The danger of prayer

Yes, you heard me.

A big story among my Facebook friends recently was that the state legislature has designated Sunday as a day of prayer in Louisiana, hoping for divine intervention concerning the disastrous oil spill.

"Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail," state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week's unanimous vote for the day of prayer. "It is clearly time for a miracle for us."

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast "to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood."

Of course, Sarah Palin had to weigh in with a tweet: "Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man's efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle."

I honestly do not understand this sort of thinking. I spent far too many years seeing dear relatives die of cancer after hearing people pray for a miracle (after treatment failure); pleas for divine intervention rather than putting our own knowledge to use, or doing further research in order to find ways to help others; and prayerful requests for finding a missing child, hoping that just this once, God will spare this one...apparently either ignoring the hundreds of others who go missing every year, or even worse, deeming them unworthy of being rescued.

Why do I say this is dangerous? Oh, I know it really doesn't hurt, and I know that many find it a comfort. I don't deny anyone that. However, I find that relying on a mystical solution to a very real and present danger does no good in finding a real time solution, and can even retard (and I use that word correctly) progress.

Years ago, I remember talking with a woman at a potluck dinner; this was the ex's church group. (Feel free to have a chuckle at imagining me at this group.) She said, "I'm glad I have God to make decisions for me, so I don't have to make them for myself!" I think I died a little inside at hearing her say that. I have never forgotten it, and I can tell you that I never want to be that way. To quote Nine Inch Nails, "I'd rather die than give you control."

You can approach this in two different ways. If you don't believe in God, you understand that your destiny is in your own hands. It is entirely up to you to make the decisions that concern your life; the responsibility lies upon you. You learn to make decisions based on the outcome of your previous decisions. If the consequences turn out badly, you learn to make different choices. If you never learn, you are the one that will ultimately deal with the results of your own bad decisions. In my life, I have made both good and bad decisions (as have we all). I accept full responsibility for them, I own them, and I will deal with the consequences. I don't accept blame for the behavior of others, but I do accept my own response to such behavior. I'm like the Outer Limits, baby. I control the horizontal. I control the vertical.

If one does believe in God, as did the woman who was so delighted to have God making decisions for her, I have to wonder at her selfishness in wanting God's ear in order to have him be the decider. This was a comfortable suburbanite, a woman not lacking in food, shelter, health care, or any other amenities; my mind was and is blown at her arrogance in assuming that her petty little problems trump those of the mother in Africa whose child is dying of malaria, or is starving to death, or is slowly but inexorably dying due to an overwhelming parasitic infection. Or for that matter, the woman right here in New York or Chicago or L.A. who is seeing her child starve, or watching them die because they don't have reliable health care. Yes, it happens right here.

I've always felt that if there is a god, he'd get pretty impatient with people praying for guidance as to whether or not they should buy that new car or stick with the old one a while longer, or praying for their team to win the Super Bowl, or praying for an answer to that age-old dilemma...Dear Lord, should I get a boob job? Guide me, Jeebus!

We have brains, people. We have reasoning, thinking minds. Personally, I believe that came about through evolution, but even if you believe in the alternative, you still have a mind and life experiences with which to make your own decisions. Use these things!

A little story for you. Got a call Sunday morning when someone couldn't find their keys. They'd looked everywhere, and they were nowhere to be found. Got another call later on, and the keys were still missing. I started walking through the steps of when I saw them last, retracing our movements and activities, and I eventually hit upon something that triggered a memory. The keys were found. The response? "Praise the Lord!"

Before you get your undies in a bundle, no, I'm not saying that I wanted or needed praise at this moment, and I am most certainly not comparing myself to any deity; I was just very happy that the keys were found. My point is that I led them to find the keys by using logic and reconstruction; there was no divine guidance involved.

Relying solely on prayer for the solution to problems is foolish and dangerous. When it comes to a disaster like the oil spill, it is even more so; there will be no "divine intervention" in this oil spill. It was caused by human failures and greed, and it will eventually be solved by human ingenuity and technical knowledge (although too late to save so much of the region's wildlife, ecosystem, and the residents' livelihoods). The Louisiana legislature's declaration of a statewide day of prayer is not only unconstitutional (they "urged" people to pray, which they cannot do according to our Constitution), it is a futile effort and distraction from the task at hand. Palin's endorsement of the prayer and belief that it is the only possible solution to this clusterfuck is utterly absurd.

