I met Mary Mary Quite Contrary at a lunch on the way from Rome to Pompeii. Who would have thought. Mary Mary Quite Contrary is from Texas and once it was established I lived in London, England, she asked what I thought of the National Health Service. My assumed negative answer was implied in her tone. However, I told her I thought the NHS was great, to which her face expressed surprise. I told her that over the past decade numerous surveys indicated that over 90% of people who actually used the NHS gave the service a positive rating. I continued by saying that I thought it tragic that the Tory/Liberal Democrat government was changing forever the NHS. How, she asked. By privatising it, I said. To which she said, “Well, yes, because people don’t like it.”

It was clear she was ideologically challenged. After an internal sigh I looked straight at her and repeated that some 90% of people held the NHS in high regard. I wearily continued that the information the American public received about the NHS during their debate on healthcare was a distortion and misrepresentation of healthcare in Britain, that indeed some of the TV adverts were outright lies. For example, there was an advert that claimed that if Stephen Hawking had been treated by the NHS he would be dead. Of course, Stephen Hawking has been treated by the NHS all his life and is still very much alive.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary would have none of it, explaining how “they” hoped to repeal Obamacare, which she implied was, like the NHS, an evil form of socialism, or communism, or perhaps fascism, or was it Nazism. I doubt she knew the difference between the four. With that self-righteous self-possessed attitude that can drive a reasonable person crazy, though living in Texas and never having visited Britain, she gave the impression she knew better than one who has lived in the UK for twenty-six years and has on more than a few occasion turned to the NHS, the truth about healthcare my side of the waters. The words “fuck you” came to mind, but remained unvoiced. It would have been terribly rude, though perhaps not as rude as having people dying in the streets or or in their homes for lack of care.

I must confess I just didn’t have the energy to get into a confrontation with a Tea Bagger by the name of Mary Mary Quite Contrary so I excused myself saying I had to go to the “toilet.” Americans don’t use the word “toilet,” it being somewhat impolite. I hoped upon hope that using the word “toilet” would, if  even slightly, offend her.

Well, that was that really. But later after returning to Rome from Pompeii it bothered me that I didn’t speak more forcefully in defence of the NHS. I kept having those damn conversations in my head that persist like a bad but catchy tune. This is what I wished I had said to Mary Mary Quite Contrary:

“I really don’t care if you want U.S. citizens dying in the streets in support of your ideology as you worship Jesus in your rich church, but at least you could argue your case honestly. It offends me the way you use the NHS to support your social Darwinian position. Don’t make your case by misrepresenting and telling lies about the NHS. I really don’t care about your position, but I do care that you support it through distortions or untruths. Have the conviction in your own beliefs and speak the truth. Have some integrity. Do the research. And stop lying.”

That would have put her in her place! If only I had said it.

I learned that Mary Mary Quite Contrary was leaving for London the next day. This is what I wished I had said about that:

“If you are injured or become ill during your stay in London, the evil socialist NHS will care for you as long as is needed.”

Or maybe:

“If you are injured or become ill during your stay in London, live (or die) by your convictions and avoid the evil socialist NHS and seek out a private hospital to care for you. And if you don’t have your insurance papers with you, good luck with that."

After lunch her travelling companion pulled me aside and said, “You’ve meant a true blue Tea Party member.” Mary Mary Quite Contrary of Texas, I can’t say meeting you made my day. Go back to Texas and keep your ideological faith-based nose out of the NHS.

Copyright © 2013 Dale Rominger

Notes is a collection of reflections and essays on my international travels, so I suspect it is not the book my publisher is wanting to take to Hollywood. Dis-Ease...well, it’s  self-evident what that’s about and trust me it would not make a great movie – though now that I think about it, it could make a great play for the theater. Anyway, I’m assuming Alien Love must be the book my publisher was referring to, and it makes sense. Alien Love is a story about the nature of identity and enduring love set in an undisclosed future of Meisner automobiles, Chinese hegemony, colonies on Mars and the Moon and a migration to Alpha Centauri. Oh, and it takes place in an institution for the differently sane. (My wife claims I set the story in the future so I could rant about George W. Bush in a particular way, but there is no veracity to this libellous accusation. Besides I only ranted about W on two or three occasions.)

