It is the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan signing the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Ah, the good ol’ days, when being against torture was bipartisan! Today, the problem is that one of our political parties is in favor of torture and the other, while not being for it, doesn’t think it is important enough to do anything about. Remember “Obama of the Looking Forward”? He’s still president. As I’ve discuss, that won’t do. Part of moving forward is administering justice about the past. And as long as we pretend that past wrong doing never occurred, it is destined to occur again.

Glenn Greenwald posted the excellent photo below from Kade Crockford of the Massachusetts ACLU. I love it. There definitely is the sense that the Obama administration is too busy fixing the world than to bother, you know, fixing the world. Regardless, it is important to remember the Convention Against Torture. This should be a day to celebrate it. Unfortunately, it is not. And it will not be until we look back at what we’ve done so we can authentically move forward.

I found an amusing little article over at the vile website Rapture Ready, Would Jesus Vote Republican? The answer: Jesus would not have been a Democrat or a Republican, but clearly the Republican Party is far more godly so you better vote Republican. Fun times!

The section that discusses why Jesus would not be a Republican only gives one reason: the Democratic Party charge that the Republicans are the party of the greed is not “without a degree of legitimacy.” That’s it. It then goes on about original sin and the fact that men are greedy. And ends with an argument for why the Republican Party is the “sound” choice. And note: this is before they even get to the section on voting Republican!

I can come up with some other reasons why Jesus might not be a Republican. It isn’t just a question of greed. The Republican Party makes idols out of money and those who have money. That goes against Commandments one and two, and Jesus said we needed to follow the Jewish law. The Republican Party is very much interested in mocking and abusing the poor. Jesus didn’t dig on that. And the Republican Party is a jingoist group, which is thus idolatrous and violent. But those at Rapture Ready don’t care about any of this. That’s because they are too busy focusing on the Democratic Party.

According to these evil, heartless, bigots, Jesus would not be a Democrat because of abortion, gay rights, and (I love this one!) “a general hostility to Bible-believing Christians.” I think it is fascinating how a religious issue that has only been around for decades, abortion, is thrown onto Jesus. It also strikes me as absurd that the vast majority of anti-abortion Christians have no problem with birth control, when every argument you can make against abortion can also be made against the use of condoms. (And male masturbation!)

As for gay right: okay, I’ll accept that Jesus hated fags. He never said he liked them, the Old Testament said they should be killed, and he said to follow Jewish law. But there is another way to look at the gay rights issue. It could be that the Bible was written by a bunch of bigots and that it has nothing to do with God. Shocking, I know. But just imagine!

As for the Democratic Party having a hostility toward Bible-believing Christians, this completely exposes Rapture Ready for what it is: cultural Christian. The vast majority of Democrats are Christians. But they aren’t the right kind of Christians; they aren’t conservative Christians. So why doesn’t Rapture Ready just come out and say it? It would be a lot easier: conservative Christians should vote Republican because it is the conservative party. I’d accept that.

What is so offensive about Rapture Ready (and the conservative Christian movement generally), is that it claims to speak for all Christians. But of course it doesn’t. Conservative Christians are only spouting what their pastors have told them—what everyone they know believes. It doesn’t come from a close study of the Bible. And that’s why it all degenerates into cultural feuds and “serious” discussions of how God wants you to vote Republican. Pathetic.

Clarence Darrow was born on this day in 1857. He was a major player in two of the most important trails of the last century: Scopes (evolution and free speech) and Leopold and Loeb (death penalty). He was a truly great man.

Japanese screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto is 95 today. Rock journalist Robert Christgau is 71. Actor James Woods is 66. SCTV alumnus Rick Moranis is 60. Conan O’Brien is 50. Conservative apologist Niall Ferguson is 49. And actor Maria Bello is 46.

But the day belongs to the great playwright Thomas Middleton, who was born in 1580. He was a contemporary of Shakespeare, but created less insipid plots. To give you some idea, consider the following from Gary Taylor about Middleton’s play Women Beware Women:

Happy birthday Thomas Middleton!

According to The Atlantic, there has been an explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas. This seems pretty strange, because it is almost 20 years to the day of the end of the siege of the Branch Davidians’ compound in Waco, Texas that there would be an explosion in that area. That siege started on 28 February 1993. And it ended on 19 April 1993. On the other hand, if I were a reporter, I’d be hyper sensitive to anything happening around this time. You may remember that the Oklahoma City bombing took place on the second anniversary of the end of that siege.

But it is a fertilizer plant. And if we learned anything from the Oklahoma City bombing, it is that fertilizer is combustible. And this is a big explosion. According to the report, it was felt 100 miles away in Dallas. What’s more, there are reports of severely injured people—and maybe more.

So is it yet another confused person who thinks that human life is not as important as political ideology? I can’t say. Check back here for updates, because I do want to know. If it turns out to be nothing more than a coincidence, it will mean that God is cruel. Otherwise, it will mean that man is cruel.

I tend to think that both are.

This is just sad. I’ve been reading Matt Yglesias for a long time and one thing I know (And like!) about him is that he’s an iconoclast. Just this morning he was making what I thought a very weak but iconoclastic argument against fiscal stimulus. But when it comes to computers, I guess he just has to be one of the gang.

