The Demo Okie website says my candidate for U.S. Congress, Patti Presley, is dropping out for a lack of money.  I don’t know what’s going on — I’ve been that absent — but I wouldn’t be surprised.  Pity.  Can’t really understand why the national party isn’t going after an open seat with no incumbent, even though Oklahoma is a REDREDRED state.

This will leave Dr. Hunter and Bert Smith on the Dem side.  A novice and a repeat loser.  We’ll get some right wingnut and exactly what we deserve, I expect.  I may still fight the good fight, knowing that there’s nothing but a massacre at the end.  Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Veronica Mist.  MMMMMMMM.  Creamy and good.

Saw Shy Oren and Issei Aoyama at G spot last night, very cool jazz.  They were joined by Carter Sampson for a rendition of “Stormy Weather” that knocked my socks off.  I must have heard a hundred versions of that, including the most famous one by Lena Horne, but I’ve never heard it done better.  Carter’s cover makes the song her own.  Wow.  Really good.  Really really good.  Bravo.

There were too many dogs mixed with too many Hispanics on the sidewalk during dinner and a dispute broke out while Danny and Kat played hacky sack nearby.

I’m still waiting on Ed and Mandy to get their place open down the Paseo and I haven’t yet tried Paseo Grill.  It’s Wednesday, so maybe the group can be moved that direction when we choose dinner venues tonight.

My date last night meant that I missed a dinner party up in Edmond.  Can’t wait to hear about that.

Dead Center film festival is this week and I saw Brian Hearn out with a film-type, huddling over drinks and talking earnestly about documentary film and other matters of moment.

I’ve spent several days essentially away from my desk for health checkups.  I’ve now been X-rayed and put on a treadmill and started a new cholesterol medicine regime along with daily exercise.  I push my luck and leap to conclusions until I raise a sweat.

Later this month, I’ll continue the health focus with a colonoscopy, a followup blood test and some other testing.  So far, it seems I’ll live far longer than I may want to.  Advancing to a ripe old age and living in a nursing home with my broken hip is not one of my life ambitions.  I’d rather die sooner and leave my kids more money than to give it all to the docs in a losing battle to keep me alive but miserable.

Yesterday, I went to a continuing education seminar down at OCCC and spent three hours listening to a guy from Missouri talk about gifts to charitable remainder trusts from IRAs and other retirement vehicles.  It’s so exciting to be a lawyer.  Oh, the sexy interplay between estate tax strategies and income tax requirements and the titillation of private letter rulings by the IRS.  It just makes the spine tingle, doesn’t it?

My sister, over on Mind Over Mary blogspot, says I talk too much about sex.  Fine.  I think most people talk too little about sex.  Yes, it’s private.  Yes, it’s intimate.  It’s nothing to ba ashamed about or guilty and if everyone’s a grownup, you might learn something from a little conversation about it.  I agree with her that the recounting of a specific experience with a specific person is ickky sometimes if not every time.  On the other hand, we should have no qualms about frankly discussing contraception, AIDS, STD scans, abortion, and the relative merits of many partners, few partners, and one partner lifestyles.  At 50 plus and divorced with grown children, the time to play virginal is over.  I also think that if you feel guilty and ashamed to say that you like something — threesomes, for a wild and extreme example — then you miss out on finding out that it’s something that a lot of people have tried with varying outcomes.  One thing I’ve discovered in discussing threesomes is that it’s better as a fantasy than a reality for almost everyone I’ve ever talked to.  It’s a good theory, but in practice there’s emotional overload and jealousy and other serious downsides. I think the same thing is true of other things.  Another example is men who look at internet porn.  It’s kind of like drinking.  Guys who do that think they hurt no one and it’s harmless.  No one talks about it.  In reality, internet porn is a nasty, exploitative blot on society that degrades women and exploits them.  It leads to men objectifying women and, ultimately, to bad and unsatisfying sex for those men.  It can be costly and addictive.  It also warps people’s idea of what is and isn’t sexy.  All of us get some really whack messages from the media and the internet about sex that comes off internet porn.  I think people should talk about internet porn and say out loud for everyone to hear that it’s not cool, it’s not sexy and it hurts all of us and society when we spend as a culture so many millions on fake and alienated sexual images for the purpose of mere self-involved, narcissistic masturbation.  The world is not as promiscuous as some people think, nor is it as prudish as others believe.  My biggest problem with both the keep your mouth shut side AND the internet porn side is that the reality check bounces from both extremes.  Sex has a place in our lives and an important place.  On the other hand, sex is not as important as friends, family, health and financial security.  Only by rational discussion of the topic does it get to be the “right” size, neither too big a focus or too small.

Back to politics briefly.  I heard and read a buncha stuff about last night’s elections in 8 states.  All the commentary I heard was utter bullshit.  No good conclusions can be drawn from such small amounts of information learned Tuesday night.  The general election is in November and that’s a long time in the political world.  Tom DeLay and the GOP have the election rigged in their favor by having the most money and by gerrymandering House districts to favor the Republicans.  Democrats will not win in November with 50% plus one.  For Dems to carry the House, they will need more like 55% and maybe even more than that.  Yes, it’s that much of a GOP built-in, under the radar advantage.  If you throw in the electronic voting machines provided by a company whose president is a Bush supporter who vowed to “do anything” to see Bush elected and produced machines that experts say were designed to be easily hacked, well… the election is rigged so that Dems would have to really go over the top to see much in the way of results.

