Marking Time

It’s hard to know exactly when it happened, but sometime between January and June of 2008, my five-year-old (now six) outgrew most of the post-toddler “kid” shows on Playhouse Disney and PBS, and became a crazed fanatic about Cartoon Network.

It would be easy to blame it on my wife, since she does not share my mistrust of the network itself, and started turning it on for him when I had previously been steering him away from it. But it’s my fault, too. For one thing, I’m doing what we said we would not do: using the tv as a babysitter, to keep him occupied and safe while we try to get other things done (like this damned blog! …which magically turns minutes into hours!). Or rather, his body is safe… his mind may be another matter.

I’m trying to nip it in the bud by setting some time limits, but I fear Pandora may already be out of the box, and my kid’s a budding cartoon junkie. He hasn’t asked  to read a book in months. He blurts out random non-sequitr quotes from unknown shows while we’re riding in the car. He doesn’t want to go outside when it means turning the tv off. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I’m concerned Cartoon Network will make my child into a brilliant idiot.

There are two reasons I don’t like and don’t trust Cartoon Network’s daytime programming:

1. commercials for junkfood, bad toys, and more crap we don’t need but that he will bug us to buy. He’s being groomed as a consumer, and I don’t want the corporate monstrosity that is AOL/Time/Warner reprogramming my child and undoing the good work we’ve done for six years
2. too much ‘toonified violence… watered down, bloodless, but aggressive nonetheless, and pushing values I definitely don’t share. There’s a marked difference between the spirit of conflict between Wile E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner, and the power rays, magic and kung fu of today’s cartoon violence. I can’t always put my finger on it, but something about most of the current “drama” and adventure ‘toons just seems to rub me the wrong way as a parent and a pacificist-leaning Christian. Plus it’s mostly just bad… badly written, badly drawn, badly acted. For example, I won’t willingly let Graham watch Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs until he’s 17… but when he does see it, I want to be the one to show him how good movie and tv-makers can do up violence and double-crossing with great intelligence, humor and style, instead of the cartoonish hollowness and CGI flashiness of The Incredible Hulk.

Just as an experiment, though, let’s switch on Tuesday morning’s Cartoon Network offerings for awhile and see what we get:

7:56am   Ben 10  is just wrapping up. Or is it Ben Ten: Alien Force. I don’t know. There are two current series featuring the same characters, and I think Ben 10 is Graham’s new favorite show. He clearly idolizes Ben, who is ten. (How’d you guess? No wait –on Alien Force, Ben is 15. I’m confused now.) It’s not bad overall. Fairly innocent, with today’s villain being a midget hypnotist who wants all the people at the mall to rob the cash registers and bring him cash. Ben has some wristband thing with a button he can push to transform himself into other entities, like Fireball Guy, or Plant Guy. Silly, but not all that different from the animated adventure/superhero stories that formerly appeared only on Saturday mornings or after school. The downside: I put on Playhouse Disney as Little Einsteins was wrapping up today, and Graham howled, “No! I don’t like this show anymore!” It used to be his favorite. Poor innocent little glasses-wearing Leo, cast aside in favor of one of the “cool kids”, complete with a shape-shifting gizmo and a preteen’s smart-aleck attitude.

7:59am        Wedgies. I had neither seen nor heard about this show until just moments ago. Oh wait, I see – it’s only a little bumper, a time-filler, a 1-2 minute mini-toon called Flapjack. Maybe these pilot-y sorta things are called Wedgies ’cause they’re wedged between two other shows. And unless I miss my guess, that’s Brian Doyle-Murray I hear voicing one of the two featured Flapjack characters. Brian is Bill Murray’s older brother. He’s a fairly decent, funny actor in his own right. But apparently nowadays, in an era where scripted tv comedy is third in the pecking order, behind hourlong dramas and semi-scripted reality tv, A-list character actors like Brian have to take what they can get. That means voicing car commercials (Matt Dillon is the current voice of one of the major car companies), or little wedged-in bumpers, or cartoons, just to keep working steady. (Brian’s done some Sponge Bob, some Disney tv stuff, a wide range… his scratchy voice is good for cartoons.) It used to be that movie actors (I think) did this type of work on the side, for fun, or after their biggest career successes were well in the rear-view mirror. But with increased competition, for fewer on-camera jobs, I’ve noticed more and more recognizable actors slogging away on cartoons. Take the PBS show Cyberchase, for example. It has two: Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future’s Dr. Emmett Brown) and Gilbert Gottfried (better known as a stand-up comedian, and for that aggressively annoying voice). Now maybe these two actors actually like working on a quality show that subtly builds math skills into the plotlines. And I know Mr. Lloyd has done stage work on and off for years as well. But part of me can’t help but wonder if the less expensive, less creative, tenement-style programming that is reality tv is the main reason that cartoons have become the bread-and-butter for a whole class of actors now. Meanwhile, have you looked at most of the crap that passes for live-action network sitcoms aimed at 18 to 32-year-olds these days? Big Bang Theory ? Puh-leeease!

8am      Johnny Test - (Not to be confused with Jonny Quest, for all you old-schoolers out there.) I’ve only popped my head in and watched partial episodes, but when I did watch, Johnny Test had a time machine. This is an old trick: it gives the writers permission to put their own goofy spin on thousands of years of human history. Now Graham will probably think Atilla the Hun was just a scowling ham of an actor with a beard and a clearly un-American look, unlike the dashing, blond and ironic hero, feisty little Johnny T.

