DemocratDad

An Aesthetic Critique of the Candidates' Christmas Videos

So the candidates on both sides have released their "Christmas" videos (I say "Christmas," because it is more accurate, although some campaigns hedge and call them "Seasonal" or "Holiday" videos).

Twinkling lights, bright sweaters, warm smiles, knitted stockings and, whenever possible, adorable children, are all featured, as you might expect.

There's been a lot of chatter in the blogs about Huckabee's assertion that "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ," or Barack and Michelle Obama's inclusion of their girls in the fireside scene, or Hillary Clinton's assortment of policy proposals for the American people...

But let's get away from the politics for a moment. I think it's high time for a critique of these videos, not for their content, but for their use of the medium.

As a filmmaker myself, I consider myself obligated to bear down and watch these babies.

What are the aesthetics of these videos?

In other words, what message do they convey, behind the words. It's a visual medium; we have to remember that what these videos are actually doing is showing something.

Let's start with my favorite candidate, so we can get my own agenda out of the way:

Barack Obama

The first thing I noticed is the tense body language, despite the warm atmosphere.

I believe that this family is genuinely close, so I'm assuming that this is the 5th or 6th -- or 22nd! -- take, and they have grown increasingly tense as the minutes turned to an hour. I've seen it happen.

Perhaps technical issues (sound, lighting, framing) dragged the taping out. Perhaps the girls got restless, or had an argument about who got to sit on their dad's lap.

Whatever the facts, the result is that Michelle and Barack talk in a friendly, but curiously exacting way. Listen to the way Michelle's voice bounces rhythmically with the words of the opening: "We'd-like-to-take-a-moment to thank YOU and your FAMILY for the WARMTH and friendship that you've shown ouuurs." That sounds like someone who has grown weary of saying the same thing.

One visual element also immediately stands out to me: those spooky shadows of stockings on the wall above the fireplace. They are definitely intentional -- I would guess to convey the warmth of candlelight, and to add some texture to the background. But they hang behind this family in such a way as to evoke the aesthetics of film noir. Touch of Evil and Double Indemnity are usually not the best sources of inspiration for campaign videos

The books on the table in front of them suggest upper middle-class coffee table art books -- signaling a home of broad intellectual curiosity. The Christmas tree is discreet -- and notably designed instead of ad hoc (the red and amber theme stands out).

This is a house well under control. No holiday madness here.

As for Obama, he speaks in the same overly exacting way that Michelle does. Worse, it looks as if he gestures too closely to his daughter Malia's face a few times. I know it is an optical illusion (when zoomed in -- which creates a nice tight focus on the subjects with a blurry background -- the distance between objects can seem shorter than it really is), and I know that Obama often gestures this way to make a point, but it made me nervous the first time I watched it.

Then there's the telling moment. The parents have finished speaking and it's time for the girls to add their "Merry Christmas" and "Happy holidays." Watch how Barack and Michelle anticipate the girls' lines -- after all, it is hard not to after multiple takes. They both turn sharply just before their daughters speak. By doing this, they confirm for us -- it hits our subconscious, the eyes miss nothing -- that these are canned lines. It does, however avoid what would be worse: if the parents feigned surprise when their daughters spoke.

The overall effect of the video is actually a grudging one, which is -- and here, perhaps, my agenda is showing -- what I think makes it work. I get the sense, watching this video, that the Obamas are not at all comfortable with the megalomaniacal charm required to pull of a warm Christmas message to the entire nation. A tension fills the air, and it is the tension of a real family being asked -- for political purposes -- to do something patently ridiculous: wish 300 million Americans Merry Christmas.

Okay, let's turn to a Republican:

Rudy Giuliani

Like the Obamas, he sits in front of a Christmas tree. But -- it leaps out at you -- where is his family? Of course we know the answer to that question (reminding voters of Judith -- his divorce, their affair, the puppies -- is not helpful, and his kids are, well, a little distant, shall we say).

Instead of surrounding himself with progeny, Rudy dons a red sweater vest and a red tie. With his glasses and this combo he comes off looking like your friendly neighborhood pharmacist, all decked out for the holidays. It's actually quite winsome. And he can refill your Lipitor prescription if you need that too!

When he says he may get a fruitcake for America, someone off-camera questions him: "A fruitcake?" And Giuliani leans forward with his peculiar, aggressive charisma to someone whom we never see. This is a very post-modern move -- breaking the frame of the film. He can thank Goddard and the French New Wave (although I don't think that would be to his advantage in South Carolina). The effect is funny -- and surprising.

Interestingly, Giuliani is often called "insane," or some other nutty confection, by his critics. And the video of him in drag, kissing Donald Trump, is, one would guess, a political liability. So this mention of wanting to get America a "fruitcake" is a good double-fake move. If he were really a fruitcake he wouldn't be so comfortable talking about them.

The only false note is the Hillaryesque laugh, apropo of nothing, at the end when he says "Happy Holidays."

Giuliani has another ad too, with Santa laughing at his wish that the candidates all just get along. Rudy's wearing the same red and white sweater vest. This video suggests visually that he may be working for Santa Clause -- or at least on the same team. You can watch it here.

Okay, let's go to Hillary Clinton:

Immediately you notice the much-ballyhooed "professionalism" of the Clinton campaign. The video is edited snappily to the music soundtrack. The images -- close-ups of wrapping, cutting with scissors, etc. -- are framed tightly, which is the current standard for Hollywood shot selection. The lighting has that big budget studio gloss to it -- warm and muted all at once, as if this video is an outtake from, oh I don't know, Seabiscuit. The sound design is detailed (listen for that crinkling sound as the cards are placed under the bows -- all added in post). We see a tilt on "Universal Health Care," a pan on "Alternative Energy," a rack focus on "Bring the Troops Home."

And then the music pauses on the reveal of Hillary herself. The room is light...

INT. LIVING ROOM -- DAY

A woman sits comfortably on a couch, wrapping presents.

This scene, complete with throw pillows, captures those private, unnoteworthy moments that women share, taking care of the wrapping of presents, completing a project, preparing something wonderful for the family. The point is that Hillary seems to be enjoying it. Message: she is one of us.

Only there is a slight scratch in the record, so to speak. It comes just at the end. As Hillary exclaims, "Oh!" we are to understand that she has just located the present which matches the card "Universal Pre-K" -- good so far. But then she commits a beginner's acting mistake. She repeats the exclamation as she grabs the present: "Ah!" It rings false. We know that she already had her discovery moment. So what is this second "ah"?

Just like the entire Hillary Clinton for President campaign, this second "ah" suggests that Hillary knew where she was going all along. The double discovery shows that there never was a discovery. Everything has been orchestrated to reveal "discoveries" to us -- the voters -- when they are useful. Hillary is even prepared to experience those discoveries a second or third time (e.g. President Bush cannot be trusted!) when this may score additional political points.

And please, someone in the Clinton video production unit tell me why they froze that awkward frame at the end, with her smile half open, and zoomed in slowly, as she says, "I approve this message." It looks as if she has been caught red-handed, and we have a photograph to show it.

Onward to the Repubicans!

Mike Huckabee:

A red sweater, a white collar. Like Giuliani, Huckabee apparently works with Santa.

Otherwise, it couldn't be more different. There is no French New Wave or cinema of alienation here. The borders are not porous. There is just a straightforward point made: what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Jesus -- oh, and that you can count on Mike Huckabee to say that without apologies or unease of any kind.

Huckabee does everything that the Obamas resisted. He turns on the charm, the eyebrow-lifting, shoulder-shrugging charm of the best kind of salesman, the kind that means it, as he wishes an entire nation to have a "magnificent" Christmas.

Yes, yes, and there is a giant white cross over his right shoulder. Your point?

This video has all the simplicity and folksy charm of the best propaganda. It knows what it is selling (just as its subject does) and it goes about selling it. Its best analog is an Ipod ad on TV -- you always see the iPod up front and center, and there's always music playing on it. Well for Huckabee, Christianity is his music, and bass-player that he is, he knows how to keep a tune.

What about John Edwards:

We see the same Christmas tree hovering over the right shoulder. But this time the candidate is in a black suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. Sober, unflashy, dedicated to the cause.

The implication of this dress code is that Edwards will be working for you, even during the holidays. He's that dedicated.

