IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

Having entered upgrade and theme adjustment limbo, I was back at it early (couldn’t sleep) staring at the screen wondering where in the world my “edit” links had run off to. They’d been there a few hours earlier when I fell over on the bed, I knew it. Idiot that I am, didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t logged in but those of us who are more challenged than others, I think we have gifts to offer, such as making others feel good about themselves. Anyway, hark, I realized that was the soft sweet sound of birds tweeting I’d been hearing just under the roar of our lame loud air purifier. Checked the clock. Was about 5:30 a.m. The time about right. It occurred to me I’d not heard morning birds in quite some time, you don’t get warblers much around here. At least not loud enough I can hear them in the apartment. I saw and smelled new green, rose-yellows of dawn climbing above the neighboring brick apartment building on our east side. There are no windows in this room but the soul has a peephole. Yes, sing in the spring. My gravelly heart softened slightly. I answered email and took care of a few other computer chores while procrastinating on what might demand real decision-making or using left and right click on my mouse which mostly died last night. A while later I realized the birds were still singing. Persistent suckers. Spring will do that. I read a few blogs while I considered what to do about my edit links disappearing when they had been there last night, then I realized I wasn’t logged in and logged in and found the edit links were back which would have been good if not so disorienting, cause and effect not one of my stronger suits. Marty got up which meant I was probably now officially up and not just sleepless, and I realized the birds were still singing. Very rare for our city alley to sound like a tropical bird sanctuary. At which point I looked past the roaring air purifier over at my son’s computer. He still had up on the monitor a math game he’d been playing last night. I went over and leaned my ear into his speakers. Yep. Behind the math game window was another game he’d been playing,. Jungle theme. Like I said, some of us are more challenged than others.

“You know there are four monsters,” my son says to me as he enters the room, first words out of his mouth this morning. He tells me the names of the monsters. Well, doesn’t just tell. An annunciation meant to illuminate mom on their glorious nature. I ask him if he made up those remarkable names. He says no. I say oh where did you learn them. “My brain,” he says, and goes off to watch PBS and Caillou then comes back in and asks me if I want to be a bear and tells me he’s a bear with sharp claws and off again he goes to watch Caillou, calling on mom to follow with his two foot high stack of drawing paper and a handful of pens. “Lots of pens,” he says, “I want lots of pens.”

Reading back over the post, quite a dyslexic morning we’re having here. Three in one sentence alone. He’s becomes his. Follow becomes fall. Pens becomes pins. I had thought I wrote he’s. I had thought I wrote follow. I had thought I wrote pins. The words were in my head, I was seeing them in my head as I typed them out, and I could have sworn my fingers were typing them out true, but no.

“Mommy, there was a dragon and it had a cut shaped like a lightning scar because of the evil monster lizard. Everyone who saw it blew up because of its monstrous powers.”

What can I say but that I’m glad I don’t have to clean up after it.

Back on Saturday or Sunday I had seen on Americablog a post pointing to Crooks and Liars’ mention of Ann Coulter saying a White House press pass couldn’t be that hard to come by if “that old Arab Helen Thomas” was allowed to sit within a few feet of Bush. Coulter’s syndicate had pulled the slam, but it tactfully remained up on her website.

I’d say I don’t care to torture myself and so don’t visit Coulter’s site but my daily mental gymnastics consist largely of strenuous self-flagellation. Yet it’s true that I don’t follow Coulter’s doings and have only been to her website once before. We don’t have cable, nothing is ever on the television around here but PBS Kids and DVDs of old and new cartoons and animation, all of it with vitamins and minerals for kids. Our television picks up mostly fuzz and I ceased looking to it for news or entertainment years ago anyway. I recollect seeing Ann, pre H.o.p. days, on Bill Maher. She bored me. Her brand of sensationalism bores me. I had the impression she didn’t care if anyone believed her spiel or not, as long as she had a viewing public.

But Sunday I followed the story over to Coulter’s website, which I had visited once before when Marty was reading Al Franken. The pastiche in the photo section had confused me because they were bad pics of Ann skiing (OK, so she skis), Ann draped over McCarthy’s tombstone, clips of Ann on television, Ann in shorts with gun, Ann in black, tight, short, maybe-plastic maybe-leather dress posed between two big and obviously self-important columns. Being architecturally deprived, I did a Google on “Ann Coulter, leather” hoping to find what columns she was posing between (someone will look at their referrals and be vastly more entertained than they should be) but I wasn’t willing to pursue the matter for too long and by the time I hit “Geeks with Guns” and read men describing her as sharp, sexy and right I’d had too much Ann and her dominatrix stylings.

“Geeks with Guns” comes off as a bad parody but it’s for real. The forum has a “Gun Poetry” thread. One offering, “The Night Before Payback”, ends with “Old Glory is coming, attached to a missile.” I misread it as “Old Gory is coming, attached to a missile.” The reply post to the missile missive, cheery with smiley face emoticons, says, “Oh Hell yes! thats a nice one! makes me so happy to be an American. And now I want to kill em even more.”

I doubt this is part of the fan base Ann relies on for her book sales. Or maybe they do read. Maybe Ann posing before a chalk board as teacher in suggestive, not-too-threatening black leather is the kind of ad campaign that brings ‘em to the book stores.

Anyway, I went to visit Ann Coulter’s website again.

I had an odd experience at Ann Coulter’s website.

I was reading Ann’s column and quite unexpectedly I had one of those brain seizure moments where the veil tears and you are provided a glimpse of the reality beyond the perceived. There was the white page of her website and the black text then unexpectedly this tear and the smell of loads of money, another scene beyond formed of the same parts as the given picture but rearranged. Then just as abruptly the seizure her words had wrought was over and I was back in my chair, the spirits had fled, the tissue that separates mortal fear from everlasting cynicism had repaired and I was left with the white page and Ann’s left eye in the upper left corner peering snide down at me over her white cheek, coy wave of blond hair hiding the right of her face, and I realized her mouth was the same thin, pinched, bad nice girl deception of a smile that Loon wore in our seventh grade class picture.

Loon was one of my best friends in fifth through seventh grade, and Loon was a term of endearment. At least I used it as a term of endearment, though if my memory serves Loon one day, despite our having called each other names as long as we’d been friends, exploded saying don’t call me that I hate it when you call me that. Which she had a way of doing, exploding with no prior warning. She was tall for her age, though not so tall that her height demanded attention nor did anyone ever suggest she be a model. She appeared taller than she was because her face, body and legs conspired to give her a long, lanky look though she wasn’t skinny. Her hair was a long green-blond designed to fall over her right eye. She wore contact lenses, white lipstick and a lot of blue eye shadow. We were ten or eleven and doing jumping jacks at a sleep-over when her red pajama top flew up and there was this bra, she had on a lacy bra, and my heart flew up into my throat my head went dizzy and my eyes went crazy glue on it. Loon was already wearing a bra and here we were playing games like kids when she was an adult and having periods (I learned) and I as yet had no excuse for the bra that I next day said I really, really needed and returned several times as I kept being sold a plain white training bra (in a day when this meant training to wear a bra, an insane idea, and not sports training) when what I wanted was a lacy big girl bra with cups, which I did finally get, kind of, it had no cups, was a big lacy training bra and was too big for me.

A bra! Loon was ohmigod a sexual creature, she’d crossed the great divide. She stopped jumping, tugged her top down in a defensive gesture, said she didn’t want to play anymore, and I realized there was no way in hell I was going to get another look at that bra. I was surprised at how odd I felt about it all. Loon was my play friend one moment and now was instead a grown-up (all of eleven) woman rather than a girl. She would never be the same again. And I hadn’t known it. She hadn’t let me in on the secret. For some reason she’d hidden it from me. But now, rubbing my face in her sudden womanhood, she said she had cramps and needed to go home.

Traitor.

