Santorum - That's Latin for...

My friends,

Permit me a brief political digression in this snow-starved winter season.  My elemental, to-my-core, stone-cold, visceral loathing of former senator and current Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum came flooding back to me when I saw this picture:

Stephen Crowley of The New York Times snapped it as the candidate spoke at a black church in Florida about a week ago.  It eloquently captures its moment: the crushing ennui of the berobed African American choirmembers, the blithering bloviation inherent in each of Santorum's speeches, the miserable failure of a staged photo opportunity--the churchgoers flanking the candidate, separated by race but united by their shared hatred of the devil, the unlikely supporters urging him on to speak the truth.  It is a frozen moment into which perhaps too much meaning can be read, but it is also one from which a deeply satisfying amusement can be derived.

In case you haven't been following along, Santorum scared the ever-loving shit out of reasonable people all over this land when he won the Iowa caucus, suggesting that he might actually have a chance to win the Republican nomination (and thereafter--*shudder*--the presidency).  He has faded in the primaries since, but his viability as a vice-presidential candidate remains strong.

Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska pegged Santorum best early in Rick's career.  He said, "Santorum - that's Latin for 'asshole.'"

If you're still unconvinced that Bob Kerrey was right - and you haven't been following with glee Dan Savage's  nearly decade-long public vendetta against Santorum - here are some words directly from his own mouth:

• “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”

• “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”

• “Let’s look at what’s going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity. So what is going to be taught to our people in health class in our schools? What is going to be taught to our children about who in our stories, even to little children — what are married couples? What families look like in America? So, you are going to have in our curriculum spread throughout our curriculum worldview that is fundamentally different than what is taught in schools today? Is that not a consequence of gay marriage?”

• “I don’t want to make black people's live better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”

• “The American Left hates Christendom. They hate Western civilization.”

• “It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.”

• “All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis.  They are not Palestinians.  There is no Palestinian.  This is Israeli land.”

So: he's a virulent homophobe, a supporter of abstinence-only education, a homeschooling zealot who would love nothing more than to dismantle the public education system, a bloody racist, an unapologetic booster of Israeli Zionism, and a pro-business capitalist who favors privatization and eschews regulation.

In short: he's a nightmare for anyone with a brain or a heart.

Monsoon

Das Geheimnis des fliegenden Fisch...

...or, the Mystery of the Flying Fish.  Allow me to explain.

On Wednesday evening, I parked my car on the street across from my home.  On Thursday morning, I returned to this vehicle to find a dead fish lying next to it.  I called Mrs. Monsoon over to take a look, but neither of us could make sense of it.  Then I noticed that the dead fish had evidently been flung (with more than a little bit of force) against the driver's side door/window/side mirror of my car, leaving a telltale slick of fish guts and scales but no damage.  I have illustrated the incident for you below with two pictures taken at the scene and time of the fishy discovery.

The creature in question. It is a perch, according to friends, and it is delicious when prepared with a little bit of butter and lemon. This one, not so appetizing.The aforementioned fish guts and scales. Difficult to see, but I promise they're there.

I made my way to school and began to speculate (with the help of my trusty colleagues) what this could mean, if anything.  A Google search revealed that a dead fish left on one's doorstep is a warning that he or she is going to be killed (i.e., will soon be "sleeping with the fishes" in organized crime parlance).

[In response to this revelation, a very wise acquaintance of mine wondered aloud, "If a fish means you'll be sleeping with the fishes, what does a horse head in your bed mean, that you'll be sleeping with the horses?  What would that even mean?"  What, indeed.]

Today, my good people, there was another fish--not in the same place, and this one had not been flung at my car.  But it was a fresh fish on the other side of the street (more or less in front of our house) nonetheless.  There was also a dead baby animal, possibly a squirrel, not far away.

I have just one question, and perhaps you fine readers can help me out with an answer:

Several theories have emerged to explain this piscine perplexity--some plausible, some delightfully implausible, some so crazy they just might work.  Here is a mishmosh...

1. This is a tragic case of the rare but heartbreaking phenomenon of serial ichthycide: catching (or even purchasing) live fish, only to end their lives by flinging them against an immovable object at high speed.

2. Fish suicide.  Too sad to even elaborate.

3. The random acts of local hooligans.  Young tom-fools, well lubricated with liquor and laden with a bucketful of fresh-caught fish from Muddy Creek, decided to drive down our street in the wee hours and fling the fish at cars.  Makes cow-tipping look like a night at the opera.

4. I am being targeted by someone I have rankled: a mouthbreathing tea party type, a disgruntled student, an unabashed white person.  The theory is that these fishy incidents will chasten me to stop whatever behavior is causing the objection (in the list above: thinking, grading, and listening to hip hop).

5. I am being targeted because I am a teacher, and according to many right-wingers, teachers and their unions are the root of all the social and economic evils now faced by our society.

6. I am being targeted by broken-nose types for reasons I cannot fathom.

7. I am being targeted by any number of organizations, for any number of reasons that I will not enumerate here: the Victor Emmanuel Society, the Knights of Columbus, the Boy Scouts of America...

8. A hawk with missing talons has caught the fish in the creek, but then dropped them due to its disfigurement.  This would explain both fishes and the baby rodent, mind you, and I thank Wendi for her demented genius.

9. The nine-year-old girl in the pink jacket who lives nearby is actually a child prodigy who has built a fully functioning catapult out of twigs and acorns; she has been testing it out using creatures killed by her pet cat and left in their yard.

Well, that's it.  Vote for your favorite, or provide another idea.  The best ones will be included in my next post.  I've gotta move on: bigger fish to fry.  (Sorry.  I showed admirable fish-idiom restraint throughout that story, I think.)

Friday night, rain tapering to scattered drizzle by the evening.  Low 38.

Saturday, foggy to start, and then mostly cloudy; slight chance of showers in the morning and early afternoon.  Breezy.  High 58, low 44.

Sunday, cloudy and rainy, mainly in the afternoon.  High 64, low 53.

Monday, partly cloudy with warm southwest breezes.  Look for strong thunderstorms in the late afternoon and evening.  High 79, low 56.

Tuesday, very windy and markedly cooler with the chance of a lingering shower or thunderstorm in the morning.  High 61, low 36.

Wednesday, sunny, breezy and pleasant.  High 63, low 40.

Thursday, partly cloudy and warmer.  High 69, low 46.

Friday, cloudy with rain possible.  High 65, low 54.

Next weekend (the 16th and 17th), rainy and warmer with highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s.

Monsoon

Two bat wings, one Einstein quote, countless profanities, and a tender hug

My good people.

On Tuesday, I witnessed the smarmiest, most unrepentantly rank speech I have ever seen in my teaching career.  It was so irredeemably repugnant, so gallingly putrid, that at times it almost rose to the level of art.

The assignment was the farewell address, which is an opportunity for seniors to reflect on their formative years as they prepare to graduate—in terms of academics, activities, relationships, interests, and the like—and present these well-formed and organized ruminations to the class.  Many students use the opportunity to talk about an aptitude or pursuit of which many of their peers may not have been aware.  Others talk about drug-addicted parents, profound losses, and even psychological struggles of their own.  Still others confine their remarks to lighthearted remembrances of the ordinary vicissitudes and occasional monkeyshines of adolescent life.

And then there are those who are seemingly engaged in some sort of unseen scavenger hunt to cause the most offense, draw the deepest gasps, and elicit the most soul-sick groans from the instructor.

Me.

Allow me to hit the highlights of Tuesday’s final speech in my final senior class of the school year.  I have inexplicably changed the names to protect the vile.  So let’s call Tuesday’s presenter Ignacio Boondoggle.

The speech, it goes without saying, received a grade of zero.  And while there were some innocuous reflections and even some sweet moments, they were drowned out by the relentless flood of foulness recounted below.  Some of it is nearly amusing; some of it is vaguely troubling; some of it is downright disturbing.  All of it is profane.  You have been warned.