The music is unremarkable: a gathering-moment piano piece. But it does raise the stakes emotionally. It seems to be building to something. And Edwards talks directly to us, as Huckabee did. He means it.

There's the problem of his stuffed-up nose, adding a nasally quality to his voice. But otherwise we focus on him and him alone for the duration of the video.

The background does not suggest anything fancy at all. The tree is nondescript, the wood-framed picture on the wall, the wood paneling -- everything suggests a middle-class living room, or even a modest hotel room.

I think this is a strong video. It highlights Edwards' most endearing trait -- his commitment to making things better. Edwards' appeal is emotional (unlike Obama's, which like JFK's is more cerebral). And this ad does all the right things to create a sense of stirring emotion, held back only by the sobriety required to get the job done.

Back to the Republican side:

Mitt Romney

Okay, this is not technically a Christmas video like the others. This is a video of Mitt Romney and his family sledding together. It was posted by the campaign on December 17 -- so it must have been last weekend?

It's a relief to see a video that looks as if it documents a real-life event. Of course it is partly staged for the camera operator, but you do get the sense that there did take place an actual afternoon of sledding at some undisclosed location, with actual members of the Romney family (and their dogs) in attendance.

The video has a documentary feel, but like all good documentaries it tells a story. The story is that Mitt is a man who is different from his sons. They may be more self-aware and willing to open up to strangers (two of them admit to being "lazy"; another says he is "in awe" of his dad). They may be more socially at ease (we see them lounging on the couch without a clear mandate; Mitt is conspicuously absent).

But they never forget that he is their hero.

He is a tireless worker (we see him shoveling snow). He is caring (he reassures a youngster -- his son? -- that he will "do his best" not to let him "hit the pole"). He is frugal (he prefers the gloves from last year with duct tape holding them together). He hates waste of any kind ("Go leave the water running and see how quickly that will last," comments one of his boys).

The story it tells is that of Mitt overcoming whatever obstacles his family meets (snow, poles, failing gear, running faucets). He may not be the most accessible guy, but it is only because he is so busy doing stuff. If you knew him like we know him, he would be your hero too.

It's effective. I wish more political ads took this raw-footage, shooting from the hip documentary form. The distortion is still there, but it's in the editing not the performance of the candidate -- you get glimpses of the real person behind the mask.

Finally, the only other viable candidate in the race:

John McCain

A prisoner of war story. A black and white photo of McCain as a young man. The older McCain's calm voice recounting it. He tells a heartwarming story of a guard easing his misery. And then the image:

A cross drawn in the ground with a stick.

This video has the starkness of a documentary, but the iconographic power of a religious story. It matches Huckabee's white, glowing, "coincidental" cross (formed by the sections of a bookcase) with a genuine, intentional cross, infused with meaning and history.

For my part, I think it is a powerful rejoinder to Huckabee. But the lasting impression of the video is not its image of the cross. The lasting impression is the one left by the black and white images and the unaffected tone in McCain's voice: suffering, hard-earned wisdom, sadness, quiet resolve. Those may be important and moving aspects of his experience, but I don't think they draw votes.

The McCain ad is a Christmas video done in the Ken Burns' style -- elegiac and cold.

*

Well, that completes my round-up critique of the candidates' videos. In then end I would rank them in two ways. Once for my personal preference:

1. Romney's "cinema verité documentary" style.
2. McCain's "Ken Burns' elegiac" style
3. Edwards' "I'm out here working for you" direct appeal
4. Obama's "I-will-sit-for-this-but-this-kind-of-self-aggrandizement-is-forced" style
5. Giuliani's "French New Wave Santa sidekick comedy" style
6. Hillary's Hollywood big-studio style
7. Huckabee's "direct propagandistic" style

My second list is in order of effectiveness:

1. Edwards'
2. Huckabee's
3. Obama's
4. Giuliani's
5. Hillary's
6. Romney's
7. McCain's

After all that, while we're on the subject of Christmas videos, check out this inexplicably hilarious video (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan):

I'll be writing occasionally next week, but back to daily entries again in January. Happy holidays to everyone!
Tom

DemocratDad's Official Endorsement: Barack Obama for President

Like most people, I try not to think of world history in terms of a timeline of heroes: Pericles, Jesus, Caesar, Elizabeth I, Washington, Napoleon, Lincoln, Lenin, Churchill, etc.

The Great Man Theory of History is not only foolish (history is more complicated than that); it is also insidious. If you believe that change results when a given "change agent" (Bill's term for Hillary the other day) delivers it to the people, as Prometheus did with fire, then you are likely to take a wait-and-see approach to your own responsibilities.

History is about what we collectively make it. It is an algorithm so complex, a code with so many inputs, that no one individual -- whatever his or her particular eloquence, character, or even genius -- can hope to dictate (or predict) where it is going next. (This may be news to Wolfowitz, Perle and others in the neoconservative cabal that led us into the Iraq War with a plan to reshape the Middle East.)

Having said that, I will confess: I have a hero. I even have a bust of him in my house.

His name is Abraham Lincoln.

Bear with me. I'm getting to my endorsement. This is my endorsement. Read on, and you will see why.

Lincoln has been my hero since about the winter of 1995, when I finished the first of the many biographies, monographs, articles, studies, and picture books about him that I have accumulated on my bookshelves since then.

He is not my hero because he "saved the Union" (though for that we should be eternally grateful, to be sure). He is not my hero because he "freed the slaves," since that victory was achieved by countless people, both enslaved and not, and could never be attributed to one man (and anyway, Frederick Douglass and many historians since have some mixed things to say about how long it took for Lincoln to make his important contribution to that effort).

Lincoln is my hero because of the way he thinks.

Unlike any other person I have encountered in person or in words (with the possible exception of Hamlet!), Lincoln had a gift for sharing the process by which he arrived at a decision. In his legal briefs when he was a country lawyer (as he made the rounds of the Illinois circuit courts on his horse, "Old Ben," and slept in taverns sometimes three to a bed with other litigators), in his speeches and letters as a rising politician, and of course in his major addresses, again and again Lincoln reveals the route by which his mind traveled to its resting place. He brings us along on a journey.

Take two examples: the "House Divided" speech and his First Inaugural Address. Okay, I can't help myself, two more: the "Cooper Union Address" or his Farewell Address to his neighbors in Springfield, delivered in a shaky voice from the back platform of the "presidential train" headed to Washington D.C.

This is the language of democracy. In all of these examples, and in almost everything he wrote or ever said, Lincoln translated his private concerns, his anguish, his fervent hopes, his efforts to find light where there was little, even his defeats, into terms which other people could understand.

He did not just come up with snappy ways of saying things. Many people -- including his opponents, like Stephen Douglas or George McClellan -- could do that. He brought people along, increased their capacity to think, and thereby increased their capacity to feel.

Lincoln knew a secret of human nature that is so often forgotten: our emotions, our passions, are driven by our thoughts (and vice versa, of course, as the philosopher, David Hume, pointed out); they cannot be disentangled. Where some would try to work on our passions to redirect our reason, Lincoln worked on people's reason to redirect their passions.

*

Today we have a candidate running for President of the United States who reminds me of my hero Abraham Lincoln.

148 years after Lincoln ran for the same office, Barack Obama, also from Illinois, comports himself in a similar manner.

Like Lincoln, he is tough and shrewd about what is required to win elections. But he speaks to voters in a transparent way about what he is thinking and why he is thinking it.

All through the summer and fall, in debates and public appearances, Obama answered questions by explaining his process. He avoids soundbites -- well, except to retaliate against an attack some kind or a gambit by an opponent.

He avoids snap judgments. When he makes up his mind -- like Lincoln -- he is resolute (as Lincoln famously wrote General Ulysses Grant in a telegram: "Hang on with a bull-dog gripe, and chew & choke, as much as possible"). But he is not afraid to show that getting to this point of resolution takes a willingness to ponder, reflect, even hold contradictory ideas in the mind at the same time -- F. Scott Fitzgerald's test of a first-rate mind.

Listen to Obama, and you will hear the language of democracy. It is the language of someone who considers you an equal and trusts that you will follow his argument even if you do not agree with it.

As I say, the Great Man Theory of History is bunk. But sometimes a great person comes along, exactly at the right time, to nudge history, just a little, in a positive direction.

I believe that person is Barack Obama.

For my other posts on the 2008 Presidential election, including not a few on Obama, please click here.

