Someday, someway

I neglected to mention Friday that Daniel Radosh also has a Web site for his book Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. That site -- Get Rapture Ready! -- includes his expansive multimedia appendix with plenty of pictures, audio and video of the products, music, festivals, artists and hucksters discussed in the book.

You might also want to check out Radosh's very occasional Rapture blog -- from which I lifted the image here of a particularly ill-conceived bit of Jesus Junk. (The people who design this stuff are either sneakily malicious or heart-breakingly innocent -- with items like this I'm never sure which.)

* * *

The bedroom wallpaper has pastel lilies. I'm looking at them now. This is on the List of Things That Will Someday Be Changed in our new home. But sadly time and money are limited quantities and so the list is long and the bedroom wallpaper isn't anywhere near the top of that List.

Neither is the dusty rose wall-to-wall carpet in the bathroom. Yes, in the bathroom. You rarely see wall-to-wall carpet in a bathroom and for good reason, but we've got it -- at least until we find the time or money to work our way further down the LoTTWSBC.

This means that someone has to vacuum the bathroom carpet. The slacktivixen finds this hysterically funny. The phrase "vacuum the bathroom carpet" is one she never imagined she'd hear herself saying and it never fails to crack her up, which is probably why this particular chore wound up as the stakes in a bet we made back in August.

I was, at the time, dismayed by first blush of Palin-mania, by polls showing John McCain had pulled slightly ahead in the race for president, and by the mordant fear that the old adage -- "we get the government we deserve" -- might prove again to be true. The 'vixen, on the other hand, remained serenely confident that young, smart and inspiring would ultimately triumph over old, cranky and more of the same.

And so we made a bet. I'm delighted to say that I lost. For the next four years, therefore, it's my job to vacuum the bathroom carpet. I will do so joyfully.

* * *

Two things I'd like to lift from the comments to the previous thread --

SchrodingersDuck points us to this BBC News Q&A on Islamic finance, which offers a much clearer summary than I did of this fascinating road-less-traveled response to the ancient wisdom about the evils of charging interest.

And Tonio asks a good question about my statement about the intention and purpose of that ancient prohibition: Why am I convinced that the Hebrew and Christian prohibition against the charging of interest was intended to prevent the exploitation of the powerless and was not just an arbitrary rule seeking blind obedience?

The nice thing about this particular rule is that it is one of those for which God (or Moses, or the authors/editors of the Pentateuch) offered an argument and an explanation. "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt," God says. And, "Remember that you were slaves/strangers/oppressed in Egypt."

This is an unsubtly repetitive refrain throughout the Hebrew scriptures, and wherever it occurs we're being told that the particular rule/commandment/bit of advice in question exists for a reason. You were oppressed and you didn't like it very much, remember? Opression and exploitation suck, so try not to oppress or exploit others. So saith the law and the prophets.

* * *

David Kirkpatrick of The New York Times was on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday, talking about the McCain campaign and John McCain's political future. Kirkpatrick said it's difficult to foresee how McCain might work with or against the Obama administration because McCain is so utterly unpredictable, driven by what Kirkpatrick described as a "deeply personal sense of honor."

That helps to clarify some of what I was trying to make sense of in this earlier post regarding the difference between profiles in courage and profiles in maverickitudinousness for its own sake. In Kirkpatrick's view, John McCain is a man of principle, but those principles are idiosyncratic -- almost unknown and unknowable to anyone who isn't John McCain. Rather than trying to communicate, explain or defend the principles that guide his decision-making, McCain spent most of the campaign simply asserting that he was a "maverick" and a man of character and that we should trust him without further explanation. That's a lot to ask -- particularly in a political culture in which words like "patriotism" and "values" are empty vessels into which all manner of contradictory and incompatible content is poured.

* * *

Radiance and Rosebud. Have to hand it to the Secret Service there, those are appropriate and adorable. And take a moment to appreciate the contrast between Renaissance and Parasol.

John McCain's Secret Service code name, as it happens, was "Phoenix." I think I just read something about that.

