More Signs of the Times

Witches in leather, or leather from witches? From Salem, MA--naturally.

Peerie is a Shetlands word that means "little." Why can't they say "wee" like the rest o' the Scots? From a shop in the middle of nowhere in the Shetlands.

With or without Viagara? Oqunquit, ME

This just seems to belong with the previous sign! From Williamsburg, MA.

Wilbur? Es usted? Thanks to Sacha.

Kind of says it all! Ottawa, ON

Tax Free Weekends and Mosque Building

Are we becoming a common sense-free society?

Need more proof that common sense is as endangered as the U.S. dollar? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I offer Exhibits A and B: the recent Massachusetts sales tax-free weekend and the ongoing controversy over building a mosque near the 9/11 Ground Zero site.

Exhibit A: Last weekend you could buy items priced at $2500 or less and avoid the Massachusetts sales tax of 6.25%. I’d be the first to say that the Mass sales tax is too high, not to mention the fact that all sales taxes are, by nature, regressive and should be abolished in favor of true (and loophole-free) graduated income taxes. But let’s get a grip, folks. More than a half billion dollars worth of retail goods were purchased, depriving the Commonwealth of about $23 million in revenue, according to one estimate.

No, this isn’t a plea for higher taxes—it’s an object lesson on psychology. I’m happy some of us got to keep a small hunk of change, but that’s exactly what it was, a small chunk. Think it through. How excited would you be if you picked up the paper and saw that a local retailer was offering a 10% off weekend sale? You’d probably yawn, because this happens all the time whereas the tax-free weekend is just once a year. Fine, but let’s say you have your eyes on a $1000 TV. If you bought it last weekend you paid exactly a thousand bucks and pocketed the $62.50 in sales tax. If next weekend the store has a 10% off sale, you’d pay just $956.25 for the same item even after the Commonwealth took its $56.25 share. So what’s the appeal of the tax-free weekend? Do we really think we’re “sticking it to the man,” or are we just victims of mass deception?

What’s this have to do with Exhibit B, the mosque dispute? The same lack of common sense is involved in each. Let’s start with President Obama, who came down on the side of allowing the mosque to go forward on the grounds of freedom of religion. Talk about being morally right and politically stupid! The polls are quite clear on this—only about a third of Americans agree the mosque should be built, so the president has just foolishly squandered a lot of political capital on an opinion he had no business voicing in the first place. (What’s wrong with saying this is for New Yorkers to decide?)

But before you liberals get on your high moral horse, let me add that if Obama was foolish, the mosque planners are morons. The morality of this issue is secondary; rightly or wrongly this project is perceived as Muslims giving America the finger. I don’t think that’s the case, but the planners are guilty of enormous insensitivity. Even worse, they are guilty of putting Muslims in peril. Why not just put a sign in front that says, “Welcome All Wacko Vandals and Bombers?” If this mosque is ever built it is sure to become a target for those who would exact revenge for 9/11. I wish to be resolutely clear: I do not condone vigilantism or attacks on Muslims. But only the starry-eyed and the brain-dead could fail to understand that this project in this place is just a really horrible idea. If the goal is prove that Islam is a religion of peace, this is a very poor way of mending torn fences. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that violence will follow construction and that it will make it even harder for Muslims to regain trust.

I propose an addendum to the First Amendment “free exercise” clause that would require all public actions to pass common sense muster before they can be enacted. This may sound like Big Brother Government, but the little brothers are so easily duped that it’s for their own good.

The Kids are All Right; the Movie is So-So

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore portray lesbians because--as everyone knows--there are no actual lesbians in Hollywood!

The Kids are All Right (2010)
Directed by Lisa Cholodenko
106 mins. Rated R for sexual themes, nudity, language.
* * ½

Hollywood just doesn’t get the fact that it’s posterity that gets to declare a film “pathbreaking,” not its PR departments. Its most recent attempt to be “relevant” and “important” is this summer’s The Kids are All Right. As you’ve no doubt heard ad nauseam, the idea behind this film is to show a “normal” American family that just happens to be headed by lesbians. Yeah, right—as if lesbianism wasn't the titillating hook that lures fannies into the seats. The good news is that it’s not bad, though it’s not nearly as good as reviewers seeking to enhance their politically correct chops have declared it to be. It’s really what most Hollywood movies are these days, an imperfectly scripted (and telegraphed) story that’s mildly diverting, but whose depth is that of a sheet of 8 ½ by 11.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are an old married couple—the kind that cares for each other, but whose former flaming passion is now more an occasional spark amidst the humdrum of tired patterns and prosaic tasks. They’re basically just trying to raise their kids, eighteen-year-old Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and fifteen-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson). They worry about the things all couples worry about: Laser’s inappropriate friend, getting Joni ready for college in the fall, how to recharge their sex life, which varietal wine to choose for dinner…. Life is fairly routine until Laser decides he wants to locate his and Joni’s father. Well… not father—sperm donor. Soon into their lives intrudes Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a free-spirited organic farmer who begins to think that maybe he ought to stop being such a hippie and maybe give surrogate fatherhood a whirl. And it might work, if only he could stop putting the moves on Jules. To say more would give away some of the movie’s few surprises, but if you’ve seen any Hollywood films you know that mayhem and complications will ensue.