8:30am    missed it - TVGuide.com says it was Skunk Fu! - probably typical of the snarky, hugely ironic and self-referential nature of entertainment in the Oughts. Everything’s a lefthanded rip-off of something else…

9am    Tom & Jerry Blast Off to Mars. A feature-length movie, produced by TBS cable network. Actually, Ted Turner and/or AOL/Time/Warner (owners of Cartoon Network) own alot of those old cartoon franchises now. When Cartoon Network first started it was mostly just an outlet for a wide range of those shows I grew up with, like the Hannah-Barbera stuff. (Now , CN shows alot of original and syndicated programming, some of which is imported, much of which is crap that definitely will not stand the test of time.) I blogged about this once, in the context of a discussion on Scooby Doo’s staying power. Meanwhile back here at the ranch, Graham just saw that Tom and Jerry were on, and got very excited. I was gratified that at least two of the more “classic” characters and situations strike his fancy as much as, if not more than, the Pokemons and Ben Tens of the cartoon universe.

Long live Bugs Bunny, Felix the Cat and Fred Flintstone!

Graham’s been taking a swimming class this summer, through the Skokie Park District. The district’s park and services were rated among the tops in the nation, and it’s a really nice perk about living here.

He’s doing pretty well in class, though he has a bad case of nerves sometimes when first getting into the pool. He’s six. It’s understandable. Plus, unlike me, he’s not a jump-in-headfirst kind of guy. Which is fine… a little innate cautiousness ought to keep him from doing too many of the dumbass things his non-cautious dad did (and still does).

But the odd thing for me, when I look at him during class, is how absolutely WHITE he looks. Part of it is the genes: he’s fair-complected, like my wife (whereas I’m half-Italian, and thus have some of that olive-toned Mediterranean melanin in my skin). But the main reason he stands out is that he’s literally the only caucasian student, in a class of about twelve or fourteen kids.

His teenage teachers –most of them probably members of the high school swim team– are all white. But Graham’s fellow students are all various shades of brown: Indian, Mexican, Israeli, Chinese, Uzbek (Uzbeki?), Persian — who knows?!!! Skokie’s such a diverse melting pot of a town, one gets used to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of mindset.

Not that I mind Graham being the only child of full European descent in class. I actually rather like it that my son has an opportunity at an early age that I did not have, to get used to the “browning” of the entire planet and the blending of its cultures. Maybe he’ll eventually come to “not see race”, as our pal Stephen Colbert playfully boasts he’s able to do. (”Oh, are you black? I didn’t know…”)

I grew up in a fairly lilywhite, newish suburb, where my upperclass Cuban friend Raul, whose father was a physician, qualfied as my one minority friend. He said “Ciao” instead of goodbye, his family spoke Spanglish in their home, but in dozens of other ways he was passing for white… or better yet playing up or down his ethnicity as it suited him. I don’t blame him, either. “It’s hard out there for a pimp”, as they say. 

Raul got married to Kelly, a stereotypical “white” girl in many ways (and I don’t mean that in either an insulting or celebratory way) from the richer part of town. Raul then went on to become an immigration lawyer, and as far as I know, they and their blended children are living a happy, culturally-blended existence in or near that same suburb where I grew up. I don’t know why he made all these choices, and it’s not for me to say, anyway. Yet why didn’t he become a corporate lawyer, instead of an immigration lawyer? Perhaps he chose to buck some of the cultural expectations of the environment and cultural heritage he came out of, even as he embraced others. Sometimes you just gotta pick a lane and move forward.

My point (now that I’m finally getting to it) is simply this: that awareness of one’s difference within a certain context can build character, and develop a sense of ownership about one’s background. It also gives ample opportunity for appreciation of people from other backgrounds. If everyone around Graham looked and acted too much like him, he might not be challenged as much to think about concepts like “privelege” and “nationality”. But instead, he’s internalizing these concepts in swim class, without even realizing it. He’s swimming and going to school and going grocery shopping in an environment where the business and politics of the world get played out right here in his own town now and then.

For instance, Graham knows what a mango is. (I’m absolutely certain I didn’t know this when I was six.) He’s partial to apples, grapes and strawberries, though. (How Northern European of him…) Thus, in the strange, multi-flavored stew that is modern America, he’s the potato.

Or maybe he’s the sweet potato, because he’s really sweet and kind and unprejudiced, which is a great gift. Plus… sweet potatoes are just more interesting than plain old white ones. And we all know how essential it is to be interesting, right?

“Here’s looking at you, Dad.”

I know that –as Humphrey Bogart/Rick Blaine said in Casablanca– my problems “don’t amount to a hill of beans” in the context of wars, floods, earthquakes and supermodel Kate Moss’ hair extension malfunction. But the problems are real enough to me, and thus the truest reporting I can do (at least while sitting in a comfy cafe eating biscuits and gravy… I mean, I’m EMBEDDED here, people).

There was supposed to be an 8am tee-ball game at the “big field” today (Sunday) –with a P.A. announcer, teams lining up on the baselines while being introduced, and kosher hot dogs being sold (at 8am?). I looked forward to the whole baseball-fest pageantry – the older kids would follow, getting the same treatment. But it started pouring at about 7:55, and the games (or at least ours) were canceled.

