Auden, supine?

Harold Bloom’s latest book is out, Till I End My Song: A Collection of Last Poems. Leafing through a copy, I found a wonderful poem by W. H. Auden (hardly surprising) called “A Lullaby:”

Your daily round is done with,/you’ve gotten the garbage out,/answered some tiresome letters/and paid a bill by return,/all frettolosamente.

A troublesome footnote follows at the bottom of the page. Thus, my email to the publisher.

Dear HarperCollins,

I wish to notify you of an error I found in Harold Bloom’s new book, Till I End My Song, published by Harper this month. On page 287 there is a note on W.H. Auden’s poem, “A Lullaby” explaining the Italian adverb frettolosamente (line 10). The translation reads, “Lying down.” I have no idea if this is Mr. Bloom’s note or someone else’s, but frettolosamente means hurriedly, hastily. This makes perfect sense in the context of Auden’s poem, as “lying down” would be an odd way to take out the garbage (though one could surely pay one’s bills that way). Please forward this to the correct recipient.

Cordially,

Marc Alan Di Martino

p.s. What’s Italian for “howler?”

The ear of the eavesdropper

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently raised eyebrows by again poking crude fun at the looks of Democratic Party chief Rosy Bindi, his favorite punching bag. “Orcodio!” Berlusconi said in a joke involving Bindi. Roughly translated, the expression means “Fucking God!” Though the Vatican used its daily house organ, Avvenire, to deplore the vulgarity, it seemed more concerned with the damage done to an omnipotent, omniscient Creator than to mere mortal Bindi.

According to Italian law, public blaspheming of “the Divinity” through the use of “invective or offensive language” is punishable by a €51-to-€309 fine. Irish law imposes a €25,000 penalty for similar desecration. In my home state of Maryland, blasphemy was punishable through fines and imprisonment, or both, well into the 20th century. In Muslim-majority countries governed by sharia law, blasphemy can carry the death penalty.

My Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate defines blasphemy is “irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.” By that definition we are all blasphemers in most foreign lands, or even in our neighbors’ living rooms. I may be a blasphemer in my own mother’s eyes.

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so blasphemy is in the ear of the eavesdropper.

Of all the idiotic laws devised by our species, those on blasphemy are the most flagrantly boneheaded. They’re little more than an intellectual form of Prohibition, and are radically antithetical to what philosopher A.C. Grayling labeled “the fundamental civil liberty,” free speech.

What kind of all-powerful Deity needs secular law enforcement to protect it from the concerted jests of a handful of comedians, biologists and assorted demonic riffraff? In fact, the more you scrutinize the concept of blasphemy the faster you reach the conclusion that it simply does not exist — like God, I’m tempted to say.

In a brilliant article in the Italian free-thought magazine L’Ateo, Viviana Viviani attacked the inconsistency of existing legislation. “The Mother of the Christian God,” namely the Virgin Mary, she wrote, “can be publicly blasphemed in Italy with no penalty.” Mary is not technically a divinity, whatever that means.

The deft can alter a consonant and dupe the Divinity. Laws don’t protect uncles (“Zio Porco“), animals (“Zio Cane“) or people named Diaz (“Porco Diaz“). The Divinity must be a dimwit if he can’t figure that out.

As a counterpoint, a website called “Atheist Ireland” has compiled a list of 25 blasphemous quotes attributed to the likes of Jesus, Muhammad and Pope Benedict XVI. All of us, in fact, are both blasphemers and atheists when it comes to the gods and religious sensibilities of others. Protecting all concepts of the divine from offense would mean creating Stalinist network without borders to check the world’s every utterance.

If anything needs legal protection, it’s not God but freedom of speech.

The attempt to limit expression in the service of protecting the public’s religious sensibilities is a kind of sadism. In a flourishing democracy there’s no protection from opinions you don’t like. You deal with them or find somewhere more congenial to live, preferably a cave. Religion is also a personal choice — unlike ethnicity, handicap or gender. It has more in common with political affiliation or sports fandom than biological happenstance.

In Italy, all-encompassing blasphemy laws are worded to protect even minority religious opinion. Porous terms such as “the Divinity” blaspheme the One God as much as any village atheist ridiculing the faithful in the public square.

