The Dischordant Ballad of Harriet Miers

How do people feel about this woman being nominated to the Supreme Court? Literally everyone – even the typical political bedfellows, the ones who shamelessly and indiscriminately shack up together on the issues – has a dissenting opinion.

People are mad that the press is making Miers’ faith is an issue in order to snow her. Others are mad that Bush made Mier’s faith an issue to begin with, in order to promote her to the rank-and-file. Still OTHERS (conservative author and speaker Cal Thomas, for example) are upset that Miers can supposedly promise to lay her “faith” aside to make impartial judgments, arguing that firmly held convictions must be part of the decision-making process by any person.

Miers is admired because she is a politically loyal white conservative woman. Miers is dismissed because she is a politically loyal white conservative woman.

Miers is admired for her diligence and attention to detail. She is dismissed for her inability to think on her feet and prioritize the most important details.

Good = Bad = Big Trouble at the Little Ranch in Texas

No matter what positives can be brought to the table, someone still manages to shred Miers for the very same things. (I suppose one could also say that, no matter what negatives are being brought to the table, someone still manages to buttress her reputation for the very same things – this sort of dichotomy is only par for the course).

Whatever her qualifications, conventional wisdom suggests that Bush is not taking this court appointment seriously enough.

Democrats seem indifferent, and Republicans have already suggested that Miers does not currently have enough “Yes” votes to survive the committee, let alone Congress. I hope Bush had a backup plan, since this appears to be just one more embarrassing faux pas in the debacle that is his second term in office.

(Hard to believe that the presidential election was held less than one year ago… The Faceless Mob is unwaveringly fickle.)

A Duo of Unfortunate Events (Upstaged!)

Twice now Stephen King has done it to me. Twice. In the same series.

In the early 90’s I wrote the first half of a series of spoofs called “Goldringer,” placing characters from Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” into a James Bond setting, one chapter for each of Ian Fleming’s titles.

“Agent 006 and a Half,” Frodo Baggins, on his majesty’s secret service.

Instead of the infamous baccarat scenes that pepper Bond’s adventures (at least in the books), my only real option was to insert a riddle game between Goldringer and Baggins.

The resolution was something I mulled for quite awhile, before deciding that Baggins finally would ask an absurd riddle rather than a "valid" one, offending Goldringer’s sensibilities, and thus win the match by default when Goldringer blew a gasket.

But of course I never published, and a few years later “Wizard and Glass,” Book #4 of the Dark Tower series, described the culmination of Blaine (the Train)’s riddle match with Roland’s ka-tet. The turning point of the match was when Eddie Dean “broke” the unspoken rules and began to ask senseless, stupid riddles, undignified riddles.

My riddle, the one that so confounded and discombobulated the tiny Goldringer, was “How did the punk rocker cross the road? Because he was stapled to the chicken.”

I do not think I need to tell you what King’s riddle was.

Somewhere in the universe, the dies rolled, the spinner spun, trillions of lottery balls pinged off the inside of a glass container, and the two numbers that spit out were – against all feasible odds, perhaps unimaginable odds – were one and the same.

Groan.

To add insult to incomparable injury, within the last six months, I added a scene in “A Single Broken Thread,” where Agusa teaches Jan how to tan and cure hides. I had never seen it really described in a book and thought it was a neat idea.

Now I’ve just finished reading the last book of the Dark Tower, and near the end, almost as if it was squeezed in under the gun, Roland teaches Susanna how to tan and cure hides using the methods that I had researched.

What the…?

His readership only totals hundreds of millions, so chances are any readers of my items would have also read his, or at least my apparent parroting would be pointed out on chat boards festooned with pimply faced teenagers (or perhaps schizoid tech geeks) who have little better to do with their time, except for perhaps playing World of Warcraft.

So absurd, so unbelievable. (The Riddle Incident, as I have come to call it, simply leaves me irritably — albeit a bit delightfully — astounded.) What were the odds? How many riddles exist in this universe, but he would pick the same one?

But I guess that’s just how ka goes, and the wheel continues to spin.

In Love with Ourselves

After lurking for a few days around copious quantities of personality message boards, I’m seeing I need to pull myself back yet one more time before I get too absorbed. With the onset of the Internet, personality testing seems to have become all the rage.

Our infatuation with personality tests seems to be connected to the little pleasurable jolt we get sitting down with a fortune teller and being recognized for who we are, having someone be able to describe us in a consistent manner, to assert that maybe we’re not as unpredictable as we sometimes feel, that there’s a method to our madness, that the fact we sometimes don’t understand why we do what we do is still explicable if you simply know where to look.