• The speech began with Ignacio's exhortation to the class to “settle the fuck down!”  And settle the fuck down, they did.
• Ignacio lamented that he didn’t have a lot of pictures of him and his friend Travis Banjo because “we’re not gay.”  He later reiterated the statement, lest anyone misperceive their special relationship.
• Ignacio reported that he and Travis would often engage in a “ball-grabbing war” to pass the time, and that often, when one of them was feeling down, they would just “grab each other’s balls” to lift one another’s spirits.
• Ignacio also reported playing “The Penis Showing Game” when bored in class.  (Apparently this game originates from the film Waiting.)  Bart would show Ignacio the “Bat Wing”; Ignacio would show Bart the “Shy Turtle.”  This would be done at the most inappropriate moments possible in order to enhance their enjoyment of this pastime.
• Ignacio likes to get, and be, naked.  He met his good friend Bart when he screamed “Group hug!” in the showers one day after gym class.  Bart was the first (and only) respondent to Ignacio’s invitation.
• He frequently plays strip rock-paper-scissors and admitted that quite probably—on a subconscious level—he purposely loses these games so he can remove more clothing.  Ignacio also reported getting in trouble for a nudity-related stunt in chemistry class last year: he climbed inside a cabinet and pressed his bare buttocks against its glass doors, giving the teacher (and his peers) an unwanted show.
• Once, in accounting class, the teacher was conducting an exercise and needed a fictional name for an imaginary checking account.  Ignacio obligingly supplied “Gum Cuzzler,” and the teacher began writing it on the board.  Once she realized the suggestive intent of his suggestion, the teacher sent Ignacio from the classroom.  “I got in trouble for that one,” he recalled blithely.
• Reported playing “Smear the queer”—in which a target is identified and all others attack him—when he joined the soccer team in high school.  He helpfully had this phrase in his PowerPoint presentation so there would be no question as to its proper spelling and usage.
• A portly young man's shirt ripped during gym class and his “boob” came out.  Ignacio threatened to “titty-fuck” him.  (At this time, I interrupted Ignacio to ask him if he remembered the conversation we had last week, in which I cautioned him against including inappropriate content in his speech and he had promised he would tone it down.  He said he did remember, and he would tone it down.  But by this point he was like a runaway train of ribaldry.  He could not—would not—be stopped).
• In Ocean City, Ignacio, Travis and Bart spent the time “trying to pick up fat chicks.”
• Ignacio made reference to a film called Two Girls One Cup, and the fact that it changed his life.  (The film's title also graced a PowerPoint slide.)  A cursory Google search indicates that the film is actually the unofficial title of the trailer for a scat-fetish pornographic film called Hungry Bitches.  If you don't know what “scat-fetish” is, you are lucky, and you should not find out.  The appearance of the title and mention of the film was met with uproarious laughter from many of the boys in attendance.  (There is apparently a spate of videos taken of people’s reactions when seeing the video in question for the first time.  Search “2 Girls 1 Cup reactions” on YouTube for examples of this fascinating phenomenon.  My favorite is also from one of my favorite musical groups of all time, hip hop giants The Roots; be warned, you need to turn down your computer’s volume, because there is lots of horrified screaming.  None of these reaction videos shows the actual pornographic clip, rest assured.)
• Ignacio stated, in a matter-of-fact way, that his prom date this year was a “whore.”  Just as notably, he seemed untroubled by this young lady’s apparent harlotry.
• Ignacio admitted losing many leg-wrestling matches at family functions because he was competing against “grown-ass men.”
• Ignacio's penultimate slide read as follows:  “Your only young once so fuck shit up.” - Albert Einstein.  I have several problems with the inclusion of this quotation: first, some in the audience apparently believed it was plausible that Albert Einstein had uttered the phrase attributed to him, which their bewildered questions revealed; second, the use of ‘your’ where ‘you’re’ would have been proper proves that my efforts to teach Ignacio the difference between a possessive and a contraction were an utter failure; third, I quit.
• The slideshow—and his speech—closed with a self-portrait which Ignacio had shot the previous evening.  It featured Ignacio recumbent on a bed, completely nude, with a blanket covering his groin.  At this, I sprang up from my seat and turned the computer projector off.  Though the photograph was not revealing in any specific way, its horrifyingly suggestive tone—and its subject’s unmistakably lascivious gaze—were very much the last straw for me.  In so many ways.
• After the rest of the class had left and I was still reeling from what had just happened, Ignacio approached me gingerly, said he was sorry that things got out of hand, thanked me for putting up with him all year, and gave me a tender hug.  And with that, he was gone.

Never shall I forget that speech.  Not if I live a thousand lifetimes, not if I have ten thousand more students.  Notwithstanding any hypnotism, primal scream therapy, traumatic brain injury, or other Eternal Sunshine-esque method of targeted memory erasure I might visit upon myself.  Never.

And so I ask those of you who are not in the education field: remember well what I have told you, and consider gently the grim task of the teacher in dealing with these sorts of tom-fools.

Thank you for your time.  I am getting an early start to summer vacation.

Monsoon

Monsoon Martin's Open Letter to White People re: Barack Obama

National polls conducted since the end of the Republican National Convention have shown John McCain with a lead over Barack Obama as high as four percentage points, but that’s not even the aspect of the poll I found most alarming. Recent polling indicates that “whites” support McCain over Obama at a rate of 55-60% to 35-40% consistently—nearly 20 percentage points in most polls.

Now, I don’t trust polls, particularly in this election that features millions of newly registered voters, comprised of Democrats over Republicans at a rate of 2 to 1; and in which (mostly) young voters who have only cell phones are not being reached by traditional polling methods. But the resurgence of the McCain campaign since adding the Barracuda to the ticket is undeniable—there are (overwhelmingly white) people across this land who have been taken in by Sarah Palin’s “jus’ folks” persona and plainspoken convictions. (I have spent more than a little time over the past two weeks dissecting and directing vitriol toward Alaska Governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin—some have commented that my visceral reaction to her ascendancy has been “obsessive” and even “worrisome”—so I won’t belabor that point. At least not right now. Just prior to the election, I will present my list of reasons why not to vote for John McCain, for the undecided or McCain-leaning voters in my audience.)

And finally, I’m getting a little hinked out about the potential for the so-called Wilder Effect. This refers to the 1989 gubernatorial election in Virginia in which Democrat Douglas Wilder (African American) ran against Republican Marshall Coleman (white): polling in the days before the election indicated that Wilder would win the office comfortably, by at least a 9% margin; he actually won by a half-percent, a result so close it had to be verified by recount. It seems—as the theory runs, supported by post-election polling and studies—some white folks had told pollsters they would vote for Wilder, had walked into the polling place intending to vote for Wilder, but once the curtain closed, they just could not bring themselves to pull the lever for a Black man.

The fact that racism still exists in this country in many forms is as undeniable as the fact that many white people supported and continue to support the candidacy of Barack Obama—not despite or because of his racial heritage, but with indifference to it. But consider this: while current national polling reveals 5% of whites admit they would not vote for Obama because he is Black, exit polling after the Democratic Pennsylvania primary indicated that more than one in six white voters who chose a candidate other than Obama did so because of his race.

All of these factors have me and some other progressives contemplating the unthinkable fewer than 50 days before the election: that John McCain could actually end up winning the goddamned thing. And so, I need to have a chat with the white people who will decide this election—Hispanics are supporting Obama at a rate of 66% or higher, while African-Americans are going for the Democratic ticket at greater than 90% in most polls. Yes, white folks, it wasn’t enough to colonize this land and control its inhabitants, its corporate holdings, its commerce, and its government, its judiciary, for 400 years; now you’re going to be the key factor in deciding whether this nation, whose past is so stained with the wretched heritage of bigotry, will elect its first Black president. Whites, Caucasians, ofays, crackers, honkys: I’m talking to you.

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Dear White People,

It has come to my attention that despite Barack Obama’s historic campaign, despite the millions of people from all walks of life who support him, and despite the fact that Republicans have sent this great country shimmying down the shitpipe over the past seven-plus years, a nearly two-to-one majority of you say you will not be voting for the Democratic ticket in November.

I know some of you are scared. You’ve been worked up into a lather by right-wing talk show hosts, pundits, email chains, and your screwy Uncle Jed, who have all told you of the horrors that will be visited upon the American populace if Barack Obama should be allowed to take the Oath of Office.

My melanin-challenged friends, I need you to take a long, brutally honest look inside yourselves—down “in places you don’t talk about at parties” (Col. Nathan Jessup, USMC, in A Few Good Men)—and figure out just what’s stopping you from supporting Senator Obama. I have strong doubts that it’s because you feel passionate about the candidacy of John McCain, one of the least-compelling candidates I can recall.

It’s OK. Your old pal Monsoon is here to help you deal with the fallout from this potentially unpleasant journey of soul-searching. The reason I’ve contacted you, White America, is to reassure you about some key points that may have found their way into your subconscious “Why I don’t want to vote for that Obama guy” litany—either through your email inbox, impromptu discussions at the grocery store, or even through years of internalized messages about race and racism in America.

• One of the most persistent and pervasive rumors—10% of respondents in most polls report that they believe this is true—is that Barack Hussein Obama is a radical Muslim who took his oath of office as Senator from Illinois on a Koran instead of a Bible. As President, his “geographical allegiance” would be to Mecca—where adherents of Islam direct their prayers—rather than to the country he has been elected to lead. In fact, the rumors suggest, he is only seeking the presidency in the hope of waging global jihad from inside the White House. (Pundits on Fox News and CNN have even referred to him as “Osama” in an unforgivably Freudian slip.) Not that it should really matter in a country that prides itself on being a “melting pot” of diversity, tolerance, and freedom of worship, but Barack Obama has repeatedly stated he’s a Christian, and there is no credible evidence that he attended an Indonesian madrassa (radical Muslim school) as a youth. Do any of you recall the shitstorm that rained down on him for the incendiary comments of his pastor and longtime spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright? I think that pretty much seals it.

• Another tack in the “smearing” of Obama’s spiritual values goes something like this: Actually, he’s not a Muslim or a Christian; he’s an atheist who will infest the world with his godlessness and trample on the rights of Christians. Well, now this is damning, quite literally. In a country where 85%-90% of its citizens believe in God—and 60%-70% believe in angels—it is understandable that folks would want a President who shares their religious values. But it’s a crying shame, too, that Americans can’t look beyond this sort of thing and realize that a lack of religious conviction does not necessarily preclude an individual from exhibiting values like charity, empathy, and fairness. In fact, look at the example of born-again Christian George W. Bush, who has said repeatedly that God “speaks through” him and directs his decisions, particularly those that shore up U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Anyhoo, Barack Obama is an avowed Christian. End of story.