Paris Hilton: A Threshold Question for Civilization

Something that Sam Harris said in his "Four Horsemen" conversation with Hitchens, Dennett and Dawkins (see Monday's post) struck me.

Near the end of their two hour talk about the future of religion, Harris urged nonbelievers to admit that there is something not quite right with our free-wheeling contemporary culture: it's all about money-making, tawdriness, celebrity-worshiping -- you know the litany of complaints.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Harris' larger point was that those of us who stand outside of religious traditions should work to develop a "spiritual" language of our own (except with "no bullshit," as the soft-spoken Harris surprisingly said). Harris hopes that such a language could express our longings for experiences which are distinct from the daily effluvia of our lives.

With that point I agree. We need to talk about the profound experiences we have which give us new perspectives and sometimes overwhelm us with emotion, our visions and inspirations, what is sometimes called the "oceanic feeling." These are important experiences to us, and they will continue to be -- with or without religion. They reach beyond the everyday.

But Harris' casual dismissal of contemporary culture (and the ready assent of the other three to this dismissal) struck me.

The more I thought about it, I realized that many of us have a conflicted view of contemporary culture. In any given moment we may consider it to be: a) the most dazzling display of symbol-generating, meme-producing, endlessly morphing, gloriously nobrow, creative flourishing that the world has ever known; or b) an ever-shifting representation of the broken lives and misplaced hopes of countless lonely, lost human beings, cynically repackaged by some of those same in order to make a buck.

Well, which is it?

This, it occurs to me, is a threshold question for those of us who would urge our fellow-citizens to free themselves from the grip of the ancient texts of religions and the creaky belief-systems of centuries past. It is also a threhold question for parents as they introduce their children to the larger culture around them.

Do we like contemporary culture? If not, then what are we doing immersed in it?

Or to put it more directly: Can we all come together now and celebrate Paris Hilton?

Whatever you think of her personally (in my case, I pretty much draw a blank), I say we can and should.

That doesn't mean you need to read about her in the supermarket tabloids or watch her on TV. It doesn't even mean you need ever to mention her name to your spouse or your children. The great thing about being alive today is: You can pick and choose which parts of the culture you want to enage.

But make no mistake. I am saying it without apologies. I am saying it with pride: The effluvia is the culture. There is no sacred truth buried underneath. There are experiences which stand apart from the effluvia, but they are profoundly personal and do not point to some metaphysical realm which we could reach if only we were more pure of mind.

Yes, you have to do some navigating through the morass of other people's interests and hang-ups and diversions, but what is the alternative? Do you want someone else to screen out the Paris Hiltons of the world for you?

In that case, you might never be able to enjoy the gifts of another "it girl" of her day, who was discovered on the streets of New York for her looks alone but turned out to be immensely talented: Chloe Sevigny. It takes work this way, but you get the rewards of diversity and feedback loops and rare discoveries.

And the world would be a more barren place without the Chloe Sevignys and the Paris Hiltons.

A Child's Trust

My little girl, Adeline, is nearly 8 months, and she has started saying "Dada." Sometimes it comes out "A da." Sometimes it isn't exactly directed at me. But lets not nitpick. The fact is that I feel a rush of joy whenever I hear her having fun with consonants.

There's another thing that has happened lately. She's starting to look into our eyes.

I mean really look. I noticed it with my two boys too: Sometime in their first year, children go from just seeing to really looking. You stare at them and you suddenly see another person staring back. So you stare some more. (A study has shown that paying extremely close attention to the eyes is something that distinguishes us even from our nearest primate relatives. So this is a deeply human response.)

When my daughter looks into my eyes, she looks without judgment, without fear. She looks with trust. It's an incredible responsiblity, this trust that a child grants his or her parents. They lock their little eyes on yours, or their little hands in yours, and you can take them anywhere. They'll go with you.

Over the weekend, George, our 3-year-old, threw up in his sleep. He looked very pale. We changed his pajamas, changed his sheets and blankets, held him close, and then lay him back down in bed. I put a plastic trash bag in a small metal trash bin that I grabbed from our bedroom, and I put it by his bed. I told him that if he felt he was going to throw up again he could use it. I didn't expect it to work.

But a minute later, just as we were going to let him sleep, without a word he pushed his blankets aside and stepped out of bed. Still without a word, he sat on the floor and bent over the metal bin. And here's the trust part. It turned out that the random trash can I had chosen was a little too tall, and he had to rest his chin awkwardly on the edge of it as he got sick again. It was too late to do anything about it. He just went ahead and bravely lifted his chin over the edge; Dad had told him to do it that way.

I rubbed his back and privately cursed myself for not getting something easier for him.

The bottom line is: they trust us completely. Their eyes show it. Their actions show it. We know that is as it should be.

I'm good for it, to the best of my ability.

I am also aware that it is the greatest responsiblity I will ever know in this life.

The Big Lie that Religious People Tell One Another

The big lie that religious people tell one another is not that God exists.

That is the small lie.

Any claim which goes unsupported by evidence -- and moreover, does not even consider evidence (except reports of "miracles") to be necessary -- can only be described as small, since it is insubstantial, no more than a hunch really.

Sure, this little lie about God can get elaborated into something solemn and serious enough to command the adherence of wonderful, well-meaning people all over the world... But it's really just -- what shall we call it? -- a goof, a conjecture, a stab in the dark.

We all know people who believe that it is "Our Father Who Art in Heaven" who exists (some may be reading this post -- hello!). Others say it is Allah; others Vishnu. Others the Flying Spaghetti Monster (a site I recommend, if for nothing else than for its impressive control of tone).

For the nonbeliever, these lies are perhaps amusing, sometimes engaging, sometimes even deadly, but little lies. No more.

The big lie that religious people tell is that a world without God is a world without hope or meaning.

On the last day of November, Pope Benedict XVI issued an encyclical which parroted this lie.

The New York Times, true to form on the topic of atheism, then echoed this lie uncritically in an article entitled, "In Pope's Latest Teaching, an Argument for Hope, Not Atheism, in the Face of Struggle." (For the internet edition the title was shortened to "Pope Stresses Hope in Latest Teaching." If I were an editor at the Times, simply as a matter of saving space, I would just go with "Pope Stresses" -- and lose the rest. It works!)

Here's the letter which I wrote to the New York Times after seeing that article (it went unpublished -- no surprise):

Re: "In Pope's Latest Teaching, an Argument for Hope, Not Atheism, in the Face of Struggle," December 1, 2007.

As an atheist, I recognize that, for many religious people, their faith brings them great hope for the future (the "ocean of infinite love" that Pope Benedict XVI describes, as well as other rewards in this life).

I would only ask that religious people stop insisting that my outlook on life is correspondingly hopeless and meaningless. On the contrary, my atheism gives me great hope; it renews my commitment to creating, with others, a world filled with love, fairness, empathy, and other good things, since, in all likelihood, this is it folks!

Yes, we nonbelievers must avoid utopian dreams of forever changing the human condition (e.g. the New Socialist Man or the Fourth Reich). But a belief that this life is all we have has a marvelous way of concentrating the mind on the need to listen to, and work with, other people. It gives you hope in humanity. It gives you hope that together we can make of our lives something worthwhile and beautiful.

This is my plea:

Please, my dear religious fellow-citizens of this country and the world, please stop telling the rest of us that our lives have no meaning. Our lives have meaning, I assure you. And you are part of it.

Even you, Pope Benedict XVI. Even you are part of the meaning of my family and my life.

*

For an enlightening discussion of faith and meaning by four great thinkers of our time -- Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, the "Four Horsemen" together at last -- click here.

Some Movie Recommendations for "That Special Time" When the Kids Have Gone to Sleep

One of the curious things about being a parent is that, despite your limitless love for your child, and your awareness that every second is precious, you feel enormous relief when they finally go to sleep.

In our house, the nighttime ritual takes at least an hour.

Adeline, at 7 months, still goes down pretty fast... But the boys! The boys...

First, there's the running in circles around their rooms, screaming and laughing like crazed... I don't know... hotdogs. At this early point in the ritual, you can usually find me or their mother chasing after one or both of them with a pair of pajama pants in our hands. I'm often shouting "Hot dogs don't run!" or "You need ketchup!" or some such phrase (which to the uninitiated would seem like gibberish but for my purposes at the time is a clear command).

