Attention Spam

According to Newsweek writer Jessica Bennett in her December 3, 2007 article entitled "Smile! You're on Camera," the average American is caught on tape 200 times a day.

This isn't news to Christopher Slobogin, author of Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment. This very important, well-written book should be required reading for every government employee from the local rookie police officer to the president. Slobogin, law professor at the University of Florida's Fredric G. Levin College of Law, writes clearly and in depth about the different kinds of surveillance the government practices on its citizens and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of legal regulation of these surveillance practices. He also eruditely proposes expanding the fourth amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures to include these new technologies the founding fathers could never have imagined.

Slobogin introduces his book by defining and enumerating the two types of surveillance: physical and transactional. Using the American Bar Association's Standards on Technologically-Assisted Physical Surveillance, Slobogin divides the technologies available into five categories: cameras, tracking devices, telescopic devices, illumination devices, and detection devices (capable of revealing concealed items, such as the x-ray scanners at airports, for example).

He then divides transactional surveillance into two types: target-driven, where an agent of the law uses a commercial data broker or snoopware to mine information on a specific person, and event-driven. As an example of an event-driven transactional surveillance, Slobogin writes:

"Say, for instance, that the police know that a sniper-killer wears a particular type of shoe, ... that he owns a particular type of sweater, ... and that he reads Elmore Leonard novels. ... Once police obtain the credit card numbers of those who bought, say, the type of sweater found at the murder scene, they can trace other purchases made with the same card, to see if the relevant type of shoe or book was bought by any of the same people. Of course, if there is a match on one or more of the three items, the surveillance may then turn into a target-driven investigation."

Why is Slobogin's book so important? As he points out in "A Preview of the Book," on page 17, "The [Supreme] Court's willingness to declare that persons cannot reasonably expect their interactions with businesses and banks, their daily wanderings, and even some of their conduct at home to be free from suspicionless, warrantless surveillance by the government is contrary to societal mores and other legal norms." Thanks to his research and very well-reasoned arguments, we have the information we need to combat the government's post 9/11 trend toward warrantless surveillance and an easily understandable method whereby the judicial system can oblige legislatures into creating useful laws to protect us from unreasonable surveillance without compromising the government's ability to investigate crime.

The strength of Slobogin's arguments lies in the fact that his reasoning is neither liberal nor conservative. His point of view is not a compromise between political polarities; it is rather inclusive of both the public's right to privacy and the government's need to know. To quote Benjamin Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Slobogin translates this in contemporary terms thusly: "we must make sure we are 'secure' from government overreaching as well as from criminals and our enemies."

The impact of the recent developments in surveillance technology haven't really affected the majority of Americans yet. In case the reader isn't sure about the effects of losing his or her public privacy, Slobogin succinctly writes "Anonymity in public promotes freedom of action and an open society. Lack of public anonymity promotes conformity and an oppressive society."

In a section entitled "The effects of being watched," Slobogin says that "in addition to its effect of behavior, [closed circuit television] might trigger a number of unsettling emotional consequences." Quoting Jeffrey Rosen's work The Unwanted Gaze: The Violation of Our Privacy, Slobogin writes, "it's considered rude to stare at strangers whom you encounter in public." He extrapolates that the "cyclopsian gaze of the camera eye may be equally disquieting, and perhaps more so, given […] the unavailability of normal countermeasures, such as staring back or requesting that the staring cease."

If this isn't enough to trigger unease in the reader, Slobogin refers to the research of Roger Clarke (http://anu.edu.au/people/RogerClarke/DV/CACM88.html), who summarizes the dangerous consequences of what he calls "dataveillance," including "wrong identification, blacklisting, denial of redemption, witch hunts, unknown accusations and accusers, denial of due process, prevailing climate of suspicion, adversarial relationships, inequitable application of the law, decreased respect for the law and law enforcers, reduction in the meaningfulness of individual actions, reduction in self-reliance and self-determination, stultification of originality, increased tendency to opt out of the official level of society, weakening of society's moral fibre and cohesion, and a repressive potential for a totalitarian government."

Slobogin doesn't leave us in fear without recourse, however. In his chapter five, "Implementing the Right to Public Anonymity," he writes about accountability, cleverly entitling a section "Watching the Watchers:" "How do we make sure that the police refrain from using cameras in a discriminatory fashion?... Self-reports probably will not work…

How might we ensure access to the information necessary for accountability? David Brin has argued that the best way to control the government (and everyone else) in a surveillance-happy 'transparent society' is to watch the watchers. Camera tapes could be audited periodically - or the watchers really could be watched, by cameras. That method would not only capture the facts necessary to determine whether conduct of surveillance standards are obeyed, but also bring home to operators the panoptic effects their surveillance has on others, thus perhaps curbing voyeuristic and other unnecessary observation." (p. 133, italics mine)

Slobogin concludes that a "continued development of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence" would render physical and transactional surveillance "constitutionally visible" while continuing to make these types of surveillance available to the government whenever it really needed them.

Is Slobogin's work as important and necessary to our privacy and security as I think it is? Take the case of Hasan Elahi, an art professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, whom the FBI mistook for a terrorist in June 2002. For six months, he answered their questions and passed their polygraph tests. Eventually he developed a website where he posts photographs taken with a cell phone every few minutes, detailing his location and activities (http://trackingtransience.net/). Lest you think his work absurd at best, logs on his site tracking the people visiting it show that authorities regularly continue to monitor him.