Comments

[JayH]

Interesting. Does Sasha love sledding?

[CombatQueer]

I guess that's one way to make sure the light gets turned on.

...

And now I guess I'm going to hell. Perhaps more for the pun than the blasphemy.

[Amaryllis]

Oh God, the List. I'm sorry to have to tell you that the List is endless and self-perpetuating. Cross one thing off the top and suddenly there are three more items at the bottom.

The 'vixen, on the other hand, remained serenely confident that young, smart and inspiring would ultimately triumph over old, cranky and more of the same.
I knew I liked the sound of that lady. And any wife who can get the husband to clean any kind of bathroom floor, joyfully yet, has my respect.

[SchrodingersDuck]

Isn't the whole point of code names that they are, you know, a code. Why bother inventing secret names for the First Family, then immediately telling the newspapers? I think this is all an elaborate ploy to fool potential assassins, who are going to be too busy trying to listen for "Renegade" and miss the real code word.

[Cowboy Diva]

hmm. The Phoenix lander, per the link, cost $475 billion, and sent back a lot of information about martian soil and water and potentialities for human life there someday.

For the cost of the iraq war invasion and occupation, we could have built and sent over 1200 of those little buggers. Imagine what we could have learned then.

[Cowboy Diva]

Er, $475 million, not billion.
the math otherwise I think is correct.

[Geds]

Isn't the whole point of code names that they are, you know, a code.

I wonder that myself. I'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, those aren't the real names. Like, the Secret Service is astute enough to know that people are going to be trying to figure this crap out or that was the Obama candidacy code name set and now they're something completely different.

But then I remember that the Secret Service is, at heart, a government bureaucracy. And my heart weeps.

[drakepope]

Plus, 'Phoenix' is extremely obvious anyway. What, was Sarah Palin called 'Anchorage'; was Barack Obama called 'Springfield'? Was Dick Cheney called 'Cocytus'? The point of a code name is to deceive people who are trying to listen in, right?

[Naked Bunny with a Whip]

You were oppressed and you didn't like it very much, remember?

I will *not* rant about Proposition 8. I will *not* rant about Proposition 8. I will *not*....

John McCain is a man of principle, but those principles are idiosyncratic -- almost unknown and unknowable to anyone who isn't John McCain

You could say the same about many mentally ill people, but I doubt it would be considered a positive statement. I don't believe that a person can be "honorable" and "random" at the same time. I'm far from perfect (thank goodness), but I do try to approach what life offers with a consistent pattern of opinions and behavior.

[Naked Bunny with a Whip]

The point of a code name is to deceive people who are trying to listen in, right?

It might just be to have a short, unique identifying word. I don't think it would be much use for deception anyway unless they change the codes constantly. It seems like anyone listening in at one or two events would be able to figure it out otherwise.

[Indiana Joe]

Nobody's going to be eavesdropping on the Secret Service radios - they're encrypted. The, "code names" need to be short, distinct (to be understood clearly over a noisy radio link), and unique.

[drakepope]

Nobody's going to be eavesdropping on the Secret Service radios - they're encrypted. The, "code names" need to be short, distinct (to be understood clearly over a noisy radio link), and unique.

What about the NSA?

[pepperjackcandy]

Plus, 'Phoenix' is extremely obvious anyway. What, was Sarah Palin called 'Anchorage'; was Barack Obama called 'Springfield'?

"Springfield"?

I would be remiss if I did not point out www.jesusoftheweek.com

...if we're going to discuss Jesus Junk, anyway...

[hapax]

Am I the only one bemused and charmed that the trackback for this post has the title "whoever is around to be loved"?

[Tonio]

This is an unsubtly repetitive refrain throughout the Hebrew scriptures, and wherever it occurs we're being told that the particular rule/commandment/bit of advice in question exists for a reason.

Fred, thanks for the clarification. That's a good argument from context. Part of the point of my original question was that outside the environment of a church service or Bible discussion, such rules do not include the context you are talking about. Especially when RTCs are pushing their interpretation of the rules on everyone. Their campaign to have Ten Commandments posted in courthouses is an excellent example.