 I hate the new art being shown at G Spot, did i mention that?

Gotta go to work.

ttfn 

This is a link to a piece of campaign literature by the Republican running for State Senate in my district in Oklahoma City:

http://www.tnr.com/graphics2004.1/theplank/jantz.jpg

I ask you: quite aside from my theological and spiritual differences with the thrust of the message, does this belong in the stream of political discourse?

I’m not really talking about separation of church and state.  I won’t go there with you.  I mean, do you think this is a good way to pick a political representative?  Is it even possible to believe, absent mental illness of some kind, that there exists a God who prefers one politician over another?  I find the very idea strange.

“Evil” is such a problematic and strong word, how does it get bandied about like that?  We aren’t really talking about cannibalistic Satanic rituals, are we?  I have at times played Devil’s Advocate and expressed my deep reservations about whether Evil, in the religious sense, exists, given a loving and all powerful God with a plan that never errs for the universe.  I cannot believe in Satan, for to me that would be to believe in more than one God and I find it difficult enough to stay certain that God exists and acts in my life. 

I believe in one God and I do not believe in one prophet.  I believe a great many humans, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Bhudda, Lao Tsu among them, have been so wise and spiritual as to bring us articulation of spiritual truths.  To deify them is, in my opinion, unwise, as it is with Caesars and Pharohs.  I would not make gods of Newton, Freud, Einstein, Darwin or Marx and I do not make demons of Ted Bundy, Hitler, Pol Pot, Bush or Charles Manson  (couldn’t avoid the political there, it was just too rich).

With that as a baseline, you can guess the spiritual and theological rage I feel gorging when I read a postcard like the one I’ve linked.

I’ll put all that aside, though, and just try to think about this on another level.

There’s an obvious parallel, it seems to me, with this kind of fundamentalist pandering for political gain and the fundamentalist pandering for political gain we see in Iran, Iraq and the Gaza Strip.

Political theology has always in history led to war and misery and totalitarianism.  Always and invariably.  The English Civil War, the crusades, Mohammad’s conversion by the sword, you name it.

It is a type of political eliteism that’s no better and often worse than the oligarchy we have now and certainly worse than the liberal democracy we had between the robber barons of the 19th Century and the ones today. 

I’m back to that place I was as a child in the southern Baptist church being taught that there were billions of humans in the world going to hell because they had not been washed in the blood of the lamb.  Huh?  God does that?  Reluctantly, we’re sure, the Sunday School teachers would say.

OK.  But, do you think that’s true in Congress?  Do you think God’s concerns are so worldly as to go to the federal deficit and budget process?  If someone was a real Christian, they might remember that Jesus ran the money changers (bankers) out of the temple, mocked the Pharisees (lawyers) and told them to look at their money and “render unto Ceasar that which is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”   He ordered Nicodemus, the tax collector, out of a tree and to walk and talk with him personally.  Hmmmm.  I don’t think God is talking to the president and I don’t think God cares about whether the government spends more or less on highways.

I think if God cares at all about the political process, He wonders why the hell Christians vote for so much military spending.

And the death penalty.

And why they don’t feed the sick, the aged and infirm and the hungry children.

I think those Christian politicians will be known in heaven for the way they treated “the least of these” here on Earth.

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass?

Do you really think that if I vote for a Democrat, it’ll be because God failed to put a hedge of thorns around me to protect me from evil? 

That seems a little bit of a difficult proposition to back up. 

What will this candidate think if he gets beat?  What will he say if he loses?  Will he believe the Devil beat Jesus in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma?  If he wins with a 49-51 majority, will he think half the people he represents are evil?

Saw two very good art shows yesterday on the Paseo.

Maybre Ormes’ work at the PAA offices/gallery was simply wonderful.  Her oils of OKC scenes knocked me out and the line drawings of musicians at UCO Jazz Lab were a treat.

I also enjoyed seeing her and a variety of others at Rococo for the afterparty.

Meanwhile, down at JRB, Brooks Towers’ mosiacs were wicked good.  I loved his insect study of a moth and a kitchen scene with a fossil for a through the window landscape.  He is quite simply the finest mosaicist I have ever seen.  Joy Reed does such a wonderful job with her gallery.

Spent some time with a few too many friends on Tall Ed’s boat at Lake Hefner, but at least now I know the damn thing exists.  We’ve had questions about that for a year now since he promised us boat times last June but couldn’t get it together.

Closed down the Copa last night and for my trouble found myself putting a passed out and (dammit) unmolested blonde to bed.  I haven’t been able to get my poo poo together all day today because my sleep schedule is all messed up.  I’m too old for that crap.

Grandkids left town for home this morning and I’m full of angst about that.  Bye bye beloveds!