Blue Texas — A State of Ambivalence

By Michael O. Varhola

Sometime in the coming years, for a variety of reasons, die-hard Red state Texas will almost certainly become a Blue state. That is, in fact, something I have been personally working to help achieve. It would be fair to say, however, that I have very mixed feelings about this imminent political sea change.

It bears mentioning that I am not now and never have been a Democrat per se; many years ago, I was actually registered as a Republican, and for much of the past two decades I have strived to be strictly apolitical and non-partisan, which I think behooves someone working as a journalist. I am, however, a liberal — perhaps even a radical liberal — and am also revolted by and strongly opposed to most of what the Republican party stands for these days, which I consider to be regressive and contrary to the interests of the majority of the citizenry. In short, liberalism is based on an informed view of the world and the value and rights of the individual, whereas conservatism essentially represents the inverse of these ideas. Because most "liberals" also happen to be "Democrats," those two terms are often used synonymously. This is problematic in any number of ways, however, as I have recently had brought to my attention.

Some of what I have seen in Texas from the Democratic party during the current election season is commensurate with the liberal ideal and some of it most definitely is not and has, consequently, given me some pause. Following are some of the negative and positive things I have recently experienced in this regard:

(-): In January, I received a many-times-forwarded email message with the subject “Congressional Reform Act of 2011” that appeared to be a typical piece of Tea Party/neocon invective containing a number of blatant lies and which otherwise reflected a rightwing ethos. What stunned me, however, was that this message originated with the chair of the Democratic Party of the county I live in! “While I personally do not fully agree with all of these suggestions, they are a good place to start,” this lady wrote at the beginning of the message. Concerned that Democratic leaders in our area have no idea what their own party stands for, I contacted her to let her know I was planning on posting an article about the message to this blog but was willing to talk to her about it first. She did not, however, respond to any of my attempts to reach her.

(-): After I posted an article about the message, I contacted nearly 40 people affiliated with the Democratic Party of Texas and that of the county I live in, including one who as at that time running for the Senate and is now running for Congress (and who had contacted me via Facebook after I posted the afore-mentioned article, which it turned out was about his wife; he cut off contact with me when I would not take what was apparently meant to be a hint about removing this piece). Even though I identified myself as pro-Democrat journalist who was concerned with the way the party was being presented, none bothered to respond, not a single one saw fit to dispel misconceptions associated with their party, to respond to misconceptions perpetrated by one of their representatives, or to bolster the efforts of a liberal blogger desperate to support their agenda.

(+) A few weeks ago, I attended a pro-Democratic event at the home of some people in my neighborhood and was grateful to them for hosting it and giving me the opportunity to meet other like-minded people. Pro-Republicans in this area are often publicly vocal about their views — something people with any beliefs in my former East Coast home would have considered rude and coarse and avoided doing — and it was nice to see that there are more people with a liberal bent living all around me than I would have imagined.

(+): At that event, I met and spoke with some of the Democratic political candidates in Texas, including John Courage, who is running for Texas State Senate District 25, and Rebecca Bell-Mettereau, who is running for a place on the State Board of Education District 5. Suffice it to say that I was impressed with their demeanor, intelligence, and sincerity and that they strengthened my resolve to support the Democratic cause in Texas and that I voted for both of them when I went to the polls on October 22. If they get elected I believe they will do everything they can to make Texas a better place for its citizens.

(-): Last week, I attended a training session organized by the Democratic Party in my county so that I could learn how to serve as a clerk at a polling station on election day. Without going into details that might seem overly mean-spirited, it would be fair to say that if the level of organization at this meeting was indicative of the party's efforts throughout the state in general then it is abundantly clear why a state that has as many Democrats as it does Republicans is still solidly Red. Nearly two hours after the session began, it ended without the training having been accomplished, with an indication that it would have to be held again at a future date, with promises that materials pertinent to it would be sent out via email (which, as of this writing, has still not happened).

