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A frantic week culminated in a half hour hearing this morning, concerning one of the most unusual issues I had ever run across. At issue in this custody case was whether technology had been used to circumvent the provisions of a court order. Representing the mom, I only entered the case late last week, a johnny-come-lately in a dispute that had exploded sporadically over the last seven years.
The last order was entered in February. At that time, Dad was for the first time awarded unsupervised visitation with the child of the parties, conditioned on and within the framework of a series of scheduled hair follicle drug tests. Drug use had been a burning issue in the case from day one, and Dad convinced the judge in February that he had straightened up. Since then, in accordance with the order, he had produced two drug test results, showing him to be drug free. All seemed to be in order.
Except…it didn’t. There were strange behavioral anomalies that suggested problems. We found a 911 call to the residence to break up a fairly serious domestic incident. Mom heard rumors that Dad was still using. And the test results themselves seemed odd, in an indefinable and vague way. They looked pretty normal, but there was something about the way they looked that seemed a bit unlike other drug tests I had seen. Something we couldn’t put a finger on, but disturbing nonetheless. There was also a sense that the chain of custody of the test results was not what you would like. Unfortunately, the February order did not provide for the results to be sent directly to Mom’s attorney. Instead, Dad picked them up, then took them to his lawyer, who then forwarded it to Mom’s lawyer. There was a whisper on the street that the results were being altered. Could it be true?
So her previous lawyer sent a subpoena to the local hospital for the drug test results. Predictably, they refused. Every hospital is terrified of HIPPA these days, and they insisted that they needed a court order or the Dad’s consent to release the records. HIPPA is one of the banes of my existence. Intended to protect the privacy of medical records, it does exactly that amazingly well. The funny thing about that, of course, is that there is nothing people like to talk about more than their aches and pains. If you run into somebody that has just gotten out of the hospital you know that you will spend the next hour or so hearing all about it. Still, there you are. Everybody has to live with HIPPA.
So I turned to the task of wresting the records from the hospital. First, I asked nicely. I pointed out that the Dad had not objected to the subpoena, so that must mean he consented to the release. Just as nicely — and predictably — the hospital declined. Then I faxed them a copy of the February order, and suggested that it gave us the right to get those documents anyway. This time hospital counsel declined.
It was time for a judge, and just by luck I had one in town this morning. Not just any judge either. This one was a judge with a keen interest in the technological side of things. I knew he would be intrigued by the notion that these reports had been photoshopped, and would understand completely how such a thing was possible. So I got his permission to have it heard before he opened court this morning, told the medical records lady to seal those puppies up and come to court and notified opposing counsel of the plan. It goes without saying that she was thrilled.
When we gathered this morning, the first and biggest argument was whether or not I was entitled to the reports. I argued that it was logically inconsistent, and actually suspect, for the Dad to resist. After all, if the hospital copies matched what he had provided, all of this was then over. It would be the end of the story. We weren’t asking for anything except what we were entitled to anyway. Dad’s lawyer, putting up a valiant fight, argued that I had to give more notice, that under the rules in our state he had the right to have the subpoena quashed. I argued in turn that only the hospital could do that, since they were the ones under subpoena. They had not filed a motion to quash, and were asking only for an order requiring them to hand over the records.
The judge nodded in agreement and signed my order. I went down the hall to the Clerk’s office, filed it and headed back. As I was entering his chambers, I crossed myself and prayed for good repentance if I was wrong in all this. Frankly, I was a bit nervous. The effectiveness of any lawyer rests on his or her credibility. Once a judge decides that you can’t be trusted, you may as well hang it up. If I was wrong in this, it might make a judge less likely to listen to me sometime in the future.
I walked in, handed a copy of the filed order to the hospital person, who handed the sealed envelope to the judge. He grinned. “Are we ready for the reveal?” he quipped. He broke the seal, took out the three pieces of paper and we all stood at his desk and looked at them.
Test number one: initially reported as positive for marijuana, but clean for everything else. The real results: positive for multiple substances.
Test number two: reported as clean across the board. The real results: positive for multiple substances.
Test number three: results not yet reported to us. Positive for multiple substances.
Both of the test results that had been provided had been altered. The judge told me to bring him an order stopping unsupervised visitation, and setting the case for hearing in October.