Happy Frickin’ Father’s Day: up at 6:30 for NOTHING!

So I went to breakfast… alone, since Sue dislikes restaurants (and breakfast), and Graham already had a Pop Tart before the rainout. Dropped them off, then found out that Prairie Joe’s, my favorite breakfast joint, isn’t open till 9am on Sundays. Had to settle for Le Peep… this shee-shee (chi-chi?) place in Evanston with no character and middlin’ food. It was packed, especially with grinning dads out to breakfast with their families, and in some cases even the grandparents. Made me feel even more rained-upon.

By most accounts, when they were making the movie Casablanca, it was a mess not unlike my spoiled Father’s Day morning. They had multiple writers trying to clean up the story, Ingrid Bergman was a no-name actress still learning English, some actual WWII events changed the plot midstream, and it was not expected even by the filmmakers to be the classic that it became. Nevertheless, I didn’t hold out much hope that my Father’s Day would improve (and it really didn’t). Maybe I should have brought in a few more writers to clean up the plot: get Sue and Graham to join me for breakfast, have a great breakthrough at church, watch Casablanca together on DVD at night — that sort of thing. Oh well…

Sunday marked the third major event for me affected by excessive rainstorms this spring. The first two were at school: the Peace March for which we’d spent months preparing, and Field Day, where multi-age groupings compete for school bragging rights in relay races, Tug of War, and other events. That one got moved from a Friday to a Monday due to the storm. But the CMLC Peace March was just scaled back to a pathetic little parade around the gym– a complete waste of the attention-getting costumes, signs, and choreographed chants I taught the kids. I was quietly crushed, though I put on a brave face. (A metaphor for how most of the school year went, by the way…)

They say everything happens for a reason. My faith and perseverence notwithstanding, what could possibly be God’s reason for raining on every celebration I had a leadership role in this year? Yeah, I know: it’s not all about me, His rain falls on the just and the jerky alike, but my patience is getting pretty thin by now — enough to turn me kind of jerky.

In Casablanca, Rick and Ilsa would “always have Paris”. Meanwhile, what do I have to look back on fondly in the first six months of 2008, in this Father’s Day war of dampened spirits?

It never fails. I watch a great political movie like Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl (or Blood Diamond with Leo DiCaprio, or Syriana with Matt Damon and George Clooney), and I’m immediately inspired to do something. The courage and grace of French/Cuban journalist Mariane Pearl (as seen in this Oprah interview), during and in the aftermath of her American journalist husband Daniel Pearl’s murder in 2002 Pakistan, demands nothing less than some kind of concrete nonviolent action. I can’t watch these compelling stories strictly as passive entertainment. “I have to do something!”, I always end up saying.

And then it hits: the feelings of powerlessness, the frustration, even self-loathing; the sense that I’m a little dustmite, an annoying mosquito in the drawers of the powers that be. What can I, of all people, do?

Furthermore, what makes me think I have anything to say that anyone could want to hear, or any skills that are of use in the struggle against such powerful and entrenched warmongers? I’m just a pathetic little schoolteacher. I’m a blogger with a readership of about 12, most of whom probably feel as powerless as I feel, otherwise why would they be mucking about here on the internet instead of out in the streets actually doing something. (Yeah, why ARE you here, by the way? I never had the guts to ask before…)

But those feelings of powerlessness are exactly what the enemies of peace and justice want us to feel. That, and fear, are what keep the downtrodden down, and what keep the genuinely powerful but woefully misled majority silent. Therefore, refusing to give in to those feelings of apathy and fear is the first and most essential step in taking victory away from the perpetrators of violence, in dulling the power of the sword (and the bulldozer, in the violence they would do to our planet). This step does not bring me much closer to knowing what I can do to help, but it at least gets me out of that comfy little foxhole/prison they would have me fall asleep in.

Besides, where are the streets anymore? Does protest actually matter? Are these the streets, these electronic alleyways lined with dirty windows, through which we see silly dressed-up kittens, old instructional video footage of James Brown teaching us to dance the boogaloo and funky chicken, and dumpster upon dumpster filled with porn?

In a media-saturated society, it’s easy to shut down, to screen out, to remove ourselves from all this trivia and complicated mess that surrounds us. Yet we can do something else, from right where we are. We do it through real relationships, with real people, out living real life. The “streets that have no name” lead to our churches, our neighborhoods, our schools, our families. We can talk straight, do what we can to educate those whom we see every day, and hope that some of it sticks.

And yes, the Internet is The Street also. Furthermore, it’s as powerful a tool for doing good as it is for spreading, um, …fertilizer. We can use it to stay informed, or to publicize important information so that others are better equipped. We can donate money to some inspired project, like musician Peter Gabriel’s work with WITNESS providing hundreds of video cameras all over Europe, Africa and Asia, to document human rights abuses and bring to light what most abusers would prefer remain in darkness.

And last but not least, we can cry out ourselves –here in our little cul-de-sac blogs and boutiques of opinion– believing that if even one more person is saved (in body or spirit) by our dozens of attempts, by our refusal to stop caring, then we’ve done what we could, and it was good enough.

