LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, dead at 97

I got the news from a cousin over IM. President Gordon B. Hinckley, prophet to millions of Mormons around the world, inventor of the cotton gin, and a basically nice old fella, stepped down as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (them Mormons), in order to spend more time with his wife. We here at Neon Derby Cars wish him all the best in his future endeavors, and ask that he drop by when he gets a chance, as he can settle more than a couple of bets for us.

I left the LDS Church about twelve years ago, and I have to say that the parting wasn't exactly amicable. The custody battle was vicious. In the end, I kept my soul and it kept the girlfriend. A lot changed in the years that followed, and mostly the Mormons dropped off my radar as I found new and shiny things to distract my hyper-acute sense of outrage.

When Jerry Falwell died, I let out a sigh of relief, and uttered a quiet "Don't let the door hit your fat ass on the way out." I stand by the sentiment. Sure, he was beloved by many, but he was also an angry, small-minded man who would vent his rage against feminists, homosexuals, and non-Christians, and encourage his followers to do the same. Hinckley was a different sort of religious leader. Whatever our differences were (and given the years that have passed since I lost interest in the exmormon scene, those differences have become quite fuzzy), he struck me as a basically kind guy who wanted everyone to get along and be happy. The world has a bit less of that now, and we're the poorer for it.

P.S.: My third thought upon hearing the news was, "How will this affect the Romney campaign?" But that's a subject I'll probably forget to write about another day.

Twenty minutes to kill

I went up to the state capitol building, where the Coalition of Religious Communities was giving a tour-slash-presentation on how to harass legislators effectively. Yeah, yeah, I'm an atheist. That doesn't mean that I felt at all out of place. They're looking to pass a couple of laws this session, which I wholeheartedly support. They want to do some things to rein in payday lenders, get some protections for mobile home owners (right now, the land can be sold out from under them with almost no warning, and if they don't have the time or resources to move their home, tough). They want to make sure that the inevitable demonization of illegal immigrants (six separate bills are being considered this session) doesn't make it impossible (or even criminal) to provide charity to illegals.

So now I'm up here, waiting for a bus, and playing with [cutesy laptop nickname to be determined later]. The capitol has free wi-fi, which means there has never been a better time to flummox your representatives with a citation from Wikipedia.

In Mitt's 'symphony of faith,' I'm the guy who forgot to shut his cell phone off.

Mitt, meet me over by camera three.

Listen, Mitt. I don't think this campaign should descend into bickering and arguing over whose sect is an abomination in the sight of whose God. Frankly, who cares if you think you'll ascend to godhood after you die, or that your church may or may not believe that Jesus is married to multiple wimmins? As Kennedy's speech illustrated, we can get past our differences, and come together in the pursuit of a society that tolerates and values every citizen, regardless of their nutty beliefs.

Damned fine speech Kennedy gave. Yours? Not so impressive.

Nothing against your speechifying, mind you. Perhaps a little effete and uppity for us plainspoken folk here in the West, but you do know how to turn a phrase. It's not the wrapping paper that got to me, but the... how can I put this... the dead puppy inside the box.

Couldn't you have cut me an airhole or two?

I'm an atheist. I used to make a big deal about it, but these days I'm working on a live and let live attitude. You know, cultivating that "tolerance" thing you paid such rapturous lip service to in your speech. But your speech didn't make me feel tolerated, much less valued.

On the surface, you and Kennedy look like similar cases. Like him, you're a member of a distrusted minority religion with somewhat autocratic impulses. Like him, you've got great hair.^[1] But where Kennedy appealed for a nation where we politely refused to elevate one form of religious belief over another, you cravenly admitted that you were fine with a nation that honors any belief -- no matter how kooky -- over no belief at all.

Under the Kennedy principle, nobody should have a moment's hesitation about your ability to serve as president of the entire United States. Under the Romney principle, only those who believe in God, those who kneel in prayer before the Almighty, can properly guide this country. Therefore, it's perfectly legitimate for each citizen to ask, "Does this candidate practice a form of worship that my God finds acceptable? Does my God hear Mitt Romney's prayers?"

Given the crowd you've been so cravenly sucking up to these last few months, I doubt it. Anyone remember this?



I agree that nobody in this country should vote or fail to vote for any candidate simply because of his or her privately held religious beliefs. I wish you felt the same.


