Return to Ann Arbor

I am so sick of the futility of trying to explain why being intolerant of intolerance is not the same thing as being intolerant of gays, lesbians, feminists, non-Americans, Pagans, and liberals.

So, while I’m not quite at the point of doing a Happy Dance, the world is a better place tonight. And assuming that Falwell’s followers really believe what they say, Falwell is in a Better Place, where there are only white heterosexuals like himself. I’ll reserve my Happy Dance for the day that W or Cheney bite the dust. Or January 20, 2009, whichever comes first.

Well gee, now that we’ve been blamed for Katrina, but somehow not for the tornado in Kansas, are we gonna be blamed for creating the stress that caused Jerry’s heart attack?

And can Lillian and I put that on T-shirts?

Oh, come now. Didn’t Falwell represent just enough absurdity to relish in his existence as a foil for the sane-minded among us?

There’s a delicious irony in the fact that Jerry Falwell died of heart problems. According to the president (I believe) of Liberty University, he had “a history of heart challenges.” Ain’t it the truth.

As the beloved Moms Mabley said of one of her late husbands, “They say you should only speak good of the dead. He’s dead. Good.”

And golly gosh I should have checked the WWDTM site to see that y’all we’re going to be in Ann Arbor, since I am also leaving for Michigan tomorrow. Sorry to miss the taping, but I’ve got my seat in Section 118 of Comerica Park for the first game of the series against the dreaded Cardinals on Friday night.

However, I AM free on Thursday night. I could be in Ann Arbor in 20 minutes for an Adam sighting. And I could wander through the Diag and the Law Quad, have a legal drink somewhere on State St…

Well now I’m just wallowing in nostalgia.

Off-topic…no, wait, on-topic, but there were a lot of topics: anyway, Adam–stop by 1812 Orchard Street and send my regards! Have they fixed the curtains? (As for the other topic, I can´t resist. Fallswell that ends well.)

jerry-the-conservatroll sez:

I understand you would have disagreements with most everything James Dobson believes, but to lump him in with Fred Phelps is too much. No mainstream Cristian leader agrees with anything Fred-jackass-Phelps does.

Perhaps. But the differences are in degree, not in substance.

Placing their belief sets side by side, it’s difficult to find much difference between them.

Maybe Dr Dobson and his organization don’t picket funerals of soldiers or murdered gay people with God Hates Fags placards but all you have to do is to read Focus on the Family’s Citizen Link pages, like here f’rinstance, and you quickly find that there is little distinction between Rev. Phelps’s and Dr Dobson’s philosophies at their core. They both would be the among first to pick up stones in fulfillment of the directive in Leviticus 20:13 should Christian Sharia ever become the law of the land.

If anything, Reverend Phelps is useful to the Religious Right in that they can point to him and his spiritual brothers and sisters, say “see, we’re not as crazy as they are“, and pretend to be mainstream.

jerry-the-conservatroll:

I think you miss a major difference. Phelps’s “God Hates Fags” is inherently different than Dobson’s approach of “God loves you and it grieves him that you commit sin.”

Has Dr Dobson repudiated Leviticus 20:13? I missed the memo.

As long as Dr Dobson, Reverend Robertson, et al, profess that The Bible is the inerrant and literal Word of God, to be followed in all things, it is difficult to separate them from the putative “extremists”, such as the Reverend Phelps and his brood.

In the words of Moms Mabley, speaking about one of her late husbands, “They say you should just say good things about the dead. He’s dead. Good.”

And coincidentally, I, too, am leaving for Michigan tomorrow. I wish I had checked out the WWDTM site and gotten tickets for the taping. I guess I could wander up to Ann Arbor on Thursday evening…stroll across the Diag and through the Law Quad…have a legal drink somewhere on State Street… linger outside that little flat on South University where I…

But I digress…

Instead I shall have to content myself with my first vist to Comerica Park on Friday night, when the dreaded Cardinals will be in town for a rematch of last year’s World Series against the brave and plucky Tigers (currently in first place in the AL Central Division). I shall have a beer (or two) for all of you.