I urge you to read Privacy At Risk and find ways to halt the insidious tendency of our current legislation to support unreasonable and unwarranted surveillance of our persons and homes. With Congress set to take a vote sometime this summer to make the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act permanent, it is important to take action now. Begin by informing yourself with Privacy at Risk. Other resources include the American Civil Liberties Union page on surveillance and the Patriot Act (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/17326res20030403.html) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee's tips for local organizations to pass resolutions at the community and municipal level to protect privacy and liberty (http://www.bordc.org/).

“I read the book of Job last night – I don't think God comes well out of it.”

– Virginia Woolf, in a letter to a friend

“Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying, but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?”

– Lily Tomlin, American humorist

On Sunday, July 1, 2007, I had the radio on at work and heard a broadcast interview with a Cuban voodoo priest. In Cuba, he said, voodoo priests pick one spirit and stick with it – in Haiti you can get to know many.
When visiting a Pentecostal church, he was told that the Holy Spirit was present. He replied to the effect that that was a vague explanation and he needed to know the spirit's name. He told the Pentecostal people that he personally knew of 147 spirits and needed to know which one was the "Holy Spirit" so he would know how to behave toward it.
Where fundamentalist, literalist versions of Western culture's religion are morally absolute, this Cuban priest expressed a far more diverse view of reality, and ultimately one that was more flexible. By morally absolute, I mean that if you commit a sin and do not repent, you will be punished. You will go to Hell, you will not pass Go, you will not collect two hundred dollars.

In Haitian voodoo, according to this priest, if you have an abortion, for example, this is not good. However, he said, "sometimes people have to do what they have to do." Later, you are allowed to argue with the gods, and it is a possibility that they will understand the conditions that led to your decision and act.
On Judgment Day, here in the Western world, are we going to passively sit in the defendant's chair while God or some celestial being weighs out the measure of our lives and pronounce the final verdict? Or do we, too, get the chance to ask for clemency, beg for mercy, resolutely remain defiant, or say a few final words? Are there mitigating circumstances in your Heaven?

In my personal experience in various Christian churches, particularly the literalist or fundamental ones, God is almighty: He sets the laws of the universe in motion and we either obey or are punished by going to Hell – no ifs, ands, or buts.

Contemporary Christianity, particularly Tele-Christianity, from the likes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker to present day preachers such as Joel Osteen, presents a God that is primarily a material provider. You may pray to this God for solutions to your everyday problems and material needs – the sort of God one would expect of middle class, prosperous Americans. Hell and Judgment are downplayed if mentioned at all. These are uncomfortable topics for a soft, contemporary audience (oops, I mean, congregation. I keep forgetting that church is not an excellent example of dramatic theater. In one church the pastor explained to me that the people in the pews were “congregants,” and that God is the “audience.”)

If we go back far enough in time (or far enough away in space) when life was tough and serious and the questions of justice, morality, and punishment were real and immediate, we will find serious theology taking place regarding the question of mitigating circumstances and forgiveness on the day of judgment.

In the Old Testament, there are two times a mortal man argues or at least bargains with God. The first is in Genesis 18:23-25, when Abraham bargains with God over the lives of the citizens of Sodom and Gemorrah. If you recall, God tells Abraham that He plans to destroy the two wickedest cities in the ancient world, perhaps because he has relatives there, his cousin Lot and his family. Abraham responds:

“Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that the innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”

On page 56 of God: A Biography, author Jack Miles writes, “Abraham bargains the Lord down from fifty to forty-five to forty to thirty to twenty to ten. ‘To one?’ the reader hears in his mind, and so surely, does the Lord. ‘To none?’ ”
As we already know, Abraham does not find even one because when the Lord (in the form of two men) and Abraham come to visit Lot, the people of Sodom to the last man surround Lot's house and demand to rape them.
Incidentally, Miles concludes that the sin of Sodom is not one of sexual morality – neither homosexuality nor rape – the sin of Sodom is of power.

Miles writes “the ‘men’ whom the Sodomites want to ‘know’ are God. The virginal daughters when Lot offers them instead are human. Human sexual autonomy, always indirectly an affront to God's control over life, here become a direct affront; in fact, a literal sexual attack.”

It is interesting to note that apologists (not in the sense of being sorry as in “apology,” but meaning “one who speaks or writes in defense of something”) for homosexuality in the bible conclude that the sin of Sodom is one of hospitality. The people of Sodom are not being “nice” to their guests. Miles, however, places the sin squarely as one of attempting to usurp God's power.

Yes, Abraham argues a case concerning divine justice before God, with the people of Sodom as defendants, Abraham as their advocate (or lawyer) and God as both prosecutor and judge. However, God proves to be correct, Sodom is destroyed, and the first case of humanity v. the Lord of Israel comes out God – 1, Sodom – 0.
When the Lord tells Jonah to preach to the recalcitrant people of Nineveh, Jonah does not want to; he resists. Instead of preparing an argument, a list of good reasons, why Jonah himself is a poor choice for the task, Jonah simply runs away. Jonah resists, but does not argue.