[Ardaniel]

The Wikipedia article on Secret Service codenames is a fun read, and links to this Chicago Tribune story, which points out that the codenames no longer serve any security purpose.

[El Durazno de la Muerte]

Speaking of Presidential code-names, when you enter "John McCain" over at the Metal Gear Codename Generator, you get "Elderly Rattlesnake." It's almost eerie.

http://www.metalgearnamegenerator.com

[hagsrus]

POTUS, FLOTUS, perfectly pronounceable, but I would really like to know the acronym and its pronunciation when the time comes that the husband of POTUS must be accommodated. FHOTUS would work, more or less, but FGOTUS...?

[Kit Whitfield]

John McCain is a man of principle, but those principles are idiosyncratic -- almost unknown and unknowable to anyone who isn't John McCain.

Sounds like the world's most convenient spin to me. He's a 'maverick' - so when he sides with his party, he's being loyal, and when he goes against it, he's being rugged. It's Macho Sue again: the cowboy is always right because his honour is infallible, and if his behaviour seems wrong or anti-social, events will bear him out later.

Real life not being fictional, of course, the convenient vindication may not actually happen. Then you just have to hope people have a fondness for mavericks for their own sake.

You could say the same about many mentally ill people, but I doubt it would be considered a positive statement.

I'm touchy about mental illness, as regulars are probably aware, because I've seen depression ravage several people I love, but I think you're stereotyping a bit. If someone's mentally ill, their principles are generally perfectly knowable. Their thoughts may be disordered or their emotions inappropriate, but the principles tend to stay consistent. Somebody with depression can suffer a pained mutation of conscience in which everything in the world including themselves is judged morally wanting, but that's far from idiosyncratic: depressive logic is very similar from person to person, and easy to figure out - it's an exaggeration of the human tendency to condemn what causes us pain, warped by the fact that almost everything is painful to a depression sufferer. Someone with OCD or social anxiety disorder has their principles untouched; they're not playing maverick to get their way, they're just nervous. Someone with the schizophrenic delusion that Karl Rove's torturers are spying on him (I'm garbling a real example) is probably more principled about torture than John McCain; he's confused about who's torturing who, but clear that torture is wrong.

Let's not insult the mentally ill by comparing them to that conscience-selling prat.

[Kit Whitfield]

John McCain's Secret Service code name, as it happens, was "Phoenix." I think I just read something about that.

Me too. (Scroll down for 'palingenetic ultranationalist populism.)

[Kit Whitfield]

Oh, and thinking about that Secret Service list - did you notice that Obama is 'Renegade'?

Maverick McCain must be stung.

(But how is it secret if they're published in a newspaper?)

[Spalanzani]

Kit Whitfield: "(But how is it secret if they're published in a newspaper?)"

Maybe they figure nobody actually reads newspapers anymore.

[car]

About that rose carpet - have you played around with the edges of it any to see what's underneath? We had bathroom carpet in one house (also rose, coincientally) and it turned out just to be an overlay over some nice tiles. It took a bit of elbow grease and a putty knife, but within a day was gone for good with no monetary expense.

[cjmr's husband]

Concur; look under an edge of the carpet. When we bought our house, one of the bathrooms was carpeted. I think they just didn't want to clean the grout.

I threw out the carpet and regrouted.

[cjmr's husband]

I saw Al Gore speak back when he was veep; he told us his secret service codename was "Al Gore".

[Grey Duck]

I will second car's sentiment about peeking underneath the carpet. An old family friend owned a house that was much older than the wall-to-wall carpeting phase. The corner of their living room carpet started to come loose, and they looked underneath to find a nice, if slightly abused, wood floor. No carpet pad or anything. A previous owner had just laid carpet over the existing hardwood floor and stapled it down. A couple hours later, they had the carpet gone, and a little buffing and polishing helped take care of the scuffing done by the carpet.

