"It's all political."

Is it? Really?



Even the snowmen are picketing.



And Jesus Christ is telling the governor off...

At the Capitol today... there were signs taped up everywhere..

"Dick move."



Signs and junk...



... and even some people sleeping (at midday)...



Many signs depicted Jesus. Jesus says, "Tax the rich," and Scott Walker ignores our Lord:



The displays at the mezzanine level had become — like all the walls and pillars — places to tape signs. Here's the bust of Robert M. LaFollette:



I don't know if you can see it. Look closely: that is the replica of the Liberty Bell under all those signs:



This is the back of the Veteran's Memorial, with all sorts of notices taped onto it and junk piled up against it.



Meade and I confronted the protesters who maintained what they called their "information station." That's Meade in the baseball cap during the confrontation:



I'll have video of the Veterans Memorial confrontation on YouTube and this blog very soon. The video includes a protester telling me that Meade and I are the first — "literally the first" — persons to object to their treatment of the memorial.

ADDED: Here's the post with the video up now.

What's your sign? Scott Walker is "assassinating the middle class — he's getting us."

I'm struck by "Et tu, Brute" — the most famous assassination quote — in the context of Scott Walker...



... so I engage this young man in a conversation about how to interpret his sign, which lists Walker along with Judas and — of all people — Brett Favre:



ADDED: The sign in the back says: "All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms it is TREASON! — Abraham Lincoln." Having these 2 assassination signs together disturbed me. A couple days ago, I saw a sign that read "SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS."

Born again, at the pro/anti-Scott Walker demonstration.

More signs at the protest today.

A simple plea:



Stoical support:



"Jesus loves you but not this bill" — a little breaching of the wall between church and state:



"Pretend it's college and drop out":


(Enlarge.)

"Open For Business = Closed For Negotiatins" [sic]:



(Is anybody going to apologize for laughing at "Teabonics" — the misspellings on Tea Party signs? I mean, this is a demonstration for unionized teachers. They should spellcheck the hell out of their signs.)

(The first 2 pics were taken by Meade, the rest are by me. All taken today.)

Young Ezra Klein found himself in a strange predicament.

He'd said something utterly banal. It's what everyone around him has been saying for years. He must have expected that people would either ignore him or shrug him off as a man with no original or interesting ideas. And suddenly he's getting derided, called an idiot or worse. How can that happen?!

The banal thing was that reading the text of the Constitution doesn't get you to the answers to the difficult questions that arise today. The text must be interpreted, and political preferences will tend to pull people along toward the interpretation they want.

Don Surber says (via Instapundit):

Ezra Klein made the biggest mistake that can be made by a liberal — progressive — socialist — communist — no labelist — whatever the heck they call themselves on the 31st of the month.

He was being honest.

He does not believe in the Constitution.

He is cynical about it and he projects that same cynicism onto those who disagree with him.

Now, Klein walked right into that criticism. He stated the banality with an off-handed, wise-guy flippancy. That was red meat for the kind of conservative who likes to stress the constitutional text.

And now we see the value of this notion of reading the text out loud on the House floor. It sets up a trap for people like Klein to say things that let conservatives — like Don Surber — rail against the lefties.

Does that mean that I, like Klein, think reading the Constitution on the floor of the House is a "gimmick"?

In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out"... [T]he special feature is typically thought to be of little relevance or use.... [A] gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature. It began... as a slang term for something that a con artist or magician had his assistant manipulate to make appearances different from reality.

In the musical "Gypsy," the experienced strippers advise young Gypsy Rose Lee that she has to get a gimmick:



I wouldn't use the word "gimmick" for what the GOP has proposed. But, like stripping, it is theatrical. It's a performance. A performance of belief. I think of the point in the church service when everyone reads the Apostles' Creed out loud. Obviously, many people say it who don't believe it, and you could keep silent and still believe it. But don't mock the ritual unless you're good at predicting the reaction and how you'll respond to that and you have some good reason for wanting the exchange.

Back to Surber:

For 8 years, the Left’s railed against Bush shredding the Constitution, a phrase which came to mean nothing....

