A Grand Illusion

No wonder Europeans laugh at us. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, about 42 percent of respondents believe that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” — creationism, in other words. And an incredible 64 percent believe that creationism and evolution should be taught together in American public schools.

Just so you don’t assume that these convictions fall along party lines there’s this:

John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said he was surprised to see that teaching both evolution and creationism was favored not only by conservative Christians, but also by majorities of secular respondents, liberal Democrats and those who accept the theory of natural selection. Mr. Green called it a reflection of “American pragmatism.”

Reread those sentences. This is jawdropping. I am not one to bite the hand that feeds me, but if most of my readers believe that a non-empirical approach to understanding the world is essential to them, then they’re fucking stupid and they should stop reading this site.

This week’s Savage Love takes aim at one member of that swollen army of “sensitive” men who can’t get dates because none of the women they fuck is worthy of deeper penetration (I know a lot of guys like this; hell, I was one of those guys until I went queer):

A. I’ll be blunt: Why would I give useful advice to an insufferable little shit like you? I may not want to sleep with women, STUDD, but I don’t have anything against them. And while you claim to be straight, smart, funny, and cool, I have only your word on those qualities. I have in my possession, however, absolute proof in the form of your letter that you are an unbearable twat and an intolerable dickweed. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I gave you advice that might result in your actually landing a girl.

Let’s hope the poster hasn’t killed himself.

I’m listening to these old favorites now. I love the shit out of them:

Pet Shop Boys, “The End of the World.” A forgotten album track on 1990’s Behaviour, the kind of song for which adjectives like “autumnal” seem appropriate. “The End of the World” perfects the detached-observer persona which Neil Tennant adopted on Please, except now it’s clear that the scenario he outlines with such clarity is one he’s experienced (experiencing?) himself, and the thumping beats and Violater guitar expose the pain in his voice.

Natural Selection, “Do Anything.” One of the best Prince rips ever recorded, kept from hitting number one in the fall of 1991 by Prince himself (doing Prince-by-numbers with “Cream” and doing a damn fine job of it). Hot synth-guitar, silvery falsettos, and Madonna backup singer Nikki Harris’ cooed encouragements.

Jennifer Paige, “Crush.” A pop song with a chilling subtext. It’s just a little crush? She’s telling her boy not to “over-analyze”? What the fuck?! Not even adorned in the Kabuki garb of Glitter did Mariah Carey expose as guilelessly as this singer.

As usual, the sinuosity of Christopher Hitchens’ prose turns skeptics into moral blackguards if resisted. Although I agree with the bulk of this unhysterical and rather moving argument for remaining in Iraq as long as it takes, I cannot let the Bush administration off as airily as Hitchens does. The Hitchens who eviscerated George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, monotheists of all kinds, and European and American apathy to the slaughter of Bosnian Serbs would not written this sentence:

Does the president deserve the benefit of the reserve of fortitude that I just mentioned? Only just, if at all. We need not argue about the failures and the mistakes and even the crimes, because these in some ways argue themselves.

But why not? Paul Berman, Andrew Sullivan, and, somewhat facetitiously, Dan Savage have all either reconsidered their positions or at least destroyed the manner in which the neocon cabal conned us – and no doubt itself. Digsbyblog, quoted by James Wolcott, shows no mercy:

“In March 2003 we already knew that the Republicans were mendacious enough to stage a phony impeachment and steal an election. And we also knew that the brand name in an empty suit they call a president was a fool and that the people who were backing the war had been wrong about every single big ticket foreign policy issue since the mid 70’s. We knew that the Democratic Senators who voted for the war resolution were re-fighting Gulf War I where many Democrats were ignominiously shown to be losers when they voted against a war that we went on to gloriously win. They were scared of being on the wrong side again. (And they blew it — again.)

Maybe if Bush fires Rumsfeld we’ll get a chance. But I suspect it’s too late.

I’m really hoping J.T. Ramsay posts on his film blog more often. This is some of the best film writing I’ve read in months, doubly so if you consider the extemporaneous nature of blog writing. If he wants to wrastle either here or on his site, I accept the challenge.

After 27 hours of grueling sun, spoiling food, and a runny nose, I got my power back last night at 11 pm. No way is Miami back to normal: the southern half of the county’s under water, most of the traffic signals within a five-mile radius are not working, about 450,000 people remain without power (including my parents and most of my pals), and people are acting polite and friendly at the supermarkets. To those in Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle bracing themselves for Hurricane Katerina, I salute thee.

I plan to knock a few back at my buddy Hatzel’s party tonight, at which I will engage in the badinage from which a bad cold and a meddlesome tropical system have kept me from participating.

Survived Hurricane Katrina. Power went out around 7 pm last night. Western Miami-Dade County looks like portions of downtown Baghdad (eerily reminiscent of Hurricane Andrew; yesterday marked the 13th anniversary of his arrival).

I’m at work cuz there’s power and internet: two overlooked commodities. Posting will be erratic for the next few days.