Take control. Be responsible for your weaknesses and your strengths. OWN your life and know that you have the ability to control how you respond to personal disasters. Realize that disasters are either caused by natural phenomena or by our own negligence; tornadoes, hurricanes, et al, are not divine retribution for sin, they are caused by weather patterns, and in the case of this oil spill, by ignoring regulations and warning signs. Illnesses are sometimes random, sometimes caused by our own behavior. Stop blaming random shit on whatever god you worship and stop expecting that he will intervene on your behalf.

Believe in yourself.

And watch this video, a response from a Gulf resident, to the "drill, baby, drill" mentality. My reaction was a mixture of grief and rage.

For the love of reading

A week since I updated! O the shame, O the horror, O the humanity, O...what the hell.

It's been for a good cause, though. I'm still reading plenty of stuff online, especially political stuff, paying special attention to the oil spill. I look at pictures of oil-covered birds, feebly flapping their heavy wings, struggling to move, and I feel incredible rage at all parties responsible. BP is obviously the biggest criminal here, but there are other problems. Why were they given free rein to drill deeply offshore without having a swift backup plan for just such a disaster? What sort of chicanery was going on at the MMS? Why did President Obama bow to the shortsighted opportunists playing upon the public's need for oil, the ones bleating "Drill, baby, drill!" like some mindless drones?

We all have our hot buttons. I love the people of New Orleans, and I feel heartsick at the thought of them suffering this so soon after Katrina; there are families whose livelihoods have been in the fishing business for decades, and they may not be able to continue their family tradition. But I'm also a birder and a nature lover, and I can tell you that the pictures of these dying birds makes me nauseous and so angry I can barely stand it. I read threads in which people continue to say that we need to "drill here, drill now." I guess it's not enough that we have befouled the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf coast for the foreseeable future. They would also love to see us risk areas like ANWR. I just don't understand the inability of some people to see the longterm consequences of some of these actions. Our ecosystems are fragile and must be protected. There is a domino effect when the natural order is interrupted, whether it's the massive influx of toxic oil into the Gulf or the eradication of natural predators to deer in areas like mine, allowing deer to overpopulate and strip the land of its natural flora.

It's all connected, people. Thinking that offshore drilling, or drilling in ANWR, is going to end our dependence on foreign oil is not just simplistic. It is simpleminded.

That's a mini-rant (rantette? rantini?) for now. I will probably revisit this soon. I didn't even write about the low-wattage Palin saying that this spill is because of "extreme greenies" not allowing drilling onshore. You do all realize that she's stupid, right? If not, I plan on reminding you.

What was I saying? Oh yes. I haven't updated for a while for a good reason. Yes, I stay busy with reading things on Facebook, but I also resolved to get back into real reading. You know...BOOKS. Yeah, baby! I finished a couple of books of short stories I had going (John Grisham and Joe Hill), then moved onto a book my brother-in-law loaned me. It's called Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle For America's Soul by Karen Abbott. It's about the vice trade in early 20th century Chicago, and specifically the famous brothel the Everleigh Club. It is fascinating! I was drawn in immediately. Growing up in close proximity to Chicago, I've been there often, and I've read quite a bit about its Mob involvement (everyone knows about Al Capone), but I don't think I realized just how depraved the place was for so many years. Everyone was on the take, from the cops on up to the judges. Brothels and taverns paid protection and operation fees to city officials, and everyone made a pretty good living off of graft for a while.

Although most of the houses in Chicago treated the women poorly, the Everleigh sisters, Minna and Ada, ran a pretty tight ship. No drug addicts or alcoholics, no drugging and robbing the customers, and a general sense of decorum. No, I'm not condoning it, but the sisters treated it as a business, and believed that happy workers were loyal workers, and the waiting list for girls to get on the roster at the Everleigh Club was a long one. The life of a common street whore was much shorter than that of an Everleigh girl, who received frequent medical examinations. It's just a really fascinating read, and I'm enjoying it very much.

