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Tag: Viral

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed

In Santa Fe, Michael told me that at some point Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson had gotten married. Huh? Whew. Can anyone confirm? I guess they’ve been an item for some time – I don’t know how I could have missed that. Two of my favorite talents, but so very different.

I’ve been listening to a lot of both of them in the last few days. I’ve really been enjoying the music from Anderson’s “Strange Angels.” Then I discovered her series of public service announcements. Heh-heh. I’m going to post one a week.

Until then, here’s some of my faves.

I think my favorite is “The Dream Before” – about fairy tales (Hansel and Gretel here), Bellamy’s angel of history, and “progress”:

And I adore “Strange Angels”

I couldn’t find “Closed Circuits” – which I also love, but no blog post on this – at VirusHead – would be complete without…. “Language is a Virus from Outer Space.” (grinning)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FeyGTmw0I0[/youtube]

And “Smoke Rings” – que es mas macho?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRjTKVWzw8[/youtube]

And of course – “O Superman.” Two versions – I like the delivery of the first (close up) one better, but it looks like it was part of some kind of documentary. Oh hey – does anybody know what the name of this was or where I might get it? The second video is the full version -a very powerful performance.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8LquNy3fd8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hhm0NHhCBg[/youtube]

I’m lingering on Lou Reed, too, especially the tracks on “New York.” I’ve always thought he had a really sexy voice. When we saw him in Paris, I wore black boots and a mini-skirt (and looked at an Parisian audience swearing tee shirts and jeans – so disappointing).

Here’s an interesting video that was made of “Satellite of Love.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTqziV6kK0M[/youtube]

Lou Reed and John Cale singing “Nobody but You” (about Warhol) on the Letterman show.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFP9kBIXxfY[/youtube]

And a Reed classic – “Sweet Jane”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1edgKKwKf-0[/youtube]

I couldn’t find a video of “Sick of You” anywhere. It has always been my very favorite Lou Reed song. It’s a bit dated now in terms of the references, but I still enjoy it just as much as I always did. Note the Rudy Giuliani comment – hmmm. The bit on the President’s head works a little differently now than it did for Reagan.

I know this song stone cold – I’d love to perform it sometime, but it’s not the kind of song that is likely to show up on karaoke, and I doubt I could put together a back-up band anymore (lol) – so I sing it on the deck, iPod to my ears. My neighbors must really wonder about me. Anyway, here are the lyrics (emphasis added).

“Sick Of You,” Lou Reed

I was up in the morning with the TV blarin’
Brushed my teeth sittin’ watchin’ the news
All the beaches were closed
The ocean was a Red Sea
But there was no one there to part in two
There was no fresh salad
‘Cuz there’s hypos in the cabbage
Staten Island disappeared at noon
And they say the midwest is in great distress
And NASA blew up the moon

The ozone layer has no ozone anymore
And you’re gonna leave me for the guy next door?
I’m Sick of You, I’m Sick of You

They arrested the Mayor for an illegal favor
Sold the Empire State to Japan
And Oliver North married William Secord
And gave birth to a little Tehran
And the Ayatollah bought a nuclear warship
If he dies he wants to go out in style
And there’s nothing to eat
That don’t carry the stink
Of some human waste dumped in the Nile

Well, one thing is certainly true
no. one. here. knows. what. to. do.
And I’m Sick of You, I’m Sick of You

The radio said there were 400 dead
In some small town in Arkansas
Some whacked-out trucker
Drove into a nuclear reactor
And killed everybody he saw
Now he’s on Morton Downey
And he’s glowing and shining
Doctors say this is a medical advance
They say the bad makes the good
And there’s something to be learned
In every human experience

Well I know one thing that really is true
This here’s a zoo and the keeper ain’t you
And I’m sick of it, I’m Sick of You

They ordained the Trumps
And then he got the mumps
And died being treated at Mt. Sinai
And my best friend Bill died from a poison pill
Some wired doctor prescribed for stress
My arms and legs are shrunk
The food all has lumps
They discovered some animal no one’s ever seen
It was an inside trader eating a rubber tire
After running over Rudy Giuliani

They say the President’s dead
No one can find his head
It’s been missing now for weeks
But no one noticed it
He had seemed so fit
I’m Sick of it!!!