[ajay]

"Isn't the whole point of code names that they are, you know, a code. Why bother inventing secret names for the First Family, then immediately telling the newspapers?"

As pointed out above, they're not strictly speaking code names, they're brevity codes - designed to make radio traffic fast, unambiguous and efficient, not secure. Think about other radio codes. You don't say "Mayday" to keep secret the fact that you need help. You say it because it's an unambiguous declaration of an emergency and (among other things) the rule is that you clear the frequency when a Mayday is declared.

You couldn't just say "The President" - what if the President of France happens to be visiting? You couldn't just use names because there are lots of Obamas. There are even two Barbara Bushes.

[Geds]

"Springfield"?

Capital of Illinois, going along with the Senator from Arizona getting "Phoenix."

I saw Al Gore speak back when he was veep; he told us his secret service codename was "Al Gore".

I was making a similar joke about Joe Biden just yesterday.

I was also theorizing he's going to end up having to shoo Cheney out of the Vice President's house with a broom. Then I realized that the President has the most famous house in the country, if not the world, but the Vice President might be set up in a studio apartment above a bowling alley for all I know. Seemed funny at the time.

[Tonio]

A side comment about Proposition 8 - Keith Olbermann says everything I've ever wanted to say to opponents of gay marriage.

[Ron E.]

I wonder if McCain's code name could be a sly reference to the Dark Phoenix character from X-men in addition to the city in his home state of Alaska.

[Glenda]

I remember when Keith Olbermann was the slightly silly sports guy on KTLA-5 TV news.

Damn, I'm proud of him.

[Jon]

but the Vice President might be set up in a studio apartment above a bowling alley for all I know. Seemed funny at the time.
The VP actually lives at the US Naval Observatory. The Embassy of Finland is located just across the street (I took a tour of the Embassy 10 years ago).
As far as rose carpet, when I was house-hunting last year I visited one that had rose carpet throughout. It was an immediate deal-breaker. Of course, the fun house style slant to most of the doorways didn't help matters any.
In the house I did buy, I find that my "LoTTWSBC" is ever-growing, though my pink master bath is very high on the list. Even a friend who absolutely loves pink thought it was awful. Still, the money/time issue keeps me from getting around to changing it, as does the fact that pretty much nobody besides me ever sees it.

[hapax]

but the Vice President might be set up in a studio apartment above a bowling alley for all I know

The Naval Observatory; actually; a nice place, I've visited.

I doubt Cheney actually stays there, though; too much chance of accidentally being caught in sunlight and withering into a cloud of ashes.

[hapax]

Darn, Jon beat me to it.

We just repainted our ghastly grey-and-burgundy-striped master bath last year. Alas, my beloved spouse couldn't find the soft lavender and cream that we had picked out, and thought that lilac and pale celery were "close enough."

It isn't exactly un-pretty, but it's rather startling to take a bath inside an Easter egg.

[Tonio]

I doubt Cheney actually stays there, though; too much chance of accidentally being caught in sunlight and withering into a cloud of ashes.

Hah! If he steps outside in a rainstorm, he'll melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. If you drive by the house, you can see Father Merrin and Father Karras in the bedroom window, shouting, "The power of Slacktivist commands you! The power of Slacktivist commands you!"

[SchrodingersDuck]

The Wikipedia article on Secret Service codenames is a fun read

Huh. So Reagan's daughters were also codenamed Rosebud and Radiance (or at least Radiant)? Perhaps the Secret Service doesn't have quite the imagination I thought.

[lonespark]

Whoa, Fred has carpet in his bathroom too?

I thought the previous owners of our ill-fated house in Indiana were the only people to do that. We remodeled the bathroom, and I believe that underneath the carpet was tile, and underneath the tile was another carpet, and underneath that was carpet padding, and underneath that was some perfectly respectable plywood flooring, but the whole layer cake was unpleasantly damp. Pulling that all up was a fun bit of destruction.