James Wolcott does a great job analyzing why the “FOX News All-Stars” were so quick to dismiss Pat Robertson’s advice to the Bush administration on how to ice Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.Wolcott likens Robertson’s relationship with the neocons to the old Seinfeld episode “Merv Griffen Set”:

George Costanza, furious that a pigeon didn’t get out of the way of his car (in the stellar “Merv Griffin set” episode), vented to Jerry that we have “a deal” with the pigeons, a deal that Jerry elucidated upon.
The deal is, they get out of our way when we’re walking or driving, and we overlook the statute defecation.

Simple as that. The pigeon George ran over didn’t honor he deal.

The neocons had a deal with Pat Robertson and his followers. As long as Pat and company cleaved to Israel, the neocons would overlook that old Protocol Elders nonsense.

In short, Pat Robertson was their pigeon. They were willing to countenance his occasional poop.

Seattle Weekly publishes my Brian Eno review, my first for that publication. I really wish the album honored his extraordinary talent and influence.

Seattle Weekly publishes my Brian Eno review, my first for that publication. I really wish the album honored his extraordinary talent and influence.

This 1999 article by Stephanie Zancharek, Salon’s film critic, is one of the best recent summaries of Dolly Parton’s career. I just got The Essential Dolly Parton, most of which is extraordinary: songs sung with an intelligence and generosity that matches her self-composed melodies and lyrics:

I’d say that of all her country contemporaries, living or dead, Parton is the most sensuous. Her voice has so much shimmering life to it, as well as a kind of voluptuousness — it’s the voice of someone who’s eager to take everything in. Even if Parton sometimes sings of restraint, her music is never about repression. That’s confirmed by the way she writes about sex in her autobiography: “All my life … I have been driven by three things; three mysteries I wanted to know more about; three passions. They are God, music and sex. I would like to say that I have listed them in the order of their importance to me, but their pecking order is subject to change without warning.”

Amen.

Thansk to Alex. Here goes:

1. Ten years ago: I was about to begin my senior year at FIU, and about to begin the slimming process which, if my luck holds out, continues to this day.

2. Five years ago: I was beginning the second leg of my reporting internshiph at the Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Boy, was I unhappy. I realized within a week that I was a better liar and fabulist than a reporter. To quote Ronald Reagan: “Facts are stupid things.”

3. One year ago: A day much like this one: I drove to FIU’s Biscayne Bay campus (no bus between semesters), where I read stories all day while stealing minutes to work on a Stylus article.

4. Yesterday: I awoke at ten-thirty after going to bed at an ungodly hour. I visited my parents, my grandmother, and then came home to exercise, finish watching Sidney Lumet’s adaptation Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Katherine Hepburn must be seen to be believed), cooked pork chops and couscous, worked on a short story, and went to bed at ten-thirty, exactly twelve hours after awakening.

5. Today: Work, got home early.

6. Tomorrow: Work. I’ll probably watch Broken Flowers or hang out with Frank.

7. Five snacks I enjoy: Manchego cheese, coffee, apples, sugar cookies….er, help me out. I don’t really snack….

8. Five bands whose lyrics I know: Beatles, A Tribe Called Quest, Roxy Music, Liz Phair, R.E.M.

9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000: Pay my mortgage, foot the bill for my sister’s wedding, smile a lot, improve my wine collection, and bribe the staff of The New Yorker into publishing my stories.

10. Five locations I’d like to run away to [anyone checking the grammar of these questions?]: London, Chicago, Edinburgh. When I win that $100,000,000, I’ll answer this question properly.

11. Five Bad Habits: Pursuing a joke to the bitter end, arrogance, preferring my own company to anyone else’s, smoking, drinking gin instead of vodka (the hangovers are getting vicious).

12. Five things I like doing: Working, fabulizing, observing, spending money on good food and wine, and listening to De La Soul’s singles collection on State Road 836.

13. Five TV shows I like: Umm….ABC’s “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” [R.I.P].

14. Famous People I’d like to meet, living or dead: Famous people are boring (see Bad Habit #3).

15. Biggest joys at the moment: Owning my own apartment.

16. Favorite toys: My new lighter and that hairy beast between my legs.

17. Five people to tag, chosen quite at random: Vic, Ian, Johnny, Thomas, Apa.

Yet another story about how Mick and Keith really do love each other, and how Jagger shows “a new openness” and “vulnerability,” although how Robert Hilburn can glean evidence of openness and vulnerabiility from the lyrics to “Biggest Mistake” (”when love comes so late/It’ll really hit hard/It slams through the gate/It’ll catch you off guard”) shows a talent for explication de textethat would have been the envy of Roland Barthes. Articles like this make me really hate the sixties.

I don’t want to hate the Stones. Sixteen tracks is a bit much for a single album (Exile On Main Street, a double, had eighteen!), but for a carnival act they’ve accumulated about 145 years’ worth of craft; it’s difficult for Jagger-Richards to write a bad song, but it’s just as difficult to write an excellent one.

This week’s Singles Going Steady: the return of 311, the Backstreet Boys get all “Since U Been Gone” on us, and “Axel F” is transmogrified into a ditty for frogs.

My friend Thomas Inskeep and I spend most of our days emailing each other regarding matters of extreme consequence, such as “Taking Sides: Christine McVie’s `Got A Hold On Me’ vs Lindsey Buckingham’s `Go Insane’”; or debating Usher vs Alicia Keys. Occasionally he flatters my ego by posting our conversations on his website. Here’s one more.