I’m Sick of You
I’m so Sick of You!
bye, bye, bye
bye, bye, bye

Academic language

Academic language

I wrote my Ph.D. twice. I tried to write in academic language, but I never found my academic voice. Instead, I wrote in my own voice, and then translated it over. I tried to avoid becoming completely opaque, while maintaining the level of technically-precise terminology (or jargon) that seemed to be required.

So I was delighted to see (thanks to Medusa at Professional Mirror Ph.D) that there is a random academic sentence generator from Pootwattle the Virtual Academic. Smedley the Virtual Critic will review your sentence, free of charge.

Straight to you from the University of Chicago’s Writing Program Toybox, here is my randomly-generated sentence, and its review. Heh-heh.

Randomly generated Academic Sentence

Pootwattle the Virtual Academic(TM) says:

The discourse of the unspoken (re)embodies the legitimation of civil society.

Smedley Smedley the Virtual Critic(TM) responds:

Pootwattle’s hastily published paper on the relationship between the discourse of the unspoken and the legitimation of civil society is exceptionally resistant to summary, as befits its project.

Exceptionally resistant to summary. Ha-ha- hah! Perfect! They had fun putting that together.

In my dissertation, it rarely got that bad. However, here are a few real sentences that drifted into that kind of territory:

In the thriller genre’s move from nuclear fears to viral fears, the virus functions as a figure that generates effects of horror and terror – and allows for the mobilization of contemporary discourses to simulate the real – but it also allows for the reinscription of imperialist methods of control.

The confluence of biological and technological viral language at the end of the twentieth century interacts with articulations of health and sickness, literal or metaphorical, already active in other discourses. The viral, in turn, amplifies the concept of the “virus” from the biological into the imaginary realm, drawing on beliefs and fears from the ancient to the ultra-contemporary, assimilating fragments of the rejected, and reinfusing mutated versions of itself into new communication networks.

One strand invests the virus with all our fears and the dynamics of otherness and is a function of paranoia and control, the other figures the virus as a protean bricoleur, a postmodern figure that reflects different standpoints about inherent ambiguities, contradictions, and reversals and picks up different aspects of these to create new assemblages.

There was a kind of strange rhythm – mess, bits, bits, twisted, bits, bits, new stuff. Lots of passive verbs.

I could probably rewrite the whole thing now and it would be great book. I’m probably at the point where I could stand to read it again.

It’s difficult to remember the mind-space I inhabited while writing all this. I really was a “VirusHead.”

Once it became clear that I wouldn’t be allowed to become a comparative mythologist as I had planned, maybe I should have stayed at my second university and written on “Friendship in Aquinas.” Or even “Kierkegaardian Mutations.”

Or maybe I should just have gone to law school.

All this debt, and no job. Sigh.

Arabic Name Tags

Arabic Name Tags

Would you like to see your name written in beautiful Arabic letters? The author of My Name in Arabic is offering framed tags for free. I’ve reduced them 50% for display here, but I’ve got the originals for email signatures.

PLEASE stop requesting me to do these for you! I don’t know Arabic – click on the above link for requests.

Here is the simple image for “Heidi”: Heidi in Arabic

Heidi has no equivalent I know of in Arabic. However, it’s funny how it sounds like some other words. In Lebanese Arabic, ‘Heidi’ means ‘this’ or ‘that’. In Berber, like Tashelhit spoken in North Africa, ‘Heidi’ means ‘here is the dog’, ‘aydi’ meaning a ‘dog, and ‘ha’ used as a demonstrative pronoun. I thought it would be funny for you to know about that.