There are some good things in the film. The kids are, indeed, all right; in fact, they’re way more convincing than the adults, largely because they speak like real people might. Wasikowska is considerably more than all right; she’s a revelation. She uses her straight-haired, waif-like body perfectly to portray what she’s supposed to be—not really a kid and not really an adult. She’s in that liminal space where she desperately wants independence, but she’s scared of it and she's not quite comfortable in her adult skin. Give this young lady some serious work; she’s a star waiting to happen. Hutcherson’s not bad either, though he doesn’t have as much to do. And whoever wrote Julianne Moore’s dialogue did a pretty decent job of it in the sense that her apologies and explanations ring true in real-life ways; that is, there are no swelling strings in the background and she utters no overwrought speeches oozing histrionic eloquence.

Wish the same could be said about Bening. Her lines often sound as if they were crafted by a committee headed by Woody Allen. She gets most of the zingers, several of which are witty, but the things she says are about as real as Dolly Parton’s hair. Nor are she and Moore particularly convincing as a lesbian couple. What, Hollywood couldn’t find any real lesbians? (How about Cynthia Nixon, who would have been much better than Bening?) Who knew that lesbian foreplay involved watching gay male porno? Several reviewers have blasted the script for this and that scorn is justified. Ruffalo is pretty good, but his entire role is preposterous. Indeed, one might say that he’s there to sensationalize the movie. After all, if you made a film about a “normal” lesbian couple it would be no more interesting than remaking a 50s’ TV show as “Harriet and Harriet.”

Without the weirdness there is no movie here. I suppose we can call it a measure of enlightenment that lesbians are fair game in the triteness stakes, but let’s not get carried away and think that The Kids are All Right is this generation’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? We can applaud Cholodenko’s effort to cast lesbians as just folks struggling to make sense of life, but this film is more like a string of patio lights than a path-blazer.

Are You Bleeping Me?

Is Captain Kirk corrupting youthful morals?

Man, I’m tried of the bleep from right-wingers, Tea Partiers, and Christian Islamists. I just want them to go away. I don’t have time for their bleep any more.

In their latest I’m-so-shallow-I-must-protest rant, the Loony Right is going after CBS for its new comedy show starring William Shatner, “Bleep, My Dad Says.” The self-proclaimed guardians of American morality say that the word is obscene and endangers the morals of its vulnerable children. In case you don’t know, the word in bleeping question is “shit.” That’s right—let me shout it—S-H-I-T! Close your eyes and say it out loud. There. Now open your eyes. Did American might crumble as a result? Did a neighboring five-year-old lapse into juvenile delinquency and torch your porch?

I guess I can see the concerns of “concerned” parents. I’m sure that word is never used at home. They must protect little Rush from a word he’s not likely to hear in the public realm until late in life—say the second day of pre-school. Talk about a tempest is a Tea Party pot. What kind of— dare I say it?—shithead gets worked up about this? The whole thing would be risible were it not for the fact that the Loony Right owns the media, Congress, and much of the entertainment industry. They are hellbent—sorry another swear embedded in that term—on telling the rest of us what we should do, who we should love, what we can say, and what we can think. If we don’t wake up, America is going to be the Swat Valley writ large.

I propose two immediate responses. First, let’s all use the word “shit” early and often, especially when walking by rightwing churches. Second let’s form an advocacy group and call it SHIT (Send Hypocrites to Infect the Taliban). It might be dangerous to link the American right with the Taliban, but it’s a risk worth taking. Call it the twenty-first-century containment policy: keep all intolerant terrorists in one place.

Fresh Water: The Legacy of Stan Rogers

I’m still reeling that so few people knew about Sandy Denny, but it inspired an idea: every month or so this blog will feature a tribute to an artist who’s no longer performing on this moral coil. Who better to launch this than the late, considerably great Stan Rogers (1949-83) of Ontario?

There are baritones and then there are baritones—Stan’s voice was so robust and rich that he could quiet a wind ripping across the Canadian prairie. But he was no Michael Bolton—when Stan wailed it was because the song demanded it. And he could also wrench more emotion from that deep voice than a shelf-full of weepies. Don’t believe me? Give a listen to “Lock-Keeper” or “First Christmas” and get back to me. (I cry every time I hear "Lock-Keeper.")

