In Ceremonial Deism We Trust

I just can't get too worked up over the whole "under God" thing. It will obviously be overturned and soon forgotten. What I don't understand is some of the hot air from the spinmeisters and talking heads. They say it's important to refer to God in the pledge, on our money, etc., because we're a faithfull, God-fearin' nation. But out of the other sides of their mouths, they say that atheists (and Hindus and pagans) shouldn't be offended, because it's just meaningless "ceremonial deism." They can't have it both ways. Why not just say, "We want it, and if you don't like it, you can shove it"?

I'm for keeping it, but I found the spectacle of politicians falling over themselves to recite the pledge on the Capitol steps truly stomach-churning.

Walk Into the Sky And Find Your Heart

Walk into the sky and find your heart--
Do it without caution,
As a gift to yourself.

You may think about staying there forever,
But the priests of hate
Have their own agenda.

If the earth is dying,
It is only because
We are bored with the dream.

Revealing Interviews with Dave Morse

Speaking of (partial) nudity (see previous post) . . . .

Some men are proud of their beer guts. Apparently, Dave Morse Sr., father-in-law of Richard Ricci (the guy that Utah police investigating Elizabeth Smart's abduction find "interesting") is one of them. Over the last few days, he's been seen frequently on national TV, wandering around shirtless outside his trailer home. See:

Morse's gut

If I had a big, fat belly like that--my stomach is flat, thank you--I sure wouldn't parade it in front of CNN's cameras. But that's just shy, reticent me, I guess.

I really think the media is exploiting this guy's sad, uh, lack of decorum. They don't dare call him (them) white trash, so they just let the cameras roll, knowing that the audience will draw its own conclusions.

When TV reporters interview shirtless athletes in the locker room, they rarely show anything below the shoulders. That's called good taste and respecting people's privacy. Apparently, Morse isn't deserving of such respectful treatment. Why? Because he lives in a trailer and doesn't know any better?

Office Casual

Perhaps you've heard about the "Women of Enron"--the former Enron females who agreed to pose for Playboy to supplement their unemployment checks. What you may not have heard about is the male equivalent, sponsored by (naturally) Playgirl:

BBC News | BUSINESS | Men of Enron bare their assets

That's what I call equal opportunity. Too bad I wasn't offered the chance to pose when I lost my job a few years ago. Alas, I didn't work for a scandalously infamous company. IMHO, I've got the bod for it though!

Phone Follies

My wife bought a new cordless phone for the kitchen recently--one of those cheap, drug-store models. It never worked right, so I finally disconnected it and put it in the closet. I couldn't quite bring myself to throw it away, since it's brand new, so it's now joined our graveyard of obsolete and disfunctional electronics. (I wish I had saved the packaging and receipt, so we could return it.)

Since we need a phone in the kitchen, I hooked up an old rotary model. It worked great, but we missed the convenience of touch-tone dialing. So I rigged up a keypad--from another old phone I had stored away--on the same line, by using one of those two-line adapter doo-dads in the jack. Kind of a Rube Goldberg solution, but it works for now. I may even keep this set-up: the rotary phone has a retro-chic charm, I think. My 11-year-old son says it's "vintage."

I had to show him how the rotary dial works, since he's never used one before. To him, a rotary phone seems as ancient as those hand-cranked and candlestick phones seemed to us as kids.

Narcissist

Here in the dark,
Handwritten excuses for everything
Replace my first sensations.

Look into the mirror and say hello
Until you enjoy it.

Forever, my love.
I feel as if time has stopped.

Quote of the Day

"In the house of honesty every door is open" --Anonymous
Are you listening, corporate America?

It's hot and humid here in the Northeastern US today--real steam-bath weather. What better time, therefore, to contemplate a mannequin that sweats. Just what the world's been waiting for . . . . I suppose that when you go clothes shopping someday soon, you'll be able to see what that new shirt will look like with perspiration stains.

Martha Stewart again. Marthamania. I'm really not that interested in her, but I couldn't resist watching the segment about her on CNN's NewsNight last night. They showed a clip from Martha's regular morning cooking segment on CBS's "This Morning" show, which she does once a week. Surprisingly, she showed up to do it this week, although she must have known that the hosts would want to ask her about her insider-trading troubles, not her recipes. Jane Clayson, the female host, introduced Martha with a capsule summary of her financial woes and (alleged) shenanigans. While Clayson was speaking, an odd sound could be heard off camera--a sort of pounding, chopping sound. Turned out it was Martha attacking a cabbage, chopping it up in prepartation for her cooking segment. The more Clayson droned on about insider trading and the arrest of Martha's ImClone pal, the louder the chopping sound became. The effect was hilarious.

During the cooking segment, Clayson asked a couple of ImClone related questions, which clearly annoyed Martha--she wanted to talk about cabbages. She said she "couldn't talk about it" but that it reminded her of when she used to work as a model and wanted to be on the covers of all the magazines. "Now, I don't want to be on the cover of anything," Martha declared. She waved off any further probing with a breezy "this will all blow over." She also said something about being the CEO of a major corporation (Martha Stewart Omnimedia) in a way that implied--to me at least--that she believes she should be above any of those silly insider-trading laws.

I don't think Martha quite "gets" it yet.

On the radio this morning, one of the newscasters pounted out that if she had just held the stock, she would only have lost $43,000 (loose change to her). But she sold, and now, because of the scandal, the value of the stock she holds in her own company has declined by over $100 million. The price of arrogance?

Random Poetry

Here's a poem I "generated" with a random poetry program,
then fixed up a bit with a few of my own touches. Not bad,
for what it is, hmm?

Our World

Go ahead, hurt me if you can, old friend--
without questioning the need,
because it seems like a good idea,
even as we promise never to do it again.
Distant dreams
are just part of the hallucination.
Our world!
We stand at the edge of a cliff.
We have nothing but this sad passion.

Southwest Airlines now requires "passengers of size" who can't stuff themselves into one airline seat to buy two seats. Good for them, I say, having had the experience of "sharing" my seat with someone who's obviously eating for two or three (and I don't mean pregnant).

But "passengers of size"? That's as silly as "people of color" or "the differently abled." I hate euphemisms. Say they're too fat to fit in the seat or, if all those 300-pounders are too sensitive to the "F" word, say they're too "large." "Passengers of size" is just beyond parody.

So a Forest Service worker started the immense wildfires in Colorado when she decided to burn a letter from her "estranged husband" in the middle of a tinder-dry forest. Smart! Couldn't she just tear up the jerk's letter at home and flush it down the toilet? It might have caused her sewer pipe to back up, but at least that would be a slightly more manageable problem.

There is a ceremonial aspect to burning a letter, though, I suppose. Sylvia Plath wrote a poem on that theme, entitled "Burning the Letters," about--yep!--burning her estranged husband's missives. Here are a few lines:

"I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket.
What did they know that I didn't?
...
This fire may lick and fawn, but it is merciless . . . ."

Hatrid is a fire that is hard to put out.