• Barack Obama, according to some widely distributed email chains, is the antichrist. He is the “King of South” (referencing Daniel)—since he is “from” Kenya, which is south of Jerusalem—who shall “shall do as he pleases, exalting himself and making himself greater than any god; he shall utter dreadful blasphemies against the God of gods.” The antichrist is described in John as a man who will have incredible charisma, who will gain the backing of millions of followers through his promises of bringing peace and instilling hope, and who will ultimately establish dominion over the entire world, turning God’s creation into a reeking hell, according to the emails. The Book of Revelation describes the fact that the antichrist will be a Muslim man in his 40s who will rule for 42 months (almost a full Presidential term). He will come mounted on a white female horse (and Obama’s mother had six African husbands—nice misogynistic conflation of a female horse with Obama’s mama, Ann Dunham, who seems to have actually been married just twice, and only once to an African man). Obama “hails from” Chicago, whose zip code is 60606 (see those three sixes?).  In point of fact, the book of Revelation does mention a beast, “[a]nd there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” But there’s nothing about the “beast” (no mention of antichrist in the New Testament) being and in his 40s of Muslim descent, and nothing about a horse. In addition—oh, screw it. If you truly believe that Barack Obama is the antichrist, then you need more help than I can give you, or indeed than the finest psychiatric facilities can provide. Besides, everyone knows that the real antichrist is the incomparable überstar of stage, screen, and song, David Hasselhoff.

• Another popular argument insists that Barack Obama will favor Blacks over whites in his policy-making. (He’s even been “endorsed” by Louis Farrakhan, for god’s sakes.) If this were true, couldn’t it also be said that a white President, simply by virtue of his skin color, would ignore Black issues? (Kanye West’s observation that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” after the criminally negligent Katrina response notwithstanding, you see the point I’m trying to make.) In point of fact, Barack Obama has been assailed by many in his own community for failing to address issues like civil rights and poverty aggressively enough. The Rev. Jesse Jackson even commented into a “hot mike” that he’d like to “cut [Obama’s] nuts off” for making speeches insisting that Black fathers take responsibility for their children, a fairly conservative viewpoint. To be sure, Barack Obama’s diverse racial heritage makes him uniquely attuned to issues of race—his platform includes promises to strengthen civil rights laws and end racial profiling—but he’s not going to establish a D.C. (“Dark Country,” as Richard Pryor memorably fantasized about the District of Columbia) once elected. Barack Obama has been described as the first “postracial” candidate: he has garnered support for his policies and his abilities, not typically because of, or in spite of, his race. (Even his “race speech” in Philadelphia, perhaps his most famous address, focused on transcending rather than celebrating racial differences.) So: he’s not going to institute mandatory break-dancing lessons on the South Lawn or commission Ludacris to write a new hip-hop National Song "Starz and Stripez (Fo' Yo' Ass)" to replace “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Play dates, scrapbooking bees, and Mary Kay cosmetics demonstrations will continue unabated. Banana Republic will remain open for business and fully stocked with khaki. John Tesh concerts will, unfathomably, go on as scheduled. Your Netflix queue will not be disrupted. Take a deeeeeep breath. There.

• In a related line of thinking, sky-is-falling types suggest that Michelle Obama hates her country, will wield too much power in influencing her husband, flaunts her support of terrorism by fist-bumping her husband, and will invite militant Black Power groups like the Panthers to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. It has been alleged (in footnoted diatribes, increasing their apparent legitimacy) that in her Princeton thesis she wrote that America was founded on “crime and hatred” and that white people are “ineradicably racist.” But thorough checks of her thesis have revealed that neither of these phrases appear anywhere in the thesis. Some think that, like her husband, she will “elevate black over white,” but no evidence exists to suggest this would come to pass. Surely, as I said above, she will advocate for some of the issues—welfare reform, poverty, affordable housing, crime—that disproportionately affect the Black community. But as she would be the first African American First Lady, it would be a squandered opportunity not to address these problems. Finally, regarding Michelle Obama, there’s the matter of her comment in February that “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.” Okay, bad choice of words there, admittedly. But she was celebrating the fact that people of all races had come together behind her husband, a step many would have deemed highly unlikely prior to this historic election season.

• Some pundits and even ordinary folks like to paint Obama as an ivory-tower elitist because of his Harvard Education and the fact that his manner seems erudite and even aloof at times. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, the argument goes, and he has trouble relating to ordinary folks. (Some of you call him “arrogant” or “uppity,” an observation that has its roots in a time of more overt and limiting racism when Blacks had to stay “in their place.” Surely his affect is not more arrogant than that of Bill Clinton, yet few people have dwelt on his “uppity” manner.) First, to address the elitism: one does not work successfully as a community organizer in the most impoverished sections of Chicago, as Obama did, by being an out-of-touch elitist. Second, Barack Obama will not make you feel stupid—unless you are. Has it occurred to you that our President should be smarter than we are? He’s faced with entrenched, complex problems in every area of his governance—foreign policy, the domestic economy, healthcare, environmental stewardship, and more—so I’d just as soon see a guy with an egghead in the White House. (Not to beat a lame duck, but we’ve just suffered through seven and a half years of being led by a guy who graduated Yale with a C average, with seemingly no natural curiosity, who has led more with his “gut” than with his brain. And look how well that’s turned out.) Finally: the very notion that John McCain, who owns nine houses (so many that he’s lost count) and whose wife, Cindy, is worth at least $100 million, would call Barack Obama an elitist is absurd on its face.

• It has also been circulated that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance and won’t wear a flag pin, and is therefore unpatriotic. He’s in the “blame America first” crowd and will not exhibit the love of country needed to govern correctly. Oh, here we go again with the slippery definitions. Specifically, what is patriotism? If wrapping yourself in the flag and a horrific national tragedy as you send thousands of inadequately equipped young people to die in (and mercilessly bomb) a sovereign nation, then cut veterans’ benefits, is patriotic, then President Bush surely is. If patriotism is standing by idly as more than 2,000 citizens on the Gulf Coast perish due to the ineptness of a grossly underfunded agency headed by one of your cronies, then let’s have a big “God Bless America” for W. again. If it’s patriotic to offer your buddies in big business tax breaks for outsourcing American jobs, moving plants abroad, and polluting the environment, then by all means, let’s hear it for G-Dub. I, on the other hand, prefer to define patriotism in the following way: a true patriot will be eternally vigilant in evaluating and criticizing his government; a true patriot loves his country too much to see it hijacked by the religious right and neo-conservative war-hawks. And finally: the pictures that purport to show Obama refusing to put his hand on his heart during the Pledge were actually snapped during the Anthem, and he’s singing. As for the flag pin, I can’t fathom a more trivial matter with which to concern ourselves during this dire time in America.

• I have heard that his tax plan will raise taxes on all of us to pay for his social programs, driving us into a recession; his economic plan will harm American businesses, hamstring the free market, and cost American jobs. Hello? The economic climate now—under a Republican administration—is not looking too rosy. For a supposed “conservative,” G.W. Bush has played fast and loose with the national treasury in funding a war of aggression against a nation that posed no threat to the United States, subsidized companies doing business in Iraq, bailed out two mortgage giants and now the world’s largest insurer (AIG), etc. Obama’s tax plan would actually provide tax relief for 150 million working families and shift the burden onto the super-rich. He would also seek to hold companies accountable for unethical practices, tax windfall profits, protect workers’ rights to organize, raise the minimum wage, crack down on predatory lending (including credit cards), reform bankruptcy laws to favor consumers, and seek to maintain and create jobs in the U.S. by eliminating tax breaks for companies that shift their operations overseas or outsource. And he’d introduce much-needed regulatory controls to curb speculation in the market.

• According to critics, Barack Obama is a peacenik who wants to talk to our enemies without preconditions and will be hesitant to use military force. First of all, listen to the man’s speeches: to my personal dismay, he has said that he actually wants to increase troop levels in Afghanistan while leaving Iraq; would attack Iran if necessary; and would consider any unilateral act of aggression against Israel an act against the United States, potentially answering that violence with military might. So while he’s certainly not in the category of a Richard Perle in terms of his hawkishness, he’s not nearly the effete, slow-to-act caricature that’s been painted in some quarters. And finally, just what in happy hell is wrong with talking to our “enemies”—I mean, really giving diplomacy a shot, unlike the charade that ensued in the first months of 2003 before the U.S. invasion of Iraq—before things get really out of hand? It’s not as if sitting and talking is going to make the U.S. look weak; it’s going to make us look prudent and deliberate, two qualities that have been sorely lacking in this country’s foreign policy.

• On a related note, some folks are bothered by the fact that Barack Obama’s candidacy has been embraced by people of all backgrounds living around the world. If people in the Middle East and throughout Europe love him, the “thinking” goes, that means he is going to collude with them in taking down the American system and way of life. Oh, here’s a doozy. His popularity is now a liability? In a recent television ad, John McCain’s campaign even tried to link Obama’s popularity in the U.S. and abroad to “famous just for being famous” figures like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. (How would McCain now explain the crowds who have been flocking to see—and have been forming a cult of personality around—his running mate, Sarah Palin?) You see, I thought it was good to be popular, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Barack Obama’s popularity stems, it seems to me, from a few key characteristics: his elocution, his relative youth, his promise of change, and the fact that his candidacy represents promise and possibility to those, here and abroad, who viewed America as hopelessly racist in its domestic policies and determinedly exceptionalist in its foreign policies.

