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!

I cain’t see no other way t’ do this without’n it soundin’ like a dumb book report. So I’ll pretend I’m Scout, an’ jest tell y’all what happened to me and my pa, Atticus.

See, Atticus had’ta take this case where he was defendin’ a black man named Tom accused of rapin’ a white girl. I asked him before the case why he was doin’ it, since none of the white folks in town –neither the Fine Folks nor the trash– wanted him to take it. This here’s what Atticus said back t’ me:

“For a number of reasons. The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”

He said a person’s got to follow his or her conscience, not the crowd, an’ he didn’t think Tom done what he’s accused of — an’ even if he did, he’s still entitled to a fair trial.

I hear there’s the same sorta debate goin’ on nowadays, ’bout
them terr — I mean prisoners– down at Guantanamo Bay. It only makes sense: any ol’ farmer in 2002 Afghanistan coulda turned in one of his chicken-thievin’ enemies an’ accused him of bein’ a terrorist. I hear they even was givin’ out cash rewards for turnin’ people in. Don’t make it right, tho’.

Atticus even had a little armed scuffle down the jail the night ‘fore the trial started. Some men was lookin’ to lynch Tom without no trial at all, an’ we stopped ‘em.

I don’t read my Bible as much as I ought, but they’s one part I remember ’cause it was both poetical an’ true at the same time, especially true o’ them bad men:

“God is light. There is no darkness in Him at all. If we say that we are in union with God while we are living in darkness, we are lying because we are not living the truth.” (1 John 1:5b-6)

Them men was living in darkness two ways: first, they waited till dark to attempt their dirty deed in secret, as evil men an’ politicians often do. An’ secondly, they was just plain ignorant, their minds darkened by racism. We don’t do that way down here no more… or at least we’re tryin’.

1960 was a banner year. For one thing, it featured the election of John F. Kennedy. But earlier in the year, another new star appeared in the literary heavens: Miss Harper Lee, author of the soon-to-be classic ~To Kill a Mockingbird~ .

The book reads like a starter’s pistol for the soul-searching of the Sixties, after the restorative nap that was the Eisenhower era. Whatever national “innocence” we had enjoyed — about Cold War politics, race, sexuality, even basic ethics — all was whittled away throughout the Sixties, Just as Scout and Jem came of age in the novel, so too did our United States come of age in the Kennedy years (including Bobby’s rise and fall). A “trial” –whether one is speaking literally or figuratively– will do that to a person.

I’m reading the book for the first time this week. Shocking, I know, that I hadn’t read it yet. I just never got around to it, and never was steered toward it in any formal classes. Plus, I must admit it’s one case where I succumbed to using the modern non-reader’s excuse: I saw the movie.

It’s a shame, really, that no one pressed me to read it before now. (Except Chicago mayor Richard Daley, in the inaugural year of the One City/One Book campaign). I should have taught it to my American Lit high schoolers, way back when, … instead of spending so long on the dry, overwrought prose of ~The Scarlet Letter~.

I’m only 75 pages into it, but that’s far enough to notice a few traits that make it an important work. For one thing, it’s unexpectedly funny. The humor is subtle, in a smart, Southern, feminine-but-flinty way I had previously only seen in the work of Flannery O’Connor (an all-time fave). There’s a steady sense of the wise woman behind the text, winking, introducing me to some of her beloved local townies. “Look what beautiful fools we all are,” she’s saying. “And not just us… you too, dear.”

Tomorrow: religious & political winks & nudges, from Ms. Lee

The rel

Having company for the weekend means leaving oneself open to all variety of pop-culture viruses that the visiting family might have in tow.

Like my mother’s copy of “O” magazine. Normally I’d go through the recycling bins of various neighbors, just for the joy of bringing home a copy and shredding it. But with Mom, I have to settle for a neverending debate over whether her beloved third sister (which is odd, cuz we’re white) is actually doing good, or just turning the world and its real problems into a bit of weepy but light entertainment for comfortable middle class do-nothing Americans. (Who are you calling a “do-nothing”?! I do something. I watch Oprah. And I read O, in which Kyra Sedgewick tells me how fiercely she’s embraced ‘green living’ .”)

One of the cover stories this month is “Why Men Do Stupid Things”. Just read my blog, silly, and you’ll know.

But the story my mother wants all adults present to read is “Mom Drives 2 Hours To Do Son’s Laundry! : The new superparents–are they crazy like a fox or just plain crazy?”

Okay, Mom. This may be sensational. It may even be a way to justify your lesser methods of steering your children’s lives (”See! I’m not *this* bad.”) But hovering parents enabling over-dependent young adults is not news.

