IN THE NEWS: Some medical longevity specialists recently published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine saying that increasing obesity in America will reverse the long-run increase in life expectancy within the next 50 years. In other words, people are going to live shorter lives, on average, because they’re too fat. Of course, there are disagreements in the field. Most other longevity experts think that average life expectancy will continue to increase because of advances in medicine. However, they admit that obesity is becoming a big problem and will make longevity lower than it otherwise could have been, even if it doesn’t make it lower overall.

I don’t like to think of myself as a liberal snob, but you really have to wonder just how smart Americans are. America has definitely been getting fatter over the past 25 or 30 years, despite all the good information that has been readily available to the public throughout this time about the health effects of obesity. American’s definitely don’t think ahead too far. Steak, cake, shakes, fetticuine alfredo, Krispy Kreme, Ben & Jerrys . . . . . scarf it down today, forget about tomorrow. What a country.

But in many ways, despite its many stupidities, America is still a great country. And it’s interesting that its Muslim sons and daughters are increasingly restless for a progressive form of Islam that embraces America’s best values (e.g. education, tolerance, open-mindedness, and individual rights). There was an interesting article in the NY Times today about a woman who leads Islamic prayer services in New York City, despite all of the taboo in classic Islam about women. According to Islamic tradition, women must pray apart from men in segregated corners of the mosque, and certainly cannot lead men. But Islamic tradition isn’t entirely edifying to the average American-born Muslim these days. One survey indicates that only about 10% of native-born Muslims attend mosque weekly. According to the Times article, the mosques and Islamic centers are often ruled by immigrants and thus don’t meet the needs of American Muslims. So, the native types are experimenting with modernism, such as allowing women to pray together with men and even allowing women to lead the prayers at times.

This isn’t the first place where I read that women are the ticking time bomb within fundamentalist Islam. The idea of women’s equality is out of the bottle throughout the world, and even the gnarliest of imams and ayatollahs can’t put it back. The anti-western strain of Islam appears to be getting stronger out there in the “Moslem Crescent”, which stretches from the tip of Africa to Southeast Asia. But in their hearts, Muslim women increasingly know it’s wrong. I think there is hope for the emergence of a modernist Islamic movement, even out in places like Nigeria and Yemen and Bangladesh. I even hold out for a peaceful reconciliation between third world Islam and the West. But only if the West could give them something worth reconciling with – something more than obesity, greed, aggressive marketing, materialism, lawyer-talk, sexual obsession / immaturity, and all of the other missteps of American culture. (And having Wolfowitz at the World Bank does NOT appear to be a good way of giving them “something more”).

Finally, as to the Terri Schiavo thing — to be honest, that’s a real toughie. Years ago I totally agreed with the decisions to remove forced breathing apparatus from brain-dead patients. But now it’s been kicked up a notch, to removing food and water. That’s a step closer to mercy killing. It’s not a step to be taken lightly, especially if the person in question didn’t leave any “living will” instructions.

On the other side of the coin, Ms. Schiavo has been unconscious for 15 years – I’m fairly comfortable with the notion that she ain’t coming back. Still, the chances aren’t totally zero, and crazy things have happened before. In a kinder and gentler world where resources and mercy were plentiful, I’d say that we should never pull the plug. But in a nasty world of limited resources where population needs and expectations are getting ahead of wisdom and technology, perhaps we have to do some medical rationing. But in doing so, let’s not add too much to the “many missteps of American Culture” cited above. Let’s not let 15 years become 15 weeks. It could be you or me on the other end of that feeding tube next time (and I hope and pray that won’t be the case!).

Perhaps one of the most basic decisions that we all make is just how aggressive we will be about getting what we want. I.e., just how much damage are we willing to do to others in order to satisfy ourselves. In this matter, no one is an angel. We all have to injure someone else every now and then in order to survive. On the macro scale, if you drive a car, as I do, you help to choke people with lung diseases and you’ve sent soldiers off to die in order to obtain petroleum. On the micro scale, you can’t have a stable marriage without sometimes manipulating and taking advantage of your partner in order to meet your basic needs. If a man and woman can’t accept this fact, they are a bit too idealistic for real-world marriage (unspoken romantic idealism, which society encourages in its pop culture, is probably a bigger factor in divorce than you would think; most love songs aren’t written about real people).