I still can scarcely believe what happened. Never let it be said that computers are not wonderful things. It is just that they are also wonderful for some things we might not wish for. I also feel bad for Dad’s lawyer. She is put in a terrible spot by this. She put up the fight she had to put up, but that is to be expected. If I had been handed altered documents, I would not be a happy camper at all. I can sympathize with what she must be feeling now.
Occasionally, I like to lay off the heavy stuff for a few days and read books about contemporary saints. Being in a period of frolic and gambol — my final exam having winged its way north — this seems like a good time for that. So I have picked up Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain to re-read. This is one of those books I like to go back to from time to time, and I have written a bit about it in the past. Like almost all books translated from Greek into English, it is a little awkward in places, but I am always amazed by the wisdom shown by these “simple” monks.
One section that caught my interest was on justice, and specifically on human justice as opposed to divine justice. We like to think that justice is a constant, but the Elder is clear that one is better than the other. He gives an illustration:
Suppose two men are sitting at the table to eat. In front of them, there is a plate with ten peaches. If one of them greedily eats seven peaches, leaving three for his friend, he is being unfair to him. That is injustice.
Instead, if he says: “well, we are two and the peaches are ten. So each of us is entitled to eat five peaches.” If he eats the five peaches and leaves the other five for his friend, then he applied human justice.
However, if he understands that his friend likes peaches very much, he can pretend that he is not fond of them and eat only one, and then says to him: “Please eat the rest of the peaches, as I really don’t like them; besides, my stomach aches and I should not eat anymore.” That person has divine justice; he prefers to be unfair to himself by human standards and will be rewarded for his sacrifice by God’s grace, which he will abundantly receive.
This is a hard lesson to learn, yet if we take the bold step of sacrifice, we immediately learn that it is right. Still, clearly I at least often fail to take the lesson to heart. Yet consider — what would our society look like if we followed the attributes of divine justice?
He was a man with impressive tattoos. He came as close as I have ever seen to being a walking canvas. I had known him for several years, having represented him on a few odds and ends of court appointed cases. Nothing particularly serious, but he had a knack for getting caught when others would probably just slide by. Even then, the pride of his life was his wife and their three kids. Not exactly the most functional family you ever saw, but they managed to hold things together well enough. There had been some previous trouble with Social Services, but I had gotten the kids sent back home, and everything seemed to be settling down.
This time was different. He was in prison — taking the rap for his wife, he said — and the the wife had disappeared, leaving the kids back in foster care. There was no patience left among the authorities. They almost immediately got an order excusing them from making reasonable efforts to reunite the family. It would have been hard to anyway, what with Dad in the Department of Corrections. He finally got out in the summer of 2003, one month after the Department filed a petition to terminate his parental rights in the kids. That’s when I was appointed to represent him in the termination case.
As I said, my guy had always loved the kids. He had not made very good choices, but he always loved them, and in prison some things had happened which helped open his eyes. He enrolled in some parenting classes there, as well as some classes through the local community college in ethics, and how to make good choices. When he was released, he was more focused than I had ever seen him, and when he came into my office, his first words were: “I want to get them back.”
“It will be an uphill battle,” I told him. I make it a point to never sugarcoat anything with the people I represent. “I’ll do the best I can, but there is a lot you need to do.” We talked about it. Even though the Department was not going to let him see the kids, he needed to keep asking, or else they would testify at trial that he never said anything about seeing them. He had to pay support for them. He needed to write them cards and letters, and get them gifts for birthdays and holidays. “But what if they don’t give the presents to them?” he asked. “Makes no difference,” I told him. “For right now the important thing will be that you did it.”
He sighed deeply. “OK,” he said, and got up to leave. I stopped him. “Here’s the most important thing: never give up. It will be a long, long road, but if you won’t gve up, I won’t give up.” He shook my hand. “I won’t,” he said, “and God bless you, man.”
Almost immediately a terrible thing happened. Prompted by something the Mom had said, the Department obtained DNA samples to test for the paternity of the children. My guy just laughed. He knew his wife, and he knew his kids. He had no doubt he was the dad.
He was wrong. The DNA test said he was not the dad for two of the three kids, incuding the one that bore his name. Only the youngest one was his. After he was told, he came and saw me. I had never seen him looking so bad.
“I don’t know who she was with,” he said, “although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care. But I’m the kids’ dad. I still want them.”
“Then I’ll keep working,” I told him. “Hang in there.”
“I will,” he said, the hurt still evident in his voice. “God bless you, man.”