See how much Surber is like Klein? He's accusing the other side of saying the words, but not really believing. But Surber has done better at picking his fight. He's got he hypocrisy angle: All those times you lefties acted all aghast at what Bush was doing? You must admit that was all theater, right?

ADDED:

The "ants on Jesus" video isn't blasphemy — it belongs in the tradition of Christian art.

S. Brent Plate explains. Excerpt:

Christianity itself has produced some of the most gruesome images of tortured, dying, suffering, and dead bodies, especially Jesus's own body. From Latin American Roman Catholic piety to German Protestantism, the dead and dying Jesus is a point of power, passion, and ultimately compassion. Take, for example, Matthias Grünewald's Small Crucifixion (early 16th century) in the publicly funded National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. ... mangled limbs, pocked skin oozing pus and blood.

That Christ on the cross is actually dead, and the body so dead that ants might eat it, is both the most orthodox Christian statement, and the most scandalous. But here is where the power of words and images begin to show their differences.

In Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot, the character Ippolit kills himself. In his suicide note he meditates on a reproduction of a 16th century painting by Hans Holbein, The Dead Christ:

The picture seems to give expression to the idea of a dark, insolent, and senselessly eternal power, to which everything is subordinated, and this idea is suggested to you unconsciously. The people surrounding the dead man, none of whom is shown in the picture, must have been overwhelmed by a feeling of terrible anguish and dismay on that evening which had shattered all their hopes and almost all their beliefs at one fell blow. They must have parted in a state of the most dreadful terror, though each of them carried away within him a mighty thought which could never be wrested from him. And if, on the eve of the crucifixion, the Master could have seen what He would look like when taken from the cross, would he have mounted the cross and died as he did?

Holbein's is an image, as Prince Myshkin says in Dostoyevsky's story, that could make one lose one's faith.... And yet, the image offers a profound meditation on the power of death, that "dark insolent, and senselessly eternal power." The picture becomes, like so many before and after, a point of great healing, compassion, and understanding about this central, paradoxical thing that Christians hold dear: Incarnation.

The artist who made the ants-on-Jesus video — which is really called "A Fire in My Belly" — was David Wojnarowicz. He died of AIDS in 1992, only 4 years older than Jesus was at the time of crucifixion.

IN THE COMMENTS: Tyrone Slothrop said..

It's the anty Christ.

Why did the Madison, Wisconsin arts center remove a photograph from its display "Living with HIV/AIDS: Perspectives Through the Lens"?

It's not like the HIV-themed, ants-on-Jesus video recently removed from the Smithsonian Institution's "Difference and Desire" show. Here in Madison, the sensitivities are quite different:

... "Stripped" features a nude male model seated in a chair with a handful of pill bottles covering his lap. Only his chest, arms and thighs are shown....

Thousands of school- and preschool-aged children walk through the hallway known as the Playhouse Gallery each week on their way to Overture shows, and officials were concerned that "a little kid could connect sickness with genitals" by looking at "Stripped," [Overture spokesman Rob] Chappell said.

Two other black and white photos by Oren — one portraying a nude male torso embraced by four male arms and the other showing a nude male covered by a pile of books — remain on the gallery's walls.

"It's the sickness attached to the genitals that we decided could be misinterpreted by a little kid," Chappell said. "It was never the topic that was an issue. We don't see any reason to shield kids from the fact that HIV exists, or that people with HIV are normal people and can express themselves through photography or any other way."

We don't want children to connect sickness with genitals.

"Palin is still talking about how much she loves C. S. Lewis."

"What is up with this? Chunky Bobo is always talking about C. S. Lewis too. Is he the new Edmund Burke? I read a bunch of C. S. Lewis books when I was a kid and I don’t see what makes them so conservative, aside from all the Jeebus stuff."

Sayeth DougJ. For a couple of seconds, I was all "who's Chunky Bobo?" but I figured it out.

***

Here's there underlying story about Palin. (She's on Barbara Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People of 2010." Ah, but how influential is she in Madison ?)

Here's a really nice — giftable — book collecting the works of C.S. Lewis. And here's a "daily readings" collection. And here's "The Portable Edmund Burke."

