Words Fail Me

From an article in the current Scientific American on the next generation of U.S. nuclear warheads:

The RRW1 (Reliable Replacement Warhead) would elminate the need for some of the toxic substances often used in weapons, such as beryllium..."Because of the release of the weight requirement, we are able to use substances that are heavier but more environmentally benign," [Livermore Laboratories scientist Bruce] Goodwin says. "We will be able to eliminate an entire [manufacturing] process that produces 96 percent radiological toxic waste that has to be buried and replace it with nontoxic waste that is 100 percent recyclable."

"You replace beryllium with something that quite honestly you could eat and be healthy," he adds...

Oh no! Gay Penguins!

Banned Books Week has come to a close, and I've spent the past few days reading about books that have been challenged (i.e., it's been demanded they be removed from libraries or bookstores) during the previous year.

As as all twelve of my readers are probably are, the most challenged book of 2007 was And Tango Makes Three, a book about two male penguins that adopt a chick. The book is based on the true story of two male penguins at the Central Park Zoo that tried to fertilize a rock and get it to hatch (penguins aren't too bright, apparently).


Zookeepers took pity on the dim-witted pair and gave them a real egg, which they were able to get to hatch, and thus young Tango was born.

Tango--written for the 4 to 8-year-old-crowd, has troubled quite a few parents. In Shiloh, Illinois, some parents requested that the book be put in a "restricted" section of the school library (it's news to me that elementary school libraries have restricted sections). Mother of two Christine Farmer expressed the feelings of many parents when she said "Kids have to be kids at this age...I don't know why sexuality of any type is appropriate for kids that age." Sexuality? Now I'm not sure what she's getting at, but if she knew anything about what birds do to procreate...well let's just say that to mammals it's barely recognizable as sex.

But I digress. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the book's existence alarmed Republican County Commissioner Bill James, who has been quoted as saying, "I am opposed to any book that promotes a homosexual lifestyle to elementary school students as normal." (Tango was removed from Charlotte-Mecklenburg school libraries).

Perhaps, I'm naive, but I seriously doubt that a five-year-old is going to look at a few pages of drawings of penguins and ask mommy, "When's the next Pride march?" She'll probably just be thinking about...penguins. Or maybe drawing. Or--and I'm going out on a limb here, I realize--drawing penguins.

Maybe parents are afraid the book carries some kind of subliminal message. Twelve years from now young Chad or Tripp might be watching Animal Planet, hear the word "PENGUINS" and immediately dump Courtney so he can slake his newfound lust for the high school quarterback.

This is the possibly the most ridiculous uproar the family values crowd has raised since 1994, when a North Carolina preacher named Joseph Chambers tried to use the state's anti-sodomy laws to ban Ernie and Bert.

The American Library Association has provided a list of other books frequently challenged in 2006 here. Sexual content of any sort is invariably the leading reason for objections to a book. Any sympathetic treatment of homosexuality is a close second. And objections to sexual content--especially gay sexual content, invariably come from conservative Christians.

It's unsurprising that conservative Christians would object to books that conflict with their moral teachings. But please, people, show some consistency. If you want to object to books that contradict Biblical teachings, you're only scratching the surface.

While the Bible is a long, rambling hodge podge of a book--a welter of creation stories, national myths, royal chronicles and often contradictory religious teachings--it's remarkably consistent on certain topics, like how one should treat the poor.

Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.

Prov. 31:8ff. [Commandment to kings.] Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.

Luke 3:11. And [John the Baptist] would answer and say to them, "Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise."

Mt. 5:42. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

Now contrast this with a remark by a certain bestselling author. On June 11, 2004 Bill O'Reilly treated his listeners to his opinion of the poor:

...you gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and lazy... Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen.

So where are the mobs of Christians demanding that The No Spin Zone be pulled from library shelves? Let's face it, Bill O'Reilly is basically urging people to reject Biblical teaching. Where are the concerned parents worried their child might read O'Reilly's books and end up in Hell like the rich man in the parable of the beggar Lazarus?

But no, it's the books about sex that get all the attentiion.

And while we're on the subject of conservative darlings, let's discuss one who's made a career out of violating the Book of Common Prayer's injunction to live in love and charity with one's neighbor: Ann Coulter. She's spent much of this year on the war path against John Edwards, most notoriously accusing him of exploiting his son's death. In its nastiness, it's vintage Coulter.