Yesterday, he wrote an article complaining about the fact that Apple is keeping its products unreasonably expensive because of unreasonably high profit margins. I’m not sure he’s right. The main problem I have with Apple products is their snob appeal. There are markets where higher prices increase demand. It is certainly possible that if Apple started selling their products at more reasonable prices, they would lose customers who wanted Apple products because only the “cool” people have them. Regardless, Yglesias made a totally reasonable argument.

But the Apple devotees (the worst aspect of Apple snob appeal) came after him. And rather than just ignore it as he usually does when people make cogent, much less ridiculous, points against him, he wrote:

Really everybody: I’m one of you! Don’t cast me out! I love love love Apple! Honest I do!

It’s just sad.

Afterword

There is a serious point that Yglesias is getting at: Apple could make huge inroads into the computer market if they, say, cut their prices by 20%. There is another way to look at the situation, though. Apple could use all of its profits to actually, you know, do some R&D. The company spends a shockingly small amount of money on technological innovation. Apple seems to think it can get by forever on its branding and packaging. I think not, and so do a lot of other people. Apple stock is down, even though they continue to make a lot of money.

I am often reminded that I’m not a very nice person. Most recently, this came to mind because Jonathan Bernstein wrote at Post Partisan, How Do We Keep from Torturing Again? This is coming off the Constitution Project report stating unequivocally that after 9/11, the United States, as a matter of government policy, tortured people in our custody. As I reported in an update to that story, Andrew Sullivan has called for a truth commission or something similar to address this unacceptable behavior.

Bernstein said much the same thing, but with a political scientist’s eye: the only way we can prevent future episodes of government torture is to admit what we did. We can’t be a nation where one party is against torture and the other is for it. In fact, that is exactly what we now have for reasons that should be clear to readers of this site. But this gets to the point about my not being a nice person. Berstein wrote:

I think he is right, and yet I have trouble offering those generous expressions of understanding. But it isn’t because I’m not forgiving—I am very forgiving. It is just that I remain resentful as long as the wrongdoer does not admit his error. I think most people are like this.

So as long as Bush Jr continues to act like everything he did in office was just great or at least done with the best intentions, I cannot offer understanding. As long as Cheney goes around the country talking about how right he was to lead our country into the “dark side,” I cannot offer understanding. As long as torturers and their apologists continue to be represented at the highest levels of government and media, I cannot offer understanding.

That’s my failing. But maybe better men than I can get a truth commission going and convince Bush to admit to his torture policies and accept that they were wrong. If he does, my opinion of him will improve and I will offer him generous expressions of understanding—I know I will, because I know how I am. But until then, I will think of him as just another unpunished criminal who should be spending the rest of his life in a cage, not attending his own art shows.

Any time now, the Senate will vote down the Toomey-Manchin gun purchase background check compromise. I can’t say I’m sad about this. Even under the best of circumstances, the law would have been so watered down as to be almost meaningless. And that was very little gain in return for the possibility that the law would have been far worse than nothing. What I find interesting about the whole exercise is that it shows how little power senators have.

Yesterday, David Firestone over at Taking Note tried to explain, Why the Background Check Bill Is in Trouble. He gave as an example the freshman Republican from Arizona, Jeff Flake. Flake said he was against the bill because it could cause sales between friends and relatives to require a background check. Now, this is not true; Flake was just making this up to give himself an excuse for voting against the bill.

That’s the thing: in a reasonable world, Flake would have no trouble with this bill. After all, it is only fixing a long extant law that is not at all controversial. But I think I’m fair in divining that he is only voting against the bill because he is afraid of the specious charge that he voted for “gun control.” And so Senator Flake does not actually have the power to vote as he wishes.

But let’s be clear. There certainly are senators who will vote against the bill because it is really what they believe. Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, I think, are against the whole background check system. But most senators are not like them. I’m sure at least 30 of the senators who vote against the very mild Toomey-Manchin bill will do so not because of their power but because of their lack of power.

And this is the way power works. Flake could use his power to vote as he sees right. But he won’t. He’s (rightly) afraid that if he uses his power, he will later lose it. But truly, this makes no sense. It is just a recipe for holding onto a pointless job. And the truth is that using political power will not necessarily lead to its destruction. But in my experience, those who seek power are morally weak—and that includes the true believers like Paul and Cruz. So it isn’t surprising that they will forfeit today to assure they will be around to forfeit tomorrow.

The English playwright John Ford was born on this day in 1586. The inventor of baseball (more or less), Alexander Cartwright was born in 1820. J. P. Morgan was born in 1837, and we’ve been paying for it ever since. The great playwright Thornton Wilder was born 1897. William Holden was born in 1918. Director Lindsay Anderson was born in 1923. The great Japanese film critic Donald Richie was born in 1924 (and just died back in February). And concert promoter Don Kirshner was born in 1934.

Author Nick Hornby is 56 today. And actor Sean Bean is 54.

But the day belongs to the great ventriloquist Señor Wences who was born in 1896 and lived to be 103 years old. He was an amazing performer. In the clip below, you will see, however, that he is hardly a ventriloquist at all. But note that he is 70 years old in it. Ventriloquists lose their technique as they get older. I recommend just sitting back and enjoying the comedy. The truth is that it is almost impossible to not look at his various puppets as they talk anyway.

Happy birthday Señor Wences!