Or, …we can choose to go where the action is. For example, today I went to Jesus Manifesto and found out that its founder/editor Mark VanSteenwyck is joining with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Which means he’ll soon be putting his own ass on the line to keep local journalists, lawyers, human rights workers and labor organizers safe, in one of the dozens of war zones throughout the world. Mark is a young man with a new baby… a baby he cares enough about to try remaking the world into a safer place for him to grow up in. Furthermore, Mark trusts Jesus with his life, and that of his family.

In Colombia, Palestine, Congo, Iraq, and other conflict zones, hundreds of regular Joes and Janes on Christian Peacemaker Teams act not as soldiers, uninvolved journalists or security contractors but as friends, layman ambassadors, and prayer warriors. They accompany the powerless. They teach conflict resolution. They are patriotic but peace-loving, believing it is just as important to change the hearts and minds of combatants on both sides as it is to preserve the lives of the oppressed, those caught in the middle of it all. As Westerners (mostly American and Canadian Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers, with a few Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians and “Other” thrown in for balance) these teams really do show a Power to the People kind of courage and hope. They walk in the Spirit. They keep the conversation going, with the local Joachims and Juanas, while huge nation-states and mindless terrorist organizations prove every day that the way of the gun only results in more confusion and violence.

In Iraq Tom Fox, a CPT human rights worker, lost his life in the midst of that confusion and senseless violence. Tom was one of four CPT members kidnapped in March 2006. Though his colleagues were rescued, Tom was not so fortunate. But the witness that he presented to the world had an impact, and the CPT work in Iraq continues even now.

Last year, I met somebody here in Chicago who knew Tom Fox, who told me about something else Tom had done. There was a working collective of painters and artists in Baghdad that Tom had contacts with, and he acted as a go-between, helping set up channels for some of their remarkable and accomplished paintings to get out of Iraq. Those paintings are still coming over, to the Iraqi Art Gallery here in Chicago, in the Rogers Park neighborhood. This is not far from Living Water Community Church, where my own church (Reba Place) did a church plant in the early 1990s. The nonprofit’s director and curator, Chuck Trimbach (a former colleague of filmmaker Harold Ramis), is still plugging along after three years. But in the present political and economic climate he’s got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel by now. And it’s a shame, because the paintings are both excellent and affordable. More importantly, the artists who get the lion’s share of the profits need help, now more than ever.

Meanwhile in Iran, Mennonite delegations are practically the only Westerners that their president and more moderate religious leaders are willing to talk to or trust. And in a context of trust, even a controversial message (like “stop denying that the Holocaust occurred”) can be delivered face-to-face, which is precisely what those delegations have done. (“Speak the truth in love,” Jesus said. Right?) I know some folks, including my friend Dr. Tom Finger, who participated in these talks.

So I may never get to the front lines. But this is 2008. This is the internet. This is the worldwide church, established and empowered by Christ, which knows no national boundaries, and continues to dismantle the artificial boundaries of denominational division. This is the small world that they kept telling us was on its way. The battle lines keep moving, and they get more blurry every day. The battle to uncover and stand upon the truth is one we are all called to. So come on out of that foxhole now. We’re gonna need some help. Besides, you won’t be alone.

A hodgepodge tonight:

1. Graham was reading over the Cubs’ season schedule in the kitchen tonight. He doesn’t get the concept of an abbreviation yet. So here’s his creative interpretation of the teams they’re playing. See how many you can guess (see key below):

still, kin, pit, Hugh, lad, cool, fleadh, mill, alt- , tab, cues…

2. Quote of the day: “Nouns are overrated.”

Stated by my lovely but highly stressed wife, in response to my request for a noun, after she fumbled around for the right word for about 30 seconds before recalling it:

“We still have to find the — the thing, so we can pay the thing. You know… the bill thing!”

BTW- the overrated noun was “property tax bill”.

3. Q.O.D. Runner up: “Sue, thanks for falling on your sword.” Stated by a coworker of Sue’s after a very contentious meeting, to discuss this year’s big-ass controversy. (Every year has its own controversy, one of the main reasons she’s leaving…)

4. Graham and I took advantage of the heavy rain tonight to do some much needed puddle-jumping. If you can’t get all soaking wet with a kindergartener (and your dog), well then you’re taking it all too seriously, people. We even played a round of Pooh Sticks with the rain running through the gutter toward the sewer grate.

5. Earlier in the week, in honor of Earth Day, Graham and I planted some basil and a pine cone seed in the garden. Today, he asked if we could go see if anything had grown yet. Ah, to be so young and naive…

6. Graham asked on the way home from the libary if we could ever run out of letters or numbers. I said no. Then he asked what the biggest number is. I said googol. Then he asked how you write it. I said g-o-o-g-o-l. “No, how do you write the numbers!” I explained that nobody had ever written the whole number, because it would take to long. Theoretical math, for a five-year-old. (He’s kind of into negative integers, too… seriously.)