Upon listening to the voicemail, I immediately began thinking about who should star in my movie. I have decided that Brad Pitt will  play Pepi. Brad Pitt is Pepito Pusinka Russell. That’s pretty much a deal breaker. As for Dr. Gladstone, I’m partial to Kevin Spacey, though I would consider Edward Norton. As for the part of Laura, it goes we without saying, Sandra Bullock, or if she is not available, which seems highly unlikely – I mean a part in Alien Love is on offer! – I could go with Charlize Theron. Admittedly the part of Laura needs to be expanded and I’ve already begun writing. I’m thinking sex, definitely sex. As for the director, it’s a no-brainer. J. J. Adams will have to be called in. I will, however, bow to expert opinion about who is best to write the screen play, but I will, of course, be named in the writing credits. I definitely will assist whoever is chosen.

My wife, never one to discourage me, was, nonetheless, sceptical and asked how much it would cost us for my publisher to invest in my book. When I asked in return how one could put a price on such an opportunity, she said try. She also said it was fortunate I was a mature author and thus would not be taken in by an absurd sales pitch. Indeed. She had not heard my publisher’s tone of voice - the sincerity, professionalism and urgency. However, at this point in our conversation, not having shared with her my plans for the film, I simply and quietly nodded my head. Imagine, she said, if I were young, hopeful and naïve. It could be heart-breaking. Most certainly it could. And apparently expensive.

My wife, forever my faithful companion, asked if I had called my publisher back. I had not, being a bit busy planning the movie and checking flights to Hollywood. She suggested that I wait for my publisher to call me again, for surely he would given his desire to invest in a sure thing like Alien Love the Movie. Fair enough, I agreed. I’ll wait, I said, making a metal note to check that my diary was free at Oscar time.

So here I sit watching TV, my mobile phone charged and at my side. Any minute now.

Copyright © 2013 Dale Rominger

It’s estimated that the non-state state funeral will cost the taxpayers between £8mil to £10mil in this time of austerity. An official state funeral must be sanctioned by Parliament which would also include an agreement to use public funds to pay for it. The Tory/Liberal Democrat government avoided the parliamentary debate and vote but nonetheless insisted the public pay for the event. Rather cowardly I thought. Some people suggest that the best way to honour this particular free market warrior is for the government to put the entire funeral out to tender, accepting the lowest bids, of course. Kind of like what it’s doing with the NHS. Who knows, the military of Equatorial Guinea might have won the contract to put Market Thatcher on their wagon and escort her to the church.

Market Thatcher supporters allow no criticism of the Iron Lady who died in the London Ritz and their tone of voice, perhaps more than their actually words, implies that any and all criticism is blasphemous. So, the cartoon is just a gentle reminder that not all people considered Ronald Reagan and Market Thatcher to be great saviours.

By the way, I call her Market Thatcher because just as the death news was breaking, a young person on Twitter not realising everyone was talking about an actual human being thought instead the news was about a “market thatcher something to do with our Queen.” Though obviously humours, mistaking the person for the ideology, the name really is appropriate. Market Thatcher was a capitalistic free market ideologue who could be considered a saviour – of the rich, of course. And we must not forget it was Ronald Reagan and Market Thatcher who got the free-for-all ball rolling, which kept rolling faster and faster until it hit the wall in 2008.

Oh, one last thing. For the record, having great conviction as a politician isn’t in and of itself a reason to be elevated to sainthood. There are a number of politicians who had great conviction that most of wish had never been born.

Copyright © 2013 Dale Rominger

¹² When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. ¹³ “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Theologians have had and continue to have a field day with these seventeen versus in John and I certainly don’t want to get into it all here...the linguistic differences between the two verbs “to bathe” and “to wash,” the theological meaning of being “clean,” the link between the post-resurrection community and the ritual, etc. However, grounding all the exegesis and theology, Herman Waitjen says: “By washing his disciples’ feet Jesus is subverting the hierarchical structures of patron-client relationships and the honor/shame culture of the Mediterranean world.”[1]