And mediocre journalism about the phenomenon is simply a national opportunity to watch the familial equivalent of a 15-car pileup on Bad Parenting Boulevard.

In other words… you’re not helping, Oprah. It just looks that way, as you stuff all our cash into your pockets.

So that’s my mother’s alien propaganda. Meanwhile my 13-year-old nephew brought TWO Adam Sandler movies into my home. Ugh! I’d rather he’d brought a Stephen Segal triple feature.

Not that I’ll be reading Proust and watching Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet when they leave… but it will let me breathe easier knowing that “Going From Lovers to Friends” and “Chuck and Larry” are out of my son’s reach, until he’s old enough to know better on his own.

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?

I hate to make light of something so serious… but let’s face it, that’s what I do. I’m a sophomoric middle class nerd who actually thinks blogs with “Aargh” in the title are funny.

But the actual news item that I base this alarmist posting on, is serious. A stranded yacht was boarded and hijacked yesterday off the coast of Africa, near Somalia.  (Or do you call it Somaliland? Or Puntland? Apparently there are a number of factions trying to carve their own dysfunctional sovereign nation out of the splintered mess that is present-day Somalia.) On the yacht were a family of three and their captain. The family is European, probably French or German, and the CNN article I got this from does not say how old the child is.

They did, however, bury the lead. Further down in the article, we get this:

Earlier this month the U.N. Security Council gave nations new powers to pursue pirates into the waters off Somalia in an effort to combat a new spate of hijackings off the Horn of Africa.

The Gulf of Aden in particular has become a treacherous stretch for shipping in recent months, with more than two dozen pirate attacks reported since the beginning of 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Nine of those have been successful hijackings, the bureau said.

It’s a classic good news/bad news scenario: the good news is that this new breed are fairly inept pirates, if their hijacking success rate is just 9 for 25. And furthermore, a boat can’t fly through the air and bring down a major international pair of skyscrapers.

But the bad news is that the terrorist/pirates may have finally hired some good p.r. people, and are now using that whole Johnny Depp adventure movie mystique to improve their image among kids and morons in Europe and America.

Think of it… this kidnapping just reeks of Hollywood. A pompous French dad who drags his family out for a dangerous fishing excursion, a yacht out of gas, a vulnerable kid “saved” by the ugly yet charming captain named The Black Heron (played by Jack Black, in blackface). They’re gonna sell this turkey to Lifetime Network and make a killing (oops, maybe I should use a different word there, shouldn’t I?) .

Anyway, what differnce does it make. It should only be about a decade before the whole planet is submerged in water from the melting ice caps, at which point we’ll have to look to rogue/heroes like Errol “Fabulous” Flynn and Kevin “Waterworld” Costner to save us from the coming doom… a doom in which we will ALL run out of gas.

We now use an average of 25 barrels of crude per person per year. And we make our cleaning supplies, nylon fabric, and hundreds of other products using derivatives of crude oil, the cost of which we have not even begun to abosorb yet. (That will be the second wave of rising prices… watch for it.) So we’re either going to have to change how we make and do and travel and recreate, or we’re only going to sink this ship.

Mad Max, where are you when we need you?

As conspiracy theorists go, I am clearly bush league.

This week’s reminder of how far one can go down this strange, winding path is one Michael Tsarion. He was proposed to me recently as a writer who advances the cause of all things Irish and/or Celtic, and thus mystically and/or politically reasonable. However, in wandering around upon his complex private “interweb” of fact and fiction, I see that he’s just another in a long line of goofy astrologists, occultists and conspiracy theorists, those colorful cats out to take wild, random potshots instead of pointing out a productive path toward the truth.

By now, a small but dedicated handful of you are saying under your breath to me: “Oh, you poor simpleton. You deluded soul, already stolen away from us, we who were only trying to free you from the tyranny of lies and deceit, perpetrated over the past 5000 years.”

Nevertheless, I must defer to a higher authority, who calls me to sing out loud and proud:

“I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

Meanwhile, Tsarion and his ilk are out to convince us that every U.S. president was a Freemason, that the mystical, philosophical or biological descendents of Egyptian pharaoh/priest Akhenaton are in control of every Western government, and probably that monotheism in itself is the true enemy of mankind. 

Therefore the Yahweh of the Bible, for some of these theorists, does not love His people but has instead abandoned them to the slings and arrows of all these false prophets and tyrants. Or else the One True God is an invention by these past cults, to keep Everyman down, to keep us from accessing our inner power, which would allow us to practice magic, travel by astral projection, and tear down well-armed despots the moment we encounter them. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting it wrong though. These amateur symbologist types draw such tenuous and strange connections that it’s easy to get confused. 