My guy remarried, this time to a kind, stable woman, and they proved a good match. Everytime there was court or a meeting or anything having to do with the case, she was with him, not saying a lot, but holding his hand tightly. He held down a job, and he and his wife started attending one of the little Baptist churches around here. They were there every time the door opened. He called the social workers every week, asking to see his children, and every week they turned him down. Every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter, every Valentine’s Day, every time a gift was called for, he took gifts for the children to the Department, where they were put in a closet. The case dragged. I kept noticing it in for hearing, and it kept getting continued. It was a stalemate.
Then the middle child began exhibiting severe behavioral problems, so bad that he was moved to a therapeutic group home several hours from here. The therapist at the group home called the Department, and told them that the boy was lost, that they could do nothing for him…except. “He needs his dad,” the therapist said. “we have to get the Dad involved.” “But he’s not the dad,” the worker said. “I don’t care,” said the therapist, “if he’s the King of Siam. He’s the boy’s only hope.”
The Department called me. “He doesn’t care about genetics,” I told them. “Tell him when to be there and he’ll be there.”
So my guy started driving to the group home once, sometimes twice a week to see the boy that carried his name, but not his genes. The very first time, they told him that he had to tell the boy that he was not his father. The kids had not been told. Later the therapist from the group home told me it was one of the hardest things she had ever seen, that the boy and the man just held each other and cried. Then they started talking, and the dad told the boy he loved him and would always love him, and would always be there.
For three months my guy ran the roads between here and there, and finally the boy was stable. A miracle, said the people at the group home. They wanted the boy to go home to his dad, right then.
The Department refused. They did allow some visits, and then the next bad thing happened. My guy got into an argument with his stepdaughter, and the police were called. No charges were filed, but it was enough for the Department. No more visits.
I talked to my guy. I told him that we were not yet dead, if he hung in there. I told him to go take anger management classes and get a substance abuse assessment. “We know what they are going to say,” I told him. “Go and fix any possible problem now, so it won’t be an issue later. I know you don’t do drugs or drink anymore, but go get all of that done.”
“OK,” he said. “I’ll do it as soon as I get home. God bless you, man.”
He continued to send presents, write cards and letters, make phone calls. He saw just about every counsellor in three counties, and they all gave him a clean bill of health. He waited and waited, and the pile of presents in the Department closet kept getting bigger and bigger. I managed to get the termination petition dismissed, and then was appointed to replace his lawyer in the underlying juvenile cases, who had been hurt in an accident. There was still no visitation. We needed one more hearing, a permanency planning hearing, to force the Department to start visitation and reunification.
Then the youngest child, the only one that was really his, began acting out badly, and was kicked out of his foster home. The worker called to tell me. “He needs his dad,” I said. “You know that he does.” The boy’s therapist agreed, and again my guy began the painful process of reconnecting with a son who thought that his dad had just disappeared off the face of the earth. They met in the therapist’s office, and they cried and cried. When it was time to go, I was told, they walked hand in hand to the parking lot, and people watching thought they would never let go of each other.
Today we finally got the hearing. Last night, when I was about to go home, my guy came by the office. He was frightened. He knew that this hearing was the last one. Everything hinged on what happened there. If we lost it, he would never see the kids again. We also talked about the oldest boy, a teenager. He had bonded deeply with his foster family, and said in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be adopted by them. My guy said he understood that, and would respect his wishes, but that he hoped that all the boys could maintain contact with each other.
This morning, we showed up for the hearing. The judge asked for a pretrial conference, and asked the lawyers what the case was about. Nobody spoke for a moment, and then I took the plunge.
I told her about cards and letters, about phone calls. I told her about presents gathering dust in closets and about nights spent in prayer. I told her about long drives to group homes, and tearful reunions with desperate children. I told her about a wife’s unfaithfulness and a dad’s faithfulness. I told her that the older boy didn’t want to come, and we respected his maturity and his decision. I told her that the two younger boys had to go home, that their dad desperately wanted them, and that I believed that if we wanted them to grow up as decent and respectful young men, then they needed their dad more than any of us could ever put into words. I told her that those two boys were sitting in the Department across the street, that I had obtained an order for the Department to produce them, and that the boys would tell her how much they wanted to go home to their dad.
I finished and all was silent. “Is there a problem with what Seraphim says?” she asked. Someone spoke up. “He’s not the father of one of the boys.” The judge exploded. “What, you mean he’s not the sperm donor! By God, that’s not a Dad. A dad is the one who stays around after that. Are you telling me he’s not that dad?”