Cubs’ opponents key:

St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Houston, L.A. Dodgers, Colorado, Florida, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Chicago White Sox

As promised, some numbers that reveal the best and worst of American culture and politics this week:

In honor of Earth Day :

1.5 million tons of plastic bottles were disposed of in America in 2005. That number has only gone up, and still only a third of those bottles are recycled. Water bottles in particular are an unnecessary burden to the earth… in other words, get a cup and drink from the tap whenever you can. Many bottled brands now come from a tap somewhere else, anyway. (Source: The Chicago Reader)

$306 billion: the amount it will now cost to clean up the U.S. military’s nuclear waste. It will take until at least the year 2062 to complete. (Source: Harry Shearer’s Le Show)

Consumer food prices are expected to rise 3.0% to 4.0% this year [in the U.S.] after a 4% gain in 2007, said USDA Chief Economist Joseph Glauber.

40% : Rise in the price of grain over the past year. Average loaf of bread went up about 30 cents this week, therefore. And if you think it’s bad here, try shopping in an occupied territory. [" A box of milk for 65 Shekels... thats about $21.50 ." - this price quote comes from Palestine...]  The best plan of attack for grocery shopping in the U.S. is to 1) buy locally, through community sources like farmer’s markets, or 2) to only buy what’s on sale at the regular stores, and buy it in bulk. Then use it up over the month, and wait for it to come back on sale again.

Dinner out for two adults & one kid at Outback Steakhouse, with one appetizer and one side dish. No drinks. No tip. (Curbside pickup.) : $50.48 . (And the guilt over paying that much for one meal left a very bitter aftertaste.)

$3.51: Average regular gasoline price this week in the U.S., according to AAA Motor Club. Up 25 cents from last month. (I saw a $3.99 in Chicago yesterday.)

Other numbers (some thrilling, though most of them frustrating):

Iraq body counts:  (Source: Antiwar.org and JustForeignPolicy.org)

Iraqi deaths: 1,199,782

(This does not include 29,000+ non-fatal injuries on the U.S. military side, nor the lower but still ridiculous 494 deaths in Afghanistan, which along with Pakistan is getting worse instead of better as we focus on Iraq.)

Chicago streets, body count – April 19-20, 2008: 32 shootings, 6 of which resulted in homicides. In one case, an AK-47 was used. They’re even picking this AP story up way out in Oregon.

Regarding the primary in Pennsylvania: Figures released in March by the state show Pennsylvania Democrats have added more than 65,000 voters since last fall — almost 2 percent of the party’s total statewide registration of 3.8 million . (Most folks believe that this is due to independents and Obamicans registering as Democrats… though a few people have warned us about Rush Limbaugh’s suggestion that Republicans should change affiliations temporarily and put Hillary over the top, just to screw up the Dems’ numbers.) [Source: Real Clear Politics]

13-6, 11-7,  14-7 : The major league baseball records of the Cubs, White Sox, and Red Sox, respectively. All are in first place as of this writing. (Is this baseball heaven?)

In honor of TV Tune-Out Week this week:

March 24-30th tv ratings: American Idol: 24.7 million on Tuesday 3/24 (20.1 on Thursday) . WWE RAW : 4.9 million, making it #4 on cable, behind Sponge Bob, a Lifetime movie, and Rock of Love.

Meanwhile, Frontline’s excellent documentary “Bush’s War” (running March 24 and 25 in two parts) pulled around a 4 million Nielsen rating (big for PBS in general, but probably tiny compared to the lame but heavily-promoted expose`  style programs done by the networks, such as Primetime Live). Online, on the other hand, after the PBS broadcast, Bush’s War gathered another 1.5 million hits at the PBS/Frontline website, ten times what most of their other shows usually get. Apparently people have not entirely bought this whole “the surge is working” propaganda frenzy.

Marking Time Meta (also known as shameless self-promotion) :

On the WordPress side of this blog, I have now written 173 posts, fitting into 47 categories, using 156 different tags. The MySpace side (same content usually) is older, with more total hits still, but it gets fewer hits each day, probably because the search engines don’t like MySpace as much.

And as for my own Nielsen ratings, here are my WordPress blog stats as of this writing:

Total Views: 14,480

Best Day Ever: 176 — Thursday, March 13, 2008

Views today: 69

FYI - that top viewing day last month was when I ran a link to the MySpace Music page of former New York governor Elliot Spitzer’s famous hooker, Alexandra Whatchamablowjob. Proof positive that in the online universe, sex still sells better than anything else. After that, death sells pretty well, too — as in the death of Charlton Heston ( if the large number of hits I’m getting this week for my Planet of the Dopes column is any indication).

Sex, Death and God. The three things we’re not supposed to talk about in polite company…

…but for me, almost the only things worth talking about at all…

Those of you who have followed Marking Time since its inception in the summer of 2006 –all two of you– will recall that when I began, I had Lebanese actor Tony Shalhoub (as tv detective Adrian Monk) up here as my background photo. Although I do like that show, it was really the tangential monastic tie-in that caused me to use that figure as a starting point.

The monkish tradition has long been of interest to me. Having grown up Roman Catholic, I was occasionally exposed to the practices and history of the Benedectines, the Trappists, and the Franciscans. (Plus there were all those cute molded, cement St. Francis statues I saw around in people’s gardens.) Then when I experienced a deepening of my faith through various Protestant ministries as an adult, I kind of put the whole monastic thing on hold, for a little while. But I did not, nor have I ever, thrown out my past or present experience with Catholics and monks as invalid or incomplete.