When the Lord tells Moses to lead His people the Israelites out of captivity to the promised land, Moses is afraid. First he fears that the people won't listen to him or believe what he says. God allays this fear by giving Moses a magic stick that can turn into a snake among other powers. This power to perform miracles will convince the people, first the Israelites then later the Egyptian magicians, that Moses does indeed speak for God. Then Moses is afriad that he lacks the ability for public speaking. Moses’ second attempt to weasel out of God's demand makes God angry. He then promises Moses that his brother Aaron will do any sermonizing that Moses doesn't feel up to. Finally, Moses agrees (or rather, runs out of excuses) and takes his wife and children to Egypt. Never does Moses propose a rational argument contrary to God’s will. He assumes that God is Almighty and therefore always right and only half-heartedly tries to escape the job. Unlike Jonah, who has the intestinal fortitude to run away, Moses can only offer the excuses of his own weakness ("I’m too sick to come to work today") and gives in almost immediately.

Even St. Paul, in his earlier incarnation as Saul, does not argue with God in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ. Saul does not even admit that Jesus is the Christ. To argue with an authority one must first grant that authority power. Rather, Saul believes he is doing God’s work when he persecutes the Christians – he is defending the one true faith. Only after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus does Saul become Paul and accept Jesus as Lord, too. Nowhere does he ever argue with either one.

“There lived in the land of Uz a blameless and upright life named Job, who feared God and set his face against wrongdoing.” (Job 1:1)

Here begins the story of Job, the only other person aside from Jesus who apparently committed no sin. And it is vital to what follows that he be blameless. God is holding court and the Satan where he has been. It might seem odd that an all-knowing being would ask someone something He already knows, but for the sake of the story there has to be some dialog, and God being a major character has to have some lines, even if they don't make theological sense.
Note that He doesn't ask for Satan, but the Satan. At this point in history the word Satan is not a name, but a title, and according to William Safire in his book The First Dissident: The Book of Job in Today's Politics, it has its linguistic roots in “roaming” and “accusing.” So the Satan is rather like a Special Prosecutor or Inspector General, not at all like the Devil later in the Bible.

God asks the Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job? He then goes on to outline Job's good qualities, to which the Satan replies: “Has not Job good reason to be God-fearing?” This implies that Job is being good, not for the sake of being good, but for the reward of a good life at God’s hands. In fact, we are told at the beginning of the story that Job is the “greatest man in all the East.” (Job 1:3)

God takes up the Satan’s challenge and makes a bet with the Accuser: “Very well, then,” says God, “everything he has in your hands, but on the man himself lay not a finger.” (Job 1:12). Now the Satan has permission from God to wreck a hell of a lot of destruction on Job's household. Safire describes this thusly: “All of Job's ten children are killed; his vast herds of sheep, asses, and camels are stolen or slaughtered; his home is destroyed by a great wind; but ‘throughout all his Job did not sin; he did not charge God with unreason.’ ” (Job 1:22) (Safire, pg. 5).

When this doesn't work, the Satan complains that Job doesn't break because he doesn't personally suffer, only loses his property. God then gives him the okay to mess with his body as long as he doesn't kill him. The Satan then gives Job sores all over his body. Job's wife has had enough. She, too, has lost her children, home and wealth. “Curse God and die!” she tells Job, but Job says nothing sinful.

Then, three of his friends come to commiserate with him. Safire calls them “three eminent Eastern chieftans,” [a foreshadowing of the future “three wise men from the East” in Matthew?] and we can safely assume they are his colleagues and not his close confidantes or even neighbors. There really isn’t anyone equal to Job nearby. They see how bad his suffering is and remain silent, perhaps speechless with wonder.

Job sees them and says, “Damn the day I was born!” (Job 3:3) This, while not directly cursing God, is very close to it, and the three friends present arguments to Job concerning the reason for his suffering.

First, Eliphaz the Temanite: Can an innocent man be punished for no reason? Of course not. Somehow, somewhere, Job must have sinned and forgotten about it. Eliphaz goes on to say that suffering is good for the soul. “Happy is the man whom God rebukes!” (Job 5:17).

This argument doesn't hold water with Job who demands that someone show him where he went wrong. He accuses God of “attacking him with no reason” (Safire p. 8) and “turns on Eliphaz as disloyal: ‘Devotion is due from his friends to one who despairs and loses faith in the Almighty.’ ” (Job 6:14).

Bildad the Shuhite's argument claims that one of Job's sons committed the sin and thus Job is held responsible and suffers the punishment, yet he can remain blameless. Job responds with "Indeed this I know for truth, that no man can win his case against God." Job here introduces the idea of suing God, but realizes immediately that he could not possibly win. “If the appeal is to force, see how strong He is; if to justice, who can compel Him to give me a hearing?” (Job 9:19)

Finally, Zophar the Naamathite, gets a turn. He doesn't offer any excuse like Eliphaz's "all have sinned," or Bildad's “your sons got you into this mess,” but turns on Job directly, claiming that Job has a secret sin that Job must be hiding to himself. As if this were not enough, Zophar adds insult to injury with the statement that Job has somehow gotten off lightly. He says, “Know then that God exacts from you less than you deserve.” (Job 11:6)
J
ob gets really mad now and says to all three: “I wish you would keep strictly silent. That would be wisdom for you.” (Job 13:5) Here comes, according to Safire, the most irreverant moment in scripture. Job takes an oath, essentially an ultimatum or challenge to God Almighty. “Let me but call a witness in my defense! Let the Almighty state His case against me! If my accuse had written out his indictment, I would not keep silent and remain indoors. No! I would flaunt it on my shoulder and wear it like a crown on my head; I would plead the whole record of my life and present that in court as my defense.” (Safire, pp. 13-14)

When last we left Job, he was berating his so-called friends for coming up with lousy excuses for his suffering and challenging God to explain Himself, in court, if necessary. Before God makes an appearance, there is one last mortal discourse, Elihu the Buzite. According to Safire, he is the only speaker with a Jewish name and therefore may be written in by a later hand than the original author of Job. Elihu's argument is that suffering may not only be the consequences of sin; instead, it may a form of discipline for the virtuous. In one sentence, Elihu finds God and Job both without blame.