Whenever I look at the class picture, Loon’s legs crossed at the knee, dirty knee-his ending in dirty saddle shoes, thighs stretching long out from under her school desk and seeming as long as they did as her skirts were about four inches long, I remember how I felt when I first saw the photo, marked distinctly the two Loons in it, and was ever puzzled by the grown-ups who never guessed that the teacher’s pet with sweet smiles, as soon as they turned around, mouthed curse words, gave the finger, then morphed into teacher’s pet’s sweet let me help you disposition again. A grade school Mona Lisa, what she hid under the sweet Southern girl smile receding into you’re-all-idiots sneer was shadows in secret corners.

Impatient Loon starts bopping her saddle-shoed foot up and down, smacking gum.

It was about that time that our friendship was transforming from one of a mutual interest in I don’t recollect what anymore (I wasn’t interested in horses, the Jackson Five, books about Black Beauty, plastic horse statuettes, riding horses, feeding horses, was bored when I went to her house as she would show off riding her horse and not let me ride it as she said only she could ride her horse, but I did like drawing horses and that’s how we became friends, because I could draw them) to my being her smokescreen, her foil. She’d invite me to the fairground with her, parents dropping us off and once there she’d swoop hawk-like to the perch where she’d arranged to meet an older boyfriend (I was never warned) and run off to neck, smoke cigarettes, blowing bubbles from behind her braces, begging the boyfriend to buy her this, that, win her the biggest white stuffed snuggly bear on the grounds. We spent lots of fun Saturdays together that I knew nothing about as I was at home and she was out with her boyfriend, but her mother thought we were at the movies or shopping. In between escapades she’d talk for hours about her beaus, wistful on promises of engagements and me amazed that she was as physically mature as she was and as gullible as she was and that she thought me to be naive. The boyfriends were always giving her rings (she said) that she couldn’t wear in public as no one could know they were boyfriend and girlfriend yet so she let them keep the engagement ring. The weekend before the class picture she invited me to go shopping with her at Woolworths and had me purchase a chain bracelet for her as a birthday gift, and had engraved on it the name of a boy at another school who I knew had nothing to do with her but she said was her new boyfriend. She wore the bracelet to school, telling everyone he’d given it to her and that they were going steady. She wore it in the school picture.

She wanted in the middle-middle class suburbs and out of the lower-middle class white wood old rural farmhouse she lived in so bad she would scream at her mother she wished she was dead she hated her she was ruining her life she hated her die and leave me your money that’s all I want from you. Her mom finally did move her to the suburbs in a nearby town and as Loon and I no longer went to the same school we talked less frequently. But it was the chain bracelet that had busted us up. My purchasing for her a fake going-steady bracelet was the cut-off point. I was relieved when she lost the bracelet. She shoplifted another and had it too engraved, but it was at least not a bracelet for which I’d paid.

I still cared about her when we were in eighth grade and she started calling drunk drugged one minute going on over another pending engagement and then the next crying and telling me in gory detail about how her boyfriend had hurt her, had forced her to do this or that. “He raped you,” I’d tell her. “Really?” she’d say, so doped she kept nodding out on the phone. Tell your parents, I’d say and she said she couldn’t because he was in his twenties and her parents had said she was never to see him. But you have to tell someone, I’d say. No, she couldn’t. I hate him, I hate him, she’d say. Then talk about their engagement and how he was going to get her a house and car and what jewelry he’d gotten her. And then she’d be saying things like she wished her parents would notice, that they never noticed anything she did, they were weak, they bought her everything she wanted, they didn’t care what she did. I called her mother finally and said she has got to be helped, that she was being raped and afraid to break it off because her boyfriend would threaten to kill her, threaten to kill himself, that he was in his twenties and using her. Told her mother Loon hadn’t fallen down, that her boyfriend had beaten her up and threatened to strangle her. And her mother said she didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to do anything. She didn’t want to make Loon mad at her. She got Loon everything she wanted and she still wasn’t happy. She said to me in a child-like, plaintive voice, “What should I do?” I thought this is your daughter and you are shifting the focus to you instead of her, and you’re asking a thirteen-year-old to tell you what to do.

Loon and I never spoke again after that.

I knew we’d only been friends because I lived in the suburbs that she wanted to be in when she was still in the farm house that was being swallowed by the city. It didn’t matter to me.

Ann Coulter always reminds me of Loon. They look alike. They share the same bad nice girl sneer of a smile. Ann’s venom reminds me of Loon’s venom, except Loon was twelve and thirteen and a confused little girl whose father sometimes beat her mother, whose mother embezzled from her employer for a number of years, which is what paid for the new suburban house and the horse and nice clothes and car and then I don’t know what happened when her mother was found out but they went bankrupt and moved somewhere, I don’t know where. At least that’s the story I was later told about her mother.

I have been to D.C. only twice. The first time back in the Carter days. I don’t remember much about it,just cars and people and cars and people and finding our way around the streets to the wedding of a friend of my husband.

The second visit was different. Six years ago. The first night we walked over to see the Vietnam Veteran’s War Memorial, not realizing it was Veteran’s Day, and returning to the hotel went through several areas with clusters of homeless camping out by self-important buildings on plush streets that were occupied a few hours earlier with the business of the nation and world in general. There are lots of homeless in Atlanta but here it looked different. Humans with no money stand out with particular clarity against buildings that cost a lot of money and in which the business of a lot of money is attended to daily. Looking for coffee, we went to a coffee shop near a university, lots of chrome and glass, ordinary coffee, interesting students and others coming and going and as I stood there something happened and the buildings disappeared, architecture disappeared, I was instead surrounded by the billions of dollars that were these buildings; money that was either solid or potential or long gone, was someone’s former produce and now someone else’s huge debt, was not even gold or paper was a notion of wealth, an idea. There was more to it than that but it feels like a dream and would be difficult to describe. Picture thoughts. What I have from that night is a mind folder of pictures that expressed the ideas. They would be incomprehensible to anyone else. I have no idea why I think of Portland, Oregon in relatoinship to that night. Life times of stories and experiences make up such moments.

The next night, after the concert, for some reason the tour bus (music) couldn’t leave immediately. It couldn’t stay in front of the hotel we’d been at the night before so it moved a bit down the street and for some reason it parked in front of the Watergate for a long time while we waited for whomever we were waiting for, and then moving along later the driver parked us in one of the meaner parts of town. In front of a hotel that belonged in a meaner part of town. We needed to do laundry. There was some celebration going on and dressed-up drunk people roaming here and there. It was like high school prom night only it was November and these were drunk adults in tuxes and prom fabrics going from room to room in search of small party food and beer after the big party. Carrying up my laundry to the hotel’s laundromat on the third floor, I ended up in an elevator with a man who, when the elevator door closed, pulled hundreds of dollars out of his pocket and started counting them slowly in front of me, intent on conspicuousness. I wasn’t sure his meaning but at the next stop was glad when the door opened and there was the bus driver who sensed something was wrong and got on. A big guy. Not tall but burly and bald in a no nonsense way. While I did laundry there were police raids at the motel across the street. Sporadic gunfire all night long.

What was the bite past formal reality at Ann Coulter’s website was feeling the money again, smelling the chrome the glass the wood the stone all as money tenuous determined money constellating its own show for sake of itself. The show of Ann Coulter fell away and she was no different behind the curtain than in front, she was still Ann Coulter but the public side of the theater was dark and both sides of the aisle of fact and rhetoric fire jugglers were mixing, mingling, hobnobbing a convivial, we-understand-each-other private party behind the scenes that was kept alive by the money the public show brought in. So it seemed to me. And I was reminded of never believing the fake wrestling was real but friends did and how two of said friends in high school were at a Seven-Eleven when up pulled a limo and in the back of it they saw sitting nice and friendly, laughing and having a grand old time playing cards and drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, the two competing “I hate you so much I’ll rip your heart out and eat it” warriors they’d been watching about an hour beforehand pretending to beat each other to a pulp on the wrestling stage at the auditorium.

Feeling a bit disoriented I did a search for Ann Coulter quotes. What did famous quote websites pull from her as being quotable.

