On second thought.

It does sort of suck that the Washington Post kept Deep Throat's secret all these years, and he chose to come out in Vanity Fair without even telling the Post what was coming.

I mean, call it loyalty to my home town paper, but that doesn't seem sporting.

And Vanity Fair is the publication of choice for people who are cashing in. (Witness Monica Lewinsky)

Woodward's concern that the guy is senile and his family is just making money off of him is truly depressing.

CC

Am I right here?

I said this to my linguist friend on Friday, and I'm still thinking over whether I'm right:

"Race issues are inherently much more difficult than gay rights issues because gay rights boils down to 'treat everybody the same,' but for race issues 'treat everybody the same' is just the beginning."

Comments?

CC

Now if we could just get these guys a wading pool full of creamed corn...

A lot of people I know are really, really into Paul Krugman, to the point that the malcontent in me finds it sort of satisfying to watch he and Daniel Okrent go after each other.

CC

"The Washington Post had no immediate comment."

Ya don't see that every day.

Thanks, Mr. Felt. You did a good thing for your country.

CC

Settling the issue

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Update on CC's Life

No blog reviews this weekend unless I have a sleepless night. My days are taken up having long conversations and doing the tourist thing around DC, which is always a challenge on Rolling Thunder weekend.

My linguist friend is visiting and is happy as a clam in the library/guest room. It’s very difficult to speak with him there as conversations tend to go like:

CC: So, I told the guy, we ordered thai chicken salad in puff pastry, this looks like cat food on a cracker. And he told me to try it, and it was good, but still, the place’s presentation skills totally sucked and I mean this is politics so presentation is everything and… hey?… are you even listening? That Spong book is NOT more interesting than what I’m saying. Jaspers, maybe, but SPONG?

Ok, I’m being spiteful there. What was really distracting him was Rebecca Parker’s bit about her suicide attempt at the beginning of Proverbs of Ashes. Come to think of it, Elaine Pagels writes about the death of her son in Beyond Belief And a minor theologian I know named Mary Louise Bringle writes about her struggle with bulimia in God of Thinness. Do male theologians do that?

Yesterday, CC took off from work and she and her linguist friend ran errands, visited Edie-who-sells-books at her store and then bummed around Georgetown until dinnertime, when the CSO met us there and we decided to eat at Benihana through the following discussion.

CC: Benihana doesn’t suck.
TheCSO: I could do that, I guess.
Linguist friend: That would be all right, I suppose.
CC: I mean like, we haven’t seen anyplace better.
TheCSO: Yeah. Might was well.
Lingusit friend: Why not?

I suspect Benihana has been chosen as a dinner location exactly this way thousands of times.

CC

CC the Wonkette Source

So CC was making calls at work and surfed the net as she talked. She checked out the UU Kinja and saw a post at Wildhunt about an Indianapolis Star article about a Judge declaring two parents couldn't raise their kid Wiccan.

So she sent a tip in to Wonkette. Now it's on Wonkette so the whole net is going to hear about it.

Ain't technology grand?

CC
Sort of proud that her first tip ever in to Wonkette got used. Not that she was credited, but still...

How to act normal

I always wanted someone to tell me, yet am strangely unsatisfied by this.

CC

Oh, well, if THAT'S all we're doing...

So, when I complain about politics in the UU church, a common response I get is people saying, always indignantly, "It's not like the UUA is telling people hoiw to VOTE."

No, but right here at the bottom of Sinkford's presidential letter about how "almost all of us" feel on a variety of issues, we get instructions on how to bother our representatives to vote a certain way on a peice of legislation.

Well, I don't know about you, but I feel better.

CC

Reason trumps Sentimentality

So the Stem Cell research bill squeaked by in the house, just as the Senate moderates made their compromise just in time. (FWIW, seven of CC's firm's clients were for the bill. )

It's early to declare a trend of moderation winning out over conservatism, but these recent developments are a good sign.

Also, I really like this essay.

I knew about the Faustlings' history and had been thinking about them often during the debate over this issue.

Addendum after reading Joel's response:

It is possible that Bush did make a mistake by fighting this one on moral rather than financial grounds. The issue really was government funding of the research rather than the research itself.

But I can also see why Bush fought it the way he did.

1. Arguing morals has worked for Bush many times before.
2. Fighting government funding of research quickly leads to questions about if we should be paying for the expensive yet immensely popular NASA. Even libertarians don't mind the government paying to research weapons, and weapons development does not happen independently of developments in other sciences.

People who attack this bill as a ban on the research itself are wrong.

People who attack Bush for arguing as if his problem is with the research, not necessarily the funding for it, are justified in doing so because that's the position Bush himself has taken in using the "snowflake babies" etc.

CC

Desperate Housewives thoughts.

1. I'm so bummed for Bree. And Rex's note? Sniffle. It would be hokey as hell to use the voiceover ghosts bit to show next season that Rex understood what really happened and got some solace. It would be hokey, but I'd still really appreciate it, because man, Rex dying of a broken heart because George set him up to think Bree was trying to kill him is depressing.

2. Hadn't the idea of the obviously unhappy Tom and the obviously unhappy Lynette switching places occurred to pretty much everyone by about the third episode of the season, once it had become clear that "basically selfish lady with obnoxious kids" was the only plot Lynette was getting?
As a non-maternal type, I've been trying hard to think of a moment when Lynette was actually sympathetic, but I really can't.

3. I actually sort of feel for Carlos, and believe me, it disturbs me that I do. But seriously, my brothers have many times proved that stupidity is, in fact, a crime.

4. Teri Hatcher really does a fabulous job as Susan. She is so dumb, yet one loves her so much.

Those are my thoughts.

CC
starting to worry that she's taking her entertainment too seriously these days.

OK, last Star Wars post for now.

I was planning a snarky article on religion in the Star Wars movies.

But Beliefnet beat me to it.

CC

CC nitpicks the Star Wars movie.

***Numerous Spoilers throughout. But then, we all know what happens anyway. ***


Just saw the Star Wars movie late last night. As Star Wars movies go, it was pretty good, but it still left many plot holes and questions unanswered.


You know how sometimes you see a movie and you're still thinking it through for days afterward?

• So is Yoda a buddhist-ish Jedi, or are all Jedi buddhist-ish and Yoda is just the most vocal on the subject? And if Yoda is the only Buddhist-ish Jedi, and the only Jedi alive at the end of the second trilogy other than Luke, who learned from him, does that mean that all future Jedi will be buddhist-ish Jedi?
  
  
  
• Does the fact that I think one must understand evil to be really good, and indeed don't believe that knowledge in itself can be evil, only what one does with it, make me a Sith? If so, I'm OK with that I think. I look cuter in black anyway...
  
  
• So why is it that the Sith have faith that good people can fall, but the Jedis assume that Anakin has fallen forever and Obi Wan leaves him for dead? Are Siths in their own funky way more Universalist? Again, I think I may be a sith.
  
  
• Why is it that none of the Jedis could sense the betrayal? Or sense who the Sith lord is, FWIW? If everybody can sense Anakin's anger, why couldn't they sense the Sith lord?
  
  
• I'm still wondering that why it is that Amidala is pregnant for the whole movie and right at the end Obi Wan is like "Is the kid Anakin's?" Like, she hadn't even bothered to come up with a good lie about it to tell everyone, the identity of the father had just never come up. You show me a female Senator assumed to be single who gets pregnant and nobody even asks who the father is until 8 months and 29 days into the pregnancy, I'll stop thinking that's quirky.
  
  
• Is it just me, or are the droids slaves? Know any other movie that gets away with the heros having happy slaves? I don't even 100 percent have a problem with that, it's just weird.
  
  

CC
Who totally wonders what the Empire's version of OSHA was doing with its time, because there was not one safety railing in the entire movie. Not on the balconies seemingly miles above the city, not helping you get on the airplane, not even in the factories. They must lose more storm troopers that way...

Note on the Star Wars movie

Think carefully before you take kids, especially sensitive ones.

This isn't really a spoiler, but Anakin kills some children. (Memo to George Lucas: OK! He's evil! We get it!) You don't see him do it, but you do see their bodies and it is discussed multiple times. I think a way bigger point of it is made than had to be and it would have freaked me out big time if I had seen it as a child.

I have much more to say about other aspects of the movie, and will likely say it in the morning.

CC

Our boy Bukie

So I was hanging out at the Republican Club of Capitol Hill between events recently (WHAT?) and I decided to check my office email remotely. I headed down to the business room only to discover that none of the computers had working internet. I asked a club staffer, who told me the club has a huge problem with people looking at porn in the business room and clogging up the computers with the resulting spyware.

And I thought of Pat Buchanan’s recent prediction that “morals” conservatism of the Jesse Helms variety was dying, being replaced by more power-focussed neoconism.

Wouldn't vote for Bukie, of course, but I never said the man was stupid.

CC

CSI finale

So Jennifer Beautiful and I had our eyes glued to the screen the whole time.

Don't want to spoil it for anybody who has it Tivo'd so I'll just say...

Could you believe the...

And the...

And the freaky black-and-white scene?