I've also been watching a DVD my sister loaned me about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, the Colombian Exposition. A few years ago, I read The Devil in the White City, a historical novel by Erik Larson. It was about the fair itself and its chief architect, Daniel Burnham (a big name in Chicago architecture), along with H. H. Holmes, who was one of America's first serial killers, and preyed upon young women coming into town for the fair, whether visiting for enjoyment or coming for employment in one of Chicago's "sporting" houses (see Everleigh Club, above).

It's been very pleasant to step away from the computer for a chunk of time and sit outside and enjoy the nice weather as well as some actual books. I posted a story today (yes, on Facebook...shut up!) about a study that showed that kids with lots of books in their home generally did better in school and went on to pursue at least some higher education. I think that's probably accurate. My parents were both avid readers, and it wasn't unusual for us to sit around reading our respective books. I spent quite a bit of time going through our set of Collier's Encyclopedias, and reading was always encouraged in my house, and perhaps most importantly, I saw my parents reading often. I think it makes a huge difference if at least one parent exhibits a love of reading.

So I hope you'll forgive my frequent absences from Blogtropolis. If I'm lost, it's only in the printed page. (And yes…those are my bookcases in the picture above, and I’ve read most of the books within. This doesn’t include the bookcase upstairs with unread books.)

The article raised another point: is it important that the books be the printed kind, stacked into bookcases? Or are e-readers and iPads just as positive an influence? I feel that any way a person gets information and learns is important (except for ClusterFox, heehee!), so I don't know that one is more important than the other. I know that there is nothing for me like holding a book in my hands and turning the pages as I progress. I have read the occasional short story online, but I don't see myself reading a full novel here. I don't think I'll be the type of person that ridicules kids who only read online, though. I realize that, as Roland said, the world has moved on. Still, for me...I love the printed page, and would encourage any kid to read actual books.

What do you think? How do you feel about online vs printed books? How do you feel about kids and books? Do you think it's important that they read things other than online? How important is it to you that public libraries survive? Do you support such a socialist institution? Questions...I gots questions!

Is it possible to be too cool?

I don't mean in a badass cool kind of way. Everyone knows it is impossible to be too cool in that way.

I'm talking about in a passionate sort of way. President Obama has a reputation as a relatively unflappable guy. We can never know what he's like in person, but his public persona is definitely one that might include words like "cucumber" and "ice." Personally, I've always liked that about him. If you read his books or listen to his speeches, you can tell that he is most certainly passionate about his philosophies and ideas. However, when it comes to staying cool under pressure, he's as good as anyone I've seen.

Remember during the election, when everyone realized that the economy had almost folded? That was in September. McCain's choice of Palin as running mate had fired up the right wing base; her handlers were still keeping her from the press, so no one knew yet what a dim bulb she really is; McCain was making progress in the polls, and the results were a virtual dead heat. Then the economy crisis hit. Obama's reaction was to study the problem and try to put together what had happened and what could be done, both now and in the future so the chances of this happening again are lessened. McCain's strategy, after three days of congressional hearings, was to announce that he was [cue trumpet sound] suspending his campaign, and the scheduled debate with Obama should be postponed! This was so he could rush to Washington to see what he could do to solve the problem! He probably even pictured himself riding into D.C. on a white horse (It sure as hell wouldn't be a black horse...HA! I couldn't resist.), but all I could think was, "What does he think that is going to accomplish?" I saw it as an attempt to grab headlines (McCain Suspends Campaign To Deal With Financial Crisis!) rather than any sort of real effort or belief that he could possibly do any good.

Of course, it did no good whatsoever, and his participation in discussions was limited. The day that he announced he was suspending his campaign, he canceled an appearance on Letterman...and then was caught on tape getting made up for an appearance with Katie Couric on CBS News. Letterman ridiculed him thoroughly, and the video of him sitting in the makeup chair was quite funny when compared with his urgent need to get back to Washington. In short, McCain came across as looking like a kneejerk reactionary trying to garner some free headlines, while Obama appeared deliberative and serious. I think it was a big turning point in the campaign. It certainly solidified my choice, because it only strengthened my belief of who would react better in a crisis. (And I believe that has been borne out.)