I went here, to brainquote. Ann Coulter’s not witty. The quotes were so unquotable that I wondered about their selecting so many. Then at the bottom of the page came upon the big graphic “W” floating over the flag, above George Washington’s bust, Colonial warriors in the background, red and blue stripes burred at the bottom, “America’s Ketchup” over and the old brain just couldn’t cipher anymore, didn’t comprehend this was a real ketchup ad. Blood, I thought. Why are they saying that blood is America’s Ketchup? Right under Ann Coulter’s words, why the blood is America’s ketchup ad?

Over at Distanceblog the topic of Family Day at the Capitol and whether Georgia Equality should make an appearance or not is raised via posts made by Decaturguy and Sid. Sid posted a correction clarifying a misunderstanding but still it’s worth commenting on and spreading around. Not the misunderstanding (I’m just posting links to GA progressives) but Georgia Equality and participation in GA’s Family day at the Capitol on March 12th. The supposed controversy was whether or not Georgia Equality should make an appearance. Sid was thought to be saying no. He wasn’t. But there are plenty of people who would say no. Plenty of people who don’t get it that same-sex couples and parents and their families have rights, the same rights as others, are people with the same concerns as everyone else, plenty of people who see a moral issue where there isn’t one where it’s just a human rights issue.

Georgia Equality has invited the MEGA Family Project (Winning Equality for LGBT Families in GA) to participate, to “use this opportunity for our elected officials to get to know our families and to realize that we have the same dreams and aspirations and face the same challenges that all families address everyday,” says Chuck Bowen. Also participating will be The Family Pride Coalition.

It’s a great idea. But don’t expect it to be discussed in GA Civics classes. And I doubt Baxter Bunny will make an appearance, not when Margaret Spellings says that the Public Broadcasting Corporation shouldn’t be exposing children to same-sex parent families (though, as I’ve pointed out, her issue is not rationally about same-sex parent families but about step-parenting).

When civil and human rights issues are comprised of what the GOP and Southern Baptist Convention defines as appropriate then, well, maybe you can see how in response to that curious logic my circuitry gets overloaded and I fall over, unable to articulate. Now someone will say that I am somehow confessing that Baxter’s “Sugartime” was a gay rights agenda. No. Twas not a platform for it and you’ve missed the point made above. That it was Margaret Spellings and the Bush Administration who made it an issue when they banned Baxter Bunny’s “Sugartime”, and making it an issue in the way that they made it an issue clearly sent the message that civil and human rights issues are what the GOP and Southern Baptist Convention defines as appropriate.

CNN executive, Jordan Eason, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is said to have said that the U.S. military deliberately targeted journalists–he knew of about 12 who’d not only been killed but had been targeted as a matter of policy.

Jordan Eason, reportedly having said to have said the above, then resigned from CNN and said he hadn’t meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when they accidtantally killed journalists.

Today comes the news of another U.S. checkpoint slaughter in Iraq. This time the car taken aim at was one in which was Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, just released after being held hostage for a month. She was wounded. The Italian secret service agent, Nicola Calipari, who had facillitated her release “threw himself over her” and was killed. Two other agents were wounded.

It’s said that US forces thought they were under attack. The car is given as having approached the checkpoint at a high rate of speed. U.S. troops are said to have fired warning shots, waved arms, then “shot into the engine block” of the car after it failed to stop.

Where’s the engine block of a car? In the approximate area of the windshield?

Il Manifesto, the paper for which the journalist works, says they don’t believe that Sgrena was targeted by the US for her writing about abuses at Abu Ghraib (she was one of the first journalists to collect evidence of rape of women prisoners at Abu Ghraib).

Sheik Abdel Salam al Quobaisi, of the Association of Islamic Scholars, had denounced the abduction of the journalist. As to any Iraqi groups who had claimed responsibility, he said, “We still have our doubts. We don’t know if what they say is true. We believe that no Iraqi organization would organize a kidnapping of this kind, especially not of a journalist who intended to interview the refugees of Fallujah, victims of the American occupation.”

I just wonder at all these cars approaching U.S. checkpoints at high rates of speed and not heeding warnings to stop. You’d think everyone would be aware by now that U.S. checkpoints are bad news.

Why am I now thinking of the Cold War Iron Curtain and all those movies of people gunned down at checkpoints by faceless bad Russians or East Germans? Is that too out-of-line an association to pop up?

That engine block. Instead of saying the car was fired at they instead say the engine block was fired at in order to stop the car. Like the engine block was the target and the humans were just collateral damage. Seems kind of like saying you were aiming for the spider on someone’s shirt pocket and not them, so sorry.

The whole of Italy was anxious for Sgrena’s release. They’re not going to like this. When they are over celebrating her return, they’re going to be really pissed off.

Cominciano le prime ricostruzioni di quanto avvenuto ieri a Bagdad. «Non andavamo molto veloci, date le circostanze», ha detto Giuliana Sgrena, intervistata da Rai News 24. «Parlavo con Nicola, quando siamo stati colpiti da una pioggia di fuoco», ha aggiunto la giornalista.

300 to 400 bullets struck the car. Then before getting aid, the Americans took their cellphones and didn’t permit contact with Rome for another hour.

The story. Little information that there is, almost every press account manages to leave out one detail or another or three that another has. But the basics right now are Sgrena saying that they were not speeding, that it wasn’t a checkpoint, that as the spotlight hit them so did a rain of gunfire.

Fewer press accounts have Scolari, who accompanied Sgrena from Baghdad, reporting that the Italians had informed U.S. officials of their plans and had cleared at least one of several checkpoints. “But that could not be independently identified.”

Italy is a relatively small, close-knit and sentimental country, and when its citizens are killed in overseas conflicts, the national pain is especially evident. Homages and expressions of grief for Calipari were pouring in, from President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Pope John Paul II as well as people in the streets.

A Pakistan outlet gives a much more adamant version of what Pier Scolari had to say, including as direct quotes, “The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming…They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints…Then the US military silenced the cell phones…Guiliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive.”

Sgerna reported that her captors had told her Americans might try to intervene.

Some reports question what I had also wondered about. If the bullets were stated by the americans to be aimed at the car’s engine block, how did that engine block become the occupants of the car?

A statement from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad said that troops fired at a speeding car that “refused to stop at a checkpoint.”

The statement said soldiers with the 3rd Infantry “killed one civilian and wounded two others when their vehicle traveling at high speeds refused to stop at a checkpoint here today. About 9 p.m., a patrol in western Baghdad observed the vehicle speeding towards their checkpoint and attempted to warn the driver to stop by hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots in front of the car. When the driver didn’t stop, the soldiers shot into the engine block, which stopped the vehicle, killing one and wounding two others.”

The statement did not explain how bullets fired into the engine block hit the passengers. It said the surviving intelligence agent “was treated by Army medics on the scene but refused medical evacuation for further assistance.”

Finally, a State Department official in Washington said the Italians did not tell either the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or U.S. military commanders about Sgrena’s release, even though a U.S. hostage coordinator had been working closely with them on the case.

The above is unclear to me as I am still reading that the army was not commenting on the location of the checkpoint in question or whether the military had been informed Sgrena’s car was on its way to the airport.

Regardless, as Polo, Manifesto’s editor, says, “An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet - a tragic demonstration that everything that’s happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad.”

It is insane. War is used as an excuse. I don’t believe it was an accident of fate. Whether or not there were intentioned targets in the car, it is not an accident of fate. The occupents were fired upon. An Italian agent is dead and an Italian journalist only escaped with her life as the agent died.

I’m not holding my breath on what an investigation by the U.S. military and Bush administration will have to say on this. I would have to trust them. I don’t trust the Bush administration. I don’t believe what they say about why we are in the Middle East. If I don’t believe what they say about domestic policy and foreign policy and why we are in the Middle East, I have no reason to believe whatever they say about anything, including an investigation of this “incident”.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, “We are coordinating closely with Italian authorities in Iraq to investigate the incident. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the Italian citizen.”

The news is full of “incidents”. The administration and military and press are always referring to “incidents”. The real word is tragedy. “Incident” implies a hierarchy of importance and that the score is 99 percent short of meaning. “Incident” contrives to pull the emotional sparkplug. Those who allot only incidental importance to life would have us all so emotionally, ethically, morally, philosophically bankrupt that finance is the last character occupying the stage.