If anything, the message and methods of the “first church” have continued to be a voice that keeps me rooted, occasionally calling me back across the bridge to spend some time with my ancestral teachers, brothers and sisters. The consistent Roman Catholic application of the gospel to problems of social justice, for example, inspire me to make more radical choices in how I follow Jesus’ lead as a peacemaker and prophet of pain.

Thus, while wandering around some of my favored internet neighborhoods this morning (most notably the Potter Street Community/Simple Way site, featuring noted author Shane Claiborne), I clicked through to a blog maintained by some members of Psalters, a punkish, gypsy, neo-granola, somewhat monastic (but mostly Protestant?) music group that has been turning heads for a few years now. What really turned my head today was a section of the blog about their tour of Turkey. Here’s an excerpt:

Just east of there we found the oldest monastery in the world, Mar Gabriel.   Founded in 397a.d. it housed a large library and some 2000 monks as recently as the 1960’s.   Now there are 3 monks and a handful of others left to care for the several large buildings.   We met with the Bishop to see if there was a way we could build a relationship with the church here in America and perhaps in some way help.   Bishop Samuel Aktash, with a full beard and robes, … was a kind and resolute man but with the countenance of the heavy burdened and worn down.   For most of our questions, including our offers to help, he kind of just shrugged and said, “hmm” or “i don’t know”….his answers and manner conveyed more of a solemn perseverance that seemed to fall short of actual Hope.   They speak Aramaic (the language of Jesus) yet are banned from teaching the language to anyone.   They are “permitted” to be Christian, but are not allowed to share it.   At one point he told us, “you have heard the great stories of the martyrs.   Here we are not killed anymore, but we are not allowed to live.   We as a people are being made a museum like this monastery.   We are living martyrs.”

I will not add comment, as the words speak for themselves. The Spirit will break your heart as He/She sees fit. Suffice it to say we should pray for the minority Christians in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and throughout the Mesopotamian region that gave birth to what we now call civilization. Our Western churches have their roots there, especially in Turkey, whether we like it or not.

Some of the current groups, like Psalters, that now carry forward the values and commitment inherent in the monastic tradition will be gathering this summer for the PAPA Festival (People Against Poverty & Apathy), in the little central Illinois town of Tiskilwa. Intentional Christian communities, activists, gardeners, and neo-hippies from around the country will gather at PAPAfest for music, prayer, workshops and other creative endeavors, building a temporary village and a big home-made happening, all to explore the living out of these ancient but still relevant monastic values. (I may be doing a workshop there, …just now starting to look into it.) I think it’s going to be a bit like the progressive Christian version of the Burning Man Festival. But attendance is capped at 1000 people, so don’t go spreading the word about it unless you’re serious about coming and absolutely have to drag a few friends along. The website and other details are still in-process, but registration begins next week.

For a U.S. monastery that functions as both a museum and a high-functioning religious pilgrimage site, take a look at Thomas Merton’s old Kentucky abbey, Gethsemani. Established in 1852, it’s a Cistercian (Trappist) abbey, and one of the grand old dames of prayer and peace-producing action in America. Merton’s hermitage is there, and they host retreatants of any and all religious persuasions, so it’s got both educational and spiritual possibilities for those of you looking to explore the field further.

I will move on now to a few other somewhat random links to matters monastic:

In Three Rivers, Michigan, there’s a modest little Episcopal abbey and retreat center called St. Gregory’s Abbey. Although I have never done an overnight there, I have visited for a few hours, sat in on their vespers prayers in the architecturally amazing chapel, and walked the grounds a bit. I also have friends who have done some truly life-changing retreats there. If you live anywhere in the northeastern Illinois or Michiana regions, it is a nice getaway for both personal and small group retreat experiences. If you live elsewhere, look into whether a monastery near you offers either silent or guided retreats. There’s bound to be one nearby, but they like to hide, like the hermits in caves that taught them everything they needed to know.

Heading in another, admittedly odd direction, I’m also a fan of the old monastic tradition of making wine and other “spirits”. My favorite liquer, for example, is Frangelico, a woundrous Italian monk-brewed concoction of hazelnut and spices that you never forget once you taste it. In August of ‘06, in a Marking Time blog on gardening and grape-growing, I had this to say about Frangelico:

(I call it “angel drool”, and I have it on good authority that it’s the one alcohol, besides wine, of which Yahweh fully approves.)

Similarly, my favorite winemakers are the people of Franciscan Oakville Estates in California. Disclaimer: the irony of this fancy, slightly expensive, non-religious winery and website pimping the name of the original “simple living” monk is not lost on me. Nevertheless, their Cabernet Sauvignon is a very good wine, and we all gotta make a living, right? So I’ll forgive them their excesses. Maybe they donate all the profits to the poor. (Yeah, right…)

So look around! Monks are not a thing of the past. They’ve just changed how they dress, and where they live. They’re still alive and well, mostly. May their witness and their radical love endure forever.

Never Forget: A 2001 pit dug on the coast of Prince William Sound, revealing substantial oil remains in the sediment from the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Congress Has Big Questions for Big Oil

By H. JOSEF HEBERT – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top executives of the five biggest American oil companies say they know consumers are feeling the pain of high gasoline prices. But at a congressional hearing, they deflected any blame, and they argued that their profits — $123 billion last year — were in line with other industries.

