Barack Obama: The Politics of Promising Too Much

“Yes We Can.” You couldn’t go anywhere in the U.S. between September and November 2008 without hearing that campaign slogan, which became a chant, and eventually a catch phrase. While traveling in Pittsburgh this summer, I saw a hipster doofus, apathetic to politics of course, a conforming nonconformist, wearing a t-shirt mocking Obama, on it, “Yes, You Can’t.” Now, herein lies the inherit flaw in that mockery: yes, he can’t, because he is not a supreme dictator. He does not regulate every government policy. He does not override all branches of government. He is part of the checks and balances. For example, I once overheard a Tea Partier state, “We don’t have NASA anymore because Obama ran out of money.” Never mind the harebrained idea that somehow Obama personally funds NASA. And never mind the economic history leading to the spending cuts in the space program. There are too many factors involved in that decision to lay the blame on a single person. This holds true no matter the problem. And, truly, the American people, if they understand and support their democratic republic as they claim, can’t have it any other way. So, yes, Barack Obama can’t. And he shouldn’t have to.

            Obama, once our media darling, has become the Right Wing whipping boy for everything wrong with the United States. I concede that the Left Wing gives him too much credit, but let’s stick with a healthy dose of Right Wing crazy shall we? Obama is a radical Muslim, secret Kenyan, Malcolm X’s love child. He smokes cigarettes, plays basketball in a do-rag, and is only good at public speaking. He fucked up the economy. He wasn’t really responsible for taking out Osama bin Laden. And, he’s a shade darker than the white majority, who are perfectly fine with adapting to global economics and power and realizing they are, in fact, the minority. Okay, now we’re done with “the crazy.”

            I’m not going to detail Obama’s presidency or his policies. That’s not my issue; although I have sympathy for the man in that he inherited a country so entrenched in corporate greed, global policing, and class warfare that it will take a massive, nonpartisan movement to correct it. My issue is with the public backlash on Obama and the complete one-eighty it has taken since his election in 2008. I blame two parties: the campaign system and Obama himself.

            The presidential campaign in 2012 will only further demonstrate my point that our politicians’ media campaigns are absurd. They are worse than a high school class election. There you can at least meet the candidates face-to-face. You know who they really are, even if the election is no more than a popularity contest. And that’s all the 2012 presidential election will be, a popularity contest. Yes, there will be issues at stake. There will be "hard talk" about these issues. The candidates’ campaigns, however, will have to bow down to the media in order to continue the sensationalizing of American politics. Gotta keep those ratings up. Sell, sell, sell!

Unfortunately, this is exactly the three-ring circus in which Obama partook. Study that campaign and you’ll find more propaganda than our country has seen in a long time. The Obama posters, bumper stickers, and pop art were geared toward heaping the thrust of change onto one man’s shoulders. Obama accepted this without question. He stepped into this role and he promised too much. Yet, is he at fault? If this is what it takes to win an election in this country, why not play the game in hopes that when you secure power, you’ll stick to your guns and do what you say? Here is the tightrope on which Obama teeters, the politics of promising too much.

Again, who is to blame? Do we blame our president for saying what we wanted to hear? Or, do we blame ourselves for allowing the media firestorm to continue? At what point to do we vocally and physically oppose the popularity contests and demand actual, honest, intelligent debate? At what point do we turn off our TVs and silence the media? Peter Travers of Rolling Stone asks all of us to stop complaining about this summer’s crappy movies because, after all, we’re paying to see them and thus funding the corporate machine. Can we afford to pull the plug on how we’ve let candidates be elected? Can we afford to allow them to actually tell us the truth? Can we allow ourselves to hear that in bettering this country there are no easy answers and voting along party lines only inhibits the process? I don’t have any answers to these questions. It’s up to all of us, as citizens, to find our own. But we need to stop blaming the man we elected to fix our problems, because we allowed ourselves to be blinded by his promises of change.

I’m Sorry I’m Alive: Part IV – Don’t Want to Hear Your Ancient History

Christianity is the only modern religion to have a doctrine like Original Sin, with a primitive ancestor being the cause of human nature. In other religions, such as Judaism and Buddhism, the world is the twister, a broken place wherein humanity must do their best with their free will. In Judaism, free will should be exercised as one of God’s chosen people to benefit all mankind, while in Buddhism it is used to ease the suffering of all living beings. Christianity adds other rules to the playing field. Free will should be exercised to benefit all beings. However, this will be problematic because of man’s sinful nature. Yet, this should not hinder man, for if it does, man will not reap the benefits of God’s kingdom, the reward of the afterlife. All of these religions attempt to explain suffering. What is relatively unknown, and not taught in today’s churches, is how Christianity developed the concept of Original Sin. It is not rooted in the Old Testament. You’ll find it nowhere in the Adam and Eve story. Instead, the Fall of Man originates in a difference of philosophical opinion between ancient Christianity and Gnosticism.

            Gnosticism is a complicated, mostly because its ancient texts and practices were destroyed or hidden after Christianity’s established dominance. Here’s the short version—a Creator God made the world, while lesser gods conceived its operation. Because of this creation by committee, the world is a broken, evil place, filled with suffering and death. Man, whose soul is divine, moves through it of his own will, yet sometimes this broken world causes him to act evil. His hand is forced. Early Christian clergy had problems with this philosophy. First, it did not recognize Jesus Christ as man’s redeemer. Second, it let man off the hook for his own reprehensible actions. Bishop of Lyon Irenaeus, part of the Roman Gaul clergy, developed Original Sin as a method to counter these Gnostic beliefs. In Irenaeus’ view, Adam should be held at fault. Notice how this does not condemn Eve, as later church doctrine would. Because of Adam’s original sin, and since mankind is born through Adam’s seed, all of us have propensity to sin. Because we battle temptation, and often cannot overcome it, we are slaves to our weak, sinful natures.

            This view was countered by Christian apologists, who maintained that with free will no one is enslaved to sin. They have choice. Even if one lives a righteous, sinless life, one does not enter the afterlife with one strike, original sin, already against them.