No one told her that.
I walked into the courtroom and gestured to my client to meet me in the back. He and his wife came back, still holding hands. He was almost distraught from worry and fear.
“They’re coming home,” I said.
My guy dissolved in tears and grabbed me in a bear hug, and for several minutes we stood there, me slapping his back, him sobbing, and — to be honest – me not completely dry eyed. Finally we broke, and I told him the plan. Visitation in his home starts on Saturday, and if all goes well, they will move in full time with him when Christmas break starts. He said he understood.
I shook his hand, and he grabbed me again. “God bless you, man. God bless you,” he said. I stopped him. “I want to thank you for your prayers over these years,” I told him. “But your prayers have gotten you this: God has blessed you.”
Meeting in Prague, the International Astronomical Union is expected today to downgrade Pluto, long one of the solar system’s starting nine, from a planet to a dwarf planet. “I think that today can go down as the ‘day we lost Pluto,’ ” said Jay Pasachoff of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., in an e-mail message from the conference. The scientists are expected to agree on a definition of planet which would group Pluto with other small icy balls as “dwarf-planets”, meaning that they are bigger than a breadbasket, but less important. It was only last week that scientists had announced that Pluto was indeed a planet, and the sudden reversal is catching many by surprise. Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich, chairman of the Planet Definition Committee of the union, acknowledged as much, saying “There’s not happiness all around, believe me.”
On Pluto, there was no happiness at all to be found, although those interviewed as they ate lunch and enjoyed absolute zero temperatures took the news in differing ways. “Oh, I never pay attention to the news anyway,” said Xrgphs, a young mother/father/something watching her/his/its children/smaller things anyway playing in the park. “Its not important to me. If its not about my family, I don’t care.”
Most other Plutonians were not so easy going. Students demonstrated, carrying signs which read “Earth is a Planet of Imperialist Pigs!” and “Pluto: Planet for the People”. Dgpermt, a leader of the students, told reporters that Earth would end up getting some of its own medicine back.
“Nobody in their right mind would want to live on Earth anyway. Its hot, its sticky, and its got New Jersey. So we say to @&%# with Earth!”
Still others were more resigned. “Its the International Astronomical Union, dude! I mean…what can you do against those guys?,” said office worker Ifvosjh, tears glistening in his eyes. “I mean, it makes you feel bad, but I guess we have to be the best second rate heavenly body we possibly can be.”
Back on earth, reaction was mixed. Walt Disney Studios protested the move, saying that it devalued the worth of Pluto the dog, a franchise character. Stock in Disney fell ten percent as investors tried to guess the ultimate impact it would have on the hapless company. Although Disney promised to sue, most legal observers concluded that the lawsuit would have little chance of success, “’cause its the International Astronomical Union, dude!”
In Washington, the State Department announced that the news would result in the government classifying Pluto as a third world country, which could result in increased foreign aid. On the other hand, said a White House spokesperson, that would also make it more likely that it was a member of The Axis of Evil. “I think we can conclude that the most evil governments are those that are small enough to run over with impunity,” he said. “With a planet you know you have respectability and stability. But these dwarf planets…lets just say you never know about them.”
That attitude was mirrored by NASA, which announced that liquids and gels would no longer be allowed on space shuttle missions.
In the blogosphere, reaction was mostly in favor of the change. It had been hotly argued for some months that Pluto suffered from a certain fatal degenerate nature and historical inconsistencies which made its humiliation inevitable. Others seized on the same theme developed by the White House, and urged immediate military action against the dwarf planet, arguing that they were now dwarf fascists. “If we don’t act now,” declared one blogger, “it will be too late. After all, we already know that they have plutonium! If that’s not a weapon of mass destruction, I don’t know what is.”
I have to confess that recently I found myself laughing about a case I ran across. Not that it is funny in the traditional kind of way — instead it is one of those things that just leaves you wondering where people store their common sense. The short outline: husband and wife, with kids. Wife has affair with a person who is arguably a family member. Some children are of uncertain parentage. Wife leaves to reside with other family member, leaving some children and taking others. Husband is peeved. I would be, too, I suppose.
It is equally sad, however, that when I run into a story like that, I have to catch myself before I get too haughty. Not only is this man’s story tragic, albeit bizarre, it is also not necessarily that unusual. Nor, for that matter, am I in any position to laugh.