Yeah, funny. Makes me think of all the German Shepherds I have met who shared my name.*

Here is the transliteration of my first (and last name) in a beautiful frame.

Heidi N* in Arabic About my last name:

G has no equivalent in Arabic, so we use a close letter to it, that sounds like French R.

He (or she?) was very generous, and also translated VirusHead. This wasn’t transliterated by sound, because it’s not really a name but rather two translatable words mushed together.

VirusHead in Arabic

‘Virus” is the same, and “head” is “ra’as.” In Arabic, “head” comes first, so it would be “the head of the virus.”

“Head of the virus” evokes very different meanings for me than “VirusHead.”

I’m thinking of some structure not unlike …um …. let’s say a tadpole.

Or maybe a being with superpowers over viral colonies – the Virus Queen? Heh-heh

Actually, when I was thinking about viruses day and night, I sometimes felt that they resisted – as though the abyss began to stare back at me. There were enough coincidences and even synchronicities to make me toy with magical thinking. When you’re thinking about one kind of thing most of the time, I think it’s natural to start seeing all kinds of connections – even to start projecting them. We are creatures of pattern recognition. I never thought of myself as controlling viruses, but rather felt at times as though they were playing with me. I tended to anthropomorphize, as did many of the authors. I had to keep reminding myself, especially when I was states of information overload, that viruses have no agency. They don’t intend anything. They don’t have a brain, and they don’t think. We’re not even sure about whether or not they are technically alive – at the very least, we’ve had to rethink the definitions of life.

This kind of gonzo scholarship produced insights, though – especially for the AIDS chapter and the chapter on vampires and communion. If the Ph.D. is meant to celebrate mastery over one very small specialization, I guess I could claim to be the “head” of the virus. However, it also reminds me of some of the biblical interpretations of headship, such as the husband’s power over the wife. Sometimes people forget that even in the most literal interpretations, the individual man is given power over his wife only on the condition that he love her as himself.

(Dominion. If I remember correctly, the meaning of the Hebrew word (rdh or radah) is better translated as something like “stewardship” or “guardianship” – which puts a man in the position of guardianship and care – the responsibility to care for and protect. Even in strong instances of its use, the implication is that of a benevolent rule where the ability to direct is linked to the requirement of the ruler to care for his subjects. Adam was put into the Garden to serve it and till it (‘abad) and to guard and preserve it (shamar). There is also a pun between the meanings of Adam and ground – humans are made from and part of the earth, not lords over it. Our “radah” relationship to creation is to represent God back to it, to develop and refine and beautify it. Our ‘radah’ is to be, not for our own sake, but for the sake of the other. In that sense, it is a form of service, not mastery. It reverses the harm done by exploitation, and models righteousness.

A steward is someone who looks after property, farm – crops and animals – you know, husbandry – while the lord is away. All very evocative. The steward does not own the land, you know, just as we do not own the earth. When the lord returns, there is an accounting of how well the steward cared for the lord’s interests… I guess if we destroy the planet, the cockroaches shall then have “dominion.”)

In any case, I have no dominion over actual viruses (the -es form is incorrect, but customary and much less awkward in English), nor do I have mastery over the complex bio-chemical transactions of the virus. But perhaps I could imagine myself as an emissary of the mute and mostly invisible virus, a representative to the court of human imaginaries. Something like that. I do not see a crown/head of power in that – nor the phallus/head of domination. But I do hold in stewardship a set of ideas and connections regarding viral forms, figures, associations, and family resemblances. More like the poet, translator, word-painter – or the one who arranges family picnics. Did you know that matrix is Latin for womb? I am alert to, let’s say, pregnant viral moments of replication/mutation, contagion, interconnection, networked lines of association – tracing out the emergent discourse of the viral, seeing that the discourse itself shows viral characteristics and tendencies. I think of the shimmering stories of Jorge Luis Borges – and I always felt as though I were softly, tentatively exploring the garden of forking paths – or the library of Babel.