On the topic of extremists, I’d like to pedantically point out that on any issue for which there is a spectrum of opinion, by definition there will be “extreme” opinions. If not for Phelps, Falwell would be the extreme. If not for ELF, Greenpeace would be the extreme. (There may certainly be gradations between these pairs, of course. I’m just presenting broad examples.)
A hundred years ago, votes for women was an extreme position. Now it’s not even controversial (at least in the US). “Extreme” is strictly a relative term, not a condemnation.
So with that in mind, I welcome extremists. Extremists give us room to explore issues comfortably. The farther out they are, the farther I can push my positions without being “extreme.”
This works in the nonpolitical realm, too. As long as Britney Spears is around, for example, Lindsey Lohan is not the worst-behaved drunken slut in Hollywood! As long as Ken is my co-worker, I’m not the laziest!
How can you make this concept work for you?

“But one thing they all agree on is God loves all of us”

Jerry, as much as I’d like to believe that, Falwell’s own words sent a different message:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/15/falwells_stupidest_q.html

Or perhaps the rat is just jealous that I’m going to a Tigers game on Friday night.

Go Tigers!

Sadly, I’m not traveling anywhere this week, but to all of you on the road, a safe journey and have fun.

siobhan:

Steve, I think it’s important to be fair about lumping everyone on one side of an issue with the extremists on that side. Doing so causes the lumpees to discount any other point you might make, however valid.

The lumpees are going to discount any point I make, no matter how I couch it. Since they believe, without any evidence of note, that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, there is no argument to be made.

When you’re dealing with a sect whose fundamental mode of argument is “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” then what more is there to be said?

On the far extreme of the environmentalist spectrum are those like ELF who will torch Hummer dealerships and property developments that they don’t like. Though I may appreciate the sentiment, it’s absolutely wrong to do what they do and it pisses me off when their extreme tactics used to tar all environmentalists.

True, but bear in mind that there is not fundamental text upon which the environmental movement philosophically rests which deigns the tactics of the ELF to be the inerrant word of. . . who? John Muir?

You don’t have to believe in burning down condo developments and blowing up Hummer dealers to be an environmentalist.

To be a fundamentalist Christian, you must accept every word of the Bible to be literal and true.

Environmentalists can argue about tactics and eschew the violence inherent in the ELF philosophy and still be environmentalists.

Bible-believing fundamentalists can perhaps similarly argue whether it is useful or productive to picket the funeral of Matthew Shepard but they cannot refute the proscription and penalty in Leviticus 20:13 without destroying the underpinnings of their faith.

There are, of course, other flavors of Christianity which pick and choose those passages of the Holy Bible to which they wish to adhere and those which they wish to repudiate. A religion based wholly upon the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, is one to which I could perhaps readily subscribe.

A religion based wholly upon the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, is one to which I could perhaps readily subscribe.

Amen!

In my experience, Buddhism perhaps comes closest.

To clarify, I didn’t mean that I thought Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and the rest of that lot were/are swell guys. They are wrong on a lot of issues. I simply meant that Fred Phelps is in a class by himself. He’s not just wrong and hateful, he’s also fucking delusional and insane.

Let us mark the passing of shonda-for-the-fundies Jerry Falwell with the words of Hank Williams, Jr., taken from the song “American Dream:”

“Now there are some preachers on TV
with a suit and a tie and a vest.
They want you to send your money to the Lord
but they give you their address.”

After that, it’s off to Northern California for an ultra-secret activity. More on that when it becomes less secret (but no less ultra)

Okay, since no one has speculated about what that means, it’s time to start internet rumors. Is Adam off to:

Save the Whales? http://www.sacbee.com/static/newsroom/maps/whales/

Singlehandedly solve the crime spree in the Pacific Northwest? http://www.newnation.org/NNN-news-norcal.html

Check out the beavers? (Relax, boys.) http://www.sacbee.com/204/story/183218.html

Steve, part of a longer message I posted elsewhere recently:

I’m an atheist; born and raised Roman Catholic, lost my faith in that particular religion, then realized that I don’t believe in God. From my early religious indoctrination, I did take away a few good things in terms of moral compass - do unto others, whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, blessed are the peacemakers, etc.

I’m not a militant atheist; I don’t think people foolish for believing in something that I can no longer believe in myself.

“insanity is in the eye of the beholder.”