• Speaking of his youth, many worry that he lacks adequate experience to be Commander-in-Chief; he’s only worked as a community organizer, taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago law school, was elected state senator, and now U.S. Senator. Well—and forgive me from dwelling on the current administration, but I’ve got some emotional brush to clear in purging myself of accumulated anger—we had an experienced guy and he didn’t work out too well. George W. Bush skirted Vietnam, ran some oil companies and then a baseball team into the ground, helped his daddy get elected, spent about five years as Governor of Texas, and then was appointed President of the United States by the Supreme Court in 2000. And what “experience” can really prepare one to be President? It’s the qualities of judgment and wisdom and a sensible, far-sighted approach to governance we can use to ascertain if a person will make a good leader. Barack Obama, in my view, has these qualities.

• While we’re on the subject: some denigrate his speeches as too “smooth” and polished. My friends, I think we could stand a President who is thoughtful and articulate after seven and a half years of cringing at the non-sequiturs of a nannering ninny. We’ve had a President for two terms now who reminded us of a guy we’d like to go bowling with. Now we need somebody who can actually process thoughts into intelligible words and sentences—never mind that he can’t bowl to save his life (rolling a 37 in Altoona back in a March campaign stop). Heck, maybe he’ll even tear out the White House’s bowling alley and install a basketball court when he wins. (Oh—sorry, white folks. Didn’t mean to scare you there.)

• To some, his lack of bowling prowess—his style was derided in some quarters as “dainty”—proves that he’s out of touch with the common man. Seriously? To me it just proves that he’s fallible. And do you really want a guy to be hitting the lanes for two, three hours each night to hone his skills? Shouldn’t he be reading, studying policy memos, deciding the fate of the free world—shit like that?

• He’s not going to take your guns, as NRA alarmists posit—you’ll still be able to shoot animals and intruders to your heart’s content. But he may take steps that will eventually remove some handguns and assault weapons off the streets of our most dangerous cities and towns—and that’s incontestably a good thing.

• He admitted to using cocaine, marijuana, and drinking alcohol to excess while in high school. Well, la-de-freakin-da. You just described more than half of teenagers nationwide, according to polls, at least with the weed and booze. And at least he admitted it. Jeez. And another thing: Barack Obama is a longtime smoker who has reportedly kicked the habit while on the campaign trail. Now that’s impressive self-discipline.

• It is often alleged that Obama is the “most liberal congressman in the entire U.S. Senate” – according to a study done by the National Review – but (again, to my dismay) this is patently false. His support for the Bush wiretapping bill and his unequivocal support for Israel are just two of many examples that bear this out. And since his days as a community organizer and perhaps even before, Barack Obama has displayed an almost obsessive commitment to building consensus. Indeed, his campaign has drawn record numbers of independents and even Republicans to support him, and there is little reason to speculate that he’ll morph into the spineless, godless liberal bogeyman of Ann Coulter’s worst nightmares.

• And finally, rest easy: Barack Obama will not use his gigantic lips to transport half of the citizens of Cuba to the United States to be granted political asylum. What—what??! Yes, my friends, according to an article in the Reading Eagle that was picked up by some national outlets, this was the brilliant statement made by Adam LaDuca, a senior at Kutztown University—ah, I fairly swell with pride that it’s in Berks County—on his weblog: he has “a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would).” In his defense, LaDuca insulated himself from charges of bigotry with the following caveat: “And man, if sayin’ someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we’re ALL in trouble.” (As we all know, prefacing an utterance with a clarification of its intent is always the most effective way to deflect the truth, a la: “I don’t mean to be racist, but why do Black people talk so damned funny?” or “I’m not a sexist or anything, but why doesn’t Hillary Clinton just go home, put on an apron, and bake me some cookies?”) Anyhoo, LaDuca—who, by the way, in a delicious bit of synergy, was the executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans—was forced to resign his post. LaDuca, you may remember, held an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” when he was president of the College Republicans at Kutztown—at which whites were charged more for cookies than Blacks. What. A. Guy.

Well, white people, I hope you’ve found this a worthwhile enterprise, and that I’ve succeeded in helping you purge some of the ugly misconceptions surrounding the candidacy of the next President of the United States, Barack Obama. (If you felt calm or even inspired when you read that last bit, or even peed a little with joy, then our exercise here has worked. If you felt panic or loathing, or even threw up a little in your mouth, then we’ve still got work to do.) Feel free to send this to your fellow Caucasians across the political spectrum if you think my message will help in their decision-making processes.

Please contact me if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Monsoon

Update

on 2008-09-22 03:18 by Monsoon Martin

An AP/Yahoo! poll suggests that Obama's ofay problem may be even more significant than I posited above.  Though I disagree with the methodology of the study and therefore question both the reliability and validity of its findings, there are some potentially alarming indications here.  One such finding was, "Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice," which could be a game-changer if the election is anywhere near as close as polls suggest.

Monsoon

Monsoon Martin’s Open Letter to The Roots re: Deerhoof

Dear Legendary Roots Crew,

Have you heard of “tough love”? It’s when a friend or family member sits you down, fixes a grave stare upon you, and initiates a frank discussion about some shortcoming you have or some baffling behavior you’ve engaged in.

And before we get to the “tough” part, let me—as one should in any intervention that hopes to be successful—talk about the love I have for you.

I have been a rabid fan of your Grammy-winning, authentic hip-hop selves since hearing your song “Proceed II” with jazz institution Roy Ayers on the Red Hot + Cool compilation way back in 1995. I bought your first major-label album, Do You Want More?!!!??!, and instantly loved Black Thought’s flow and witty rhymes, ?uestlove’s inventive percussion, and the organic sound of it all. At a time when hip-hop was succumbing to widespread sampling and stale, programmed backing music, The Roots burst on the scene with live instrumentation, a multiplicity of influences, and fierce talent.

When you released your second major label album, Illadelph Halflife, I was at the release party at the now-defunct HMV Records in Philadelphia at midnight on September 24th, 1996.

Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, I’m sure you recall greeting us at the door and shaking my now-wife’s hand as she gaped at your massive, Afro-topped frame—6’ 5”, with the Afro 6’ 9”, apologies to Fletch. I’m sure you also recall that I excitedly notified my then-girlfriend as we walked away, “That was a Root!” (for I was not yet a dedicated enough fan to know the name of each band member). And you might finally recall—and who could blame you?—thinking to yourself at that moment, “White people.”

You played for free that night and rocked that store off its foundation with songs like “Concerto of the Desperado” and “Clones,” among others. Rahzel, the human beat-box who was in your employ for a time, was particularly outstanding during this intimate performance.

[For those of my readers who are unfamiliar with The Roots, might I direct you to two videos on YouTube—which you’re free to explore further to find other Roots treasures—that exemplify their artistry and energy in concert. In the first they are performing the song “Game Theory” from the album of the same name; the second video is a recent performance of one of their original hits, “Mellow My Man.”]

We followed you loyally from record label to record label, through band departures (Malik B., Hub) and additions (Kamal, Captain Kirk), through awards, critical successes, and disappointing sales, and popular breakthroughs.

But Roots (here comes the tough love part), What in funkless hell is up with Deerhoof?!!!??!

Deerhoof is an avant-indie-rock band based in San Francisco and has been described by the otherwise competent and reliable music critic Ben Ratliff of The New York Times as “one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade.”

I was blissfully unaware of Deerhoof before I attended my next Roots concert. Billed as “An Evening with The Roots,” the show was held on September 15th, 2005 at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall. I had noticed a full roster of at least five opening acts—none of whom I had heard of—but thought little of it. I had an outstanding ticket, having splurged on a box seat, and would see The Roots in a state-of-the art venue in their (and my, sort of) hometown. I was psyched.

I arrived midway through the “lesser” opening acts, which consisted mainly of local acts, close friends of the band, and other up-and-comers. The two most prominent openers for The Roots were TV on the Radio and Deerhoof. TV on the Radio was quirky but decent, though their set went a little long, and we (along with the overwhelming majority of the crowd) were anxious to see the headliners.

And then, Deerhoof came onstage.

My friends, I like many types of music and have been known to embrace unorthodox or experimental acts in my time. I remember listening to my dad’s Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefhart albums with a perplexed awe. Some of my favorite artists of all-time—Minutemen, John Coltrane, Jethro Tull, Fela Kuti, Rage Against the Machine—are artists who are notable for having blended genres, changed the rules, taken a stand, and dared to be distinctive. I am not some kind of musical ingénue who only likes to hear three-minute pop songs or something with a good beat. I like some goofy shit that ostensibly no one else does.

But I say this to you now: Deerhoof was the most upsetting aural experience of my lifetime.

Onto the stage stepped three slender, indistinctive white dudes who looked like they could have been plucked from any suburban high school’s A/V club. Accompanying them was a short Japanese woman, who appeared from her position onstage to be the bassist and vocalist.

The drummer, Greg Saunier, stepped to the microphone and offered a brief, endearing introduction to the band that went something like: “We’re Deerhoof, and we came from California. We hope you’ll like the sounds we make for you.” It was the very last moment I felt anything but fury toward Deerhoof.

And then they began to play.

Saunier instantly became a human Herky Jerk, playing spastic runs that sounded like snippets from a free-form drum solo, never really falling into any recognizable pattern or tempo whatsoever.

The other two guys held guitars and summoned tuneless, often distorted rock chords and the occasional tortured, miserable single note from them, and looked as if they believed they were playing actual music. Their guitar sounds seldom matched the percussive seizures that were happening behind them at the drum kit, as if they were isolated in some sort of invisible soundproof room. (If only I could have found such a room at that moment.)