            In the fourth century, Augustine of Hippo made original sin more depraved. He added that since Adam is present in all mankind, mankind was present during the Fall of Man. Thus, we all inherit Adam’s guilt for having defied God. Augustine also surmised that sex is the vessel which passes original sin. The more children you have, the more you are making little sinners. Mankind’s will then becomes weakened, but not destroyed, and mankind itself becomes a sort of wayward crowd who never sees the path to heaven. Of interest is the Mormon Church’s view of this. It recognizes the inherit contradiction in telling your creations to be fruitful and multiply, while thinking that such an action is in itself sinful.

            Original sin’s philosophy was batted about for centuries within Christianity. In Catholicism, baptism washed it away. Children who died before baptism went to purgatory, a heinous lie which only now the Church admits to inventing. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin were more extreme. You could not “wash away” original sin. You were condemned to it throughout life and thus should feel a strong sense of guilt for your own nature, as if somehow that accounted for all the worldly atrocities that came before you. Old world orthodox countered the Protestant idea. It says no one inherits guilt from anyone. Mankind only inherited a fallen nature, not guilt or damnation.

            All of these ideas merely try to explain suffering and answer the question, “Why does mankind act the way it does?” It is a good question. It is an important question. The problem, as I’ve said, is basing it in Adam and Eve, who by their very definition, did not know the divine rules they were breaking on the scale which God judges them. It’d be like kicking your three-year old out of the house because it took a dollar from your wallet. If you have not explained stealing, money, or respecting another’s property, how can you expect the punishment to suffice or even stop the behavior? Original Sin is an abhorrent doctrine that uses to a time that did not exist to explain an action that did not exist to explain a world that does exist. 

To use Adam and Eve as metaphor is fine, if done correctly, but it is a crime when done to make people, especially children, feel as if they are broken, sinful vessels without the power to change the fundamental core of their natures. Such ancient thought, and ancient history, has no place in the modern world, but only as a teaching tool to show how far man has come in its ideas in the last two-thousand years.            

I’m Sorry I’m Alive: Part III – That Fruit Tastes Like Burning

Original Sin is one of mankind’s first, and therefore one of its most problematic, attempts at tackling why humans act as they do. Within Original Sin’s doctrine, prostrations must be made. We need some good medicine, damn it, to fix ourselves. There is, however, an explanation for our “sinfulness” that sheds supernatural, backtracking gobbledygook: human nature. It hasn’t changed and won’t anytime soon. We can, however, debunk and demystify the outrageous primeval claims that our nature grows from snacking forbidden fruit. The problem with Original Sin is that it uses the illogic of the Adam and Eve story as its framework and foundation.

            My previous posts have already established that the OT’s God, though he does a hell of a job moving over the face of the waters, isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. When Adam asks for a companion, God gives him animals. This sets up the first dilemma of God’s character: either he is not omniscient, for if he was he would surely have known what Adam wanted, or is stupid. Or perhaps he just has an off-beat sense of humor. That is possible. After all, this is the same God who punishes the talking snake by cursing it to slither on its belly for all time.

            Another dilemma presents itself: could Adam have known he wanted a woman? He doesn’t ask for one, although that is implied, only a companion. And why would he need a companion? If everything is blissful in the Garden, why does he feel lonely? Is his “sinful” nature imbedded the moment he was made from clay? These are the kinds of questions that point to Genesis trying to explain ancient societal norms after the fact. But, I’ll continue…

            So, God, who can move anywhere, see everything, know all thoughts, and smite anyone he sees fit, is absent when the talking snake “tempts” Eve? This suggests the snake is equal in power to God, if God cannot read its thoughts or know its whereabouts. Well, God was busy tending to…what could he be tending to, the creation of the Himalayas? He’s God. He can multitask. You want mountains? Snap, there they are, made while he was just talking to you about foreskins. If you want to take a more nefarious route, perhaps God wants Eve to listen to the talking snake, and why not? With Adam and Eve out of the Garden, God won’t have to clean up after them or put up with their loud music.

            With God’s dubious character established, another important point is the psychological and physiological levels of Adam and Eve’s development. Since they live a child-like existence in the Garden, are they children? If not, then they at least have child-like minds as they do not grasp the concept of death. Well, God had to tell them about it. Really, when was he going to get around to that, especially since their eventual knowledge of death gets them kicked out of the Garden? And when God banishes them, where are they going to go? Isn’t the whole world the Garden of Eden at this point? Does God turn everything but this hot spot between the Tigris and Euphrates into the harsh, kill-or-be-killed animal kingdom?

Here is the most troubling point of the Adam and Eve story: why does God banish them from Eden when they had no conception of right and wrong on the scale which God ultimately judges them? I mean, they don’t know any better because God won’t allow them to know better. He hinders their growth and maturity. So, when they eat the fruit, realize the truths hidden from them and want answers, God curses them and kicks them out? What a way to raise your children.

            The Adam and Eve story presents us with a terrifying situation: a reactionary God who not only gets lost in his own Garden while we succumb to “evil,” but one who does not raise his children with love, but selfishly disciples them. This cannot function as a moral foundation as an all-knowing, all-loving God willfully and arrogantly breaks his own code again and again for petty, superficial, and ultimately selfish reasons.

            My previous post provides a kinder interpretation of the story, though I realize its fallacies. Ancient religious authorities intended Adam and Eve as fact. The story was meant to control a desert people and provide them with a basis of understanding why they act the way they do. My interpretation hopes other teaching avenues are possible. Namely, that we abolish the doctrine of Original Sin, and instead use the Adam and Eve story to teach us about life, not death. For that is exactly what Original Sin depends upon when it cites Adam and Eve: the death our innocence for a crime committed in our ancient past, one for which we must always atone, since it factors into our heavenly judgment upon our leaving this mortal coil.

            While my interpretation has its problems, don’t cast out the Bible from your life. Yes, it has no place in politics or education, and to use it as statements of irrefutable fact to control people is wrong. It has inconsistencies and immoralities. And it should. It is ancient literature, history, and social commentary all wrapped up in one. To cast it out would be to commit the same folly God does with Adam and Eve—you’ll miss out on the learning experience.

            In Part IV, my final post on Original Sin, I’ll examine the doctrine’s establishment, its historical and theological uses, and where it should take us from here. 