Then there's the sitting-on-the-potty-before-bed for George, who is 3. Our 2-year-old, Cole, during this part of the evening, usually stacks giant red, blue and green lego blocks into a tower, then knocks it down like the budding anarcho-primitivist that he is.

This is followed by the washing of their hands and brushing of their teeth. Which requires rinsing and spitting. Which usually results in the fronts of someone's pajamas getting soaked, and more screaming and laughing as they both need to run around their rooms again and recreate, in a frenzy of effort, the incredibly enjoyable gesture of spitting out water.

Then it's on to reading books. "One more story!" says Cole every time, after having agreed that the last was "the last one!" (To this day he impressively refuses to acknowledge any contradiction.) Then, after the books, it's telling stories...

George has become quite the critic of our stories ("Not that one!" he will interrupt, just as we are getting into it). Cole, meanwhile, sings along as we get to the part of our version of "Hushabye, Don't You Cry," which goes "...when you wake, you shall find, all your favorite little toys..." The undue emphasis he places on the the slightly archaic "shall" unnerves me every time.

Finally we say goodnight and back out their doors.

That's when the request phase begins. (Water. etc.)

By the time we stumble downstairs we are quite relieved, really, that our special time has arrived. On some nights, we even muster the energy to watch a movie.

So that's the subject of today's post:

Movies to watch when the kids are finally asleep and you happen to have an hour (or two!) before bed.

Now I'm not just going to list good movies. This is not your generic "recommendations" list.

Instead, I'm going to list for you movies that have nothing to do with childish concerns. These movies are for grown-ups only... but not in that way. They are grown-up in the sense that they will make you think differently about the world than before you saw them.

Some of these are demanding movies. You may resist them at first (I certainly did for many of them). But then, we resist most experiences which are "new, but true."

Rather than falling inside the categories we know, these films create new modes of observation about what it is to be human. They have tones, and moods, and visual or auditory languages all of their own.

If you watch any, or have watched any, write in to this post with your comments!

Here's the list (alphabetical, since I could think of no useful way to rank or categorize such unique films!):

Ballad of Soldier. (1959) A 19-year-old Russian soldier returns from the front in WW II to visit his mother. Black and white, gracefully shot, it will move you to tears.

Baran. (2001) With a rich visual style, the director, Majid Majidi, conjures a world where romantic love seems as real as steel, cement and smoke. This film is gorgeous and quiet.

The Bicycle Thief. (1948) A classic by the great director Vittorio De Sica. A man loses his bike and -- with his son at his side -- searches around the city of Rome for it. Hits you hard. Watching it changed my moral compass forever, and yet it is never moralistic.

The Birds. (1963) If you haven't seen this Hitchcock, do. Even with its abruptness and structural creakiness, it is a visual poem which haunts you well after you thought you had left it behind.

Calendar. (1993) If you have ever returned from a trip to a foreign country with a vague sense that you exploited it, or if you have exited a relationship wondering what you missed, this film will draw you in. It has a fascinating puzzle-like structure. It is partly shot on home video, partly shot on film.

Celebration. (1998) This film gives the movement Dogme 95 a good name: the jittery, handheld camera, the use of natural light -- everything about the visual style of this film works perfectly with the story. A Danish family reunion goes terribly wrong.

City of Women. (1980) A romp into an enchanted forest of gender codes, sexual longings, frustrations and fantasies, with the charming Marcello Mastroionni ("Smick smack," he says as he follows a woman off a train) leading you by the hand.

Code Unknown. This strange, fragmented film leaves you feeling the palpable loneliness of our time. And when it ended I sat there, stunned, thinking about the smallness of art -- as if books, paintings, films are now nothing more than broken pieces of pottery, evoking our interest or empathy for a moment and then gone. Completely absorbing performances.

The Crossing Guard. (1995) Watch this just to see Jack Nicholson deliver the goods. The story involves a husband and a wife dealing, each in their own way, with the loss of his child.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. (2005) A film by one of the most brilliant up-and-coming directors in the world, the Romanian Cristi Puiu. It is ultra-real, following one man's experience being shuttled from hospital to hospital as he approaches death. So real that it feels like a meditation.

Destry Rides Again. (1939) Marlene Dietrich and Jimmy Stewart in a charisma stand-off that is thoroughly enjoyable.

Happiness. (1998) Shocking, outrageous, and funny. But it has a tone of its own. Instead of bouncing off of the shock, or just getting the laugh and moving on (as, say, Quentin Tarantino does so well), the writer/director Todd Solondz lets the moments sit. You start to feel what is happening on the inside of the characters too.

It Happened One Night. (1934) A love story as crazy-making as the best love stories are, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

Moloch. (1999) I will never forget this film and its powerful, hushed atmosphere. The shooting style is wonderful -- lots of wide angles and complicated blocking. The feeling of proximity to Hitler's evil grows -- you feel his deranged isolation and panic in your gut.

Monsoon Wedding. (2001) Okay, if you missed this and you like stories with good endings, you have to see it. It is full of vibrant color (the opening shot of the marigolds is seared into my brain forever), romance, and convincing moments of moral choice. And every time someone does the right thing it always works out.

Nights of Cabiria. (1957) Unbelievable lead performance by Giulietta Masina. The settings are stunning, the story is ruthless -- this is one of the greatest.

The Passenger. (1975) Slow, hypnotic shots. Attention to visual detail. A nearly complete avoidance of melodrama. Jack Nicholson in Antonioni's brilliant film. The famous, final, uninterrupted shot is draw-dropping.

Secrets and Lies. (1996) This director, Mike Leigh, uses months of improvisation to develop a script with his actors. His actors' nuanced, detailed, explosive performances show it.

The Seventh Seal. (1957) I watched this with my arms folded, saying "So?" to myself repeatedly. And its genius still owned me. It took my wife to point that out (based on my odd restlessness when talking about it) later that night. As soon as she did, I let the memories rush over me and I joined the many others who adulate this dream-like film.

The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) This film, about a woman's quest for justice in a remote Chinese village, is structured like a Greek tragedy. It moves inexorably, grippingly forward, and you stare and wonder at it all the way through.

Sunset Boulevard. (1950) If you haven't seen this classic, you will be happy you did. It draws you in, and it creates a world of its own: dark, full of deception, reeking of physical desire, horrible, oppressive, erotic.

The Sweet Hereafter. (1997) A snow-bound town loses a whole school bus of children. Each household holds its own pain. Beautifully shot. The experience of watching it is like unfolding something slowly, with each fold revealing something new.

Tokyo Story. (1953) Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece. An older couple comes to Tokyo from the country to see their grown children. And you understand more about being alive, and about what it is to care, after watching this simply story.

The Wind Will Carry Us. (1999) Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is one of the world's great artists. This film, set in a small Iranian village, follows a fictional film director from Tehran as he and you (the viewer) slowly shed our assumptions and remember what counts. It is full of people, and life, life! I wish it could be required viewing for our political leaders.

The 400 Blows. (1959) A troubled boy in Paris. A sad, serene movie that leaves you with a sense of hopelessness and beauty at the same time. Watch for the wonderfully complicated and graceful way it is shot. Or don't watch for it; just enjoy.

Can't a Guy Dream of the White House While Smoking a Joint?

As an ambitious 14-year-old in 1983, I was very concerned not to do anything which might sabotage my chances to become President of the United States.

After all, my plan had me first learning Russian, then advancing smoothly in my political career (I imagined that there would be an obvious ladder of sorts, upon which I would climb, rung by rung, to the top). Then, finally, I would sit down to negotiate a nuclear freeze with a grandfatherly Mikhail Gorbachev.

I knew we could work things out, the old Gorb and I.

This ambition peaked my senior year, in 1987, when I did actually go on the first-ever U.S.-Soviet high school exchange, spending 5 weeks in the snow-bound town of Akedemgorodok, Siberia. The LA Times and other papers interviewed me; I was on my way.

I returned to my high school that spring just in time to confront Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush when he came to speak to our student body. "No more bloodshed in Nicaragua, Mr. Vice President!" I urged him as I shook his hand. He asked me to walk with him. I imagined the crowd of students and teachers around us growing hushed as we conferred. He explained to me how the Sandanistas had a "Marxist-Leninist slogan on their coins," how we need to resist this ideology wherever we find it... I said, "But what about self-determination for the Nicaraguan people?" He smiled and rested his hand on my shoulder. Then he said, "Nice talking to you," and his security guards ushered me back to the other side of the rope fence.