[1] I mean, damn but you've got good hair. I swear, if your hair went off and ran for president by itself, it could easily get 15% of the vote.

You don't have to be crazy to vote Democratic, but it helps.

Gallup did an interesting, if not necessarily illuminating poll, showing that Republicans are way more likely to report themselves as being in "excellent" mental health than Democrats. The blogosphere took the news with its usual humility, and good grace, by opening a polite and nuanced discussion about whether Democrats are insane, or Republicans are conscience-disabled sociopaths. I gave my opinion, though to be completely honest, nobody asked:

No, Jeff. The comments here only show that all of us tend to interpret news in self-serving ways. Had the Democrats fared better than the Republicans, which side of the aisle would be playing up the disconnect between self-reported mental health and actual mental health?

You cite Louis' letter, which describes Republicans as optimists and Democrats as gloomy. But shift your perspective a bit, and it's reasonable to make precisely the opposite case. Which party is more optimistic about the government's ability to affect lives for the better? Which party believes that we can have a country that is both safe from terrorism and a staunch defender of civil rights? Which party believes that we can engage in a respectful foreign policy, rather than bullying everyone who disagrees with us?

The Republicans strike me as hopelessly negative, whether it be their acceptance of torture, their increasingly shameless efforts to keep us angry and fearful towards our enemies by invoking 9-11, immigrant hordes, "Islamofascism," and "East coast liberals" (the rallying cry of Utah's recent attempt to pass school vouchers). The message of Republicans seems to be, "Be afraid. Be afraid of the gays, the immigrants, the secular atheists, the abortionists, the environmentalists who want to take your jobs and give them to spotted owls. But above all, be afraid of a Hillary presidency."

Either party can be spun as the party of optimism. I don't think that explains the poll results. None of the explanations offered so far really satisfy me, though a difference in introspectiveness comes close. My guess (which is probably self-serving) is that Republicans tend to be less affected by reports of suffering, not because they're discompassionate or sociopathic, but because they tend to ascribe personal suffering to the consequences of the sufferer's poor choices rather than systemic problems.

Therefore, it would make sense if Republicans were less troubled by bad news than Democrats. As someone who believes that there are severe systemic inequities in the world, such a dismissive, "I gots mine" attitude seems heartless and naive. But it might also give Republicans a feeling of greater control over their circumstances and a more positive outlook. They may also be optimistic because they compare the world around them to a world where everyone lived under Sharia law, or everyone is broke because liberals dismantled the economy and used the scrap to make hemp farms. Democrats are more prone to compare it to the more just, equitable, and sustainable world that they're hoping will emerge, and get frustrated and dissatisfied.

More grist for the discussion: a Pew Research poll indicating that Republicans rate themselves as happier.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/301/are-we-happy-yet

Is it better to increase your mental well-being by turning a blind eye to suffering? Or to let yourself be dragged down by things you cannot control?

On Vouchers

Now that Utah's voucher bill has gone down to epic, humiliating defeat (67% against vs. 33% in favor), I'm taking a few minutes away from my latest conspiracy theory[1] to think on what that means.

Honestly, what does it mean? On paper, it looks great. The reddest state in the Union overwhelmingly repudiates one of the far-right's most important pet projects, saving itself from the same sort of privatization schemes that brought us Enron, Halliburton, and Blackwater! Go Blue!

I hadn't seen the polls in the run-up to the referendum, and I was sure that voters were going to buy into the "liberal, east-coast unions want to trap your kids in their failing schools" chatter on TV. When state rep. Greg Hughes said, "This is a Ronald Reagan solution, this is a Mitt Romney solution, this is a Governor Huntsman solution... lets trust those we've elected, and let's follow their advice, and let's vote for it,"[2] I thought the "follow the prophet" mantra would be convincing to a lot of people.

Something is going on here, something that doesn't jive with my impressions of Utah as a state that is actively hostile to "big government", and a state that wouldn't put much stock in the church-state issues that plaguevoucher proposals. The most kooky, right-wing reason I could think of was "fear of government-funded madrassahs"[3], but that's an argument I never heard. A lot of rural voters voted against it simply because there were no private schools in their areas. The 100+ mile commute was a bit of a dealbreaker for them.