The lawmakers were scheduled to hear from top executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, which together earned about $123 billion last year because of soaring oil and gasoline prices.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., noting the hearing was being held on April Fool’s Day, said, “The biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil.” The national average cost of gasoline was hitting a record $3.29 cents a gallon.

Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister said in remarks prepared for the hearing that he knows “these cost increases are hitting consumers hard.” But Hofmeister and executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhillips rejected that their profits are extreme.

I heard tape of part of a CEO’s counter-argument on the Stephanie Miller’s radio show yesterday. They say that condsidering their tax burdens, they made no real profit at all in the U.S. last year, but actually lost money. Hey! How’s that for creative accounting?

Then I thought Wait, what are the real implications of that idea? Even if it’s partially true, it may explain why the Senate has refused to eliminate the tax breaks and other subsidies that these private companies still enjoy, in record numbers. Think about it: if Big Oil is a source of big tax revenue, and if more profit for them means more tax money for your state, or the feds, then why would a Senator want to go and bite the hand that feeds them? Why regulate a cash-cow industry that makes the government tons of cash?

Because it’s YOU AND ME paying those nearly $4 a gallon gas prices, that’s why. The oil companies are just passing their tax burdens along to us in the form of higher prices!

Here’s another fascinating tidbit from the AP article:

“Oil company profits in total dollar amounts are huge because the companies are huge and must be so to go up against giant multinational competitors in a global market”, [oil lobbyist] American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney said during a conference call with reporters.

Now let’s consider this. Just who are these multinational competitors of which Red speaks? (And why am I not surprised this guy has such a tacky nickname?) Um. Let’s see. There’s Shell, which is an international company with roots in Holland, but a presence here, especially in New Orleans. There’s British Petroleum (formerly Amoco… can’t get a more American name than that…). There’s Exxon Mobil, which just last week signed a partnership agreement with Malaysia’s national oil company and government, so they could drill offshore and have access to that countries substantial untapped oil resources. So… sounds pretty much like these American companies are mostly competing WITH THEMSELVES, and then complaining they have to set prices at the level that the free market determines. Except it’s not a true free market, as we can see clearly above. It’s arbitrary and subsidized and dirty and corrupt and utterly unjust.

Even sharp Republicans, like Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, are getting the picture: that something is seriously out of whack here. But still, they’re dragging their feet. So write your senators, people. Get them to fix this before we all get coated in Big Oil’s disgusting black ooze, and sucked down to the bottom of Prince William Sound along with those poor ducks and sea otters.

That right wing tool and well-known moron Geraldo was on The Colbert Report last night, and I’m hopping mad. (See me hopping? Proves that white men actually CAN jump.)

What pisses me off is that Geraldo made some good points about how neo-conservatives have successfully demonized Hispanics in the U.S. And I just hate agreeing with Geraldo. Make no mistake: he’s still an idiot, a fake tv journalist, and a right-wing tool. He just happens to be on-target this month.

As someone who is used to thinking of Geraldo as the embedded “journalist” who stupidly gave away (on CNN!) the movements of some U.S. troops in the early days of the Iraq war, I’m not inclined to actually *read* the book. But if it gets people talking about the reality of Hispanics in today’s political climate, and in the U.S. economy overall, then I’m in favor of him promoting it. It’s just really annoying that it took Geraldo of all people, writing a book, for the rest of us to sit up and take notice. I’d much rather it were Ray Suarez of PBS (the Jim Lehrer News Hour). Or Bill Richardson, the centrist Democrat who just happens to be part Mexican.

But Richardson didn’t do so well in the primaries, nor would he even if Obama and Clinton had *not* been running. Because the gringo majority in America simply is not ready for the “browning” of the American complexion. We’re playing catch-up, and in complete denial about it. The way Geraldo put it last night, conservative and even mainstream rhetoric has blamed just about everything on the influx of illegal immigrants: crime rates, disease, the failing economy, sexual immorality — you name it, it’s mostly the Mexicans’ fault, according to powerful media types like Lou Dobbs, or pandering politicians from Colorado to Pennsylvania.

It’s all “brown vs. white” to middle America, which wouldn’t recognize *classism* (which is what this actually is) if they were hit in the head with it (which they are, regularly) . But they can recognize race at the drop of a hat. And if white’s going to win, then brown has to lose.

Trouble is, who is even “white”? And does it matter anymore? It took 200 years of steady immigration to build this nation, providing hardworking laborers and valuable perspectives – people and views that a bunch of scared citizens suddenly want to throw out now. And the racial/religious aspects of everything that has happened since Sept. 11, 2001 are the real issues here, not the growth of the Latino population within our borders. The economic and security-related stuff about Hispanics is all smokescreen, so that we won’t talk about the changing landscape worldwide. Because that’s too sticky a subject to talk honestly about in America.

The Hispanic community here is not one monolithic entity, either. As I write this, for example, I am sitting in a private, urban school filled with Hispanic kids. In my third grade group: six Latinos, one black, zero whites. It’s a function of the neighborhood, so the distribution is probably pretty close to the same in the area’s public schools. True, these are not the children of lawyers, CPAs, or bankers. But they’re good kids, and there’s a lot of them all over America, and most importantly they were *born* here. They’re Americans, no less than I am.