But beyond this base level of violence and exploitation, we all decide just how much more force and aggression we’re going to use to satisfy our desires. Obviously, some people go so far in their use of aggression as to attract a response from the government. They call it crime. But short of that extreme, we still make decisions about how demanding and forceful we’re gonna be in life, and how much we’re gonna care about hurting other people’s feelings, bodies, and economic interests.

To me, this is what philosophy is all about. Or should be.

Of course, we all know people (or maybe groups of people) who don’t care too much about what they do to others. These are the “caveman” types. Their brains seem to be wired to give they joy whenever they beat someone else and seize the booty. (You see them most every day at traffic lights, zooming around you on the right so as to get ahead of everyone once the light turns green). What’s even worse in my book is when people like this combine their aggression with intelligence, talent and charm. What you get then are politicians and corporate executives. And also, conservative talk show hosts . . . however, don’t think that the liberal, politically correct academians who the talk show hosts hate so much aren’t often wolves in sheep’s clothing. And as to priests and ministers and other religious leaders . . . don’t even get me started.

But what troubles me even more are the mostly average people who don’t get any particular thrill out of defeating others, who don’t believe that everything is a winner-take-all-game, but who give in to aggression in the name of security. Ah yes, security. A very seductive mistress, who I myself have succumbed to many times. Ancient historians claimed that the Roman Empire never fought an aggressive war. In their eye, Rome conquered Europe and North Africa and Palestine solely for security’s sake. Unfortunately, one man’s legitimate security needs easily becomes another man’s oppression.

I myself don’t have any answer to the problem of security war. The best security would come if we could all communicate and cooperate and be fair and open-minded. But it only takes one person who isn’t fair or won’t cooperate or can’t communicate his or her needs and understand the needs of others to tear apart the fragile web of trust. They we all go back to our fall-back position, i.e. independent action in order to obtain personal security. (We do often group together in taking such actions, e.g. through families and tribes; but such affiliations are fluid and are mostly based on circumstances. With a shift in the winds, we easily go to war against those who share our blood or our tribal colors).

Until humankind figures out some way to vastly improve communication and understanding and sell people on the long-run benefit of fairness and cooperation, then war, crime, neo-conservative anger, and a society where aggression is the unspoken norm (even, and perhaps especially, amidst liberals) are gonna be with us for a long, long time.

I’m a fan of non-professional, unknown writers who savor the ridiculous little things of life. Unfortunately, I can hardly name any such writers. Hardly anyone can. You read their stuff somewhere, some magazine or blog, you nod your head, chuckle to yourself and say “yea, he’s (or she’s) right” and you leave it at that. You never learn their name and you never see anything by them again.

Well, I recently came across something like that, but this time I did stop and take names (or name, anyway). I was looking for a CD on amazon.com, namely Firehouse’s namesake album from 1991. I eventually found it and started reading the reviews. One of them was especially entertaining. It was written by a guy who calls himself “canuckiewookie”. He hails from Portland, Maine, and I guess that he has Canadian roots (what if he came from Kentucky? would he then be . . . oh, forget it). He tells you how a couple of Firehouse albums turned his drive home from high school in his junky old car into a transcendent experience. And then came graduation and the whole timbre of the rock music world changed (from hair bands like Firehouse putting out lively, overproduced tunes to gloomy grunge artists cranking out lean, angstful dirges). Yea, that’s high school all right. You live in a little bubble where everything seems pretty cool, then reality eventually sets in and blows it all to bits. And all you’ve got left is the memories of the good times and of the stuff that once made you smile. Like canuckiewookie’s Ford Tempo and his Firehouse tapes.

You can check out canuckiewookie’s reviews of Firehouse and other stuff
here. Oh, as to the Firehouse album . . . . I did eventually buy it, but not from amazon. I found it for $3 (with shipping) on ebay. Ebay, amazon, google, yahoo, the whole Internet . . . . . it all blurs together for a graying old rocker like myself. For a young guy like canuckie, though, the whole net thing is truly “write on” . . . . . as in “right on”, an expression we used to use such a long, long time ago. Back when we were cool.