Giuliana Sgrena at Il Manifesto in English translation. Body and Soul continues blogging on the subject, today going into the idea of impromptu checkpoints. Google and there is news everywhere, but the administration is quiet. Scot McClellan said today,

It’s important that this investigation be full and complete. And so when that investigation is full and complete, then maybe we can talk more about it at that point in time, because there are differing accounts about exactly what happened. And I think the details of what occurred are still unclear at this point.

I like the “When that investigation is full and complete, then maybe we can talk more about it at that point in time.”

But not necessarily I suppose. Or at least not in full. Probably not. I’ve always been mystified by the notion that governments will do anything but damage control and release at most what they think they can afford to release. And that sometimes mistakes happen on the part of government and more comes to light than was intended because of bureaucracy and pack rats stashing information that may come into the hands of disgruntled or intrepid or stupid (as in through bureaucratic hindsight) or maybe even paid-off individuals or maybe even yet again individuals with a conscience. I’m cynical. Not that putting the pressure on doesn’t sometimes do good and sometimes yield results (if nothing else, is essential for our general health) but I still think what is yielded generally is a matter of what someone decides can be yielded and no more. And it’s not like the Bush Administration does anything but what it wants to do, throwing up this distraction and that when need be, making an occasional can-be-spared offering of heads.

If nothing else, is essential for our general health to pursue truth where disingenuousness and fiction are served. Perhaps one’s plate isn’t immediate complicity when one knows one ought to question and fails to do so–life isn’t so simple–but wisdom dictates that the denial of whispered oracular urgings of conscience means a death of some part of being, at least.

I am probably wrong about this but…

We all know the loss of life in the Middle East. The hows and ways and means and wheres are too many to go into. A daily occurrence where many particulars are lost and a general awareness is horror enough.

Greek and Roman theater presented the larger than life.which is what tends to be with drama. This doesn’t demean the particular, because in those “larger than life” broodings the truth of every man and woman is revealed, is honored, is encompassed. Now, what are the mechanics of what makes for “larger than life” I don’t know, a one and two and three that must be met in order to qualify. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the weekend and today.

When I was perhaps 15 I tuned the television to PBS and there was this dramatic set that was all gray, nothing to it but gray, the actors in mid 20th century gray and black clothing, and this woman, determined in solemn grief to do her duty and bury her brother who had been forbidden funeral rites. If he remained unburied his spirit was doomed to wander. But the individual who did bury him would be put to death by stoning. Antigone’s duty was clear.

Gladly will I meet death in my sacred duty to the dead. Longer time have I to spend with them than with those who live upon the earth. Seek not to argue with me; nothing so terrible can come to me but that an honored death remains.

Back in the days of only a handful of television stations and no VCRs, this was quite unlike anything I’d ever seen before, though of course the play was Sophocles’ ‘ “Antigone”. The translation was modern. The language was sharp, dialogue and self-reflection clear and not suffocated in similes or tediously embroidered with wasted imagery. I’d caught the play at the very beginning though I didn’t know it. The situation of a woman going to bury her brother, making such a critical decision as Antigone, as stories go would more usually be toward the end of a work rather than a first scene. It’s rare that a hero or heroine takes action in a first scene that concretizes the remainder of the play, so that all is anti-climax.

Refusing Antigone’s right to bury Polynices, leaving his body out to rot in public, his spirit to wander, is Creon’s doom, the death of his house. He rebuffs divine law and natural order.

Creon’s isolation from and disregard of opposing mortal voice was one thing. Another to defy the divine. I don’t mean the divine as defined by religion, its man-made laws and cultural fetishes. When Antigone submitted herself to certain death, burying her brother, it was for no less than to ensure her brother had rest, even if she may be then identified as a traitor. There is a certain respect and acknowledgment of life beyond the personal that is being demanded here. I don’t know whether the doom of Creon’s house was set in his law that went against the natural, if it was Antigone’s honoring of natural law over his own, or indeed that Creon had created a situation in which there had to be such a response, an individual who chose the natural law over his own, an Antigone who risked certain death as contrasted with her sister who said she hadn’t the strength to go against the state. As if natural law demands that it must be honored and will be, which puts Antigone’s action upon the same plane as the divine and she an agent of it. She submitted. Creon, in his hubris, would not. I reject that we understand the story in all its mystery, the struggle of Creon and Antigone as simple as a term paper’s declaration of divine law versus mortal. She is akin to a creature of physics, some natural law demanding her appearance and action, not even as in opposition to Creon but a must of interrelatedness.

Antigone’s and Creon’s story is one that is larger than life.

I could be wrong but the story of Nicola Calipari and Giuliana Sgrena has the same patina to it. Of course it is not isolated, not alone, it stands along many other stories, such as this one of the Hassan family at another checkpoint:

I saw the heads of my two little girls come off…

And this. Another checkpoint. Children covered in the blood of family members.

Creon’s action demanded Antigone’s response. They are interrelated. Antigone’s reminder of cause and consequence that reaches beyond the scope of Creon’s authority, his will and determination, his ego-centric view, I thought of it this weekend. The darkness surrounding the marines who fired upon Calipari’s and Sgrena’s vehicle seems swollen, turgid with Creon’s hubris. I have thought about it long and hard, why this reminds me so much of Antigone, and have wondered if Sgrena is Antigone here. Sgrena’s reporting on atrocities in Iraq is not dissimilar from Antigone’s putting her brother’s spirit to rest through her burial of him, for she didn’t literally bury him, she sprinkled earth three times over his body, wailing for him, grieving for him in public, which is respect and recognition. Sgrena, as with other reporters, is Antigone sprinkling such a symbolic dust on the dead, acknowledging them in public. She “is” because of the atrocities and the defiance of those responsible of respect and interrelatedness. Creon’s leaving a body exposed and demanding no funeral is the same as dead that are kept secret, who aren’t permitted mourning and truth. The psychological ramifications of the hail of gunfire upon the vehicle carrying Sgrena toward the airport are no different from Creon walling Antigone in a crypt. In both, Creon would be a passive agent of Antigone’s death, intending her to seem the responsible party. Indeed, Antigone buried her brother but Creon made the human law which obstructed her from doing so and which she had to defy. Sgrena’s automobile, like the cars of so many others, is said to be speeding. They are given as the responsible party, putting themselves at risk, in the wrong place, even speeding.

Some say it was Calipari who was intentioned to die. Like a message written in blood as was early on suggested at Body and Soul in the comments area. And I have read the notion in the press since then. Even if this is so, the psychological ramifications are the same as the story of Antigone and Creon. Calipari can’t be dissociated from Sgrena through the manner of his death. He flung himself over her, protecting her. The emotional and psychological ramifications are the same as if Sgrena had died. Plus there is the emotional weight of an interceding individual ultimately paying in full, with his life.

I think the firing upon vehicle carrying Sgrena and Calipari was no accident. And even if it was an “accident”, then the hubris that has disdained, cavalier, so much loss of life as a natural consequence of this war, is still responsible. And I’m hoping that this does it for the Bush Administration and its war. I’m hoping that it’s like a trickle of water in a huge dam that becomes a huge crack.

Or maybe it will blow over. Maybe Bush and corp will be able to arrange that. So far nothing seems to have daunted this administration. It rolls along like a terrible huge nightmare and the Democrats mostly standing up right along the Republicans to help.

Still, I would like to think that Bush has pushed the self-topple button. That his statue is on its way to coming down. Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini called Calipari’s death ‘‘a tragedy of destiny”. I don’t believe it. If it’s referred to as a “tragedy of destiny” I would hope it’s the kind exhibited in the lesson of Creon and his hubris, self-willed.

I wonder if Bush studied “Antigone” in high school or college, or read only a part of it and misunderstood it, like the following part:

CREON: Does not the state belong to him who rules it?

HAEMON: No doubt in an uninhabited desert you could rule alone.

Will Pitt of Truthout today weighs in on Calipari and Sgrena and makes the determination that the shooting was accidental. I understand his reasoning but I think it’s flawed.