* from above: In personality, I’m not so much like a German Shepherd myself, but am closer to a Canaan or Bernese Mountain Dog – at least according to these blog quizzes.

Which breed of dog is most like you?
Bernese Mountain Dog

Bernese Mountain Dog (Bernese Sennenhund) – No bones about it, you’re a good-hearted, people-loving Bernese Mountain Dog. Down-to-earth and loyal, no one works or plays harder than you do. You put your nose to the grindstone when it really counts, but you never neglect your social calendar. Simultaneously strong and sweet, you’re very tuned-in to the feelings and needs of the other dogs you run with. Without having to be asked, you always have a helping paw to lend and a sympathetic shoulder to lean on. “Communication” is your middle name, and when that’s paired with your unswerving devotion, you get a breed that everyone respects and trusts. Woof!

The Edwards Blogger Controversy

The Edwards Blogger Controversy

This morning, I read a great article at Salon by Lindsay Beyerstein (Majikthise) on why she refused the Edwards campaign blogging job the others accepted. I think her analysis of the issues was dead-on, and she figured it out in advance. I also thought she was perceptive about the issue of off-the-campaign surrogates:

Unfortunately, as the Edwards campaign learned the hard way, the right wing has a large network of surrogates, like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Donohue, who can propel virtually any story into the mainstream media. These professional blowhards are supported by a lavish infrastructure of publishers, partisan media outlets, think tanks, grants, lecture circuits and more.

Republican benefactors lavish funds on the conservative message machine because they recognize the value of a good surrogate. Candidates don’t pay their surrogates or give them orders. Instead, they rely on them to say all the outrageous things they can’t say themselves.

So far, the left doesn’t have much in the way of institutionally supported partisan counterweights. We’ve got Bill Moyers, they’ve got Bill Donohue. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

Progressive blogs have the potential to become the left wing’s open-source counterpart to the right-wing noise machine. But that doesn’t necessarily mean using money and a title to yoke an established blogger to a specific candidate.

The Edwards campaign wants decentralized people-powered politics. Ironically, by hiring well-known bloggers to manage a destination Web site, it was actually centralizing and micromanaging. Every campaign needs a blog, but the most important part of a candidate’s netroots operation is the disciplined political operatives who can quietly build relationships with bloggers outside the campaign. And the bomb-throwing surrogates need to be outside, where they can make full use of their gifts without saddling a campaign with their personal political baggage.

So while I’m here, already thinking about it because of this fascinating article, here’s my take on the thing.

I thought that there would be no problem for a progressive blogger to put on the “professional hat” and work for a campaign. The Edwards campaign picked two great bloggers: Melissa McEwan (Shakespeare’s Sister) and Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon). Both women are solid workers for progressive causes. Although the genre of biting wit (and occasional vulgarity) may put off plenty of Americans, it is possible to change genres – and people do it all the time.

The objections, smears and attacks were to be expected, especially considering that both bloggers were involved with projects like the Big Brass Alliance. The “swift-boating” smear technique seems to work, and the right-wing likes it (they think it’s a good thing).

Well, Edwards fired, then rehired the bloggers. Ultimately, both bloggers resigned. Victory to the machine.

What surprised me was the first accusation, and its source. The leader of this “politically correct” (!) attack was President of the Catholic League Bill Donohue, known for such statements as “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity,” “Hollywood likes anal sex,” and Catholics “cooperate in evil” by voting for Kerry.

This paragon of virtue (note to the rusty: that’s “irony,” “sarcasm,” and “ridicule”) accused the two feminist bloggers of being “anti-Catholic bigots.”

I have no problem with tagging certain pseudo-christians as “Christofascists” – that’s exactly what they are. I don’t see how that is anti-Catholic per se, nor is it even anti-Christian. I myself don’t find the attitudes or behaviors of dominionists and supremacists very Christian at all. Those who seek power and control in the name of God and Christ are missing the message (that is the most benevolent interpretation). If the Spirit is characterized by love and caritas and forgiveness and goodness, then… you finish the sentence for yourself.