Unfortunately, Job is not satisfied with this argument either, for it leaves God's justice unaffected by the actions of human beings. In Elihu's explanation, God is under no obligation to answer Job's demand for a hearing.
Here enters God, and Safire says it best: “The Lord, apparently fed up with unending complaints about his misfeasance in office...comes roaring out of a whirlwind to jolt Job with the most intimidating series of sarcastic questions ever posed, beginning with ‘Who is this that darkeneth knowledge by words without counsel?’ ” (Job 38:2) (Safire, p. 15)

God goes on to blast Job with many examples of His power and magnificence, each showing the God is God and Job is not. This is precisely what Job expected when he asked for an intermediary (an advocate or a lawyer) to stand between him and the Deity. God's purpose seems to be to scare Job into submission, and this seems to work. Job's reply is no reply at all. “What reply can I give Thee, I who carry no weight? I put my finger to my lips.” (Job 40:4)
Job, by remaining silent, does not exactly back down. He admits no wrongdoing in challenging the Lord, he does not apologize for questioning Him. God, however, is not fooled and rages on in a second, scarier speech. “Dare you deny that I am just or put Me in the wrong that you may be right?” (Job 40:8)

Finally, Job caves in. He says to God that “I have spoken of great things which I have not understood, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:3) Safire wants to know what made Job stop questioning and give up his rebellion. So do we. But there is no clear answer in the text. The reason given that Job submits is the power of a personal revelation: “Now I see Thee with my own eyes.” (Job 42:5) But there is no explanation of what that personal revelation is.

God isn't finished, however. He turns to the three friends and berates them. The fourth person, Elihu is not mentioned here, suggesting again that his speech was added later. Why was God angry? “Because you have not spoken as you ought about Me, as my servant Job has done.” (Job 42:7) After having rebuked Job for speaking in ignorance, God turns about and praises Job for telling the truth, at least part of the time. Is God claiming that the old religious explanations for suffering are untrue?

The ending is a happy one. God restores Job's fortunes many-fold. He gets six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, fourteen sons, etc. For the three dead daughters, he gets three of the most beautiful women in the land. Why are the daughters not doubled as well? Safire explains that this would not be a blessing, but the author of Job shows “a curious modernity” (Safire, p. 18) by giving the women shares of Job's inheritance. “Thereafter Job lived another hundred and forty years, he saw his sons and grandsons to four generations, and died at a very great age.” (Job 42:16)
W can we conclude? God wins again, as God always will. However, while Job did not come out of this with any kind of explanation for his suffering, he was well rewarded. Perhaps there are cases where bringing God to task for His actions has merit, but this is not an action to take lightly, unless you don't mind being covered with boils for your trouble.

Safire goes on to point out a few of the lessons that believers take from the book of Job. Here is a partial list:

“1. Don't ask God for any favors.

2. God is not a just God or an unjust God; God is just God.

3. God's ways are not Man's ways.

4. Don't blame the victim. Suffering is no evidence of sin.”

Safire explains under lesson number two that by the time of the author of Job in history, the idea of retributive justice was probably breaking down. “Retributive” comes from the same word as “retribution” and “tribute,” meaning a payment and to “re-tribute” means to pay back. Somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries before Christ, there was no promise of payback in the afterlife as yet. That was to come with the New Testament. So, what does the author do to restore religious belief in a just God? Safire writes: “He rerooted religion in real life by taking God entirely out of moral law enforcement.” (Safire, p. 65)

Safire continues: “In [the author of Job’s] revision of the world, God could make commandments available to humanity that would help him bring the order of goodness to the anarchy of the jungle. However, his human creations could not impose that same order on God, or demand that God act as a moral policeman or Court of Claims. In Robert Frost's The Masque of Reason, the modern poet has a much relieved God tell Job: “You realize by now the part you played/ To stultify the Deuteronomist/ And change the nature of religious thought./ My thanks to you for releasing me/ From moral bondage to the human race.” (Safire p. 65-66)

What does the author of Job propose in place of the hand of the Father in human affairs? Faith and prayer have a value in and of themselves. Safire says that the truly religious person in Joban theology not only worships God with no reward in mind but is uplifted by that unselfish love.

We are going to stop here with the theological arguments, but Safire goes on to use Job to make political arguments (Safire is after all a political writer; he was a speech writer for the Nixon administration). “The Book of Job endorses the vassal's right to make demands on his lord. That not only inspired ecclesiastical, artistic, and political rebels to resist totalitarianism, but fanned controversies about the flow of fidelity up and down. When we pledge allegiance, we demand allegiance.” (Safire, p. 89).

The final question posed by Job’s and, let us not forget Abraham’s, attempt at changing God’s mind is this: What is to be gained by moving from total submission to divine authority to a more mature tension between God’s authority and human allegiance?

