The Cobwebs In My Mind

Cleaning out the cobwebs in my mind is a lot more fun than cleaning out the cobwebs in my house, believe me! Which is why I am sitting here, posting this, and not doing my housework.

Anyway, cobweb the first: I am not surprised to hear that Chief Justice Rehnquist has said he will serve on the USSCt as long as his health will permit. Indeed, I suggest that you read that to mean "until his death." Don't forget that Rehnquist has an ego bigger than just about anything I can think of: after more than 200 years of tradition saying the Chief Justice is merely the "first among equals," who was the one and only (so far) justice to put chevrons on the sleeves of his judicial robes to make it plain that HE was in charge? Rehnquist, that's who.

I thought it was cheezy when he did it; I think it's cheezy now. But I have to admit, it does provide a useful bit of insight into our current CJ's mindset.

Cobweb the second: has anyone noticed how much Karl Rove and the late Senator Joseph McCarthy resemble each other? The same round head, the same double chin, the same evil mentality, the same desire to control by smearing the (in-fact) loyal opposition (OK, so McCarthy also had a receeding forehead and a permanent 5-o'clock shadow, whereas Rove has a high forehead and is just pasty-faced). Where, oh where, is our champion who will confront Rove directly and ask him, "At long last, sir, have you no decency?"

Cobweb the third: baseball, like all sports, provides useful instruction in how to approach life's more critical situations. Consider one example: the Cubs have been playing generally stinkily except when they are not expected (by even themselves) to win. Then, since all hope is already gone, they play loose, do not press, and behold! A miracle! They win! They have been losing a lot of the games their talent suggests they should win because then they are playing tight, as if they have something to lose . . . and so they do. Lose, that is.

So no matter what confronts you, act as if there is already no hope, and be loose. You may well be surprised at how favorable an outcome you'll then get. It's a Zen thing, really.

Cobweb the fourth: is anyone as ticked off as I am about how the media report the daily stock market fibrullations? What seems to matter most, as the media report in breathless tones, is whether the market went up or down on any given day. But wait! If you listen for the actual closing NUMBERS, the market is essentially flat. The media seem to believe that closing at 10,500 is a bad thing if the market went down to get there, but a good thing if it went up to get there. What the heck is wrong with this picture?

I think we'd all have a lot less uncontrollable stress in our lives if we looked more at the actual numbers and less at the day-to-day, moment-to-moment fluctuations of the market.

After all, despite what people say about businesses being rational, the market reacts quite emotionally to news of the day, every single day. Even the media recognize this whenever they report on the reasons the market did what it did on any given day. "Traders worried about high fuel prices . . ." is a classic. It is better to take a longer, calmer view. Zen strikes again.

Cobweb the fifth: I wonder whether the neocons will ever grasp the concept that while their means and methods differ, their aims are not dissimilar from any other fundamentalist group, even ones like the Muslim terrorists which they claim to hate. Each and every one of them wants everyone else to think just like they do, to be just like they are, and act only as they permit, or to suffer the consequences. A conundrum results. How can we tolerate the intolerant? Better yet, how can we get them to tolerate us?

Cobweb the sixth: Whenever people complain about "evolutionists" being reluctant to debate "creationists" or "proponents of intelligent design" or whatever they are calling themselves this week, I cringe. How can you have a rational debate with people whose essential precept is based on faith, on something that cannot be demonstrated experimentally in the first place? Especially when the creationists refuse to acknowledge correctly the evolutionists' positions. I am going to vomit the next time I hear someone dismiss evolution because "we did not descend from apes."

That is NOT what evolution posits. The anthropological and paleontological EVIDENCE indicates that both the apes and humans descended from a common ancestor that was neither exactly ape nor human.

So, all you creationists out there: get your facts straight, and then we may talk.

Besides, as I have said before, there's really no conflict between science and religion in the first place. Science asks "How?" Religion asks "Why?" What we could all use is a little more clear-headed thinking and a little less emotionalism. Look out! More Zen!