I’m Sorry I’m Alive: Part II – What To Make of Adam and Eve

If I offended anyone in Part I, I apologize. I made light of the Adam and Eve story not to prove its inconsistencies and stretches of credibility, but to ease its historical significance and theological severity. In doing so, we see what does not make sense. I don’t always dismiss the fantastical. Like Fox Mulder, “At first, I’ll believe pretty much anything.” What I cannot believe, however, is that the Adam and Eve story is the literal truth and that this literal truth has any bearing on us today.

            First, we must question the story by placing Adam and Eve in the natural world. The literalist defense would be: how can you question God’s ways? Easy, do it. How else can we achieve new understandings? When we talk of Original Sin, we’re not talking of the ways of God anyway, but of man.

By applying natural logistics to Adam and Eve, we hit the biggest obstacles. Of course, two people magically set in the natural world thousands of years ago could not populate said world. Never mind the mathematical improbability, and the unlikelihood of survival from predators, climate, and starvation. Never mind the Creationist claims that the world held no mortal peril before the Fall (and that we played with dinosaurs). Look at it from a historical and genetic point of view. Our species originated in Africa, not between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The OT’s desert farmers lived in that region for thousands of years. Sure, they traveled, but in the primitive mindset, like that of a child’s, the universe must revolve around their peoples and so mankind must originate from their land. How else to breed the fear of others and want of violence toward them if you don’t “other” them from the very beginning?

Okay then, genetics: as we’ve seen with Egyptian, French and English royalties, genetic diseases and abnormalities occur and progressively worsen over time with long-term incest. Adam and Eve’s ancestors would have had to experience these same abnormalities, as would Noah’s family after the Flood. Well, God didn’t make diseases while tending to the Garden. Okay, but he kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden to endure the toils of the world and then made genetic disease? Isn’t that more effort than is needed?

If Adam and Eve didn’t actually happen and all of it is merely a story, then what do we make of that story? Don’t, as I stress so often, dismiss it as bullshit. Look at it as literature:

Simply put, Adam and Eve is a story of aging. God represents parents, childhood, once-held beliefs. While he may be a creator, he is not Creator. He is the environment in which a person is born and bred. Adam and Eve are really one character, sexless, belonging to any demographic or ethnicity. They are a symbol for individual duality, Adam the satisfied part of human nature, loyal, content in his beliefs and knowledge. Eve is the part that reaches out for new understandings, is rebellious, skeptical. This is not because she is a woman, as religious authorities have preached. Without Eve’s thirst for knowledge and maturity, mankind as we know it, if you follow the story, would not exist. She is the dramatic thrust of the story, the dynamic character. It is not her “sinful nature” that gets mankind in trouble, but our desire to know that sometimes gets us into hot water with our families and social environment. How to prove this within the text? Like with religious dogma, it comes down to the talking snake.

The Tree of Knowledge represents maturity and doubt that comes with newfound intelligence, the harbinger of which is the serpent. When Genesis was written, snakes were not symbols of evil. They were symbols of wisdom and fertility. So, the talking snake is not Satan. That line of bull was devised centuries later by church authorities. The snake is Wisdom, fertilizing Eve’s desire to know, and pushing her to eat the fruit. By eating the fruit, Adam and Eve experience what most of us do when we realize the world is bigger than our parents’ backyard: our minds open. We question our environment (Eden) and God (Mom and Dad).

Mom and Dad don’t like being questioned, as it raises doubts within themselves (like how could God not know the serpent was there if he is omniscient?). They expel us from a paradise that, in our young lives, has soured. Yet, were we to return with love and respect, we would be gladly taken back into the fold. Look at God’s command to the cherub: in returning, Adam and Eve will no longer be who they once were. Age, knowledge, life struggles, etc., will change them into “other” people. If anything, the Adam and Eve story promotes, though God’s acceptance, the ever-changing nature of human beings as a natural, or even essential occurrence, not a source for guilt or atonement.

Though this interpretation is simple, it captures the crux of the story as I see it. Some of us, after reaching a certain age, shun how we were raised or what we were raised to believe, in favor of what we now see as a quest for truth. Some of us decide, in old age, to take solace in what we once held dear for an easement of doubt and the assurance of personal comfort. Again, this doesn’t apply to everybody, but what remains relevant is the consistency of human nature, our rebellion, expulsion, and return throughout time, within our own families and among friends.

Original Sin is an evil method of control by the church. In being made to believe we are intrinsically evil, we are sent into the world with a millstone already around our necks. Although the original writers of Genesis were trying to formulate explanations for the miracle of life, their intentions have been twisted by the doctrine of Original Sin.

In Part III, I’ll deconstruct Adam and Eve as a basis for this philosophy.  

I’m Sorry I’m Alive: Part I – In The Beginning

Guilt is a great thing. If used on your parents with tears and a convincing pout, it can get you birthday presents of which you’d only dreamed. If wielded properly when raising children, guilt can assure you never spend a moment alone when you turn old and senile. And if you can incorporate guilt with sex, you’ll never masturbate again. Guilt is a powerful tool, and speaking of power, I must give props to the originator and ultimate master of guilt: God.

            You see, apparently the Big Daddy in the Sky created everything in the universe with Earth as his crowning achievement. When He got bored of banishing the dark with light and killing dinosaurs, He created man in His image. Apparently, God didn’t recall that man, like other creatures He made, such as livestock, fish, and birds, must reproduce, and to do so need an opposing sex. Omniscience can be a pain in the neck, bro.

            The first man, Adam, hung out in the Garden of Eden and he, too, like his Creator got bored. “Hey, God, this garden’s beautiful, I love the azaleas, but it’s kind of lonely,” said Adam. He wiggled his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”

“Of course I do,” God said. “I can read your thoughts, damn it!”

And so God made—animals?

Wait, he made animals first, right? Well, it depends on which creation story you read in Genesis. In the first, God makes animals before man. In the second…well, you’ll see…

Adam looked in amazement at the wildlife God created. “This is great,” he exclaimed. “I was tired of being a vegetarian.” But soon, “boredom” reared its ugly head. “Hey, God?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“Look, what you made was great. The tigers, love the colors. The shark I’m not too crazy about, but I get along with the apes.”

