Charity booksale in the building. Buck a book for new hardbacks. Sigh. Doomed. 15. That's in addition to the 6 I bought yesterday, when they were $5/book.

They're obviously trying to drive me insane. Too late! Bwahh hah hah hah hah.

Check out this article in Slate about the various weird reactions businesses are having to last week's disaster: The MixTape of the Apocalypse (my title, not theirs). Clear Channel Communications, which owns several radio stations, came up with a list of songs it recommends not be played. Some of them make a sort of sense (Rock the Casbah, It's the End of the World As We Know It, Blow Up the Outside World, Crash and Burn, etc.) Others are suspect (all rage Against the Machine songs? Hmmm....), and still others make no sense whatsoever. Examples:

What the....

• The Bangles -- Walk Like An Egyptian Shall we assume it's in bad taste to mention that people from Egypt? Or is it the walking part?


• Bobby Darin-- Mack The Knife The mind reels


• Elton John --Bennie & The Jets I'm guessing that any mention of anything that may be construed as an airplane is deemed too touchy.


• Red Hot Chili Peppers -- Under the Bridge It talks about a city.....


• Alien Ant Farm -- Smooth Criminal Why not the Michael Jackson version?

Reading a little too much into it...

• Queen -- Killer Queen The LaRouchies have struck!


• Pat Benetar -- Love is a Battlefield Wayyyyyy too sensitive with this one.


• Steam -- Na NA NA NA Hey Hey Goodbye?


• Mitch Ryder and Detroit Wheels -- Devil with the Blue Dress Because of the face in the cloud?


• The Beatles -- Obla Di, Obla Da Is the problem that the chorus says "Life goes on"?


• Paper Lace -- The Night Chicago Died I was here. Chicago was fine.

These piss me off

• Edwin Starr/Bruce Springsteen -- War "Good God, y'all, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing" Are we trying to be "patriotic? Not second-guess foreign policy? Let's face it, that's a message we need to hear.


• John Lennon -- Imagine "Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace..." Again, maybe this is something we need to hear now.


• Cat Stevens -- Peace Train, Morning Has Broken OK, so he's a Muslim now. That doesn't mean that the songs -- and the message behind them -- should be swept under the carpet.


• Neil Diamond-- America They play this song every year at the finale of the fireworks in Rocked Park in Wilmington, DE. "They're coming to America -- Today!" is about immigrants, and let's face it, it's a great, if cheesy, song.


• Simon And Garfunkel -- Bridge Over Troubled Waters
  Maybe I'm missing something. It's a moving song, it may make you cry, but who's to say we don't need that right now?

Huzzah! Jane has a blog!

Weird day today. Wendy graciously offered to take me to her church for a memorial service for the victims of Tuesday's terrorism. I've been feeling like I could use some spiritual solace, not to mention maybe something that would help me make sense of the whole thing, get a little comfort somewhere, so I went with her. (I don't belong to a church, and the churches in my area are all either Spanish of Ukrainian. I know, I know, it's a weird neighborhood.)

Wendy is a Mormon, and I'd never been to a Mormon church before. I was raised Episcopalian and educated Quaker, so my experience with religion has been either pretty high church (sung mass, incense, pageantry galore) or very stripped down (no ceremony, no ritual, no pastor, no music, just speak when the spirit moves you.) The Mormon ceremony was something in between, and, unfortunately, not what I needed. I guess I needed either something totally ritualistic and comforting in that sense, or totally meditative in the Quaker sense.

In Wendy's church, members of the congregation are assigned to speak every week,so you don't get a trained speaker, as you would in a pastor-led church. But because people are assigned to speak you don't get the sense of immediacy and feeling that you do in the Quaker meeting. Unfortunately, the folks speaking this weekend, while they tried to address what happened on Tuesday, didn't really rise to the occasion -- didn't provide what I needed. One of them sounded like she was giving a book report, another talked about bad things she had survived, and the third... I don't even really remember what he said. The President of the branch, when he spoke, was heartfelt and emotional, which I needed. I suppose it makes a difference when you are a part of the community and know the people involved, but I didn't have that advantage.

Then Wendy was teaching class after, and she went over some church history with the group, we sang a hymn, and she asked anyone if they had anything to share about the lesson or what happened. Some folks said some reasonably unobjectionable things --- I can't remember, exactly -- and then this check siting next to me said something to the effect of "I really see that God knew what was going to happen and he made sure that Bush won the election so we have the most powerful and respected leader in office now." Guh.... wha.... bu...ok, killing a member of a church I don't even belong to, no matter how stupid and offensive she is, is not kosher. I held my tongue. Wendy kindly diverted the conversation, saying that the church was explicitly someplace where politics should not be raised. Idiot-girl next to me reiterated, and I continued to not kill her, or scream, or at least smack her about the head and shoulders for being such a dork.

So here's my first several thoughts on why that comment is hideous:

1. You're basically saying that God would involve him/her/itself in election results, but then could not be bothered to stop a hideous loss of life. In my view, either you have to figure God is influencing/controlling everything, or that God permits humans to make their own mistakes. He/she/it may sorrow for us, but God won't stop us. I'd much rather believe that God won't stop us from making our own mistakes.


2. It smacks way too much of "Look! This horrible event validates my political opinions!"


3. Bush is an IDIOT. He's an idiot I will support in this time of trial, but come on, he really doesn't seem like he has more than two brain cells to rub together. Thank god the folks around him seem to have brains.

OK. I feel guilty for spewing so much bile about this, because Wendy was tremendously kind to take me with her to her church, to give me the opportunity to worship and try to take some comfort. It's not the responsibility of the Mormon church to revolve around what I need, what I think is right for solace. These people were worshipping in their own way, and what right do I have to be so critical? I was a guest, there as a favor. Jeez, Sarah, give them a break.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying I want some sort of spirituality, some sense of God, but I haven't found the path to that yet.