I certainly have mixed emotions seeing a nine year old girl sitting at her computer for hours – it’s not homework. It’s not to feed her natural curiosity. It’s Webkinz.

I suppose it’s always been this way, but the objective in children’s toys is to create a revenue stream that outlasts the original product. So it’s not enough to sell these kids little animals – they have a whole line of overpriced accessories too. And, the worst part, they come with codes that activate an online version. The object is to get the kid to the computer. That’s what that nine-year old was doing that day.

I just read about the business model for Webkinz in Business Week. Ganz Corporation, the maker of the product, is happy with sales, but there’s a discordant note too.

Ganz … must now strike a delicate balance: maximizing profit from the fad without alienating parents and kids. Visitors to Webkinz.com spent more than a million hours there in November, but the site is free.

Horrors! Neither Ganz nor its competitors have yet figured out a way to turn the kids’ time on the web into a revenue stream. Frankly, there’s only two ways: advertising, and getting hold of parents’ credit card numbers. They’re working on it.

The Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood has noticed that Webkinz is using its web site for cross-marketing purposes, advertising other products for kids (in this case the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks). They have organized a protest campaign. Ganz is ambivalent, saying the have standards after all, but affirming their intention to advertise to kids on their web site.

In other countries, there are standards for marketing to kids. In this country, we let the advertisers into our schools. Kids are bombarded with ads on the first Saturday morning of their cognizant childhood. Parents are overmatched. Perhaps now is a good time to remind parents (and the corporations that market to our kids) that advertising is neither wholesome nor healthy, and that childhood should be a time when kids are exempted from our society’s shortcomings.

There’s three good food fights going on regarding Conrad Burns’ ‘exoneration’ – check them out here and here and here. Oh yeah – and here. There’s probably more.

The theme is common among Burns supporters – he’s been “exonerated” or “cleared of all charges”. Eric Coobs reminds us that he was right all along, just like he always is.

It’s kind of annoying. Burns may be many things, but innocent is not one of them. The man played politics like a pro – was there ever any question that he was handing out favors right and left to supporters and holding on to office by bribing us with our own money. Simply put, he was a disgrace.

Was he a crook? Well, that’s just it. There’s no smoking gun. He reminds me of Barry Bonds – we all know (except sports writers) that Bonds was juicing – is there any question? His stats took off in his late 30’s, when most ball players are in decline. His head expanded, he got angry and arrogant, he lost his hair. All circumstantial, but in the end, circumstantial evidence will convict. Some times that’s all you’ve got.

And we have that aplenty on Burns. We have Abramoff’s own words that he was using Burns and his staff to get things done. We have people treading back and forth between staffs, Burns changing his vote on legislation and supporting just about everything Abramoff wanted. It’s not as obvious as his hair falling out, but it’s enough for me.

Corruption is endemic in our culture. Our political system is designed to be corrupt, to favor people with money. The return on investment for ‘contributors’ is immense – billions of dollars in federal funds change hands for the passing of a few thousand dollars to a candidate’s coffers. Politicians have no choice but to sell out – if they don’t, they lose money at the rate of $2 for $1 – every dollar that they do not collect goes to their opponent. That scares them.

Burns was never shy about doing favors – I’ll never forget how he introduced a bill as his own that had been faxed to him by the Montana Wood Products Association – it still had the fax monikers on it. That kind of favor was routine for Burns, if you played ball with him. He was a corrupt politician, a crude jokester with racist tendencies, and a private joke to the 99 other senators who were not him.

The investigation of Burns is over – he’s not vindicated nor is he innocent. He’s just gone. No matter how good or bad Jon Tester turns out to be, I’m happy about that.

There’s a new drug on the horizon that could eliminate sleepiness, courtesy of DARPA. Like so much of what is around us, it’s a Pentagon application that may make its way into our daily lives.

In a trial with monkeys, some who were sleep deprived for 30-36 hours were administered orexin A, and performed on the same level as well-rested monkeys.

The subtleties are way too obvious.

We were in Wendy’s the other day – the place was almost empty, and as we approached the cash register, a man appeared on my left. He had that depraved look of a lost cause – sunken eyes, ragged clothing, stooped posture. He asked me for money. My initial reaction was to avert my eyes. We ordered my food, and I collected my change, and then I went over and gave him some money.

Whadda guy, eh? My initial reaction bothers me. But I suppose I’m like everyone else, secure in my little nest. And he did take me by surprise.

