The Karamazovs and the Glasses

Two good things in this blighted political season: Bee Season, the recent movie based on the novel; and The Brothers Karamazov, which I read for the first time last month and am now reading through again. Both are about our highly individual and idiosyncratic searches for God, and the inevitable compromises that we all, saint and sinner alike, must make in the end. Add a third book about religious quests, and an old favorite: Franny and Zooey, which I'm having the pleasure of watching my 18-year-old son tackle right now. Indeed, we just got off the phone, where he complained to me from his dorm room about Salinger's high-flown vocabulary. What's a "Bennington type," or a "Sarah Lawrence type," he wanted to know, except maybe artifacts from a long-dead cultural landscape somehow associated with girls in religious crisis travelling on trains? I told him to stick with it; it'll be worth it. And so it will: indeed, is there a better book for an 18-year-old? If so, tell me. I'm listening.

Four Days to NH

It's 7 degrees in New Hampshire this morning and on the way to school to drop off one of the kids, I see two John McCain supporters, holding giant signs and hopping around in the snow trying to stay warm. The 13-year-old beside me pulls out one of her iPod earbuds and says, "They're here."

I say yes, indeed they are. They've been here for a year, of course, but now they're standing outside trying to avoid frostbite.

Obama's people keep on calling. His is the most persistent campaign, hands down. I expect we'll be seeing his people any time, along with Hillary's and Edward's, fighting for prime locations at the same intersection.

"I don't think they ever change anybody's mind," the 13-year-old said, reinserting her earbud.

"Maybe it's the enthusiasm that counts," I mutter. But she's probably right.

In New Hampshire with the Candidates

I grew up in Indiana, which never received any attention in presidential elections because everyone knew the state would always go Republican, no matter what. Any lame-brained Republican could win there. My family always voted for the Democrats, and thus my family was always disappointed. But it was never ever surprised.

When I lived in Massachusetts, it was the same thing, only reversed. We got no attention in presidential elections because we were always going to vote for the Democrat, and everyone knew it. A Democratic corpse would've gotten more votes than a Republican in Massachusetts, and to my way of thinking, after wandering in the cultural and political wasteland of Indiana, that was just fine. In fact, I loved it.

Now I live in New Hampshire, and my license plate says "Live Free or Die." (I dislike this quite a bit, but never mind that.) New Hampshire likes to think of itself as flinty and independent, a state where high-minded ideals never get in the way of practical, cheapskate decisions. It's a state on the fence - Democratic in the last election, but Republican in the more general sense. Contrarian, difficult. If you were in a fight with New Hampshire, it would definitely aim low.

So this is what it's like in New Hampshire right now: Obama for President calls twice a night and leaves messages. Hillary Clinton for President calls every three days to poll me again. John Edwards calls once a week just to let me know he's still thinking about me. In today's mail, we got two identical fliers from Obama, one from Rudy Guiliani, and one from John McCain. Two weeks ago we got a annual-report sized piece from John Edward (who looked very fetching, by the way, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, ready to physically attack the deficit, slay the corporate elites and slug it out for the poor.)

The desperation is mounting. Who will I vote for? Who, who, who? I've got an idea, but the truth is, I've wanted to delay all this anxiety until the very end - like worrying about a particularly nasty outpatient procedure that comes every few years like clockwork. It won't kill you, but it will be painful. And a little humiliating, for all concerned.

Socialism in the Bible, and Britney. Again.

Does God want us to be socialists? Well, I'm beginning to wonder, what with this passage from the Bible - that's right, the Bible - that Sojourners recently emailed out. Wonder what religious fundamentalist, so philosophically averse to "communism," make of it?

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

- Acts 4:32-35

I'm Like So Totally Shocked ...

On another topic, Britney Spears and her now-pregnant 16-year-old sister are making themselves useful in one area: being negative object lessons for pubescent girls. Yes, I know - they're sort of victims. But they're sort of perpetrators, too, and that's where their saga needs to end. Our already hyper-sexualized teen girls don't need any more examples of empty-headed and pathetic female behavior. What I hope girls learn? How's this: Put on a tube top and lip gloss, warm up the flashbulbs, and suddenly you're ... nowhere at all. Look at the Spears' girls.

More on Russia's Slide

From a Wall Street Journal article about a Russian Orthodox priest who was defrocked because of his support for an opponent of Putin. Miracle of miracles - he saw his errors, repented, and now he's back in his robes.

Mr. Taratukhin's repentance reinforces what has become a pillar of Mr. Putin's Russia: an intimate alliance between the Orthodox Church and the Kremlin reminiscent of czarist days. Rigidly hierarchical, intolerant of dissent and wary of competition, both share a vision of Russia's future -- rooted in robust nationalism and at odds with Western-style liberal democracy.

In recent months, Orthodox priests have sprinkled holy water on a new Russian surface-to-air-missile system called Triumph and blessed a Dec. 2 parliamentary election condemned by European observers as neither free nor fair. When the Kremlin last week unveiled its plan to effectively keep Mr. Putin in charge after his time as president ends, the head of the church, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, went on TV to laud the scheme as a "great blessing for Russia."

Who's watching all this unfold? Why aren't more people talking about it?

Russia, Once and Future

I've been reading "The Whisperers," Orlando Figes' truly stunning account of private life in the Soviet Union under Stalin. It's a profoundly disquieting book not because the basic facts weren't known before; everyone knows about the insidious NKVD, the purges, the Terror, the Gulag. What's remarkable about this work is how Figes has collected literally hundreds of stories, some already extant in memoirs, many others the product of personal interviews, and woven them into a many-layered political and social history of almost overwhelming sadness. The stories here, though familiar in outline, still have the power to shock, and far more so because they follow breathlessly one on another.

The effect is almost claustrophobic. One after another we see bureaucrats, Party officials, factory workers, artists and peasants brutalized almost beyond comprehension, one family at a time, one career at a time, one prison term and exile at a time. Hearing the story told this way, one wonders if it's possible for an entire country to suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome (or battered-wife syndrome, as the case may be), and if that accounts for why Russians have never gained a sense of true perspective or even moral clarity about what happened to them in the 20's, '30s, '40s' and '50s. So amnesiac is the country that reportedly some Russians, bemoaning their lack of national self-discipline, remember Stalin and his iron fist fondly, longing for his equal today. How terribly disturbing, especially given the country's slow slide into what one Russian historian calls "mild authoritarianism."

It's not entirely surprising that Vladimir Putin calls the Soviet Union's disintegration a terrible mistake, or that the Russian secret police seem to be reopening their old bag of tricks, squashing opponents and critics with impunity. What's surprising is that everyone seems so willing to forgive and forget. Russians and everyone else in the immediate post-Soviet orb needs to read this book to remind themselves what happened, and why it really, really shouldn't happen again.

Faboprahlous and Photos

I like Oprah as much as anyone else, but does anyone imagine that a white Obama would excite her quite as much as the black one? I don't exactly blame her for wanting to promote a smart, electable black guy, but the obvious racial dimension here gives the lie to her insistence that she's being objective. She's not. (By the way, I happen to think Obama is a smart, sexy, cool guy who could be just what we need ... but I'm not willing to take Oprah's word for it, and anybody who is probably shouldn't be allowed to vote. Do you think?)

On another topic, two cool photos I took with my new Canon Powershot S31S.