In the movie, Defending Your Life by Albert Brooks, the main character goes to court to prove his worth. If he wins, he is allowed to “move on.” (To where the movie doesn't say.) If he loses, he returns to another life on earth to try again. What is the criteria? Not intelligence, not beauty, not even goodness of heart. It is courage. Shown again and again to have succumbed to fear, Albert’s character at last is sent back to earth. As his bus is passing the bus containing Meryl Streep’s character (she was shown to be courageous when she rescued her children from a burning building in just one example), he jumps off his bus to join her. For some reason this is an extremely dangerous thing to do, and, as the judges of the court are still watching his actions, they conclude that he has the courage to go on to whatever stage of existence is next.

In one sense, the author of Job is proposing that humanity grow up and become the master of its own destiny, not to run to God with every complaint, and not to use God as an excuse for one’s present conditions. This is the answer to the question: what is to be gained? We (every individual human) have the power to make change in our own life, a power God has invested in us, and a power we must use if we are to become more than children in God’s eyes.

Bibliography

The First Dissident: The Book of Job in Today’s Politics by William Safire, Random House, New York, c. 1992.

God: A Biography by Jack Miles, Vintage Books, New York, c. 1995.

What work of art (film, book, record, whatever) changed your life?
Submitted by bodhibound.

The movie Harold and Maude with the sound track by Cat Stevens changed my life. I saw it when I was twelve because my step-father thought it was time for me to see an R-rated movie! He was disappointed, but I loved it. Later, I was sad to hear that Yusuf Islam stopped making music when he became a muslim. I am glad now that he is back making music again. That soundtrack and the movie helped me to understand that it was okay to be different.

Brief Book Blog

[Asinine Alliteration Always Annoys]

Dear Reader:

I will assume that since you are reading this, you like to read. If, like me, you are needing new authors to read, I would like to take this time to recommend a few of my very favorites. (I am addicted to reading. I need to read while eating. I’ve bought books with money I should have bought food. I never said I was well-adjusted, now, did I?)

Here’s a brief list of authors I think everyone who loves books should at least try to read and why. I’m deliberately leaving out writers like Kurt Vonnegut that I think most of my readers are already familiar with. Vonnegut, however, recently wrote a new book about a journalist who hooks up with Dr. Kervorkian and through controlled after-life journeys interviews the recently dead. (You should read it. You really should. Drop those Cheetos, turn off your laptop, and do it right now.)

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler

by Italo Calvino

This charming book begins with the main character, You. You are reading this book, and you tell the others in your house not to bother you. You have a good book you want to read. (Self-reference is a characteristic of Post-Modernism, but I think that self-referential literature goes back before the beginning of the post-modern period. An artist friend of mine says Post-Modernism (or Po-Mo, as he likes to call it), is dead, out-of-fashion, degenerated into cutesy self-reference and has proposed a new style, an art-ethic, to revive art as a field of human endeavor. I read a book once called The End of History, which makes me wonder if there will ever be another period name. In an age of increased global awareness, no particular culture is dominant enough to get to write history for itself, thus naming everything.)

Back to the book: You, the reader, start a chapter of If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, which is the second chapter of the book. It stops at a place that leaves the reader (the real reader, not the character reader) wanting to know what happens next, but You find that there was mistake at the book binder and the rest of the book is missing (I can’t remember if the rest of the book is blank pages or the same chapter over and over again, but the result is the same) and You go to the bookstore to get another copy.

The story continues, alternating chapters of books that aren’t the book You want to finish. In fact, You never find the rest of If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, or the rest of any of the book chapters You begin in the story, while going on an incredible adventure. At one point You are imprisoned by a dictator and given the job of reading all the banned books.

Lest this all seem confusing and turn you off, Calvino writes in a simple style and makes the story (mystery?) so compelling you (and You) are drawn along effortlessly. you’d (not You’d) think that a series of endless, unfinished book chapters would be unsettling or at the end leave you dissatisfied, but no. (No? Hand to cheek, arched eyebrows, mocking me, “No, really, you’re putting me on.”) I remember wanting to read it again and again.

[Now that I think about it, maybe I don’t need a reader to be a writer. I could just write stuff and then write stuff to myself from imaginary readers, just living in a fantasy world of my own forever and ever. That’s not a recipe for winding up living in a run down shack, collecting guns and cats, wearing nothing but underwear and a bathrobe all the time, no no no…]

Half-Magic

by Edward Eager

{and}

The Phantom Tollbooth

by Norton Juster

These are my two favorite children’s books. I hope you haven’t grown up so much you won’t read books for kids. There’s a wealth of good books for children and young adults being written right this very second, and many of them actually make it to library shelves. Young adult fiction authors write more realistic, gritty novels with fascinating characters and never seem to be as formulaic as some adult authors’ books. Maybe I’m comparing apples to oranges, but I think that because they are for children, writers and publishers take more care with their product. My fave YA (or juvenile literature, depending on the library) author is M.E. Kerr, author of Gentlehands (the story of a blue-collar boy who falls in love with a rich girl one summer, and whose grandfather might be a notorious Nazi concentration camp officer titularly nicknamed, and Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack (no, she doesn’t, that turns out to be a graffito because Dinky is not one of the popular kids).

For younger children, Half-Magic is funny, the characters are engaging and realistic (for its time period), and I’ve read it many times. The book is so popular that it was recently republished with a thin, red ribbon bookmark attached.