Jeezum crow.

CC
who feels the need to point out that Grissom, with his bug-loving hotness, saved the day again, though she admits that Jennifer Beautiful's choice Warrick did indeed look pretty damn good.

Ideas CC struggles with

1. Transhumanism.
You can now get laser eye surgery to make your eyes much better than the average person's. Baseball players can get surgery that rearranges the muscles in their arms to make their pitching better.

Yes, it's probably "playing God" in the classic mad scientist sense. But it might be that the next step in human evolution will come from our inventions and if we close the door on such things, we're closing the door on making a world of smarter, stronger, people.

Should lines be drawn in what we can do to our bodies? Where should that line be? And what about genetic engineering?

2. Race
I've had it pointed out to me that race doesn’t exist at all. I mean, we’d likely agree that someone from France and someone from India are different races.
But are people from India and Pakistan different races?
Pakistan and Turkey?
How about Turkey and Greece?
Greece and Italy?
Italy and… we're in France.

When people look obviously different in large groups, we can make these distinctions. But when it comes to drawing the line necessary for "race" to be a useful definition, our ability to classify breaks down.

3. OK, one more. CC has to go to work.

Mental illness in poor people.

Judging by the people asking me for money every time I get off the subway, our treatment of the mentally ill isn't working. My aunt's best friend is the former president of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and she plaes the blame soundly on Ronald Reagan with his policy of lowering standards to release people from mental hospitals so he could save money and close a few.

I don't know. But I do know that something needs to be done. Furthermore, literally nobody I've ever known who was taking medication for mental illness was perfect about it. If society gives somebody a place to live and a job, should we be able to legally force them to take their medication?

It seems like taking away their freedom to say "Yes," but it seems like a possibly huge waste of societal resources to say "no."

And furthermore, a mentally ill poor person is more likely to have trouble keeping their paperwork filled out, keeping a job and staying away from crime and drugs. (Not a moral judgement, but a practical one I think. Lots of mental illnesses have impulsivity and not living by society's standards attached, or are so very painful that drugs may seem like a good escape. )

To what degree does society have a duty to "chase them down" and help them out? Not letting anybody slip through the cracks sounds like a terribly expensive proposition. But as I get off the subway and walk past people, I do wonder if they couldn't be more useful to society working?

As a GenXer, I feel talked down to.

Somebody in my church is thinking of doing this as an adult ed curriculum to attract young adults.

Is it just me, or is this sort of patronizing?

I'm assuming someone with a lot more RE experience than I have will read this and can tell me if I'm right, but these lessons sound like they are on a high school level or so.

I like The Simpsons, but I think I could handle writing a list of what I would do if I had 24 hours to live on my own.

CC
thinking "Mostly, I think I'd do paperwork to make the lives of those I was leaving behind easier."
___________________________________________________________________________________

God Dwells in 'The Simpsons', Authors Say

By Richard N. Ostling

© Associated Press, August 7, 2002.

Sunday school teachers with restless teenagers or distracted adults might consider something a little different this fall: The Simpsons.

After all, in one episode of the popular animated TV sitcom, God tells the hapless Homer that even he is bored by parson Lovejoy's sermons.

Now the cartoon family is heading for a church near you, thanks to a 10-lesson study guide to The Gospel According to The Simpsons.

The original book was written by Mark Pinsky, religion reporter for the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel. He co-wrote the study guide with Rev. Samuel (Skip) Parvin, a United Methodist pastor in the Orlando area. Both are published by the Presbyterians' Westminster John Knox Press.

Since Pinsky is a Jew, the prayers and themes are not explicitly Christian, so the course can be adapted for synagogue use.

The pious might feel the show has too many brushes with blasphemy to be suitable for church treatment. A church signboard on the show: "God welcomes his victims." Description of God after a dream: "Perfect teeth. Nice smell. A class act all the way."

But Rowan Williams, the newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, calls the program "one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue."

Pinsky's book argued that The Simpsons raises important religious issues in its cockeyed fashion. In the study guide he says church use of popular culture could help attract outsiders, but admits this may also smack of desperation and reflect a "dumbing down of serious discourse."

Each of the 10 sessions begins by viewing a Simpsons episode available on commercial rental.

For instance, in one show Homer is told that a Japanese sushi chef made a mistake cutting a poisonous blowfish and that Homer will die in 24 hours. Homer puzzles out a "to do" list for his last day. Item No. 1: "Make list." Item No. 9: "Tell off boss."

Next, participants write Homerlike lists of a dozen things they'd want to do if they had 24 hours to live. Then they read aloud a pertinent Old Testament passage, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ("For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven"), and a New Testament passage, Jesus' parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21).

The group then discusses Homer's priorities and their own.

One item on Homer's list is a man-to-man talk with son Bart to pass on three sentences that will help the lad get through life: "Cover for me. Oh, good idea, boss. It was like that when I got here." There's further discussion of this and other goofy but intriguing plot turns.

The session concludes with a prayer: "God our Creator, help us to value each moment of every day. We realize that there are no guarantees in this life. . . ." As people leave they're asked to talk to someone they respect in the coming week about life priorities.

Themes of other lessons:

The nature of and reasons for prayer. (Bart, in danger of flunking, asks God to close school the next day so he can do extra study, and a blizzard ensues.)
Skepticism and faith. (Lisa Simpson doubts a skeleton with wings dug up at the site of a new mall is an angel, as people assume. Turns out she's right; its a publicity stunt.)
Why good people suffer. (Warmhearted neighbour Ned Flanders quits his job to open the Leftorium, a store with gizmos for left-handed people that flops.)
What is the soul? (Bart sells his soul to a playmate for $5 and tries to get it back.)
Thou shalt not steal. (Homer bribes a cable TV installer to get service for free.)
Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Wife Marge is tempted to be unfaithful to Homer after he gives her a bowling ball for her birthday.)
How to view the Bible. (A Simpsons episode with four fractured Bible stories according to the dreams of various characters.)
Identity and calling. (TV performer Krusty the Clown, who is Jewish, shares his troubled relationship with his father.)
Why attend worship? (Homer splits his pants, is unable to go to church with the family, and has such a good time he decides to stop attending.)

Well, crap.

Sigh.

Gee, looks like some people think that having a "program on social security" where you make sure your congregation only hears one side of the issue is the sort of thing that political organizations do.

I could have told ya that.

CC
who knows that this is not an especially egregious example in itself. But give an RNC intern two hours and an internet connection and they can find enough little speeches about Republican evils to seriously screw us up. For our own good, we need to start admonishing one another on this issue.

On Ipods

A response to PeaceBang

I don't have one, but TheCSO does and mostly uses it on the subway.

Your rant reminded me very much of the speech my parents gave when I wanted to buy a walkman when I was 12. The annoying thing is, they let me talk about it for weeks while I was saving up for a really nice one and THEN told me I couldn't have one.

And did I mention how their claim that the other kids who didn't do dishes every night would grow up to not know how to do them and end up sad and alone because no one wants to be with a person who can't do dishes turned out to be a total lie?

Anywho, the CSO and I were actually discussing Ipods the other night. We were saying that it would be cool to have an ipod that could real the body's physiological signs of emotion and respond accordingly. Notice you're late for work,your Ipod changes to "Flight of the Bumblebee," Your cat dies, yout Ipod changes to "November Rain," etc.

OK, that would probably be bad. But an interesting sort of bad.

CC

the hidden church: working for justice without petitions

Went to a GBLT+Q and Pals Community lunch today at my church and ate sushi and talked over what the groups should be within the church. They talked about supporting the pastoral care team, doing a service on Gay issues, sponsoring an adult RE class and figuring out ways to identify themselves as to better be there for people with questions.

They were even extremely receptive to my concern that I'd watched several churches recruit gay people only to have those gay people find out that, though they felt plenty accepted, they didn't jibe theologically with the church.

Right now Maryland (where my church is located) has a gay marriage bill in front of the Governor, so I kept expecting the inevitable long-winded political discussion.

It never came.

Finally somebody said "Should we be doing something about activism?"

Answers ranged from "I'm already in four activist groups," to "Maryland has a great group called Equality Maryland. I think we should be members, but I don't know what we could do as a group to supplement what they're doing already" to "If people want activism they can find it, Let's look at what we can do within the church."

Hey, if Equality Maryland does a march and needs people to hand out cups of water, our folks will know and can ask the group listserv. But that these people were cognizant that one more petition wasn't going to do a damn bit of good, but reaching out to individuals might, made me so proud too be a UU.

These people wanted to help on a small scale and didn't flatter themselves with the notion that they were saving the world. But they knew there were confused old ladies with gay sons who had just come out, gay people looking for support and likely questioning teens within the congregation.

I thought of a church reading we'd had recently, the last paragraph of George Eliot's Middlemarch:

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were
not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus
broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great
name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around
her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world
is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so
ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the
number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.


I heart my church.

They get it.

CC

Has CC mentioned she doesn't like Nora Ephron?

So I'm still thinking about last week's Sunday New York Times.

They had an article that is bugging me.

About Abu Gharib, you ask?

The nuclear option?

