their campaign.

Okay, if you haven't given up on the point that I'm trying to make because of my remarks about vegetarians, then let's do a little thought exercise. Try to picture former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Nominee for President, Michael Dukakis. Got a picture of him yet? Do you even know who I'm talking about? If you don't know who I'm talking about, then you don't have to play and you know what, you can just do your blog reading somewhere else (see what I did there? An example of general dismissal in real time). If you were able to picture him in your head, I'll put some money down on the fact that you pictured him with his smiling head sticking out of a tank, donning an ill-fitted helmet. That's because that stupid picture defined him campaign and Dukakis himself. Who knows? He may have been able to put together a great Health Care package or bring peace to the Middle East, but he stuck his head out of a tank, someone snapped a picture, and we'll never know.

This type of societal brush off is carried out with such ease that we almost come to expect and anticipate the split second that will define a career. You can see this anticipation in the current coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election, how pundits and columnists try to find weaknesses in Obama's oratorical acumen, or when Katie Couric interviews Edwards and his wife, or the recent attention given to McCain's trip to Iraq (he went without a helmut but ended up looking as dumb as Dukakis).

What may be even more disturbing than the ease with which we the people dismiss someone but the even greater ease with which we are duped into it. This is why President Bush thinks he can get away with whatever he wants when he recently:

"attacked Congress for taking 57 days to “pass emergency funds for our troops” even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for “pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war,” though last year’s war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president’s own request for money for bird-flu preparation."

We complain about our current leaders and the choices we have for the new ones; we complain about the Republicans when they're in charge and the Democrats when they hold power -- "It's the politicians' fault", "It's the media's fault", "It's the system's fault"-- we piss and gripe and moan and it's our own damn fault. If we approached each election with openness and engaged skepticism -- not the easily manipulated sort, but the kind that drives one to double-check accusations -- then candidates would not be so timid to speak from their heart to extrapolate on their proposals and voice their true voices. Each election, we hear how the candidates are all the same. No kidding, because they are all too frightened of the idiot brush that we paint them with if they were to step out of line.

So, next time you hear about a candidate's off-the-record remarks that magically got on record, or see a photo of a candidate with or without a helmut, don't dismiss them. Find out more about them. Just think of the lesson from 1960, back when a lot of people were ready to dismiss the blue-eyed man from Massachusetts for fear that a Catholic President would take his orders from the Pope. That same year we elected Kennedy and it turned out that he could mess up a bunch on his own thank you. He didn't the Pope at all. But why take my word for it? I told you at the beginning I may not even believe this stuff in 5 years.

Obama for President, but not until 2016

He gets my vote on coolest logo, though

Every four years there comes a time in our country when 50 or 60% of Americans of voting age vote for a president based on their perceptions on the candidates. These perceptions come from lots of places and are formed a number of different ways. According to the last two elections people just vote on geographical party lines: if you live near an ocean or a freshwater ocean you are a red state to distinguish yourself from the water, and if you don't live near water you are a blue state to demonstrate that obviously this blue part is the land. It will be interesting to see if this changes in 2008 and who can win the most swing states in '08 (according to Wikipedia's article, there are 14 current swing states. In 2004, of those states, Bush won 8 - Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and Florida - while Kerry won 6 - Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves because we have primaries to worry about, although always keeping in mind the primaries are very much influenced by who we think can win the general election, where the potential to win swing states should be a huge factor.

So, apart from electibility in the general election, which I think is determined by who wins the New Hampshire primary (which is determined by who wins the Iowa Caucus), what is influencing people's votes in the primaries? This is a complicated issue but I don't think too many people will argue with me when I claim that the primaries are heavily influenced by money, which is heavily influenced by name recognition and, of course, money. This is a big problem, and I blame the media. Unless you make the effort that I am not comfortable assuming that all voters are making, you get all of your info from the media and all you are going to have learned form themknow about the candidates right now is two things. First, that Hillary, Obama, McCain, and Giuliani are on TV a lot, either getting mentioned or actually being shown interviewed or speaking. So there you have your name recognition, which is a self fulfilling (mothman) prohpesy because people will assume that they are the best candidates and vote for them just because they are familiar with them. Unfortunately the these four are only getting so much more attention because they have been in the spotlight in the past and the other candidates haven't, and this of course says nothing about what kind of president they would be. The second thing most people know now thanks to the media is that Hillary and Romney raised the most money in the most recent money count. Are you freaking kidding me with this? Sure, it can be seen as a proxy for how many supporters they have right now, but this is really dangerous because fundraising is so dependent on name recognition and how much money you have to put together a good fundraising campaign, which, again says nothing about what kind of a president you would be. Despite this, fundraising is used as a proxy not only for how many supporters the candidates have, but also for how good they are as candidates, because everyone likes a winner, perhaps regardless of what kind of competition that they've won (this is also why winning the party nomination is so dependent on Iowa (Yeearrrrgh) and New Hampshire).

