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"One nation under..." Our sactimonious politicians of both parties -- and the voters who nominally put them in office -- ought to prioritize their outrage. While the gutless members of Congress wring their hands in front of the cameras about two words in the Pledge of Allegiance, the godless CEO class of 2002 is making off with all the wealth in the country. Who needs a lesson in morality and the Golden Rule more than, say, Kenny Boy Lay and his secret $160 million stash of cash socked away in the months leading up to Enron's bankruptcy filing?

As a boy, Kenny Boy probably said the Pledge of Allegiance with the words "under God," and yet still somehow will manage to go to hell under the supervision of his private tutor, Satan, the Prince of Darkness. So much for a couple of words instilling a sense of righteous justice in the mind of an impressionable youth.

The very next day after the Pledge controversy, the Supreme Court decides it's okay to give public money to religious schools via vouchers. This makes no sense whatsoever. If you want to send your child to a madrassa (for the kind of "religious" training students receive in Central Asia), why should we pay for it with our taxes? The zealots of the Christian right are pillaging our common resources in a naked power-grab under the umbrella of "faith-based" initiatives.

This is how theocracy starts. The debasement of a secular society often begins very innocently, but over time the linking of government with religion compounds their abuses. Al-Qaeda was, after all, a faith-based initiative.

{ 4:01 PM }

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Must American television news be quite so awful? In our area we are fortunate to get the BBC America channel, whose World News program offered by BBC News remains our default source of televised journalism. Even domestic coverage is enhanced by more (and better) footage, relevant copy, and no on-camera hairdos endlessly telling us what to expect in the next segment. Print is still the medium of choice if you want to think and not just react to visuals, but if you want to see a story, BBC World News is the only worthwhile investment of sofa time.

{ 10:05 AM }

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Will Ken Lay ever be indicted? Or will George W. Bush and the rest of his administrative dynasty stall the Enron indictments until the attention span of the public evaporates completely under the spell of Homeland Security? Was Arthur Andersen a sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat for something more sinister than an auditor bowing to pressure from a huge client? Will the press ever make anything out of the fact that US Vice President and Halliburton CEO Cheney's auditor was Arthur Andersen, at the same time he could have placed pressure on his auditor to cook some already overripe books and help earn him his eight-figure compensation package? Hmmm? Just wondering.

{ 4:38 PM }

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In a musical, songs advance the action. Is the film Moulin Rouge a true musical? Watch this space for the shocking answer.

{ 2:19 PM }

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Why is Brazil one of the greatest movies of the last twenty years? Because it prophetically presented mindless commerce as a reasonable response to so-called "terrorists," a linkage that we see today in the post-9/11 US. Terry Gilliam's masterstroke was to foresee in 1985 that a modern technocratic government would cynically prey upon the fears of its citizens to protect the economic interests of those in power. (How much of this vision was Tom Stoppard's? How much of it was contemporary hard-boiled European sensibility? And how much of it was pure Gilliam dreamscape? Hard to say.) And now with our all-American, all-oil administration, we are moving from tragedy to farce, another of Brazil's remarkable innovations. I could go on and on about the merits of this film, and someday I will.

{ 1:45 PM }

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