Nuh uh.

The "Bewitched" movie.

You see, Nora Ephron is being hailed as a genius for her brilliant idea to rewrite the script. (CC is not at all a Nora Ephron fan. Nora Ephron's career started with trying to adapt Katharine Hepburn's worst movie into a TV series with Blythe Danner in Hepburn's role and hasn't improved. Since then the highlights of her career have been movies where Meg Ryan decides she doesn't need what she's worked for all her life, she just needs the man she fell in love with ten minutes ago. Barf.) Anyway, the producers knew they wanted to do a Bewitched movie. But the 1950's style homemaker witch thing just wasn't working.

So they tell Nora Ephron about it, she goes home, and the next day she has a plot idea:

A producer remaking the sitcom "Bewitched" hires a beautiful unknown to play the lead role. And get this..she's a real witch with actual magic powers.

Brilliant, Nora Ephron! You're such a genius!

OK, if you're reading this, and you really are on the "Nora Ephron is a genius" bus, there's a movie you've just GOT to see.

Shadow of the Vampire.

Picture it: Transylvania. 1921. Director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) sets out to make Nosferatu, the "most authentic" vampire movie of all time. He drags the whole cast out to a rundown castle, where they meet Max Shreck (Willem Dafoe) the man who will play ""Count Orlock," the vampire. The movie's premise is that Max Shreck was a vampire.

(Item: Have you ever seen a picture of the real Max Schreck? He's the scariest looking bastard ever. I find it a lot easier to believe that he was a vampire than I do that that a guy like that was a movie star.)

He starts eating the crew, of course, and as the movie plays out is becomes not so much a horror movie as a psycholgical drama and exploration of Murnau's stopping at nothing to create his masterpeice. Murnau is an artist and nothing matters but creating his art. Menawhile, Willem Dafoe is so good as Max Schreck that when they show bits of the 1920's "Nosferatu" you can't tell the difference. His Max Shreck is a tortured creature, an old, decaying vampire who makes us feel his obsession with blood and in one moving scene watches a film of a sunrise with deep poignancy. Both of them are single minded in their persuit of what they want and they both are dealing with the issue of immortality.

Yes, Cary Elwes's German accent has an undeniable "He vas my boyfriendt" quality. But I loved this weird little black comedy of a German expressionist horror movie with lines like:

Our battle, our struggle, is to create art. Our weapon is the moving picture. Because we have the moving picture, our paintings will grow and recede; our poetry will be shadows that lengthen and conceal; our light will play across living faces that laugh and agonize; and our music will linger and finally overwhelm, because it will have a context as certain as the grave. We are scientists engaged in the creation of memory... but our memory will neither blur nor fade.

And Nora Ephron ripped it off for a Nicole Kidman movie.

What a genius.

CC

Ps. Oh, and Salon really hated Shadow of the Vampire.

Boy, she's political all of the sudden

Matt Drudge linked to this.

Me too.

But unlike Drudge, I know it is parody.

CC

We're next

Ok, I’m not sure about this.

I am normally a big fan of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. But what they’ve done here makes me nervous.

Do I want those punks in Waynesville busted by the FEC for politicking from the pulpit?

Oh yeah.

But I don’t like this.

If it had come down from the FEC, that would be one thing.

But having liberal groups calling for the FEC to bust these guys is asking for conservative groups to come after liberal churches.

That would be us.

Said it before, saying it now. We need to talk about moral principles and let people apply those principles to politics themselves.

Or the next church politics bloggers are mocking will be ours.

----Added the following morning in response to Steve Caldwell's response----

Those rules are for religions.

Not all UUs worship God.

We don't have a single source of authority that everyone goes by, other than one's own experience.

We don't have a creed.

That means that if people want to pretend they don't understand that we are a religion, that's easy to do.

Not having a creed also means that UUism is not in itself in favor of reproductive choice. If most UUs are, fine, but I think the mere fact that almost everyone even WITHIN the religion forgets this distinction speaks to my point.

I think we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Long-term, I'm not sure there is an upside to using liberal politics as a recruiting tool. Even if it increases our sheer numbers, which I don't think it always does as I've observed that activist types usually leave the moment the church stops making their pet issue a main focus, as congregational decisions are made by majority vote, recruiting people who are here for the politics rather than being here for the religion can only serve to dilute the religion as those people who came for the politics vote to put more and more congregational resources toward politics. Eventually, the people who really want religion may leave.

And our pulpits are partisan at times. I've been in services where the sermon complained about the Republicans in Congress. Joel has been in one where the minister said that if you thought someone could be a good person and a Republican, you were wrong.

People don't know what the rules are and they break them all the time. But we should be holding ourselves to an even tighter standard than the rules.

From an FEC standpoint, from a recruiting standpoint and from a creating a worship service that doesn't have a "Gee, people who think exactly like me sure are nifty" sort of tone standpoint, political issues from the pulpit is a terrible idea.

UUs are smart. Talk about the moral issue and we will get the idea. If you can't frame the question as a moral issue, why are you talking about it in church?


CC

Yeah, yeah... It's on UPN... But don't judge.

Good things about the Veronica Mars season finale:

1. Fire. Lots of fire. SO many shows need season finales with someone trapped in a burning refrigerator. Like The Apprentice. Seriously kids, the action sequences kicked ass and the stuff that was supposed to be scary was. (Shot of killer’s eyes in rearview mirror made CC think: “The call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!”)

2. Veronica has a Sidekick 2 (brand new. I’m a cellphone geek. She had a Nokia flip phone in previous episodes), but it broke when she really needed it. Only Tmobile customers can appreciate the realism there.

3. The paternity test scene. Wow.

4. (a) I didn’t call who the killer was, (b) but it all made sense and the clues were there. A+B=Very unusual. And I watch A LOT of mysteries.


Bad things about the Veronica Mars season finale

1. Ok, so Logan is left drunk, standing on a bridge, about to be attacked by a biker gang. Memo to VM’s creator Rob Thomas: I’m going to watch season two, you know. You don’t have to be so ham-handed about it.
2. Mac wasn’t in this one. We need Mac, the nerdy, chubbyish, smartypants brunette who found out she was switched at birth and her real parents are wealthy intellectuals. She needs to be in more episodes. Way more episodes. No reason…

But seriously. That was the best hour of Buffy-like television since season three of Buffy.

I’m not giving any spoilers here because VM almost got cancelled. You people need to watch for yourselves.

CC
Who know that you, at this moment, could be reading one of many fine minister blogs if you wanted profundity, so she assumes that y’all are here for reasonably sharp wiseass writing and a somewhat unusual take on the world. Which suggests that there are potential Veronica Mars fans in my readership.

The Sabina Fallacy

Explained this CC-invented term to a friend the other day, and now I am presenting it for the edification of the viewing public:

The Sabina Fallacy a system of misguided thinking held by a person dating/marrying someone who treats others badly that allows the Obvious Future Victim to believe that though schnookums may have behaved badly in the past, he/she would NEVER treat OFV this way.

If you hear someone say “Well, yeah, she got her last boyfriend arrested for stalking, then sat outside his dorm room for two hours so he couldn’t leave without violating the restraining order, but she wouldn’t do that to me. Things between US are different.”

Or “Well, yes, she does scream at her adult son for minor things in front of dinner parties all the time, but she would never humiliate me like that because, well, I can’t articulate WHY, she just wouldn’t.”

Or “Sure, his last five wives died mysteriously, but I still can’t wait to be wife number six!”

Then just smack the OFV upside the head.

CC

Religion and Politics just shouldn't mix, kids.

A church that should lose its tax exempt status.


CC

CC gets her Bach on

The appalling thing is, it all started with a ringtone.

I got a new cell phone, a big deal in my life in that the CSO is what Malcom Gladwell would consider a technology maven, so such things are huge decisions for us. (FWIW, it’s a Blackberry 7100t. I loved my sidekick 1, but the sidekick 2 just looks too much like a handheld video game.) My dream cellphone ringtone has always been the do-do-do-do do-do-do-do bit from Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner, so I looked for that but they didn’t offer it. So I stuck it on a noise like a ringing phone and forgot about it.

Wednesday night is the CSO’s night playing cards with his buddies, so I usually take my sweet time getting home. I decided to stop at Tyson’s Corner mall (the local two story, five department store mall that happens to be on my way home.) I often mallwalk for awhile on Wednesdays and then get a plate of pad thai.

My allergies are still giving me problems, it looks like I may not make it to GA after all and work has been a lot of pressure, so I was a bit low. Actually, a bit low is about my usual state.

Walking through the mall, I got a work call and realized that I should pick a new ringtone. I scanned through my choices. Tmobile always had funky 70s-style ringtones, but I didn’t like any of them. I kept scanning, stopping on BachFugueDminor.

I played it and found myself actually listening.

Shit, that was good music.

Ok, the people who are already Bach fans are like, duh, at this point, but I swear it was like I’d never heard Bach before. I wanted to just lie down and listen to it.

