Author: Marc Alan Di Martino

Politics or God?

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I just finished reading Mark Lilla’s recent book The Stillborn God, a whirligig tour (pace Natalie Angier) of political theology since Hobbes first conceived of the “great separation” between church and state in Leviathan. I’m not going to lie to you by faking that I’ve read and have thorough knowledge of all Lilla’s source material, which is vast. I’m something of a novice in the field–but so are you, in all probability.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t grasp the concept. Political theology is essentially what all sane modern folks fear: politics informed by religion. Lilla is crystal clear on one important point. He writes:

Those of us who have accepted the heritage of the Great Separation must do so soberly. Time and again we must remind ourselves that we are living an experiment, that we are the exceptions. We have little reason to expect other civilizations to follow our unusual path, which was opened up by a unique theological-political crisis in Christendom.

Yes, we are the historical exceptions to the near-universal reliance on revelation as a Baedeker to politics. Lilla invokes the metaphor of the “other shore.” We, the democratic, liberal West, who have dismissed political theology as so much demagoguery, look back to the other shore from which we escaped, not unscathed.

Today, it is true, we live on the opposite shore from all those civilizations, past and present, that have organized their political lives and conducted political arguments on the basis of divine revelation.

We live on the opposite shore for now, but there is always the danger of slipping back into the old ways. Remember, that’s the way things have always been done. We are the exceptions.

French Supermarket Mullahs

Just watch. Then vomit in your shoe. Thanks to Rachel for the heads up.

One-State Solution Is No Solution

Jeffrey Goldberg has posted his interview with Shimon Peres. An excerpt:

JG: You hear this more and more, people talking about the one-state solution. It used to be a radical idea to suggest a two-state solution, now we’re moving toward a discussion — at least on the left, obviously — of a one-state solution. Do you think that the Palestinians and their supporters would ever agree to an end of claims —

SP: There is not a one-state solution; there is only one-state conflict instead of two-people conflict. Look, you have a conflict in Iraq; it’s one state. You have a conflict in Lebanon; it’s one state. You have a conflict in Sudan; it’s one state. Who says that one state puts an end to the conflict? On the contrary, it makes it more dangerous. You have one state in Pakistan. You have one state in Afghanistan.

You can read the rest here.

A Rational, Scientific God?

Hardly.

There has been a wave of  books lately intent on neutralizing the “Dawkins effect”. They are invariably books with titles like “There Is Not a God” or “God: the Proof“. At times they are written by men (why only men?) who present themselves as lifetime atheists–militant is the preferred modifier–men who suddenly stumbled upon the error of their ways and embraced, well…Jesus. Their genius is that their atheistic error is a logical error, which they put invariably in philosophical terms. It is not an error of faith, which few people would take seriously as an attempt to overturn an arch-rationalist like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. Because the debate over God needs to present itself in ultra-modern garb in order to separate itself from “fundamentalism”–or unequivocal, unvarnished (and untested) faith.

So these new men of faith put their faith up against the modern arsenal of logical debate. Could Jesus have been born of a virgin? Could he have risen from the dead? Could he return, even after a disappearance of such length? They put these age-old theological questions to the scientific test. Frank Tipler, a physicist, even wrote a book called The Physics of Christianity which asks these very same questions (and concludes that, according to the universal laws of physics, the answer is a resounding yes). Conclusion? Even Richard Dawkins should conclude that–from a rational, scientific approach to the question–God not only exists, but Jesus is God and Christianity is truth.

So with this in mind, I want to bookmark two new books that I will probably never get around to reading. But you should.

p.s…In an attempt to be fair-minded, some readers have misconstrued my position as being favorable to the Tiplers and contrary to the Dawkinses. Let be me clear:  this is not the case!

A Free People in Our Land

Today is my favorite Jewish holiday, Israeli Independence Day. It’s the only one that’s still controversial in much of the world, and has the dubious honor of having spawned a counter-holiday–Nakba Day. Of course, they aren’t celebrated on the same day, or even the same calendar. Yom Ha’atzmaut (יום-העצמאות) falls on the fifth of the Hebrew month of Iyar, while Nakba Day ( يوم النكبة)falls on the more conventional Gregorian date of May 15. One celebrates renewal, the other loss. That both holidays could have celebrated national independence is an irony too tragic for words.

Another thing I appreciate about Yom Ha’atzmaut is that it is the only Jewish holiday besides Purim which makes no explicit reference to God, miracles (if you go back and read the megillah you’ll see for yourself), divine intervention or any hocus-pocus. It’s all ingenuity, courage and cunning: politics, in short. Of the people, by the people and for the people. In fact, it’s not even a Jewish holiday, but an Israeli holiday. It is not lost on me that there are Jews in the world who feel only a deep sense of shame and abandonment on this day. Shame on them, I say.