He states:

If the military or civilian command had wanted Sgrena dead, why did they not use the .20mm cannon that was on the scene? The rounds from that thing are as big as Frisbees and would have done the job.

If the military or civilian command wanted Sgrena or Calipari dead and it was determined an accidental checkpoint end was the way to go, seems that I’ve read frequently about gunfire used to “stop” a car but I’ve not read about cannon being used. I could be wrong but a cannon assault would have spelled m-u-r-d-e-r, an atypical use of force in checkpoint slaughters.

Will Pitt writes:

If the military or civilian command had wanted Sgrena dead, why did military medics tend to her after the attack?

One just as well may have asked, when Sgrena was found to still be alive, why not just plant another bullet?

Not an accident. I’d wondered the same myself and decided that an autopsy would have revealed if anyone was killed at point-blank range. If she had not been eventually tended to by military medics, if care had been withheld, then again, not an accident.

Will Pitt asks himself the question that I’d asked myself.

In a war that has killed 1,685 Coalition soldiers including 1,510 Americans, in a war that has killed 14 soldiers so far this month, in a war that has wounded tens of thousands of American soldiers, in a war that has killed an estimated 198,000 Iraqi citizens, it seems gross and unfair to single out one person. What is it about Calipari that makes him special amid all the carnage, amid all the other families who are mourning their dead?

The moment I heard about Sgrena and Calipari, the image of Antigone in the play I saw on television in the 70s came to mind. I began asking myself that question as well, what is it about Sgrena and Calipari that so captures the imagination. I thought I should perhaps revisit Antigone, which resulted in my “Antigone in Baghdad” post.

Will Pitt writes that he chooses to single out Calipari because, in his opinion, “Calipari has been a walking dead man from the moment Bush and his people chose to invade Iraq come hell or high water.” The few paragraphs he writes on this are a beautiful consideration on all that is wrong with the war, but I think he is wrong that, the soldier whose bullet killed Calipari “was fated to shoot Calipari…from the moment Bush and his people chose to invade Iraq come hell or high water”. As I said in my post “Antigone in Baghdad”, I can’t accept Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini’s calling Calipari’s death “a tragedy of destiny”, nor can I accept Pitt’s decision that it was fated. At least not in the way they intend. Calipari’s death needn’t have happened. Those bullets needn’t have been fired on that automobile.

Sgrena has said they weren’t speeding. The military says they were.

The military says they gave fair warning to the car, flashing lights, shooting rounds into the air, hand signals. Sgrena says that as soon as the spotlight hit them the bullets did as well.

The military says gunfire was aimed at the engine block, in order to halt the car. So one questions why 300 to 400 bullets and how the engine block was determined to be situated on the level of the windows of the car.

Scolari says that the Italians had informed U.S. officials of their plans and the car had already passed several checkpoints.

I could very well be wrong but I don’t think Calipari’s tragic destiny was to die in the way that he did. Now, will we ever know if I’m wrong, if the others who believe that Calipari or Sgrena were targeted are wrong? As the situation stands, even if “accident” is the determination of an investigation, those who believe the shooting was orchestrated are, like me, probably going to believe that an investigation’s finding of “accidental” is orchestrated as well. I’d say that in the end it doesn’t matter if one’s opinion of the war is that it is wrong, is unjustified and therefore all deaths as a result of it are tantamount to calculated crimes. But I imagine it matters very much to Calipari’s wife and friends, to Sgerna, and to journalists whose work places them in a position of revealing facts the Bush Administration and military would prefer to remain hidden.

In the comment area of Washington Monthly’s this article which states Italian Foreign minister Fini has rejected the U.S. account.

Is it any wonder? At dailykos is a summary of Gianfranco Fimi’s testimony to the Italian House of Representatives. Paper Tigress listened to the testimony at La RepubblicaRadio.It and prepared the summary which is also up on her website.

Thank you, Paper Tigress for doing the summary. I’ve included it here but should anyone visit and read please skip on over and visit her website. She has other info as well and does a good rundown of daily events

The Carabiniere major at wheel knew Baghdad very well. He looked for outline of the building known as Saddam Tower, the landmark for the turnoff for the airport.

Once on the airport highway, the driver observed a safe driving speed of 30 mph, a speed appropriate rainslick road conditions. The interior car lights were kept on for ease of identification should the group be stopped at some checkpoint (they did not come across any) as well as for making phone calls to Rome to Calpari’s superior, General Polo, and to US military authorities to inform them of the imminent arrival of their car at the airport in order to facilitate a direct and unhindered approach to the airport.

As the group entered a darkened area on the highway, the car slowed down. They then had to drive through an underpass, which was partially flooded by rainwater. The driver reduced speed again, knowing that he would be approaching a sharp turn at an approximate right angle. (During the journey on the airport highway, the Carabiniere major at the wheel drove in left lane of the highway because the right lane was not only flooded but was obstructed by two concrete blocks well known to regular motorists).

The car was now traveling at a speed of less than 17 mph. In the middle of the turn, a floodlight was illuminated from a rise adjacent to the highway on the right side of the road. The driver immediately braked. The car then came under fire from the right side of the road for 15 seconds from several automatic weapons. The driver noted from tracer rounds that fire was being directed at the occupants’ legs and chest.

When firing ceased, they were ordered out of the car and instructed to kneel approximately 10 meters away from the car. [Calipari was dead]. Despite the fact that he spoke in English, the Carabiniere major was not permitted to show his documents or safe conduct pass to US troops. The major informed the soldiers that he was escorting the released hostage, Mrs. Sgrena, to the airport. At this point, two young soldiers came forward and apologized. The major then realized that Mrs. Sgrena had been wounded. The US military then transported Ms. Sgrena to a hospital inside the Green Zone, followed fifteen minutes later by the Italian major, who had been wounded in the right arm.

I can’t imagine how anyone can possibly hope to justify this account with that of the U.S. Military. It can’t be done. Plus Paper Tigress mentions that the checkpoint was one that had been erected specifically (it’s said) for the purpose of protecting Sgrena. That from Il Corriere della quoting the Washington Post (I’d not read this).

Just doesn’t add up. Slow car on muddy road, lights on in the car, Americans know they’re coming and had set up this hasty checkpoint to supposedly protect Sgrena….no possible way to reconcile this with the U.S. account which immediately planted the ideas of “speeding” and didnt’ stop and this is how suicide bombers operate, speeding and don’t stop, thus the individuals in the car were guilty guilty guilty, guilty as all the others slaughtered at checkpoints.

Oh, that’s right, and I hope we don’t fail to notice that the military said the speeding car didn’t stop, thus gunfire to stop it. But the Italian testimony is that as soon as the car was hit with the floodlight, it stopped. After the car was stopped the gunfire commenced.

Thanks again to Paper Tigress for llistening to the broadcast and composing her summary. I’m not sure how one can listen to it and say, as Fini is saying, that contrary to what Sgrena believes his assessment is it was not an ambush, was accidental, but that the U.S. account doesn’t coincide with the Italian and he hopes for clarity and truth and justice. I feel like the problem with listening to Fini is one’s hearing two languages, the testimony he gives from the driver being one, and diplomacy being the other, between Italy and the U.S., the two of which, Fini pointed out, “antique and often repeated friendship…”

Over at Rox Populi she asks what’s an alternative to Blogosphere? I call it the bog. Short, direct. Inspired with this wondering what people would call (blank), I was wondering this evening, if Bush was a wine, how would you describe him? Me? I’d say, “Bombastic yet insipid”. There are a number of wits out there and I wish I knew what others would conjure, descriptive.