In any event, it's only the insecure who are so adamant about being the bringers of Revealed Truth on any subject. The only people who insist that their world view is the only correct one, no matter what that world view is, are the ones who deep inside are shakiest about whether they are correct. The only way they can find to live with their secret, inner doubts is to forestall any and all debate. Most of them probably don't even realize on a conscious level that this is what they are doing. The rest of us, however, are capable of living with some uncertainty and ambiguity. I ask again, how can we tolerate the intolerant? Moreover, how can we get them to leave us be?

Cobweb the seventh: How in the world can Dubya be so intractibly stupid? By continuing to claim that we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep from having to fight the terrorists here, he is not only insulting the British in the wake of the London bombings, he is utterly refusing to acknowledge the role that his own approach to US policy has had in heightening the risks of terrorism we all face in the first place.

Garry Trudeau is currently visiting "Rummyworld," and he makes the cogent point that our own (official, as a country) behavior is the best recruiting tool al-Quaida has ever had.

Which leads me to cobweb the eighth: this is not unlike the traditional British inability to see that their own behavior produced a lot of the IRA crap "up with which they had to put."

Do not get me wrong: I do NOT have any truck with terror or violence anywhere. I am a firm believer in non-violent resistance to social inequities. But I can understand why the violent react as they do. And I am sorry, Mr. Rove, but that doesn't make me an unpatriotic liberal wimp. It makes me a wise liberal thinker. It makes me someone who is capable of finding a real solution to the problems of terror, not someone whose intractibility knee-jerkingly increases the risks of terror to us all.

Cobweb the ninth: "popular" and "high quality" are not mutually exclusive terms, though in the short term, they can be. This is why we need a longer view--that's where we get history, literature, and great art, among other things, as opposed to the fads of the moment.

In other words, the test of time is the true test of greatness.

Cobweb the tenth: to whomever it was on NPR the other day who claims that all the recent home run and other baseball records should be stricken from the books because it's obvious that they were all steroid-driven and thus tainted: WHOA! Whatever happened to the concept of fair play? That everyone is innocent until proven guilty? That just looking at a lot of amazing numbers in the books is not, in and of itself, evidence of wrongdoing?

Did Babe Ruth take steroids? His records, in their day, were are remarkable and shocking as the more recent records are now. Did Lou Gehrig? Did Joe DiMaggio?

The fact is, when one considers the history of the game (there's that pesky historical perspective again!), every generation or so gets a lot of large leaps in the level of the records set. One cannot presume that all home run records are tainted and steroid-induced. Pitching is more diluted now than it was 50 or 60 or 70 years ago . . . there are a lot more teams, and the talent is more spread out than ever before. There are also a lot more people playing the game. Who knows what kind of records we'd have seen in the 1930s if there had been as many major leaguers from as many ethnic groups as there are today . . . conversely, there have been times when pitching dominated. Do the names Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax ring any bells?

The game changes over time. In its current incarnation, almost no one in the game steals bases the way Maury Wills did in the 60s.

Besides, the nature of what the fans want to see has changed, too, producing a "natural selection" of big fly hitters being at a premium in this day and age.

I am not saying that steroids are not and have not been a problem. I am saying that there are any number of other plausible explanations for at least part of the recent home run explosion, and that we cannot condemn anyone until we have actual evidence of steroid abuse. So let's just let the facts be determined, and let those facts be our guide, before we start trashing the record books because we can.

Cobweb the last (for the moment): and I do sincerely and deeply apologize for what I am about to say. My first reaction to the London bombings last week was to spend several tense hours tracking down my cousin who is in London taking some graduate international studies courses. Thank God she's OK . . . but she was in King's Cross Station less than an hour before the bomb there went off, so it was a close thing.

My second reaction, and the one for which I am so sorry, is that my next thought on hearing of the bombings was, "Well, Tube Steak has just taken on a whole new meaning."

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!