There are many groups who rally for religious preference, discrimination, and control over other American citizens.
As feminist progressives, these two bloggers (and many others) criticize policies that oppose women, homosexuality, abortion, contraception – and so on. They each use their own kind of wit to do so. For them to criticize these things does not make them anti-Catholic, just as to criticize the political actions of a government does not necessarily mean that you hate that country or its people.

Most Catholics (even many evangelicals) are not fascistic theocratic supremacists or dominionists. Some recognize that freedom of religion is exactly what allowed them to thrive in America. There are many progressive religious people – who care about the stewardship of the earth, for example, or issues about poverty and helping others and compassion. Some even take peace seriously, like the Quakers. There are feminists who have serious issues with abortion. There are even right-wing homosexuals (something I’ve always found difficult to understand).

The point is, the possible religious and political viewpoints are many in the “land of the free.”

Well, I suppose the smear machine couldn’t really go after their support of AfterDowningStreet.org, could they? They didn’t really want to attack feminism straight off. So they went for the bigotry charge. The media swallowed it.

The smear tactics are basically just operant conditioning (your basic Pavlov, Skinner) applied to language: Create the association between “Edwards,” “bloggers,” and “anti-Catholic” and “bigots.” Spin. Disseminate. Repeat.

There is no “debate” about word association memes. Kerry… Swiftboat. You try one… how about Columbine?

It’s all about making a noise, a viral repetition that sticks. Ultimately, if it is successful, then it becomes a meme existing simply to replicate itself. Contagion. Spread. Mutation. If you want to debate, it’s best to reframe the terms or you’ll simply spread the meme even further. These days, memes can travel faster than the cold virus.

Somehow, I thought that some of the right-wing bloggers might want to preserve some blogging leeway, if only to be hired themselves in a similar capacity for one of their candidates. Nah – they’ll just do it anyway. As Beyerstein points out elsewhere, right-wing bloggers can do such things as calling for murder without damaging their credentials much. There is so much hypocrisy here that it can start to wear you out just contemplating the many examples. And that’s the point.

The strength of the right-wing machine’s method (including the blogosphere) is the collective and coordinated aspect of viral smear campaigns. In line with that, there is little feel for irony, nor is there much regard for honest debate. It is strategic.

For some, off-on/right-wrong/us-them thinking is very compelling and comforting. If nothing else, it relieves them of the burden of self-determination and complex reasoning. It also blocks insights and compassion, though, especially in a context of meme-association conditioning. It results in severely limited focus, if not always outright misrepresentation.

However, you can only roll hate and smear for so long. It’s wearing thin. Attentive Americans across the spectrum are really getting tired of it. I believe that Americans long for something more positive and energizing than that, despite our tendencies toward scapegoating.

There’s nothing wrong with a campaign hiring a blogger – not at all. They should get someone witty, and someone who already agrees with most of the policies and goals of the politicians. It’s a PR job, basically, and there are some good people who can craft messaging, frame the terms of presentation, and all that. Still – that’s PR delivered in blog format. There are other, probably better, roles for journalistic and activist bloggers.

Although I was disappointed that the bloggers decided not to stay on, I also feel that it is probably better for most political bloggers (if not all!) to be independent. Bloggers are providing the kind of debate and discussion that is conspicuously lacking in other forms of media. The blogosphere is a democratic development comparable to the printing press and the copy machine. Freedom of speech – and debate and argument – produce better citizens and a better democracy.

Yes, there are hateful, horrible diatribes. Yes, there are also simple repetitions of talking points.

What I personally enjoy, though, is seeing a whole range of people trying to think things through and figure out where they stand. They get a better feel for language. Some are more compelling than others, some are better writers. The ones who write often, and think, get better and better at untwisting the spin and mutating the memes.