Of course, the fallout from the disintegration of marriages is everywhere. There is no such thing as a happy breakdown, no matter how shiny the veneer of civility that is put on it. Nor is adultery limited to those who could use fairly extensive dental work. In fact, there are studies that suggest that a surprising percentage of all children born in wedlock are not the children of the husband of the couple. And, of course, before us men get too self righteous, we should remember that it does take one of our kind to assist at the conception, and the overall rates of adultery for men are somewhat higher than for women. So it is that my files contain stories of people doing the deed in ramshackle mobile homes and sizeable mansions, having doffed overalls and hot pants as well as silk dresses and Italian suits. Utterly foolish and sinful behavior is not the exclusive province of any gender, race or socio-economic class.
Yet while we like to focus on the more extravagant and exciting sins, like adultery, the Fathers saw a somewhat different hierarchy among sins. In fact, when St. John Climacus discussed sins in The Ladder of Divine Ascent some 1500 years ago, give or take a bit, adultery and sexual sins did not top the list. While they are extremely serious, St. John identified the Mother of all Sins as Pride. Not only is pride a terrible thing in and of itself, it also is the real impetus for many other terrible things. If a man looks on a woman and thinks about sleeping with her, it is not just lust which is involved. It is also pride. Pride tells us that we are entitled to things, whether it be acclaim, money, goods or the next door neighbor. Often people use sex to reclaim self-esteem, to serve as a balm on wounded pride.
Although not quite in that way, pride is my major sin as well. It is the one I struggle with more than anything else. In confession it falls under the general category of being a jerk, as in “I was a jerk in court last week”. Father sighs, rolls his eyes. “Isn’t it about time you set that aside?”, he asks.
Well, it is actually.
So at the end of the day, I’ve got no call to be guffawing at the story of the poor fellow with the straying wife. If he really saw me, he would probably be inclined toward amusement at my expense. Whenever I feel tempted to start thinking too highly of myself compared to other people, I like to think about St. Moses the Black. He was a robber and murderer in fourth century Egypt. He and his band raided a monastery once, intending to rob and kill the monks. The fathers did not resist, but simply prayed as the gang ransacked the place. Suddenly, St. Moses was struck by contrition and sorrow, and laying down his sword, he became a monk, and over time achieved immense holiness.
There is a story about him, that one time the brothers had caught one of the other monks in the sin of fornication, and convened a meeting in the Church to discuss what to do with him. They called for Moses to attend, but he did not show up. They sent someone after him, to compel him to come. Finally, he reluctantly appeared, carrying over his shoulder a huge bag containing sand, which was running out and leaving a trail behind him. When they asked him what the bag meant, he replied that the bag was full of his own sin, and as he went along, his sins trailed behind him. “How,” he asked, “can I judge the sins of another, when my own sins are so evident?”
I know that there is a tendency among religious people of any stripe to condemn sin, and it should be condemned. Sometimes I wonder, though, whether we are the ones to do the condemnation of the sins of others. St. Paul told us not to concern ourselves with the sins of those outside the Church, that they were not our problem. For those inside the Church, there are very specific ways to deal with problems, none of which involve big confrontations involving whole mobs of people. In the Orthodox Church, more often than not, chronic sin is a job for the priest to address one on one, and sometimes people are denied communion or otherwise disciplined. But that is for the priest and the bishop to address. For the rest of us, there is no room for condemnation, no room for finger pointing. Indeed, there is a certain element of pride when we attack the sins of others. Since when did God need our help to convict a sinner?
What is our task? Pray for the sinner. Shelter the wounded. Love those who are hurt. And most important, never forget our owns sins trailing behind us.
Hmmmm….an addition: I would draw a distinction between individual sins and many societal sins. For example, the Orthodox Church has always condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms. Our hierarchs, priests and many laity are actively involved in pro-life movements. There is a clear distinction, however, in being vocally opposed to abortion and attacking those who personally commit the sin. Even in a case such as that, it is important that we act in humility and love.
This morning, finally, I pressed the last key, and finished my Old Testament exam, which was actually an exam on the Pentateuch, since that is how we occupied ourselves last year. Twenty six single spaced pages of — what? Drivel? Wisdom? Some unpalatable combination of the two? Only one man can answer that question, and I can only say that I would not wish to be in his shoes. I mean, he wrote the exam and all, but back in the sweet warmth of May was it really possible to imagine the consequences in sweltering August when, one after another, enormous chunks of print begin to appear in the mailbox?