First, and obviously, the disciples didn’t need their feet washed during the meal. If their feet had been washed it would have been by the women as they entered the house before the meal. The act is purely symbolic. Second, Peter’s confusion and resistance indicates that the act was indeed contrary to what would be expected: “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Or as Waitjen put it, Peter is “adamant in his hierarchically ordered cultural perspective.”[2] Most would agree this subversion of the hierarchy through the ritual of foot washing is supposed to point to the paradigm of the new community, indeed new humanity, where the disciples wash each others’ feet and “symbolically engage in acts of cleansing that close the past and open the future to greater wholeness and integrity.”[3]

All this subversion of the old hierarchical ideology and the creation of the new “horizontal” (as Waitjen puts it) community could lead one to believe that the rejection of the old hierarchy implies the introduction of a new egalitarianism. Perhaps, however, there is a reminder not to get too carried away: “Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. “¹⁷

So, we all should wash each others’ feet and live whole and healthy lives in our new horizontal community free from hierarchical structures, which finally leads me to the Pope.[4]

We’ve come a long way from that foot washing narrative in John and I suspect that both the reasons for and the meaning of today’s foot washing ritual by church leaders is somewhat removed from all the theological implications and ramifications of the original. This year Pope Francis chose to conduct his foot washing in a prison, which many thought was bold and others profound. Whether bold or profound, it points us to the first fundamental requirement of church leader foot washing rituals:

• The person whose feet are being washed must to be “below” the one doing the washing.

The ritual will make no sense if a pope washes the feet of a pope, or a teacher of a teacher, or even a banker of a banker. The person must have less status and power than that of the Pope, otherwise the ritual is stripped of all meaning. There has to be a power cap.

• There need be no actual relationship between the person being washed and the person washing.

While Jesus had a relationship with his disciples, it is extremely unlikely any of the prisoners were Pope Francis’ disciples. In fact, if the Pope had a close personal relationship with those he washed, it would change if not undermine the power dynamics in the ritual. I’m assuming the prisoners were chosen carefully. I doubt the Pope walked into the yard or mess hall and chose people at random.

• The foot washing ritual does not change the status and power of the participants.

 During the ritual the power cap is not reduced or eliminated. When the ritual was completed the Pope got in his car and went home and the prisoners went back to their cells, as would be expected.

• The foot washing ritual is about the one who does the washing, not the one who is washed.

What are the names of the prisoners? What do they look like? What were their crimes? What did they say about the ritual? While their experience may have been very meaningful, we will never know. We will never hear from the prisoners, while we might hear from the Pope (though he does not have to speak at all, letting the images speak for him). There will be little or no speculation about what the ritual might have meant for the prisoners, but there will be direct and indirect conclusions about what the ritual means for the Pope (it will further nurture his “humble” image, for example).

So what’s the point?

The ritual does not subvert the hierarchical relationships between the one who washes and the one who is washed. Nor does it subvert the power and wealth of the Vatican or other institutional churches. It does not create “horizontal” new communities. When the Pope says he is a servant of the prisoners, in what way does this statement have meaning? I doubt he returned to the Vatican and began selling the vast and extremely valuable Vatican art collection to use the money to support the poor. Perhaps he has been moved to advocate for prison reform, though I doubt it. At the very least, perhaps he will become a regular visitor of the prisoners since he is their servant. Again, I doubt it. When it’s all said and done the powers and principalities, both secular and religious, are secure, foot washing or no foot washing.

It is legitimate to also ask in what way the ritual and the Pope’s claimed status of being the servant of prisoners have symbolic meaning? I would suggest that a symbol that does not eventually impact, and hopefully change, the everydayness of existence is rather vapid. Does the symbolism have meaning beyond, for example, praying for prisoners? And in what way does the symbolism of the ritual and statement affect or even benefit the prisoners? If the Pope is indeed their servant, perhaps they could instruct him to come visit them, get them a lawyer, get them out of prison. Perhaps not.

I am in no way suggesting that the ritual is not meaningful for the Pope and all church leaders who conduct foot washing rituals during Holy Week. In fact, I suspect it has significant meaning. But I do wonder if church leaders are really aware of and grateful for the role people with less power and status play in the ritual. Do they thank the prisoners and the homeless and the poor whose feet they wash for aiding them in receiving greater theological wisdom or for increased spiritual integrity, or for even the good feelings of humbleness they might have on their way home?