This is the kind of skill that can raise our collective levels of thinking toward something that can respect debate, honor a variety of perspectives, and start finding and implementing more credible and effective solutions to our problems.

Violence is the Fault of Pro-Choice – Meme?

Violence is the Fault of Pro-Choice – Meme?

According to the Christian Newswire, Human Life International has opened up a new website that claims to expose the “Real Source of Violence” in the abortion debate. Guess who they claim is responsible for the violence?

“This website exposes the pro-choice movement as the most violent political movement in United States history. In fact, we have documented over 7,000 acts of violence and illegal activities by those who support or practice abortion,” stated Brian Clowes, Ph. D., senior analyst for HLI. “We have launched this site to expose this troubling truth and to draw attention to the fact that this violence is escalating at a very disturbing rate. Since 2000, there have been an astonishing 269 homicides and other killings committed by the pro-abortion movement.”

They include a lot under the “pro-abortion” movement. You’d have to read through the stories yourself to get a sense of some of the problems with the methods and logic. There are probably a few genuine cases of fringe pro-choicers in there – there are always a few at the edge of every line of thought. However, they are trying to conflate the pro-choice idea with an organized violence. Perhaps I’ll tackle the details on another day, but I’m kind of hoping that someone else will do it, someone who actually makes a salary as a researcher, and I can give you a link.

While there seems to be a spectrum among its members, HLI itself looks like a far-right activist Catholic organization. In as neutral a tone as they can manage, they’re calling their new site an “informational resource.” Go to the Newswire link to get the address – there’s no way I’m linking to it on this blog.

One of the things that struck me right away in the news release was their claim that pro-choicers are racists. Wow. That’s really counter-intuitive to my sense of things, so I had a “stop the train” moment. They mention an example of a Maine couple who had abducted their 19-year old daughter, “bound her hands and feet and were transporting her to New York for a late-term abortion simply because the child’s father was black.”

If this story is true, then it seems to me that abduction, kidnapping, and an attempt at an unwanted abortion upon a woman of 19 are crimes in themselves. The racism and criminal behavior, not to mention the lack of care for their daughter implied by this, cannot be generalized onto anyone who is pro-choice. That’s absurd. But this is what they do, all the while complaining at their site that they feel that prochoicers and the media “stereotype” anyone who is against abortion.

— An aside- I’m wondering who wrote this press release. This group has been around since the early 80’s, and it’s pretty big. Perhaps it’s a bias of mine, but I think of Catholics as pro-education (except for sex education, of course). It may be because of my deep admiration for some of the Catholic theologians and scholars I have read, heard, or met. My own experiences have been rather positive. There was a shrine in my hometown, and they had some beautiful christmas lights. I think of retreat, study, monastic life. I was a research assistant for a Catholic bio-ethicist in graduate school. He was a clear, calm, well-educated and kind man, bearing nothing at all like the tone expressed here. Like I say, it could be my blinders, but it doesn’t even sound Catholic to me. Usually, interactions between Catholic groups and the media are, well, better than this. Could this group be on the outs? Just wondering. It reads more like a diatribe from political Protestants, Christian dominionists in particular. I could be wrong.

In their news release, they claim that that Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wanted the KKK’s slogan to be “to breed a race of thoroughbreds.” Well, here’s another viewpoint on the question of her supposed racism. Dr. Edward A. Kempf was the one who actually said this, and of course it has been taken out of context and with distorted meaning (again).

Sanger’s books were among the very first burned by the Nazis in their campaign against family planning, and of her, Martin Luther King Jr. said:

There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts. . . . Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her.

HLI doesn’t mention some of their own fringe leadership, like their key man in Europe, Siegfried Ernt M.D., who has said some pretty wild things, including this comment about the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s: “Why is there this attitude of degenerated masochism which makes us destroy systematically our own breed and race and which makes us passively watch how our own mental, moral, and biological inheritance is getting wasted and ruined?” (Ernst is also a close friend of the German Neo-Nazi leader Manfred Roeder, founder of several radical right groups. One would have to consider Roeder, who has stated that violence is the best cure for Germany’s ills, to be a kind of terrorist. He served over 9 years of prison time for charges related to the bombing of refugee hostels in 1980.)