With the continued crisis of the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration has taken heat for not handling the crisis better, or perhaps sooner. I think the latter is a bogus charge; they were informed and engaged from day one. Were there things they could have done differently or better? I don't know for sure, although the President himself has said there is always room for improvement, and takes ultimate responsibility for being in charge of the management of the crisis. I think it's being blown out of proportion by his opponents. Not the crisis, of course. That's about as bad as bad can get. But I think his critics are claiming that he has mishandled this, and I don't believe that's true. I was not pleased that he authorized the drilling; the shortsightedness of those chanting "Drill, baby, drill!" (nottomentionanynamesSarahPalin), the foolish belief that this would help decrease our dependence on foreign oil (it's a drop in the oil barrel), the inability to see the consequences of what might happen in a worst-case scenario (I guess we're seeing that now, aren't we?)...any short term gains have not only been wiped out by this disaster, they have been mind-bogglingly obliterated. A huge swath of fragile environment, thousands of animals and birds, a fragile ecosystem, oyster farms, people's livelihoods...all wiped out.

The responsibility for this disaster does not lie solely upon any one person or entity or administration. People fucked up on many levels based on what I'm reading, whether it was laxity on the issue of permits, special interest pandering, companies like Halliburton letting faulty work get by (Hmm, Halliburton...why does that ring a bell?), BP sacrificing safety for profit...it's sickening and tragic in every way, and we can't even begin to know the long term effects of this horror. But that isn't the point of this entry. I know we're all heartsick and disgusted about it, and I can hardly bear to look at the pictures.

Back to the cool factor. Along with the criticism of the Obama administration for their handling of this, I'm reading criticism of him personally, saying that he is too cool about this, that he doesn't understand the full impact of this disaster, doesn't sympathize with those who make their living from the ocean or those who simply love it, just doesn't feel passionately enough about this. When he showed a glimpse of his personal involvement in this, talking about his daughter Malia asking if he'd plugged the hole yet, professional asshole Glenn Beck (and he's highly successful in that endeavor) mocked not the President, but his daughter for asking the question, ridiculing her and questioning her education. If you found that in any way funny, please stop following me right now. I don't want your readership. Seriously.

I understand the President on this one. I have, on occasion, been accused of being "cold-hearted." I think anyone who really knows me knows that is far from true. In some respects, I'm far too tender-hearted for my own good. I still remember hitting a cat on my way home from work one evening...this was probably fifteen years ago, and I remember exactly how pretty it looked, just as if it were sleeping, except for the vacant eyes. I remember hitting a squirrel that ran out in front of my car several years ago here, and how I cried when I walked back out to the road and confirmed that I had indeed crushed it. I remember picking up a hummingbird that had broken its neck on the window, cradling the poor little thing in my hands and stroking its tiny little head. I am far from cold-hearted.

But when it comes to moments of true crisis--all of the above are tragic moments, but not true crises--I tend to shut down. I put on my stoic face, I go into crisis management mode, and I can be very aloof. I'm the person who, if we were in a crisis together and you flipped the fuck out, would grab you by the shoulders and shake you, smack you across the face if I had to, tell you to get a grip, and direct you to do what needed to be done. We all deal with grief, anger, and other strong emotions in our own ways. I tend to keep my moments like that personal, and in the presence of others do my best to keep my cool. I do not collapse from grief. You can call it right or wrong to deal with things that way, but if we were on a plane crash together, would you rather have some dipshit collapsing and wailing in the aisle so that no one could get through, or would you rather have me yanking him to his feet and telling him to shut up or get out of the way? Would you rather have the histrionic John McCain suspending his campaign or Barack Obama learning more about the situation and knowing what can and can't be done in the short term?

Would you rather have a highly emotional President who reacts with extreme passion (maybe faux-crying like Glenn Beck) or one who tries to remain calm while all about him are losing their shit? I know which one I want. This criticism of the President's "lack of passion" is ridiculous. I know quite well that it is possible to feel passionately about something but remain calm. It is highly desirable to lead rather than to panic. If one person is able to keep their shit together, it can calm others down and get them to do the same. No one can think clearly when in a state of panic. Throwing one's hands in the air and wailing "Oh Jeebus, what do we doooo?" does no one any good. What we DO is start thinking about things clearly and rationally, formulate a plan, and then get to work.

If you don't want to be a part of that, then get the fuck out of the way.