Disorganization, confusion, and indifference in the Democratic Party in Texas notwithstanding, the Lone Star State will nonetheless ultimately shift from Red to Blue as the Hispanic population of Texas inexorably grows and achieves majority status. But one has to question whether it will truly be a victory for the Democratic cause to have the state turn Blue not because its citizens have become more enlightened, educated, or socially conscious, but merely because one ethnic group has become more predominant than another. We will not, in fact, come much closer to the Great Society envisioned by one former president from the state of Texas if all we do is swap out the political party favored by people who mostly look alike in one way for the political party of people who mostly look alike in another way. (Shown here is Rebecca Bell-Mettereau, one of the hopes for the Democratic cause in Texas.)

So, suffice it to say, I am ambivalent about the shift of the Lone Star State from Red to Blue. Overall, I am confident that Texas and America overall will be better off for this change and will continue to work for it — but it is sad to contemplate how much less meaningful that change will be than it could be.

A Union by Any Other Name, Part 3

By Richard T. Balsley

See Part 1 and Part 2 if you have not already!

The Use and Application of Labor
Offices and factories allow people to pool their efforts. This has the added bonus of multiplying the output of each individual as they specialize to handle key areas of the process to produce the product or service offered by the company. Having such proximity to one’s fellow workers makes it easier to cope not only with the stresses of the job, but it also helps to alleviate any sense of isolation between members of the same profession. Some of these concerns may have led to the guild halls for the same reason that people gather in offices or hold trade conventions today. As everything has a trade-off, there is a downside to the ability to congregate and perfect one’s skills on a daily basis.

The individual worker has no say in where he can perform his job nor does he have any input into the conditions of the facility. Government ordinances do, certainly, but they are outside the power of a specific person. These conditions are under the control of the person who owns the worksite. Additionally, most workers do not own the equipment necessary to do their jobs regardless of their level of skill. Herein lays the problem for the worker: having a desire to perform meaningful work for meaningful pay without losing access to the means of production where such criteria can be met. If the chief aim of the company is to provide a product for profit, then it behooves the board members to maximize earnings, but where to take the money is another question.

For good or for ill, all workplaces that employ groups of people are sites of labor extraction. There is nothing inherently wrong in this idea. Not only is it convenient and require less logistics, a centralized work location, and also a place where quality and safety controls can be instituted, but it is also a place where efforts can be coordinated. It is this last point where one can see the need for a supervisor. No longer burdened with teaching a new apprentice how to create the entire product, a supervisor or foreman can train a worker to perform a specific series of tasks along the assembly line style of industrialized production. The foreman likewise only needs to know how to do the jobs under his purview. Some of these changes between one job and the other are often minimal so that workers may graduate from one position to another in some industries. The purpose of this is nominally for standardization of quality.

Owning the sites of labor extraction and the means by which to do it is a central point of contention. In a truly communistic culture, the people who do the labor would own the site, giving them complete control over how, when, and the value of their efforts for whatever capital or other assets are exchanged to obtain what the workers produced. Whether it is a cultural or biological imperative for people to stratify themselves, the most likely result is the concentration of power in the hands of fewer people, not more. This is what capitalism does efficiently and effectively and why it is mentioned near the end of the last installment as a natural extension of feudalism. In a democratic republic, the people are legally equal in all respects. Within the site of labor extraction and the laws that govern how such labor may be extracted, this is not the case.

People are paid based not on the work they actually do in a factory or an office, but rather for what the company thinks the position each person occupies is worth. The individual is replaceable. As a result, the wages are deflated just enough to make the job enticing without making it too repellant and costing the company more money than what they would earn by paying the higher wage. Unions have helped keep the pressure on companies to provide benefits while keeping wages stable. Given the cut in profits that such wages and other forms of compensation unions work to secure in exchange for their members’ labor to be extracted, it is easy to see why both have an antagonistic relationship.