As a kind of afterthought: Pope Francis was the first pope to wash the feet of women in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. His minders downplayed the act saying it was due to circumstances. Traditionalists in the Roman church were, on the other hand, disturbed or outraged. Their fear was it might indicate that the new Pope is in favour of ordaining women. Surely not! But think about it. No pope has ever washed the feet of a woman during Holy Week. It is not that woman are second class citizens in the Catholic Church, they are not citizens at all. My wife went as far to say that they are non human.

Copyright © 2012 Dale Rominger

[1] Waitjen, Herman C. The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple. London: T & T Clark International, 2005, p. 239.

[2] Ibid., p. 239.

[3] Ibid., p. 331.

[4] I speak of Pope Francis not because he is the only church leader who undertakes the foot washing ritual on Maundy Thursday or because he does the ritual in any extraordinary way. I use the Pope because he is no doubt the church leader most favoured by the media and, well, we are all talking about the new “humble” pope right now. However, for my purposes here, the Pope represents all church leaders who wash peoples’ feet during Holy Week.

March is prostate cancer awareness month, and believe me when I say we need a little awareness raising. For example, cancer tumours have specific molecular structures and over many years researchers have identified particular molecular structures for various forms of cancers, from breast cancer to leukaemia. Based on their work, specific drugs have been developed to attack directly those molecular structures in cancer tumours. None of this work has even begun in the area of prostate cancer. No sustained research to clearly identify molecular structures and thus no drugs created to attack them.

In the UK, one man dies every hour of prostate cancer. It is the most common cancer among men. There is no reliable test for prostate cancer and no test at all to distinguish between an aggressive killer cancer and a more benign cancer that a man can live with for years. There are often no symptoms until it is too late. When you are deciding what to do there is a lot of guesswork involved. If you guess wrong, you’ll pay. If you guess right, you’ll pay.

Owen Sharp, the CEO Prostate Cancer UK, wrote:

This is where we stand. We have a test that divides medical opinion and isn’t fit for purpose. Treatment options that leave men impotent, incontinent and alone. A gland that can be as vicious as it is silent and awareness levels that should put us all to shame. This, in a nutshell, is prostate cancer in the UK.

Some people say prostate cancer only kills old men. Let’s put aside that this accusation and excuse – for this is what it is, an excuse – is misleading, ill-informed and inaccurate, and think about exactly what these people are saying: it doesn’t matter that men are dying, they’re old. We may live in an ever-changing landscape of advancing technology and scientific endeavour but this thinking drags us straight back into the Stone Age.[1]

Prostate Cancer UK  is taking a more creative and aggressive attitude towards prostate cancer, and given that I have been diagnosed with prostate cancer myself, I’m more than pleased. Read, for example, the statement in the charity’s Manifesto:

Our heritage is founded on a sense of outrage that men with prostate cancer were – and still often are – given a raw deal; insufficient clinical knowledge about the nature of the disease; totally inadequate diagnostics; and treatments which all too frequently result in unnecessary physical and psychological damage. This sense of injustice runs through all that we do and we will work tirelessly to change the status quo.

Outrage. Raw deal. Injustice.

While Prostate Cancer UK is taking off the gloves, the charity does not lack a sense of humour. The Sledgehammer Fund was launched with a TV advert staring Bill Bailey and was followed by other ads to raise both awareness and funds. The prostate gland is as small as a walnut, but as the ad says “it’s a hard nut to crack – and it’s going to take a sledgehammer to do it.”

The purpose of the campaign, as stated on the charity’s website, is:

to reach up to 96% of men and women over 45 across the UK. This urgent information about prostate cancer should reach nearly all the men in the UK who are at a high risk of developing prostate cancer, and their families. The adverts and the accompanying press activity is set to inform many thousands more men about prostate cancer and will raise money to help us:

• find anwers by funding research
• support men and provide vital information and lead change
• raising the profile of the disease and improving care.

So please have a look at the adverts by clicking here! And after you’ve had a look and a browse around the website, send some hard cash.

We’ve got a long way to go, but thanks to Prostate Cancer UK, Movember, increased funding for and interest by medical professionals, we are making progress.