My current theory is that the public school system isn't what most Utahns envision when they think of "big government." I don't mean that in the "keep government's hands off my Medicare" sense, but in the "we're too busy thinking about arrogant political bureaucrats and welfare queens to think about our neighborhood elementary school." Or maybe voters really do recognize the value of the public education system as the foundation of a diverse, egalitarian society.

Naaaah.

Let me close with the words of Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne, who donated more money to Parents for Choice in Education than the rest of the country put together: "[Utahns who voted against Referendum 1] don't care enough about their kids. They care an awful lot about this system, this bureaucracy, but they don't care enough about their kids to think outside the box."

He also said that the state failed its IQ test. Can you say "sore loser?"


Notes:

1) The writer's strike is a transparent attempt by liberal unions to derail Stephen Colbert's presidential campaign.

2) KCPW's vouchers debate, closing arguments. (mp3)

3) Islamic schools with a reputation for backward and anti-Western teachings.

Some sorta enviro-bloggy dealie

Cory Doctorow says that today is Blog Action Day, and everyone is supposed to blog something about the environment. But it's late, and I've got nothing, so I guess I can just link to No Impact Man instead of doing anything constructive myself. He's good.

The return of St. Krugman the Outraged

After two years in the wilderness, I am mere hours from being able to read Paul Krugman's columns again (Tom Friedman I didn't miss so much). That's right, folks: the New York Times' TimesSelect experiment is dead.

Since NYT put its opinionators behind the Great Wall, I've seen almost nothing of Krugman online. It's been a huge loss, because I think his opinions on social justice and income inequality really deserve a broader hearing. His opinions on Bush and Iraq are also noteworthy, though folks like Sidney Blumenthal and Gary Kamiya are acceptable substitutes, so I don't feel the lack so keenly.

Anyhow, welcome back to the bloggytubes, Paul. Watch out for freepers.

Have a patriotic Burning Man!

The theme for Burning Man 2008 is American Dream. I wrote this back to the Element11 group. It feels good to just wallow in idealism from time to time.

Catching up on old mail here.

Like you, my initial reaction was one of shock and awe. "Why? Why do they hate us so? They must hate us for our freedoms! That's it!" But I quickly came around to Jodie's line of thinking.

We've really reached a nadir of national pride, especially among the left. I can't ever remember a time when it was so hard to say, "I'm proud to be an American."

Someone mentioned elsewhere (in the 'assholes at Burning Man' thread) that we tend to dissociate ourselves, both physically and mentally, from people whose behavior bothers us, when it might be better to try and connect. The last several years, we've seen increasingly incomprehensible and heartbreaking behavior from our country, starting with the twice-over election of an incompetent warmongerer to the White House, and culminating in a brutal and utterly unnecessary occupation of Iraq that has killed hundreds of thousands of their citizens and thousands of our own military men and women, with a thousand shameful steps along the way.

So it's unsurprising that many of us have lost faith, severing (or at least straining) our connection to the vast, sprawling, infinitely intricate idea poorly contained by the words "The United States of America." The actions of the United States in the world and at home seem like the outbursts of a lunatic, not behaviors that we would voluntarily associate ourselves with. So we dissociate ourselves from America, leaving behind the land of televangelists, guns, SUVs, depressing suburbias, preemptive wars, and rapacious, self-entitled consumption. It's not us. That's not what we're about.

So we go do "something else," things that we hope will make the world a better place, something that sets us apart from the nightmare America that shames and haunts us. Whether it's creating art, doing volunteer work, trying to be more environmentally aware, or political activism, we revel in the feeling of being a bit "unpatriotic," as though we're going against what everyone thinks it means to be "American."

I guess that's the magic of America. The concept is huge enough to incorporate this broad current of selflessness and creativity, to let it flow in and draw strength from it. Whether your thing is organic foods, hyperlibertarianism, mass transit, socialist utopianism, gay rights, human rights, animal rights, eco-communities, or just committing yourself to being less of an ass than Bill O'Reilly, your dreams and your longings are as much part of the American Dream as the dreams of any avaracious financier or cookie-cutter suburbanite.