“Good.”

“But when I said I was lonely, I kind of meant, you know…”

God smacked His forehead. “Of course!”

So, God, that magical fashioner, took a rib from Adam to make him a wife, Eve, without using anesthetic (Adam was a trooper). Adam and Eve wandered the garden hand-in-hand, naked as jaybirds (except when they put leaves over their genitals and pinned them to some vines to make themselves a chic nature thong). It was a good, child-like, peaceful existence.

Until one day...

            A magnificent tree towered in the Garden, baring the tastiest fruit. God said to Adam and Eve, “Don’t eat the fruit. I need it for my smoothies.” In fact, the tree was The Tree of Knowledge (or the Tree of Life, depending on the ‘eyewitness’ or the translation) and only God had the property rights.

Adam and Eve replied, “We won’t touch it, sir.”

But a crafty serpent, an evil bastard, found its way into the garden and whispered to Eve, “Hey, Eve, Adam’s taking care of business in the bushes, right? So why don’t you have a little bite of this fruit? I had some. It’s great for your skin.”

Eve, who never tanned, only burned, ate the fruit. The serpent promised her that in eating it, she could be like God and escape death. Eve, who until now did not know the concept of death, exclaimed, “Why wasn’t I told about it?!” She rushed to Adam and explained all she knew. He couldn’t comprehend. She told him he would understand if he ate the fruit, too.

Adam took a big bite, looked down, and realized everybody could see what was flapping between his legs. He felt embarrassed. Eve saw her breasts, and what had to be at this point in history a gigantic bush.

They rushed around the Garden, making better genital coverings, when God found them. He had been elsewhere in the Garden, unaware the serpent had entered, forgetful that He could kick it out whenever He pleased. Again, omniscience can be a drag.

God was pissed. Adam, Eve, and the serpent pointed fingers at one another (alright, maybe not the serpent, but he can talk, okay?). God counted to three. On three, all of them kept quiet. God glared at the serpent and said, “I curse you to slither on your belly all your days!”

The serpent cocked his brow. “Isn’t that what I already—? Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I’ll just slither away now. See you later.” He glanced at Adam and Eve. “Sorry, guys, must be going. It’s a snake’s life, you know. I’ll just be slithering…” And with that he disappeared into the bushes.

God pointed to Adam and Eve. “Get out of this garden, ingrates! I turn my back once and you disobey me?!”

Eve spoke right up. “What’s this about death, then? You never mentioned it.”

God looked about and replied, “Never mind that now! Adam, for your punishment, you’ll work hard and sweat your whole life away because you’re the man!”

Adam hung his head and muttered, “Yeah, thanks for that.”

God pointed at Eve and said, “And you shall have pain in childbirth!”

Eve rolled her eyes. “Typical man.”

God threw open the Gates of Eden, kicked Adam and Eve into the world, and locked down the Tree of Knowledge (or Life). He set a cherub at its gates and told the cherub, “Don’t let any creation of mine come in here again unless he holds out his hand and accepts the fruit as coming from Me. Only then will he live forever.”

“What about women?” the cherub asked.

“Huh?”

“You said, ‘he.’ What if a woman shows up? Is this a Men’s Club?”

God thought it over. “For now,” He replied.

Since this Fall of Man, every one of us has Original Sin on our souls. You should feel horrible. You should kneel and pray for God’s forgiveness. You should feel guilty for the promise Adam and Eve broke thousands of years before you. The pain your mother experienced at your birth serves as a reminder of your hereditary treachery.

Right?

Stay tuned for Part II…

Inspirational Words From The Buddha

A short post today, but nevertheless an important one.


Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis,
when you find that anything agrees with reason
and is conducive to the good
and benefits one and all,
then accept it and live up to it.


Gautama Buddha

The Summer’s Ultimate B-Movie – Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I’m two weeks behind with this entry, but I had to write about the surprise movie of the summer. From the dreadful (Pirates to Captain America) to the much-hyped but merely entertaining (Cowboys & Aliens), this summer’s blockbusters have been a big letdown (though I didn’t see Thor, which many seemed to like). Only HP:7, Pt. 2 passed mainstream and critical muster. Yet, just when studios lose steam and release movies they don’t suppose will be summer tent poles, comes the franchise reboot/prequel nobody knew they wanted, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. 
I went into Rise with three thoughts: 1) the trailer didn’t look so hot, 2) how many reboots, reimaginings, and remakes do we need? and 3) can I stand James Franco for ninety-plus minutes? All my presuppositions were wrong. I don’t know whether Rise will reboot the Apes franchise or function as just a one-off, but if moviemakers can make compelling, well-acted summer fare like this, I say keep them coming.

Rise begins in the African jungle where a captured chimpanzee is taken to a U.S. lab. where Franco works developing experimental drugs meant to rebuild decayed brain tissue. He hopes to use one day to fix his father’s (John Lithgow) Alzheimer’s. Franco experiments on the chimp, it goes berserk, and is killed. Here, the chimp was protecting its baby, Caesar. Franco takes Caesar home, raises him, and finds his mother has genetically passed him the experimental drugs, making him smarter than your average ape.

Cut to five years later. Caesar signs like a fully grown human. He wears clothes, has a range of emotions, and uses silverware at dinner. Franco now has a cute girlfriend (Frieda Pinto), the romance of which is never shown. This is good, as too many movies like this are sunk by cheesy, undercooked, obligatory amorous subplots. No worries here. Apes! Apes!

Franco’s father’s Alzheimer’s hasn’t abated, however, and one day an altercation between Lithgow and a neighbor causes Caesar to defend his adopted grandfather. He bites off the neighbor’s finger and gets sent to a primate sanctuary run by Brian Cox and his son, Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from the HP movies—still a bastard). While in this pseudo-prison, Caesar begins the ape revolution heralded by the movie’s title.

That is all the plot I’ll give away. See it yourself. It’s at once everything you ever expected from a movie called Rise of the Planet of the Apes and yet nothing you did. Or at least, you never expected it to be this good.