We hadn't been able to work it out. I felt my political career slipping away.

But I digress.

As I was saying, I considered myself on a track to the Presidency. I was concerned, though, about one thing: my drug use.

I smoked marijuana occasionally with my friends. That was it. But it was enough, at that time, to wipe out my chances for national office.

So when I smoked, I always felt a pang of concern -- not guilt, concern. What of my future? Whiter my dreams? What if someone takes a picture of us with this weird-looking bong?

The truth is that I was never destined for politics. I appreciate too much the impulse to follow thoughts and experiences to their limits. (See my previous post on "Weirdness and Politics" on that.) And I never could find that ladder.

But a young man named Barack Obama shared the same dream of the White House, apparently even earlier than I did.

And he too, as he recounts in Dreams From My Father, took the occasional hit from a bong. He even tried cocaine. And who knows what else. Here's what Obama writes:

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed... something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

So he confesses that he used drugs. To me that is fine. He didn't endanger himself greatly, or harm anyone else. He used them to escape, and probably to have some laughs.

What is impressive to me is the way that he is willing to talk about it. I know that he must have fretted about the consequences of his drug use when he did it -- after all, he had ambitions even then. But by the time he had grown into a man, when he published his first book at 34, he had claimed it as part of his story, part of his personal growth.

That's the kind of honesty we need on the issue of drugs. That's the kind of honesty we need period.

So when Hillary Clinton's campaign draws attention to Obama's drug use, I believe that they draw attention to his strength. And they put her campaign in an unattractive light.

It's one more example of ends vs. means.

How Would I Feel to Have My Son or Daughter Serve?

I received an email from a reader, a Captain in the Air Force currently serving in Iraq, in response to my post "An Atheist Responds to Mitt Romney's Speech on Religion."

I felt honored that a soldier who is risking life and enduring hardship would write in support of the words I wrote. I wrote back to tell him that I hold what he is doing in high, high esteem.

I do.

After I sent my email back to this soldier, a thought struck me: How would I feel to have my son or daughter serve in the U.S. military?

After all, this blog is dedicated to finding the intersections between politics and parenting, and in some sense there is no more fundamental intersection. Carl von Clausewitz described war as "the continuation of politics by other means." I value politics. I value parenting. Where do I come down when their most basic principles -- the preservation of peace and the protection of my children's lives -- are irreconcilable?

As a citizen, I admire this soldier and others like him who volunteer to defend their country's interests. I know that it has become a tired refrain of politicians, but we really do "owe our freedom" to them...

As a parent, however, I want above all for my children to live happy, healthy lives...

Here's where I come down.

I will hope to raise my children to understand that they are obligated to their fellow citizens; that their freedoms, their privileges, even their hopes, would evaporate almost immediately if they lost their connection to others. I agree with Hobbes (in his famous, still raging cage match against Rousseau on how we are to imagine our pre-political state) when he wrote that life in a state of nature, i.e. without government, is "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short."

So my children will arrive at their young adulthood with a clear sense of responsibility to their fellow-citizens. If called upon to defend their country, I believe that they would serve. And I would support them.

But I will never want them to serve in the military, however much I admire the service of others. That's the parent in me talking. I simply could not desire that they put themselves at risk.

I guess what I am saying is that when I became a parent I bifurcated into two selves. There is my former self, who still exists, who can examine life and death issues from the vantage point of politics and abstract concerns. Then there is my new self (let's call him Dad), who cannot brook any compromise with his desire to protect his children from harm.

This Dad in me is now a second self, and the former me has to live with him. There is no reconciling these two parts for a parent.

The highest honor (my child dying for a great cause, say as Abraham Lincoln could be said to have done for the Union) is immaterial to the Dad in me. Likewise, the worst shame (say, my child going on a murderous rampage of innocent people) is also immaterial to this Dad in me -- though it would be horrifying and heartbreaking. Nothing would change in my concern for my child's well-being. Being a parent is outside of systems of praise and blame.

When politics and parenting clash, there is -- there can be -- no reconciliation.

The Secular End of Days: How Good People Get Greedy

Al Gore gave a stirring speech in Oslo on Monday, upon his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.

As you might have expected, he made the case that people all over the world are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to global warming. With his unique tone (mixing, as it always does, self-consciousness and high-mindedness), Gore urged that we all need to pull our heads out of the sand and open our eyes. As he put it:

"'[W]hen large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: 'Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield'."

When reading this part of Gore's speech, I experienced an epiphany. A goddamned epipany. And it wasn't just about global warming.

Here's what hit me: Gore is wrong on one crucial point. People are not ignoring the inconvenient truths of our time, such as the rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the extreme disparities in wealth in the world. On the contrary, despite their uncertainty as to specifics, people are very aware of these issues. Innundated by images and data from the internet and the media, people know what is going on.

I am not saying that people know the finepoints of the science or how to analyze the numbers. But we are not "imprisoned by a dangerous illusion," as Gore suggests; we do not need to awaken to a new "truth force"; we are not looking to be "steered by the stars". We get it.

It's how we're dealing with it that's the problem.

I would go so far as to say that, increasingly in the last 20 years or so, the central orienting position in people's minds in the developed world is that the good times are not going to last much longer.

So Gore is speaking to his audience of solutions and readiness, "a bright and hopeful future." He ends: "We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act."

But people have already heard the news. And they are not rising to the purpose he's got in mind. They are acting more and more out of a sense of scarcity -- they are digging in, battening down the windows, putting up higher, automated gates and fences, enjoying the holidays within their own small circle, shutting the world out.

Why do I say this?

Take a look at our political landscape. The health care debate, for example. Last night I saw Michael Moore's Sicko. In the film he points to the mystery of why, in a country of so many good, kind, charitable people, we do not consider it important to provide health care for all citizens. Well, guess why, Michael? It's because people have a sense that this ship is sinking anyway, and they better take care of their own family first. They have lost confidence in the idea of making a difference. At least, they reflect, they have their own private insurance plan, however unreliable. The idea of risking that for the larger community is suspect.

Or take our national debt and the growing debt for American households. What explains the conspicuous consumption of the superrich in this country? And the apparent lust felt by the consuming masses when they see the TV shows and the magazine spreads on this conspicuous consumption? What explains the desire of the many to imitate the luxury lifestyle of the few, even when it means falling into debt? The attitude, again, is: You better enjoy it now. It ain't gonna last.

Or take the so-called "hotbutton" issues in today's politics. The heat is the result of people's fear that America is in its end of days -- and the things we hold most dear are going to be snatched away soon. Immigration? What your hear on the Right is that the Mexicans are stealing our opportunities and want the land back (the myth of the "Reconquesta"!). The environment? The market-driven ads suggest that you better drive your yellow Humvee fast, while you can, before the oil supplies run out. Religion and politics? The impulse seems to be: if the end is coming, my values are my last defense -- and so I need to see them enshrined in law.

The global awareness brought on by the arrival of the information age has changed domestic priorities.

This is the secular end of days.

This is how good people get greedy.

*

What can I add from the perspective of a parent?

Well, let's bring it home.

It's like when you shouldn't eat those two remaining Christmas cookies on the plate left over from the party... but then again, if you just take them both then they will be gone and the anxiety you feel will be over. So you reach out and begin the binge that will herald the end. I don't mean to trivialize it, but ours is the left-over Christmas cookie era.

So how do we stop it? How do we reverse course? How do good people get un-greedy?

That is the true challenge ahead. It's not a question of ridding ourselves of ignorance; it's a question of ridding ourselves of our sense of coming loss.

As a parent, I try to emphazise to my children that they can have a cookie later. Or there will be some other treat after their nap. I emphasize that this is not their last great idea.

It strikes me that the environmental movement to end carbon emissions and reverse global warming will only work effectively when people have a vision of a treat on the other side of it. We have to develop a vision of a society which functions without carbon emissions, and with a more equal distribution of resources between and within nations.

But Communism is discredited. "Socialism" is vague. Green has become another political slogan. A widescale return to small, aboriginal communities is impractical. So what's the vision? What is the secular and nonreligious vision of the Second Coming? We need it more than we would like to admit.

And as Gore says, we may not have long. We have to learn to dream again.

Is Violence Ever Funny?

