the cheap date of good and evil

Another leaden, slurpy day gathers itself outside my front door today. The mounting heat lurks and D-double-dares all comers to outlast and overcome and work efficiently.

Yesterday, I got the monthly newspaper column out the door and felt a shadowy sense of relief ... sort of like finally getting an offending tooth pulled. Since I don't accomplish much these days, it may be counted as an accomplishment. The column may not light my fires or carry much substance, but, "c'est ça!"

This morning, I skimmed an article sent along by a friend -- Onward Christian Military Chaplains! Marching to War by Rev. William Alberts -- which pointed out yet again the disconnect between the religious proscription against killing and the military chaplain's implicit support of a system bent on killing. 

It's an observation worth making and I agree with it as far as it goes and yet I am tired of such articles that do not give a nod to the human propensity to enjoy horror and hypocrisy and cruelty and self-aggrandizement. 

How much of what passes for goodness rests its case in the ain't-it-awful of wickedness that can be so wonderfully and slyly magnetic? The Vatican knew it had a winner when Dante fabricated the fund-raising hell for them ... in Technicolor!

Yes, there are facts.

And then there are other facts.

And virtuous fulminations hardly improve anything....

Good and evil are too often a cheap date.

Or anyway, that's what got stirred up in me this morning.