First, the astounding computer animation: never has it looked so seamless. With Andy Serkis (Gollum from Lord of the Rings) as Caesar, the CGI ape carries the movie’s weight all the way. He is the star. Caesar is emotional, intelligent, and a bit of an egomaniac. Yet, you have to love a movie that makes the audience root against mankind in favor of well-developed primates. The rest of the ape animation is great. Maurice, the old wise circus orangutan, was my favorite, along with the gorilla. Imagine any war movie and you’ll be able to stick the apes in the stock character roles. Because of the modern setting, however, it works.

Second, the acting: James Franco does well (his best role is still Daniel Desario in Freaks & Geeks). I’ve read reviews saying he looks bored. That could just be his face, which has never been too expressive. Frieda Pinto plays the good-looking, ape-loving doctor/girlfriend. She looks pretty when she has to and says her lines with conviction. At least they didn’t cast an anorexic blonde.  I agree with Roger Ebert’s take on the Lithgow character: he functions to do exactly what he does and nothing more. He does a good job, though the scene where he forgets how to drive a car is a bit Dick Solomoniesque.

The film’s supporting roles are well-cast. Felton, as in Harry Potter, is a great dick, always will be. David Oyelowo is the white-collar boss. “You make the drugs, I make the money,” he says to Franco. He is an appropriate, if underdeveloped, villain. The saddest casting is Brian Cox, the great Scottish character actor. He is wasted as the “ape warden.” It requires him to grumpily shuffle around the sanctuary and grunt, “They’re just apes.” If he wore a shirt that read, “I Hate Animals,” you could cut most of his lines. This is a shame, since he's always a great villain. The film sets him up as one, only to cut him short in the end. Watch the scene where he reacts to the fatal aftermath of Caesar’s escape—does it feel like there’s been a cut?

Overall, Rise is a great B-movie. It’s not Casablanca, but it doesn’t try to be. There’s nothing clunky in the writing or direction. The film meets its simple goals: entertain with great ape action, standard human characters, and don’t go overboard with any cautionary sci-fi nonsense. It’s a great ride, although I do have one question: for apes smart enough to pick locks and perform military strategy, they love jumping through windows. This pervades the movie myth of easily breakable glass panes. I hope no one tries to jump through a window like Caesar and his buddies. That’s nothing to monkey around with (insert more ape jokes here). B.

Genesis – She Begat Him, He Begat Her, They All Begat Together

Some interesting findings in the creation story of Genesis:

1) God creates the Earth, until then an unformed void on “the surface of the deep,” and his spirit “hovers over the face of the waters.” The language of Genesis’ opening verses is beautiful. Its creation imagery would make striking computer animation. Notice God’s character; at this point of the text only a spirit creating by speech. Language, in plot and context, is the driving force of creation (see my essay in Luna Negra’s Spring 2009 issue).

2) In separating darkness from light, an image suggesting a great flash, one may think this supports the Big Bang theory. Robin Williams in his Live on Broadway stand-up routine asks, “Couldn’t this be a metaphor for the Big Bang?” Then, in a hillbilly voice, while miming flicking a light switch, answers, “No, God just went click.” At first reading, the order of creation appears to mimic scientific findings. Yet, upon closer inspection, Genesis reinforces an Earth-centered universe: God creates the Earth (which already has water), light, sky, land, vegetation, and then the Sun, Moon, and stars.

3) God as “He, Father,” etc. In English, the pronoun is “he.” The Hebrew pronoun, however, is sexless. Here we see how original languages suffer mistranslations and how the original text becomes skewed with patriarchal dogma. Yet, that still leaves us with the problem of such words as “Father.” Well, in the time of the Pentateuch’s composition, the man/woman duality was balanced in worship. Archeologists have found evidence that women were venerated in ancient Judaism since they bore life. The ancient view was God, the spirit of creation, was the father, and Earth, the fertile womb of life, the mother, and both were worshipped since one cannot exist with the other (hints of ying and yang). The ancients might have had more balanced gender roles than we believed, with the universe and mankind needing both the sperm (God) and the egg (Earth) for life to continue. That is, however, until men took over religious authority and treated women’s bodies as sinful since they “tempted” men, the logic of which escapes me since that suggests men are the weaker sex being that their wills cannot resist temptation.

4) “Man created in God’s image.” God as a human being? Again, not so, as the Hebrew intent was not to describe God’s physicality, but his nature. By man being created in God’s image and likeness, man has the emotions of God. He has the ability to create. Of note, is God’s speech as he creates man: “in our image, in our likeness.” Who is “our?” Realize God does not say “my.” This suggests more than one spiritual interest in man’s creation. Ancients believed the heavens were filled with incorporeal beings, a sort of mystical football team with infinite numbers, possessing infinite powers. I suggest a modern interpretation: God could be the universe itself, “our” the matter of our bodies—protons, neutrons, etc.—the stardust through which we began.

Fundamentalists preach Genesis’ first chapters as literal truth. They claim the world is 6,000 years old, that we walked with dinosaurs. They want to deny science, ignore history. More importantly, they want to be right. Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens tell us to dismiss Genesis as child’s play (although in his writings Hitchens says religious texts should be venerated as crucial steps in mankind’s artistic development and should not be forgotten). They want to be right, too. Each side misses a key facet: human nature. We will always question our purpose on Earth. For good or bad, we always want meaning. Eradicating this desire would extinguish a hefty part of man’s spirit for discovery, especially for the layman.

I propose we land somewhere in the middle. Appreciate Genesis as a story, one of the great imaginative leaps in human history. Don’t deny its authors credit for attempting to answer the ultimate mystery: “How did we get here and why?” Appreciate its beautiful language, history, and its attempts at ratifying a cohesive philosophy for ancient desert farmers. Realize it is a stepping stone that led us to today’s discoveries. Don’t believe it literally, but if you must, don’t lord it over those who wish to believe different than you. Most of all, however, for those of us who don’t “believe” as we should, do not dismiss Genesis’ artistic qualities because of its political, social, and scientific, misapplications. There is too much history to miss out on.

