Remembrance

I get my middle name from a great uncle who served in World War Two as the tail-gunner in a B-17. He didn't make it back. Admittedly, I don't think of him - or the millions of other soldiers who've sacrificed so much for our country - as often as I should. Nonetheless, I am grateful - hopefully more grateful than I was as a child when I first learned about this part of my family history. The freedoms these legions have secured  are themselves legion, including the freedom to debate and question the validity of particular military interventions. If we can't appreciate the value of that, we probably don't deserve the other freedoms either.

A Queer Sort of Fairy Tale

Like many, I find myself a little unsure what to make of today's monumental legal decision about marriage equality in Pennsylvania. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that my one-time home state has decided that a weirdo of any gender can marry a fellow weirdo of any gender. I just worry about what happens next. In particular, I just hope that the understandable excitement of gaining a right long denied won't lead to people doing anything depraved like having a "fairy tale wedding". Last I checked, fairy tales tend to be filled with death, sadness and regret. Of course, in that regard, most marriages are like a fairy tale. Carry on.

Ginned Up for Bobby?

A few days ago, The Washington Post published a piece about how Louisiana Governor - and 2016 Presidential hopeful - Bobby Jindal is using the story of his conversion to Christianity as a way to appeal to conservative voters for whom religion is a particular touch point. At this point, we all know that politics is the ritualized display of monetized cynicism, but somehow Jindal's current push seems just that much more off-putting to me. It's not that I doubt the sincerity of his faith but rather because he's so willing to leverage (what I'm willing to believe is) a genuine conviction in the service of a political campaign, a process which almost by definition is antithetical to genuine conviction. It doesn't help matters that Jindal seems unaware that, even if he prevails in the GOP primaries, it would be more of a victory for Jindal's Democratic Party opponent. The majority of swing voters he'd need to get elected on a national level aren't going to vote for someone whose speech pattern so closely resembles Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock.