Oh, dear. I wish people would just ask me when they want to know about things like the Apocalypse. It'd save a lot of fuss and bother.

You do realize I'm kidding, right?

Anyway, to answer Amanda's question, it's not actually so much about being afraid of death or wanting to be a part of something significant. Then, as now, the apocalyptic is about the comfort of knowing that the world is moving toward a meaningful and just end. The genre has always appealed to the kind of people who perceive themselves to be getting screwed over, and continues to speak to them today.

rmj asks a better question, then: why is the apocalypse so American?

So why are we so fascinated with end times and apocalypse? Largely because it puts us in control. Hal Lindsey wrote a book almost 40 years ago which asserted the Battle of Armageddon would most certainly be between America and the USSR. Oops. Now he says Barack Obama is almost certainly the anti-Christ. Uh-huh. Why is he saying these things? Well, probably because it means he is in control of the future, that scary time no one can see but that we all are racing to live in, because that's the time when finally everything will be better! And we think that because of Christianity? No; because of the Industrial Revolution, becuase of our indomitable faith in "progress," in our power and authority over the material world which will, finally, yield up the "intelligent machines" and the consumer products which will eliminate hunger and want and poverty and greed and usher us, finally, into the future envisioned by Star Trek, where magical devices produce meals and clothes and houses and all of the creature comforts, simply by transforming "energy" into "matter." And where does that energy come from, and how do we circumvent the law of conservation of matter? Easy! Technology! Progress! Science!

Uh-huh.

Now here are some hardy souls. From a press release posted at Affirmation.org:

Leaders of the largest world-wide advocacy and support group for gay Mormons announced today that they intend to keep their date to be in Salt Lake City to discuss ways in which they and the LDS Church can work together to better minister to church members who are gay and to their families. In February of this year, leaders of Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons had invited the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to meet with them to discuss areas of mutual concern. LDS President Thomas Monson accepted the invitation, and, in early April, the meeting was set for Monday, August 11, in Salt Lake City. On July 24, the church declared in an e-mailed letter that they were postponing the meeting until next year.

Executive Director Olin Thomas has confirmed that the Affirmation Executive Committee members scheduled to attend the historic meeting have secured a meeting location and will be in Salt Lake City, ready to meet with President Monson or any other General Authority of the Church at 9:00 AM Monday morning as planned. Thomas, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, noted that Affirmation has no paid officers or staff and that leaders travel at their own expense, using vacation and leave time from their regular jobs.

Good on the LDS for even considering the meeting. Not-so-good for backing down. But talk about witness within your faith community! I don't envy the Affirmation folks their work.

The press release spells out the need for that work:

Utah holds one of the highest suicide rates in the United States. Affirmation has documented over 30 suicides of gay Mormons, and Affirmation leaders believe the LDS leaders have contributed to these tragedies by the way they talk about and to gay people. Tonight, a gay teenager will be thrown out onto the street by his or her LDS family, contributing to an above-average homeless rate for adolescents in the Mountain West and Northwest states. Throughout the church, families are being broken apart, often forever, because family members don’t know how to deal with a loved one who tells them that he or she is gay.

“In recent years, the Church’s view towards gay and lesbian people has changed, and Church leaders now recognize that being gay is a biological characteristic,” noted David Melson, Affirmation’s Senior Assistant Executive Director. “The items that we had planned to discuss all focus on education and on toning down some of the rhetoric. Nothing that we will be proposing requires any change in doctrine.”

“We are concerned at the Church’s decision to not attend the meeting on August 11. The deaths, the homelessness, and the grief that occur because of well-intentioned but misguided practices are real, and they must all stop, now.”

Here's hoping.

The eggheads at Trinity College (check the URL) make sense of the race for the Evangelical Soul:

The latest CBS poll has white evangelicals choosing McCain over Obama 58 percent to 24 percent, with 15 percent undecided. If the undecided break 50-50, that would give Obama nearly one-third of the white evangelical vote--a big improvement over Kerry's performance in 2004. For him, opportunity knocks. McCain, by contrast, has got to ratchet up his evangelical outreach. By the Republican Convention he should have locked up this part of the GOP base, and as of now he hasn't.