In Defense Of: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

This 2005 novel gets unfairly maligned by “serious scholars” who view it as a bottom entry of McCarthy’s canon, an amped Western with cornpone sentimentality courtesy of its main character and sometime narrator, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. No Country for Old Men certainly doesn’t have Blood Meridian’s epic nature or the heartbreaking universality of The Road. It’s not as tight as Child of God or as sprawling as Suttree. Yet, because of this, I believe it is a deceptively brilliant book. By not presenting itself as a masterwork, it can mask itself as genre fiction to seamlessly explore its themes. The novel examines what happens when desperate characters cross paths and how the resulting action has a ripple effect on the metaphysical world.

            In early 1980s Texas, the Mexican drug trade thrives. Sometimes police officers look the other way. Sometimes they have no choice but to let it happen. Llewellyn Moss, a Vietnam vet with a young wife, finds a satchel of money from a drug deal gone wrong. Inside the satchel is two million dollars. He takes the satchel, knowing the owners of this money will stop at nothing to reclaim it. As one of the characters say, “When would you stop looking for your two million dollars?” Moss sends his wife into hiding and sets out to get the Mexican cartel and the monstrous hitman, Anton Chigurh, off his back. What Moss and Sheriff Bell, who takes responsibility for tracking down Moss since he’s a citizen of his county, don’t realize is that Chigurh has broken ranks with his employer and wants the money himself. His former employer, a nameless man who occupies a high-rise in downtown Houston, sends another hitman, Carson Wells, to kill Chigurh and Moss, and find the money. Sounds complicated, but No Country’s plot is simply told, with easy readability.

Here is McCarthy’s starkest prose. Sometimes it’s just pages of untagged dialogue. I had to reread certain sections, especially the one-liners, to get a grip on who was speaking. McCarthy hardly uses commas and never quotations marks. He claims they clutter the page. Here, I agree with him. They would slow the novel’s action. Everything in this book moves forward. It does not stop for asides or backstories unless they come out of the mouths of characters to serve as an addition to what has gone before. Unlike the novel’s  review by James Wood, the prose is not overblown, over-mythic, or whatever ham-fisted terms he wants to throw about. The prose reflects the content and subject matter. Without it, McCarthy’s purposes would suffer.

The book is composed of two sections, one a third-person perspective, the other narrated by Sheriff Bell. Bell’s narration, while compelling, is all aside, backstory, and rumination. Most criticism is thrown at this narration. It sounds hokey at first. Bell seems like a stereotype. Yet, what his character experiences in the novel’s last fifty pages fleshes him out as a human being. What he reveals to his uncle, how he treats his wife, and the imagery of his final dream, leaves the reader wondering if what the Texas-Mexico border has wrought throughout history is what it must answer for in the present. Thematically this last section of the novel clicks. The genre falls away and you're left with understated, hard-hitting literature.

A word of warning: if you do not like violence, stay away from this novel. Most of its characters do not live to see its final pages. They are hitmen, runaways, drug dealers, and disillusioned lawmen. It is not a pleasant experience. But for all the killing, maiming, and biblical prophecy in his work, McCarthy maintains a wry sense of humor. There were streaks of it in Blood Meridian, but No Country for Old Men may be his funniest novel. It’s not a comedy. It’s just peppered with characters whose thoughts and speech made me smile. Even Chigurh has funny moments. Thinking of his former employers: “They must have thought he thought they thought that he thought they were pretty stupid.” As another example, Carson Wells corners Moss and tries to get him to reveal where he has hidden the satchel of money. To soften him up, Wells tells him he served in Vietnam, too. Moss replies, “What’s that make me? Your buddy?” This kind of humor is a welcome relief from the tension that permeates the novel.

            Although its overshadowed by its Oscar-winning adaptation, No Country for Old Men betters the film (which I adore, especially Javier Bardem) because of McCarthy’s prose, carefully crafted characters, and inclusion of what makes Bell, and in turn the novel, tick. McCarthy must be commended for not only the novel itself, but for creating one of literature’s greatest villains. Anton Chigurh uses a cattlegun, a silenced shotgun, and his bare hands to kill, but his philosophizing and reason for being so deplorable inspires true disgust in the reader. While I single out Chigurh as an accomplishment, the whole novel is excellent. Rumor has it No Country for Old Men was a 600-page manuscript publishers pared down for marketability. The public may never read those extra 300 pages. What we have now, however, more than suffices. A     

The Documentary Hypothesis is Crap—Wait, Maybe It’s Just Your Logic

While preparing my previous post, I found this Christian apologist website “refuting” the documentary hypothesis: http://carm.org/answering-documentary-hypothesis. Now, I know I’m picking on one of those Christian groups that misrepresent the faith, but unfortunately these groups are what are heard today. They shed a bad light on Christianity and its followers which sours public and media opinion. I wish moderate to liberal Christians would decry sects like this.

I’ll attempt to destroy their logic:

1) “The Bible says in Rom. 1:18-21 that men suppress the truth of God's word in their unrighteousness. This is what is happening here. They are suppressing the truth. They are devising elaborate methods to deny the inspiration and authenticity of the Bible, particularly the Pentateuch.”

This is the pot calling the kettle black. The people behind the documentary hypothesis are not atheists or agnostics out to disprove God’s existence, although I’m sure some are. No, the team is composed of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, i.e. a cross-cultural, cross-theological team whose goal is not iconoclastic, but to search for better understandings.

The above quote is also a blatant twisting of scripture. This New Testament passage abhors men denying the truth within themselves and the natural world, “that which God has revealed to them” and is “already evident.” Nowhere does it mention scripture. And since when is pursuing wisdom against God’s interests? Always, you say? No, it’s just against dogmatic interests. Without their dogma and rhetoric, they lose means of control—power and fear.

2) “The Pentateuch was written centuries ago in a different language, in a different culture, and a different land. The critics are claiming that "they are able to decide exactly what a writer could or could not say, and on this basis to determine what part of the document belongs or does not belong to him."1 In other words, the critics are basing their argument on their own ability to read a document that is 3000 years old, divide it up into word usage groups, and assert hidden divisions and separate authors. And not only this, but they are claiming they can do it on a consistent basis. This is hardly an exact science, and is open to a wide range of error, depending upon the presuppositions and purposes of the critic.”

There are two valid points here, one being the margin for error, and second for it hardly being an exact science. Yet, how many of these Christian apologists have devoted their entire lives to studying these ancient manuscripts? Better yet, how many of them can get their hands on the manuscripts? Even better, how many of them would want to get their hands on the manuscripts for either suppressing truth or running in fear from their shaken beliefs? Look, I know many apologists study the Bible, but the ones being heard are not Biblical scholars. They have English translations, so many times removed from their original languages and intent that their motives are clouded by what they have not and choose not to see. Go ahead, dismiss the scholars who’ve spent years educating themselves, researching, and deciphering these texts. Just don’t depend on your mechanic to know what may be wrong with your brakes due to a margin of error.

3) “What writer writes with a consistent style? Yes, there are styles to writers, but the subject matter affects the content. A technical work is different from a narrative or historical piece. The Pentateuch has components of all of these. Therefore, different styles are expected. Additionally, what the writer has in mind can easily cause him to use a different concentration of words. Should the intention change, so would the word usage. Did Moses sit down at one sitting and write everything out? Of course not. Upon reflection, reading, prayer, etc., his focus and purpose within sections of Scripture can change as he moves to a new subject.”

This is the most illogical to me. Writers have different styles, but you can tell a Roth from a McCarthy to a Faulkner, even when they change content. Subject matter does affect content—but the documentary hypothesis looks at language, vocabulary, and content. The old English word for “whitewash” is much different than in ancient Greek (if they had such a word). That’s what scholars find. Did Moses sit down and write it in one night? Of course not—because he didn’t write it! If he did and chose his work as the definite account to sway unbelievers into the faith, why contradict the creation account within the first few chapters? It takes a hell of a writer to keep writing after one dies—apparently Moses does such a thing in Deuteronomy.

4) “WordPerfect has a Grammar Analyzer for readability. I ran both the paper explaining the Documentary Hypothesis and this paper refuting it through the analyzer. The results are interesting. We could conclude that though there are similarities, there must be two authors due to definite differences. After all, the first paper has both more complex sentences and more verb complexity than the second as well as being 13th-grade level. The funny thing is, I wrote this in two sittings: One before church and the other after church on the same day.”

Because a WordPerfect analyzer is exactly what the documentary hypothesis does. Oh, and doing it in English is just what I expected you to do, crazy Christian. Don’t set up the actual variables of the experiment. Keep them as narrow as you can to prove your point. While I see what he is going for, he is pounding his head on a tree without realizing he stands in a forest.

5) “Whether or not a biblical critic wants to take Jesus' word for anything is up to the individual. But no less a person than Jesus authenticated the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.”

This is a good one, considering Jesus was a Jew taught Jewish scripture interpretation by Jewish authorities in his Jewish youth in his Jewish nation state. Of course, Jesus had access to biblical scholarship because they had the internet, easy world travel, ability to understand complex notions of language, etc. This line of logic is similar to: “I worship the long-dead King of Spain. He said the world was flat. That’s all the proof you need no matter what science, space travel, or your elementary school education tells you.” Again, here is the problem with loudmouth Christian sects today: they ignore Jesus’ history, probable childhood and rearing, and socio-economic position in the Roman state in favor of pushing their rhetoric down your throats.

If Jesus could read this website today, I’m sure he’d smack his forehead and go, “Oy vay.” Well, maybe he’d do that after he got over his shock of our technology, such witchcraft and wizardry that could only be fashioned by demons.

The Man Next to You - Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

One of the saddest modern images is of veterans lost in the horrors of what they’ve done in combat. While filming Vietnam veterans reading poetry that expresses their inability to cope with what they’ve done, I’ve seen how such experiences can change a person. It used to be when I heard of the military, I cringed or shook my head. But Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down, a nonfiction novel set during the United States’ involvement in Somalia, dispelled my notions that everything about the military is wrong-headed and helped me to realize its greatest asset: the soldiers who serve. Bowden’s soldiers are not mindless grunts advancing a political agenda, but flawed, caring individuals whose utmost goal is to protect their fellow soldiers. This depiction, I think, is the book’s primary purpose. Black Hawk Down is not meant to be a behind-the-scenes history lesson dishing on who fucked up where. It is a record of the Battle of Mogadishu and an account of the experiences of the men who fought and died there.

On October 3^rd, 1993, US forces raided Mogadishu, Somalia, in an effort to capture the top aides and advisors of Mohammad Farah Adid. Adid, a Somali warlord since 1991, had starved his “people” for two years (how he could call them his people while continuing a systematic genocide amounts to nothing more than xenophobic control on Adid’s part). Obivously, the UN, US and Pakistani forces had political and ideological beef with him. Eventually, when his men fatally clashed with UN and American forces on numerous occasions, the US sought to take him out once and for all. Members of the US Army Rangers and Delta Force were dropped into Mogadishu (or the “Mog” as they called it) and in minutes captured some of Adid’s highest-ranked officers. What happened next, however, changed the US forces’ simple in-and-out extraction plan to an overnight battle that resulted in the deaths of nineteen US soldiers and over 1,000 Somali militia.

The novel is not for the fainthearted. Men are blasted in half, lose thumbs, legs, are shot, maimed, and tortured. A rocket-propelled grenade pierces an American soldier’s side and does not explode. His fellow soldiers have to move him carefully back to base with the live round protruding from his chest. Bowden doesn’t ignore the Somali side of the conflict either. He details stories of Mogadishu residents who witnessed and participated in the attack that day. I could understand the Somalis’ resentment of US soldiers, especially their helicopters pilots, who would fly low over the city, the rotating blades literally sucking babies from their mothers’ arms and blowing them down the street.

By painting vivid, striking pictures with his prose and deft pacing, Bowden puts the reader directly in Black Hawk Down’s action. It is as if you are a cameraman sprinting, ducking, and dodging side-by-side with American soldiers. I was caught up in it page-after-page. I do admit, however, it was at times overwhelming. I got lost in the rapid descriptions of who moved where and why. That is a minor criticism. The strength of Bowden’s novel is his characters.