For instance, did you know that Hitler was actually in league with the pre-Zionist Zionists, in England and elsewhere? Mr. Tsarion even has a photo of a young Hitler, kissing the hand of Elizabeth the Second  –though he mislabels her as Elizabeth the First! This is the kind of sloppy, stupid, ahistorical hogwash that his type loves to slip by us, under a veil of actual facts and plausible interpretations, of very vague details and far-reaching symbols.

Here’s another example, taken directly from Tsarion’s site:

The Bohemian Club - Elite members of this secret order (that includes most US presidents) meet at a time when the sun (Aton) is at its highest point during the year - at the summer solstice - June 21st. The summer solstice was adopted by Hitler and his Nazis as their most important day of ritual and celebration. It was the most sacred day in the Nazi calendar.

Dude, if you so smart, where’s my local Boho meeting being conducted tomorrow? I wanna be there! Are they really THAT good at keeping secrets?

Tsarion tries to make a case for the Nazis and others co-opting and altering many basic Druidic or similar ideas. Yeah Mike, it’s well-established already that Hitler co-opted everyone’s mythology, from India to Scandinavia to Ireland to God only knows where else. But that doesn’t mean he was secretly in compliance with some long-standing plan of the Knights Templar to rule the world. It just means he was crafty and evil, a tool of Satan, a disenchanted but brilliant nutjob who veiled his megalomania in intense nationalist, populist, pseudo-religious bullshit.

Tsarion’s not the first one to try connecting Hitler, Pat Robertson, Pope Paul VI, Satanist Anton LaVey, The Illuminati, philosopher Francis Bacon, and the ancient Persian prophet Zoroaster (it’s like some fascinating but intellectually dishonest variant of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon  game!). Anyone with a will to think creatively can build a case and turn up potential evidence. Remember the Lone Gunmen, from The X Files? (Oh My Gawd!!!  I was such an X-Files fan… and here’s a thought: was it The Man who secretly killed off the Lone Gunmen’s short-lived spinoff show, or just really crappy writing?)

There are thousands of people like this out in the world, who believe they’re doing important work. In my opinion, a few of them actually are. But they get lost in the midst of all the noise, and because of the very nature of evil, which works to remain hidden and secret for as long as possible.

Every once in awhile, I get sucked into exploring this complex web of numerologists, Kabballah enthusisasts, astrology buffs, and ultra-conservative Christian Pentacostals on the lookout for secret but powerful cults to pray against. And again, I’m not saying these groups, alliances and spiritual connections aren’t out there. They definitely are out there (the “powers and principalities” that Paul speaks of), though I can’t claim any expertise in which theories are solid and which are misguided. Frankly, it just makes my head hurt whenever I read all the fundamentalist, neo-paganist or other misguided tripe that tries to explain every last war and historical development as part of some evil Master Plan.

Sometimes, you gotta just pick a lane and drive. The fact is, sin is real. A negative spiritual force or personality does exist in the universe. But so does the eternal Creator and Redeemer. Thus, every human ever born is capable of both incredible mercy and unspeakable evil, depending upon whom we align ourselves with, and how much ethical and spiritual discipline we are willing to practice.

Yet we are lazy and fearful by nature, and prefer to conform, so we mostly tend to aim down the middle, ignoring Jesus’ path of radical love (and political change, and true justice) because it requires us to feel like such aliens in a world gone wrong.  Even Christians, in most cases (myself included), can’t manage to be in constant, peaceful communion with the Creation and Creator, choosing instead to practice religion rather than faithful, risky, loving action and forgiveness like Jesus himself. 

On the other hand, if we are also hungry or powerless, or have not forgiven past wrongs against “our people”, we are then ripe for the picking by every jihadist, neo-con, or self-aggrandizing leader looking to play upon those fears and physical needs by promising a comeuppance for “the godless infidels”.

If you think about it, commiting to remain disenfranchised, to share equally amongst ourselves, to hang with the prostitutes and have nowhere to lay one’s head, doesn’t sound like such “good news”, does it? It’s so much nicer to sit with a big steak in air-conditioned comfort in front of an HDTV at the ESPN Zone and watch the Boston Celtics (BTW, did they have a Druid priest saying incantations, arranging for their victory?… or perhaps bribing the referees to call fewer fouls?). Fasting and praying under the stars in front of a Celtic cross, clothing the naked, taking in and feeding the orphan, admitting you’re wrong once in awhile… these are works of radical discipleship that require God’s grace precisely because  they’re so hard to perform without His help. Ignorance, of both the good and bad in the world, really is bliss. Anyone with the guts to look into his or her own soul will tell you this.