And then there was the band’s diminutive singer/bassist, Satomi Matsuzaki. Dressed in what appeared to be pajamas, the Japanese-born Matsuzaki—who apparently speaks little English—flailed away inexpertly at her bass guitar, further adding to the musical cacophony. She also sang unintelligible lyrics in a high, gibbering, childish voice devoid of any attempt at consistent pitch.

The aforementioned Ben Ratliff of The New York Times described her thus: “Ms. Matsuzaki, who also plays bass in the quartet, never sang or played an instrument before joining the group 10 years ago, and her thin voice is an acquired taste; many of the English lyrics she sings do not use stresses where normal speech puts them, which can make them nearly impossible to understand.” This is all a very learned, affected way of saying, “The singer is atrocious, but those of you who are so shallow as to demand talent from your musical groups are too unsophisticated to comprehend what Deerhoof is all about.”

What she actually sang about is anyone’s guess. At one point she seemed to be crying, “Don’t eat meat! Don’t eat meat!” as if it were some kind of vegan manifesto, but she could also have been saying “Dominate!” or “Mosley Street!” or almost anything else at all. The lyrics of a song they sang that night, entitled “Flower,” run in part: “Flower, flower, flower / Power, power, power / I come over / I take over!”

[I admit that even my purple, overwrought prose may not be able to convey the actual sounds that confronted us that night when Deerhoof performed, so here are two videos from YouTube of their live performances. The first is entitled “Panda Panda Panda” and encapsulates pretty much all that is wrong about Deerhoof; the second is a live performance of “Flower,” some of whose lyrics are transcribed above. I want you all to check out at least one of these videos, but I must also apologize in advance for the adverse reactions—skin rashes, ear bleeding, and vertigo are not out of the question—you may experience from doing so. I feel like a man who has eaten a bite of a putrid sirloin steak, turns to his dining companions and says, “There’s something hinky about this. Try it.”]

The collective effect of a Deerhoof performance is the musical equivalent of postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida: inscrutable, pretentious, and infuriatingly obtuse. The sounds stop and start jarringly; the noise threatens fleetingly to fall into an actual meter, then veers wretchedly off into oblivion; and overlaying it all are the Minnie Mouse-like screechings of its lead vocalist, indecipherable and ridiculous.

I looked on with an ever-deepening, bewildered despair that I shall never forget as each song set new standards for unlistenability and horridness. At one point I tried to insist that even though the cumulative effect was horrific, I could tell that the drummer in particular was actually quite an accomplished musician; my companion glared at me with such betrayal in her eyes that I quickly realized any attempts to mitigate or elucidate this auditory travesty would be foolhardy.

I looked around at the diverse crowd that had assembled in Verizon Hall to hear their hip-hop heroes, The Roots: hardcore hip-hop fans; WXPN types who had been turned on to the band by their young urban professional friends; fans ranging in age from teens to fifties, easily. I saw everything from tautly polite expressions to gawping outrage, from bitter resentment to trying-to-make-sense-of-this confusion, from naked rage to blissed-out euphoria.

Wait—“blissed-out euphoria”? Yes, there they were: two art-school types, clearly dedicated Deerhoof fanatics, bopping along and gyrating to the strident din being blasted forth at the audience from the stage. They, I said to myself, and probably to my companion, are goddamned insane.

As I endured the hideous din onstage—which by now was calling to mind the irregular, heaving kecks of a vomiting mule—I fully expected one of The Roots to come onstage, halt the performance, and offer profuse apologies for its lack of quality. But unforgivably, and unforgettably, no such Root forthcame.

Deerhoof’s unceasing, blaring racket stretched on and on, seemingly for days, and I began to wonder why you, The Legendary Roots Crew, would have felt it necessary to inflict this desolate clamor upon your loyal and true fans. Have we—who came to support your joyous homecoming, your ascendancy to Philadelphia musical royalty, your acceptance by polite society—have we failed you in some fundamental way? Is this a punishment of some sort? (And if so: message received.)

The other possibility—and this one was almost more painful to consider—is that you guys actually like Deerhoof. And it’s this potentiality that brings us here to this intervention.

Roots, please hear me: Deerhoof is not, as its fans and some critics have asserted, deconstructing traditional structures and eliding the foundations and boundaries of popular music. Deerhoof is not delightfully turning the industry on its head, interrogating accepted paradigms, or meaningfully subverting compositional rules.

Deerhoof is sucking. That is all they are doing. They are sucking, and they are doing it hard. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better off you (and your fans) will be.

The one bright spot during Deerhoof’s set—aside from its eventual conclusion—occurred immediately following a rousing “tune” that featured Satomi Matsuzaki on cowbell, when a member of the audience bellowed, “More cowbell!” alluding to the “Saturday Night Live” sketch about a Blue Oyster Cult recording session.

Happily, you, the Legendary Roots Crew, played a blistering, two-and-a-half-hour set that night at Verizon Hall and I even met Black Thought—which, again, I’m sure you recall vividly—so the Deerhoof unpleasantness receded into the background of my memory. You came into the room led by a New Orleans jazz band (whose members had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and whom you—The Roots—had actually invited to stay at your homes), you had great guests like Dice Raw and even a surprise appearance by the incredible, incomparable Jill Scott.

Since that night, I have tried many times to explain to my friends the horror of—and explain to myself the appeal of—Deerhoof, who evidently has quite a cult following. I have a theory I regard as strong, and—as I am anxious to put the whole Deerhoof matter behind me, as one would any trauma—I will share it here and move on with my life. Deerhoof has set itself up as a truly alternative artist in a world of supposedly “alternative” acts that sign with major labels and “sell out.” Critics have decided that Deerhoof is operating on a more complex and urbane musical level than the average person can really get his or her mind around. The net effect of all this is that music critics or indie fans are afraid to not like Deerhoof because they fear being exposed as Beyoncé-loving troglodytes who are incapable of appreciating dense, intricate music.

No one—not even their fans and fawning critics—understands Deerhoof because Deerhoof is unknowable. It is impossible to derive meaning from the nonsensical, just as it’s proverbially futile to try and get blood from a stone. Deerhoof is a stone that has been thrown at my earholes repeatedly, and I want it to stop.

And this brings me to the renewed sense of urgency that necessitated this little talk, my dear Roots.

Last month, I learned that you would be hosting The Roots Picnic at the Penn’s Landing Festival Pier in early June, which promised to be a wildly entertaining show. I was even looking forward to seeing your co-headliner, Gnarls Barkley.

But as my eyes rested on the third name on the billing for this show, I gasped (literally, audibly; I have a bit of a tendency for the dramatics): Deerhoof. And all the old questions came rushing back: Why do you, my beloved Roots, keep wreaking this dreadful band on your fans? How have we forsaken you?

Again, I understand that Deerhoof has opened for plenty of well-known bands, whose devotion to Deerhoof has been described as “evangelical”: Sonic Youth, Wilco, Radiohead, and The Flaming Lips among them. The only explanation I have for any of this is that there’s been a massive psychotic break in the music industry, and that the members of these bands—and yours—are afraid of not seeing the “genius” in Deerhoof, as I posited above. It’s the only explanation I can live with.

Legendary Roots Crew, my plea to you is this: cease and desist any association with the band Deerhoof and drop them from your June show at Penn’s Landing so that I, and legions of your true hip-hop fans, might again feel able to come and see your concerts without fearing exposure to the rancid, devoid musical stylings of Deerhoof.

Sincerely,

Monsoon Martin

Monsoon Martin's Analysis of Barack Obama's Philadelphia Speech, 18 March 2008

Analysis of Barack Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, 18 March 2008

Senator Barack Obama’s speech on Tuesday was billed as “historic” before a word of it was even uttered, and has received near-unanimous praise since its delivery. I thought it was a very, very good speech with a lot to admire, but there were a few things that trouble me.

[A couple of notes here: first, I invite you to comment on and argue with my ideas here. Second, I’ve added a couple of new features to the weblog, which I’m still figuring out how to use to its fullest potential. You’ll notice that at the very end of each posting are links that read “Email” and “Print”—these will enable you to (you guessed it) easily email to your friends and print out each posting!]

Being an English teacher, I’ll first approach the speech as a work of literature, evaluating its structure, its pacing, its symbolism and recurring themes. Then I’ll try briefly to foresee how the speech might impact the primary election, and how Americans will respond to it.

First, the speech began with a quote. If one of my students had begun a writing piece with a quote—even one that set up the thematic milieu of his speech, as Obama’s did—he or she would have been docked points. But here, it was effective to begin with “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union,” because his speech then went on to discuss how “the American experiment” continues to work, sometimes falteringly, towards perfection.

Obama stood in front of six gigantic American flags in the National Constitution Center and romanticized the Constitutional Convention of 1787, whose resultant document was “a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.” Though the setting was so ham-handedly patriotic that it could have come out of a Jerry Bruckheimer film, Obama’s words softened the effect, talking as he did about America as a work in progress—citing protest, struggle, civil war and civil disobedience as part of the great history of perfecting this union. He also pointedly mentioned slavery as one of the Constitution’s—and our nation’s—great failings, and its eventual eradication as one of its great triumphs.

“This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign,” he went on, deftly connecting America’s past struggles—grassroots and governmental—with his own candidacy. “To continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.” Obama went on to say that he has such faith in the ability of the American people to make change because of his own story, and went on to cite his oft-mentioned upbringing. “It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts—that out of many, we are truly one,” he went on, citing the American motto “E pluribus unum.”

