Free Thinkers

People will believe anything they want to believe. For example, some people want to believe that I am high when I write these columns. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The truth: Every Sunday I turn in early for what I call a "pre-column nap", also known as "sobering". When I've napped enough, I get up to write this thing, usually just before dawn Monday, running entirely on reheated coffee. I don't touch a drop of hooch until at least 350 words have been written and not even then until the precise moment that I can see clearly how the thing will end. Then, I do a little noa noa, open the fridge, break the taboo, and get me a cold beer.

Some people want to believe that it matters that Chelsea Clinton thinks Mom would make a better president than Dad did. I think they're wrong. Matters of such consequence should only be decided by a vote. We should have a national election at a cost of a hundred million dollars, with Bill and Hillary the only candidates. We should vote as a nation, to decide which one of the two would be the better next president. The winner would get a cover on People Magazine. Then, in November, we'd have an election to pick an actual next president. That would be the democratic way to decide. America has no royal family.

A lot of people want to believe in Heaven. I agree there should be a place where people who take religion too seriously should go. I think all the hype on behalf of Heaven is done so those people will go willingly. They'd kick up a fuss if they saw too soon that the gates lock only from the outside.

There's people (anthropologists!) who wanted, as of 1920 or so, that teenagers in "primitive, unspoiled, cultures" were as sexually promiscuous as unleashed rabbits, because a chain of reasoning from there would have it justify something called cultural determinism. They wanted to believe the cultural determinism because a) it kept annoying biologists out of their college departments, b) if culture shapes human behavior then anthropologists are the new social engineers, and c) it paved the way for 1950s PSAs, Soviet Five Year Plans, and Dr. Spock, all good. So Margaret Mead went to Samoa and believed.

Because the Dalai Lama is coming to Seattle, I am every day hearing more and more fascinating beliefs concerning Tibet and the Mr. Lama that turn out only to betray the ultimate wishes of the believers. A self-proclaimed devout Christian said yesterday in my presence she would not go see the Dalai Lama because, "They drill holes in the heads of young monks and lock them in caves for a couple of years. That's not Christian." It's not only not Christian, it's not anything. Tibetan Buddhists speak metaphorically of the opening up of the head during spiritual awakening. But there's no drill involved, unless you want there to be a drill so bad you take the metaphor literally, in which case there has to be a drill, right?

Sometimes you can witness the beliefs turning with the winds. Michael Parenti, who is quite progressive, has written a tract concerning the Tibet of the 1940s and before with Medieval Europe, touching on documented tortures, mutilations, religious wars, priests raping youths, feudal oppression, etc. Oh, yes, and the CIA gave the Dalai Lama money. It's all bad, and so the arrival of the Maoist Chinese was a liberation, right? But at the end, Parenti says old Tibet may start looking better than it was, compared to the new free market China! Whatever!

If the CIA offered me money, I'd take it. More for me, less for them. And what kind of liberation is unasked for?

Here at home, some people want homeless people to be criminals. Our government obliges by making homelessness criminal, while homeowners rest smug and satisfied that THEY aren't sleeping illegally in parks.

Praise Lager!