Some would say I was wrong to give him money. I know what he’s going to do with it – he’s either going to buy some food, or some liquor. Food first, but by midnight of that day I know he’ll be passed out in an alley. In the not-too-distant future, he’ll turn up dead.

There exists in conservatism a strain of social Darwinism. They deny it. If someone says to me one more time “teach a man to fish…”, I’m going to get physical. There are lost causes on this planet. They only need comfort – food, shelter, the warmth of human compassion. We can do no more for them. Maybe they’ll come out of it, but what if they don’t? Is it so wrong just to give them shelter for one night without pestering them about Jesus? Is that a bad use of public funds?

But the Darwinism operates on a higher level than the pitiful poor. In the conservatives’ mind eye view, all of us are working away on a ladder, all of us are upward bound. To reach down and help anyone below us is wrong, as it robs them of incentive. To reach up and take anything from up above is wrong, as it punishes success.

It’s ice cold, heartless. And it’s wrong. We’re not like that. We are connected, each to one another, by a firm hand grip. Some, like George W. Bush, are born high up, and very dependent on the hand up. He’s been bailed out of trouble more times than Paris Hilton. But he removes his own hand from those below. His dad was the same way, scarred by lavish inheritance, a sense of entitlement and mythical achievement. As Jim Hightower so famously said of W, he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.

It’s that sense of entitlement that bothers me, the idea that we should never involuntarily offer a hand down. Conservatives have a misshapen view of the privileged classes, that they will extend the necessary generosity to bring the lower classes along. And if they don’t, well, that’s how it works. If a man turns up dead in an alley, well, it’s probably best he never reproduced.

In the view of most of us, we’re all in it together. We can all use a break, whether it is help putting food on the table in hard times, or overcoming unaffordable illness. The best solution for most of us is education and job training. Private charity will never provide enough to help those who can use the help, because too many of the wealthy are like George W. Bush – “I’ve got mine. Screw you.”

Yes, there will be those who form a sense of entitlement to public resources. But they will be a minority. We should not all be punished for a few miscreants. Most people want to be self-sufficient, and only need help overcoming the early hurdles. So we eliminate some of them.

In other industrialized countries there is a much higher degree of public service to one another, and these countries have healthy economies, but more than that, happier people. In various measures of happiness, like this one, countries like Denmark, Canada and Sweden consistently outscore the U.S. Here we are tempered to hard-boiled competition, and can be wiped out by medical hardship. Our kids go deeply in debt to get an education and are chained to the wheel when they leave school by the need to service that debt. It’s a constant strain. We are hyper-busy, irritable, strained and insecure. We work harder, take fewer vacations, and have fewer public benefits. For all of those reasons, we Americans are very good employees.

How much better, how much more sensible, to use our resources for mutual aid. Conservatives say that no one should ever be forced to help another. But most of us recognize a duty, and see the tax system is the most efficient way to do it. Private charity, while important, is too small and selective to be as useful.

There are those among us who recognize no duty to one another, have no sense of fellowship, who want only to live in splendid isolation. They collect the bounty of all our labors and pretend that they created it. They are the strident voice of selfishness. They need to be dragged along, kicking and screaming, into humanity. Otherwise, they are safely ignored.

From Glenn Greenwald’s 12/26/07 column at Salon.com, listing some of his favorite quotes of 2007:

“When I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it’s my own policy — our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission” —Tim Russert, under oath at the Lewis Libby trial, citing the textbook function of a government propagandist to explain his role as a “journalist.”

“I suggested we put the vice president on ‘Meet the Press,’ which was a tactic we often used. It’s our best format,” as it allows us to “control the message” — Cheney media aide Cathie Martin, under oath at the Libby trial, making clear how well Russert fulfills his function.

I ran across these words again today – they are worth repeating. In another time, when the media was not so forgiving of (or intimidated by) power, these words would be on banners and book covers as a classic example of a woman so removed from reality that she cannot begin to feel the pain of ordinary people. Is it any wonder her son exhibits indifference to the lower classes (like those who fight and die in Iraq)?

Anyway, we need to be reminded of who raised our president. From an interview with Diane Sawyer, here is Barbara Bush on why she would not be watching television coverage of the attack on Iraq:

Why should be hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it’s gonna happen? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

She must be of two minds. I’m yet to see the beautiful one.