It will probably help to explain that the ChaliceDad was a child prodigy musician who was Amal in the Houston Opera’s “Amal and the Night Visitors” as a little kid. He went to Interlochen and though he doesn’t really do anything musical right now, is a man who knows what he likes when it comes to music.

And he imposed classical music on me for my entire childhood.

It didn’t work. I have no taste when it comes to music. For my entire life, classical music was background. It was Charlie Brown’s teacher talking, it was just there. My father took my to concerts and played classical music constantly and I never understood it. I didn’t like it, it was just torture.

But suddenly, somehow, standing in the mall on Wednesday, I heard a Bach ringtone.

So I went to Sam Goody.

And I got myself a Bach CD. After some consideration, I picked up an 8-CD set of “The World’s Greatest Masterpeices.”

Twenty bucks.

That the height of human musical achievement might be twenty bucks seemed impossible, but I thought it would be a good introduction.

And it has been.

I don’t know why it is that suddenly I can hear classical music. It all ran together before and suddenly the difference between Bach and Chopin is as obvious as the difference between Green Day and Nickelback. I just know.

It’s like that scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera and she cries because she gets it. I think I’m starting to get it.

I know different orchestras play these pecies different ways, and I know that I have only even begun to see the surface, but goodness it has felt like a significant two days.

I haven’t had the guts to tell the ChaliceDad yet.

CC

The last word on the runaway bride

Well worth viewing the little commercial to read.


CC

Please tell me this will show up on Snopes

Lame, just lame.


CC

17 things about the ChaliceWedding

Various people have been decrying the bigass modern wedding. Well, the CSO and I just did one November 27 and we had the time of our lives. Here’s how it went:


1. The ceremony was held, after some debate on the issue, at the
ChaliceParents' church, a gorgeous gothic Cathedral right outside
Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. Having a humanist wedding in a
Presbyterian church took a bit of doing, but we managed it.
2. Katy-the-Wise officiated, naturally.
3. Katy couldn't fly in until the day of due to preparations for the Conference on the Free Church, so CC ran the rehearsal
herself. Thanks to her trusty copy of "Miss Manners on Weddings," she
only had to say "Has anybody ever been to a wedding before? How does
THIS happen?" once.
4. The script of the ceremony is below. Instead of flowers, the
Bridesmaids carried candles because CC had observed in a Presbyterian
Christmas Eve service as a child that people carrying fire look like
they are doing serious business and she wanted her bridesmaids to have
this look.
5. Less than an hour before the ceremony, CC was barefoot and in jeans
setting up place cards for the reception. She had to be marched
upstairs by the photographer to dress, but the ceremony still started
on time.
5a. The CSO had instructed the photographer to feel free to get pictures of CC changing into her wedding gown. A picture of CC holding the gown up to cover her breasts with a “Wouldn’t it be awful if someone THREW ME IN THE POOL? Please don’t THROW ME IN THE POOL? AH! This big handsome guy is THROWING ME IN THE POOL! I’m going to get my WHITE T-SHIRT WET!” sort of expression of lusty mock consternation made for the best bride picture, though for some reason the ChaliceMom prefers the one of CC in the church with the stained glass windows behind her.
6. CC carried a large bunch of white roses purchased at Costco the day
of the wedding. We're not a floral couple, the CSO and me.
7. The maid of honor carried a big candelabra because she thought it
would look cool. But she hadn't carried it in the rehearsal, so the
bridesmaid who took it when CC handed off the bouquet didn't know how
heavy it was and nearly fell over when the maid of honor handed it to
her. No wedding photos caught this, but the maid of honor swears it
was hilarious.
8. There were five bridesmaids because CC has lots of important people
in her life. There were five groomsmen because the CSO does too. CC
bought a bazillion yards of ice blue silk Dupioni and mailed it out
to the bridesmaids, who each had a dress made that looked good on
them.
9. CC bought ice blue and indigo crystal necklaces made by a friend
for all of the bridesmaids and herself, but had a fight with the
friend a month before the wedding and didn't wear hers in the
ceremony. How very mature.
10. Katy-the-wise sent CC a huge list of ceremony elements with some
12 introductions, 10 sets of vows, etc. CC and the CSO picked what
they liked and got it approved by Katy. No one else saw the ceremony
before the wedding.
11. The readings were selected by the people who read them, though Joe
asked for a list of suggestions and Don ended up writing his.
12. Seven ministers were invited, three attended.
13. Though CC was escorted down the aisle by her father, both parents
of both bride and groom blessed the union. Nobody got given away.
14. The organist was a music librarian from the library of congress
and kicked complete ass.
15. At the reception, guests ate salmon and chicken, CC and the CSO east coast swung to Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E,” CC and the ChaliceDad Viennese Waltzed to “Tales from the Vienna Wood,” there were toasts and a cake-cutting and CC tossed the bouquet. CC had seated two of her high school teachers with her current co-workers and her boss told her later that the teachers had mentioned that they were a bit disappointed that the unconventional CC had taken such a traditional approach to getting married. That CC just wanted to show that the Chalicefamily could do one rite of passage like normal people will not be surprise to anyone who has been reading this blog for longer than, oh, the last two posts.
16. The reception was winter-themed. The room was decorated in Ice blue and indigo and the cake was shaped like an iceberg and had little wooden penguins on it, with a penguin bride and groom at the top who were wearing little paperclip glasses. The cake was only enough for 25 and we had a variety of types of cake in addition. The CSO painted the penguins himself as they were actually owls made of gourds.
17. Instead of Jordan Almonds, CC and the CSO had a pair of Alpaca Mittens at every place setting for favors. CC got a deal on them online and in the weeks leading up to the wedding greatly enjoyed complaining that her wedding favors were held up in Brazil.

The ChaliceWedding

Since Scott at Boy in the Bands is talkin' wedding, I thought I'd post the script from mine.

Yep, she's a humanist.


INTRODUCTION
It is one of life's richest surprises when the accidental meeting of two lives leads them to proceed together along the common path of husband and wife, and it is one of life's finest experiences when a casual relationship grows into a permanent bond of love. This meeting and this growth bring us together today.

FAMILY
Members of the families of both the bride and groom are here today being constant in their love for these two people before us.

Gary and Carolyn, will you pledge the goodwill of these families to this couple, and will you present your daughter Suzyn, for marriage to Ian?

I will.

Leigh and Barry, will you pledge the goodwill of these families to this couple, and will you present your son Ian, for marriage to Suzyn?

I will.

DEDICATION
We are gathered here to unite in the bonds of matrimony two persons, who in mutual love and trust, have resolved to unite their lives that they may better accomplish our great human task of complete and noble living.

The ceremony which we are about to perform will not unite you in marriage. Only you can do that. The union which you are here about to publicly formalize is not a casual one, and not one to be taken lightly, but one of the most important into which you will ever enter. If the relationship between two people which is symbolized in our culture by the state of marriage does not already exist between you, this ceremony will not create it. This ceremony is the public announcement of the existence of that bond. The state or the church can but give its recognition to the bond between you -- they have no power to create it. As you give public announcement to the existence of the bond uniting you by means of the ceremony which we are about to perform, be ever mindful that you -- not an official, not the state, not the public -- created this marriage.

READINGS
Pam Case:

1 Corinthians 13

Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.



Joe Harris:

When two individuals meet, so do two private worlds. None of our private worlds is big enough for us to live a wholesome life in. We need the wider world of joy and wonder, of purpose and venture, of toil and tears. What are we, any of us, but strangers and sojourners forlornly wandering through the night time until we draw together and find the meaning of our lives in one another, dissolving the fears in each others courage, making music together and lighting torches to guide us through the dark? We belong together. Love is what we need. To love and to be loved. Let our hearts be open' and what we would receive from others, let us give. For what is given still remains to bless the giver -- when the gift is love.

-A. Powell Davies


Don Cooper:

I knew some time ago that Ian and Suzyn expected me to contribute a reading to their wedding. Although I looked extensively for a suitable one, I couldn’t find one that matched well what I wanted to say. Last Tuesday evening, Suzyn and Ian saved me the trouble of coming up with a suitable reading. Accidentally, I overheard a discussion between the two of them, both tired after a long day. At first, a voice was raised, partly frustrated and upset. Then the voices quieted, wedding details were sorted out between the two of them, plans and assignments were changed. Their voices grew more comfortable, and there were laughing and happy exchanges between them. By the time Ian came into the bedroom where I have been staying to check a detail, I realized something fundamental about what I had just overheard.
During the years that Suzyn and Ian have been together, they have learned to work together, to play together, and to love one another. They have made a marriage. Today, we, among their friends, coworkers, teachers, relatives, and other members of their human community, have assembled to wish them joy in the marriage that they have created.

VOWS
A marriage ceremony does not create a relationship; it only recognizes what has already developed. We are here today, then, to celebrate the love which Suzyn and Ian have for each other, and to give social recognition to their decision to accept each other totally. Into this state of marriage, these two people have come to be united.

Ian, will you have this woman to be your wife, to live together in marriage; will you love her, comfort her, honor her and keep her, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, so long as you both shall live?

I will.

Suzyn, will you have this man to be your husband, to live together in marriage; will you love him, comfort him, honor him and keep him, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, so long as you both shall live?