The story concerns a group of children, bored for the summer who stumble on a magic coin that grants half of what you wish for. They encounter real magic when Jane shocks her brother Mark and sisters Katherine and Martha by exclaiming that she’s so bored she wishes there would be a fire while sitting unknowingly on the coin. Instantly, a child’s playhouse catches on fire and the children follow the firetrucks to the scene.

My favorite episode in the book is the time the coin gets lost in the closet, and Martha, the youngest, feeling sorry for herself takes the cat in and sits down, wishing the cat could talk. Then the cat begins talking sensibly in English every thirty seconds and garbles nonsense in between. The cat becomes very angry and the children try a variety of wishes to fix this, one of which is to wish the cat could only say “Music.” The desired result is that the cat will say “Mew,” instead, the cat says “Sic, sic, sic” in a very angry tone of cat.

The Phantom Tollbooth is a fantastic tale with a moral about boredom and self-discovery through love of learning. Young Milo wishes he were home when he’s at school and yearns to be at school when he’s at home. One day he walks into his bedroom to discover a large, mysterious package containing a phantom tollbooth, a small car just his size, and a coin for passage. After assembling the new “toy” he instantly finds himself driving in a mythic kingdom. The first character he meets is the Watchdog, a large St. Bernard-like creature with a clock embedded in his midsection named Tock. “Why is your name Tock when your clock goes ‘Tick, tick, tick?’” Milo asks. The dog sadly tells the story of how his parents named him Tock in hopes that he would make that noise, but were dismayed to find him ticking. They named his younger brother Tick when he was born, hoping to correct their mistake, but unfortunately he went “Tock, tock, tock.”

The central heroic task facing Milo is that the Kingdom of Wisdom is in a shambles since King Azaz of Dictionopolis and the Mathemagician, King of Digitopolis had a fight about whether numbers or words were more important. Being brothers, they went to their twin sisters Rhyme and Reason to settle the matter. Their answer, of course, was that both were equally important to the human soul, but the Kings cared not a whit for that response and banished them to the Castle in the Air in the Mountains of Ignorance.

Milo sets off to rescue the sisters (having read plenty of fairy tales and knowing just what to do) and meets the Spelling Bee and the Humbug who join him on his fabulous adventures. When the four of them (including the dog) meet King Azaz, the king invites them to dinner. The other diners look expectantly at Milo, crying “Speech, speech.” Milo beings pedantically and nervously with a few words about how grateful he is for the invitation or some such (I forget), but the King interrupts him with “Enough.” Then next diner stands and pontificates, “A hamburger with relish and…” (etc. you get the point.) After everyone has finished announcing their menu choices and dinner is served, Milo looks sadly at his plate of cardboard bits and says, “I didn’t know we were going to have to eat our own words.”

The entire book is based on visual puns or proverbial ideas realized literally, which probably make more sense to the adult reading the book than the younger child listening. Thus, it could be used to teach your children, if you don’t mind stopping to explain the jokes. My favorite joke is when the Undersecretary of Understatement invites Milo to get in the car and go to meet King Azaz. Milo starts chattering immediately when inside. “Where’s the steering wheel and the motor? How does it work? I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere without…” But one of the King’s cabinet interrupts, “Sssh! For it goes without saying.”

The Fan Man

by William Kotzwinkle

Mr. Kotzwinkle writes endearing, loveably quirky characters and stories that are apparently too quirky to support him, so he wrote the novelization of E.T. (I was originally going to write “Mr. Kotzwinkle is an endearing, loveably quirky author,” but I realized in mid-type that I don’t know him personally. For all I know he could be an old cranky convenience store clerk shouting “hey you kids, get away from those magazines,” {which is a character from a Robin Williams comedy recording “Reality: What A Concept.”})

In The Fan Man,

[Okay, major interruption here. (1) This is boring writing. I feel like I’m writing “What I Read On My Summer Vacation” for a high school essay, and (2) here’s a stylistic question for you writers and typists out there: Do you italicize your commas after a title or not and why? I personally turn off the italics after the last letter of a title and know not the reason, but I do love an absurd, answerless question. Fills up the time and keeps me from thinking about the big, important unanswerable questions like, “What is the meaning of life?” and “Where are the socks disappearing to that get lost in the dryer?” Being the know-it-all that I am, however, I boldly answer them for you, knowing that you can perfectly well figure them out for yourself. My answer to the first is that the question is framed incorrectly. It’s a meaningless question. Meaning is for sentences and purposes are for beings. What is the purpose of life? To be and to grow, of course. That’s what everything else in nature is doing and so should we. The reason that question exists at all is that humans need to know how to do these things and have to make answers for ourselves. The rest of nature instinctively knows what it is doing. The answer to the second question is: You lost them by not paying attention while carrying the laundry. If it’s that important to you, wash them in the sink.]

(ahem) , Kotzwinkle’s main character is a major pothead whose dream is to gather underage girl singers for a concert in Central Park to be televised by NBC. He stumbles through toward this goal, acquiring a saxophone player friend and one girl. He is constantly distracted by the need to get high and other strange goals, but manages to do things like get to the NBC offices. Out of the elevator, he realizes he looks like he just fell down an elevator shaft, so he gets on his hands and knees and pretends to have just fallen down the elevator shaft. The receptionist freaks out, gets him some water, and a producer agrees to do the show hoping not to get sued.

I’m giving away the ending between a bunch of brackets so skip this part if you intend to read the book. I don’t think I’m destroying your possible enjoyment of it, however. There’s so much more to it.

DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL

{{{{{The Fan Man, who gets his name because he carries around a miniature electric fan all the time in case he gets hot, winds up far away and lost, chasing another dream while the concert goes on. He misses the fulfillment of his dream as a result of his tragic yet comedic character flaw: he’s always distracted by the next Big Thought. He doesn’t ever realize that he’s missing anything, including the concert, so it’s not sad, just a perfect end to a wonderful book.}}}}}

OKAY, YOU CAN CONTINUE READING NOW

I’m going to guess that you read that part anyway. I would have. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do! My favorite chapter is called Dorky Day where the Fan Man spends all of his day in his apartment, cleansing his aura of whatever by chanting “dorky” all day. The entire chapter consists of the work “dorky” repeated over and over with bracketed statements by his sort of girlfriend and the sax player talking to each other about whether he’s alright and what they ought to do about him. Oh, and when he needs more room because he’s claustrophobic from his mania of collecting things, the Fan Man just burrows into the empty apartment next door. I like this guy.

My word processor is kindly telling me that this is page five and I must go, so long, farewell, auf weidersehn good niiiiighhht. If you know German, please correct what looks like a horrible misspelling of auf wiedersehn, auf weederzane, oh to hell with it. Bye.

[Not yet. Did you really think I was finished?

You probably know that “Goodbye” is a shortening of “God be with ye,” but did you know that “Blimey” means “God blind me”? I assume my readers are all Americans, so please excuse if you’re a well-read, handsome British man with a good job who likes piña coladas and seventies pop music {call me}. I just came across this in a book called A Guilty Thing Surprised by murder mystery writer Ruth Rendell. She do good book.]

And one last point, I promise, this near constant updating of my computer programs whenever I get on the internet is cool and all - I’m glad it gives a reason for the computer programmers to get up and go collect a payczech - but, if the pace of life and learning gets any faster, I’m taking out the bananas at the fruit stand with a BB gun, and I mean it.

Now, God be with you all. For real this time. Sincerely, Me.

(Note: This blog originally appeared on Saturday, August 25 on my MySpace blog page. I'm re-introducing it here to begin publishing my work on Vox.com. I plan to use Vox to write more essays, website reviews, humor, satire and other kinds of prose, while I hope to continue to use MySpace for more personal, what's happening day-to-day blogging.)

 

America's War on Sex

A Book Review

 

“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign… [T]he only purpose for which government may rightfully exercise power… over anyone is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

- John Stuart Mill, 1859 essay

On Liberty

“Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.”

- H.L. Mencken

 

Do you have or want to have sex? If so, are you willing to limit your sexual expression to the missionary position within the confines of state sanctioned marriage?

If your answer to the first question is “yes,” and the second “no,” you ought to read Marty Klein’s book America’s War on Sex as soon as possible.

Since the onset of the second Bush presidency, we’ve all become familiar with the term “culture war.” (Although its roots go back as far as the Reagan era and the Moral Majority. Someone, I forget who, once said, “The Moral Majority is neither moral nor a majority.“) I’d always thought of this “war” in terms of free speech, prayer in the schools, displaying the Ten Commandments in government buildings or nativity scenes in public places, the separation of church and state, and abortion, contraception and family planning controversy. The culture war has always been framed as the Right vs. the Left, Republicans vs. Democrats, Conservatives vs. Liberals, theocracy vs. democracy, and science vs. faith. It seems that over the last seven years, the conservatives led by George W. Bush and his faith-based initiatives appear to be winning.

It never occurred to me that President Bush wanted to eliminate the right of the American people to acquire dildos.

That’s right. Dildos.

According to Klein, “The state of Alabama has been in and out of court, trying to criminalize the sale of vibrators for a decade. When a U.S. district judge ruled against the state ban on sex-toy sales - twice - the state appealed - twice. Finally, a federal court actually ruled that the government has a compelling interest in keeping ‘orgasm stimulating paraphernalia’ out of our hands. Were they concerned that women would stop having sex with their husbands if they could buzz off with a vibrator?”

Klein goes on to write in depth on the various “battlegrounds” the Right has chosen to fight:

1. Sex Education

Abstinence-only programs. Do they work? No.

a. In Minnesota, sexual activity of junior high school participants in an abstinence program doubled.

- Professional Data Analysts, Inc. and Professional Evaluation Services, “Minnesota Education Now and Babies Later Evaluation Report 1998-2002,” as prepared for the Minnesota Department of Health, January 2004.

b. Young people who take a virginity pledge are one-third less likely than those who don’t to use contraception when they become sexually active.

- Peter Bearman and Hannah Brickner, “Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and the Transition to First Intercourse,” American Journal of Sociology 106, no. 4 (2001): 859-912.

c. Young people who take a virginity pledge have the same rates of sexually transmitted diseases as those who don’t.

- Hannah Brickner and Peter Bearman, “After the Promise: the STD Consequences of Adolescent Virginity Pledges,” Journal of Adolescent Health 36, no. 4(2005): 271-78.

2. Reproductive Rights

Klein wants to know why the right to get pregnant, give birth, or not should be a major concern of the Right, both political and religious, though they don’t always overlap. “Other than your partner - and possibly your mother,” Klein asks, “why would anyone - especially a stranger - care about whether or not you use a condom…?”

The belief underlying the move to limit everyone’s access to contraceptives is that the only legitimate purpose of sex is procreation and marital intimacy. Contraception means that sex can be used for other reasons, that is, pleasure. That is what the battle over reproductive rights ultimately is: limiting sex for pleasure.