He moved then to an appraisal of his own campaign’s success at crossing racial lines and indeed transcending race: “Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country.” Obama lamented several times that commentators, pundits, and media figures seemed to be playing too great a role in determining what the American public is regarding as important in the race. “At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either ‘too black’ or ‘not black enough.’” In the last few weeks, he said, the primary elections have taken a decidedly “divisive” turn in their obsession with race:

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

Now he’s obviously referring to the racially charged comments made by Geraldine Ferraro about a week ago and referenced in one of my recent postings. And “purchase reconciliation on the cheap” is one of many examples in this speech of brilliant turns of phrase. (Remember that Obama writes most of his speeches, and reportedly wrote almost every single word of this one; he’s an accomplished wordsmith in addition to being a spellbinding orator.) He also brought up his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as expected.

The words he chose and forcefulness with which he condemned and dismissed Wright’s statements is where I part company with the candidate a bit. He referred to Wright’s comments as expressing a “profoundly distorted view of this country … a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

Oh, Barack. Wright’s views about the culpability of American foreign policy being causally responsible for the September 11^th attacks; his suggestion that the CIA played a role, however distant, in fomenting the devastating crack epidemic in the inner cities; his criticisms of prisons and the justice system—these are views that are shared by plenty of intelligent, rational, clear-thinking individuals in this country and around the world. Granted, these are not mainstream views, but denigrating Wright’s views as “profoundly distorted” leave a very bad taste in my mouth as an Obama supporter.

And his simplistic appraisal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—essentially, that Israel can do no wrong, and Palestinians’ struggles are motivated solely by radical Islamic jihad or intifada—is alarming to me. (I had mentioned such concerns in my endorsement of Obama back at the beginning of February, and he’s shown me nothing to allay those concerns.) He may have scored a few points in distancing himself from rumors of being a Muslim, and attracted the fawning attention of Zionists, but his flip, absolutist summation of this morally and historically complex situation is unacceptable.

Obama got back on track, though, when he expressed a desire to move past a preoccupation with race and build unity in addressing a set of “monumental” problems: “two wars, a terrorist threat, a failing economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.” It’s his inclusion of healthcare and economic concerns that gives me hope that Obama will live up to campaign promises to retool NAFTA, punish companies who outsource workers overseas, pursue serial polluters and predatory lenders, and force the reevaluation of a system that elevates profits above people. (Well, he hasn’t said all that explicitly, but I’m hoping he’ll tackle some of these issues.)

After denouncing (or rejecting, or whatever) Wright’s “distorted” views, Obama then stops short of casting aside his former pastor and mentor altogether. After all, he said, “that isn’t all that I know of the man.” Wright is a reflection of the Black community, Barack insisted, and very much a product of the turbulent era in which he grew up. The Black church, he explains, is misunderstood by many outsiders because of its complex admixture of the contemplative and the exuberant, the holy and the secular: “The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.”

It was this passage that made me fall for Barack Obama all over again. Having studied African American culture for many years, I have often lamented that a lot of folks outside the community fail to grasp the complex forms of expression and variegated interactions inside the Black community. Black churches are houses of worship, yes, but many of them are also places of emotional release, of the struggle for social justice, of crass comparisons and exaggerations, of gossip and aid and tough love and mercy. Those who would dismiss Black churches—and by extension, the Black experience—as simple-minded, repetitive, overenthusiastic or inane are missing the richness and depth that has earned my profoundest respect and sustained my sincerest interest for more than 20 years.

“I can no more disown him,” Obama concluded here about Rev. Wright, “than I can disown the black community. He went on to very skillfully connect Rev. Wright’s ideas to the casual racial slurs of a relative:

I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Who among us does not have at least one stunningly ignorant distant relative who spouts racial slurs or anti-Semitic rants from time to time? Many of us even have a closer relative—a mother, a father, a sister, a brother-in-law—who is otherwise tolerant and sharp, but who once in a while lets a jaw-dropping homophobic phrase or embarrassing anti-Muslim stereotype slip? (I would not have been—nor am I generally—so forgiving or generous in dealing with racist white folks, but hey, he’s trying to run for President, here…) Speechmaking is all about getting the audience to identify with what the speaker is saying and feeling—where he or she is coming from. It’s an act of empathy, which is one of the most difficult things for a human being to do. I think he accomplished it here.

“These people are a part of me,” Obama stated pointedly—the patriots and the scalawags, the tolerant and the racist, the seekingly intelligent and the willfully ignorant. “And they are a part of America, this country that I love.”

Rev. Wright and others in his generation have experienced a great depth and breadth of the frustration and anger of the Black experience in this country—“the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through.” He cited school segregation, employment and real estate discrimination, and a “lack of economic opportunity” which all helped to “create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.” (Another beautifully turned phrase.) He made several references to the “anger” and “bitterness” of those years and wrapped up his discussion of Wright’s generation by saying of this anger: “[It] is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

(Small criticism: “among the races” would have been better there, given that we’re not just talking about Black and white, but people of multiple ethnicities and backgrounds who have to work out their differences.)

Next, he moved on to white people, and I think this section has the potential to be the most soundbited and most pounced-upon by conservatives and 527 groups. But I thought it was strong and strikingly honest—like nearly all of the rest of his speech—and will work well for him. “Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race,” he said, and I think it’s quite possible that with that one sentence, he may have turned off the switch of racial animus in working whites all around this country. (Alright, maybe it’s not “off”; maybe if we could imagine the simmering and lingering racism of some whites as mood lighting, he may have dimmed it quite a bit right there.)

And he didn’t dismiss this resentment out of hand as merely inarticulate racism that needs to be discarded and buried; he acknowledged that there are legitimate experiences and sources of these feelings: “Politicians routinely expressed fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.” In one passage, he laid the smackdown on George H.W. Bush and his Willie Horton ad; while exposing the sniveling likes of Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck for the fearmongering half-wits they really are. Bravo, Barack!

“Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white,” he went on, “I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy—particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.” But the path before us provides a clear choice—remain stuck in the past or move together into the future. In this sense, it echoes Martin Luther King’s statement that “we must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Obama illustrated the choice in this way:

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

“In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. … For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism.”

Here I think he’s quite pointedly rejecting the dirty campaign tactics of Hillary Clinton and refusing to join her in the seamy muck of politics as usual in America.

“We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.”

What a brilliantly succinct review of American politics over the past 20 years, at the very least.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

Obama went on to talk about the importance of addressing three other key issues in addition to education: healthcare, the economy, and ending the war.

The final couple of minutes of his speech, he told a story about a white woman organizing in a predominantly Black South Carolina district for the Obama campaign—a story that nicely illustrated the manner in which people of diverse backgrounds are coming together for real change in this election year, but which ultimately felt shoehorned in and somewhat forced.

But at this point, really, it didn’t matter. He’d already been dazzling, and he regained his stride in his final sentences: “But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two hundred and twenty-one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.”

Over all, I think Obama’s speech is one of the most important—and searingly honest—speeches about race made in my lifetime. And I think it’s going to be received extremely well by most Democrats and supporters of Obama.

But there are elements that are going to be picked apart and harped on. At one point, Obama seems to admit that he was present in the pews when Reverend Wright made some incendiary statements (though not for the ones being circulated in the videos). Some will jump on this as a contradiction of his earlier statements that he hadn’t been present for Wright’s remarks, and if he had been, he would have confronted him about them afterward. In addition, some of his comments about race—a subject that is rarely talked about openly in this country—may rankle some, particularly those he referenced in the speech as thinking that serious discussions about race are simply an instance of political correctness run amok.

The speech in history it reminds me most of is Lincoln’s 1858 “House Divided” speech, in which he urges unity for the sake of saving the union: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It’s a paraphrase of Matthew 12:25, and it’s a powerful and evocative phrase that influence many citizens’ views on the matter and led eventually to the Civil War.

Obama’s speech revived his campaign, solidified his frontrunner status, and likely comforted many “superdelegates” whose votes are ultimately going to decide the nomination. He may still not win Pennsylvania, but I think he’ll win the nomination handily.

Monsoon's "Wright Back to the Obama Drama" News Analysis

In the last few days, yet another minor uproar has arisen stemming from comments made by an associate of Senator Barack Obama—this time a series of videos depicting Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, making incendiary statements about US foreign and domestic policies.

On the Huffington Post website, Obama posted a statement in which he categorically denounces and rejects the words of his long-time spiritual adviser, and the man who officiated at his wedding.

To his credit, though, Obama refused to “repudiate” Rev. Wright as a man in an interview with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, insisting that it is possible to deeply respect a person and disagree with some of the things that person says or does. And though Obama’s opponent in the general election—or rather, 527 groups handling the dirty work for John McCain—will surely seize on the Reverend’s comments as evidence that Obama is insufficiently patriotic, at least maybe those rumors that he’s really a Muslim will be put to rest!

Obama clearly had to distance himself from Reverend Wright’s most inflammatory remarks, given that many of those whose votes he is courting will have knee-jerk responses to the remarks as deeply offensive and borderline treasonous. But I thought I’d take a closer look at Reverend Wright’s remarks in the three principal video clips that are currently circulating and try to consider just how unreasonable or off-base they are.