I will.

RING CEREMONY
What shall be the token of this pledge?

Groom: This ring. With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.

Bride: This ring. With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.

Let the love, patience and craftsmanship which tamed these rings serve as a model for your marriage. Let these rings be an outward expression of your inner affection, and may these rings ever be a reminder of the past, a devotion to the present, and a confidence in the future.

PRAYER
Out of this tangled world two souls have found each other; a mutual love has drawn them firmly together; and, joining in marriage, they have pledged each to the other their faith. Their destinies shall now be woven of one design, and their perils and their joys shall not be known apart. As they increase in mutual understanding, may their joy stand victoriously against the storm of circumstances which beats impartially at all people's doors. From the rich encouragement of their affection may they complete the unfinished patterns of their true selves. Even as they have chosen each other from the world's multitudes, so let the days and years, now veiled by time, deepen the joy of that choice, and make it abidingly true.


PRONOUNCEMENT
Forasmuch as you have made your mutual pledges, and have given and received rings in token of the same, I, by virtue of the authority vested in me, pronounce you husband and wife. May all that is noble, lovely and true abide with you forever.

KISS
(I’ll leave appropriate wording to Katy)

BENEDICTION
Nothing else matters much --
not wealth, nor learning,
nor even health --
without this gift:
the spiritual capacity to keep
zest in living.

This is the creed of creeds,
the final deposit and distillation
of all human faith:

That we should be able to believe in life.

Various thoughts on crime

What's up with CC's brother?

A few people at the blog con asked. (Which is not at all a problem, after all, I brought it up.)

Jason will have to go to jail for six months unless the ChaliceMom writes a big check. Knowing her, the check is in the mail already.

Oliver is awaiting arraignment. The minimum punishment in VA runs about 6 years, but he thinks he can get around it. Of course, that sort of person thinks he can get around a lot of stuff.

By far the worst part for me is the impact on the ChaliceMom. Both because it has depressed her and because she has adopted a sort of "He may have told US he did thing A, but the lawyers might not be able to PROVE IT. How can we help him get away with as much as possible?" mindset more suited to a reasonable-doubt-for-a-reasonable-fee-defense-lawyer than CC's earliest source of moral authority.

Still, she's the kid's mom so perhaps it is unreasonable to expect anything different.

Latest Clip.

Has anybody figured out the motive for the crimes in The Night that the Lights Went out in Georgia?

I never have.

Also
Grr.

I wrote to a friend recently, saying of something his ex-wife used to say "It's a measure of her rhetorical skill that she can make a statement so brief that's annoying on so many levels."

That's about how I feel about these letters.

CC

Blog Reviews as a Hangover Cure

My usual column from Coffee Hour


Don't ask

Just don’t.

Chutney is actually suggesting that the Seven Principles don't suck.

Weird.

So... Why is it that one’s stomach contents enter one’s digestive tract within like two hours (amazing what a girl learns watching CSI), but when one drinks too much, one can start throwing up seven hours after one stops drinking?

Beth is dealing with someone who is throwing up, too. This is an extremely barf-heavy set of blog reviews today, and I am not at all referring to my reaction to the actual blogs.

OK, it’s because I’m not throwing up because my body thinks it’s getting alcohol poisoning, I’m throwing up because I’ve irritated my stomach lining. It’s not that I don’t understand it, I just find it incredibly unfair.

He's so fresh that I wanna get with 'im,
cause he's the Mac Daddy of Cathol-i-cism.
He's the Pope!
and boy, are we UUs talking about the man. Dan is.
James is. Chutney is. Peacebang is. Rick is.


Please don’t, like, write me and suggest AA or Rational Recovery. I swear to God the last time I made myself sick from drinking was New Year’s Eve of 2003, and the fact that it’s early Friday morning doesn’t have its typical significance since I’m on a long-weekend vacation.

Minstrare is back and he's discussing Universalism, a concept I still have trouble applying to my brother.

This is a vacation where I flew, you see. CC is not such a great flier and usually has a little something to calm her nerves. But she’d had a really long week at work and calmed her nerves excessively.

Returning is gushing about the admittedly gush-worthy Neil Gaiman, author of the coolest comic book series ever, some very spiff novels and an all around kickass human being. ObiJuan (heh, just got that.) does a nice job making it about more than just Neil Gaiman, and his post is actually a nice bit about our reaction to celebrity. CC personally has sneezed on Clyde Edgerton, for example, though she was really sick and didn't mean to and felt bad. Karen Armstrong isn't very interesting in person and has British teeth. Gloria Steinem isn't very interesting, but her teeth are first rate.

Oh, and Harlan Ellison was for awhile trying to nail my friend's girlfriend when she was a model in LA a few decades ago. The girlfriend had no appreciation whatsoever of how cool this was.

I swear I will never do this again. No, I mean, I will never drink so much again. I’ll be back with more blog reviews next Thursday. Or, you know, Saturday. Or maybe the Saturday after that. Anyway, yeah, you'll hear from me.

Personal to Ed-who-cooks

You sucketh mightily.

May the twin axes of Hrothgar bury themselves in your crotch.

No, seriously, dude. I'm pissed. Never call me. Ever.

CC

Simple Signs

When CC worked in South Carolina, she was frequently bummed out. She'd achieved her dream job and it wasn't making her happy, she was terribly lonely without the CSO, she barely made enough to live on and she'd made a best friend only to watch that person move away.

That was when she would drive 60 miles to go to her "local" UU church, every Sunday, absolutely without fail.

In the South, the custom is to have message boards outside each church with a mildly wiseass Christian message, the sort of thing that the ChaliceMom thinks is terribly clever. (E.g "Forbidden fruit creates many jams," "Do not wait for the hearse to take you to church" and the ever-popular "Sign broken. Message inside this Sunday.")

CC got used to these and even delighted in the funnier ones. Next roadtrip she takes down South, she will post the coolest examples here.

But there was one sign that always got me.

It was a Baptist church on a hill just before the city limits. The sign, every week, without fail, read:

Jesus loves you.
We love you.
Keep Smiling.

Yes, they were Baptists, and probably Conservative ones at that, and your friend the cranky humanist did her best to convince herself that if they knew her, really knew her, they wouldn't love her. Jesus probably wouldn't be too fond of her either.

Yet somehow, I kept smiling anyway.

I cannot tell you what that sign did for me and how many bad days it got me through. In some ways, it was a preparation for coming to my church and preparing to be taken in to the community of loveable oddballs that UU churches in very conservative places attract. (And I was certainly as oddball as any of them.)

The talk about UU elevator speeches is all well and good, but I find sometimes what what I need more in a short phrase about UUism is something that keeps me going, a message that really captures the feeling of being surrounded by people who are at once challenging and accepting. Something simple and beautiful and subtle in its power.

I'm liking Ministrare's version:

You are loved.
You are good.
You can make a difference.

I like to display my own cleverness as much, or even more, than the average UU. But tonight I'm thinking about the signs I show the world, and hoping that I can keep my message simple and beautiful, at least some of the time.

CC

Now THAT's depressing

Perigrinato is discussing theological topics that I can't even pronounce.

Ah well.

CC

Word to the wise.

You can:

A. Have a brother in legal difficulty who is pretty much a black hole for sympathy, attention and money from your entire family.
B. Buy a house.
C. Get jarring reminders that your folks are only human, and indeed, only mortal.
D. Have your job responsibilities suddenly double, if only temporarily.
E. Have your spouse be out of town for two weeks.

But if you're smart, you won't have all that happening in the same week.

Not meaning to whine, or dump my problems in the lap of anyone foolish enough to stop by and read this blog, but Jeezum Crow life is weird right now.

This is probably a sign that I am going nuts, but recently I've had this daydream that I am Atlas, and I lose grip of the world. I feel it roll down my back and it bounces, sounding like a marble, then rolls away, rapidly shrinking in the distance.

But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon a floor

CC
who is fine, really, but felt like writing it all out to see what it looked like on her computer screen.

That's about right

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

35% Yankee

15% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

The Big Book of Everything

So a co-worker of the CSO's wrote this.

It's his autobiography.

Yup, the crazy bastard wrote his autobiography and had it published by a vanity press. What gets me is that Amazon has 23 used copies for sale.

Having read it, I have to say that the guy could have used an editor. But regular readers of this blog know I could use one too. Can't really fault him there.

I can't say he tells his story in the pretty prose that I think I would use. That he thinks "How I stopped worrying and learned to love the sheep" is a subtle and clever reference to Dr. Strangelove is symptomatic of the sophomoric* tone he uses to tell his truths.

But I have to give him props for telling such truths at all.

When I was a kid, I imagined that in heaven there was a "big book of everything" in which one could look up how everything in the world worked, what had happened in every situation and the literal truth of everyone's life, both objectively and how they saw it.

To some degree, I used this image to keep myself in line. I oscillated between fascination with the ideas of reading the lives of others and worry that my own dramas would make good reading.