The disintegration of union power through right-to-work laws is not a bad thing in light of some of the problems that union control has had over the job market. Anyone attempting to enter a trade had to be a member of a union or be barred from work in a facility where the union oversaw employee relations with the company owners. Unfortunately, those very laws have given corporations more leverage in dictating what workers will receive in compensation for their labor. The rise and prominence of unions has been at times a barrier to the growth of any single business, but when strikes spread across several companies in support of work stoppages in other locales, it becomes harmful to the economy overall. Hence, there exists the need for balance in the legal system to prevent abuse by either organization.

The data for the past forty years or so shows a correlation between the decline of the middle class wage and the decline of the unions. Whether this is because corporations have worked so diligently to break the corporations or is in part a result of the changes in technology and the outsourcing of so many manufacturing jobs is not necessarily so clear. The increasing disparity between wages of blue collar and white collar workers, however, is. Unpacking the reasoning for this is beyond my purview, but what I can comment on is the mentality that defines the two sides of the argument and how that has helped lead to the entrenchment.

Essentially, the divide between unions and corporations comes down to a quasi-ritualistic structure that imposes a moral order on the thinking of the members of each group. The effect is a cultural indoctrination which Joseph Campbell described in The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology as part of the ritual which serves “as the enforcement of a moral order: the shaping of the individual to the requirements of his geographically and historically conditioned social group” (p. 5). The result is the belief that the opposed group is the Other bent on eradicating the culture’s existence, and to some extent this may be true with all the legal wrangling that have informed both union and corporate culture. The strategies and tactics used by both groups are not so different, however; how they manifest is.

'It's Supernatural' TV Show Commentary

By Michael O. Varhola

When I saw "It's Supernatural" listed on the Daystar television network, the first thing that struck me was that the religious networks had joined Animal Planet, National Geographic, and just about every other basic cable network in tapping into the ghosthunting craze. The show's description, "Investigative reporter Sid Roth explores the supernatural," reinforced this impression (Roth is shown at right). I expected, naturally, that they would put their own spin on paranormal activity, and that everything would end up having an explicitly Christian justification. It was, in fact, not nearly so subtle, nor was it much like the references to angels and other phenomena in the opening credits suggested it would be -- or the narrator who intoned "It's supernatural" in his creepiest voice -- suggested it would be. Always nice when deception is the basis for a show on a religious channel.

Indeed, the studio audience format for the show was its "tell" and dispelled any hopes for haunted, ancient, exotic, or even interesting sites. No, our venue for "It's Supernatual" was instead a cheap stage set with a crowd of spillovers from "The 700 Club" (i.e., white, working class, baffled and slightly scared looking). That, of course, is the standard for a Fundamentalist show, and even when they are pretending to do something else they apparently can't resist falling back on this format that was tried and true by the time Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker perfected it as a device for fleecing the flock.

Once the show I watched started, it took the form of an "interview" between Roth and Craig Hill, an author who has written a book extrapolating his theory that the practice of Jubilee observed by the ancient Israelites explains the financial crisis we have experienced since 2008, the Great Depression, etc. What followed was pretty much an apologia of right-wing financial theory justified in Biblical terms. The studio audience liked it because the hosts kept using the words "Bible," "Jesus," and "salvation," but you could see from their glazed eyes that they really had no idea what they were talking about.

There was one thing that definitely made this show worth watching, and that was the revelation that Jews are successful because of magical techniques they unknowingly apply! Hahaha! Ah, scratch a Jew and find a wizard. But most of us kind of suspected that about Jews anyway, right? What Roth points out, however, is that the rest of us can also make use of these techniques to enrich ourselves.

Craig Hill does make what I consider to be the valid and interesting point that people should not work particular jobs just because they offer financial rewards and should instead be driven by a sense of vocation. This is all part of what I found to be a rather confusing mixed message, because the whole point of the show -- or at least this episode -- seemed to be how to achieve financial success. Such success is not achieved by worshiping Mammon through inappropriate jobs but rather through magical techniques that Roth and his guests can teach you: "God will supernaturally compress time in your life if you follow these principles." And the goods and services you need to learn those principles are advertised on the show and can, conveniently, be purchased though Roth's website!