It's possible that this poll is an outlier, given the widely-touted possibility of Obama reaching the 40% mark with Evangelicals. On the other hand, it matches up with recent Pew polling on the subject. We'll see.

What's more interesting is to do the bar-napkin calculations: Obama hopes to reach one-half of fifteen percent of about 25% of the electorate. So .50 x .15 x .25 = .01875%. That might not sound like much, but it works out to be a hair less than 3 million voters, give or take. And given that most presidential elections are won in the 3-4% range, it's a significant margin.

So you can see why both campaigns might want to chase those votes. Certainly for McCain, it's the difference between a viable campaign and a one-way ticket to BobDoleLand.

It doesn't completely answer the question of why Obama would be working so hard to get their votes, though. Given their previous voting patterns, a fifty-fifty split in the undecideds might be a bit optimistic. Something more like 75-25 is a safer bet.

As well, it makes a difference where those votes are located. If 75% of the undecided Evangelical voters live in Appalachia and the Deep South, Obama's not going to get them no matter what. If on the other hand they're clustered in Orange County, well then, going to see Rick Warren makes a whole lot more sense.

Last, you always have to ask if it might be easier to pick up an equivalent number of votes elsewhere. Say, northern Catholics?

Bottom line: the "Evangelical vote" might make the difference between a squeaker and a full-on rout. That matches with what I'm hearing through the back channels about how hard the McCain folks are pushing "The One" ad, and where. But if Obama's counting on that 2% as his margin of victory, well, he's taking quite a gamble.

For the record, I'll stick by my previous calls: Obama takes 40% of all Evangelicals, and according to my calculations above, perhaps 30% of the white Evangelicals. If he breaks 35%, he's on his way to a 300+ EV blowout, and I'll buy Amy Sullivan and Mara Vanderslice a bottle of champagne.

[editor's note, by PoliSigh] I am traumatized--almost didn't get home last night--my town was flooded--bottom of my street closed....a guy who works for the town drove me up through the mud that settled at the bottom of the street....pray for the little 7 year old who died and for her family--they tried to escape the flooding but their car overturned in the rushing water.  See you this afternoon.

Today's Meditation: to listen and for more verses, go to Oremus Hymnal

How lovely is thy dwelling-place
How lovely is thy dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts, to me!
My thirsty soul desires and longs
within thy courts to be;
my very heart and flesh cry out,
O living God for thee.


Beside thine altars, gracious Lord,
the swallows find a nest;
how happy they who dwell with thee
and praise thee without rest,
and happy they whose hearts are set
upon the pilgrim's quest.


Words, verses 1-2: The Psalms of David in Meeter (The Scottish Psalter), 1650
Music: Brother James' Air, Harington

Thanks so much to my friend Ken for today's photo.


There's more:

Steve Cohen, the white Jewish incumbent decisively won his majority African-American and Christian district. With 86% of of the vote reported the results are Cohen 79%, Tinker 19%. It sounds very odd to say it is great news the black politician was not elected. But when the politician in question runs despicable Anti-Semitic ads it is good to see the voters vehemently reject that garbage.

See, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about:

The conversation the right wants to have on abortion is the same tired extremist position of the past thirty years.  This position has been front and center of the recent appointments of Supreme Court Judges. It is hoped that they will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which will in turn lead us into another long divisive struggle as the abortion issue is determined, if ever, at the state level. All the while mind you, abortions will continue on demand in this country. It seems as if the right wants women to continue to seek abortions so they can continue to roll it out every four years to inflame the conservative electorate.

I would suggest that Rick Warren have a conversation with Senators Obama and McCain about  not only why women choose to have an abortion, but also how women can be empowered to make other choices instead of abortion.

...

