connecting*the*dots

All signs point to George W. Bush being a man of God, right? I mean, apparently the man upstairs told him to go to war — and we’re now at war — so there must be some truth to the observation.

Ludwig Miles van der Rohe, the architect of architects, famously stated that “God is in the details.” Just as compelling of an absolutist argument is the entire argument for Intelligent Design, which essentially states that life is too complex for evolution to produce our existence, so a master creator must have designed every particular detail of our being to work within a grand scheme of this stage we call Earth.

Using such logic — living in the modernist world of W. — wouldn’t that hold our most innocuous squakings and flubs as being divine instances of truth? That Freud guy had some major God love running through his veins, eh?

The Huffington Post
W: “My Government”
by Marty Kaplan

Here’s how W is defending the Dubai decision: “The more people learn about the transaction that has been scrutinized and approved by my government, the more they’ll be comforted…”

For a moment, set aside the “trust-me” part of this, and focus instead on the “my government” bit.

If he’d said “my administration,” I wouldn’t have blinked. “My cabinet” would also have raised no hackles. If he really wanted to use the word “government,” then how about these pronouns as antecedents for “people”: “their government” or “our government.”

But no, he said “my government.” I don’t think that’s just a garden variety Bushism, a trivial malapropism. I think it goes right to his understanding of who he is, and who we are. It’s not a Freudian slip; it’s an Orwellian siren, an anti-democratic red alert.

The founding documents of our nation talk about the government, our government, a government, any government. If my is used, it’s said on behalf of the citizens, not their rulers.

But W really believes that it’s his government. He doesn’t see himself as a steward, a trustee, a caretaker, someone who temporarily gets to steer the ship of state because of the momentary consent of the governed and an enduring set of rules. No, he believes it’s his ship, his state, his rules — his and his ideological fellow-travelers.

The heads of some countries with parliamentary systems, like India, sometimes say “my government”; when they do, it means ‘my Cabinet,” “my temporary ruling colition,” “my majority” — which could fall in an instant, if there were a no-confidence vote.

But in the US, we don’t have governments that get made and dissolved year-round; we have Administrations, that get formed every four years.

In the American context, unless it’s an ordinary citizen like you or me speaking, let’s recognize the expression “my government” as what it really is: a deeply troubling oxymoron, the inappropriate yoking together of a democratic institution and — well, a moron.

In 1998, I found myself working for my first professional web design agency. I stress professional not only for the brilliant talent within the walls of the shop and the output they generated, but for their business etiquette as well. You see, I was specifically trained that when speaking with a client, I was to refer to my design iterations as “our” ideas and “our” designs. Self-referrential language shifted the focus of the client from the team to the individual, and within such a big money, high-pressure profession, that’s the last thing an account executive wants to deal with.

How does this anecdote fit with this latest Bushism? I honestly don’t know. But if it isn’t too much too ask from his highness, how about acting professional and pretending for a minute that we’re in this together, because unfortunately, we are.

(via Matthew Gross)

Artist: KRS-One
Song: The Truth

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(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

Listen to the lyric as the negative is shrinkin
It’s shrinkin out your life when you decide to change your thinkin
One of the first things we gotta switch around of course
Is Jesus Christ, and him dying on the cross
You’re looking at the cross, surrounded in it’s mystery
With Jesus on the cross in a, total misery
Now seperate Jesus from the cross so you can see
The truth about the cross, and the cross’s history
The cross was created by the Roman government
It’s only purpose and use, is cap-i-tal punishment
But Jesus Christ, was all about the revolution
While the cross was used as Jesus Christ’s execution
See what if Jesus Christ, was hung upon a tree
Upon every church wall, that’s exactly what you’d see
If Jesus Christ, was shot in the head with no respect
We’d all have little gold guns around our neck
If Jesus Christ was killed in electic chair, now get it
You’d be knealing to the electric chair with Jesus, still in it
You gaze upon the cross, and you see the execution
You yell stop the violence but the cross you’re still using

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

So I say listen, listen, open up your third eye vision
God is not down with religion
Religion they be sellin it, listen up, God is intelligent
Reading of the bible is irrelevant
You gotta look within yourself, not a scripture
KRS-One comes to rearrange the God picture
If you sit and believe, you can acheive
If you sit and accept, you don’t know, what’s correct
or incorrect, take for instance Adam and Eve
The first two people on the planet, or so you believe
Their first time in heaven kids they had, Cain and Abel
Huh, now let me show you why the story’s unstable
According to the story, according to what you believe
There was only Cain, Abel, Adam, and Eve
on the whole planet, now use your intellect
and tell me, what did Cain and Abel do for sex?
Upon the whole planet there was not another
Could it be for sex, heh, they were looking at each other?
Hold up! I thought the church wasn’t into that
But wait, still yet, there is another fact
How did the world get populated?
Now tell me if I’m wrong, but obviously Eve had it goin on
Think for a minute, I know it gets notorious
But yo G, check out the chorus

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)