Roth himself is, as his name might suggest, Jewish. So, basically, he is either an apostate who has abandoned the faith of his people, or he is a classic, amoral, and stereotypical Shylock. Ironically, to a Fundamentalist audience who sees Jews not as human beings but rather as devices for fulfilling prophecies, it does not matter which of these he actually is.

So, if you are looking for a new take on the paranormal, "It's Supernatural" is not going to be it. But if you are looking for 30 minutes of "Prosperity Christianity" and have some coin to drop as the price for buying into it, the wily Roth will be glad to accommodate.

A Wolf at the Door

By Michael O. Varhola

Recently, I received a mailing from the campaign of Congressman Frank Wolf asking me for my support and making the case for why I should do so. In this double-sided sheet that concludes with his signature, Wolf explains to me that "due to the once in a decade process of congressional redistricting," I now live in a different district, and then talks about the issues he is devoted to.

And Wolf makes an irreproachable case! His platform is, in fact, so generic and "common sense" that it would be hard to take exception to it. The bulleted items on his mailing include the following:

* "Get the Federal Budget Under Control"

* "Create Jobs and Help Business"

* "Get the Federal Budget Under Control"

* "Improve our Region's Transportation System"

* "Improve Education"

* "Protect Our Neighborhoods and Communities

Good stuff. Nothing there on social issues, but I would have to be a communist, a homosexual agitating to get married, a rape victim trying to dump a fetus, or some other undesirable to object to an inoffensive laundry list like that. And no matter what my own political leanings might be, I can't take offense at Wolf's party affiliation, because he opts not to include it in his mailing! Not even an examination of his campaign website, in fact, explicitly reveals whether he is a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else altogether -- although it does note that he has represented his district since 1981.

It would seem, in the current polarized political landscape, that the canny congressman believes he would repulse more people than he would attract by revealing this bit of information about himself. A sly Wolf indeed.

A little digging through third-party sources reveals that Wolf is, in fact, a Republican, but apparently not one of the more rabid members of that pack, and therefore quite possibly the kind of person I would want to vote for. As much as I might want to, however, I cannot support Wolf, for reasons beyond my control that I will reveal presently. I can, however, do him a favor -- and, perhaps more importantly, help out his profligate and inefficient staffers and any voters who may have given their hard-earned money to him.

In short, I cannot vote for Frank Wolf because he represents the 10th Congressional District of Virginia -- and I live in Texas. Yes, that is correct, I have been a resident of the Lone Star State for the past three-and-a-half years, but despite that staffers for Wolf's campaign nonetheless deem it appropriate to use the resources at their disposal to mail information to me about their candidate.

I have no idea how much money the Wolf campaign will save if this article prompts them to examine their mailing lists and purge the addresses of people ineligible to actually vote for their candidate, but I suspect it is more than any contribution I could afford to make would be worth. Maybe, as thanks for helping them out the way that I have, they will be kind enough to let me know.

America's Allied Wounded Warriors

By Michael O. Varhola

As a journalist, I have always been aware that the United States was not alone in the ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Knowing that in theory, however, does not necessarily make one think about the non-American troops that are not just serving alongside U.S. military personnel, but being killed and maimed like them as well. I was exposed to this largely unknown phenomena and gained some insights into it when I visited the Czech Republic in July. Since then, I have been moved to begin writing a book on the subject with the working title Allied Soldier and to begin telling the story of the things I saw and the people I met. (Shown here is a Czech soldier guarding the presidential palace in Prague.)

There are, in fact, currently more than two-dozen nations serving with the United States in Afghanistan, including Great Britain, France, Germany, and the Czech Republic. This is, moreover, the first time the Czech Republic has been involved in hostilities since World War II and it faces many obstacles to providing adequate support for its soldiers severely injured as a result. One of these hurdles is that many of the nation's citizens do not understand the value of supporting either the war in Southwest Asia or the veterans wounded in it. Another is that the Czech government does not have either the resources or the breadth of experience of larger, wealthier nations like the United States, which can draw upon the lessons it has learned in the many conflicts with which it has been involved over the past six decades.

