One of the questions from this week's Anthropology homework:

7. What are “science” and “religion” and how does American culture use each?

Oh yeah, two topics I can (and often do) go on and on about in one question. I felt a little stirring in my loins when I first read it, like a good-smelling woman had just passed nearby. Here is my answer: 

Science is the use of rational thought, observation and experimentation to explain physical and natural phenomena. We use it in every aspect of our lives. The cumulative knowledge created by science is responsible for the foods we produce and eat, the structures and artifacts we build, the fuels we burn and the medicines we use. I believe science is a direct result of the evolution of human consciousness, the ability to ask ourselves the question: “Why?”
Religion stems from early man’s inability to answer that question. The same human consciousness that asks the question seems incapable of accepting “I don’t know” as an answer. So out of fear, we make stuff up. We explain away our own lack of knowledge by attributing events we don’t understand to invisible cloud beings. We use religion to help us accept the fact that scary bad things often happen to ourselves and people we care about. We use religion to nullify the scariest thing of all; we deny death.

One of my personal growth goals for some time has been to stop being so dismissive of religion, but it's obvious from that answer I'm still failing miserably. I just can't help myself. While I have a great deal of respect for religious individuals and the way most of them live their lives, I have a real problem with organized religion and it's purveyors; the proselytizers, preachers, priests, witnesses, clerics and missionaries. And pretty much anybody who comes around knocking on my door to share "the word" with me; ladies in long shapeless dresses and white shoes, men in suits with really soft handshakes. The worst are the ones with the feverish look in their eyes who want to tell me about their own conversations with the invisible cloud-daddy. Sales pitches make me edgy anyway, and "C'mon, believe like me and you'll live forever in happy land" is the ultimate sales pitch.

But what really bothers me is how damned effective they are at selling it to the world's most vulnerable. Everywhere the poor and weak and downtrodden don't have any real hope, the false hope of religion thrives. It feeds on desperation. And of course, once you've got religion and desperation, all it takes is a little touch of crazy and you've completed the fire triangle of fanaticism. From there you can get anything from standing on a street corner speaking in tongues to walking into a restaurant wearing a belt of plastic explosives.

Remember late last year when Amurka was eagerly awaiting dubya's announcement of his New Way Forward in Iraq? There was a lot of discussion amongst the talking heads in the media over just what the preznit would decide to do. Would he follow the advice of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report and start working with Iraq's neighbors in figuring a way out of Iraq, or would he instead follow LBJ's lead and escalate conflict in the face of disaster?

Of course the entire left wing of the blogosphere knew what dubya was going to do the moment we heard the idea for The Surge being tossed around. It was a classic example of how anytime this preznit goes into one of his highly-hyped "thinking" periods where he pretends to be agonizing over a decision, you can bet your ass he's actually waiting for the right-wing-noise-machine to sell his decision to the rubes before-hand. It's smoothly orchestrated to make sure all his "tough decisions" are met with applause. This particular "tough decision" made sure the first thing that happened on the Dem's newly-won watch in Congress was an increase in troop levels, and it set the stage for pushing his war off on the next president.

I remember how all the supporters of The Surge were pounding on us lefties for using the word escalation to describe the strategy, saying we were using it deliberately to invoke images of Vietnam when it was plain to see that The Surge was not an escalation because The Surge was by definition temporary, lasting a few months at most, whereas escalations are more long-term ... blah blah blah ... there's no way this is anything like Vietnam.

Fast forward to this past week. Despite the ejaculatory sound of the name, The Surge has actually been rather slow in the execution, having only just been completed two weeks ago. (That's right. The same people who have been telling us for years that our Iraqi adventures are not placing an inordinate strain on our military are also telling us that it's perfectly normal for our military to take six months to put 20,000 troops in country.) And of course since The Surge is only now at full strength, there's just no way we can pass any judgement whatsoever on it any time soon. And you probably shouldn't try looking for any sign of a gradual decrease in violence during the six-month troop buildup either. No sir, the clock starts now, and we won't have any idea whether The Surge is actually working for months. So much for temporary.

Meanwhile every piece of Do-Something-About-Iraq legislation the Dems try to bring to a vote is being filibustered in the Senate by the Republicans. Is it even worth mentioning how hypocritical the Republicans are being on this? Remember how they were threatening the "nuclear option" of eliminating filibusters because the Dems were using them and it threatened to destroy our constitutional form of government? They really don't seem to care if they look hypocritical or just plain foolish. Their only goal now is protecting the preznit by running out the clock. And honestly, I think it's going to work. They can postpone even discussing the inevitable failure of The Surge for another six months and then spend a few months arguing what to do about it. Dubya will be back in Crawford rewriting history and badmouthing his successor before we actually start pulling troops out in any real numbers, certainly before we get back to pre-Surge levels. Sigh.

I haven't been blogging much lately because the Abandon Mythology Command Bunker has temporarily become my guitar-building shop. My regular old wood shop is not climate controlled and when it comes to musical instruments, humidity bad. And humid is how we do it in Misery in the summertime.

Anyway Ray DeRousse over at The Rec tagged me a couple weeks ago in my comments section and I've been struggling with a post in response ever since. I was supposed to write about 8 things people don't know about me and then tag 8 other bloggers to do the same. It's just not working out for me, though. First off, I don't even know 8 other bloggers, and second, I can't come up with 8 things about myself that are even remotely interesting. It's pitiful how boring my life is. Especially after reading Ray's post. It was hilarious. I can't link to it because they are experiencing technical difficulties over at The Rec (they got hacked and are having to rebuild). I guess I just have to admit defeat on this one. I thought about just making some shit up, but my wife pops in here from time to time just to make sure I'm not getting mixed up with a bad crowd and she frowns on prevarication.

So I'm moving on. Check out this little nugget I snagged from CNN's comments the day of the latest terrorist attacks in great Britain. You know, the one's where a half-dozen religiously insane men with three cars and a bunch of gasoline and propane couldn't even manage to kill anyone? Someone calling himself Tanster posted this:

Why does the UK continue to put up with this? Why are the "2000 suspects" not immediately rounded up and summarily executed or turned into organ donors or subjects for medical experimentation (they are not worth the potential information they could provide)? Why coddle people whose primary aim is to inflict massive casualties on civilians with mere prison sentences at taxpayer expense? Terrorists owe a massive debt to society (just like mass murderers and serial killers) that prison time or even execution cannot repay but usage as spare parts or subjects for hazardous medical experiments might at least provide some benefit to the societies that they damage. And their progeny should also be sterilized and closely monitored afterwards to ensure that their genetic heritage be removed from the human gene pool forever and so that no terroristic tendencies surface for their remaining lifetimes, respectively.

Yep, while British police were making arrests and cleaning up and the rest of Britain was getting on with their lives, the American right-wing was shitting their collective pants in fear, to the point where people like Tanster want to go all Josef Mengele on anyone with a swarthy look about them. I tell you, either this guy represents the whacked-out, spittle-spraying lunatic fringe that results from 6 years of our government using scare tactics and fear-mongering to sell all manner of invasion and occupation and torture and death and destruction as self-defense...or I do. One of us is fucking crazy.

Today's New York Times has a lengthy editorial that begins with this sentence:

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

This is a good editorial that I highly recommend reading, but all I could think when I first saw it was; It's about fucking time! Our country's paper of record has officially recognized what most of the world has known now for 2 years and more. Dubya has failed miserably in Iraq and withdrawal, as ugly as it will be, really is our only option.

The "gray lady" ain't what she used to be, that's for sure. Even as long as it is, the editorial doesn't mention the Times' own role in selling this fiasco to the American public in the first place.