But I'm most intrigued by Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot." Of all the things she could have called John Edwards--"vain," "inexperienced," "Doogie Howser, Presidential Candidate"--she chooses an insult preferred by fifteen-year-old boys, one that she had to have known would draw a firestorm of criticism. Maybe she couldn't help herself.

It's obvious social conservatives are obsessed with sex. Especially gay sex. Please, people: get help. See a therapist. Spend time in airport bathrooms and see if you can work this out of your systems. Do something. Because this fixation of yours on gay sex--it's just not healthy.

America's Finest at Work

As of ten days ago, the nation has weathered six years without another major terrorist attack. We owe those years of safety to the work of law enforcement on every level, whether it's local police, Homeland Security or the TSA.

And in recognition of their fine work, let's review what the nation's men and women working in law enforcement and national security have accomplished lately:

A) Men who use the restrooms at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport can now relieve themselves without fear of foot tappers. This is important, people. After all, it's not like there could be anything else to worry about in an airport with a 100,000 passengers moving through it every day.

On a personal note, I don't feel that threatened by foot tapping. It kind of pales compared to the time I was one of the first people seated on a flight and the aisle filled up with a slow moving line of passengers, one of whom pressed his erect penis against my shoulder (and his pants were polyester. Ewww.) But if you haven't had that happen to you, I can understand how foot tapping might be traumatic.

Yes, Virginia, if Americans can ask each other for sex, the terrorists win.

B) We all know that the September 11 attack could have been prevented if only we had known what Mohamed Atta was reading. When he first tried to enter the US, he probably never would have made it out of the airport if baggage screeners had known he was carrying the pamphlet So, You Want to Destroy the World Trade Center. Now when you enter the United States--whether you're citizen, tourist or resident alien--airport screeners are collecting data on what reading material you're carrying. Don't you feel safer knowing that Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder Ron Gilmore has been reading Drugs and Your Rights? I do.

I can think of dozens of ways this information can be used to improve the quality of American life. As a start, I've written to the Department of Homeland Security asking them to keep track of the people who read Nicholas Sparks and keep them the Hell away from me (I haven't heard back yet).


C) This is the Homeland Security coup of the year: British musicologists can no longer enter the U.S. with impunity. The residency visa of Nalini Ghuman has been revoked. It's obvious: the undergrad years studying music at Oxford, the Ph.D. at Berkeley, the scholarly articles on Elgar--all cover. She was just lying low and keeping dark until the day she could walk into a seminar on harmony and counterpoint with bombs strapped to her chest and take out a roomful of music majors.

Keep it up guys, I'm feeling safer every day.

A New Renaissance is Upon Us!

I've been out of the loop on upcoming movies, so I am indebted to the ever-delightful Carl Pyrdum for news that Beowulf (the movie!) will hit the silver screen in November. Unfortunately, it won't be directed by Mel Gibson. Which is too bad: I was so looking forward to a film with a script entirely in Old English. I had even pictured how it would absolutely have to begin: Charlton Heston, all bearded and grizzly, his face illuminated by firelight, shouting Hwaet!. (Hwaet, the first word of the poem, essentially means "pay attention, losers.")

Well, as the Anglo-Saxons would have said, wá lá wá! (to translate, insert expression of disappointment of your choice). The script is in modern English, and Charlton Heston is not in the cast. Instead we have Ray Winstone (as Beowulf), Crispin Glover (as Grendel), Angelina Jolie (as Grendel's mother), Angelina Jolie's breasts (as Angelina Jolie's breasts), and Anthony Hopkins (as Hrothgar).

I'm a little taken aback that Grendel's mom appears human in the film. I've always pictured Grendel as looking a little like Chewbacca. Since there weren't any female wookies in any of the Star Wars movies I saw, my mental image of Grendel's mother has always been much vaguer. I did, however, assume some kind of family resemblance.

But on to larger issues: in the past three years we've had a major movie based on the Trojan War, another on the Battle of Thermopylae, another on Alexander the Great, an HBO series on the civil wars that finished off the Roman Republic, and now a major movie on the only surviving Old English epic poem. Is it possible that the entertainment-industrial complex is so alarmed at what they've done to the nation's intellectual life that they are now trying to reconnect us to the wellsprings of our cultural heritage, the history and literature of the classical and medieval worlds?

What's next? I would be surprised if there weren't several movies based on Greek mythology in the works. If you've read any Greek myths, you know that people are always a) having sex and b) turning into plants. Ready-made plots with lots of nudity and opportunities for cool special effects. What studio would walk away from that?