As every parent knows, children hit. And push. And kick. And bite.

"No hitting!" you say in a stern voice. Your child looks at you impassively... and then clobbers you again, knocking your glasses clear off your face.

"NO!" you say, and put him or her down.

At which point, the floor presents itself to your child's fists. And it takes a beating which, much to your surprise (didn't everybody always tell you that parenting would be full of surprises?), makes you feel sorry for the floor.

Where does this violence come from? You haven't ever hit your child. As far as you know, he or she has never even seen anyone hit anyone else.

But it seems to come naturally.

And when it comes it does so with an army of other aggressive behaviors. In our house they range from shouting the single word "Mine!" in a short, clipped manner (regardless of whether the information conveyed remains relevant) to getting into viscious, winner-take-all tug-of-war matches over permanant marker pens. Certain among us (who will go unnamed) have even been known to throw driveway gravel directly at the faces of our younger brother... just to see what would result.

The list goes on. This army of violent and aggressive behaviors within each of us is, apparently, a standing army. We seem to establish it, by some trick of neurological development, sometime in our first year, and we then proceed to fund it throughout our lives. (Apparently the brain is not so different from the majority Democratic Congress when it comes to authorizing spending on the army!)

So what is the best way to channel this potential for violence in our children? How do we deal with it as parents? Do we try to suppress it? Ignore it? How do we want our kids to feel about violence? How do we feel about it?

I have realized that this whole debate boils down to a single question:

Is violence ever funny?

I raise this issue because, like many parents, ever since my first-born arrived I have been desperately trying shield him, and then my other two children, from exposure to violence. Which... I find hard to do.

Recently I searched for "Popeye the Sailor Man" on YouTube with my boys, and I quickly became uneasy when I saw the casually sadistic way that he does damage to Brutus. So much for my happy memories of Popeye and his spinich.

Even Tintin finds himself obligated to draw a gun on occasion.

And let's not even talk about the acrobatic thrashing that Batman and Robin give to Catwoman's henchmen "the Kittens" (shield your kid's eyes, and let's watch it instead):

Of course it is so much worse than these examples suggest. Some critics of popular culture trace the trend back to Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, just as the Vietnam War began to infect the national psyche. Many people noticed a new style of giddy, extreme violence with the arrival of Quentin Tarantino's Resevoir Dogs in 1992. ("Cinema as fast-food," quipped Anthony Lane.) Now there seems to be a new genre of violence launched every spring in the film festivals, with the most recent going by the name "torture porn."

Controversies have erupted in the news media too, as regards the use of photographs of dead people, or images containing or encouraging violent acts (most recently in the case of NBC's decision to air the videotaped messages of the Virginia Tech student who killed 32 people).

On the one side, we all acknowledge that popular culture in this country is rife with violence. On the other side, it is our intention as parents to limit our children's exposure to it.

Something's got to give.

Again, I ask: Is violence ever funny?

In trying to work out where I stand on this urgent question in terms of my children, I believe that I have to start with my own relationship to violence. I simply have to get clear myself.

Okay. Here goes... See if you can relate.

I certainly value experiences -- and works of entertainment or art -- which avoid violence more than I do those which include it. When I see a film such as The Wind Will Carry Us by Abbas Kiarostami, set in a small village in Iran, dealing with issues of small human foibles and confusion, I feel more enriched, and yes, happier, than when I see a film such as -- to name an action film at random -- The Bourne Supremacy. Likewise, when I get back from a walk with my children, and we spent an hour watching leaves race down the rainwater along the sides of streets, I feel qualitatively better than when I have, for example, just poured vinegar on a trail of ants in the kitchen.

But then, do I want to banish all representations of violence from my life? That seems absurd. We obviously learn from watching violence, and sometimes it seems fun to watch. After all, I do watch movies like those in the Bourne series. And I do sometimes thrill, if not at the violence itself, then at the craft with which it is presented (the color, the movement, the alternations of suspense and relief).

So my own relationship with violence seems frought with ambivalance. I don't like it so much. But I choose to watch it sometimes. It is part of my life, and I keep it that way intentionally.

Okay, now let's turn to the question at hand.

Is it funny? More broadly, does it entertain?

My answer, which surprises me by its directness, is no.

If I really think about it, the only reason why I watch acts of violence in films or other media is because of a sense that I may be learning from them. I get no pleasure from the violence itself. I would happily watch movies and read books where, as in Greek tragedy, the violence occurs ob-scene, that is, off-stage.

Even when my beloved Chaplin is hit by a frying pan, although I enjoy the odd, twitchy dance that it provokes, I think I would enjoy it more if it were provoked by some other occurance (chasing a butterfly or something?).

I know I'm in a minority in American culture here. I'm out on a limb. But that's my true preference if I'm really honest about it. Call me squeamish.

So if I dig down a bit further here, then I have to conclude that I don't get any entertainment value out of watching violence -- only educational value. It is never funny. The circumstances around it may be, but not the act itself.

And this gives me a starting-point for dealing with the omnipresence of violence in our culture when it comes to my kids.

I am not going to get fanatical about blocking all images of violence from them. That would: a) be impossible; b) cause them to conclude that Dad was hiding something, which must be interesting, and c) deprive them of important facts about the world.

But I am going to resist the pressure in our society to (pretend to?) enjoy violence. I will, without being too worried about overprotectiveness, express my opinion that this image or that TV show or that book is depressing, and sometimes even insist that we do something else. I will stand my ground on things like shoot-em-up video games -- sorry, not allowed in our home. And I will never laugh at a violent act, no matter what the studio audience and supplemental laugh track does.

Question: Is Violence Ever Funny?
Answer: No.

Romney the Weatherman, Huckabee the Weather

It's a pattern, isn't it?

Mitt Romney, whose succesful career with Bain Capital essentially thrived on his talent as a salesman, aims above all to please.

When asked about interrogating terror suspects in a Fox debate in May he answered, outside of any considerations of practical need, that he would "double Guantanamo." When asked about immigration in the more recent CNN/YouTube debate he insisted that, unlike Giuliani, he would not condone any exceptions for illegals to report crimes or go to school -- lest we create sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, a sanctuary nation. He also claimed on that evening that he believes every word of the Bible -- "Yes!" he said to Anderson Cooper's direct question -- despite the position of his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which holds that it contains a multitude of errors, corrected in the Book of Mormon.

When Romney goes there, he goes there. Until he goes somewhere else. What we have here is a candidate whose strength is in his cheerful accomodation to almost anyone -- any potential customers, in the broad sense of the word -- who will advance his interests.

He is the "weatherman" that Bob Dylan sings about in Subterranean Homesick Blues (the one that "you don't need...to know which way the wind blows").

That's what is perhaps most troubling about Romney's speech yesterday. He is merely the weatherman, but the actual weather is coming our way.

I first noticed the barometer dropping when the Democratic candidates sat for a "Forum on Faith" in June and answered questions from Soledad O'Brien about their private religious views. Hillary spoke of "prayer warriors." Hmm. I didn't know about prayer warriors. Edwards insisted that "we are all sinners."

Oh, I thought. Thank you. Glad to be informed of that.

Then I thought I might have felt a first raindrop fall when, in a September debate on MSNBC, the Democratic candidates were asked their favorite Bible verse. No one flinched at the inappropriateness of this question, even though, to my ears at least, it verged on religious test for office. Think about it: Could you, if so inclined, actually decline to answer this? Would Tim Russert simply nod and go to the next candidate? Of course not. The next question would have been: Why? Are you not a believer? And that's getting pretty close to a religious test.

Obama helpfully mentioned Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. ("Love your enemy," I guess -- he's still rubbing it in that he will meet directly with the heads of state of North Korea and Iran where Hillary would dither).

Now I know it is not news that the candidates for President, on both sides, have religious convictions. But what is news is that their convictions are being foregrounded in their campaigns. Would it be such a stretch, even in this campaign, to imagine a candidate sporting a "cross pin" or a "crucifix pin" on the opposite side of his coat from the obligatory post 9-11 American flag pin? (You can imagine the... shall we say, disapprobrium, that would follow on Fox News if Obama, or any other candidate, suggested that he need not wear a cross on his lapel to prove his faith. Go at 'em Sean Hannity.)

The climate is indeed a-changing, and in more ways that one. Essentially what we saw yesterday was Romney announcing the weather -- a gathering storm of faith -- on TV.