The best kind of explosions
The best kind of explosions

The Most Serious Thing in Italy

Ruini is the other guy
Ruini is the other guy

Yesterday’s Corriere della Sera had an interview with the openly gay actor Paolo Poli, which is relatively rare in Italy. Now, I don’t know much about Poli’s acting career, nor do I think an actor’s opinions matter much. But when an openly gay communist–who also happens to be a declared atheist–tells a widely-read Italian newspaper that the only serious thing in Italy is the Catholic Church, and that Italy’s greatest politician is Camillo Ruini, I begin to have serious doubts about the future of the Italian Republic.

Yesterday was also April 25, an important holiday here in the Boot, as it commemorates the country’s liberation from Nazi-fascism. Not a minor holiday, that–somewhere between the Jewish Passover (liberation from slavery) and the 4th of July (national independence). And much more recent, too.

So let’s get this straight: Italy fought a war against the Church 150 years ago so that a secular state might be established. The Pope’s power was reduced to almost nothing, forcing him to declare his own moral infallibility that he might not be disposed of entirely by the newly-emancipated Italians. Then comes Mussolini, followed by Hitler. Pope Pius XII may not have been the devil in disguise, but he almost certainly didn’t use his influence to oppose the rising tide of fascism in his own backyard. The Church to this day claims Pius did everything he could to save the Jews–all of it in complete monastic silence, and without leaving the tiniest trace for posterity. The Vatican’s WWII archives are still off-limits to researchers and historians, which doesn’t exactly suggest transparency.

The Vatican’s positions on homosexuality, atheism and Communism are sufficiently well-known. So we’re left with this incongruous declaration by Mr. Poli–an affermation that makes no sense whatever no matter which way you look at it. Or was he being (maybe, just maybe), ironic?

Holland and Australia Boycott Durban 2

According to today’s Jerusalem Post, Holland and Australia have announced that they will boycott Durban 2:

Hours after the US said it would boycott a UN conference on racism starting Monday in Geneva over objectionable language in the meeting’s final document that could single out Israel for criticism, Australia and Holland followed suit on Sunday morning, saying they were concerned the conference would be derailed by some countries to issues other than human rights.

So let’s see,  that makes the US, Israel, Canada, Italy, Holland and Australia the only countries officially willing to admit that tomorow’s conference actually has nothing to do with racism or human rights? Where is the EU? According to JPost,

The European Union was still weighing its own participation.

Well, they still a few hours left to save themselves from embarrassment.

Waiting to Exhale

It began with YouTube, and a video called “How To Irrigate Your Nasal Passages”. A hirsute, Allen Ginsberg stunt-double prepares a small ceramic pot with salt water, upends it and—voila’—begins to pour the water in one nostril and out the other. Feat accomplished, he repeats the exercise with black coffee, and then with single barrel bourbon, all against a trancelike chorus of “I like to hear the rain come down.” Until the whiskey comes splashing out of his nose like water from a blowhole, and despite the incongruous facial expressions suggesting pain, it seems like a pleasant experience.

April is the cruelest month…T.S. Eliot must’ve been suffering from hay fever when he wrote that line.  Like many Americans, I’ve been suffering allergies and all-around sinus blockage for most of my life. I’ve even had surgery to straighten a severely deviated septum, which did nothing but drain my mother’s bank account. I’ve struggled with pseudoephedrine, nasal sprays of every kind, breathing strips, Claritin…all to no avail. Every year I become more desperate. Every year I become more convinced that no solution exists except another attempt at surgery (an opinion backed up by the last doctor to stare up my nose with a flashlight), which is understandably out of the question.

Leaving New York was the first step. I really believed that not living in Metropolis would have been good for my sinuses, but I discounted the small matter that Roman air quality is not much better than that of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Rome, it’s true, has many parks which pump oxygen into the air and make the city liveable—to a degree. But it’s not as if the blanket of green were spread evenly across town. If you live near one of Rome’s huge villas (Pamphili, Ada, Borghese) you’re in luck. If you live along the Via Casilina, however, you’re more likely to see Central Park in June than any of Rome’s green wonderlands year-round.

Even so, spring time is pollen time, and pollen is in many ways more bothersome than car exhaust. In tandem, however, they are deadly. Sleeping has become almost impossible, despite a comfortable new mattress. I’m desperate for a short-term solution.

