Rot at the top

"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery on society, which increases earthquakes."

- Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedinghi, an Iranian Muslim cleric, blaming women for a spate of recent temblors around the globe

"(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

– Pat Robertson

I think that we are all conditioned to believe that people in positions of authority and leadership know what they are doing. The world has to make some sense, doesn't it? Surely these people--whoever they are--must be intelligent and reasonable; after all, they are in a prominent position! Well, that ain't necessarily so, as these two quotations demonstrate--those are a couple of steel-trap minds! (Robertson is especially annoying, if only because I see his mug so often when I'm channel-surfing--how does he get so darn much exposure?)

The latest and rather interesting case: Christopher Hitchens, writing in the current Newsweek, makes the argument--and a rather strong one at that--for bringing up the Pope on criminal charges, given the protection which pedophiles have gotten within the Catholic Church, in some cases with the direct involvement of the Pope himself. Even yours truly, a skeptical heathen type, was surprised to encounter this point of view and to seriously entertain it for the first time. I mean, he's the Pope! How could a Pope be arrested for anything? The Pope sent off to prison for obstruction of justice? It's almost incomprehensible--that is, until you consider the utter humanity that we all share. The Pope is a guy named Joseph Ratzinger--call him "Joe" if you want, because he is in the end just an Ordinary Joe. He puts on his pants the same way you and I do. He trots into the bathroom in the morning to do the same things that you and I do (we share the same throne!). He gets spinach stuck between his teeth. And, like Misters Sedinghi and Robertson, cited above, he is no smarter than you or I; at times like these, notions of "papal inerrancy" seem particularly ridiculous.

There is rot at the top, my friends--and sometimes in the middle or at the bottom! Please help us avoid legitimized insanity in any way that you can.

Embracing the absurd

Ever in touch with the absurd, I am reminded again of how at any waking moment--at this very moment--there are billions of different realities. As we in the U.S. herald the launching of the iPad into our cyber-environment, as we get into our hybrid cars and watch our plasma TVs, there are the people of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, profiled in last month's issue of National Geographic (arguably my favorite magazine of all).

The tribes which populate the Omo Valley (the Kara, the Banna, the Bashada, the Hamar, and several others) all lead lives that are in stark contrast to the 21st century vibe in the U.S. The Mursi women still wear ornamental clay lip plates, making their mouths look like small frisbees. The Suri tie on armor made of goat hide and fight each other with long poles. There is still the Hamar ritual in which women demand to be whipped until they bleed, and there's the cattle-jumping initiation rite, in which boys run along the backs of cattle to prove they are ready for manhood. And they do most of these things--in classic National Geographic picture form--buck naked, without an ounce of self-consciousness or embarrassment. And I think to myself, what a strange and wonderful world! (Intentional song reference here.)

It goes deeper, though. The differences transcend mere clothing or artifacts. In this part of the world, mingi is a kind of very bad luck. In southern Ethiopia, many tribes believe it is a bad omen if children are born deformed, if their top teeth erupt before their bottom teeth, or if they are born out of wedlock. Tradition dictates that such children must be killed before mingi spreads. The writer of this article (Neil Shea) notes, "I met a Kara woman who gave birth to 12 children before she was able to be married; she said she killed all of them. Parents do not necessarily want to obey, but communal pressure is strong. Sometimes the child is abandoned in the bush, its mouth filled with earth; sometimes it is hurled into the river."

Reading National Geographic is more than a trip through a time machine. It's traveling to another planet--although in this case it turns out to be the other side of our own planet. But, Happy Easter! And because you are where you are--reading this off of a laptop somewhere--put on some clothes, dammit!