The Song of Roland would make a great movie too: lots of violence, fighting between Westerners and Muslims. Everything an American audience could want. No sex as I recall, but I'm sure Hollywood will find a way.

The possibilities for television are endless. Every episode of the L-Word could end with a televised reading of one of Sappho's poems. Jerry Springer could invite mother-son couples onto his show to talk about what the Oedipus myth means to them.

I'm really excited. Ten years ago when I pitched my idea of a musical based on the life of the Emperor Caligula, directors acted like I was some kind of nut. But now....

What a great time to be alive. The American public will get a classical education just by watching movies. Kevin Sorbo might get regular work again. And studio executives will start returning my calls.

Camus, Melville, Beowulf and Vietnam?

It's kind of unsettling, actually, but every now and then Bush and his associates show signs of something resembling cultural literacy. Roughly a year ago, there were rumors that Bush was reading Camus' The Stranger and discussing it with Tony Snow. Then, last weekend on television, Karl Rove seemed to be groping for literary analogies to explain the Democrats' relentless pursuit of him. First he compared the Democrats and their subpoenas and hearings to crazed Ahabs pursuing Moby Dick. But then he felt the need to go back earlier in literary history: "I'm a myth...You know, I'm Beowulf, you know, I'm Grendel." But then (no doubt mentally straining to come up with the names of other characters from Medieval epics) he added, "I don't know who I am. But they're after me."

A friend of mine who used to teach literature at Western Reserve Academy was actually impressed that Rove could name both Beowulf and Grendel, even if he seemed kind of vague on other details. And I guess I should be impressed too: outing undercover intelligence agents and conducting Stalinesque purges of U.S. attorneys probably doesn't leave you a lot of time for catching up on the books you blew off in high school. On the other hand, now that Rove doesn't have a job anymore, he's got a lot more time to read. Maybe his literary analogies will get more impressive: "I'm Orestes, and the Democrats, you know, are like the Eumenidies."


But let's go back to Bush and The Stranger. I have to confess to being a little skeptical that he has actually read any Camus. I think it's much more likely that the press have (as usual) gotten their French Existentialists mixed up and the POTUS was actually reading some Sartre. Seriously--take a look at the official Presidential Advance Manual, with its instructions on how to keep demonstrators away from the press and even out of sight of the President. Clearly, this is a man for whom Hell is other people--at least people with opinions.

And there are clues that the President is branching out a bit intellectually. He might actually be reading history as well as fiction. At least, that's my inference from a speech he gave today comparing the war in Iraq to the one in Vietnam. He warned of regional chaos if U.S. troops withdraw, such as engulfed Cambodia and Laos after Vietnam. Now I'm finding this historical comparison a little weak. If you're looking for the cause of the Cambodian bloodbath, you're more likely to find it in the country being bombed for 14 months by the U.S. Air Force and then its occupation by U.S. ground troops. As for Laos, we armed a proxy army to fight the North Vietnamese and Laotian communists.

So either the President's a little shaky at drawing historical analogies, or he's got plans for Syria and Iran we don't know about yet. But cheer up: this is progress. George W. Bush is, after all, the man who supposedly told Joe Biden, "Brief me on Europe." I wonder how he started? "Well, Mr. President, it's a continent..." And now he can name individual countries--ones that aren't even in Europe. He's still rusty on more advanced reasoning, but our President mastering basic facts and showing an awareness of historical events is something to cheer. Because rarely is the question asked, is our politicians learning?

Seinfeld and the Military-Industrial Complex

I was poking around on the website of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the other day (don't ask), and found myself reading about a project called Intestinal Fortitude. While naturally every word of a DARPA project summary is gripping, this passage in particular caught my eye:

To increase the amount of energy available to the soldier from either food rations or nontraditional foodstuffs, the program explores the use of cellulose-degrading beneficial bacteria in the gut. These novel “fibr-biotics” are able to break down non-digestible fiber (cellulose and hemicellulose) into glucose, which can be directly absorbed for energy. When added to the diet of deployed soldiers, these novel fibr-biotics will be able convert non-digestible fiber into usable energy.

Cellulose is one of the primary components of grass and leaves. In other words, when the soldier of the future runs out of field rations, he's going to be able to graze. The DARPA summary says little about the current state of this project. But then a friend suggested I search the incomparable Danger Room, Wired's military and national security blog, where I discover that I am, as usual, behind the times. Intestinal Fortitude was not the entire project, merely the name of phase one, which was wrapped up in March 2007. Under a DARPA contract, scientists at the Agricultural Research Service sorted through pig manure, isolating 'degrading bacteria' to figure out why our porcine brethren can digest things we can't. In phase 2, scientists are examining human feces, isolating potential fibr-biotics.