This blog has been about the situation in the United Kingdom, but the last time I looked at the website’s statistics, people from over 30 countries visit The Back Road Café on a regular basis. So, if you are from a country other than the UK, find your prostate cancer charity and see what you can do to help. And if you don’t have one, get together with some other guys and start one. After all, Movember started with three guys sitting in a Melbourne pub.

Copyright © 2013 Dale Rominger

[1] Sharp, Owen. “In a Nutshell.” Progress: Prostate Cancer News and Views. Issue 1, February 2013.

However, on page 239 of my edition, just over half way through the book, I ran into Chabon’s Joycean flow of consciousness. For eleven pages there are no periods or paragraph breaks. A friend in California emailed me saying she really enjoyed the chapter. Me, I found it annoying and pretentious, very grateful that it is only eleven pages long. I cannot discern the creative and/or structural purpose of including this Joycean imitation in the middle of the book, except that it might be conveying a free flying parrot’s point of view.[2] I can see no reason why it was not punctuated as is the rest of the book. I can see no added narrative value in leaving out punctuation. As result, I interpret the chapter as a pretentious allusion to James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is no doubt unfair, but I can’t help myself.

I have two problems with flow of consciousness writing. First, I don’t like Ulysses. It almost always tops the list in best novel surveys even though the book is practically unreadable. You have to read books about how to read Ulysses! I have a friend who took a entire correspondence course on how to read the book.[3]  Still, it is considered by virtually everyone as one of the greatest novels in the English language and has been lovingly imitated by many authors. Chabon’s short flow of consciousness (in comparison to Joyce’s which ran for forty-three pages in my edition) is not the first such flow to be inserted into a novel and certainly will not be the last. But it seems to me that the insertion should in some obvious way enhance the narrative. Why a flow of consciousness at that point in the novel? How does it add to our understanding of characterisation? Or plot? Or meaning? What value does it add to the overall narrative experience? Or does it simply associate the book and the author with Joyce and Ulysses? I am not adverse to reading challenging novels. For example, Bohumil Hrabal’s The Little Town Where Time Stood Still, Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi), Milan Kundera’s Immortality, Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 and the six volumes of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust were all challenging but also rewarding novels in which part of the reward can only be realised by working your way to the end.

My second problem is that I simply do not like books without punctuation. It is, perhaps, that I do not possess the intellectual ability to understand the reason some novels must lack traditional structure. I have tried. I made it through Blindness and All the Names by the winner of the Noble Prize for Literature José Saramago, but crashed out on The Cave. Even Hrabal, one of my favourite authors, tried his hand in free flowing fictitious writing in Dancing Lessons for the Advanced Age. Saramago’s first two novels, in what has loosely been called his trilogy, are excellent, as I am sure is The Cave. And I enjoyed Dancing Lessons. But the structure of the novels did not seem to contribute to their value. The work it takes to get through the novels, due to the structure, did not enhance the rewards. If anything, the structure became a distraction from the novels’ inherent value. I spent much of my reading energy deciding where to place commas and periods and paragraphs. But perhaps that is the point! Perhaps if I were sitting with Saramago he would say the entire point is that I become an active participant in the creating of the novel and thus its meaning. And if that indeed is the case, then I can understand and accept the aim but have to admit I just don’t like it. 

It goes without saying, I could never even dream of standing in the shadows of writers like Saramago and Hrabal. And I must admit, Chabon’s eleven pages of free flowing bird flight did have commas, which helped.

Copyright © 2013 Dale Rominger

[1] Chabon might respond to my comment by echoing Mozart’s response to the Emperor: “Which few words did you have in mind?”

[2] A parrot by the name of Fifty-eight is set free after its owner dies.

[3] After he completed the course he concluded Ulysses is a great book. But I nonetheless ask, can a novel be great if you need to go to school to understand it? Or is that the point? The greatness of Ulysses is in its lack of understandabiltiy? I’m also aware that Ulysses is credited in changing the Western novel forever.