"Norman Rockwell would get the boot... if I believed in pulling everything that I'm offended by: I can't stand the view of America that he presents..."

"... which I feel insults a huge number of us non-mainstream folks. But I didn't call for the Smithsonian American Art Museum to pull the Rockwell show that runs through Jan. 2, just down the hall from 'Hide/Seek.' Rockwell and his admirers got to have their say, and his detractors, including me, got to rant about how much they hated his art. Censorship would have prevented that discussion, and that's why we don't allow it."

Writes Blake Gopnik about the ants-on-Jesus to-do.

Rush Limbaugh reacted:

Now, what is there to hate about Norman Rockwell? Very simply answered question: pro-America. Classic Americana. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate the flag. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate biscuits and gravy. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate breakfast. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate farms. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate grandmother. If you hate Norman Rockwell, you hate the family. What in the world is there to hate about Norman Rockwell?

Ha. I remember when everyone hated Norman Rockwell... and not just because he was regarded as an excessively literal illustrator and not a real artist.

(And by "everyone," I mean that in the sense that everyone voted against Nixon.)

"If they’ve got money to squander like this – of a crucifix being eaten by ants, of Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, men in chains, naked brothers kissing..."

"... then I think we should look at their budget," said Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, scaring the Smithsonian Institution into taking down the ants-on-Jesus video. Cowed, the Institution nevertheless defended the artist, whose "intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim." The museum assures us it had no "intention to offend."

The Christianist in the White House — he's President of Jesusland.

Instapundit turns the tables on the Democrats and, in the process links to a post I wrote 6 years ago — not because I was doing 6-years-ago political nostalgia yesterday, but because linking to an old post of mind called "About 'Jesusland'" was a way to get to Ken Layne's original "Jesusland" rantings (which are no longer to be found on his old website).

I've never had a problem with actual conservatives ... But I've got a big problem with Jesusland. If you want to worship the ghost of a jew from the Roman Empire, that's cool. Enjoy it! But when you people and your bizarre mystery cult claim the goddamned president as your prime convert who rules by the voices in his head, I call bullshit.

That's Ken, not me. I add some commentary that may or may not have relevance to present-day politics.

***

Bonus: Ben Folds sings "Jesusland." A nicely done video, which I'm linking rather than embedding because it starts with a commercial. I'm not sure what I think about that song. Something about a young guy looking judgmentally at his society seems pretentious and annoying... but isn't it that what Jesus did?

"I wasn't gonna punch back because, again, I think the office of the presidency is precious."

George Bush, speaking to Rush Limbaugh — transcript, audio — consistently expressed the idea that a President should handle himself with dignity and concentrate on doing what he thinks is right:

RUSH: ... What's it like to sit in the Oval Office, or wherever you happen to be as president and believe the people are tired of you, and do you want to do anything about that?

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... [Y]ou know, sometimes if you're president and people are tired of you, you just have to soldier on....

RUSH: ... In my lifetime, I don't recall a political party ever opposing their own country at war, seeking a defeat as the Democrats were. I mean Harry Reid was out there, Mr. President, "This war is lost."

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... You can disagree with the policy, disagree with whether we should work to establish democracy in Iraq after we liberated it, but to condemn soldiers heading into mission to a lost cause is just, you know, is inexcusable, as far as I was concerned.

RUSH: Why didn't you do more about it? Why didn't you comment more about it at the time?...

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... I do believe in the institution of the presidency, and I didn't think it was right then, I still don't think it's right to engage in name-calling if you're the president of the United States. I was focused on the mission... I still feel very strongly that's the way a president ought to conduct himself.

RUSH: Well, some of the people in your administration, Karl Rove, have said in hindsight that they think -- maybe Karl is speaking for himself, certainly other people in the administration -- should have done more to defend you and the administration against these attacks....

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's right. Now, Karl feels that way. I read his book and recommend it, he'll be happy from me to hear. And, yeah, I mean Karl felt like we shoulda punched back harder. I can't remember if he was referring to I shoulda punched back harder or we shoulda punched back harder. I wasn't gonna punch back because, again, I think the office of the presidency is precious. It's an institution that needs to be strengthened and getting into a verbal mud fight with people, in my judgment, demeans the office. And so I chose not to do that....