The conversation at Saddleback also should be about offering policy solutions that promote life and the support of parents beyond the birth of their new child. We have a moral obligation to find common ground, moving the conversation beyond the question of the legality of abortion and move towards actually reducing the need for abortion by investing in programs that will reduce both unintended pregnancies and abortions.

This all sounds very nice, and I'm sure it's well-intentioned. But it uses right-wing frames to build the discussion, then appeals to a center ground that's actually skewed pretty badly.

Kids say the darnedest things. The little boy saw a picture of John McCain on my computer this morning:

"Dad! That's the guy who was on my sticker in Texas!"

"You had a sticker with John McCain on it?"

"Yeah."

(Pause.)

"Who's he?"

"He wants to be president. We don't like him. He's mean."

"Why is he mean?"

"Well, he yells at people and wants to start wars. And if you're not careful, he might eat you."

"Oh. I don't want him to keep being president. I don't like mean people!"

"He's not the president. He wants to be the president."

"Oh. Still."

(Pause.)

"Who's the president?"

"George Bush."

"He's mean too!"

Dude, I'm on the radio.

Everybody hold up your lighters!

They'd like him to pick a position on torture and stick to it:

Senator John McCain was once a principled leader in the fight against torture. But then something happened. In 2006, he lended instrumental support to the Military Commissions Act, which among other things granted retroactive amnesty for past acts of torture and allowed for secret evidence collected during harsh interrogations. Then this past February, he voted against explicating banning the CIA from engaging in torture.

As Catholics we have a special obligation to work against torture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that: “Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.” Furthermore, torture violates the dignity of both the victim and the perpetrator.

Never again should our country engage in such immoral behavior. With your help, lets make it clear that torture is never morally justified.

Don't miss the video testimony from Josh Casteel:

Pretty much. McCain sold out his principles and his fellow POW's on this issue, which ought to tell you just how deep his commitments run. But he should be reminded of it, early and often.

It takes a lot to top a presidential candidate offering his wife to bikers for some raunchy dancing in terms of tastelessness in politics, but sadly, a Democratic candidate for congress in Tennessee has topped that. Nikki Tinker, who is challenging incumbent Steve Cohen crossed a line that should be unacceptable for any candidate to cross:

In the ad, a child’s voice is heard praying while the narrator, clearly meant to be a black woman but not Tinker, wonders who “the real Steve Cohen is anyway” while questioning one of Cohen votes on school prayer while in the state Senate.

While he’s is OUR churches clapping his hands and tapping his feet, he was the only Senator who thought OUR kids shouldn’t be allowed to pray in school.

With all the talk recently in the presidential race about coded language and messages in political pitches, Tinker’s new ad will surely lead some to see an attempt to paint the Jewish Cohen as an anti-Christian interloper in his majority black and majority Christian district.

This ad (which is apparently no longer available on the internet) earned her the Worst Person In The World title from Keith Olbermann.

Rather disappointingly, Tinker has been endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus and Emily's List, although in fairness they had not seen this garbage when the endorsement was made.

Racism is unacceptable; so is religious bigotry. Hopefully tomorrow - primary day - will signal the end of her political career.

This is just disgusting
John McCain, pandering to a group of boozed up bikers, offers up his own wife Cindy as a contestant in a "topless and 'occasionally bottomless'" so-called beauty contest, complete with "simulated fellatio and banana coddling" and -- reportedly -- "rumors about underage contestants and on-stage sex."  

Buffalo Chip has a reputation for that sort of thing. It holds a Miss Buffalo Chip contest every night, which is essentially a topless beauty pageant. And occasionally bottomless, too. During a drenching rain Wednesday night, the contest broke up into smaller groups and one woman wound up dancing naked on a bar top. Her boyfriend/husband saw her and angrily dragged her away as she struggled to put her pants back on and muttered something about how, "It's only this one week a year."

All poor Cindy could do was stand there with a sick smile on her face and wave to the (mostly male) crowd that was shouting, "Show us your boobs!"
Tell me again how the Hillary supporters are going to flock to McCain.  And how does this square with the Religious Reich and Family Values gang?

Happy Day, Everyone!