Stan Rogers hailed from the Hamilton area and, like so many artists, made a local splash, and cut a few (largely forgettable) singles before recording his first album, the Maritimes-flavored Fogerty’s Cove, in 1976. That one got some money from the Canadian government—yeah, there are still governments that support the arts—and became the first in an ongoing effort to capture the essence of Canada’s regions in song. He did a pretty good job of it before his life was cut short by an airplane accident in 1983. Between 1976 and 1983, Stan recorded five albums and left behind enough material for four posthumous recordings. My personal favorites are the 1979 live album Between the Breaks and From Fresh Water (1984), but you can’t go wrong with any of them. Stan’s repertoire was laced with Canadian folk, Celtic, and sea song influences, though most of what he sang was original material written in traditional styles. And what a writer he was! Feeling blue? “Mary Ellen Carter” sure has plucked me from the doldrums a few times. Want to sing like a pirate? “Barrett’s Privateers” will fit the bill and give you a cautionary tale at the same time. Want some salt in your face? His tribute to the “Bluenose” will answer. Feel like honoring the land? “The Field Behind the Plow” is one of Stan’s many songs that paid tribute to common folks. Fancy a good local tragedy? “Harris and the Mare” will break your heart. And talk about saving your best for last—his final song before his death was "House of Orange," as good a song as ever written on the insanity of Irish religious strife. He also fronted an amazing band that included his brother Garnet—well worth catching when he comes to your area—and standouts such as Grit Laskin and Curly Boy Stubbs.

Stan Rogers was one of twenty-three people who perished on the flight that rewrote aviation laws. He was aboard Air Canada Flight 797 when it was forced to make an emergency landing in Cincinnati because an idiot smoker set the plane on fire. (Why must we always endure such tragedies before we do logical things such as banning smoking on flying hunks of metal loaded with thousands of gallons of fuel?) There are two stories about Stan’s death—one that he died while trying to rescue others, and the second that we was too drunk to get out of his seat. I prefer the first story, but it’s a friggin’ tragedy no matter how you slice it. I had tickets in hand to see Stan just three days after the accident and still hold never having caught him live as among my life regrets. Luckily he left behind a body of work that’s as fresh now as it was three decades ago.

God is Not Great a Flawed but Important Book

God Is Not Great
Christopher Hitchens
New York: Twelve Books, 2009
ISBN 978-0-446-69796-6
* * * *

The thesis of Christopher Hitchens’ latest book is summed in its subtitle: “How Religion Poisons Everything.” His is an unabashed atheist’s take on religion, but no matter what your personal beliefs or non-beliefs might be, it’s a book you should read and consider carefully.

Hitchens is a well-known leftwing journalist and the author of no less than fourteen other books, numerous pamphlets, and untold numbers of essays. He’s also an extremely intelligent and articulate man. If only he had kept his penchant for glibness in check we could have called this book the thinking-person’s Religolous. I wish he had, as his numerous zingers—funny though they are—simply supply ammunition for those who would stereotype the work and dismiss it without contemplation. More’s the pity, because if you are a person of faith you’d do well to clean up the very bad act that Hitchens chronicles—the links between war and religious belief, the death toll from lunatic faith-healers, child-abusing priests, preordained sexism, anti-intellectualism, the psychological damage done through guilt inducement, stealth in the name of God, and the unconscionable justifications for poverty, oppression, violence, and boorishness.

This book will—to put it bluntly—piss off a lot of people. My advice would be to save the piety for deeds instead of words. If you wonder how someone has the gall to write such a book, open your newspaper. Hitchens presents a world in the grips of warring camps bent on proving that their god is the only god, even if they have to oppress or kill everyone who disagrees. Here’s the kicker—it’s damned hard to disagree with him. The historical track record for organized religion is bleak indeed—so bleak that Hitchens practically defies any god or gods who might exist to prove existence by smiting religious evil-doers. In the absence of a cleansing smiting Hitchens argues that at best the gods don’t care, though he’s inclined to say the cosmos designed itself. And whatever else you might think of his book, you’d be hard-pressed to refute his assertions that we’d be better off listening to scientists and the health community in all matters relating to human sexuality, reproduction, population, and controlling STDs.

Those who find Hitchens overly selective might counter that millions have been helped by religion and that living saints imbued with the spirit of holiness are the antidote to those who commit monstrous acts in the name of religion. He anticipated that. This is a screed, but it’s not an uniformed one. Hitchens waltzes us through philosophy, psychology, and history to deflect arguments that religion makes us better or that it’s necessary. His is as much an apologetics for humanism as an assault on religion, one that those who lack faith can usefully mine when attacked for having no basis for their morality.