... You know, and eventually the truth wins out, and this book is an attempt to set the record straight from my perspective.

RUSH: Is that your faith speaking, "the truth will out"?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Do I think that? Yeah, I do. 

I'm hearing the Sermon on the Mount in that: "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." And:

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you....

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 2But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Obviously, the phrase "punch back harder"— which Bush introduces — is a reference to Obama, so there is an implied attack on Obama for fighting like a politician while he is President. And yet, Obama too resists defending himself as much as some people would like.

ADDED: After Bush is off the line, Rush comments:

I try to put myself in his shoes, try to imagine myself president of the United States, and in my mind, I'm doing everything I'm doing for the benefit of this country.  If it's a terror attack that I'm responding to with military policy, it's to keep the country safe.  If I'm coming up with an economic policy, Social Security reform, it is to benefit the people of this country.  And to have that maligned, be personally maligned, I could not -- if I were inclined not to sully the office and not respond to it personally, I would not silence my administration.  I would turn 'em loose.  It's too serious.  It matters too much.  I would make sure the people that voted for me understood that they had a leader, but he was hell-bent on not sullying the office of the presidency.  He told me that I can't tell you how many times, and to this day it's tough for me to understand, even now.  We've got an economy unlike any since the Great Depression.  He's being blamed for it.  The Democrat Party and the media are blaming him and he's content to let long-term history be the judge of this.  Now, I know that his faith in God is what gives him the comfort and the confidence to do this, but I would not be able to stand mute about it like he is.

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

Said Jesus, describing the final judgment. There was a point in Stephen Colbert's testimony to a House subcommittee when he dropped his act and answered a question as himself:

Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) asked, “Why of all the things you could testify about did you choose this issue?” Colbert seemed to surprise himself as he fell out of character--he rubbed his head in thought and said:

"I like talking about people who don't have any power, and this seems like, one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here and at the same time ask them to leave. That’s an interesting contradiction to me. And, you know, “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers”--and this seems like the least of brothers--right now. A lot of people are least brothers right now because the economy is so hard. And I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish anything like that. But migrant works suffer and have no rights."

It was a powerful moment, all the more so because catching Colbert out of character for more than a few seconds of unguarded laughter is almost as rare as catching snow leopards mating. It was perfectly natural for Colbert, who has taught Sunday school at his Catholic church in Montclair, NJ, to quote Matthew 25:31-45 (“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”). The tender earnestness of that brief moment when Colbert slipped the mask undercut any suggestion that his snottiness was a self-promoting stunt.

I think Stephen Colbert is quite serious about Christianity — as I have written before in some detail.

Obama asks faith-based groups to help him get his message out about the Democrats health-care-reform legislation.

Politico reports:

With health reform’s popularity steadily slipping, top administration officials turned to faith-based groups that supported the law to do their part explaining it. On an hour-long conference call Tuesday, they outlined the Patients’ Bill of Rights and asked faith-based and community groups to get the word out on the new provisions. “I wanted to have this call because we have a big day coming up, the six-month anniversary of health reform’s passage,” President Obama told leaders on the conference call, hosted through Health and Human Services’ Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Obama later added that, “The debate in Washington is over, the Affordable Care Act is now law. ...I think all of you can be really important validators and trusted resources for friends and neighbors, to help explain what’s now available to them.” Joshua DuBois, head of the White House’s Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, got even more specific: “Get the word out there, get information out there. Make use of the resources described on this call: the website, door hangers, one pagers and so forth. We’ve got work to do.”

Religion as the handmaiden of government, serving as really important validators and trusted resources for friends and neighbors. Worldly power seeks to inflate itself with whatever credibility religion can cede.

Once you are the really important validator of government, can you be a really important validator of God?

***

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other."

Is lust a sin? Is masturbation a sin?

Back in the 90s, Christine O'Donnell — the new GOP candidate for Delaware Senator — said: "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can't masturbate without lust!" She's getting teased or denounced or whatever for saying that, but it's not a stupid thing for a Christian to say.