I say “his or her” above, but let’s be honest: most spinners and practitioners of these crazy conspiracy theories are men — emasculated or psychically wounded men, pseudo-religious pirates, a much different brand of “outsider” than the disciples of Jesus. They’re the fickle followers of Barrabas, the Judases who took a wrong turn, or the self-appointed shamans looking to justify themselves, while leaving others (especially in the undeveloped Two Thirds World) to fend for themselves.

Most are looking for a systemic or external explanation for why they’re forever on the outside personally. Some want power, others merely acceptance. Meanwhile they’re in denial themselves, avoiding the “dark night of the soul” that might actually transform them into credible  witnesses to the true Eternal Light and the truth. This is why other outsiders (you may call them geeks, but we all need to embrace our inner geek) find these theories so attractive. It’s cafeteria-style, libertarian, serve-yourself, super-sweet philosophical candy in an attractive package. The theories free us from any responsibility for our own situations, be they personal or political. They let immature, adolescent, me-against-the-world attitudes fluorish and find justification, irrespective of any higher authority or personal call to holiness and service.

What’s more, the anarchic, non-theistic, or factually fuzzy solutions these theorists often recommend don’t account for the contentiousness and will to power that inevitably sets in among all us sinners. They make it easier to attach blame beyond ourselves, to the eternal THEM – whether THEY are the liberal Jewish media, the conservative fundamentalist Zionist warmongers, the Black Jesus-denying racists, the imperialist/royalist/fascist aristocracy, the Wahabist (or Shi’ ite) usurpers of the true Islamic faith, the Socialist/Communist hippie baby-killers looking to give away the store and crucify Christ again, or the Christian witch-hunters out to kill every horned owl and tree sprite that ever sought to set us free.

Sure, a few modern conspiracy analysts are on a genuine quest for the truth. But many are just the next generation of pawns and liars in the eternal struggle of good and evil.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not advocating we remain ignorant. Just that we consider the source, question authority with a healthy but non-obsessive skepticism, and then lead with our hearts … but without disengaging our heads. Be faithful first. Then be smart. And be careful not to get caught on the wrong side in this battle of disinformation and distraction, only to find out too late you could have instead been enjoying the fulfilling fellowship of true believers all along, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

As Peter once said to Jesus when Jesus gave him leave to abandon their difficult journey: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life? We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

‘Nuff said.

Okay, so time has not stopped entirely. I recognize that. It just feels like it has, because it’s my last day of work, I’m packing up my office, and I’m here all alone.

Minutes have felt like hours today. So since for me, writing always seems to make the time fly, here I be. I have to stay here anyway till an evening sendoff/thank-you event around the corner tonight (why drive an hour home only to come back an hour later?), so  I thought I’d log on and whine a little bit. (You’re welcome.)

To make matters worse, I’m stuck with the unenviable task of closing out not one, two, or three, but up to four separate “departments” that work out of the gym and thus utilize this dusty, dark, windowless storage room/jail cell that has been my ofice for two years now. The music program (which I expanded to include fine and performing arts last year), and the former health classes, and the P.E. department, all have a home in here.

It’s hard, partly because I’m not just making decisions about what to put away for the summer, but also pitching some things for good, given the prospect that the school will be staying closed and thus have to store or give away alot of this material. In some cases, I’m pitching very old teacher texts. At other times, it’s equipment for mysterious unknown games that we never played in two years here, and that I never played as a kid.

In a few cases, I’m pitching perfectly good material… like the free 5th grade puberty-education and hygiene products sent to us by Procter and Gamble (I assume P&G does this to get kids hooked early on their products, since Secret deodorant and Always feminine pads are bundled in there). I feel guilty tossing out a dozen newish trial-size stick deodorants, but it would just feel too awkward to try finding them a good home. (I did, however, take a few for my own family… after all they’re ”strong enough for a man, but made for a woman”…)

I feel guilty throwing away books, too. But it’s clear they’re old, and haven’t been used in years. So whadya gonna do???

And I suppose I’m grieving a bit: another career avenue I once thought viable and semi-permanent, now gone the way of the dinosaurs through no fault of my own. Again I’m left out in the cold (well, …it’s eighty five and muggy here, but you get my drift), haphazardly looking for a job that actually makes sense.

Anyone in the market for a dozen sets of blue plastic basketball cheerleader pompons? Get ‘em while they last… I think trash pickup is on Monday.