Way back when, in about 1999, my first web-published article was about the U.S. being a nation of immigrants. It was in a little San Francisco-based e-zine called Tweak, which has not published much new material of late, but still exists and has some fine interviews and humor. My article was about the last big immigration wave, when my Irish and Italian ancestors came over. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, click above and read it for yourself sometime.

Or go read Geraldo’s book instead. It might be okay. Even if it isn’t, can we at least agree not to “panic” about the Hispanics? There are better solutions to our problems than scapegoating one ethnic group.

As promised, a quick review today of some fairly current facts and opinions about bioethics. The main focus of this post is medicine and infertility (and its sister-issue stem cell research). However, it is clear that further discussion is needed in other areas as well – including but not limited to:

the role of government in the conduct of medicine and research as industries,

the role of pharmaceutical companies in all medical fields,

the ethics and hard choices in end-of-life issues,

the regulation of genetic engineering in plants and animals,

scientific method and safety, especially in relation to our food supply.

*** *** ***

First off, nothing like a few juicy statistics to get the ball rolling:

Amgen, a for-profit biotechnology corporation founded in 1980, generated over $13 billion in revenues during 2006.

In 2002, 10% of all U.S. women of child-bearing age had made at least one infertility-related doctor visit in the past; 2-3% had visited in the past year.

Americans spend $4 billion a year on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), or an average of $12,400 per infertile couple, yet still the field offers just a one-in-three chance of success. [So the question is: what are the other 2/3 actually buying, and should it be it legal to sell such a thing as "hope"?]

In 1989, just 30,000 assisted births were recorded worldwide. By 2002, the number had climbed to 200,00 –a sevenfold increase. If that growth rate continues (and if reported infertility continues to rise, as it has steadily since the mid-1960s), then by 2009 the number of ART births each year could top out at around 375,000 per year, or almost 9% of all births in the U.S.

That’s a lot of people, and alot of money. Now that we’ve seen the numbers, though, let’s back off and calm down a bit. It should be noted that not all assistance can be defined as using “test tube baby” methodology, or other expensive, invasive processes. In vitro fertilization, embryo placement in surrogate mothers, and other more expensive, invasive, and ethically thorny procedures are still less common, and only used when less extreme methods are ineffective. Though fertility drugs are not cheap, they are still the preferred method of treatment for infertile couples.

Furthermore, scientific advances, and better success rates (using more ethical, embryo-friendly methods) are making ART less of an ethical or philosophical issue, and more of an economic one. That would not end the debate, just shift it toward the purview of insurance companies, politicians, and the medical/business community, moreso than churches or the general population.

But we should still prepare ourselves for the debate to continue for several generations, as well it should. For example: according to a study published in the journal Nature in August 2006, stem cells can now potentially be harvested without destroying viable embryos (fertilized eggs… which in most monotheistic worldviews are already human beings, as the division and growth of cells begins within hours of fertilization). But much of this work is in its early stages and the long-term implications for both the cell beneficiaries and the embryos are not yet known. 

Or how about this little tidbit: one of the young women at the seminar I attended on this subject last Thursday said that infertile couples have frequently been placing classified ads in the college newspaper. The ads offer tens of thousands of dollars to a woman willing to donate a genetically “smart”, healthy, and most importantly young egg to the couple for in-vitro fertilization. So our nation’s best and brightest are already being impacted by these issues, whether or not they are infertile themselves. So clearly, it’s not a challenge that is going to go away.

Not to mention there’s that whole bugaboo about disagreements between insurance companies, infertile couples and doctors, or between medical/economic interests and “irrationality”, as one genetic researcher put it in that 2006 National Geographic article:

Robert Lanza, medical director of the biotechnology firm Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, reported in the August 24 issue of the journal Nature…

“We’re showing for the first time that it’s possible to create stem cells without destroying the embryo and … without destroying its potential for life,” Lanza said.

“Hopefully, this removes the last rational reason for people to oppose stem cell research.”

In other words, people who do not support the destruction of viable embryos are just being irrational. Or put another way, one cannot make scientific advances and be constrained by ethical concerns AT THE SAME TIME. He also uses the sticky phrase “potential for life” in referring to an embryo, which some would say is already alive. It’s this kind of thinking that makes medical ethics a major political and social issue for the 21st century.

And with people like physicians Bill Frist (former Republican senator from Tennessee), Howard Dean (now head of the Democratic National Committee), and the current presidential candidates at the forefront of policy-making and influence in the United States, it behooves us to know what our leaders in medicine and politics are up to, lest they all get too cozy and sell us a load of crap. (Again! …)

The terms and civility of the debate should change, too, so that it can become less adversarial and more cooperative. It’s really not an “abortionists vs. Christians” thing. It’s moms, dads, friends, politicians, physicians and business interests all coming together — to make decisions about what is best for the most people, and what should be absolutely avoided, for our physical, economic and moral health as a nation.

My wife and I went though some early treatment methods. I’m sure most readers of this post know people who have been affected. So as a nation – in churches, schools, community forums, on the news, on Oprah (as long as she gets it right and stays unbiased… as if that could ever happen…) – we should be talking a little bit about this stuff every day. It’s that big, that important.

We need not talk aobut it all day, just enough to stay on top of the rapidly changing landscape. Because if history is any indication, the wave of technological change can get ahead of the ethical curve really quickly, and if that happens, we’ll all be left to let the thieves and profiteers have the run of the store.