So I like the theme. There is room for great creativity and expression in it. Together we can explore the America that once was (or maybe never was), the America that we fear and love today, and the "city on a hill" that we keep climbing towards, but seem unable to reach. It forces us to take a deep look at ourselves, and to help us understand and accept our connection to this concept of nationality. In doing this, in redefining and reenvisioning what it is to love our country, maybe it will give us the strength and the passion that we'll certainly need to undo the fear and anger that has driven this nation these last several years.

I'm ready to burn Red, White, and Blue. Anyone else?

Front page over at Salon.com: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Technically, it would be more correct to say that the CIA gave him very compelling evidence that there were no WMDs, and Bush chose to believe a taxi driver and con artist named Curveball instead.

Still, what's done is done, and it only divides the country when we start asking impertinent questions about how we got into this quagmire in the first place, right? The fact that the administration lied to Congress and the American people about why we needed to invade Iraq shouldn't mar their credibility when they say we need to stay in Iraq. None whatsoever.

Rise of the environment-killing pedestrian zombies

Why are most of my blog posts just repostings of letters I wrote to the forums at Salon.com? Maybe because I expect that someone will actually read. Or maybe it's because I need a fire lit under my butt before I produce anything I consider worth reading.

Today's kindling is brought to you by "leading environmentalist" Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life and foremost proponent of the new and evil "driving is more eco-friendly than walking" meme. I attached this lengthy letter to Andrew Leonard's skeptical analysis of the claim.

Goodall's basic claim is that, if you have to choose between walking to a grocery store 1.5 miles away and driving the same distance, the food needed to replenish the burned calories has a bigger greenhouse gas impact than the gasoline burned.

There are obvious problems with this research (beyond the fact that his book's website breathlessly announces this conclusion as "new research", without mentioning that the research is entirely his own). First, and most suspicious, he assumes that all the calories come from factory-farmed beef, which has enormous environmental impact when compared to eating lower off the food chain. The other factor which severely undermines his conclusions is this: once a person decides on a car trip, it becomes very easy to travel further. Rather than the three miles in Goodall's calculations, they might go ten miles to take advantage of the two for one sale at a competing grocer, or a few more miles to go to multiple grocers, or another dozen miles to Costco to stock up on soy milk (guilty as charged).

There are other, less pressing inaccuracies, some of which actually help his case. He forgets that starting up a cold engine for a short trip uses more gas than a car's MPG rating would indicate. He also ignores cycling as an option (cycling burns about half as many calories per mile as walking). He forgets that you would burn more calories walking back, because you're carrying a lot of groceries. He seems to have made a mistake converting from miles to kilometers. A three mile walk should burn 300 calories, not 180. 180 is more likely from a three kilometer walk.

This crappy, back-of-the-napkin calculation doesn't warrant near the publicity it's receiving; it certainly shouldn't drive anyone's lifestyle changes. When I first heard of this, I (like Andrew Leonard) assumed that the calculation was just hyperbole designed to show how woefully inefficient our industrialized food production is. But reading Goodall's own "research", he mentions replacing walking with driving as the environmentally friendly option, not replacing that slab of factory-farmed steak with some peaches from the local farmer's market[1]. Sure, towards the end he makes a wistful comment about "reduc[ing] the greenhouse gas intensity of our foodstuffs." But it is supremely irresponsible for anyone who touts himself as a "carbon-reduction guru" to make "walk less, drive more" his only concrete suggestion.

Elsewhere, he has compared carbon credits to medieval indulgences[2], and has been commissioned by the Times of London to do a "carbon audit" of Prince Charles (a celebrity climate change crusader, somewhat akin to Al Gore on this side of the pond). Such behavior makes me suspect that the damage Gooding is doing to environmentalism is due to malice, not incompetence.

Update:

After a timely e-mailed response from Mr. Goodall, and a deeper perusal of lowcarbonlife.net, the author strikes me as sincerely committed to helping people reduce their environmental impact. I still worry that, on this particular issue, he's framing the story in a disastrous way, and a lot of people are going to take the message the wrong way. But I think his book has a lot of timely information, and it will be good for everybody if it sells well.


Notes:

[1] In several places in Gooding's report, he goes to great lengths to equate factory-farmed meat to all foodstuffs. Elsewhere, he calls ruminant-based food production "particularly damaging".

[2] I don't trust carbon credits yet, but I do believe that with better science, more auditing, and international agreements to give them more standing, they're going to become a key part of the fight.