The Sermon on the Mount is central to Christianity. In it, Jesus calls us to a higher level of morality than what traditional law requires. The law forbids murder, for example, but Jesus says that even to be angry with someone or to call him a "fool" is to expose yourself to the danger of God's judgment. (Are you sure you want to call O'Donnell a fool?)

Continuing with that theme, Jesus says:

You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

So what have you been doing with that hand, eh?

O'Donnell, unlike Jesus, did not go so far as to say that you ought to be lopping off your own masturbating hand. (If you think that, I recommend masturbating with your left hand, if you're right-handed.) O'Donnell took a much more moderate approach to the sacred text (as many believers do). In her view, the real offense against God is abusing the gift of sexuality by disconnecting it from the context of deep love in a marital relationship. In that interpretation, masturbation is sinful. It is mere lust, without love. Is lust a sin? You decide for yourself. She wasn't recommending that the law enforce this higher morality, but what is wrong with it as a personal, religious doctrine? Why is it not respected?

And let's remember: This was back in the 90s. Do you remember how insane everyone was back then? Here's a quick refresher course.



President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, fired Jocelyn Elders in 1994, after people freaked out when she said that young people should "perhaps ... be taught" about masturbation, because it is "is part of human sexuality" and useful in keeping them from doing riskier sexual things.

The Garden Angel Meets Jesus.

You remember the garden angel. Chip Ahoy bears witness to laters doings in the garden:

A dubious album cover.

Via Roger Ebert's twitpic page, which is also the source of the previous 2 posts.

I remember when most girls tried to get their hair to do that. It's not easy, and it takes nerve — or possibly help from Jesus — to tease your hair that big. Funny... it was considered wrong back then — in the early 60s — to tease your hair. There were all sorts of warnings, notably that your hair would fall out, but also that insects would grow in it.

I remember one particularly harrowing — hair-rowing — story about a girl who kept teasing her hair, day after day, teasing and spraying, without washing it. One day, at school, blood suddenly began streaming down her face. Then, she died! Her hair detached from her head in one big clump. Somebody picked it up and then, in horror, threw it against the wall. Thousands of roaches ran out of it!

Think about that when you're teasing your hair. This was back in the days before the coining of the term "urban legend." It would give you pause. Most of us went for a relatively subtle "bump"...



... and denied that we achieved it through teasing.

Anyway, The Faith Tones... What I don't get is... Christian music, but they don't look wholesome. Maybe I'm still scarred from the adolescent lessons about hair-teasing. It would make boys think you were a bad girl. Is this the way to present yourself to Jesus? Sincerely? I couldn't find any Faith Tones music on Amazon or iTunes. They seem to exist entirely as an internet meme, based on mocking this album cover.

Are The Faith Tones themselves an urban legend? Or — alternate theory — is this album cover the work of the devil, who is tempting you to laugh at religion?

"Sherrod may be the only official ever dismissed because of the *fear* that Fox host Glenn Beck might go after her."

Notes Howard Kurtz:

As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to pressure her into resigning, Sherrod says Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday to say "do it, because you're going to be on 'Glenn Beck' tonight." And for all the focus on Fox, much of the mainstream media ran with a fragmentary story that painted an obscure 62-year-old Georgian as an unrepentant racist....

The administration's concern about Beck stems in part from his campaign last year that prompted the resignation of White House environmental official Van Jones over divisive remarks -- a controversy that some news organizations acknowledged they were too slow to cover. Ironically, Beck defended Sherrod on Tuesday, saying that "context matters" and he would have objected if someone had shown a video of him at an AA meeting saying he used to pass out from drinking but omitting the part where he says he found Jesus and gave up alcohol.

My child, the advanced moralist.

"[Y]our child may wonder why you have twice the home you need. Kevin Salwen and his wife were so taken by their daughter’s conviction in this particular matter that their family of four decided to sell their 6,500-square-foot home. They bought a new one less than half the size and are giving away about $850,000, more than the price difference between the homes."

It's a conundrum of pride!

What should you learn from your child's moralistic inquiries?
	How to reach a higher standard of morality.
	How to talk about substantive issues with a child.
	How to resist being shaken from your own decisions about how to live.
	How to be proud of yourself AND your seemingly brilliant offspring.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."