Thematic Photographic 4: "Wood" v.1.0

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"Down the Rabbit Hole"
Somewhere on the North Carolina-Virginia border, February 2001 (Click to embiggen)

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This week's Thematic Photographic subject is "Wood", which is a longtime favorite of mine (minds out of the gutters people). Like last week's theme (glass) this is one that can take an almost infinite number of forms. During a quick perusal of the archives, this shot caught my eye probably because it's unusual (in my experience at least) to see such symmetry in a rotting stump. As far as I know, though, nothing more than the forces of nature produced my subject.

"Hollow Body Electric"
The Coffee Mill, Clayton, NC, July 2004 (Click to embiggen)

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This piece of wood, however, was very definitely shaped by man-made forces. If memory serves, this is a Gibson ES350 masterfully wielded by a local jazz artist whose proper name escapes me at the moment. I do remember the shot was taken at a small independent coffeehouse on the 4th of July 2004.

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Yesterday's post on the NRCAT anti-torture campaign elicited an interesting comment or two. Interesting enough that at least one of them bears some further discussion. My friend DB noted that if we put banners up protesting everything that was wrong in the world, we'd run out of space long before we ran out of problems to protest. And he's right. he's also right in pointing out that the banners themselves would start a whole new set of arguments over the banners themselves ... size, colors, placement, designs. And then there's the matter of deciding which causes or problems are banner-worthy. Which pretty well brings us right back to the beginning of why we needed the banners in the first place. Then we'd have the meta-banners -- the banners protesting the proliferation of banners. The possibilities are truly frightening.

But my purpose in bringing the subject up was less about the banners -- or even the wrongness of torture -- than it was about the disconnection of "religious" and "right". The two have been equated so much in the last several years -- by people on both sides of the aisle -- that it's almost become a truism that in order to be "religious" you must be "conservative" and support of the president and all he stands for.

The objective truth though, is probably quite different.

Studies published in the CIA World Factbook and the American Religious Identification Survey indicate that between 76.5% and 78.5% of Americans identify themselves¹ as "Christian" of one denomination or another. Another 12% identify themselves as "unaffiliated", and only 4% identify themselves as having "no religion at all". So if we have such an overwhelming majority of America calling itself Christian, then the only way to explain the disparity between those 76% who call themselves Christian and the President's steadily declining approval rating (currently between 23 and 29 percent depending on who you ask,sup>2) is that it is possible to be religious -- even Christian -- and still not support the current administration. Ironically, this 76% majority is often used by the Religious Right to bolster the argument that "America is a Christian nation, and as such should be guided by Christian principles". More ironically, I can agree with them on that point in theory. But I find myself still more in agreement with Gandhi when he said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

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¹ The only statistics available on religious affiliations are from representative surveys. Unlike other countries, the United States does not include questions about religion in its census data and hasn't for over 50 years.

² The Polling Report.com is a good starting point for finding results. They track most of the major polls on a weekly basis and provide a snapshot of results from many sources.

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Latest Smoking Cessation News
Today is my first day on the Stage 2 patch, which cuts my "nicodone" dosage roughly in half. I was a little concerned that there'd be a repeat of the early withdrawal symptoms from when I first quit as a stepped down. I thought surely I'd at least feel stronger urges once the replacement dosage dropped. But happily, after about 18 of the first 24 hours of this stage I'm not noticing any significant difference. (For any of you lurking out there and contemplating this method of quitting, that's an important -- and very encouraging -- piece of news.)

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