Two years ago, a number of concerned Czech citizens founded REGI Base Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing critical resources and support for wounded warriors that goes beyond what either the government or their families are able to do. Its centerpiece will be REGI Base I, a state-of-the-art medical facility currently under construction outside of Prague in the village of Svémyslice that, when it is completed, will be able to house up to 16 veterans undergoing treatment and serve the needs of up to 35 outpatients per day (the facility is shown here as it appeared during my visit). The intent of its founders is that it will include modern diagnostic equipment unavailable anywhere else in the region, be able to provide rehabilitative care onsite, and serve as a clearinghouse of information on physicians and clinics worldwide to which it can send wounded warriors in need of specialized care.

Inspiration for both the name of REGI Base and its mission is Chief Warrant Officer Jiří "Regi" Schams, a Czech special forces soldier who was horribly wounded on March 17, 2008 (shown here shortly before his injury). On that day, he was part of a 13-person multinational team that was conducting outreach operations to the civilian residents of a particularly dangerous province of Afghanistan when it was attacked by a suicide bomber. Four of the other personnel in the squad were killed outright, including two Danish civil affairs soldiers and the group's Afghani interpreter, and nine were wounded, including Schams, who was incapacitated by the blast. It initially appeared as if he had suffered some relatively minor injuries and a concussion. Before long, however, it became apparent that a piece of shrapnel had entered the back of Schams' head and burrowed its way through his brain almost to the front of his skull.

At first, there did not appear to be much chance that Schams would survive. But to the surprise of everyone — including his doctors and his family — the phenomenally tough special operations soldier managed to stabilize and pull through. That brought its own host of problems, however, for the injured veteran, who suffered extreme neurological damage and was thereby confined to a wheelchair, initially unable to speak, and plagued with vision problems that force him to perpetually keep one eye closed.

Following his return to the Czech Republic, Schams received the best medical care that his government could provide, and enjoyed the attention and support of his former comrades-in-arms and family members, particularly his mother. But resources available to him were inadequate for dealing with his condition, and his recovery was slow and very limited; for the first two years after he was injured, Schams believed he was in the middle of a nightmare from which he would eventually awake, something that severely retarded his progress.

In 2010, a Czech entrepreneur named Hynek Čech met Schams through a mutual friend and was horrified to discover that the wounded warrior was living alone in a high-rise apartment building that he could not even exit on his own (Schams is shown here with REGI Base co-founder Hynek Čech, right, and Kent Wills, author of a story about the wounded veteran titled a "A Soldier for Life").). His situation improved a little when friends would visit or take him somewhere, when he would stay with his mother on the other side of town, or when he would go for an annual two-week course of therapy at a nearby military hospital, but was still far from ideal. At both his and his mother's apartments, for example, the elevators are barely large enough to accommodate a wheelchair and can only be accessed via flights of steps — making it difficult for him to come and go even if someone is helping him. He also has trouble using the toilet or bathing without assistance.

Čech began looking into what could be done on behalf of Schams and other wounded warriors and soon came to the conclusion that the only thing that would work is a completely new, private organization that both supplemented the available treatment and services and went beyond them. It was this realization that prompted him to help conceive of and become one of the co-founders of the REGI Base Foundation.

One of the very first thing the fledgling organization did was to take Schams to a special neurologic clinic in the Black Sea city of Odessa, in the Ukraine, so that he could be tested by a top specialist in brain injuries (that doctor had, ironically, served in a Soviet military field hospital in Afghanistan from 1982-84, during that nation's ill-fated occupation of the country). After being examined and receiving additional CAT scans, the medical staff at the facility recommended that Schams be sent to a military rehabilitation center in the Ukrainian city of Saky. He spent six weeks at the facility and, as a result of the treatment he received there, his speech improved significantly.

