Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: August 2006
I’ve had it with religion
Listen. Like a spiritual biorhythm, I get a yen every few years to be more Jewish. It’s an odd urge which my family tolerates and I accede to with little resistance. With what’s happening in the Middle East, however, I don’t think my inner Jew will dare make an appearance . . . not for some time, anyway.
Some background is in order. My parents raised me to be a bacon-wrapped shrimp lovin’ kid. I come from long lines of apostates on both sides of the tree. My father’s dad relished pissing off the rabbi by keeping his grocery store (across the street from the synagogue) open on the Sabbath, and my father’s philosophy, as best I can tell, requires only a belief in predestination. On my mom’s side, being Jewish meant (A) hosting a riotous Seder every year and (B) nurturing an abiding hatred for the Catholics. (My grandmother kept bringing up the Inquisition. Can you believe that?) No one talked much about God.
Being a Jewish kid in California in the 60s and 70s meant
- Never forget the Holocaust.
- Our people have been persecuted for centuries. It’s not likely to stop any time soon.
- Support Israel. Save your quarters, plant a tree.
- Marry a Jewish girl.
- Hold on there, sonny! It’s been 30 seconds, and we haven’t reminded you of the Holocaust!
So . . . forgive me if I step on your spiritual toes, but at least you know I’ve been a partial heathen for many years now.
I’ve kvetched about this in the past, but it has been a while. Blue Gal’s post today reopened the wound. A quote from Gershom Gorenberg, via Blue Gal, via Right Web’s Culture, Religion, Apocalypse, and Middle East Foreign Policy:
Gershom Gorenberg points out that for Christian Zionists, Jews are actors in a play where the final curtain forces them to either convert to Christianity or die in a blaze of fire sent by God.
Enough all ready. ENOUGH. I’m tired of the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims. I’m tired of apocalyptic thinking, and in fact I think we need to recognize it for what it is: lunatic thinking, the waking fever dreams of psychopaths. Jewish Manifest Destiny is bullshit. The Book of Revelations is bullshit. ENOUGH.
I’m not saying all religion is crap. Not by a long shot. Where all religions shine is in their ethical teachings, and in that, there are riches to be found in all of the old religions. I know that a lot of you, like Blue Gal and Shelbi, consider yourselves religious Christians, but I think you try to follow the ethical teachings of Jesus and have shunned the 21st Century abomination that is American Marketplace Christianity. Similarly, I think I can be ethically Jewish without embracing an Old Testament God who wants to see his Chosen People blast the hell out of their Muslim neighbors.
Here’s a story for you. I may have told it before, and if so, I’m sorry to repeat myself.
During my last Jewish phase, my son’s stubborn atheism disturbed me. He was six at the time, and I couldn’t understand how a six-year-old could be certain of God’s nonexistence while at the same time believe in the reality of the Harry Potter universe. I mean, if you’re going to accept one form of magic, why not believe in all of them?
I kvetched to my rabbi. “My six-year-old is an atheist,” I said, and he replied, “And this is a problem?”
His point: what really matters in religion is not a set of empty beliefs but a collection of ethical teachings. You don’t have to embrace God to absorb the ethics. Ultimately, all that really matters is that we try to be the best people we can be, to ourselves and to each other, and you don’t need God for that.
Indeed (me talking now, not my rabbi), isn’t it more mature to practice the Golden Rule if you do it because you know in your heart it’s the right way to live, rather than for fear of God’s wrath? And if we could do that, take the ethics to heart and toss out the mythology, wouldn’t the world be a better place?
As I mentioned over at Blue Gal’s blog today, AKA The Panty Place, I used to think of myself as an agnostic Jew, but lately I think of myself as a cowardly atheist. Somehow, I have to reconcile this new atheism with a stubborn belief in God.
Here’s my question. If what God wants, REALLY wants, is for us to be good to one another and love one another (and if that isn’t what he wants, then WTF?), wouldn’t he also want us to jettison a mythology responsible for so much suffering, waste, and death? Wouldn’t he want us to be ethical atheists?
D.
Edited to add: Here’s an interesting diary at Kos which addresses much the same issue: Moralities. Good stuff.
Lamont wins! Lieberman refuses to lose graciously.
Tonight, Ned Lamont bested Stephen Colbert’s favorite Republican, Connecticut Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. Sadly, Lieberman refuses to listen to the will of the voters and has announced he will run as an Independent.