I still feel like I carry a bunch of ticking bombs within and that the world would to some degree fall to pieces if various people in my life found out how slutty, scared, incompetent, unpopular, selfish and stupid I can be. I intellectually understand that everyone has weaknesses, but I feel my own weaknesses.

It's not a great book, this thing the CSO's friend wrote. It's sophomoric and downright narcissistic. But I've been sophomoric and downright narcissistic a lot of times without ever getting a book out of it.

And without ever telling the truth.

CC

*But after all, what are twentysomethings but life's sophomores, the "wise fools" who are so freaking glad to not be teenagers anymore that they fool themselves much of the time into thinking that they have a clue what's going on. I maintain that illusion for whole hours at a time.

CC's pick for Pope

First choice: Cardinal Martini, the bitchin' biblical scholar from Milan
Second Choice: Everybody except Cardinal Ratzinger.

I know, I don't get a vote. But just sayin'

CC

UU Jihad?

Are we sure this is something we should be organizing ourselves around?

We are still kidding, aren't we?

I just can't help but worry this is going to make us look silly, as good as the article was.

Returning speaks to this opinion well.

CC

You might be from McLean, VA...

CC wrote this as a 17-year-old. She found it today and it still made her laugh. So she is posting it with just minor revsions.,

I've been thinking a lot about my hometown both because the CSO and I are buying a house here and because I've run into several people I went to high school with in the past couple of weeks. I am starting to envy the CSO, who went to high school in Charlotte. All his high school friends seem to work in diners or fix cars. (Except for Petey)

All the kids I grew up with are now in medical school or law school.

Ah well, anyway here's the list, and bear in mind that when I was 17, You-might-be-a-redneck jokes were still pretty new.

CC



-If your Daddy walks you to school, cuz' he's the Secretary of Education, you might be from McLean.

-If that Australian kid took your lunch money, and the US broke off trade relations, you might be from McLean.

-If the teacher asks what you want to do when you grow up and you say "If I tell you, I've got to kill you," you might be from McLean

-If your Daddy yells out "Hi Bunky!" and Dick Cheney turns around, you might be from McLean

-If your idea of a "Hick" is someone who grew up at Hickory Hill, you might be from McLean.

-If you needed a flu shot, so you called the Surgeon General at home, you might be from McLean

-If your nickname for Julia Roberts is "my daddy's mistress" you might be from McLean.

-If you have a favorite Hillary Clinton hairstyle, you might be from McLean

- If you're 35 years old and you mom still won't let you date Libertarians, you might be from McLean

-If your idea of an insult is "Yo momma is so poor, she RARELY goes to SWITZERLAND!" You might be from McLean.

-If you keep your piggy bank in the Cayman Islands, you might be from McLean

-If you've ever missed school to help your Daddy finish his FEC filing, you might be from McLean.

-If you go to diplomatic functions to pick up chicks, you might be from McLean.

-If you go to diplomatic functions and SUCESSFULLY pick up chicks, you are definitely from McLean.

-If you're reading this list and taking notes, you're new to McLean, but you're going to fit in fine.

It's 90's retro night at Politics and Prose!

Camille Paglia is doing a reading at my hometown's most prominent smartypants bookstore. I really want to take a bottle of scotch and do a shot every time she uses a word with five or more syllables, but I have an event that night.

Sucks.

CC

The Tale of the Sex Goddess Bathrobe.

Picture it. Virginia. December 2004.

The CSO, who is not much on present shopping, has been needling CC for some time to come up with what she wants for Christmas. They finally both have good jobs, and this is the first Christmas they've had together that this has been the case. He doesn't know it yet, but he's getting an Ipod. Finally, CC allows as to how a pearl necklace is part of the Washington DC uniform and would certainly be welcomed.

As the the CSO is getting her the necklace, she wanders over to a nice-looking underwear store. CC finds Victoria's Secret rube-filled and appalling. The one in this mall is bright magenta. So she's always looking for a good place to find underwear.

The bathrobe is right in the window. It's made of silk and cashmere, amazingly soft to the touch, cable knit, but really thin. It's a little bit Katharine Hepburn and a little bit Catherine Deneuve. It comes is a deep vampirish red, CC's favorite color, and CC is convinced that she will feel like a sex goddess in it.

But it is 150 dollars. And the CSO is off buying her a perfectly wonderful pearl necklace.

Being a reasonable person, she does what any reasonable person would do.

She shuts up.

After all, it would be silly to go and buy such a thing. She's sort of chubby and plain and wouldn't really do such a bathrobe justice.

A silk suit that she could wear for work? Maybe. But a silk and cashmere bathrobe? Come on, that's a little much, really. There are Jamaican kids who've never owned a pair of pajamas and she's lusting after a thing like that?

She's really not a silk-and-cashmere bathrobe sort of girl.

She idly mentions it but doesn't belabor the point, even as she and the CSO buy other, considerably less expensive but still really nice, bathrobes for the ChaliceMotherInLaw and the ChaliceSisterInLaw at the same store. (Transference, yes, but she likes to think it is the good kind.)

April 2005.
CC is shopping again, not having been in the mall since Christmas. She had looked for a new suit for work, but hadn't found one and is a mite dejected.

She goes by the underwear store figuring she'd ogle the bathrobe for a minute.

It's on the sale rack.

It's marked $15.00.

CC pulls out her size and her AmEx card. Then she realizes, duh, it's the ChaliceMom's birthday in two weeks. So the ChaliceMom gets one. And Katy-the-Wise has done a lot of freelance pastoral care since CC's brother got arrested, so yeah, why not? A blue bathrobe and a brown one drape across CC's arm.

Then she thinks.

What other woman in CC's life deserves to feel like a sex goddess?

Umm… duh.

All of them.

(Well, except for the one who threw out my wedding invitation. But I really did call my best friend, who is marrying her, intent on asking what color she'd like, figuring he could give it to her and shoot me the fifteen bucks later. He wasn't home. Them's the breaks.)

All told, CC bought seven bathrobes. And six pairs of matching slippers. (CC doesn't do slippers.)

And CC right now is imagining six women she cares about opening boxes and running sex goddess bathrobes across their cheeks feeling the silk and cashmere and knowing that there is someone out there who thinks they are worth it. Each of them will know that there's someone who sees them as a silk-and-cashmere sort of girl.

And CC feels about as at peace with the planet as she gets.

CC

Ps. The store's website is selling sex goddess bathrobes for $37.50. Not getting a commission for this, I swear.

Memorandum

To: Baby Boomers

From: Generation X

CC: Generation Y

Date: April 4, 2005

Subject: John Lennon's song "Imagine."


When you hear this song, you get all weepy.

When we hear this song, we think to ourselves "Wow. That captures in one song everything that was lame and fucked up about the 60's."

Please stop voting it the greatest song of all time in radio polls.

Thanks.

Spreading Scott's meme

Scott asked, I answered, though my insecure soul wonders if i'm being quizzed to see if I would be decent road trip company.


You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Richard Von Mises' Positivism, though I don't agree with absolutely everything in it.


Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I have absolutely had crushes on my image of someone, an image that turned out to be fictional.

If you'd like the question interpreted more literally, I had it bad for Sir Percy Blakeney from the Baronness D'Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel as a ten year old, and that was even before I discovered the film version with Anthony Andrews.


The last book you bought is…?


Well, I was at a booksale this morning, so I bought quite a few. Nothng very exciting. I think I got some books on the GRE. The Oxford History of the American People (CC will buy "the Oxford History of" or the "Oxford Companion to" damn near anything.) A bunch of paperbacks to resell to Edie's bookstore.

The last book you read is…?

The last book I finished was Tim O'Brien's Going after Cacciato

I don't think I 100 percent understood it, but I still liked it.

What are you currently reading?

On the living room floor Portrait of a Killer Patricia Cornwell's book on Jack the Ripper. In my purse Mormon America , in the computer room Proverbs of Ashes. Many copies of the NYT Sunday magazine, The Economist, Harper's and Vogue heaped in a basket in the bathroom. Pagels' book on Satan is around somplace but I've mislaid it. And I am in the middle of Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist," which I'm not sure I completely understand either.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Robertson Davies The Salterton Trilogy
Didn't even have to think about that one.

Elisabeth Young-Bruehl Hanna Arent- For love of the World
I defy you to find a better biography of anyone.

The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought.
Open this book at any point, start reading, you're engrossed for a long time.

My wedding album
I think I'd look at it a lot

Anais Nin's Little Birds
Your fault for asking

Who are you going to pass this baton to (three persons)? And why?
Ministrare because he's a good writer who we haven't heard much from in a while.

Chutney because somebody already tapped Peacebang

Philocrites because the Daily Show needs a book reviewer.

What Politics Professionals talk about in the bar after work.

This is a reenactment of a conversation Ed-who-Cooks and I had:

CC: (Noting Congressman Michael Simpson) Whoa. Wouldn't it suck if you were named "Homer Simpson" and you wanted to run for Congress?

Ed: Would it?

CC: I mean if you didn't change your name people would make fun of you, and if you did and the papers found out, you'd REALLY get made fun of.

Ed: I think you're discounting the importance of the crucial Simpsons voting bloc. People who watch the Simpsons, you know, they're smart and they have money. It's a good demographic.