More or less by accident, I tuned in on The McLaughlin Group this morning. I didn’t know that Mr. McLaughlin was still on TV. I remember watching his show in the mid-80s, back in the Ronald Reagan era. It always turned my stomach. John McLaughlin was born with a true talent, the talent of confrontation. He couldn’t issue a sentence from his mouth without making you want to either pop him in the mouth or run for cover (unless you happened to agree with his view point). Fight or flight. There was no middle ground with John McLaughlin. Everything with him was a big crisis, a huge boondoggle — just one more example of how liberal thought and values were corrupting our civilization. The man was walking pepper spray, a major irritant.

I’m not sure who came first, John McLaughlin or Rush Limbaugh. But as it turned out, talk radio and not Sunday TV became the fertile soil for the rise of popular conservatism. And so today we think of Mr. Limbaugh as the man leading the charge for the conservative cause. But hey, McLaughlin was a pioneer in my book. He helped shape the mold for all those angry, aggressive conservative commentators out there today on the Fox network and on the radio talk shows. McLaughlin led the stalking horses who cleared the way for the rise of the nice-guy troglodytes, e.g. Ronald Reagan and GWB. Their nastiness let “Dutch” Reagan be “Dutch” Reagan, jellybeans and all (don’t forget the monkey bread). Sure, before McLaughlin and Limbaugh there were George Will and William F. Buckley, but those guys wore bowties. McLaughlin threw the bowties away and started raising his voice. And the heart of America started listening.

But watching McLaughlin today was a little bit sad. He still went thru all the gruff, angry motions, but you can see that’s he’s softening around the edges. Ah, the price of old age; wisdom makes you realize that things aren’t so simple after all. But in order to stay on TV and share the spotlight with cavemen like Irving Kristol, John McLaughlin keeps on scowling, despite the fact that his heart really isn’t in it anymore (for example, he’s quite ambivalent about the war in Iraq). Ideology is a young man’s game. Today we have Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and other smart, nasty guys out there on the bleeding edge. Maybe it’s time for McLaughlin to hang it up.

Or maybe not. I’d like to think that old people have a role to play in society, despite all the resources they use (e.g., health care) that could otherwise benefit young families. I’d like to think that young people benefit by interacting with old people. (Especially since I now qualify for AARP membership). Old folk are living proof that nothing lasts forever, that everything is subject to decay and demise . . . . including the nasty strain of conservatism that McLaughlin and his imitators helped to infect our nation with back in the 1970s and 80s.

Here’s what’s cooking at my place today: vegetarian chili. And yes, I’m wearing non-leather shoes as it simmers. I picked up a nice pair the other day at Payless. Yea, I’m giving them a plug (for free), because they’re the only place around here where you can get decent leatherless men’s shoes at cheap-o prices. Admittedly, they’re made by non-union labor in China, but I’m all for world trade. Our economy eventually got out of its sweatshop phase, and I’m hoping that China will follow. Enough heavy issues for now, I’m gonna see how that chili is doing.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN: As a former Roman Catholic, I took some interest in the news this week about Pope John Paul II’s tracheotomy and his failing health. Even though it won’t make much difference to me what happens to “The Church” given my basic disagreement with their teachings about Jesus, I’d still like to see the Catholics make some progress. And John Paul II has not been a man of progress, not in the sense by which I judge that word. So obviously, I’d like to see a new pope who might bring about the kind of progress that I’d sympathize with.

Over the past quarter century, I think that JP2 has broadened the scope of the Church in the world, but he’s done nothing to deepen it. I myself would like to see a Church in substantial agreement with the Enlightenment project of increasing human maturity and freedom via the facilities of rationality and understanding and communication. I.e., I’d like to see a Church that endorses the ideals of western modernity (at least in their purest forms). Pope John the 23rd started the Church in that direction back in the early 60s, and a whole lot of people got very excited about it at the time. But after the good Angelo Roncelli died (and a good man and pope he was), the momentum was lost. Under JP2’s reign, it all pretty much ground to a halt.