That was the limit of what could be accomplished for Schams in either the Czech Republic or the Ukraine, however, and the staff of REGI Base realized they needed something better. So, in January 2012, Čech traveled to TIRR Memorial Herman in Houston, Texas (shown here), where a dozen Romanian soldiers had recently received treatment for traumatic brain injuries, and the costs for this had apparently been covered by the U.S. government. The best that hospital representatives were willing to do, however, was to give REGI Base a quote of nearly a half-million dollars to treat Schams — something that closed the door on help for this allied soldier.

Despite this frustrating setback, REGI Base has continued to move ahead in its attempts to provide help for both Schams and other critically-injured soldiers.

“Our fundamental idea is to create a unique complex that will combine rehabilitation, accommodation, and 24-hour assistance for soldiers who have returned from overseas missions but who cannot be adequately cared for by their families or friends," said Čech (shown here at his office in Prague). "Our first priority is to provide 365-day-a-year service to soldiers who cannot be fully treated at home or by the government. The Czech Republic currently has more than 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and, as something tragic can happen at any time, we need to be ready to provide special care when it is needed.”

Čech also emphasized that, once it is established, it is his intent that the facility will serve as a regional rehabilitation center that serves the needs not just of military personnel from the Czech Republic but other nations as well, including the United States and other NATO nations. Ultimately, he said he would like REGI Base to have branches worldwide and to established reciprocal agreements that would allow military personnel to receive the treatment most appropriate to them at facilities in any of the participating nations. And going beyond medical care, Čech is also actively lobbying in his country for legislation that would help provide jobs for discharged Czech veterans and working on a project to provide special insurance benefits to them.

During my visit to the Czech Republic, I met with Schams and his mother; Čech and his staff; Schams former commander, Major Pavel Ruzicka, currently second-in-command of the Czech military police corps; Special Operations Group members who served with Schams (most of whom cannot be mentioned by name or photographed because they are still on active duty and involved in classified operations), and Deputy Minister of Defense Michael Hrbata (who appears with me here in his office at the Ministry of Defense). Hrbata in particular has been a champion of REGI Base, as has his boss, Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra — who gave the initial "green light" for the veterans organization — and the two of them have done everything in their power to garner support for it from the government and amongst the Czech people.

What really struck me during my visit, in fact, was how everyone concerned was doing everything in their power to help Jiří Schams and soldiers in a similar situation, but how so much more was needed (Schams is shown below as he appears today). REGI Base has got a handle on what those additional measures are, and when I visited the site of the clinic under construction and heard about all the great things the foundation wants to do, my response was, "Let's get this done! What do you need?"

As with almost anything big and complicated in the modern world, of course, what REGI Base needs is funding. It has thus far raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for its facility outside of Prague and, in the course of moving ahead with it, has just added a third level to the main building. It needs millions more, however, to complete construction, purchase expensive diagnostic equipment, and get treatment for Schams at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston. In the meantime, the war continues, billions of dollars go every day toward its prosecution, and, every week, more soldiers, allied and U.S. alike, join Schams among those who will need a lifetime of care as the price for their sacrifices.

Uniting Against the War on Women

By Terri Rodabaugh

We have been inundated lately with Representative after Representative trying to pass legislation limiting what women can and cannot do with their bodies. We are being made to have transvaginal ultrasounds before getting an abortion. Have you ever had one of these ultrasounds? I have ... several times, for reasons pertaining to the medication that I am on that helps to eliminate estrogen in my body so that cancer can't grow. It wasn't painful but I can imagine how degrading it would be to have to have that done to you. It seems to me to be a sort of torture, maybe even a form of rape because it is against the woman's consent. It is a form of control, of bullying, plain and simple.

Soon, mark my words, there will be lawsuits against the government for making a woman have to do this. I can assure you there are already women lining up at their local legal aide offices to file complaints. I know I would. And, if they are smart, they will.