CC: Right, but would that translate to votes?

Ed: Oh hell, yeah. Are you kidding? I'd vote for a DEMOCRAT named "Homer Simpson"

CC: Well, they do say that name recognition is sometimes the most important factor in a local campaign.

Ed: That's true. That's completely true!

CC: And I bet that being named "Homer Simpson" is instant average Joe appeal.

Ed: Wow. I think we’ve just figured out how John Kerry could have won the election.


Yes, such conversations are stupid, but looking back on it, I think of how baby lions play at pouncing on one another before learning to hunt.

I have questions about if I'm cut out to be a lion.

But it was a good conversation.

CC

CC's beefs with UUs focussing too much on politics

A response to Left Coast Unitarian

1. For some people, politics IS UUism. These two somewhat annoying
people in my congregation are doing a project where they are taking
pictures of people and putting up little signs with the people's
pictures and the pictured person's idea of the "soul of the church."
(These folks qualify as somewhat annoying because they took CC's picture
after she repeatedly asked them not to as she wasn't wearing makeup. I'm sorry a guy has to be 31 Flavors of asshole to stand there taking pictures as someone says "Please don't take my picture. PLEASE don't take my picture...")
Anyway, so far like 50% of the little signs have the person saying the
soul of the church is social action, which beats the hell out of people
saying the soul of the church is, say, "not Catholicism," but I can't
say that it's a good answer either.

2. The more I know about the Federal Election commission, the more I
worry about the possibility of serious claims that we're the religious
wing of the Democratic party messing with our tax-exempt status. We don't have set belief system, kids. That we're a religion anyway is easy for someone to pretend not to understand.

3. We're too small to be doing any good on a national level, yet local
politics is often not glamorous enough for our taste. So we end up
making a bunch of sound and fury amongst ourselves signifying very little other that our own self-satisfaction.


My solution is that I don't believe in churches taking a stand on specific legislation or supporting groups lobbying for specific legislation. We can speak to the moral principles behind the specific legislation all we want and I think the intent will be clear. But keeping it to the moral principle behind the law keeps the focus on religion and keeps us out of murky legal waters.

And it reminds us that the principles we demand of the government are ones we should be living in our own lives.

CC

Freedom vs. Diversity

To me the freedom vs. diversity distinction is crucial to whining minimization.

"Diversity" demands that every person be accepted and catered to by the larger group, and any larger group can be blamed for not keeping everybody happy. After all, if the minorites aren't happy, then clearly the group is not properloy diverse.

"Freedom" says "yes, you can have a barn, but you have to build it first' and puts the onus on the individual. Where it belongs.

And I think we see the end product of making "diversity" a goal every time a gay couple who was attracted to UUism because of our pro-gay marriage politics leaves because they just don't jibe with us theologically.

Do I think that if we're doing UUism right african-americans, transgendered people, etc will show up?

Of course.

But they will be the right ones.

CC

CC responds to the Coffee Hour Ipod discussion

I've read all these discussions with a certain measure of delight as this is a topic I've been meaning to bring up for about a week since we just discussed it at a church meeting.

http://coffeehour.philocrites.com/archives/001799.html#comments"> Check it out!

Like Peacebang, I'm not crazy about the language of marketing, though, again like her, I understand its usefulness.


I'm not liking the ideas of the ten-word summary because:


1. It's a creed, or will be one. People will recite it, people will tell other people that it is the sum total of UUism, people will say that other people who violate it are bad UUs, etc.


2. When GA writes a creed, it sucks. Judging by the best example we have, the seven principles, what they will come up with will be a creed-by-committee and thus be mealy-mouthed, lame and nothing any reasonable person doesn't already believe. Thus it will be useless in defining who we are.




Things I think would help in the quest for more members.


1. Shift the focus from "politics" to "charity work." Let's face it, kids, we're not very good at lobbying. The UUA Washington office almost never gets what it wants. We're just not powerful enough. But when we feed the homeless, we're already doing good. And people initially attracted by roll-up-your-sleeves charity work are far more likely to make good members. The conservative churches do it, and they're right.


2. Shift the focus from "diversity" to "freedom." To me diversity is such an empty goal. It's a pleasant byproduct of freedom, so let's advertise the freedom. Diversity will come. But a bunch of white people sitting around arguing about how best to pander to African-Americans is a very sad meeting to be in, and I've been in it.


3. Involve new members immediately. Don't put them to work weeding the flowerbed (unless they like that), but make them feel like they are really a part of something.


Hmmm...


More is percolating but I have to head to work


CC

What I've Been Reading Lately

Fausto told up what he's been reading lately. Here's my version.

Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker’s Proverbs Of Ashes which I started because one of the ministers at my church gave a particularly good sermon on redemptive suffering, so good that I am rethinking a few things I’d assumed.

Richard Osterling and Joan Osterling’s “Mormon America”because when one is in Rome, one should figure out what the Roman’s deal is.

For my less-strenuous reading, I’m halfway through Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend. I don’t know why I tend to read coming-of-age stories. At least this one has a murder.

And I just finished Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato which really blew me away.

CC
who also scared the bejabbers out of herself reading "Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed" which she really enjoyed, though wished had more citations.

What's Jeff running off with? And where did my thunder go?

Click here if you're at all interested in the bible discussion.

It's a dirty trick to make CC's points better than she did on her own blog, but Jeff Wilson did just that.

CC

Yeah, what she said

The Post's Dana Milbanks on Media Bias


And I agree with most of this, too.

CC

The ex-Presbyterian presents:How to run a Goddamn meeting.

I try not to compare the two faiths I’ve had. (I’m not counting atheism as a faith. The way I practiced it, it wasn’t.) But this afternoon a glaring difference came to light as I sat in a two hour and fifteen minute task force meeting.

Presbyterians can run a meeting. They can raise a point of inquiry, have discussion and call the question like a sumbitch.

Not so for UUs.

So I’m writing up how to run a meeting.

Distribute freely.

Please.

1. Have an agenda and for the love of God, stick to it.
And by that I mean an agenda with TIMES. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to discuss a budget item. If it’s not, assign a budget committee and let them meet about it. If fifteen minutes are up and people are still yakking, make them stop talking. No, really. Do it.

2. If you have two hours and fifteen minutes worth of stuff to say, plan two meetings.

3. If people at the meeting need to have background information, put it in writing and send it to them beforehand.
If a charity’s work can’t be described in one page, I ain’t supporting it. The next time a committee chair makes me sit through a 45-minute DVD on the charity they want to support, I’m sending them an invoice for my time. And my consulting rates are high.

4. If you’re doing something (like watching a DVD) in addition to the business portion of the meeting, do the business portion first. Duh.

5. We aren’t Quakers, consensus is unnecessary
So don’t ask me why I voted against your proposition. I know that an hour and forty five minutes into the meeting is a bad time to explain my nuanced position on the church’s support of social justice groups even if you don’t. I was outvoted anyway, so be happy with that.

6. Once something is voted on, shut up about it.
People who start sentences with “That thing we just voted on is really great because…” should be shot.

7. People who chose to work out things between themselves during the meeting sucketh mightly.
“Can I borrow that DVD to show this other committee?”
“When do they meet? I’m showing it to a different committee on Thursday.”
“They meet Wednesday. I could get it back to you before Thursday.”
“Are you sure they meet Wednesday? I thought the choir was having its special rehearsal Wednesday”
“No, wait, they meet NEXT Wednesday.”
“The choir?”
“No, my committee.”
“So I can take the DVD to my meeting Thursday and give it to you Sunday so you can show it next Wednesday.”
“But I won’t be here next Sunday…”
is what you sound like. So shut the hell up and email each other.

8. Always keep the action in mind. Discussion should be moving toward a vote. Discussion of church history on any committee but the church history committee is punishable by severe beatings.

9. Set a goal for the meeting. Achieve your goal. Adjourn.

10. Lead the meeting, or I will start leading it.
I feel socially awkward asking an old lady “Yes, that thing you’re saying is great, but how does it apply to what we’re doing here?”

But I’d rather be socially awkward than bored.

CC

Things that make CC happy

1. Having sex, then falling asleep in her husband’s arms and staying that way all night.

2. Spending an afternoon at the art museum just wandering. Looking at art for me is a sort of mediation. I start to think about the meaning of creating things and all sorts of other stuff people think humanists don’t think about.

3. Going to her linguist friend’s house in Ohio, which is full of books, then spending a week reading, writing and cooking large meals.

4. Having a long intellectual argument with someone smarter she is and slowly, slowly losing.

5. Going back to the place where she and the CSO used to get pad thai and eating a big plate of it, then savoring the warm spiciness in her mouth all day.

6. Finding a book she has been wanting for years in a used bookstore for three bucks.

7. Doing a really good job on something at work and being everybody’s favorite around the office for a day or two

8. Page ten of the first book she’s ever read by a new favorite author. Normally by then she knows she’s going to read everything the person has ever written. Most recently happened with Elaine Pagels and Carl Hiaasen

9. When the CSO and I are in a public place and a song with a single swing beat (especially Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” which was our wedding song) and we just can’t help dancing and we know we’re the stupid goofy couple that everyone rolls their eyes at but we just can’t help it because it feels so good to be together.