I do realize, however, that John Paul 2 has done a lot to broaden the Church’s relevance throughout the world. His brand of Catholicism has played well in a lot of “third world” nations, especially in Africa. That style of religion seems pretty immature to students of the great western thinkers (of which I’d like to think of myself as a member, or an aspirant anyway). But the great thinkers of the Enlightenment weren’t thinking about villages in Nigeria or Vietnam. In those kinds of places, the Church’s basic myths and tenants represent a big step forward in terms of establishing human dignity and meaningfulness of life. Despite the many flaws, I’d be the first to admit that John Paul’s form of regimented Catholicism is an improvement over crude animism, cynical Buddhism, and hard-ball Islam, both spiritually and socially. Fifth grade is still better than second grade, even if it ain’t PhD-level. (To be fair, I must say that the purer forms of Buddhism and the more spiritualized manifestations of Islam are quite deep and beautiful; but what those traditions actually practice out in the run-down farms and urban slums ain’t too pretty).

Nevertheless, I still hope that the pendulum in the Church will swing back toward “depth”, even if at the expense of breadth. So, even though I’m not rooting for the Pope to hurry up and die, I do agree with those who say that he should step aside.

BUT . . . . . and there’s always a BUT with me . . . . . . there may be something quite good resulting from JP2’s long dotage. The fact that the Church has put up with a sick old man for so long does make a statement about the dignity of humankind. What other big organization would tolerate such a display of human weakness and decline in its leader? Sure, the Church’s spokesmen try to spin it just as skillfully as anyone in the White House would, but in the end the cameras don’t lie. The world is getting to see just what the end years of life look like, unvarnished. And it ain’t pretty. But the old man is still the boss, and he’s still fighting for every new day.

Hmmm. Perhaps heaven can wait, and so can we progress-sympathizers. John Paul and his Church are finally doing something to impress me (especially since I’m getting up there in years myself, and am feeling the weakness of old-age coming on). Hey guys, I still think you’re getting it all wrong on the whole Jesus thing, but maybe there’s something deeper where we still share some common ground. Now that the Pope can no longer preach about how Jesus died for our sins and was raised up on the third day (given his tracheotomy), perhaps his mere presence will speak the most fundamental truth to the world. Sometimes silence conveys the truest of truths.

THE TRUTH VERSUS TV NEWS: I’m not one of those conservative people who whine all day about liberal bias in the news media. Nor do I lose sleep about all the conservative talk shows on the radio today (although I regret it, because for me, radio was made for music and not for blather). But I am concerned about how the press sometimes twists a story around to make it seem more juicy than it really is (and thus sell more ads and maximize profits – ah yes, good old capitalism at work once again). Why is this a problem? Because most of us get our info about what’s happening in the world from the news media, and we expect that it’s pretty much the truth. But what if something other than the truth is coming through, so as to maximize profits?

I saw a clear example of this recently where I work. The local affiliate of a “big three” TV network ran a story on the evening news about a police incident where an unarmed 20 year old was shot and killed by a policeman at a fast food place. My employer, the local district attorney’s office, is in charge of conducting the investigation of that case. If warranted, we will refer the case to a grand jury as to decide whether homicide charges against the cop are appropriate. From what little I’ve heard, the case is tricky and time is needed to check out all possible leads. The guy who was shot and his friend (who was there) aren’t exactly model citizens; both have been in trouble, and one recently got out of prison.

Nevertheless, the local TV station decided to sic its investigative reporters on us and run a story about how we’re covering things up so as to let the cop get away with murder. Interestingly enough, the victim’s family is represented by a semi-famous activist lawyer who does a daily talk show on the radio affiliate of this station. So, by sensationalizing the case, the station can increase ad revenues on both the TV side and the radio side! Anyway, the TV reporter interviewed the main witness to the shooting (the victim’s friend), and got him to say that our office never contacted him. Ergo, we must be trying to cover the whole thing up to protect the police officer in question. Scandal uncovered!

Well, on the afternoon before that story was broadcast, the boss district attorney gave an interview to the TV station. She told them various things that were quoted verbatim on the news that night, i.e. about the medical examiner’s report, about the officer in question’s present status, and about when the case could be expected to go to the grand jury. She also told them that our Office had interviewed the main witness on the night of the shooting, and had a statement in writing that he signed that night. Hmmm, somehow the TV news people forgot to mention that inconvenient little fact. Why? Because it would blow their main piece of evidence against us to shreds.

The next day, the station ran a follow-up story. This time they did in fact mention that we had talked with the main witness – sort of. What the “news team” did was have their reporter ask an attorney from the activist lawyer’s office to comment on our claim. The reporter set the tone: “they say there was someone from the AG’s office there that night”. Oh yea, this is grilling, get-to-the-bottom investigative questioning at its best. Of course, the guy hits a soft pitch like this right out of the park: “WHO???? No prosecuting attorney has contacted the witness!!! Your station is doing much more than the DA’s Office in investigating this case!!!”