What I see happening here is the need for us all to come together. We as women need to stand together and say "no more." Women need to forget all about what political party we are from and work side-by-side to not let these atrocities happen. What's next? Forcible castration? We might as well live in a Third World Country.

Recently, I read that Georgia Representative Terry England (shown here) is trying to pass legislation to make a woman carry a stillborn fetus to term. What the heck for? More control, that's what for. Make us all feel like chattle won't you? For a woman to carry a stillborn to term is very dangerous. The stillborn child starts to decay within the woman carrying it. It could kill her. Is that really where we want to go in this country? Where is the compassion for others. Why are we allowing this to happen? We shouldn't be.

And don't get me started about Rush Limbaugh. He is just the voicebox of many men out there and it is frightening to think that we are thought so less of.

On April 28, 2012, there will be a march on your state capital asking for the War Against Women to cease. We are fed up and it is time to stand together as one unit.

You can find the march in your area by going to the Unite Against the War on Women page on Facebook. Join the group, find out where members are meeting, and march with us. You men who love your women, march along beside us and show your support. The time has come.

But it also makes me wonder, why now? What are they covering up? I believe something is going down in this country. Something they don't want us to see so they make all this chaos. What is being done without our knowing? We will soon find out and God help us all.

"There is a special place in Hell for women who do not help other women," Madeleine Albright said in what has become one of my favorite quotes. Let's do this ladies ... it's time. We can't shut our eyes and think this will all go away. There is no going back to the Dark Ages for us. Let's blow the lid off this thing so we can start to see what is truly going on.

Food Stamps, Christianity, and the Meaning of Irony

By Michael O. Varhola

Recent comments by Newt Gingrich characterizing President Obama as the food stamp king may be at the root of an item currently making its rounds across the Internet and being posted to people's social networking pages as if it was something they came up with on their own. Whoever did actually generate the following quip, however, is not taking credit for it:

"Isn't It Ironic?" this unattributed item asks. "The food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever. Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to 'please do not feed the animals' because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves."

This self-consciously cute but subtly vicious item -- which is similar to and may have its genesis in comments made by South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer in January 2010, for which he subsequently apologized -- struck me in a number of ways.

First is the way it implicitly equates food stamp recipients with animals. I will not go as far as saying this is racist on the face of it, although I suspect that the image that comes to mind of food stamp recipients for many of the people who re-post this item would, in fact, brand them as racists. Perhaps worse, however, is that it is simply misanthropic and reflects a general despisal of other people.

Second is the suggestion that U.S. Department of Agriculture personnel should actually be ashamed that they are accomplishing the things they have been tasked with. These civil servants are simply carrying out policies they have been assigned with fulfilling and if they successfully do so then there is no reason they should not be pleased with it. Are the people who re-post the item being discussed here ashamed of what they do on a day-to-day basis? (Although if some of them actually took a full minute to think through the implications of the things they repost without consideration then the best of them probably would be a little bit ashamed.)

Finally, it struck me that this item is itself ironic in two key ways.

One is that, in one of the most prosperous nations on earth, people who have enough to eat would object to a program that helps provide food for the impoverished. This really is the epitome of smug cruelty and I would be willing to bet that none of the people who have re-posted this item have actually gone hungry because their taxpayer dollars have helped feed those who are neediest.

What is even more ironic, however, is how many of the people who repost items like this and embrace the ideas behind them characterize themselves as Christians! I absolutely support the right of everyone to believe what they want and to express those beliefs, the ones described here included. But the hard, cruel, nasty sentiments expressed in the item being discussed here are assuredly not Christ-like and is makes my skin crawl to think of Jesus saying something like this. If people with such ideas were simply to admit that they were Satanists, pagans, pragmatic atheists, nihilists, or just about anything but Christians there would be no disconnect between their attitudes and their ostensible ethos. It is perfectly legitimate to believe that other people are animals or that impoverished children in wealthy nations should go hungry — it just isn't compatible with the tenets of Christianity.

What is truly ironic is the idea that these two diametrically opposed sets of ideas are in any way compatible with each other.