And Huckabee? Huckabee is the weather.

Yesterday he claimed that his rise in the polls is the direct result of "thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much." (Watch the video here.) Their prayers -- and God's resulting attentiveness to caucus-goers in Iowa -- are lifting Huckabee up, in what can only be described as a sacred updraft, to the highest seat of finite power in this world.

An Atheist Reponds to Mitt Romney's Speech on Religion

You can read Romney's full speech here or watch it on his website here.

As an atheist and a father of three young children, the speech Mitt Romney delivered at the George H. W. Bush presidential library today shocked me to my core.

If this is the drift of this country, towards a politics that explicitly excludes my standing as a worthy citizen because I do not believe in one of the major monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism or Islam, then I seriously do not know what I will do to sustain for myself, and instill in my children, the strong sense of belonging that I currently feel as a citizen.

I cherish my country; I cherish our history, our laws and our principles, including the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing freedom of speech and the separation of church and state. As a non-believer who believes that it is this life which matters, my sense of morality is inextricably tied to my sense of belonging as a citizen.

Indeed, this sense of belonging runs deep. I consider myself to be unavoidably emeshed in the concerns of my fellow-citizens (as well as, more broadly, the concerns of all of the people on this planet). That is my challenge and my inspiration as I try to live my life well, and guide my children to do the same.

In the speech he gave today, Romney threatened to take part of my core identity away from me.

This is a direct quotation from his speech:

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Although he addressed the speech to all Americans, he was not talking to me when he gave this speech. Romney made it perfectly clear that as President he would represent non-believers like me with reluctance at best. We do not fit into his idea of Americans; we are an after-thought.

If the two political parties in this country are headed towards the conclusion that, as an atheist, I am not a true American, then my family and I will, in effect, be sent into political exile. For me (as for the ancient Athenians, who also valued political partipation as a part of the core of a person's identity), exile robs life of its meaning.

Romney, unwittingly or not, for reasons of political expediency or not, threatened me with political -- and therefore, for a non-believer, spiritual -- exile in his speech today.

My first reaction, upon reading the words of the speech, was to feel my heart beating faster, as if I was facing a threat to the safety of my family. It's strange how our bodys' survival instincts, buried deep in our brains, warn us before we even have time to reflect on why.

My second reaction is to redouble my commitment to working for a future where, some day, Romney's view on the central place of religion in American life is considered a relic of a time when a great country, founded on the basis of equal consideration for all people, was held in thrall to a destructive, exclusionary myth called "faith."

Being a "Grown-Up" But Also an Equal: the Challenge for Parents and Politicians

My father didn't care who started it.

He didn't care about the build-up, the back story. He didn't care to hear our justifications or even our apologies. He just wanted it to end.

My sister and I were fighting. It was noisy. It was interfering with his peace.

"Hands!" he would say sharply, cutting through whatever high-stakes argument one of us was making, by way of words or actions, at the moment.

We both knew what "Hands!" meant. It meant we had to drop what we were doing, and I mean immediately -- mid-punch, mid-kick, even mid-obscenity. We had to walk over to wherever he stood and stand side by side. We had to raise our hands, palms down, next to each other. At which point he would slap the tops of our hands, hard.

If you pulled your hand away, you had to do it again, and again, until you kept it there.

On its own terms, Dad's approach to discipline worked: that single word "Hands!" generally ended our fights. And the message was unmistakable: He was the grown-up and we were the kids.

Mom was different. She would pull us apart, and even as she did so, she would get involved. She would take turns listening to our grievances. She would patiently wait out our tears, our tantrums, and our tales of unmatched woe, cruelty and terrible misunderstanding. She would even sympathize with both sides.

Sometimes she did manage to pin the blame on one or the other of us. Usually, though, she found a way of reframing our fight to partially exonerate and partially blame each of us. Among her many gifts, she has an amazing ability to reframe almost anything and make it positive.

On the rare occasions when she hit her tolerance threshold, Mom would call for "Hands!" like Dad. When this happened, my sister and I would begin giggling even before extending our hands. We eagerly awaited the Kabuki dance of my mom trying to act severe but then slapping our hands in the most painless and half-hearted manner you could ever imagine. Not only did she tend to favor whoever she considered the victim of that particular altercation, but even if she had determined that you had started it, the slap you got to your hand was something you might have paid a professional to do to you at a luxury spa.

The bottom line was that we were treated as equals. She was a referee, and we were the players, but we were all playing the same game.

What do I think of these two very different understandings of discipline in retrospect? How will I respond as my children enter the fighting years?

I think both are useful.

So far, I find myself favoring my mom's approach. I want to know what happened. I try to see it from both boys' perspective (Adeline, at 7 months, gets more furious with her rattle than her brothers, so I can't include her in this).

I hope never to resort to hand-slapping, but if I ever do then I can imagine that, like for my mom, my ambivalence about it will be the cause of much hilarity.

I think that my mom's approach to discipline, which is more egalitarian and breaks down the boundaries between parents and children, establishes a comfort-level with talking things out which will bode well for a lifetime of close relationships.

At the same time, I find myself aware that there is a benefit in also establishing a clear boundary between the childrens' needs and the grown-ups' needs in our home. In this respect I find myself drawn to my Dad's approach with surprising frequency -- even if I haven't resorted to a "Hands!" yet.

I sometimes hear myself empasizing to George (who is 3 and 1/2) that he should do what I say because I have reasons for what I say. Grown-up reasons. And sometimes, when he is fighting with Cole (who is 2) I tell him that, frankly, I don't always need to enumerate all of my reasons to them; that can come later... Maybe the reason is only that their mother and I are at wit's end after a long morning of demands, whining, mishaps, spills, and squabbles. That's reason enough!

I think it is healthy for children to know that their parents listen to them. We can even change our minds and admit that we were wrong, if that is the case. But it is also healthy for kids to know that their mom and dad are the ones who get to call the shots. At least this will set them up to assume their own authority when they raise their own children. It will feel familiar to them.

*

What's the political angle into all of this?

An article in this week's New Republic, by Jeffrey Rosen, reviews Supreme Court Clarence Thomas' new memoir, My Grandfather's Son, and a new biography on him as well. Rosen points out that over the past 20 years or so politicians have been reeling with the ever more egalitarian drift of our culture. The larger-than-life profile of the leader has disintegrated in our celebrity culture. Now we are all just doing "our thing." You may be a Movie Star, you may be a Senator; I have chosen another path... So what have you done for me lately?

In this way of looking at it, as a culture we seem to have abandoned any pretense of the "grown-up world." We are all just kids now ("Do you wear boxers or briefs, Mr. Clinton?").

Rosen's point is that Thomas has ruined his stature as a Supreme Court Justice by publishing his self-pitying, self-congratulatory memoir. It's like a parent telling his kids why he's so great. It has brought him down to size.

The article made me think: Which national politicians out there still retain a quality of being "grown-ups" -- standing slightly apart, as parents stand apart from the boundary-less disputes of their children? Perhaps McCain. Perhaps Hillary. Perhaps Obama. Perhaps Dodd. Certainly Russ Feingold... Certainly Jim Webb... I can't think of any others. The rest stoop too low or reveal too much.

To take it a step further: Who are the politicians who combine this stand-apart, "grown-up world" quality (my dad's approach, good for establishing priorities) with a sense of equal-standing, of genuine interest in the views of the voters (my mom's approach, good for establishing trust)? Who brings both understandings to his or her commitment to public service?

You've guessed my answer. It seems to be the theme this week.

(Starts with an "O.")

Hillary and Obama: Ends and Means

After almost a year on the campaign trail, a difference has become obvious between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

No, it is not the question of whether Hillary's proposal for health reform, which mandates universal coverage for all, will or will not cover 15 million more Americans than Obama's.

No, it's not the question of whether it is useful to say, as Obama does (but Hillary pointedly does not), that as President he would meet with the heads of enemy states, such as North Korea and Iran, without setting pre-conditions.

I am talking about a much deeper difference than these, although these (and almost every policy difference between them, however seemingly unrelated and trivial) are in fact expressions of it.

The deep difference is this: Hillary is about ends; Obama is about means.