In the first clip, delivered several days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Reverend Wright says: “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

The concluding statement here echoes one made by Malcolm X at the end of his association with the Nation of Islam (in fact, this statement was one of the factors that brought about this break). After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X was asked by a reporter for his reaction to the event. It’s a case of “the chickens coming home to roost,” he replied, adding that “Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming to roost never did make me sad, they’ve always made me glad.” Later that day, he clarified his statement by explaining that there has long been a climate of hate and brutality in the United States, particularly against Black people. The death of President Kennedy is a natural “result of that way of life and thinking.” The New York Times ran a screaming headline the next day citing his chickens comment, and Malcolm X was further marginalized and vilified by American society.

Two things were wrong with Malcolm’s comments, as far as most Americans were concerned: they suggested that the beloved President somehow deserved to be killed, and their timing right after his death bespoke an alleged insensitivity on Malcolm’s part. What folks missed here is that Malcolm did not seem to have been stating that President Kennedy deserved to die; he was arguing that a sense of karmic retribution had come to pass—that the oppression and abuse of minorities in this country had finally boomeranged to victimize one of the elites. Its timing was problematic, perhaps, but what more opportune time would there have been for Malcolm X to reach large numbers of people with his message—in this hope that they might begin questioning their own responses to President Kennedy’s assassination?

I think similar arguments hold up what scrutinizing Reverend Wright’s comments from September 16th, 2001. He cites the actions of this government in inflicting or supporting the infliction of pain and death upon untold millions around the world in the last 60 years or so, citing the Japanese atomic bombs and state support for the terrorism of foreign governments. (He might also have mentioned the My Lai massacre, the invasion of Grenada—or the US-backed military coup of Chile’s democratically elected president on September 11, 1973, which installed General Augusto Pinochet, who soon became known for his flagrant human rights abuse and widespread corruption.)

Surely it was not proper for the leaders of this country to think that they could perpetrate such wantonly violent, extreme, and usually unprovoked attacks on other peoples and not deliver the consequences to their own shores, to their own people? “Why do they hate us?” was the familiar refrain after the attacks. “They hate our freedoms,” was the pat answer. But more honestly, they hate our actions—not those of its individual citizens, necessarily, but the actions of the country in which we live and to whose allegiance we pledge each morning. I cannot imagine that he was suggesting the repugnant notion that those who died on September 11, 2001 deserved to die; but the question of whether America, by its actions, its dirty politics, its aggressive foreign policy, may have rightfully earned the animus of folks throughout the world—that’s another, more complicated, question, and one whose answer is too uncomfortable for many Americans to deal with.

As for the “timing” problem, I’ll return to my argument from above: What better time to challenge one’s flock than when they are still grappling with their own grief and indulging the a great national orgy of victimhood and outrage? Surely some minds were changed, some thinking was challenged, by this sermon—though I suspect that now, it is just dismissed out of hand as the anti-American rantings of a leftist preacher caught up in his own argument and the power of his pulpit. That’s unfortunate.

The second clip from a 2003 sermon deals with the reasons African Americans should be critical of their government: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no. God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Whoa. First he’s referring to some of the more frequently cited reasons for the continued socioeconomic disadvantage of African Americans in relation to whites: the prison-industrial complex and the disparate incarceration of African Americans. Angela Davis has written eloquently on this subject, particularly in her book Are Prisons Obsolete?. In a controversial series in 1996 that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, Gary Webb wrote extensively about an alleged link among the CIA, Nicaraguan Contras, and crack cocaine; the article implied, but did not establish, that the CIA was at least indirectly responsible for introducing crack cocaine into the inner cities in the early 1980s, devastating those neighborhoods.

You all know I love a good conspiracy theory, and this is as plausible as any, as far as I’m concerned. (In fact, there’s a conspiracy theory within a conspiracy theory here: Gary Webb was found dead of an apparent suicide in his apartment in 2004, but the circumstances surrounding the “suicide” are very suspicious. Is’t possible that the US government not only orchestrated the sale of crack cocaine to the inner cities, but sought to cover it up years later by killing the journalist who exposed them? Yes.)

Though African Americans and Latinos make up only 25 percent of the US population, they constitute 63 percent of the prison population in this country. Much of this disparity is caused by the “three strikes” and other laws, as well as the “drug war.” Blacks are prosecuted much more aggressively for crack or rock cocaine than their white counterparts for power cocaine. So his complaints at the beginning of this statement are legitimate.  (Find a nice summation of grievances about racial bias in the US corrections system here on the website of Human Rights Watch.

But Reverend Wright got himself into some rhetorical trouble when he began vitiating the sacred phrase “God bless America.” Politicians frequently end their speeches with “God bless you, and God bless America!” And of course after the September 11th attacks, the phrase became as ubiquitous on bumper stickers and t-shirts as “My child is an honor student at…” With all apologies to Irving Berlin, who wrote the song, and Lee Greenwood, who altered it slightly for his star-spangled jingo-fest “God Bless the USA,” I’ve always loathed this phrase. It sums up what people outside this country dislike so much about it—so we think God is on our side, apparently? God wants us to go bomb the living shit out of other people? As if God concerns herself with protecting the citizens of one country at the exclusion of citizens of all other countries.

I’ve noted a couple of instances in recent popular culture that tried to tweak this saying: In the otherwise vapid and dreadful movie Head of State, Chris Rock’s ultra-conservative Republican opponent ends speeches by saying, “God bless America—and no one else!” Nothing could have better captured the xenophobic “we Merkins are special, and all you foreigners suck” attitude of the most knee-jerk and cravenly nationalistic among us. I’ve seen bumper stickers recently as well that read, “God bless the whole world, no exceptions.” It’s an inclusive message—one that emphasizes the fact that the bonds we all share as humans are (or should be) far stronger than the bonds we share because we live within the same geographical entity.

So while I agree with the content of his comments there, even I realize that you can’t go around saying “God damn America” and not expect to have your ass handed to you on a red-white-and-blue platter.

The third clip is more recent and specifically discusses the relative merits of a Hillary Clinton vs. a Barack Obama candidacy: “Barack knows what it means to be black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger.”

Now, aside from the fact that Reverend Wright was surely “preaching to the choir” in making these comments to his mostly-black congregation, I see no problem with the first sentence. The notion that this country is controlled by “rich white people”—is there anyone who doesn’t realize the essential truth of this statement? The second and third sentences give me pause, though. Surely it’s valuable to have someone with Obama’s experiences in the White House—someone who knows what it’s like to be discriminated against, someone who has a diverse background and experiences. But it seems as though Reverend Wright is suggesting that Barack Obama’s experiences of discrimination and bias have been more valuable than what Hillary Clinton has experienced because of her gender.

You all know that I do not like Hillary Clinton—and in fact, I doubt that I’d be able to bring myself to vote for her if she was the Democratic nominee—but she does not deserve the mean-spirited attacks she endured through much of the 90s from the right. (Remember the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” she talked about at the time? It’s real.) She doesn’t deserve to be referred to as disrespectfully as she was back in November by a (female!) McCain supporter who assumed Hillary would be the Democratic nominee and asked McCain at a campaign event, “How do we beat the bitch?” (McCain’s response, without missing a beat or expressing disappointment at her choice of words—he even seemed kind of amused—was, “That’s an excellent question. You might know that there was a poll yesterday, a Rasmussen poll, identified, that shows me three points ahead of Senator Clinton in a head-to-head matchup.” Classy guy.)

So…the verdict on Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright? Obviously Obama needs to distance himself from Wright’s statements for political reasons, and it would seem that Reverend Wright might begin to choose his own words more carefully. But I hope that when he wins the White House in November, Obama does not forget some of the most though-provoking questions his pastor raised in those controversial clips. By considering issues like America’s role in the world and bias in the US correctional system, Obama can evolve into the true leader this country—and world—so sorely needs.

Monsoon

Monsoon's "A Tall, Cool (Expensive) Drink of Water" Blind Taste-Test

In the past 10 to 15 years, bottled water has become as ubiquitous in our culture as cell phones, play dates, and Britney Spears. As George Carlin observed in an early-90s routine, “What happened in this country that now, suddenly, everyone is walking around with their own personal bottle of water? When did we get so thirsty in America? Is everybody so dehydrated they have to have their own portable supply of fluids with them at all times? Get a drink before you leave the house!” And yet, in more recent appearances, Carlin typically totes along a water bottle of his very own.

Much has been made of the fact that the human body (like our planet) is about two-thirds water, and we replenish up to 90% of our water each day. Undeniably, it is far more healthful to reach for water than for a cola or fruit drink to quench our thirsts. Given these factors, and the fact that convenience has been elevated to the status of a universal human right in our society, bottled water isn’t likely going anywhere anytime soon.

And though I try to be environmentally conscientious, I have taken a liking to a bottled water or two in my day. In the English planning room, we have a water cooler that uses Crystal Spring water in reusable jugs that are delivered biweekly. Encouragingly, the water in these jugs is bottled locally, cutting down on travel time and pollution.

It occurred to me, though, that this multibillion-dollar bottled water industry had sprung out of nothing in the past 20 years at most. It’s one of the rarest triumphs in free-market capitalism: creating a perceived need among consumers where none at all existed before. The question for most consumers is not “Will I purchase bottled water?” but “Which bottled water will I purchase?” Since one of my fondest pursuits in life is sticking it to The Man—or to thwart The Man in his efforts to stick it to me—I thought I’d conduct a blind taste test of various available waters and see if these bottled waters were all they claim to be. I have no illusions that I will be forever able to kick the bottled water habit, but maybe the results of my wildly unscientific study will give me (and, just possibly, you, dear reader) pause before grabbing for that next bottle of water.