It used to be weird for me to see these odd projections and reversals. It has become commonplace under the rise of the reich right. HLI is a tax exempt organization, a non-profit charity – it’s considered a “pro-life missionary group.” And what a stange mix of doctrine and politics it is! HLI is against family planning, contraception, voluntary sterilization, and medically accurate sexuality education – so they actually encourage more unwanted pregnancies, promoting and depending on unrealistic abstinence-only programs. They oppose Planned Parenthood, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). To aid in their work in 39 countries, they have conferences, publish books, issue newsletters and maintain several websites. “Outreach” programs include Next Generation (for youth), Pierre Toussaint Project (for African-Americans) and Latinos for Life (for Latinos). Its Population Research Institute argues against the notion that human overpopulation is occurring and fights UN efforts to control population growth. Their methods include or have included boycotts, clinic blockades, harassment and intimidation of clinic clients and employees, leafleting students with misinformation and other anti-choice propaganda, and misinformation campaigns featuring films such as the discredited The Silent Scream. Among their false claims are that contraception causes abortions and infertility, and that abortions cause breast cancer and severe psychological trauma.

I’m looking at this one group today because I got an email about the obnoxious press release (thanks Karyn!). I don’t mean to pick on them, not exclusively (grin). Hey, they’re only one of many. That’s one of the reasons it interests me.

You see, what you get – effectively speaking – when you spread the “evil birth control” and “evil abortion” memes is more babies born for your “team”! It’s an evolutionary meme – a contagious set of ideas, spread via evangelical marketing, that changes the views of segments of society. Of course, some will grow up and “rebel” – and some will speak differently from their actions – but what you get, generally speaking, are more of whoever supports the meme. More babies, more meme-bots.

As Monty Python’s song “Every Sperm is Sacred” from The Meaning of Life puts it, “You’re A Catholic the moment Dad came.”

Could it be that in some sense it really is about producing more babies for the church, for the fatherland or motherland or homeland, for the cause, for the power, for God – whatever your claim to authority might be for more people remarkably like yourself in some significant way? Don’t study evolution, just BE evolution – is that it?

That’s one disadvantage of higher education (and thus, deferred family-making) and serious family planning – fewer babies for that “team.” Of course, given our global conditions, fewer babies might be better for everybody. Unfortunately, I think that part will be taken care of by scarcity of resources, poverty, war, the effects of pollution and the like.

While I think the matter of abortion (especially late-term abortion) is genuinely difficult and controversial, it’s difficult to see what biblical authority anyone could claim for being against medical education and knowledge, birth control, some measure of planning when (and if) to have children – and yes, perhaps even abortion. Neither birth control measures nor abortion are prohibited in the bible. What is prohibited is the sacrifice of babies upon the alters of false gods. You may recall that other kinds of sacrifice were quite common – you may remember that Christianity itself is based on the the sacrifice of the Christ – God’s son.

To blame all those who are pro-choice for the violence associated with the abortion debate is flagrantly dishonest. Of course, it would also be dishonest to blame all of those who would never have an abortion under any circumstances (even those who believe that it is the government’s job to prohibit others from doing so) for the pro-death violence sometimes enacted under the banner “pro-life.” But not quite as dishonest, because many of the followers of “pro-life” are encouraged to condone and participate in violence for the cause. Yes, that should sound a bit familiar. I have yet to see the pro-choice terrorist. What – “honor a woman’s right to choose, or I’ll choose to blow up my body right here?” Not likely.

Oh, and if somehow, someway, you didn’t happen yet to notice, opposing birth control and abortion activated two other agendas as well as more babies for the team:

  • Stuff right-wing voters “in the booth”
  • Stuff women back “in the box”

These are two things – for sure – that America doesn’t need.