We here in the Balls et Walnuts household delight in doing our Snoopy dance (yes, we contributed to Lamont’s campaign), but the battle has only just begun. Lieberman’s going down like a crack whore turning tricks for smokes — reluctantly and desperately. Kos has the attack plan:
Here’s what we all need to do the next few days:
1. Push Harry Reid to strip Lieberman of all committee assignments.
2. Let people know what a sore loser Lieberman is.
3. Get all Democrats — including Bill Clinton — to publicly back Ned Lamont.
4. Get the Democratic interest groups who backed Lieberman to switch allegiances in the general.
For starters, send Joe Lieberman a note telling him to respect the will of Connecticut’s Democratic voters. Keep your eyes on Daily Kos for the latest updates.
Edited to add:
Kos on Countdown. Crooks and Liars has video.
Edited to add:
Ah, Markos. You choked me up this morning with this post:
What tonight showed is that democracy can work. That even the most powerful, entrenched forces can be dislodged by people-power. That the combined mights of the Democratic and Conservative establishments couldn’t hold the gates against the barbarian intruders.
Amen.
D.
Mr. Sensitive
I’m reluctant to begin the last phase of my romance. You know, the bit where Boy and Girl meet obstacles, stress out, and (eventually) overcome said obstacles before doing the monkey dance. I’m looking forward to the monkey dance, I really am, but the “stress out” part has got me down.
I mean, I’m seriously bummed about what I need to do. It sucks. I don’t want to torture these two. But when I consider my options:
A. Boy & Girl meet Strife and kick his ass, or
B. Boy & Girl have clear-sailing to their HEA,
the only good thing I can say about (B) is, It’s certainly the less trite option of the two.
But as I mentioned on Tam’s blog the other day, maybe things are trite because they work so well . . . i.e., there’s a reason some things become part of the formula. They’re really necessary. (Don’t think that’s true? Let’s have that “romance without an HEA” discussion again.)
I’m resigned to it. I have to write the difficult stuff, I know, but it upsets me. This is why I can’t write horror, or at least when I do, it comes out comical or understated. The one time I wrote an edgy, balls-to-the-walls story (something called “God’s Claw,” about a cannibalistic feral child who happens to be the tale’s hero) I felt sick to my stomach for days.
My writing affects me. I’m mature enough to avoid writing for catharsis, so the bile does not drip into the page; but I can’t seem to avoid absorbing the nastiness of the story itself.
Sometimes this works in my favor. Writing a romance has done wonders for my mood, and those sex scenes were like methamphetamine to my libido. (“Your libido didn’t need any help,” the wife told me.) But I guess I have to take the bad with the good.
So, writers of the blogosphere, speak: does this happen to you? How do you make your characters suffer without suffering yourself?
D.
A rare interview
Hat tip to jmc for this link to an interview with Alan Rickman. Rickman, as many of you know, is one private dude.
You know what I thought was sweet (and not entirely unexpected)? Here:
The bad news for all who write to him in a similar vein is that Rickman is a one-woman man. He has had the same girlfriend for more than 40 years – Rima Horton, an economics lecturer at Kingston University. *snip*
They met when they were students at Chelsea School of Art. He was 19; Horton a year younger. She was his first girlfriend, to whom he has remained steadfastly faithful, although they’ve never married or had children.
You knew he wouldn’t be one of those working-on-my-fifth-divorce kind of guys, didn’t you?
D.
Ghost hummer
I wish I could remember where I first read about Vincent Gallo’s one-man opus, The Brown Bunny. The reviewer had much to say about a film produced, written, edited, and starred in by Gallo, which seemed to have as its whole point the receipt of a real, honest-to-God, nothing-held-back, lip-smackin’ hummer by Gallo. But the reviewer said nothing, not a damned thing about the mind-numbing boredom.
More of Swordsmith’s “How Publishing Works” Series
Many thanks to Kate for refreshing my memory on this. I plugged Swordsmith before, but that post fell off the front page of the blog — and when it falls off the front page, it drops out of my mind, too.
I’m looking forward to Swordsmith’s posts on self-promotion and finding an agent.
The series so far:
Part 1 – Why bad things happen to good books.
Part 2 – Avoiding publishing scams.
Part 3 – Literary conventions (with an emphasis on SF Conventions).
Part 4 – Book packagers.
Part 5 – Submitting a manuscript.
I almost forgot! Part 6 – Publishing lists.