In my interpretation of his characterizations, the soldiers in Black Hawk Down may not have been the best or brightest the United States had to offer. One soldier spent most of his armed service making coffee and shuffling papers before joining the extraction team. In most scenes, the US Army Rangers and Delta Force operatives are at each other’s throats. One Delta Force member defies a direct order from a Ranger of a higher rank. Yet, these characterizations do not disrespect these men, but attempt to measure their valor as starting point for their heroic progressions during the battle. In different circumstances they could be us if we chose to be them. My wonder and respect comes from how such average men eclipsed themselves by their above-average dedication and sacrifice. I was moved by their bravery. These men did not run gung-ho into Somalia wanting to instigate democracy. They went simply swearing to protect their friends and buddies, because they like a family.

            In detailing this extraction mission gone horribly wrong, Bowden casts no blame on those who may rightly deserve it, the generals and politicians in Washington, and the Clinton regime who tried too hard to be Team America: World Police. The novel is better for it, powerful, suspenseful stuff. I was too immersed in the action and characters to give it much critical thought, but when I finished it, I came to a new understanding. Whatever poor decisions are made by top-military brass, we citizens safe and warm in our beds at home should realize the average American soldier is not to blame. He or she is serving our country, doing a job we would rather not do, in an effort to protect and defend principles they hold sacred. We have the luxury of debating these principles at home, but like Eric Bana’s character says in Ridley Scott’s fine 2001 film adaptation of Bowden’s book, “Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics go right out the window.” A-

The Old Testament – Jesus, This Thing is Huge!

LOL

The Bible has most influenced our Western world by its fundamentalist applications, the reasoning of which is odd given it’s an ancient Middle Eastern text with no knowledge of a round Earth, North or South Americas, established Christian theology, etc., e.g. everything that would come to be Westernized. My purpose of exploring these religious texts is to focus on their origins to discover their true intent and not to beat the dead horse of church atrocities and misfires over the centuries. Good or bad, the Bible has shaped Western culture and thought, and its language still resonates in our writing today. It also causes lots of historical and moral problems. To understand this, you must read the Old Testament as a philosopher, historian, writer, and student of literature—I don’t know why some Christians don’t (well, the book is ten-inches thick), especially since the Gospels’ bedrock of “credibility” crumbles without the OT’s Messianic predictions and overtones. Know your faith. Doesn’t your (after)life depend on it?

            In brief, the OT is the account of the Israelites. As God’s chosen people, they fight other tribes and amongst themselves for political position in the Middle East. The OT details the universe’s creation, the establishment of the Jewish state, historical books which relate stories of exile and return, and many sections of poetry and philosophical prose. In Jewish thought the OT accounts for their special relationship with God. For Christians, the OT paves the way for Christ.

            Some Jewish and Christian authorities teach that the Old Testament was divinely inspired. God wrote it through human hands. Thus its words are undeniable. Of note is Buddha’s reaction to such claims of the Hindu Upanishads. He believed them preposterous as anything written by man is “corrupted” by that man’s motives. Today’s scholarly thought is that the OT was written piecemeal over centuries, rewritten and revised again and again.

They date the formation of the OT’s earliest books between 500-300 BCE. The documentary hypothesis diagrams the composition of the Pentateuch, the first five books, Genesis through Deuteronomy (for a fuller description than I am willing to do here, follow this link: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mvz/bible/doc-hyp.pdf). By noting ancient manuscripts’ differences in language, vocabulary, and thematic concerns, scholars divide the Pentateuch line-by-line into five authors. These five are J, E, D, P, and R. For example, P concerns himself with establishing religious authority, while E is concerned with documenting Jewish tradition. In E, God is called “El” or Lord, and frequently takes human form. J’s God “Yahweh” is a warrior, violent and impulsive, and often tries to kill the very characters he establishes as Israelite leaders. So, when you hear someone say the God of the OT was a bastard (as Richard Dawkins does…yawn…all the time…), they are partially correct. Overall, however, the OT God has just as much regret, compassion, and love as he does anger. If anything, he is a powerful, telepathic, moody deity plagued by teenage mood swings and whiny worshippers.

            These authorial differences allow us to see the OT in a different light, not as the ultimate word of God, but as an attempt to document a people. In fact, in some circles it is believed this is exactly the OT’s purpose. The glaring tonal inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies do not dampen the text’s power. Instead, it heightens it by allowing readers to see how a people changed in their views of the world and themselves. It’s almost as if someone handed you a book and said, “This book explains our primitive ideas and concepts. This is how we got here today.” The circles of the more literal and priestly bent still maintain that the OT is the divinely inspired, unbreakable work of God, and the establishment of his kingdom on Earth.

            While on this point, it is important to realize the Jewish God is not the only God in the first books of the OT. He is their God, more powerful than others, and thus to be worshipped. Monotheism did not take hold of the Jewish people until some centuries after Abraham and maybe continued in Moses’ time within various tribes. This is called henotheism, in which you acknowledge other deities may exist, but you worship yours because it is the best. There is also monolatrism, which recognizes foreign deities as existing, but does not worship them. There is some argument the Ten Commandments are monolatrisic. I won’t get into that here. Again, it is most important to know the OT books display the evolution of a faith, not merely the faith itself.

            Second, when reading the OT’s historical books, it is important to know modern written “history,” concerned with facts, dates, and events, is different than the ancients’ concepts. Ancient history was stories, with character types, tropes, and repeated themes. Although they used historic figures and events, ancient written history, especially when compiled for worship, was a teaching tool. It was not literal, and its heavy reliance on oral traditions causes its historical validity to become suspect. Remember the telephone game in elementary school? The same principle applies here except we’re talking about a long, long history orally passed down through thousands and thousands of years until priests finally “documented” it..

            So, with these ideas in mind, I sat down to read the OT. I found it to be an intellectually stimulating experience. Just because I don’t believe its dogma, doesn’t mean I had nothing to learn. I learned much, especially with the essays, prologues, and footnotes in the New Oxford Standard Edition Bible (buy it here, you won’t regret it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195289617/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0195289609&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1GHG7D3WYHCF3ME7Q8BZ) .           I no longer look at the OT as many do—bullshit stories about ancient idiots doing deplorable things—but as a set of stories meant to be dissected, closely read, and discussed. After all, if I was to dismiss all such stories as bullshit, I wouldn’t have any books on my shelf.