I start out to do one thing and end up doing another and another and following the Sgrena/Calipari story from here to there to there around the internet. An interesting thread that’s been carried on at dailykos today has links to pics of the automobile in which Sgrena and Calipari were riding. At Corrierre della Sera. The front end looks surprisingly unscathed for a car of which the engine block was said to be the target of the gunfire. I was also surprised to see that it wasn’t the car which I’d initially seen elsewhere given as Sgrena and Calipari’s car and doing a search found that the first car I saw wasn’t the Sgrena and Calipari car at all. Story here at Wagnews on how it came to be given as the car. Oddly enough, the stand-in car was said to look too little damaged. But the Toyata that Calipari and Sgrena were traveling in looks in a lot better shape than that other auto. However, appearances are apparently deceiving. The Italian foreign minister said that photos of the car show the right side riddled with bullet holes. The pics only show what I would have called the left side (driver’s side) of the auto but it is I guess instead called the right side, one facing it. (I can’t give a link to the foreign minister’s quote as it is an excerpt of an audio from NPR. Anyway, one doesn’t see the bullet holes. Blown out glass yes, but not the holes.

Brigadier General Peter Vangiel has been appointed to lead the investigation. He is with the 18th Airborne Corps Artillery from Fort Bragg, fresh in to Iraq in January. I find at Daily Kos a Jan 10th posting mentioning the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg. “Soldiers given ‘talking points’ to repeat to any newsreporters they meet on the field” .

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — Paratroopers from the 18th Airborne Corps are preparing to head to Iraq for a year of duty and among the lessons they’re getting is one in dealing with the news media they will encounter.
Soldiers will pack a plastic wallet card that lists talking points for interviews along with their rifles and body armor because the chances are good that they’ll meet a reporter in the field.

Continues with this…

Last week, about 60 members of the 18th Corps’ artillery headquarters battery sat for a refresher course in a classroom at Fort Bragg for a presentation from Master Sgt. Pam Smith of the Corps public affairs office.

“If you don’t tell your story, they will tell their own, and all they will have to go on is their own thoughts and opinions,” Smith said. “If we don’t share with them what we do, the good things we do, they can’t report it.”

Military public affairs officers say the idea isn’t to “spin” reporters. Rather, the goal is to familiarize troops with a duty that has become almost routine.

One of the main messages is that talking to journalists is smart, not just because it paints an accurate picture of the military but also because it’s an opportunity.

There also was a subtext to the course — that soldiers should dwell on the positive.

The slide show’s first talking point was, “We are not an occupying force. Goal is to help Iraqis secure their country.”

And ends up with…

Public affairs officers from all the branches of service learn the basics of training troops in dealing with the media at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Md.

Interesting. I was wondering what Peter Vangiel’s special qualifications were for dealing with this investigation. Maybe he has a particular way of currying the press and making positive presentations.

Continuing, the special talking points include the following (from an article by Joe Strupp at Iraq Occupation Watch):

* The Marine Corps is trained, resourced, and ready to accomplish its missions. We are committed to the cause and will remain in Iraq as long as we are needed.

* The fight in Iraq is tough, but we will remain steadfast and not lose heart.

* We are moving forward together with the Iraqi government as partners in building a future for the sons and daughters of Iraq.

* Coalition forces will help our Iraqi partners as they build their new and independent country and take their rightful place in the world community.

* Our troopers and their families are our greatest and most treasured resource.

* The Corps is a national institution it has never failed to do the will of the American people.

Not much room for freedom of thought and speech in the Marines, is there.

I don’t know how Vangjiel’s (I’ve seen spelled Vangjel and Vangiel) experience as a deputy commander of the Army Recruiting Command will help the investigation but he was deputy commander of Army Recruiting Command.

In interviews with recruiting officials, as well as in internal memos and e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times, this pressure to meet recruiting goals is evident.

“Guys the mission is at risk!” Col. Peter M. Vangjel, a deputy commander of the Army Recruiting Command, wrote to battalion commanders and top enlisted soldiers in an April 21 e-mail message. “We can NOT miss this mission. I need your full support.”

Colonel Vangjel continued, “The CG is the next guy to talk to you about this,” referring to the commanding general of the recruiting command, Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle. “Don’t let it happen.”

Ha. We are not an occupying force. Which brings me to Bush’s “Freedom will prevail in Lebanon!” speech.

In his speech, Mr. Bush won enthusiastic applause from the audience when he vowed that the United States will not rest until countries under authoritarian rule are freed and said he had no doubt that will happen.

“Those who place their hope in freedom may be attacked and challenged, but they will not ultimately be disappointed, because freedom is the design of humanity, and freedom is the direction of history,” Mr. Bush said. “The trumpet of freedom has been sounded, and that trumpet never calls retreat.”

What imagery. A bit more stately, though, than freedom ringing doorbells in the Middle East. That was in there too. Democracy is going to be ringing every door in the Middle East. Bush going door to door like the Jehovah’s Witnesses–imagine.

He said the spread of freedom has been stymied by repressive regimes in Syria and Iran and warned them the United States will adhere to its demand that they stop.

“The time has come for Syria and Iran to stop using murder as a tool of policy and to end all support for terrorism,” he said.

That’s right, when you tell people to stop using murder as a policy tool, people just have to assume that you wouldn’t use it as a policy tool, would you.

Mr. Bush said Iran “should listen to the concerns of the world and listen to the voice of the Iranian people, who long for their liberty and want their country to be a respected member of the international community.”

The United States believes Syria, which has just under 15,000 soldiers in Lebanon, was involved in the bomb plot that killed the anti-Syria former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, three weeks ago.

Mr. Bush said, “We meet at a time of great consequence for the security of our nation, a time when the defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom, a time with echoes in our history. Twice in six decades a sudden attack on the United States launched our country into a global conflict and began a period of serious reflection on America’s place in the world.

Global police. (“US Push for global police force” ).

I caught a sound bite of the speech on television. Just heard, didn’t see. I have this visceral gut response to Bush every time I hear or see him. Nausea. And cringing disbelief that he is…President. Discombobulating. A bombastic yet insipid presence and voice. He just begs one to turn one’s back and walk away.

Scott McClellan, on Tuesday, fielded questions on Bush’s call for Syria to get out of Lebanon.

Q Scott, how does the President square his calls again today for Syria to get out of Lebanon, with the enormous outpouring of support for Syria on the streets of Lebanon today and calls for the international community to stay out of the internal affairs of Lebanon?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, we are glad to see people peacefully express their views in the town square, as they have done for days now. We hope the Lebanese people will be able to express their view at the ballot box, through free elections, without outside interference and outside intimidation.

That’s right, no outside interference, no outside intimidation.

Syria’s continued presence in Lebanon undermines the aspirations of the Lebanese people to live in freedom. I also noticed today that the flag that was being waved was the Lebanese flag.

Q Right, but it’s another side of the story, it would seem, that there is one segment of the Lebanese population who wants Syria to get out, another segment of the population that wants them to stay in; and that the call is for people like the President, for Germany, France, Saudi Arabia to stay out of the process, that it’s not their place to be involved in.

MR. McCLELLAN: We want the Lebanese people to be able to determine their own future without any outside interference or outside influence.

Right. Again, no outside interference or outside influence. We couldn’t possibly be accused of outside interference or influence. We couldn’t possibly be thinking of being an influencing force.

Meanwhile. Well, I gotta git. I’m being told that Aku is out to get the future where all his evil is coming. Aku is also trying to trick Elmo into Elmo thinking he is one of his pals.

My mother wrote me mentioning Bankruptcy Reform and I thought she was asking for further info on it but realized later she wasn’t, she had another question on it that had to do with religion’s role. still the particulars according to Mediagirl’s blog are here (fair rundown, mom) which I found via Alas, a Blog and there’s a link too to a rant at Dailykos by Maryscott Oconnor.

Maryscott Oconnor notes:

The details of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 — a Draconian piece of shit so OBVIOUSLY crafted as a Republican Paean to MBNA (the LARGEST SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR to the REPUBLICAN PARTY — never, ever forget that) and their co-conspirators, in a giant “Fuck You, Assholes — We Want MORE!” - are horrifying in the extreme.

One of the charms of wealth is that if you are wealthy wealthy wealthy you don’t, of course, have everything taken from you because you put your assets in a trust…the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 provides exemptions for asset protection trusts. Oconnor gives a nice rundown of the amendments (such as one that would rein this in) that were rejected. Such as exempting debtors from “means testing if their financial problems were caused by identity theft” which was a no go, and I would like to hear Rejected: the amendment that would limit the amount of interest charged on any extension of credit to 30 percent.