I have a few quibbles of my own. Labor advocates used to make a distinction between “Christianity” and “Churchianity.” They had nothing good to say about the latter, but thought there might be merit in the former. That’s not a bad way to consider the differences between individual acts of religious humility and the horrors perpetuated by institutionalized religion. It may be unfair to not parse the differences more carefully.

Moreover, as politically incorrect as it is to say this, Hitchens should have been even harsher in his treatment of Islam. There is a Western reluctance to call out Islam given the touchiness with which Muslims approach all criticism and the tenuous situation around the globe. I share the view that self-selected fanatics unfairly tar the reputation of millions of faithful Muslims. That said, there’s not nearly enough self-correcting outrage pouring forth from the Muslim community. A faith that celebrates the issuance of a fatwah against Salmon Rushdie and a Danish cartoonist, but not against those who convince children to strap bombs on themselves, oppresses women, blows up World Heritage monuments, and applauds when fanatics crash planes into tall buildings—remember the dancers in Palestine after 9/11?—is in serious need of self analysis (to say nothing of leadership changes). In a word, we need to see more evidence that Islam is a religion of peace. And, yes, we also need to see Christians acting charitably instead of arrogantly, and Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists applying their views of justice and morality to their Muslim neighbors. That is, unless all the world’s religions are content to prove Hitchens right on every single point he made.

In the end, I suppose there is the difference between this reviewer and Hitchens. He finds religion irredeemable. Like Sigmund Freud in 1927, Hitchens sees faith as a relic from the infancy of human evolution that should be cast aside for grown-up thoughts. Maybe so—but I still have enough faith (if I dare use that word) to think that if we got rid of the principals and practiced the principles of religion, it could still be a force of redemption. Maybe.

Canada Could Teach Lessons on Civility

How about a tower to peace?

Imagine it if you can. Imagine visiting the nation’s Capitol. Imagine safe streets where citizens walk about all hours of the day and night, not worrying about harassment or attack. Envision a clean city teeming with restaurants, craft shops, galleries, and food stands.

Now imagine wandering over to the Capitol building when the sun goes down. A sound-and-light show will transform its edifice into a canvas upon which scenes from the nation’s history will be presented, its culture celebrated, and identity discussed. Think frank, not Disneyfied. Imagine, for instance, a scene in which whites are shown succumbing to greed and ripping off the Natives who welcomed them. Imagine another in which racial prejudice past and present is acknowledged. Now consider a scene in which a labor strike—a general strike that closed down an entire city no less—is celebrated as an important lesson in making the nation consider the plight of the working class. (Indeed, try to imagine the very mention that a “working class” exists.) Imagine that there are only two references to the military in the entire thirty-minute presentation—and war is presented as tragedy, not glory and bravado. Imagine that more attention is given to Nobel Peace Prize winners, a man who failed in his quest, rock and roll stars and protest music performers. Imagine a script in which people talk about the importance of maintaining their ethnic identity, speak with pride of the nation’s welfare system, and discuss the need to balance business development with human needs and a national infrastructure.

Guess what? If you can imagine any of this, you’re in Ottawa, Canada, not Washington, DC. And having just witnessed MozAik, the multimedia extravaganza on Parliament Hill, I came away feeling sad for my nation—for the crime- and greed-riven streets of Washington, for its filthy ambience, and for the twisted values that flow from it. One nation embraced the best it can be, the other the most it can grab. So why does the second continue to pretend that it’s the greatest on earth? Because it has the biggest guns? It seems to me that a few things are missing: civility, respect, pride, community and, yes, liberty itself. Can you even imagine walking around the U.S. Capitol after dark? And who would venture beyond the Mall, even in daylight? Since when is the ability to walk the perimeter of an armed camp freedom? And when did Americans decide they’d rather live in a Disney illusion instead of working to build a good society? Canada may be small, but it sure could instruct the United States on the difference between materialism and quality of life.

PS—The man who “failed” was Terry Fox (1958-81), whom Canadians regard in heroic terms. Fox lost his right leg above the knee to cancer. In 1980 he decided to run across Canada on his prosthesis to raise money for cancer research. He began in Newfoundland and made it 3339 miles to western Ontario before the cancer that killed him spread to his lungs and forced him to give up his quest far short of British Columbia. Canadians hold an annual Terry Fox Marathon to raise cancer research funds. They’ve also named streets, schools, trails, and fitness centers for Fox. Is it just me, or is Terry Fox more worthy to contemplate than, say, Lindsay Lohan?