If you think it’s really about the right of the fetus to come to term, or the “every sperm is sacred” argument (see song by Monty Python’s Flying Circus), then look at this quote by Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life action league. He said, “I would like to outlaw contraception. It is disgusting - people using each other for pleasure.” He really said that. It isn’t often the power brokers of the Religious Right admit the truth behind their political maneuvering.

As a result of this political activity on the part of what Klein cals “erotophobes” (people who hate anything sexy), most states now allow pharmacists to refuse to fill any legal prescription, though they usually refuse to fill RU-486 (the morning-after pill). New laws are being enacted to protect pharmacists who then refuse to refer patients to other pharmacies that will help them.

Klein writes, “Pharmacists do not have this right. Your Aunt Mabel does - in private. Indeed, pharmacists have the same rights as your Aunt Mabel to withhold, cajole, persuade, and bully in order to shape your behavior - in private.” Is refusing to sell medicine to help someone have responsible sex any different than refusing to sell a black family a house in a white neighborhood? No. It’s discrimination, pure and simple.

Klein goes on to ask if there is a limit on people’s right to enforce their morality on others? Could a department store clerk refuse to sell you clothing made in China? Could a physician refuse to give you a blood transfusion because it’s against God’s will? Can a guidance counselor refuse to help a girl get into MIT because girls can’t be scientists?

3. Broadcast “Indecency”

Remember the furor caused by the “accidental” exposure of Janet Jackson’s nipple during the Superbowl halftime show? Organizations like Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Kevin Martin at the Federal Communications Commission have banded together to restrict content they have labeled “indecent” (not allowed on the air from 6 a.m. to midnight) or “obscene” (not allowed ever).

The original purpose of the FCC when it was created in the 1940’s was to 1) encourage diversity of programming, 2) make sure there was programming specifically for children, and 3) assign unique frequencies to radio and television broadcasters from the usable spectrum that was limited by the technology available at that time.

The FCC no longer bothers with its first two mandates, and, with the invention of satellite, cable and broadband, the public airwaves are not the same kind of resource that they once were, thus eliminating the third reason for the FCC.

Perhaps in an effort to justify its ongoing existence and budget, the FCC has assumed the role of government watchdog, policing the content of airwaves. It justified its intrusion because “TV and radio come into the privacy of people’s homes.” According to Klein, “It was a ridiculous argument, but the courts agreed. The rise of satellite radio, cable TV and pay-per-view TV has demolished that audience-as-passive-victim argument,” but the government intrusion continues. Fines imposed by the FCC have risen from $48,000 in 2000 to $7.9 million in 2004.

An example of how far the culture of censorship has taken us is Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. A Kentucky public radio station refused to air an episode in August 2005 because of the word “breast,” meaning “heart,” “soul,” or “conscience.” Klein quotes WUKY station manager Tom Godell as saying, “I don’t question the artistic merit, but I have to question the language. The FCC has been so inconsistent, we don’t know where we stand. We could no longer risk a fine.”

I haven’t got the time or space to describe in detail Klein’s other “battlegrounds”: Adult Entertainment (bookstores and strip clubs closed to expensive court battles over misuse of zoning laws), the Internet (public libraries forced to use filtering software or lose federal funding, software that indiscriminately shuts down sexual health sites and sites that use the name “Dick” for example along with porn sites), the War on Pornography (“In West Germany, rape rates declined once bans on pornography were lifted in 1973 - Philip D. Harvey, The Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve.), and Sexual Privacy and Sexual Minorities (“It is heartbreakingly ironic that, although victims of domestic violence rarely have their children taken from them, the court’s insistence on treating [practitioners of sadomasochism as victims of domestic violence] provided the rationale limiting [parents contact with their own children].” Klein, p. 168).

The most thought provoking idea in Klein’s book, however, can be found in chapter three “The Most Powerful ‘Minority’ in the United States.” He writes, “I’m confused. Exactly who is this ‘they’ that the Religious Right keep saying has hijacked the country?… And who are the consumers of the cultural products the Religious Right constantly criticizes? Who do they think is watching Desperate Housewives, going to see Maid in Manhattan, buying Cosmopolitan, and downloading Janet Jackson’s half-second nipple?…They have gotten the government and media to support them as defenders of America’s wholesomeness against some mythical, incredibly powerful ’them’… But the Right is like the kid who kills his parents and asks for mercy because he’s an orphan. Somehow, they neglect to mention that it’s the consumer choices and other preferences of their own constituents that are the so-called problem.”

In other words, it is the average, working- and middle-class, Republican voters that are watching porn in private and crying out (and voting) against it in public. The most visible leaders of the Right, including Jimmy Swaggart, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Guiliani and Strom Thurmond had extramarital affairs, visited prostitutes and participated in sexual harassment. Are they included in the “them” that is hijacking the country from decent folk like you and me?

The central trouble with this war on sex is that early on in the history of Western civilization, sex has been demonized by religious leaders until today it is the norm to be ashamed of any sexual impulse whatsoever.

Who in their right mind is going to stand up for the rights of Americans to get a lap dance? Which of us will be strong enough to battle our own guilt and throw off the oppressive shackles of shame to stand up to these hypocrites? I hope that I can when the time comes, and I’m grateful that Marty Klein and the American Civil Liberties Union does.