The other reason why the media is determining so much is that they pick up the slack for the candidates. Putting aside the fact that the media do a horrible and actually could do a much better job at this, let's not let the candidates off the hook so easily. For several reasons (for starters take the fact that America is such a large country with diverse opinions and the fact that it has more potential than any other country to carry out various potential projects and ideas, of which there are approximately eleventy billion), political campaigns have become an exercise in talking a lot and saying little or nothing of substance. This is partly because if you say anything that gives away an actual opinion the media will replay it over and over again (partly because you would be the first to do so (IE to give them news!) and also becuase yearrghhh), but also because this is just how the system has come to function: because of the diversity of opinions among the huge number of voters, politicians beleive they can maximize support by being vague and not committing themselves too much on particular policy ideas for difficult (is there any other kind) isses.

The result is that we are informed that all of the candidates want to win in Iraq and bring the troops back ASAP, and all of the candidates want a strong economy with more jobs, and all of the candidates want to improve education and health care, etc. They all agree on most of the ends (or, at least, the ones that they think that are most important to the voters), however this turns into all that they talk about, and they tend no to go into much detail on the means, to a point where they will often all agree on the means as well because they are not being very specific. So how are we supposed to choose? I'm not going to lie, I'm not really sure. One way is, even if the candidates are giving the same answers, to pay attention to how they give them. A wise man once said "it's not what you say, it's how you say it." For instance, compare "she had a crack baby" to "she had a crack, baby." In other words one would have to read or listen to the candidates discussing the various issues and then compare and contrast, and decide who you felt sounded the most sincere and knowledgeable and capable when discussing what they want to do and why/how they can do it. This, again is what I am not comfortable in assuming that most of the voters are going to do. This should not be too shocking since we all lead busy lives nowadays, but it should be troubling because these are big decisions to be made. Unfortunately, many people are probably just tuning into the news every now and then, and then watching the debates, where, again, the candidates don't give us much info (to combine the horrors of the media with those of the vague candidates, the media then gives us statistics on who won the debates -- PEOPLE SHOULD DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So I think it's clear that we all need to admit that we have a responsibility to be better informed. Call it a responsibility as an American, a responsibility as a human in society, an ethical responsibility, a moral responsibility, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell, whoever. Of course, this isn't easy either, and requires a lot of effort. One place I'd like to start is the candidates web sites on the issues. As I said, they all come to similar conclusions on the issues (except for the traditional democratic-republican splits on certain things), but maybe you can make a judgment just based on what issues these guys (and girl!) put up on their web sites, and also how they phrase them. So here are the issues that each candidate chose to give you their opinion on via their web site.

Giuliani:
Fiscal Discipline
Cutting Taxes
Winning the War on Terror
Iraq
Public Safety
Judges
Education
Abortion
Second Amendment
Marriage

McCain:
Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity
Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life
Lobbying & Ethics Reform
The Consequences of Failure in Iraq
National Security
Stewards of our Nation's Rich National Heritage
Protecting Second Amendment Rights

Romney:
Defeating the Jihadists
Competing with Asia
Taxes
Spending
Immigration
Energy
America's Culture and Values
Technology
Health Care
Education

Biden:
Iraq: A Way Forward
Afghanistan and Darfur
Energy
Jobs
Health Care
Access to Higher Education
Preparing for College
Homeland Security
Crime
Climate Change

Dodd:
American Security
Education
Energy and the Environment
Health Care
Leadership on Iraq
Jobs and the Economy

Hillary:
Honestly I cannot find Clinton's "Issues" part of her web site and I'm not sure whether there is one!

