Bishops and Bubbles

Bishop Robert Vasa of the Santa Rosa Catholic Diocese (California) has decided that the 200 teachers in his Catholic school system will have to sign an agreement that contraceptives "gravely offend human dignity." About 50 of the teachers involved are not Catholics. 

I doubt if more than 40 of the teachers involved believe that contraceptives are a bad thing. Polls of American Catholic women demonstrate that something like 90% of them have used contraception, following the ancient Catholic dogma that "what the priest doesn't know will not  hurt him." 

As a witness to the 1950s loyalty oath bubble, I advise the teachers to sign the oath immediately. Back in the 1950s the Communists all signed loyalty oaths, of course, and remained employed. Only liberals took the oaths seriously and refused to sign and lost their livelihoods. This brave stand, I am sorry to say, accomplished nothing.

Teachers, do not give up your jobs. Yes, the Bishop, in his staggering foolishness, is forcing the faculty to lie. So much for the person who  might "gravely offend human dignity."  But lying to a dictatorial doofus to keep your family fed is an adult duty, in this country or in China, and one in which you can take pride and even pleasure.

A Dilemma in Afghanistan

 Hamid Karzai, made President of Afghanistan in a rigged election, has barred elite U.S. forces from Maidan Wardak, claiming that they tortured and killed villagers. That leaves us with a difficult decision. If Karzai's charges are true, then American forces should be withdrawn immediately and brought home. Torturers cannot win the hearts and minds of the people. But what if Karzai's charges are false? In that case, we would be insane to put our military at risk to prop up an outrageous liar. Our only course would be to withdraw our forces immediately and bring them home. There you have our dilemma: what to do?

America's Last Newspaper

The Anderson Valley, about 100 miles north of San Francisco as the crow flies, is inhabited sparsely with experts on the Anderson Valley, which I am not. It's 50 miles I storm through on my way to Mendocino. The population is divided between old timers and old hippies, who absolutely hate one another, although I can't tell them apart. The valley is known for several things: marijuana (the cash crop), Boonville (the only town, quite small), and Boontling. Sometime back in the late 1800s, I guess, the inhabitants of Boonville grew so isolated and bored that they invented a new language called Boontling. Some of them still use it. I've heard that the reason it was invented was so that when the young rubes of the Anderson Valley made a trip to a genuine town, Ukiah, for example, they could talk in secret about the physical attributes of the young women they spotted. "Wow, look at the lady. She'd look nice guiding my plow." And so on. But soon the Boonville women caught onto the language and tamed it. Now it gets studied by professors from Berkeley.

More important, Boonville is the home of the ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER, "America's Last Newspaper." And so it is. I suppose the NEW YORK TIMES is a0000 rival, but who would read the Times when he or she could read articles that begin:

1. "Stacey Cryer was swearing her psychic flak jacket as the Supervisors met to discuss the use of the county's veterans' facilities on Novembert 6."  (Followed by a thousand honest words on the heated war between the VFW and Veterans For Peace.)

2. "This I really must respond to you about Mr. Alan Crow. Number one, I am surprised you posted his letter. Alan Crow is 44 years old and just recently my neighbor here in isolation in jail. I shut off all communication back here from him . . . . But he stole money from an old man bank robber. You guessed it--the Point Arena bandit near Caspar, Orlando."  (Followed by a thousand words on what a bottom feeder this fellow is, including, "Mr. Crow has hepatitis C and always asks me if you could feel your liver. Ha ha! Seek a doctor, dude. You are yellow--you look contagious from it and it should be against the law for you to kiss and spread your misery.")

3. "Bones Roadhouse in Gualala is . . .  being bled to death by a vindictive character named Eric Price, who won a fluke judgment against them in the arbitrary courtroom  of Sonoma County  judge  Elliot Daum" (followed by a lengthy and vivid denunciation). 

Imagine an eight-page regular size weekly newspaper, small type, filled with nothing but outrageous indignation, childhood memories, and a scattering of political nuttery. Thrilling reading. America's last newspaper.

Mark Sanford's Sense of Place

I see that former governor Mark Sanford is attempting a comeback. He's running for congress in one of the Carolinas, if he can find his way back to the States. Location is a general concern voters have about Sanford. If you recall, there was a time he believed that he was hiking along the Appalachian Trail when he was actually walking the most elegant streets of Argentina with a high-toned lady. Sanford has attempted to pass this event off as a mistake, but that is not what the term "mistake" means. Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out once that if you gave a man 100 problems in addition and he got all the answers wrong, you would not conclude that he made mistakes. You would conclude that he did not grasp how to add. Sanford is challenged that way--he has no idea which continent he's on or if he is in a city or a wilderness. He might be anywhere. Electing Sanford as your congressional representative would be as unwise as electing an actor as the leader of the Free World.

Counterinsurgency

I'm reading Maddow's book DRIFT, which I assume will be the topic she discusses tonight. Good book on how the Constitution gets ignored and Presidents start wars without Congress. One thing really struck me. She commented on the brilliant Gen. Petraeus's counterinsurgency program. 

"There are no examples in modern history in which a counterinsurgency in a foreign country has been successful." Oops, Gen Petraeus. But never mind. . . .

Post;Racial America

A man named Joe Rickey Hundley from Idaho has been charged in federal court with assault for slapping a 2-year-old boy. It happened on an airplane. As the plane was landing, the change in air pressure made the child cry out in pain. Joe Rickey told the boy's mother to "Shut that (N word) baby up." He then apparently slapped the baby, scratching him below the eye. I don't want to judge Joe Rickey before the trial--I just want to say how gratified I am that America has become post-racial.

The Richard Cohen Solution: MORE WAR!

This morning I opened my paper and saw that columnist Richard Cohen was calling on us to join the civil revolt in Syria. He condemned President Obama for keeping us out of a war.  Cohen was incensed at this slighting of the military-industrial complex, which requires endless and multiple wars. Obama very slowly ended our role in the moronic war in Iraq, and by the end of this year only about 32,000 troops will remain in Afghanistan. Cohen understands that we need new wars to fill the gap. Where, Cohen asks, is our "moral urgency"? Without it, how will we conquer the world? And after we conquer the human world, perhaps we can force a republic on the chimpanzees, and after them, crows in trees can be divided into states with two senators each, and then. . . .

We Used To Be Smarter

We used to be smarter.

Rachel Maddow's book DRIFT begins with a quotation from James Madison.

"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual war."

From "Political Observations," April 20, 1795

No Exit

Many of the concerns I've seen expressed about drones--now in use by 70 nations--don't hold up when you think about them for a few months. Pacifists, who oppose drones, tanks, and aircraft carriers, have a consistent position. Others, not so. Those who believe that we should send a policeman to arrest al Qaida and bring people back for a fair trial would be consistent if they also held that when Hitler declared war on us in 1941 we should have sent a policeman to Berlin to arrest Hitler and bring him back for a fair trial. Those who argue that the President has suddenly acquired too much lethal power might want to consider the special telephone an aide carries beside the President, who can pick up the phone and nuke an entire nation. We might as well face the likelihood that some wars in this century will be fought with robots and fought in any section of the world the two sides can reach. Times change. Methods change. We will need new rules. But in the current predator drone war against al Qaida and the Taliban lurks a huge problem. How will we know if we've won or lost? Will this war continue for 200 years? What is the exit strategy?