I confess I’ve become weary of Tories complaining about Liberal Democrats. To all Tories everywhere: YOU LOST THE ELECTION! And yet, you are transforming British government and society in ways that Margaret Thatcher would have wet herself over. You are finally fulfilling your dream of privatising the NHS. Hell, you’re privatising everything. You’re killing off green technology. You’re cutting welfare. You’re protecting the banks (oh wait, all parties do that). I know you’re not getting everything you want, but goodness, me you’re getting most of what you want. And who do you have to thank for this, given you lost the elections. The LIBERAL DEMOCRAT PARTY! If they hadn’t formed a government with you I doubt you would be getting away with this stuff. It’s Liberal Democrats who sit around the table with you arguing and creating policy. It’s Liberal Democrats who vote with you to get all this crap passed into law. You shouldn’t be bitching about Liberal Democrats, you should be sending each and every one of them thank you cards. You should put Clegg and Alexander in your hall of fame. So enough already.

It upset a few people, partly that I expressed anger and partly because I expressed this particular opinion. For those of you who think expressing anger in general and/or on Facebook in particularly is wrong, sorry to have upset you, though I can’t resist saying that a couple people expressed angry at my expressing anger. And if it were simply the words “wet, ” "hell," “crap” and “bitching” that got you upset, then again, sorry. We can delete them. But as far as the opinion goes, well that’s something else.

The most frequently voiced defence of the Liberal Democrat Party’s actions in government is that their presence restrains the Tories who would otherwise be passing even more draconian legislation. This is an empty defence. It implies that if the Liberal Democrat Party had not formed a government with the Tory Party, that the Tories would have won a second election or would have formed a minority government after which, in some mysterious way, it would have succeeded in passing through Parliament an even more rightwing agenda. The first assumption is possible, but not probably. The second assumption is nonsense, being based on the supposition that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrat Party would have for some reason voted with the Tory minority.

In any event, I don’t care about what might have been. I’m not interested in Liberal Democrat imagined parallel universes or confessional angst. I’m interesting in what is happening. Student fees were substantially increased. Liberal Democrats voted for that. The NHS is being sold off bit by bit. Liberal Democrats voted for that. Green energy government subsidies have been largely dropped and the green agenda is being forgotten. Liberal Democrats voted for that. Welfare is being capped, welfare recipients are being “charged” (through reduction in benefits) for extra bedrooms, disabled and the ill are losing some of their benefits, etc. Liberal Democrats voted for all that. The very wealthy had their rate of tax cut. The Liberal Democrats voted for that. The austerity budget is setting British society back a decade or more and has killed off growth. Liberal Democrats vote for that. I could go on and on. My obvious point is that none of these changes which are transforming society and radically reducing government could have happened without Liberal Democrat support and votes. So sorry, but since the Tories did lose the election, they are very much indebted to the Liberal Democrats. And as far as the Liberal Democrats complaining and attempting to distance themselves from the actions of the coalition government and at the same time claiming credit for now being a grown-up party capable of being in government, it just doesn’t wash. They can’t have it both ways, though I can’t blame party members for wishing they could.

How far will the Liberal Democrat Party go? Well, pretty far. We hear a lot about “being in government” and “making the hard decisions.” Fair enough. But what does the party now stand for? Well, another vote is coming up for the Liberal Democrats that will push that question to its limits. The coalition government is proposing “secret courts,” which were not in either the Tory or Liberal Democrat manifestos before the election and were not in the coalition agreement. Nonetheless, in a couple of weeks the House will vote on secret courts. In an article on the Observer, Henry Porter writes:

It is difficult to see how Lib Dem MPs could vote for a bill that restricts rights under the law, at the same time as increasing state power. The justice and security bill is self-evidently against everything they stand for, which may explain recent confusing signals from the party and why a Lib Dem voted against Tory amendments in committee.

Despite Clarke's spin that the bill mostly conforms to the Lords amendments, it is plain that it has reverted to its original objectionable form. As the campaigning Tory David Davis says, if the Lib Dems can't vote against the justice and security bill, what on earth is the party for? The vast majority of the party know, but do their MPs know and does Nick Clegg?

It will be an interesting vote, but it can’t pass into law without the Liberal Democrats voting with the Tories.