Obama:
Strengthening America Overseas
Plan to End the Iraq War
Cleaning up Washington's Culture of Corruption
Meeting America's Energy Needs
Honoring our Veterans
Improving our Schools
Creating a Healthcare System that Works
Protecting our Homeland
Strengthening Families and Communities
Protecting the Right to Vote
Reconciling Faith and Politics

Richardson:
Iraq
National Security/Foreign Policy
Partisanship
Environment/Energy
Jobs/Economy
Healthcare
Immigration

So there is a starting point. And finally a word about my personal opinions and in reference to the title of this article. I think I will probably vote for one of the Democrats although I haven't ruled out some of the Republicans, so, since this is a blog, and blogs are for non-experts to air their personal opinions on issues they don't fully understand, I will do so. As I mentioned, the media is already shaping the primaries and thus the general election, and they are simplifying the Democratic primary down to Hillary-Obama, which is unfortunate. Personally I am thoroughly unimpressed with Hillary, and I am very impressed with Obama, although I am equally if not more impressed with Dodd, Edwards, Richardson and Biden. These three are incredibly smart guys and the pundits and the media as well as us when we discuss politics in our personal time ignore these three at our own and our nation's peril. For reasons including but not limited to experience, I think it makes much more sense to have one of those guys as the Presidential nominee, and they will then do well to choose Obama as their running mate. Maybe Barack can be VP for 8 years - he can still speak for our country and have an influence in shaping policy, and then he will be ready to be President in 2016.

Literary Corner

Jim: Hi Tom. What's on your Roll?

Tom: It's a sandwich I made. I took the flesh from a dead baby and spread it on a Kaiser. I call it a "Roll Doll"

Jim: Oh My God! I love Roald Dahl.

The Second Materialism

I’ll tell you who I like- Madonna. That woman can sing. So catchy. And poignant. God, is she poignant. “I’m living in a material world, and I am a material girl.” Madonna must have been reading all the trade journals, because never a truer thing was said of our modern age.

I think Madonna was singing about material wealth- that’s the materialism she meant. She noticed the creeping desire for material possessions infecting our greedy American souls and sang a little ditty about it. I don’t think anyone would deny that Madonna was right on the money on that account. Last year the U.S. bought so much stuff that we had to borrow $765 Billion dollars from the rest of the world to pay for it all.

But Madonna may have been right-on by other accounts as well. There is another form of creeping materialism these days, and it too is flagrantly American. It informs our science and motivates our politics. It supports our pragmatism. It has become so firmly entrenched in our thinking and cultural identity that it seems perfectly germane to our lives- so much so that we could not imagine another way. I am speaking of the materialism that makes drugs, and bombs, and windex. The materialism that craves physical gain and quantified benefit. The materialism that asks “What happens at the end of the day?” And “What’s the bottom line?” The American materialism that says, once and for all: “Enough with all the hub-bub and tell me what it is, really.” I am speaking of that other American materialism-philosophic materialism- the belief that at bottom, it’s all just matter, material. Material-ism.

What the hell is he talking about?

I’m getting there.

Has anyone noticed that neuroscience is taking over? It’s everywhere. I can’t not-read the Times without seeing some new study that proves, finally, that morality, or empathy, or language, or time, or prostitution, or backgammon is really just an issue of grey matter and synapse firings. And it’s proliferating as well. We now have neuropsychology, neurobiology, neuroeconomics, and most recently, neurotheology. Traditional disciplines are being usurped by the neuron- that most unwitting conquistador.

It’s not just the neuron, though. Legal proceedings now rely heavily on DNA records. Drug companies pay millions for chemical patents. Dr. Francis Collins just mapped the human genome and found God. What’s this all about?

Somewhere along the line, we became obsessed with the miniscule. We took two millennia to reach the stars, then suffered exploratory remorse, and in a reflective moment of depression, turned the instruments inward and wrote a new mantra: “it’s just…” It’s just molecules. It’s just atoms. It’s just quarks. It’s just genes. It’s just that, nothing more.

“What’s the big deal? It’s just neural activity, that’s all.”

“But I’m sad!”

“I know it feels like that. But really, it’s just a deficiency of sodium in your cerebral cortex.”

“Great. Thanks.”

We marveled at our escape from mysticism and aggrandized our new religion- science.

"Come one, come all. Come and see the newest thing in town. It’s not opinion. It’s not faith. It’s fact- it’s science."

No it’s not. It’s materialism. It’s belief that reduction to atomistic makeup constitutes explanation and knowledge. It’s a desperate attempt to forget humanity's special gift- consciousness- and all the responsibility that comes in tow. It’s a ravenous lust for results, productivity, control; and it couldn’t be more American if Madonna actually did sing a song about it.

The Real American Materialism:

“That’s it man. You see that quark there? That’s the Truth of it all.”

“Really, where? I can’t see it.”

“Here, use this.”

“Oh, there it is. That’s Truth?”

“Sure is.”

“Who said?”

“Everyone.”

“What did they say?”

“They said we’re living in a material world, and we’re all material girls. Come on, get with the times.”

“We’re living in a material world?”

“Sure are.”

“Is that right?”

“True.”

Anybody Read This Lately?

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.