Or the mote in one’s own eye.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

“We all owe God a death.” ‘Bout the only useful notion of God I am aware of. I’m with siobhan, except I don’t classify myself as an atheist, or any other -ist except a humanist, nor do I hold any absolutist views of any kind about death onward or about why this all started, as it apparently did at the moment of the Big Bang.

I just don’t see where it makes any difference whether a misguided view that informs one’s life is articulated virulently or gently. Condemning homosexuality is no different for me than condemning integration, and doing it for faith based reasons is particularly reprehensible, as are any number of other things adhered to in the name of “holiness.” Perhaps one important consideration is that there are some with whom one can interact peacefully in spite of their homophobia, but they are still hurting a portion of humanity by their beliefs, just as the majority of Americans hurt both Iraq and the United States by their misguided belief that a war of aggression was something to support, and as they do now behind the mantra “Support our troops,” which is proving to be a death grip on our national psyche, since it does not include extricating them immediately from what is an abominable mission, regardless of the good hearts, the good intentions, or the good efforts of countless American soldiers, and I do consider our soldiers among the most decent in recorded history, and certainly the noblest on balance in WWII, which war sadly included the fire bombing of Dresden, and Fat Boy and Little Joe (or whatever those godawful weapons were named).

Go, Mets!

I’m as much of a free-thinker as the next guy (well, to be honest, much more so than the next guy), but all this atheist/agnostic/secular humanist claptrap has given me the fantods.

I’m as much of a free-thinker as the next guy, but pay me $28 mil and I´ll think whatever you want every five days.

By the way, I am not the Pat referred to in the postings way up towards the top. I am the Pat who is left handed. red haired, and kinda short. That description was bestowed upon me by my brother a long time ago, and it pretty much sums me up. Just wanted to clarify that.
I do not wish ill on the dead, they are gone and will not cause any more pain by their utterings. And it’s my feeling that the best way to combat prejudice (like positions taken by fundamentalists) is by refuting it when you hear it. Things do change step by step, one on one. That causes changes slowly (my guess generationally - like every 30 years). But things are changing, we just have to keep at it.
I sure wish I had the wit most of you folks have. But it’s too nice up here in Minne-so-green-ta to be thinking. I’m just going to go back to weeding the garden now.

Okay, sportsfans, check out the suit and tie I wore for my interview with this famous late night conservative talk show host. It was hand tailored of the finest Italian silk and custom fitted with the latest computer driven body scan technology sent via satellite from Andre’s Salon in Houston to the world famous Enzo’s Proprietario di una Merceria di Amore’ in Milan. It feels like I have three dozen twenty-something women with their hands all over my naked body. The suit took six months to complete and cost $27,415 - worth every penny. Take that all you do-good-and-help-the-downtrodden -have-the-life-they-were-meant-to-have-if they-weren’t-so pathetically-lazy-and-stupid, bleeding heart sociology graduates working for $8.50 an hour.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/18/colbert-nails-a-clueless-tom- delay/

So, where’s Lemuel been keeping himself anyway? Do call me if you see him - there’ll be a few bucks in it for your touble. I also have a couple of private dicks joining the hunt. This shouldn’t take long at all to roll the little bastard up.

Saw you on WWDTM in Ann Arbor last night. Great show (except for that 1st 3rd, when we couldn’t here ya’ll at all).

So, as I understand it, Buick can’t market a car call La Crosse, because, in French, it’s some sort of sexual euphemism. And yet, here in the good ol’ U S of A, they still sell Hummer’s by the thousands.
How can this be?

I too was in AA, but a week earlier.

Just passing through, on my way to put my mother in assisted living. She has fallen down 3X in the past 18 months and each time needed hospitalization and could have been fatal. After she recovered from a broken pelvis falling down in her bedroom we set up a beautiful place for her in Grand Rapids. Unfortunately her dementia and stubbornness kicked in and she refused to go. Now we have to figure out what to do with an 85 year old woman who can’t take care of herself and won’t let others do it for her.

One option my son who is a nursing home administrator suggested was that he become guardian and that he place her in care against her will. That would require my 3 brothers to sign off on it, and I’m not sure that that will happen.

Oh yeah, Ann Arbor still is beautiful. We stopped in to see the married student housing on campus that had been our home back in the mid seventies. That part of the trip was fun.