in the meantime ...

i'm still waiting on a CD of pics from my completely phenomenal birthday weekend to do a hearty post about that, AND i'm hoping to also do something reflective and overly sentimental about my thanksgiving visit to florida (when i get pictures done, hopefully before the second coming of christ).

so in the meantime, i'm just randomly posting whatever i can to procrastinate grading papers. i don't even teach english anymore, and yet OMG the papers ... and the speeches ... and more papers ... sigh.

while taking a totally undeserved cigarette/web surfing break from grading "team process papers" ["I don't want to name names, but there was one member of our team who only came to one meeting and seemed to really not care about getting an A ..."], i came across this intriguing article by "polemicist" writer christopher hitchens on mitt romney's faith, and why it should be fair game to discuss as part of his campaign.

i've always been eerily fascinated by mormons, scientologists, and other "crazy" religions or groups, and i couldn't agree more with hitchens that romney's claim that it's "un-american" to bring up his faith is patently absurd. the whole concept of "faith" to me, is that it's a catch-all term to justify the belief in something that seems completely illogical and ... quite often, UNbelievable. and it's also a very convenient way to duck out of rational discussions. to say "my faith is a private matter," to me signals that you cannot explain it well. and if you can't explain your belief system [that has an undoubtedly strong influence on your political, social, psychological, (economic?), and personal attitudes/positions], then you either haven't thought everything through very well or have your own doubts about your "argument."

i don't mean to imply that everyone needs to justify (to me, to the rest of us) their personal religious views ... this would be excruciating, to have to listen to EVERYONE'S belief system spelled out in detail by those who can and are willing ... but i think it's not too much to ask a presidential candidate.

here's a quick excerpt from the article i'm referring to:

Most journalists have tacitly agreed that it's off-limits to ask the former governor about the tenets of the Mormon cult. Nor do they get much luck if they do ask: When Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation inquired whether Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden is or was or will be in the great state of Missouri, he was told by Romney to go ask the Mormons! However, we do have the governor in an off-guard moment in Iowa, saying that "The [Mormon] Church says that Christ appears and splits the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. … And then, over a thousand years of the millennium, that the world is reigned in two places, Jerusalem and Missouri. … The law will come from Missouri, and the other will be from Jerusalem."