Bible readers know that the mere recognition of the plethora of ancient godlings enraged a jealous Yahweh. But Yahweh himself blasphemed to no end against the existence of Ba’al and other false gods.

Much of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, revolves around this basic tension. The result produced the kind of theocracy we see mirrored in today’s Iran, where blasphemy is a crime on par with murder and Holocaust denial is deemed the quintessence of free inquiry.

The surest way to defeat bad ideas is with better ones.

You say God exists and is omniscient. I say that is a comforting illusion.

You say Jesus was born of a virgin and rose from the dead. I say those are fairy tales.

You say Allah punishes the unbelievers. I say give him my address and phone number.

But neither of us gets a last word on the subject, one that is then enacted into law to silence the opposition. The word for that is hubris.

Published in The American

Carrie Fisher was almost my sister

My mother was a huge, salivating fan of Eddie Fisher in her adolescence. I think she was even president of the Eddie Fisher Fan Club in her hometown. She used to tell me of the time when she traveled to New York City to see a concert of his, made it into his hotel room at some point in the evening, and made off with a Coke bottle he had drunk from (“If I’d had my way he would have been your father.”) She never forgave my grandmother for throwing it away. “Eh, trash!” I can hear her mewling as she tossed it out.

Eddie Fisher died last month, on my birthday. Here is a brief tribute to the man who might have been my father, and whose career dried up after the rise of rock-n-roll.

Teenage atheists, you are normal!

Ophelia Benson has an article in the New Humanist on Gnu Atheism. I especially like the last paragraph:

Spare a thought for that teenager though. That’s the other side of all this. Yes there is some noisy atheist ranting and name-calling on the internet, but on the other hand, ten years ago that godless teenager would have thought she was the only atheist in the universe, and now she knows very well she isn’t. Maybe she pushes back a little too hard now and then, but she is feeling liberated and no longer isolated, and that’s a good thing. Eventually atheism will become commonplace, and the drive-by commenters will calm down. The teenager in North Dakota has a better future.

Mere blasphemy

I’m late in commemorating Blasphemy Day 2010, but as PZ Myers says, “every day is blasphemy day.” It is with great pleasure that I post a photograph I took in the bar in the Assisi train station, which is overflowing (the bar!) with Catholic religious paraphernalia. It makes it difficult to swallow a cappuccino without uttering something blasphemous. Knowing sinners like me are passing through on an hourly basis, they have helpfully posted the following warning next to the cash register:

Translation: “Christ suffered for you. Christ died for you. Don’t continue murdering him by blaspheming his name. Every time you offend God through an act of blind pride, His Son is murdered again; you repudiate the love he gave us. DON’T BLASPHEME. Blasphemy offends your God. It offends the community. You degrade even yourself.”

What place such blatant religious propaganda has in a train station snack bar is beyond me, but this is Italy and free speech plays second fiddle to Catholic teaching. So if ever you find yourself in Assisi and you spill something on your tie while rushing to catch your train, remember that Jesus died for your sins and bite your tongue. Otherwise you might offend the nice old pious barman by screaming, “Jesus-fucking-Christ stop that goddamn train!”

*If you don’t believe me here is another photo of the espresso machine, Pious the Barman and some cute Jewish maiden and her son.

Making it gnu

There has been a lot of dissatisfaction penned lately against the Gnu Atheists. Call it in-fighting. A friend put it this way after I’d sent him Ophelia Benson’s reply to Julian Baggini: “I felt like I was reading the kind of fashionably CP debate the 20s spawned in magazines 5 people read but two were later assassinated for when Stalin made sure to end debating.” I’ve learned through many heated emails that my friend is not a Gnu Atheist, though I most definitely am.

The attacks range from “Don’t be a dick” slaps-on-the-wrist to outright “we’ve outgrown this childish New Atheism crap.” The message is clear: we need to forge alliances with the moderate religious groups; only together can we fight the real fanatical dickwads. And the Gnus – while they may have done much of the legwork in kicking down the door – are spoiling our cause with their rant.

Which all sounds very nice, except that the Gnus have been doing a fine job of fighting dangerous nonsense for a long time now – at least since Baruch Spinoza set down his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. In fact, there is really nothing “new” about the Gnus, save the medium (blogs, mainly) and the skyrocketing success of a few of their books (Hitchens & Dawkins et al.)