Good grief! It’s Christmas day, and we sit here in a mountain home surrounded by conifers, and it’s snowing. The whole scene is a Leanin’ Tree Christmas card. We’ll be around relatives and over-excited kids today, and I think back to the days when my own kids were up at 5AM jumping with excitement. In Billings, where the kids grew up, there was a guy who used to take his helicopter and fly a lit-up Santa sled with reindeer across the rimrocks north of town on Christmas Eve. We would go to evening mass (a hangover from my own childhood), and then tour the city looking at lights. But seeing Santa’s sled was the key – it meant that the kids had to get home and get to sleep so that he could come visit.

They figured that out soon enough, but it had charm. I wonder if he still does that. Not Santa – the helicopter guy.

Anyway, I often write about religion here – I don’t much care for it. Christians have coopted the winter solstice, and now maintain that it isn’t a real Christmas unless you also worship. Without Jesus, they say, it’s just a materialist orgy. It is that, for sure, but long before there was a Jesus, when it was deep winter and the fields could not be worked, when people were stuck in their huts for untold hours of darkness, they began to celebrate that date when the days would start getting longer. I too like that idea – Christmas is a sign that it’s only 65 days or so now until pitchers and catchers report to the practice fields in Arizona and Florida.

It’s a time for sharing our bounty and talents, for families to gather. I wish I was with my own kids today – they are scattered all over and each decided this year to stay in place. None of them are churchers, but when they get together, they are oddly like every other family, and their Christmas memories are just as pure as anyone’s.

So, from one who loves this pagan ritual to all of you who come here to, I hope, be entertained, Merry Solstice, and many more.

The primitive mind endows the world with agents, and makes a god or gods the cause of events which affect man. (Joan Symington)

God allowed Katrina to happen to bring attention to lack of preparation for terrorist attack. (Charles Colson)

The discussion down below regarding Huckabee’s sublime appeal to right wing Christian voters reminded me that religion is a powerful force in our lives, and that no amount of reasoning will overcome it. We nonbelievers will always be a minority. But as I implied down in the comments, the job of leadership requires a realistic sense of how the world really operates. For that reason, I suspect that most of our presidents have been either atheist or agnostic, or at least indifferent to Sunday preachers.

The question of evil underlies every debate on religion. The presumption on the believers’ side is that religion is a counterbalancing force to evil, that we are involved in a battle between light and dark. So sayeth the Bible, Pat Robertson, and Star Wars. But it doesn’t take much research to uncover how religion itself has been co-opted into doing evil.

It’s no surprise. Most people are good because good is its own reward. Most people are kind and generous. As individuals, humans have immense capacity for goodwill and benevolence. But as a group, humans can be truly ugly. I’ve often wondered about this – how our capacity for evil manifests in our group behavior. George W. Bush loves his family, will pray over a Christmas turkey, and unleash horrible violence on the Iraqi people. Hannah Arendt referred to it as the “banality of evil”, how kind and caring and generous people become cogs in larger machines that do evil.

I suspect it has to do with a couple of things – one, that human leaders are not chosen, but choose themselves. A person has to want power to achieve power. The very fact that a person wants to be president ought to disqualify him from that office. But that’s now how it works. In the end, we are led by people who are hungry for power. The trilogy of the ring was an illustration of the lure of power, and how power corrupts us. Perhaps our greatest president, George Washington, didn’t want the job. That’s what made him great. He chose not to be king. That quality is extremely rare.

Our inhumanity percolates up into our group behavior. Suppose I have within me a small lust – a dislike of Muslims or blacks – alone I won’t express my inner feelings. But if there are many like me, our groups will give voice to those impulses. The Ku Klux Klan is a perfect example – men hiding under hoods, their anonymity allowing them to express ugly sentiments toward their black brothers and sisters.

So it follows that our leaders can lock into our individual prejudices, and use them to foster our anger and enlist our support in attacking other countries. They create archetypes for us, objects of hatred like Saddam Hussein or Osama. With that object in place, our national hatred is set free, and insanity and violence ensue.

But there’s a counterbalance to this – there are organizations through which our good impulses are expressed. The United Nations is one, as is just about every charity I have ever encountered. The UN operates on a large scale, and though it lacks the power of the United States, it has on occasion counterbalanced the evil that comes from our leadership. It tried to do so before we invaded Iraq, but just didn’t have enough.

Most religious organizations embody individual charitable impulses. Most churches do good work. But this animal called the “Christian Right” is not such a body. Like fundamentalist Muslim extremists, the Christian Right calls upon us to hate other people and invade other countries. Clever leaders have seen their numbers, and have enlisted them in their power quests. The Christian Right gives expression of the evil that lurks in our hearts. As such, we need to call upon the good within us to expel them from our leadership. They are truly dangerous.