Still, for me all is sweetness and light. I now have three weeks in which to gambol and frolic, never once thinking of the Hexaemeron, covenants, rituals and sacrifices and those wild and crazy Israelites, before returning to Johnstown to start classes again the weekend after Labor Day. That is what I am really looking forward to. Its funny how attached you can get to a place and a group of people. This will be the third year for some of us, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think any of us know what we will do with ourselves once they tell us that we’re done, and we can stop coming. Theoretically, I suppose you could continue showing up, but at some point the faculty is likely to look askance at that. On the other hand, if I don’t keep attending, stock in Delta Airlines, already dangerously low, might fall precipitously, perhaps signaling the demise of the entire airline industry.
Thank goodness I’m not prone to exaggeration or anything.
Still, these are very difficult questions. Only time will provide answers. I already consulted my magical 8-ball, but got the same answer I always get: answer unclear — ask again later. Shucks.
First, a confession: you will not find me within ten miles of any theater showing Snakes on a Plane. Any other consideration aside, my native phobia of serpents will ensure that I don’t get to see Samuel L. Jackson do his thing. Where I live, you have Snakes in your Yard, and that is more than enough for me. Snakes? On a plane? Yeeech!
Still, I’ll also confess to being fascinated by the incredible uproar over this film. I saw a few reviews of it today, and the general opinion sems to be that it is a bad, even stupid movie, but that everyone loves it. I can appreciate the excitement, although I cannot really grasp precisely why. Sure, I enjoy S. L. Jackson as much as the next subcleric, but still…
At the same time, just from the buzz and the reviews, I find a couple of aspects of all of this interesting. The first, and most obvious, is the almost universal fear of snakes. Some people are exempt — my uncle, for example, enjoys capturing large poisonous snakes and taking them home. He once released a brood of baby copperheads into his back yard. Nice guy, but I don’t see him much. Most people, though, want as little to do with snakes as possible. Even if, like me, you can talk a good game about the important role snakes play in the environment, what you really mean is that they play an important role in someone else’s environment. So long as its not mine.
How ancient is that! At least as ancient as the third chapter of Genesis, that’s how ancient. In more recent times, it is common to read stories about the uneasy co-existence of men and snakes. The Apostle Paul is bitten by a serpent, which he shook off into the fire, and his survival is accounted a great work of God. Just from an Orthodox perspective, the Desert Fathers are full of stories about huge snakes in the Eqyptian wilderness, vanquished and broken by the hermits. On Mount Athos, the presence of numerous snakes — some poisonous — has been a recurring theme in the stories of the Athonite saints. Fr. Seraphim Rose is reported to have struggled with numerous rattlesnakes when he and Fr. Herman first moved to the wilderness near Platina. Even when the stories are turned upside down, as in the occasional tale of a saint so holy that asps and vipers are tame, and curl meekly around the arm of the holy, the wonder of that miracle is evident, a sign obviously of great holiness conferred by the Lord.
And other traditions? Don’t get me started on the snake handlers. Officially they are outlawed, but in some hollers on quiet Sunday mornings, the buzzing of the rattle may be heard along with the singing of the hymn. I am ignorant aside from those, but my impression is that there is simply fear. So the movie plays on what is a very apparent primal fear, one inculcated in us without teaching, without conscious effort.
A second interesting thing about the movie, at least based on what the reviews reveal, is that the primal fear of snakes is matched with an instinctive identification with the passions. Once the uproar about the movie started, scenes were reshot and added to change the rating from PG to R, and most of the added gore seems to revolve around the cruel death of, well, sinners. Even in the pulp arena, snakes are associated with sin: lust, adultery, greed, self-centeredness.
Finally, the way in which the internet has manipulated public perception of the film is fascinating. Forget television, forget any other media: the internet has matured and has become THE primary purveyor of social mores and attitudes. And that, my friends, is perhaps even more frightening than 500 slithering, hissing, snakes.
When her own blog careens from the First Lady of Bulgaria to observations of Max the Wonder-Labradoodle:
They’re Pinky and the Brain…
Max, labradoodle of doom, destroyer of worlds, has one toy which is his favorite in all the world: a squeaky hot pink ball which may have had legs at one point. Max and Mr. Squeaky, don’t you know. Max will come up to any sitting person and drop it in their lap, and will wait for practically forever for us to throw Mr. Squeaky.