Why so much anger directed at the Liberal Democrats and not the Tory Party? Well, I am angry at the Tory Party, but it is a different quality of anger simply because the Tories are doing what I expect the Tories to do. Anyone who thinks that Cameron has changed the party at its core is as naive as the people who thought George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” was in anyway an actual description of the Republican Party. But the Liberal Democrat Party, the self-proclaimed most liberal party in the UK, has become partners in one of the most rightwing governments experienced in Britain. It feels like betrayal. What does the party stand for? All too often it seems like it stands for “being in government.” There is nothing wrong with a party wanting to form a government! That is what parties exist for, to govern. But if the “being in government” trumps what the party originally stood for, then it should be damned at the polls.

If the election were held today, the Liberal Democrats would more than likely lose a number of seats in Parliament. And if there were another hung Parliament with Labour winning the most seats, we can only hope the Liberal Democrats have enough seats to form a government with Labour, because I am confident that they will with equal zeal support a Labour agenda and vote on legislation that would actual negate much of what they are now doing in government. Why? Because being in government is about making the hard decisions.

Copyright © 2013 Dale Rominger

Can someone give me a definition of proof-texting? All of a sudden I'm wondering if  what I think it is, is not accurate.

Within a couple of minutes I got back this:

It's using the Bible like a drunk uses a lamppost...For support instead of illumination.

This communication made me laugh and despair simultaneously. Laughter because it was funny, despair because it reinforced the fear that I had indeed become a preaching drunk leaning against a lamppost. I quickly googled proof-texting. For those of you who have not gone to seminary or trained to be a preacher, here is a more formal definition (from Theopedia: A Encyclopaedia of Christianity):

Proof texting is the method by which a person appeals to a biblical text to prove or justify a theological position without regard for the context of the passage they are citing.

In one last desperate attempt to clear my name, I decided to ask a completely neutral person who has heard me preach on numerous occasions. At dinner I asked my wife if I had become a proof-texter. She said: “No you illumine the biblical text with your ideas.” Then, without taking a breath, she laughed with more gusto then seemed appropriate.

How did it happen? I did not become a proof-texter as some act of rebellion (I have never been a rebel looking for a cause, though on many occasions a cause, often with a human face, would find me, entreat me, seduce me to do something, not because I was particularly needed, but because I was a human being). I did use the lectionary for years. I mean, how could I not? In my time it was purported that the lectionary had come down from on high, free of crass human influences such as history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and theology itself. The lectionary by its very nature is purity, offering a weekly divine mystery to be solved though prayer and study (actually why did God put these particular Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament and Epistle readings together this week?). It’s all nonsense, of course. A major characteristic of the West’s understanding of reality is that its understanding is free floating, unpolluted by life itself. In the West we speak universal truths. They come to us through Platonic archetypes or divine revelation. For example, while others do Third-Eye theology, Minjung theology, Liberation theology, Black theology, etc., in the West we do Theology. This too is nonsense. Primarily, we do straight white male theology with a leaning towards market capitalism (though times are changing thanks to Feminist, Black, Liberation theology, etc.). Sometime in the past someone or some gathering of someones (let’s hope it was a gathering) wrote the lectionary, and they didn’t do it having somehow magically removed all memories of and influences in their lives. What they did represents a certain understanding of reality and theology.  

Be that as it may, somewhere along the way I stopped using the lectionary. I attribute this heretical act to the death of a sixteen year old girl, though my memory may suggests this tragic event precisely because it is so dramatic. It no doubt reasoned that I might be able to justify my crime given the demands of responding to a youthful death. The story is this.

I was the minister in the only church in a small town south of San Francisco. One a Friday night a sixteen year old girl in the town died in a motorcycle accident. The lectionary readings for Sunday were useless. I had three choices: one, cram the girl’s death into the readings; two, ignore the girl’s death; three ignore the lectionary. I chose option three, and have been sliding down the slippery slope ever since. If the lectionary didn’t work given the lives we were living in our church, community, nation and world, then to hell with the lectionary. Guilty as charged. No excuse. Take me away.

In an email correspondence about biblical interpretation I wrote this:

[B]iblical interpretation is influenced, if not determined, by these factors: the biblical text (the text itself guides our understanding of its narrative world); theology (our understanding of God); Christology (our understanding of Christ); tradition (our community’s understanding of faith and action through time); and praxis (the interaction and relationship among the text, theology, Christology, tradition and what is actually happening in our world and lives at the present time).