In other words, they want to make the human digestive tract (or at least some human digestive tracts) more like a pig's. Now this is far from full-blown hybridization, but the project inevitably brings to mind the Seinfeld episode, "The Bris," in which Kramer thinks he's seen a human-pig hybrid in a hospital:

Kramer: I'm tellin' ya! The pigman is alive. The government's been experimenting with pigmen since the fifties.

Jerry: Will you stop it. Just because a hospital gets a grant to study DNA doesn't mean they are creating a race of mutant pigmen.

Kramer: Oh, Jerry. Would you wake up to reality! It's a military thing. They're probably creating a whole army of pig warriors.

The question of the hour, ladies and gentleman: is DARPA so desperate for ideas they're stealing them from Seinfeld? While I am one of those who has long held that Seinfeld was one of the best American television shows of all time, I'm not sure that qualifies it to play an even marginal role in national security efforts. I re-read the script of the episode "The Masseuse," (which deals with Jerry's 13-year no-vomiting streak), to see if it could possibly have provided any inspiration for the Navy's vomit beam.* No dice (it was a long shot, I realize).

I won't say rest easy. But perhaps we should rest a little less uneasily with my modest evidence that military scientific research isn't solely inspired by Larry David. Still, American military and political affairs have an air of unreality, to say the least. The great war news this month was that U.S. casualties were down in July, so the 'surge' must be working. However, casualties have dropped during July since the war began--nobody wants to fight when it's 120 degrees. Back home, the Supreme Court spent its time this summer debating whether "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" is constitutionally protected speech. And currently the campaign of a half-African presidential candidate is dogged by the question "Is he black enough?"

Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld may not be the minds behind the latest military research, but somewhere along the way our national life really did get to be a show about nothing.



*Thanks to my friend KT for alerting me to the existence of the vomit beam. Or as she put it, "I'll see your grazing soldier and raise you one puke gun."

On the Cusp of Two (or more) Cultures

There's a relic on the shelves of my workplace: C. M. Bowra's Oxford Book of Greek Verse. I take it down from time to time, just to look at it fondly. I don't know when it was last checked out. I call it a relic because the title is literally true: the poetry is all in Ancient Greek--no translations. It was published in 1930, at a time when one could reasonably assume that many people (mostly men) had learned Greek and Latin in the course of their education. I wistfully imagine some old gent who walked the same sidewalks I do taking that book home to read Pindar or Hesiod in the original.

I don't know Greek or Latin--a fact I used to regret very much but no longer do. Nevertheless I still think it a little sad that a classical education has largely gone the way of the mastodon. Partly because I can identify just a little with the people who had that education, or at least with a feeling some of them must have had as they saw the generations after them growing up ignorant of learning they considered essential. In college my teacher for a course in Shakespeare's tragedies was an old Oxonian steeped in the classics. I remember him fondly because he was such a kindly man. But I also remember his visible distress on discovering I hadn't read Aeschylus. He told me to go home and read The Oresteia: "Without a working knowledge of those plays you simply aren't an educated person." A number of my friends to whom I've told that story are appalled by the bigotry of the comment, by the Dead White Male world view it expresses, but I can laugh sadly about it in some small way, because I know that feeling: I experience it with teenage library patrons all the time. A girl has to read a biography of a famous woman and when I suggest names I discover she has no idea who Susan B. Anthony or Dorothy Day are. A boy needs a "classic novel" to read for school and I tell him about The Red Badge of Courage and 1984 as if they were personal secrets of mine.

I have similar experiences with friends and co-workers as well. At work one day I sardonically quoted a passage of the King James Bible that I thought particularly apt to the situation. I got a blank look instead of a smile of recognition.

Of course, there's much more to all this besides changing conceptions of what an education is. In the case of my teenage patrons it's a result of a sharp decline in educational standards, and (probably) people who aren't readers raising their children to be non-readers. And that classical education I can feel so wistful about was part of a rigidly stratified society culturally dominated by white males. And my prized knowledge of the King James Bible is product of an oppressive cultural environment that I am still recovering from. But still....

Addendum: Critic Gail Caldwell wrote an essay that covered similar issues with much more depth (and a somewhat different take) in yesterday's Globe. Unfortunately it's only available to subscribers at the moment. Hopefully it will soon be available in its entirety elsewhere on the web.