Rejected: preserving existing bankruptcy protections for individuals whose economic distress is the result of ill or disabled family members and tending for them. Rejected was the amendment providing protection for medical debt homeowners and an amendment exempting debtors from means testing whose financial problems were caused by serious medical problems.

For a good number of people, bankruptcy is due to catastrophic health circumstances. Boom, sickness, bills, they lose their health insurance of course and then everything else.

The set-up is life-time indebtedness not too distant from the old debtor’s prisons. One person commented it was the “The American Family Slave Act of 2005.”

Considering that it’s illness or the loss of a job that usually precipitates financial crisis leading to bankruptcy, then I can see how really putting the screws to them is…uhm, no, I don’t even begin to imagine the “why” except, as Oconnor points out, it’s a matter of Republicans rejecting Democrat amendments just because because because.

America is not a place to get sick. Don’t do it. Even if you have health coverage, the insurance company is going to drop you anyway because, you know, of illness, and then you’re going to lose everything you’ve got because you have no financial protections.

America’s a funny culture. Excusing colonization and ethnocide parents pass on stories to their children of how (fill in the blank natives) used to drop their sick and elderly in the lonely waste and left them to die. They were bad. We are good. Thank (fill in the blank) we came along and saved everyone from themselves.

In the meanwhile, America eats its young, its elderly, its poor, its sick, and its middle class. Yum, yum, good.

Bankruptcy is a word that used to be associated with a moral deficiency and still is, or there’s an ongoing fight to keep it a mark of decrepit values. I imagine a lot of people have fought bankruptcy with moral obligation in mind, even if outrageous interest rates mean they have already paid their debt three and four times in full. If bankruptcy is now more common than divorce (yes) then something is quite wrong already, as I do believe it has been a last resort for the majority (if you’re not Donald Trump and the like for whom it’s just another way of doing business and making a profit). But many bankrupt individuals having already paid their debt in full, plus three times that, isn’t enough when it comes to the personal debtor.

Considering that a fair number of Republicans and Bush supporters were middle class (what’s left of it) and Christian, what are churches telling their flocks about bankruptcy?

Considering the rise in fundamentalism, I imagine the teaching of the Assemblies of God on bankruptcy isn’t too far right of what many Christian churches teach. So, I’ve excerpted a few thoughts from them here on financial responsibility and bankruptcy from the Official Assemblies of God teaching.

The only control one has is keeping expenditures within one’s income—in fact, within 90 percent of income, for God has a claim on the 10 percent tithe (see Concerns at the end of this piece).

Right, mustn’t forget to support the church.

But that is not easy with all the complications and unexpected expenses that come along. Budgeting is a wise practice for making sure that we have a good testimony as Christians.

Ok, moral linkage. Budgeting is Christian. If you are a good Christian then your finances are in order.

“Let no debt remain outstanding” (Rom. 13:8)… failing to pay one’s debts is certainly not a demonstration of love.

Ouch, that’s getting pretty severe. Most people wouldn’t think they had a love relationship going on with their credit company.

When a purchase is made by credit card or by a promise to make specified payments over a period of time, there is no debt as long as the buyer makes regular payments according to the agreement. If, however, a payment is not made at the agreed time, the buyer is in debt and would violate Paul’s admonition to owe nothing, especially love.

One of the amendments rejected by the Bankruptcy bill is increased disclosure of just how pricey it is to only make the minimum required payment on your debt. Lucrative to credit companies. Tons of money to be made in a person only making the minimum required payment. It increases one’s indebtedness.

If one cannot meet the terms of the original agreement, the Christian thing to do would be to contact the creditor explaining the problem and asking for a substitute agreement. If that cannot be arranged, the unpaid obligation makes the buyer a debtor.

In most catechism it is business that’s above reproach.

Buying necessities on credit can actually be an investment. Paying rent for years is like pouring water on the ground. It should only be done until one can qualify for a home purchase.

I guess so the credit companies can scarf it up.

The Bible describes one who does not repay his debts as a wicked person: “The wicked borrow and do not repay” (Psalm 37:21).

There it is, the debtor who does not pay is wicked.

Credit extended for major purchases is usually covered by collateral so that the lender, in case of the buyer’s default, takes back the property leaving no debt.

Not to mention the hefty hunk of change they’ve made off of the interest.

Keeping something that one has not paid for according to agreement would be a violation of Christian integrity and a sin…A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished” (Prov. 28:20). Our attitude in handling money and possessions is all-important.

There’s the be good, don’t aim too high, and you’re prosper. Riches here are equated with “bad” but I’d wager that there aren’t many rich people in the Assemblies of God who wouldn’t be thought of as anything but “blessed with riches” because of faith, good works, etc.

We live in a society of declining morals and ethics. Bankruptcy and Chapter 11 proceedings are being used by many as a means of avoiding rightful obligations.

Here you go, support for the Bankruptcy Bill through the belief that bankruptcy is for the immoral individual. Nothing about illness and loss of work being the prime cause of financial catastrophe.

Society has made things that used to be considered luxuries into necessities. The family is forced to have two wage earners in order to pay for the things they feel are needed.

What century is this person living in. Guess what, women were wage earners on the farm (they are undoubtedly referring back to an agrarian life style here). Their work waas work, it just happened to be on the homestead. They made goods and sold them to up the income.

But the family and its spiritual growth are far more important than buying bigger and better toys to substitute for the presence of loving parents.

We’re talking bankruptcy here, remember, and the argument falls flat when one again remembers that bankruptcy is most often preceded by illness of wage earners or family members or loss of a job.

A final concern is the attitude of some Christians who feel they can’t afford to tithe even though they would like to. They plan to contribute to the Lord’s work when finances permit. Or they ask where in the New Testament Christians are required to tithe. This Old Testament acknowledgment that everything we have comes from God is nowhere removed in the New Testament. It is assumed to continue for Jesus commended the Pharisees for their tithing, at the same time He shamed them for not obeying the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matt. 23:23). We believe that the road to financial solvency is longer without tithing than it is with tithing. God honors those who make His money the first priority in their budgeting and spending.

And finishing it all off, Assemblies of God reminds that being in financial straits doesn’t mean you can take a break tithing ten percent of your income to your church.

Mark Robbins, a Christian C.P.A. writes,

In the last article of Money Sense, it was indicated that voluntary indebtedness could get so out of hand that the thought of declaring bankruptcy could become a matter of consideration for many people—including Christians. According to the August 1999 American Bankruptcy Institute report, there were over 1.4 million bankruptcies filed for the twelve months ending in June 1998 and justunder 1.4 million filed ending in June 1999. A little over 97% of the filings were personal bankruptcy.

Business bankruptcy must be good and acceptable whereas personal bankruptcy means no-accountable person.

This has takenplace in an economy that has the lowest unemployment,interest, and inflation rates in recent history.

Yawn.

What should the Christian’s viewpoint be on this subject? Ecclesiastes 5:5 says, “Better it is that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.”
A Christian should not take on any debt that he or she is not prepared to repay, cannot repay, or does not intend to repay. A believer’s word should be as binding as any signed contract. As believers, we are bound to repay whatever it is that we borrow.

And then a lot more, right? They all ignore the real economics of lending.

The circumstance of our indebtedness or the length of time for repayment is irrelevant. Bankruptcy does not negate our biblical responsibility to repay the whole debt…

In other words if you’re sick or had a dramatic unanticipated loss in income (when is it anticipated?) you still have no excuse.

Psalm 37:21 says, “The wicked borroweth and payeth not again:…”

Yada, yada.

Mark Robbins, who believeth not in illness, goes on to say that acceptable even essential ways of paying off debt include selling off your assets, liquidating your investments, taking other jobs (individuals in the U.S. work more than any other modern industrialized country) and seek gifts from family to pay off your debts.

Mark Robbins also talks about the must of tithing.