I would suggest that you can replace “biblical interpretation” with the word “preaching” and it still makes sense.

Copyright © 2012 Dale Rominger

Goodness have things changed. Just a month ago I was a self-published author of questionable repute. But now I’m an Indie Author, which nicely associates me with the bold and creative band of Indie Directors who make Indie Films. I’m an Indie Author who writes Indie Books. I don’t work for The Man! I’m an Indie. Here’s a picture of me in a café in Rome contemplating my next Indie Book not giving a damn what The Man might think. (Look at that concentration!)

Two things made it possible for me to call myself an Indie Author. First the obvious: Technology. The home computer allowed people to save large documents at home. The Internet (or is it the World Wide Web, I can never remember?) opened the window to the world while sitting at home. With the Internet came email which made it possible for individuals to send large documents around the world. With the advent of Internet commerce, on-line bookstores and self-publishing print on demand websites, the book writing and selling business became available to anyone with an Internet connection. Now anyone anywhere can, with little effort and little money, make their book available to millions of readers. With print on demand technology there is no need for a traditional publisher to commit to print runs and stockpiling books that may have to be pulped later. With print on demand if one book is ordered, one book is printed. If a thousand books are ordered, a thousand books are printed. Simple, and environmentally friendly. Actually there is less and less need for traditional publishers. Your book can be made available as an eBook, paperback or hardback just by turning on your computer (and, of course, putting out some money – a hint, wait for the “special offers!”).

No more trying in vain to get past the Gatekeeper – you can’t get to a traditional publisher without first finding an agent, and many agents will not even talk to you without first hiring a “reader.” I once sent out fifty letters to agents. Ten never even acknowledged my existence. Most scribbled their reply, usually “not taking clients,” on my original letter and sent it back to me. Three actually wrote me kind and encouraging letters in return. But no more. And the media is taking notice. The New York Times now includes Indie Authors on the best selling lists. The New York Review of Books reviewed an self-publish book. It’s a start. Some day an Indie Author is bound to be on Oprah.

The second reason I can proudly call myself an Indie Author is that established authors are now self-publishing and they certainly are not going to be called anything but Indie Authors! If they can do it, I can do it. And you can do it. There’s not a traditional publisher on the face of the earth who cares that I’m an Indie Author. But there are a whole lot of publishers that are losing sleep because established authors are going straight to Kindle, the Nook and Kobo.

There are downsides, of course. The first is bad editing. If you put out crap, people won’t read your second book and won’t tell anyone about your first. If you can’t edit, get someone who can. Perfection is what you want, but since becoming obsessed by the embarrassment of typos in my books, I now regularly find one, two or three typos in books from traditional publishers, and sometimes more in eBooks.

Second is a bad book cover. Everything I read says you need a good cover, and that includes for your eBook version. If you can’t do it yourself, get someone who can.

Third, bad marketing. It’s one thing to say that your book is available throughout the world through Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but it’s another thing to say it will be noticed among the hundreds of thousands eBooks, paperbacks and hardbacks out there. The obvious first steps are creating a website and getting it out there in the Cloud through Facebook, Twitter and any other way you can think of doing it. But at bottom line, you may need to pay someone to help you. (I’ve read that when it comes down to it, it is still word of mouth that sells the most books so some Indie Authors are making their eBook version free for the first month or two hoping to establish a readership. It has worked for some.)

I haven’t included in my top three downsides bad book content. Obviously if your book is crap it won’t stand much of a chance. But the notion that crap books come from self-publishing and good books come from traditional publishing is just nonsense. Heavens, there is so much crap out there that at times you have to wonder about the Gatekeeper. However, two admissions: First, at present I would expect more crap from the self-publishing world, and second, a lot of crap sells.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles and essays about Indie Authors and self-publishing. Just google Indie Authors and self-publishing. However, I did find this particular series of articles helpful. Here they are:

Significant Disruption For Traditional Publishers Still To Come; 

Make Yourself Findable; and

Indie Authors Are Underpricing Their Books.

Copyright © 2012 Dale Rominger