Gee, that makes sense if you don’t think about it. But guess what? My boss never said that a PROSECUTING ATTORNEY took the statement; we said that an INVESTIGATOR (a sworn police officer) took that statement — which is what investigators get paid to do. And we gave the TV station that fact in writing. But nevertheless, the impression that our Office is doing something evil was maintained, thanks to some shrewd news editing.

And just what can our Office do to help get the truth out to the public? Pretty much nothing. Back in the 50s and 60s, there was something called the federal fairness doctrine, whereby TV and radio stations were held to certain fairness standards. The federal law said that you could request air time to present your side of the story. If the issue was important enough, they had to give you some air time (even though it would probably be on Monday morning at 3 AM). But, good old Ronald Reagan and his friends at the FCC decided to ditch the fairness doctrine. So now the broadcast media can pretty much do what it wants with the facts, so long as it avoids Howard Stern language or Janet Jackson-style wardrobe failures.

So . . . . don’t believe everything you see or read on the news. The news media ain’t all that much different from a car dealership. Money talks, but as to TRUTH . . . . well, if the customer thinks he or she is happy, they they’ve done their job. Don’t let them. All news media is suspect, but the TV stuff is especially vulnerable to distortion. BOYCOTT FOR-PROFIT TV NEWS!!!

(And see ya, Dan R. What’s the frequency anyway, Kenneth?)

A DEVIL OF A TIME: I just read an article about a new college course that the Vatican offers to Roman Catholic priests regarding exorcism and the devil. The Roman Pontifical Academy recently set up this course in response to the big “devil problem” they’re having over in Italy. A lot of kids have been tuning in to “Satanism” there lately. This new interest in Beelzebub supposedly encouraged the stabbing death of a 19 year old girl in Italy a few years ago. The accused are all members of a metal band called “The Beasts of Satan”, and they allegedly believed the girl to have been the next Virgin Mary.

Hello, what millennium is this? Have we zoomed back to 1005 AD? Have we traded the legacy of the Enlightenment for a return to the Dark Ages? I agree that Satan worship amidst the young isn’t a good thing, especially if it leads the metal-gothic crowd to start acting out their bizarre fantasies. But I mostly blame the Catholic Church for keeping the idea of Satan alive and well for all these centuries.

When, may I ask, is the “BIG C” church going to grow up? Pope John Paul II still gives sermons denouncing the devil as “a cosmic liar and murderer”. But it’s clear that the Church also lies and maybe even murders (e.g., through its regressive policies regarding AIDS prevention, and through its homophobic attitudes). So, can you really blame a disturbed kid who sees hypocrisy under the cross and thus runs to what the Church deems to be its polar opposite?

Not that things here in the good old USA are all that peachy either. Our recent presidential election showed that old-time religion is alive and well, and that plenty of people toy with the notion of trading our rights and our individual freedoms for a righteous kingdom. OK, folks, so Locke and Rousseau and Jefferson and the rest of the Enlightenment crowd didn’t bring us Heaven on Earth. Sure, the ideals of science and rationality don’t fulfill every human need; there’s still a dark and mysterious corner of the mind and the soul that needs to be reckoned with. There’s still a deep need for art, for prayer, for song, and for a pathway to the eternal.

But at least the Enlightenment (when truly enlightened) offers a way to acknowledge and explore those needs in a respectful and civilized fashion. The Catholic Church, along with its fundamentalist imitators, never made peace with the Enlightenment (which admittedly inspired the very shabby treatment of religious types in the 18th Century, e.g. during the French Revolution). Today, the Lord Jesus people finally have the philosophes and the libertines on the ropes, only to find that the Church’s own worst nightmares have arisen in their place. Hey, the followers of Freud were able to show that in the end, a nightmare is just a dream. What happens when the Freudians are gone and the Satanic nightmares become real once more? Can all the exorcists in the world make you sleep well at night?

I’m still looking for a magnetic bow for my car that says “SAVE THE ENLIGHTEMENT”. As with democracy, the Enlightenment is a faulty ideal; but the others are so much worse.