At least, that’s my “glass half full” opinion. Veering into darker territory, I’d point out that it’s a lot easier to explore oneself than to commit to changing oneself. Considering all the tests I’ve taken and theories I’ve explored, I know more about myself than I ever wanted to know, but what good has it actually done me in terms of making me a better person?

Knowledge as a substitute for action is like swapping a cat’s warm milk for a dish of antifreeze – it still tastes sweet going down but will ultimately poison you.

All that a test can provide is direction, but I have to do the walking.

And I think much of the time the testing is done not for the purposes of self-improvement but for the same reason that Narcissus stared into the bright reflection of the crystal pool: Afraid of what it costs to commit to change, and uncertain of the future, we instead fall in love with ourselves.

The Artist's Prayer (first draft)

God, help me not to be ashamed or embarrassed of the gifts that you have given me.

Help me to be thankful for the level of ability that you have provided, even when I look around and see people gifted with more than I think I have.

Give me pride to use my gifts to the best of my ability, determination to not give up when my gifts seem insufficient, and courage to share them with others regardless of any potential criticism or reprisal I can imagine.

Enable me to trust that my gifts can be used to your satisfaction regardless of how I personally feel about them.

Grant me joy in the use of my gifts and pleasure in the act of applying them, rather than basing my fulfillment upon particular outcomes that I cannot ultimately control.

Lend me boldness to say things others have not said and go places others have not gone, even while removing my reluctance to revisit themes and ideas others have already visited if necessary.

May I think about using my gifts less and instead use them more.

Typical US Wednesday Madness

Weird things happening all over the place:

• Cindy Sheehan arrested, for "demonstrating without a permit" (re: sitting on sidewalk outside White House singing hymns and refusing to move when asked). Having started sincerely, now she seems to be veering towards the left, and the government is slapping her harder across the face because of it. I have no idea where this will end up.
• Tom DeLay indicted for conspiracy (to collect illegal campaign funds). Poor Tom; it's hard to be so perfect and righteous and yet still have to deal with what are so obviously nefarious political attacks without an ounce of credibility...
• Bush's approval ratings are in the high 30's, having dropped steadily throughout the summer. George is desperately hoping the evangelicals will start questioning his decisions instead of playing "Follow the Leader" all the time, if only so that he could get a lot more time to go riding out at the ranch.
• Two out of three people think the war in Iraq should be ended. People are great at spouting off lots of reasons why it's "good" for us to be there, but none of us really deep inside know why, especially in light of all the current domestic issues.
• Li'l Kim releases her newest album the day after she goes to jail and has her hair shorn; she claims to just be a scapegoat, despite her false testimony in court. (Poor Li'l Kim; maybe she and Tom should get together.)
• Michael Brown, formerly of FEMA, testifies that the problems in New Orleans were everyone else's fault. Brown did take a bad rap in some ways -- his boss, not he, was the one with authority to take immediate action -- but it looks like the Tom DeLay fan club is growing.
• Parts of New Orleans are re-flooded by Rita. (It's almost like God is saying, "Didn't you get it the first time? GET! OUT!")
• Never The Dead Shall Rest: Now that Michael Schiavo has expressed himself in print, Terry's parents are writing their own book, and I'm sure it will be as fair, balanced, and gracious as Michael's. (Amazing: The woman has been dead for months, enough vitriol has been spilled to burn Iraq to the ground a few times over, but the hate just keeps on comin'.... Rest in Peace, Terry, you definitely deserve it.)
• "Giant Squid Discovered Off Japan!" Completely irrelevant, but I thought it worth mentioning. (No matter what stupid things human beings continue to argue about, the natural world rolls on. There's a reason it's called "horse sense.")
• Demi Moore marries Ashton Kutchner. Finally, a "Lolita" story that's more "Lolito." (I wonder how Bruce feels about all this.)
• Are gas prices going up? Are heating prices going up? Sure, and sure. They haven't yet, but they will... as long as more profit can be had.
• The Dover school district is arguing in court about whether they should include a pithy little disclaimer about "evolution not yet being a 'proven' theory" and that students should be directed to other ideas about how life began. Don't people have better things to do with their time than debate a pathetic disclaimer? I guess not: After all, if the Right wins, the country will become religiously despotic, while if the Left wins, we all go to Hell.
• Paxil linked to birth defects. And Merck wants a mistrial declared for the Vioxx shindig.

Sometimes life seems more "reality TV" than reality.