[Nick Kiddle]

Carpeted bathrooms aren't unknown round here, although I shudder at the idea, but tile over carpet? Sounds like a spiritual twin of the previous tenants of this place, who put tiles over wallpaper, among other decorating horrors.

[Caravelle]

I like the West Wing episode where TJ gets offended that her codename is "Flamingo"...

[Caravelle]

Okay, that Wikipedia article has a problem :
According to established protocol, 'good' codewords are unambiguous words that can be easily pronounced and readily understood by those who transmit and receive voice messages by radio or telephone regardless of their native language.

Then the list begins :
POTUS : President of the United States
I'm not positive it obeys the criteria but why not...
FLOTUS : First Lady of the United States
A bit harder to pronounce but still ok
VPOTUS : Vice-President of the United States
... WTF ???

[bellatrys]

And Tonio asks a good question about my statement about the intention and purpose of that ancient prohibition: Why am I convinced that the Hebrew and Christian prohibition against the charging of interest was intended to prevent the exploitation of the powerless and was not just an arbitrary rule seeking blind obedience?

It does kind of go along with a bunch of other directives in the TANAKH about not taking all you can get, making sure widows and orphans don't starve, not making things harder for the handicapped (it's possible to find "biblical literalists" who hate the idea of handicap access contorting themselves to explain how "the blind and the halt" don't mean *really* blind and halt, btw) and giving generously *and gladly* to the poor in the community and keeping the government from turning into a rich cronies' club.

One begins to discern a theme, as it were...

[Caravelle]

My family built and moved into "the new house" (as it was known as at the time) over ten years ago, and my bedroom walls are still unpainted, unwallpapered plaster. (how did I guess "unwallpapered" would be redunderlined ?)

So good luck on that List ^^

[Jessica]

Cowboy Diva wrote:
"we could have built and sent over 1200 of those little buggers. Imagine what we could have learned then."

Mind boggling. An army of martian landers would be super cool. Almost like a reverse War of the Worlds. What if we had a couple of space monkeys, too? The Martians wouldn't know what hit them.

[straight]

That was a mean bet. Imagine having to vacuum the bathroom for four years _because_ Sarah Palin was the VPOTUS.

(Caravelle, I think that POTUS and VPOTUS are *written* abbreviations, not ones meant to be used over the radio. They're pronounced "President of the United States" and "Vice President of the United States.")

[Ursula L]

we could have built and sent over 1200 of those little buggers...

We could have built considerably more than 1200. Because with that kind of money, it wouldn't be made one at a time, but you'd set up an assembly line and make them far more efficiently and cheaply.

[Jon]

@ Jessica: I'm glad no one was in the immediate vicinity of my cubicle when I read your comment. The space monkeys bit made me snort.

[Jeff]

Have you guys seen the Flickr pics of the Obamas on election night?

My favorites are Sasha playing "pattycake" with her cousin while Daddy and Mr Biden talk about Adult Stuff (translation: borrrrrrrrrrrring!), and one with her head in her hands ("Can I play with my Nintendo now?).

[Chrissl]

It's not quite the season for this yet, but cjmr's comment a few days ago about teddy bear Nativity scenes and this post's mention of Jesus Junk remind me to point out GoingJesus.com, which has assemblages called the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities, It Came Upon a Midnight Weird, Angels We Have Heard Are High, the Passion of the Tchotchke, and other such goodies.

I'm hoping the site owner will do more of these when her kid's a little older.

There's also the Ship of Fools God Gear page. I think my favorite is the "Hands" candleholder, though the Armor of God PJ's come in a close second...

[Sarah Jane]

Caravelle, I really love the color and texture of unfinished plaster and drywall -- there's something lovely and interesting and unpretentious about leaving visible remnants of the building process. It's a blue-collar version of "Truth in Materials" architecture, I guess.

I am NOT, however, fond of dusty rose carpeting in any room of the house, and especially not in the bathroom. I think I would rip it violently up and live with bare plywood before I would submit to 4 years of vacuuming the bathroom, Obama or no Obama.