A bit of housekeeping, or perhaps a pat on my own back, if you will indulge me: late last week, I reached 200 posts on WordPress. That’s since April 2007. Here’s the first one, still a classic. I had blogged prior to that on MySpace for about nine months, but I don’t think I hit stride till I started cross-posting at WordPress and taking advantage of its better user interface. (Thanks for the gentle nudge, Will.) Or maybe I’ve yet to even hit stride. Only time will tell…

I also just read a long Emily Gould NYT Magazine article (re-posted at Brad Listi’s A.D.D. blog) about the ups and downs of blogging life, especially when one compulsively includes a lot of personal information, or seeks too much validation from the form or its audience. Nevertheless, don’t be afraid to drop me a comment now and then, just so I can get off on pretending I’m famous, and well-liked by strangers, and followed with much interest by my closest friends, who in my highly delusional blogger persona I think of as my apostles.

Be ye perfect, therefore, as I am not… after all, somebody’s gotta pick up my slack, don’t they?

My friend Ruth “blog-tagged” me the other day… oops, it’s been over a month ago now, where did the time go? I don’t often get involved with chains, or forwarding stuff, but since this one is more like shameless self-promotion disguised as a game of tag – and I’ve always been a fan of shameless self-promotion – here goes…

Here are the rules if you decide to play along:
1) Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4) Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ahem… and now, my seven facts (for which I make no claims as to their randomness or their weirdness, as I’m too far gone by now to distinguish weird from normal):

1) My earliest memory is a traumatic one: bleeding profusely from my right forearm, after snagging it on a cabinet hinge at about age two and a half, or three. (Yeesh… what a way to start, you sicko.)

2) My first job out of college was with Kartemquin Films, producers of the acclaimed film Hoop Dreams and dozens of other social-issue documentaries featured on PBS and in theaters. My name is even in the credits. I got fired from that job, though. (I was 22, and in over my head in terms of the specific, sales-oriented job I was supposed to be doing.)

3) My middle name is Sebastian, which was my maternal grandfather’s first name. (My son’s middle name is Brice, my dad’s first name, …and his first name, Graham, is similar to my father-in-law’s middle name, Gorham.)

4) I once missed a plane home from Paris, and was forced to stay an extra day or two. Not the worst place in the world to be stuck, let me tell ya…

5) Best comic timing I ever exhibited: my little sister spilled a glass of milk at supper, and some of it dripped into Dad’s lap, and he started screaming and swearing, and she started crying. After ten seconds of that, I piped up with this classic: “No use crying over spilled milk.” Everyone cracked up, including Dad. Crisis over. But my ambition to be a comic, or a humorist, or somehow use words to make people’s lives better was just beginning.

6) I took a date to a Cure concert once in the Eighties, mistakenly thinking it was the Christian rock band The Call. Never felt so out of place and awkward in my life, out there at Poplar Creeek Music Theater among 30,000 pre-goth, brooding, black-clad brethren, and me like a doofus in my yellow Izod LaCoste shirt. It was my one and only date with that girl, too.

7) My favorite food is lasagna. For all my other favorite this, that, and the other, check out my MySpace Profile. It’s one of the few things MySpace is good for anymore…

Seven other blogs I frequent:

1 - Brad Listi - A.D.D. - An actual published novelist. Doing a younger, hipper blog that has as many funny commenters as I’ve seen anywhere. Brad’s also funny, and capable of serious political and cultural analysis, too.

2 - Will Fitzgerald, aka Will.Whim . Words are the air he breathes… and he’s a fledgling Mennonite pastor, to boot.

3 - Jesus Manifesto - started by Mark VanSteenwyck (I think), this blog has grown up into a cool little webzine.

4- Alternadad - former Chicago Reader journalist and sometime novelist Neal Pollack, doing a blog about parenting a wild-ass six-year-old, much more colorful than my own kid. Neal leans more toward the profane side of my sacred/profane duality, but as the only person in this list who makes any MONEY at blogging (at Parents.com), he’s my hero anyway.

5 - Pastor and Author Greg Boyd’s Random Reflections. I first caught this cat on Charlie Rose’s interview show, on PBS. Then I read his book Myth of a Christian Nation. Then I started listening in to an occasional podcast of his sermons, and reading this blog.

6 - Rafiki James - one of my first and most consistent supporters for the MySpace side of MT. He does some fine spiritual and political essays himself, I must say.

7 - Carolynn Todd Burbee’s chatty little blog without a name. It’s primarily personal news and reflections, by an old college friend who teaches history. I mean… she’s not old. A year older than me, but then… oh never mind. I’ve already gone and stuck my foot in it…