I don’t believe in miracles. Nor do I waste many words praying for them to occur. But desperation has a way of stoking the irrational in all of us. So I went to the local health food store and asked for a white ceramic pot—called a neti pot— like the one in the YouTube video. Online research had been overwhelmingly favorable, so I decided to give it a shot.

The neti pot blew into town out of nowhere a few years ago after an appearance on “Oprah.” Naturally, I braced myself for a Secret-style sham, albeit an inexpensive one (about €15). The neti has a long pedigree, however, having been used for millennia by yoga practitioners in India. After the Oprah debut, America went neti crazy, skyrocketing the little vessel from yoga-fringe obscurity to Walmart in about a week. The New York Times wrote it up, and hundreds of people uploaded themselves on YouTube with a conspicuous white nozzle stuck up their noses. I felt I’d missed some cultural watershed, like The Twist or Pokemon.

The whole thing works by creating a “subtle vacuum” for “suitable flow pressure,” in the words of Jalanetipot.com. Your head must be tilted at roughly a 45 degree angle. The water then shoots up one nostril, swishes up into your sinuses, and pours generously out the other. Often the it is followed by gobs of colored mucus, ostensibly washing away various toxins and irritants. The water must be saline, or slightly salted. Some people recommend adding baking soda, or even mouthwash.

The first time I nettied, if you will, was disastrous. Water splashed all over the bathroom mirror and dribbled down my chest. Half an hour later a second stream came oozing out of my right nostril onto my shirt.

It takes a while to get the hang of it. There is the sensation of drowning for about a second. Salty water comes trickling down your throat and out your mouth. When it’s over, there is a feeling of having loosed a tide of phlegm. Maybe you feel cleaner in your schnoz, but that’s about it.

When I began experimenting with the neti pot, I also began to broadcast the results (and lack of them) to my friends and family. I became obsessed with solving my sinus war. Suddenly, it seemed everyone I knew had a neti pot, or had used one. Some people swore by it. Friends were giving and receiving them as gifts. Almost everyone had a story: “It helps when you feel a cold coming on. It relieves allergies. It saved my life.”

I continue to neti daily. I still want to be persuaded by the majority of fellow sufferers who have found relief in this little ceramic wonderpot.  In short, I want to believe in a miracle. But three weeks after I thought I had found my own personal fountain of youth, I remain a skeptic. The neti pot has not made me sleep better. It has not unblocked my sinuses. It has not saved my life. And that’s nothing to write home about.

Published in The American

Durban 2: An Imminent Fiasco

Days away from the Durban 2 conference in Geneva, and the only major coverage seems to be in the Israeli media. Which isn’t a big surprise, seeing as they have more to lose from the backlash than anyone. Today’s Jerusalem Post explains why Israelis are worried:

Already in advance of Durban II, a two-day anti-Israel NGO conference is scheduled to meet on April 18 and 19th, called “The Israel Review Conference.” An anti-Israel rally is also scheduled in Geneva for April 18.

Israel Review Conference can only mean one thing:

United Against Apartheid, Colonialism and Occupation, Dignity & Justice for the Palestinian People

So this is the secret meaning of the Durban conference. It’s a kind of primer for the real event, when the hevyweights show up to do the big Israel-bashing.

Is there still anyone out there who cannot see this facade for what it is? It is thinly disguised Jew-hatred (oh, but there will be anti-Zionist Jews there doing the bashing–so don’t call them anti-Semites!) sanctioned by the UN–an organization which has completely lost its bearings. And everyone will be there–everyone except Israel, the US, Canada and–I never get tired of repeating this–Italy. The EU will be there “in good faith”, which is how things are officially done these days in Europe.

The UN High Commissionerfor Human Rights,  Navanethem Pillay, had this to say:

“The goals set out in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action have not been achieved. This reality should prompt us to seek common grounds to move the struggle against racism forward. The tools and capacity for achieving the goals outlined in the Declaration and Programme of Action are within reach if we remain committed to those objectives.”

I take this to mean that Israel still exists, and it takes another doleful “conference” of racists, xenophobes, Holocaust deniers and their appeasers to strike another blow at the Jewish State and its supporters.

Tell me, a week from now, if I was wrong.



Earthquake in Rome?

Well, most people I know told me their apartments shook during the night. We felt nothing. One colleague said his stuffed animals all fell of the shelf. He thought it was the cat, up to mischief again. Then he felt the tremors in his seventh-floor abode.

This morning’s death toll in Abruzzo is 179, according to Corriere della Sera.

Things will probably get worse before they get better.

p.s. For those who wish to know all there is to know (so far), with about a gazillion links to choose from, Cricket Diane is obsessively tracking the action.