However, keeping track of Mr. Squeaky is not as easy as one might think, considering his bright hue. You see, Mr. Squeaky likes to escape. He rolls under the couch! Into closets! Under the icon table! He loves small spaces. And Max loves to try and dig him out, although all he succeeds in doing in ripping out the under layer of the couch. So he gets depressed, because he misses Mr. Squeaky.
Mr. Squeaky is, in fact, the cunning and ever-watchful-for-an-opportunity Brain. Max is an obvious fit for Pinky.
With those two around, we never have need for television.
*bounce bounce skid SLAM*
Dad: “Oh no! Mr. Squeaky has escaped AGAIN!”
*bounce bounce SKID SKID WHACK SKID BARK*
D: “Again he escapes under the couch!”
*bounce SMACK*
D: “Maybe you should just avoid the couch, Max.”
*bounce bounce bounce WHAM! BANG! SKID SKID SKID OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Ad nauseum
Actually, Max really is a lost soul without the comforting presence of Mr. Squeaky. And, truth be told, we are only a few days from Olga returning to her school. Marina, flushed from her First-in-Class-finish at the Feral Cow Home School, also begins college in earnest at the local community college. Both girls started there, then they get to go off to a place of their choosing. So we’ll still have Marina around, but the end is clearly in sight. Maybe, just maybe, my wife and I will have to get our own Mr. Squeaky. Just for entertainment purposes, of course.
Mr. Squeaky update: having come out from under the couch, Monsieur S. was bouncing down the hall when he unexpectedly detoured into the kitchen, landing in the dog’s water bowl just as one of the cats had his head down in it, snatching a quick drink.
We are always told not to laugh at the misfortunes of others, but honestly, there is nothing quite so gratifying as the look on a cat’s face when he is unexpectedly drenched by a hot pink rubber ball.
When I haven’t been working — or thrashing about with school work — I have been preoccupied for the last couple of days with a new book, The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright. Wright is a journalist who has written a fascinating book about Muslim fundamentalism generally, and al-Qaeda in particular. There is a high level of polemics in the discussion about the subject, and this book offers a refreshingly clear eyed view of the matter. To be perfectly honest, in what I have read thus far, nobody, east or west, comes off looking very good.
I was struck, however, by the opening chapters, which are devoted in large measure to Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who in the 1950s and 60s was a highly influential figure among discontented Muslims. Qutb spent some time in the United States in the 1940s, where he is remembered as a quiet and friendly person. He was apparently deeply offended, however, by what he viewed as aggressive female sexuality. In Greeley, Colorado, where he attended what was then Colorado State College of Education, he was shocked at how casually sexuality was approached. A woman professor, he related, told him “The issue of sexual relationships is simply biological. You Orientals complicate this simple matter by introducing a moral element to it.” To Qutb, this experience became a defining moment in his view of the west. Of course, the 1940s was nothing like what we see today. If the staid world of the 40s was shocking, how much more so the world of today?
Of course, the feeling of being aghast at the excesses of western culture is not exclusively the province of the Muslim world. I dare say almost all readers of this blog will agree that our society is nothing less than hypersexual. Our problem now, in many respects, is that we find ourselves unable to come to a consensus as to what constitutes true, legitimate freedom and equality for women, and what is simply foolishness. I don’t know if I have expressed that very well, but it seems that our challenge as a society is to recognize women as free, intelligent and valuable people, without enthroning overt public sexuality in the pantheon of social gods. It seems that the two subjects, however, which ought not be related in a substantive way, have in fact become part and parcel of one another. To criticize the level of sexuality is taken as an assault on the right of women to behave as badly as men behave, which is deemed the equivalent of an assault on women as a whole. Perhaps the question should be turned on its head; perhaps rather than compete in bad taste, it is men who should learn to behave better.
In any event, Qtub’s experience was truly basic to the development of anti-western attitudes among the militants. On the one hand, there was a deep distrust of western secularism, while on the other hand they saw their governments going out of their way (in their view) to accomodate that same secularism. In the 70s and 80s, what was the sterotype of the oil rich Arab if not a spendthrift fool intent on buying the favors of western women? This conflict, when combined with a particular exegesis of the Quran, has resulted is what we see today, from Kosovo to Singapore to Heathrow. There is plenty of food for thought there.
Ancient Church 