10, Writing something I really like.


Terry Schiavo can do none of those things.

"Nuff said.

CC

CC responds to Peacebang and Fausto

When CC was in high school, she was an editor on the school paper. That paper, as high school papers dom always ran a “senior quotes” edition where the seniors could put in a quotation that inspired them. (CC’s was George Bernard Shaw’s statement “If the world were a perfect place, there would be nothing for us to do.” Tell me she wasn’t a UU in spirit even then.)

Anyway, one girl chose a quote by Richard Nixon. Even better, a quote by Richard Nixon where he wasn’t saying anything very unusual. He was praising the virtues of sticktuitiveness or working hard or something that thousands of other non-Richard Nixon famous people have said.

CC knew this girl and asked her “Um… What’s the deal with Nixon?”

Her response was that she just liked the quote and thought it was true and she didn’t see what the source had anything to do with it. CC said “well, yes, but a lot of people have said that same sort of thing.” And the girl responded that she liked the Nixon version.

Ok, whatever, case closed. The Nixon quote ran, though CC privately thought the girl was pretty silly.


CC does not think that Peacebang is silly. Nor Fausto.

However, she doesn’t see why Peacebang, Fausto and many other intelligent people insist on doing what she sees as a similar thing.

Most of the good stuff in the bible is cliché at this point.

Did it start with the bible? Maybe. Sometimes, probably yes.

But it certainly hasn’t been said by the bible alone.

Now I don’t mind the occasional bible reading, but I don’t think we need to be so upset with ourselves over the fact that all things bible rarely comes up.

After all, I’d say the works of Shakespeare contain as many useful insights as the bible does, with a lot less crazy stuff. (I mean, come on, in Shakespeare, when somebody wants to get a message across to the king, that person goes and talks to the king. They don’t send the angel of death to wipe out the first born children of the king’s entire country.)

God, as I perceive God, is not the God of the bible at all and I find that the bible gives God rather bad press much of the time.

The girl I knew in high school did not have to “assiduously avoid” a quotation by Richard Nixon to use something similar written by someone else.

I don’t think the bible is the only place where insights about humanity taking care of one another and living just lives can be found is the bible and I find myself sort of resenting the implication that I am “preaching the gospel” when I’m talking about love, service and justice.

The Mormons I know seem to have great respect for love, service and justice, yet I suspect that most UUs, UU bloggers included, would take it rather badly to hear that they were “preaching the book of Mormon” because they were expressing the same ideas.

CC

Why I despise Anne Lamott

(This was a response to something on PB's blog, but is really a topic of its own. Not as good a topic as the bible thing, though, so I'm putting it below.)

I found Anne Lammott my senior year in high school when she had a column on Salon. This was back before Salon was even updated daily. When Cintra Wilson wrote for it and hardly anybody was reading it.

Anyway, yes, I loved Operating Instructions and I read it and re-read it until one day it occurred to me what Sam's life is going to be like when they other guys in junior high figure out what "Oedipal" means.

After that, I just couldn't get into her any more and what I've read since has made me grow to dislike her more with time.

If I had a nasty fight with my scumbag brother I wouldn't go and blog about how much he sucks and how miserable I am and why did my parents ever have to have more kids after me.

And if I did blog about that, he could make a blog of his own or try to sue me or do something to defend himself.

Sam had, and has, no such recourse.

Yes, she loves him. But I really think she loves Anne first.

She may have kicked her cocaine habit, but I think it has been replaced by an addiction to hearing how clever and spiritual and wonderful Anne Lamott is and she's just as willing to pimp her son to get a fix as any junkie.

Boy, that is nastily phrased. But I really feel strongly about her and about the kid who is going to have to hear "Oh,I LOVED the time you were sick as a baby and threw up for three days! Your Mom is so BRILLIANT and so BRAVE for admitting she had you accidentally and you made her miserable all the time when you were a baby" his whole life.

Poor bastard.

CC

She who rarely updates speaks

What a bad blogger I am these days, though apparently I’m a good fundraiser. Made $95,000 Wednesday night for someone who isn’t on any particularly impressive committees.

Yay me.

But it’s probably significant, that Peacebang, who started her blog about the same time I started mine, is also in blogging doldrums.


CC

Saving UUism some time

You know how people sometimes join a UU church all bitter and pissy about their fundamentalist upbringing, but you know the minute they walk in the door that they will be here two years tops and then leave again for another (is slightly more liberal) faith with charismatic leaders that will tell them what to do?

We could always just Send them here when they first arrive.


CC
Feeling snarky this morning.

My likes and pet peeves

Check out this weird web comic.

Also, is anybody else completely into Silence of the Lambs? This guy is.

CC

Do patent leather shoes really shine up?

Scott and Peacebang were linking to the websites for their favorite slightly wacky online-marketed products.


My nomination


CC

Blog reviews

Just posted at Coffee Hour


Tom Schade and Fausto are having an interesting exchange about the place of the bible in arguements made by religious liberals. CC plans to weigh it at some point, but hasn't. The Revealer has, though. Returning, too.

Boy In the Bands has a purty new look.

Jess's Journal is a nifty blog that is new to my blogosphere. It looks like she's had a rough week.

Yet another UU Blog has discussions of slumber parties and bookstores.

CC

An Oasis of Normal

Everything is exactly the same at my office. No one has any idea.

It's not that they don't know I'm from McLean and have twin brothers named Oliver and Jason. It's that in an office full of Republicans, people don't read the Post.

CC

Ps. Thanks for the emails, kids.

Front page of the metro section, above the fold

For the record, I was in the Washington Post first. Front page of the style section when a bunch of my high school pals and I picketed a Dan Quayle book signing with signs that said "Dan and Murphy: Can't we all just get along?"

Still, you have to admit, he doesn't do anything halfway.


CC

Momma always said one of us would be famous.

I really don't know what to think about this.


I called the FBI five years ago to report the little bastard's kiddie porn habit.

The CSO and I suspect that this will mean I end up on the stand. I mean, the FBI keeps records, right?

It's funny. She who likes detective stories had followed the search for the BTK killer with relish. Mary-who-dances and I talked on Sunday, comparing the LA Times, the NYT's and Washington Post's coverage. I's thought abiout Raber's daughter giving the police a DNA sample to help them catch her father. My dad's pretty harmless, but I'd always thought I would be quick to do that. You know, to catch a killer? Helps not to be close to one's family, I suppose.

I've called prosecutors trying to help cases against Oliver before.

Right now, I don't know what I feel.

Oh goodness.

CC
Going to the store to pick up the paper. OIiver is on the front page of the metro section.

The accused felt entitled.

As snotty as I am about my brother, it was me who had traffic court this morning. My license plate registration expired at the end of December and between the wedding and Christmas I just hadn’t gotten around to renewing. I got pulled in January.

Even then, the cop asked if I were Oliver Smith’s sister.

I went straight to the DMV and got it taken care of. Now, I don’t know if y’all have been to traffic court before, but the judge rarely considers expired registrations to be his life’s work. If you can show the judge you’ve taken care of the problem, the judge will almost always dismiss the charges.

This morning, I knew my way around the judicial complex without having to ask. After all, I've been there plenty of times before.

I was the only white person without a lawyer.

But this was an angry judge. He demanded a translator for a woman who just had a heavy Spanish accident. A guy who begged to have his car returned didn’t get it because of what sounded like a paperwork snafu. Denied. I thought about how Robertson Davies observed that a train of unhappy events, once set into motion, is almost impossible to check. How many trains of unhappy events sat there in the courtroom with me.

I sat there with my registration in my hand, imagining for a moment that I was Von Berg in “Incident at Vichy,” the papers that would allow my escape in my hand.

Go to jail? No way, I was just visiting.

Two hours after court began, my name was called. I stood at the podium. The judge asked if I had taken care of the problem.

Yes.

I showed the judge and the prosecutor the registration and the case was dismissed.

Tonight, a cop pulled me over to ask if I knew where my brother was.

CC

For those of you who thought being related to a felon was all fun and games

The cops showed up at the house and searched it. Needless to say, it was a mess and the CSO and I are cleaning out of embarassment in case they return.

I told them that if I heard from my brother, I would call them. I think they believed me.

Last night, after hearing that Oliver was about to face more legal trouble, TheCSO and I discussed whether "Oliver's getting arrested!" were the sweetest words in the English language.

After some debate, we settled on "There's a Prize Patrol van in our driveway, and it just ran over Oliver!"

If talking about one's own flesh and blood this way is appalling, you're not related to someone like Oliver, whose crimes include grand theft auto and having romantic tastes that run to fifteen-year-old runaways.

CC
Who is still really sick, still cleaning in spite of that, and way more normal than this post would suggest.

Presbyterians occaisionally rock

CC was raised in this church.


CC

AChoo!

Yes, I'm a bad blogger.

But it is also fundraising season and I'm also sick.

Will post more later, I swear.

CC