But to read the accomodationists, or “fatheists”, one gets the idea that the Gnus have overstepped some invisible boundary of polite debate ethic. They are routinely accused of being “strident,” “no-nothing,” presumptuous, indelicate. A favorite criticism is that the Gnus attack a straw man God, or the religion of only the most fanatical fringes. Real people, they admonish, are more like Karen Armstrong and Terry Eagleton; they believe in a vaporous, disinterested God who can be all things to all people. Well, hip hip hooray. PZ Myers has posted a challenge on his blog. Send him your best contemporary arguments for God and he will, uh, consider them. I predict they will fail dismally, though like all Gnus I am open to the possibility – however faint – that I might be persuaded.

I’m with the Gnus on this one. I’ve read their books and regularly read their blogs and I can tell you I’d be proud to call this disparate bunch of nerdy atheists my pals in unbelief. Not that I dislike the more moderate tone of the “accomodationists” (I realize not everyone is comfortable taking such strong positions), but I have a problem when they begin chastising their more flamboyant peers for being, well, too outspoken. It’s thanks to the Gnus, after all, that meeker atheists are getting op-eds in mainstream newspapers like HuffPo, Guardian and NYT. Remember Natalie Angier’s Confessions of a Lonely Atheist, published in the NYT less than ten years ago?

You want to know who the Gnu Atheists are in their own words, and how far from a pack of jackals they really are? Hang out at Pharyngula for a few hours, then walk across the street to Butterflies and Wheels, Ex-Catholic Girl, Blag Hag and Why Evolution Is True. That’s where the action is right now. These are exciting voices. They are also fiercely liberal, wonderfully intelligent and disarmingly good-humored. You’re in for a pleasant surprise.

For a long list of atheist blogs check out the Atheist Blogroll, which lists 1270 openly atheist blogs as of this writing (including this one). Enjoy your day.

Images of holiness: Padre Pio

Here is a photo of my favorite Bad Saint, Padre Pio. He faked his stigmata with chemicals, laundered money in the black market of Nazi-occupied Paris, and philandered his way to becoming the number one Christian saint in Italy. Some say he’s more popular than Jesus, but I think that’s just latent anti-Semitism.

Religion in school (is not cool)

I’m dreading the day when we send our daughter to nursery school, because that’s when the indoctrination begins. Everybody knows Italy has “religion hour” in its public schools, part of the government’s bending-over-backwards to let the Church infiltrate the tender minds of its young. Now Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini wants to teach the Bible in school, too – presumably during the part of the week when kids don’t already have to listen to some Vatican-appointed, State-funded Man o’ God drone on about how each and every one of them were born sinners.

Ms. Gelmini says she is moved by her own faith, as well as her Italian citizenship. Apparently, the two are indistinguishable to her. “The foundations of the West were built upon Christian teachings,” she said. “Without understanding this presence, it’s impossible to study its history, understand its philosophy or appreciate its art and culture.”

Imagine that: Western Culture is completely indebted to Christianity as its sole cultural benefactor. No Greeks. No Romans. No Jews. No Enlightenment. In her personalized, teleological version of history Galileo was a pure product of Catholic scientific education. And this is the woman in charge of the educational standards of Italy’s youngest generation. No wonder around here there’s a saying: Italy exports brainpower and imports saints and witchdoctors. (Curzio Maltese)

I wonder if maybe Ms. Gelmini wouldn’t have been happier if she’d just become a nun, but I guess it doesn’t pay as well.

Ophelia took the words right…

…out of my mouth.

That vicious authoritarian theocratic homophobic misogynist hierarchical thug presumes to blame atheists for Nazism when his own fucking church was all but an ally of the Nazis and really was an ally of Mussolini and Franco.

That about sums it up with uncommon economy.

Blame the Jews (it’s a comedy sketch)

The really funny thing is that what people occasionally say is no more absurd and far-fetched than this little ditty by Pope Anti-Semiticus. I mean, I know you know someone who really thinks this way.

Please forward to your favorite Jew-baiter or jihadi cousin. (Via kinoppete.)