Next Blog>>

I've taken advantage of the Next Blog>> button that has recently appeared at the top right corner of Blogger-sponsored blogs such as my own and landed on a few sites where I've left comments. Only on a few, mind you, and I am not sure if "to take advantage of" is the right expression to use. It seems that clicking on Next Blog>> will sooner or later send you crashing into blogs hosted by high school girls from Singapore that force you to sit and listen to their pop music. Your keyboard freezes, you get hit with pop-up advertisements, and you have to click madly at the "Back" button to escape a pink screen bursting with cutesiness and synthetic keyboard noises that pitilessly assault your senses.

Perhaps I am drawn to my opposites, or it could be the lingering effect of my aborted debate with a fetus-obsessed Bush supporter earlier this year, but I wish to note two sites in particular.

The first blog is called Letters to Home and is written by a self-described "conservative, Christian family man," who says that he is "doing the best [he] can." He includes a big Bush/Cheney banner and makes Rush Limbaugh-like, hyped up and distorting charges against Kerry. What makes this site a curiosity, to me, is that its author is a soldier who is preparing for his first deployment in Iraq in what he sees as a God-blessed mission. Of all the souls sucked up by the corporate war machine raging across the planet in the name of U.S. "democratization" and cloaked in robustly cynical appeals to Christianity, this has got to be one who deserves pity rather than polemic. Perhaps someone could infiltrate the helmet-capped Christian running this blog before he sets out to kill Iraqi citizens and homeland defenders that have been falsely branded as "terrorists" and "extremists." Perhaps someone could manage to touch this well-meaning man with something other than propaganda and hate.

The second site bears the modest name, "Veritas Daily Journal" and carries the equally modest descriptor: "One truth -- all else is false." When I first came upon the site, I naively read this as a simple statement of piety. Only later, once my comments and, indeed, the entire comments function, had been suppressed by the blog's co-author(s), did I realize that this was actually something of a threat. The site is run by the Russell Brothers, a police officer and a "Director of Family Ministries" in Louisville, Kentucky (admire the handsome studio photos of themselves that the authors have provided). In a September 16 post, the Russell Brothers place a prayer that was written by their father. When I offered in the site's first comment that the military aggression in Iraq could also be added to the prayer, as another in a long list of outrages to Christian values for which one might seek forgiveness, one of the blog's authors responded by saying that, while he disagrees with me about the nature of the war, he hopes that I am as passionate about abortion. To this I responded by asking how he or his brother prioritize abortion over either the War-for-oil-disguised-as-a-war-on-terror or other issues of social injustice. Later, on that same day, I discovered that I had apparently crossed the line from the one truth into all else that is false, for not only was our exchange deleted, the entire comments function on the blog was removed. Still, today, you can read this at the bottom of their blog:

Guest comments or postings reflect the views of those guests initiating those posts and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views of the Russell brothers or the Veritas Daily Journal.

But this polite editorial notice corresponds to nothing, because no one can comment at the Veritas Daily Journal anymore. Perhaps the Russell brothers intend to reinstate the comments function once they feel that this voice from beyond the pale of truth has disappeared?

I do wonder: Is the war against Iraq the "one truth"? Is the "one truth" the campaign for fetalocracy? Is the one truth "Jesus is Lord"? I am not sure. And I have no idea how these things relate to one another, especially if one of them is the "one truth."

Once again, I have made an honest and non-hostile attempt to have a fetus-loving Christian explain their prioritization of the issue; and once again, my inquiry has been rudely aborted. Next Blog>>, please.

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