Howard Dayton, CEO of “Crown Financial Ministries” writes that god’s word makes it clear that believers shoud be responsible for their vows and repay what they owe. Every debt. His attitude too is that bankruptcy laws are too lenient and that’s why people increasingly flock to bankruptcy court.

He notes,

Skyrocketing increases in the number of personalbankruptcies seem to support this assumption. Theexecutive director of the American BankruptcyInstitute says the dramatic increase in consumer fil-ings is attributable to three variables:1. Sustained levels of household debt2. Household budgets so overextended that itseems impossible to get out from under debt3. A decrease in bankruptcy’s negative stigmacombined with an abundance of credit.

Again, yada yada. The message–despite illness and income less being the prime reason for bankruptcy–is that the exceptional indebtedness is caused by people eschewing frugality and buying toys.

Dayton, at least, gets quickly to the point. TITHING.

The bad news is that the younger generation,those 35 years old and younger, have more debt, lesssavings and are less generous.Recently I met with the pastor of a large churchwho had conducted a survey of his church’s giving.He found that 58 percent of the church budget wasgiven by those 65 and older. The survey also showedthat it required five younger households to replacethe giving of one older one. He asked me, “What’sgoing to happen to the ministry of this church whenthese loyal, generous die?”The good news is that when the younger genera-tion is trained, the people respond. About 60churches that use the Crown Financial Ministriesprogram surveyed graduates of the Crown program.They discovered that within three years of graduation, the average household reduced its debt by$20,000, increased its saving by about $10,000 andincreased its giving 62.5 percent

Dayton’s job depends upon you being in debt and needing a way out that isn’t bankruptcy. Take that into consideration.

From Timothy Southall’s “The Christian and Bankruptcy”:

Should a Christian declare bankruptcy to erase his debt? First, let’s look at the scriptures and see what God expects from us. The scriptures do not address bankruptcy itself, but there are some scriptures that do apply and will help us make biblical judgments and decisions.

Living on credit and not paying back is a characteristic of the wicked:

The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously. –Psalm 37:21 (NIV)

All monetary debt must be repaid:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. –Romans 13:8 (NIV)

Is it biblical for a Christian in debt to get a “free ride” to his problems by signing up for bankruptcy? Based on the above verses, the answer is easy–”No.”

Progressives wonder why in the hell the middle and lower middle class vote resoundingly for people who institute laws that are crippling them.

Church?

And finally, before I start throwing up, this from Ken Walker at thegoodsteward.com on tithing being rewarded in unexpected ways.

They have suffered such financial setbacks as bankruptcy, car repossession, staggering credit card bills and scratching for cash to buy their next meal.

However, since they started tithing, half a dozen Christians told Baptist Press they have more than enough money to provide for their needs. And, they feel they are making positive contributions to God’s work in the world.

“It’s not what the prosperity teachers teach,” said Raquel Perez of Elizabeth, N.J. “Give because it’s an indicator of your heart toward the Lord. What you love you put your money into, whether it’s your house, car, or whatever. Give because He is worthy. We’re not to serve God for what we can get out of Him.”

Kevin Maude of Woodstock, Ga., who started tithing immediately after his conversion in 1999 despite $15,000 in debt, agreed.

“The blessings aren’t all monetary,” Maude said. “I’m talking about friends, family and the way your kids are growing up. Just to know that if you leave it in God’s hands and let it work His way, it will – that’s what we’ve learned. That’s the key.”

Andrew Stull, a 25-year-old environmental health specialist from Lawrence, Kan., felt led to start tithing two years ago when he heard the late financial counselor Larry Burkett mention Luke 16:10: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

Often broke in college, after finding full time employment Stull wondered why he didn’t have more money left at the end of the month. Then he started tithing and saw a huge difference.

“It’s strange – after a month or two I didn’t notice it because I always had plenty of money to go around,” said Stull, a member of First Southern Baptist Church in Lawrence. “And I was able to build my savings back up.”

The end of the article is on a family who was near bankruptcy and decided not to declare. They started tithing and low and behold money started coming in from here and there to meet all their needs.

Anyway, progressives, if one is looking for reasons why middle and lower middle class Christians voted for Bush and cronies despite how he’s raping them, in the financial department at least the church is telling them business is good, the personal debtor is bad and responsible for his or her debt regardless, there being a moral linkage between the individual and their debt, which doesn’t leave much room for compassion toward the debtor. Over and over one hears that, regardless one’s circumstances, one is obligated to pay one’s debt. What’s more, tithing is your get out of debt card as god will reward his faithful so they have everything to meet their needs. One website even said that there’s no cause to complain if you lose everything you have as a debtor, in lieu of going into bankruptcy (at least before this Bill that removes any protections) because as a Christian you will be taken in by another Christian household, and you’ll have a roof over your head and meals. No tears allowed.

My limited searches (a few hours) showed a few stories on the web (scattered on Christian forums mainly) that point out tithing is legalistic and not to feel bad about bankruptcy, that it doesn’t make one less a Christian. But the predominate message is one steals if one goes bankrupt. Why is the church so afraid of personal bankruptcy? I wonder if it has to do with psychology of power over and power under. Does dissociating stigma from declaring bankruptcy increase the threat that individuals might rethink moral mandates to pay up regardless, and be more willing to give up tithing if unable to afford it. A number of people tithe based on gross income. A number of people are encouraged by their churches to immerse themselves in “prosperity thinking”, not permit discouraging thoughts or fears, and regardless of their need even increase their giving to the church, called a “sacrificial offering”, so that god will then have an open avenue to return financial blessings to them, the message being that if you are having a rough time it’s because the lord can’t help you as you’re not giving enough.

I’m not going to go into tithing itself. A person can give whatever they want to the church.

But I do wonder if there’s likely an acceptance of stricter bankruptcy laws in America at large because of church instruction. Which reaches outside the church and over everyone’s heads because of this belief of there being no moral bankruptcy, whatever one’s circumstances. Financial institutions and business reap big. The little guy crumbles. Doesn’t matter. One could put all the corporate facts before people who carry these beliefs and it wouldn’t matter to them.

Business is good and right. But the individual–if they’re in bad straits it’s their fault, god has turned his back on them due to their wickedness (even though they’re still paying and thus still “good” according to their bible law). The way to buck up those morals is to make bankruptcy harder and to afford no charity.

Seems there are a lot of middle and lower middle class people who have perhaps lost enough to be frightened, but haven’t lost all yet. Kind of like being under the delusion you have absolute control over your life, and thus it’s your good decisions and right living that have resulted in you having a roof over your head and health. If you have absolute control over your life and have done fairly well then it’s easy to be in control of god and reap divinity’s blessings. You are proof that it works as you are surrounded by them. If you’ve less than you used to have, or have troubles, or friends and relatives have troubles, as long as your head is above water then you’re still somewhat in control and thus somewhat in control of god and his blessings (retroactively).

All down the same lane as might equals right.

Can I do this? Inspired by Buck Hill pointing to Copy, right?…here’s a little never released, basement cover of Mac and Lennon’s “Revolution”. Courtesy of Idyllopus. Done back in the roarin 90’s. And lest you think it’s a joke. I love this cover. But then I would. Not because I did it but because my brain idles on an off ramp. When I finished singing it, I knew I’d done something exceptional. That no one before me had thought to do. And it was unlikely that anyone would ever be able to capture and reduplicate my idyosyncratic styling. Not that anyone would ever think to or desire to, because people like to be headin’ somewhere instead of sitting on an off ramp. I’d say that reaction to this cover is my lithmus test of people except that very few people have heard it and I’m still friends with you if you don’t get it. If you don’t get it, I just let you make the coffee, because mine would taste a tad off.

Here it is below. If it takes a bit to open, don’t despair. It’s there. Just when you think, “Nothing’s going to happen” , if you wait a bit more then it happens. (I’m serious, very slow. Is taking over a minute for the song to come up for me. But you get five minutes of streaming Revolution in exchange for the wait.)

Oh, my husband recorded and did the glorious guitar.

Ready for a Revolution?

I gots more where that came from. People who like that like “Happiness is a warm gun”…