Here’s another
Dead weekend, hit-wise, so I doubt anyone noticed the sudden appearance and disappearance of my story, “Heaven on Earth.” See yesterday’s post for details.
Here’s another entry for Paperback Writer’s eBook challenge: Sprouts.
It’s cute and nasty, but it lacks heart. On the upside, it’s brief.
And here’s another one: Ear, Nose, Throat, and Soul.
This one has heart but it could be funnier.
If you read either story, let me know what you think.
D.
An eBook challenge from PBW
I’m also challenging all you writers out there to do the same: write and publish a new short story, novellette, novella, or novel of your own in e-book form* and post it for download on your weblog, web site, or any host site on October 31, 2006. I’m using Adobe .pdf format because that’s what I’ve always used. You’re free to use alternate formats, but I’d go with something that allows everyone to read it. Your e-book can also be any length and any genre; the only requirement is that you provide free access to it (it doesn’t have to be a permanent addition to your weblog; if you have file storage issues I suggest leaving it up for a week or two.)
She’s offering prizes, too, so check it out.
Here’s my response: “Heaven on Earth,” a story I wrote almost two years ago and still love. It’s semi-autobiographical, inasmuch as my grandfather almost certainly had multi-infarct dementia. As for the science fictiony stuff, well, who knows. Papa was such a storyteller, I found it fitting to make him the star of his very own bubbe-meintze*.
We’ll use this post as the comment thread for those of you who decide to read my story.
D.
*Fairy tale, tall tale. Literally (I think) “Grandma’s story.” In our family, bubbe-meintze meant, “What horseshit are you asking me to believe now?”
Edited to add:
I received this in my email today:
I’m afraid we have an awkward situation here. Perhaps I should say I have an awkward situation. In fact, WORLDS APART #1 has been published and includes your story “Heaven on Earth.” I was aware that not all authors had received their complimentary copies, but after searching my email files, it appears that I never even sent you an author agreement.
All I can do is include the agreement (found below) and hope you will be pleased that your story has in fact been published. I have already printed a substantial number of copies and have planned to print more to take with me to LACON IV (World SF Convention) in Anaheim later this month. I have reserved a table in the dealers’ room.
You are certainly free to self-publish, but I would hope you might hold off a while.
I am going to hold off, at least until I hear back from him on my suggested compromise plan. In the meantime, I’ll put up a different story, maybe one of my silly/erotic ones. Stay tuned.
D.
Equal time: good science
Also in Nature 6 July 2006: a listing of the top 5 science blogs based on Technorati ranking. Here are the links, along with a quick blurb on what’s happening on their blogs today.
Weird science
I’m not a PETA kind of person. Biomedical research would limp along without animal experimentation. Nevertheless, I prefer to assume the relevant supervisorial committees are doing their jobs preventing cruelty and minimizing unnecessary pain.
From the 6 July 2006 issue of Nature, reporting on an article appearing in Science:
Matthias Wittlinger of the University of Ulm, Germany, and his colleagues show that Saharan desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, use a pedometer to count their strides. The authors allowed a group of ants to march from their nest to an experimental food site. Then, the ants were captured, and the researchers either shortened the ants’ legs by amputation or elongated them by gluing stilts made of pig bristles. Both types of altered ants misjudged the distance home — the ants on stumps undershot while the ants on stilts went too far. Further work on the accuracy of the ant pedometer is planned.
Perhaps you don’t feel much sympathy for ants. I know I don’t. Still, the thought of these researchers snipping off bits of ants’ legs, six little snips per ant, no doubt dozens or maybe hundreds of ants, brings to my mind the classic sociopathy triangle: fire-setting, bedwetting, and cruelty to small animals. As kids, these researchers were probably ant-obsessed. How many of them turned their magnifying glasses into killing machines?
Here’s another — also a Nature report on a Science article. This one is even more worrisome, IMO.
A mouse watching a cage-mate writhe in pain will writhe more itself, an observation that Jeffrey Mogil and his team at McGill University in Montreal conclude is evidence of rodent empathy.
The researchers tested mice in twos, giving one or both mildly painful shots of acetic acid. If the two were strangers, they behaved as if they were on their own. But if they had lived together for a few weeks, and both got a shot, they both showed more abdominal constrictions, termed writhing, than when given a shot alone. The effect vanished if the roomies could not see one another.
I doubt either of these studies rises to the level of ridiculousness necessary to win an Ig Nobel Prize, but they both bothered me on a gut level. And mice? I like them even less than ants. Nasty beasties.
D.