If Democrats and informed citizens of all kinds believe that the political scene in Washington D.C. is too corrupt, too complex, and too compromised for them to play a significant role in it, then naturally they will gravitate towards a champion, a seasoned warrior, someone they can send in fully armed, on their behalf. They will choose someone whom they can send into a dark, dusty hole, with confidence that after the sounds of clanking armor and the anguished screams subside, she will step back into the light to declare, say... the passing into law of a modest reform guaranteeing that private health insurance companies will, beginning in 2012, not preclude applicants based on pre-existing conditions.

Hillary is about getting it done (just don't tell us how you did it!).

If, on the other hand, Democrats and informed citizens across this land believe that the political scene in Washington D.C. still presents opportunities for change, that "we the people" may still have a significant part to play in that miraculous movement from inchoate ideas to collective agreements backed up by force (what we commonly refer to as law-making), then they will want someone to represent them, someone to lead them en masse, someone to articulate and explain their positions, say... that, despite the objections of U.S. corporations doing business in China, existing law already authorizes inspections on the ground at Chinese factories to ensure that they are meeting environmental and labor standards.

Obama is about outmaneuvering his adversaries to meet them on his own terms (just don't disappoint us!).

The real choice between Hillary and Obama depends on how bad you think things are.

Do you see politics as a contest for hardened warriors, an endurance event, a blood-bath? Is it now, and will it forever be, a dark and dusty hole?

Or do you see politics as a Town Hall, a calling, a colloquy of concerned citizens? In other words, as we go into battle, can we talk about it?

The contrasting labels thrown at Hillary and Obama -- "experience" vs. "change," "realistic" vs. "naive," "the toughest one on the stage" vs. "the audacity of hope" -- all point to this deep difference. It lies under every utterance of these two highly self-aware people.

So where do you stand? Have you given up yet?

If so, then Hillary is "your girl," as she said in one debate -- but not just any girl, she's your Amazonian warrior, having chopped off one of her breasts to handle the bow more easily, aching to do battle in your name.

Or do you still believe? Then Obama is "your guy," as he responded in the next debate -- your guy, dressed in a simple suit, a man of the people, walking at your side as you enter the chamber.

Barack on the Up and Up

Check out his steep incline in the latest poll from Iowa.

And then there's this!

I guess when everything is humming, singing in Hindi is second nature.

So what lies ahead?

Four words: Iowa and New Hampshire.

Five words: Just one month to go.

If he gets past Hillary in these two states, he will be the next President of the United States.

If the country has a chance to get to know him during the general election, he has already won.

Imagine his serious, graceful, measured style in contrast to the wide-eyed, goofy style of Huckabee, or the arrogant world-weariness of McCain, or the downright oddness of Giuliani, or the vacuous optimism of Romney... In the end, I trust that a majority of voters would overcome whatever hang-ups they might have, and vote for Obama.

What a new day it would be for this country -- and for humanity! A community activist and Constitutional law professor as the leader of the free world. Someone who is dedicated to telling the truth, above all. Someone who knows that right and wrong are terribly important and also terribly difficult propositions.

Someone who is also, by the way, a dad.

The Past Is Future: Reexamining the Past with Our Children

How much should we dredge up the past, reexamine old views and intimate history, sift through painful memories, for the sake of our children?

Sure, we want them to learn from the mistakes of their parents, but sometimes shouldn't we let bygones be bygones?

These questions came to mind recently when I talked to a friend whose grandfather (who died a few years ago) was one of the German rocket scientists brought to the United States after World War II to work on the Apollo manned space program.

A recent article in the New Yorker, followed by a review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review of a new biography of Wernher Von Braun, drew my friend's attention to his grandfather's likely experiences during the war.

The Jewish Virtual Library has this account:

“Until the spring of 1944 the prisoners [over 60,000 slaves, who were brought in to work round-the-clock on the V-2 rockets] lived underground... The sanitation was totally inhuman. There were no toilets and there was no water. The temperature was eight or nine degrees Celsius (46-48 Fahrenheit) and humidity was 90 percent. They died like flies.”

An estimated 20,000 prisoners died building the rockets.

Wernher Von Braun and the other scientists who were there, spearheading Hitler's V-2 rocket program, certainly saw the prisoners, and certainly saw their corpses stacked up for disposal.

What did my friend's grandfather do or think?

Should my friend (a person with a very strong moral sense) pursue this further? Should he talk to his children about their great grandfather's past?

He believes that it is his obligation to do so, and he is beginning to research it and prepare the groundwork for that conversation.

I can see that learning more about his grandfather's past, whatever it turns out to be, will provide an amazing opportunity for him and his children to reflect on history, on morality, on courage, on career choices, and on the complicated nature of love. Certainly it will teach his children something about the importance of living examined lives, even in the face of their inevitable failings and regrets.

*

But in a way, his case is an easy one. After all, his grandfather is not here anymore.

When the past is still alive, however, things can be different. What do we do then? In those cases, attempts to reexamine the past can a lead a person into dangerous territory.

I speak from experience. Here's an example of how it can go wrong:

One night about 6 years ago, for my father's 60th birthday party, my dad, mom, sister, brother-in-law and I gathered for a celebratory dinner at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. It was a treat, and we all enjoyed the meal.

Just as we were finishing our coffees and spooning the last bites of gelato from the dessert plate, I raised my glass to make a toast.

"I want to make a toast to Dad," I said, and I turned to him directly. "In many ways, we have all changed a lot since the years that we lived together in our house as a family. And the world has changed too..."

He nodded in agreement, his eyes flashing with emotion.

"When I think of the socially accepted roles for men and women during the 1970s and early 80s, I sometimes think of 'Captain Kirk" from Star Trek. I mean, it was absolutely natural that the Starship Enterprise would have a man in charge -- no one questioned it. I certainly never did!"

The toast was going on longer than expected; Dad took a sip of wine.

"And it seemed natural too," I continued, "That he would sit in a leather-padded armchair in the center of the cockpit -- what did they call it? the Bridge -- and from that position decide the fate of the whole crew.

"Dad, in many ways you were the Captain Kirk in our family. In many ways, you were the traditional dad. I always knew that you would have the final say on things... You held our fate in your hands!"

A zone of silence seemed to separate our table from the rest of the restaurant.

"What I want to express to you today, is that even though that traditional role of father, as unquestioned "head of the family," has changed, you were truly great at it. I always knew that you would be fair and impartial. I always knew that you had our interests in mind. You were the best Captain a son could ever have asked for!"

Tears welled in my eyes. I finished the remaining wine in my glass and looked around the table.

Well, as you may have guessed by now, it didn't go over well.

Dad glared at me and said simply that I was wrong. He insisted that he and my mother were always equals. With his voice showing unusual irritation, he indicated that he didn't like being described as the "last of the dinasaurs."

Turning to my mother with a defensive chuckle, I expected that she would back me up. Instead, I found that she was hurt -- and near tears herself. "You make it sound like I wasn't even there! As if I was a nobody!" she said, her voice shaking.

I didn't know what to think. "Well," I sputtered, "I'm... I'm surprised." I looked to my sister and her husband. At least the younger generation would get the picture. I half expected them to wink at me.

"Don't you guys at least agree with me? I mean, you don't have the final say, do you?" I pleaded with my brother-in-law.

He gave me a steely look.

"I'm not sure what you're getting at, exactly," he said without affect. My sister said nothing.

"Fine," I said, after taking it all in for a moment. My heart beat in my ears. "You can all fuck off."

I could hear my mom place her wine glass down on the table.

"I was trying to say something true and loving. But if you don't want to look honestly at your past, if you don't place any value on self-examination, then I guess I can't do that!"

Someone got the check, and we left in awkward silence.

*

This wasn't a major event. I'm sure that even an hour later, we were all chatting amiably. But it taught me a lesson.

The narratives of our lives are important to us. We tell (and retell) our own narratives constantly, and we resist other people's versions of these narratives.

If you believe that it helps you, or your loved ones, going forward, to go over the past together, then by all means, damn (or, as the case may be, research!) the torpedoes.

At the same time, my own experience that night at Chez Panisse taught me that I shouldn't expect agreement or the same kind of enthusiasm about reexamining the past from those close to me.

As for my children, I'm sure over time they will hear about the darker episodes of my past and my family's past (particularly my own mistakes as I was growing up). But I will keep in mind the guiding rule that these conversations work best when they are directed towards the bright, bright future which lies ahead.

Forget that old expression "the past is present": the past is future.