I lined up six different water sources—some popular, some more obscure—and poured them in glasses so that I could not tell which water I was drinking. Then I forgot which water was in which glass, so I had to start over and label the glasses with a code, and I was on my way. The six contestants: Deer Park, Voss, Dasani, Iceland Spring, Fiji, and of course, good old municipal Adamstown tap water.

(I eschew flavored waters like Dasani with raspberry and kiwi and the like because if I want a freaking fruit juice I’m just going to get a freaking fruit juice, not some watery confection; vitaminwater, which is seen everywhere in my school—perhaps because there’s a machine selling it in the cafeteria—but has as much caloric and sugar content as a typical glass of fruit juice; and other permutations. I was only interested in water that claimed to be “pure” or unadulterated in some way. I am also aware that there are about 5,000 other brands of water out there, including Evian, Dannon, Aquafina, Pure Choice, and many more. Finally, I know there are products like the Brita filter that create purified water from tap water, but we used to have one of these and it was a pain in the arse. So I chose these as what I feel is a representative sample.)

Below are my findings…

VOSS artesian water from Norway, which sells at local Turkey Hill markets: $1.59 for a half-liter. (“Artesian” means simply that its source is an underground aquifier whose groundwater rises to the surface rather than having to be pumped out.) The label says it’s “naturally pure water, free of sodium, low in minerals, and incomparable in taste.” The sodium bit is an obvious swipe at the likes of Dasani, which adds sodium to its product (more on that later). It comes in an ingeniously designed bottle that looks like a hairspray canister with a red stripe and a gray top. One of the most outstanding design features is the bottle’s wide mouth, which seems to be about 50% bigger than standard bottles, allowing for bigger gulps and more comprehensive palate coverage.

I found Voss, in the blind taste test, to be clean, crisp and totally refreshing. There is a very slightly bitter aftertaste—the purity of the water is too much, no doubt, for my coarse palate—that I find eminently pleasing. When I take a swig of Voss, I feel as though I am gliding contentedly down the glacial fjords of Norway’s northern coast.

There is an internet rumor that Voss (as has been suggested about other “pure” bottled waters) is actually just Norwegian tap water. This is an ugly and unfounded allegation, and I reject it. Ranking: 2nd of 6

ICELAND SPRING natural Icelandic spring water, which also sells at Turkey Hill, among other places: $1.09 per half liter. It’s filtered through lava, says the label, in the mountains of Iceland, and bottled in Reykjavik. The label also trumpets its low mineral content and notes that Icelanders, who have the highest life expectancy of any nationality in the world, credit this water for their longevity. The bottle is of the typical contoured plastic design, but also includes opaque and craggy sections that call to mind mountainous terrain or an iceberg.

I found Iceland Spring to be fine, but not as smooth as Voss. On the second and third gulps I became aware of a harsh aftertaste, and actually a pretty unpleasant during-taste as well. The absence of flavor is jarring. When I drink Iceland Spring, I feel as though I am sailing down a glacial river in Iceland much like the idyllic fjord of Voss—but this time I am seized, my head is dunked violently underwater, and then I am returned to the safety of the boat. Ranking: 6th of 6

FIJI natural Artesian water can be purchased at many grocery and convenience stores, usually for roughly 99 cents for a half-liter (less per liter for larger sizes or cases). Fiji, which is bottled on the Fiji islands, takes great pains on its label to associate the water with an earlier, cleaner time. Fiji water flowed through the mountains before the Industrial Revolution, it insists, and is therefore untouched by pollution. (Despite my love for the product, I find this claim logistically dubious.) Fiji also trumpets its silica content, which is said to promote smoothness. Its bottle has flora and fauna to suggest a sense of place, evoking a tranquil, tropical paradise.

Fiji was my first dalliance into “exotic” bottled waters, and far and way my favorite. It’s got a nice, markedly softer taste than either Icelandic or Voss. It has some of the flavor of tap water without being gritty or unpleasant. Drinking Fiji makes me feel as though I am lounging blissfully on a tropical beach, utterly refreshed—OK, wait. No, that’s not a nice milieu. I’d be too hot on a tropical beach, and the sand (fine and milky though it might be) would throw me into a pissy-pants tizzy and a frantic search for a Wet-Nap, and set off my OCD in the most obnoxious way. So instead: it makes me feel as though I am in an air-conditioned room, looking out the window at a lush, tropical paradise. Ranking: 1st of 6

DEER PARK (“…that’s good water”) can be purchased at any number of places, and is also available for home or business delivery, much like Crystal Springs mentioned above. Its cost is considerably lower than the “exotics” above: $1.19 per gallon typically. It is bottled at a variety of locations, but primarily originates from springs deep in the Appalachian Mountains of western Maryland. Deer Park’s containers have changed of late to more “environmentally friendly” designs, and the largest available jug has recesses built into one side, making it much easier to pick up.

Deer Park somehow manages to be both more filling and more bland than the other contestants thus far. It has a silty aftertaste not present with the others. There are clearly more minerals here—and perhaps, more contaminants—but they don’t add to the taste appreciably. Ranking: 5th of 6

DASANI is Coca-Cola’s water, and easily the most popular of the “plain” bottled waters; it is for sale everywhere, and a one-liter bottle costs 99 cents. Dasani is tap water that has been purified using a process called reverse osmosis. The label also indicates that it’s been “enhanced with minerals for a pure, fresh taste” and contains magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, and salt (for taste).

The sodium and mineral content in Dasani is evident from the first sip, though the label insists the salt is “negligible.” I can’t help but wonder if this is part of Dasani’s marketing strategy: consumers will drink Dasani to be refreshed, but that modicum of salt will leave them with a bit of unexplained lingering thirst, leading them to reach for another bottle of Dasani. The taste of this water is full-bodied, but also artificial in an indefinable way. Ranking: 4th of 6

ADAMSTOWN MUNICIPAL TAP WATER is available exclusively in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. The cost of this water for Adamstown residents is $21.85 for up to 3000 gallons, or less than a penny per gallon. It is gotten from wells in the Hammer Creek formation and is tightly controlled by the EPA (unlike most bottled waters), having been certified fit to consume. Tap water typically contains small amounts of chlorine, fluoride, aluminum sulfate, hydrogen sulfide, and nitrates.

This tap water is most definitely less “pure” than the likes of Icelandic or Fiji; it looks positively chunky by comparison. But there is a pleasing and unmistakable flavor here that’s missing from those waters that boast low mineral content. I can feel it on my tongue, and it is quite nice. Ranking: 3rd of 6

Over all, I am impressed with how well tap water stacked up against the spring and purified waters—and when the cost disparity is calculated, it’s staggering. Some bottled waters are more than twice as expensive per gallon as gasoline, and yet few us of turn on the tap (for a lousy penny per gallon) when we’re thirsty.

To be sure, there are those who would point out problems with tap water. Present in tap water are bacteria, radioactive isotopes, pesticides, and even antibiotic traces that have invaded our streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater. And libertarians get so indignant about the fact that fluoride is infused into municipal water supplies (ostensibly as a dentifrice) that anti-fluoridation movements have sprung up, calling the addition of fluoride “compulsory mass medication” and a governmental intrusion into our lives. Now, I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next schmo—probably a whole lot more—but god damn. I’m willing to believe that our government is tapping our phones, manipulating what we read—it may have even staged the moon landing, or faked a catastrophe or two. But messing with us by putting fluoride in our water? I just don’t see it.

The key to keep in mind regarding the argument about tap water containing bacteria and other contaminants is that independent studies have routinely found that some bottled waters contain more of these contaminants than municipal tap water! This is because the content of tap water is much more tightly controlled than that of bottled water, which has been tested and sometimes discovered to have higher (and actually rather dangerous) bacteria levels than tap water.

No matter if we choose tap or bottled water, then, it’s not easy to ensure that we’re getting a substance that’s “pure” or healthful at all. In this case, we have to look at other factors to break the tie. It all comes down to the environment.

A case in point is Fiji (where my favorite water in the world comes from). On these islands, clean drinking water is unavailable for a portion of the population, yet thousands of gallons of Fiji spring water are shipped away each day. And the Fiji water that’s made it from the islands to my grocery store has traveled roughly 6,000 miles by ship, plane, and truck—all of which use fossil fuels, and all of which have devastating effects on the environment. Using water like Crystal Spring or Deer Park at least can be defended on the grounds that it has a relatively short trip from source to your refrigerator. But keep in mind as well that only 20% of plastic beverage bottles are ever recycled, adding immeasurably to already-overcrowded landfills and releasing dangerous chemicals into the ground.

Many cities, notably the San Francisco bay area, have initiated programs like “Think Outside the Bottle” to educate people about the environmental impact of bottled water and encourage them to turn on the tap when they’re thirsty.

“Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water?” George Carlin once asked. “Try spelling ‘Evian’ backward.”

For my part, I’m going to start making an effort to kick the habit, but I’m not promising anything (sorry, Earth).

Below are some provocative articles on the bottled water controversy—well worth a read:

“Don’t Be Duped By Bottled Water” - http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1012-30.htm

“The Real Cost of Bottled Water” - http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0218-05.htm

$10 a gallon versus 49 cents a year” - http://www.argusobserver.com/articles/2008/02/24/news/us/doc47c13a11a550a689404593.txt

“Bad to the Last Drop” - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/opinion/01standage.html

Monsoon