[The Spinozist Mormon] Mr. Spinozist Goes to Washington

[Christian Y. Cardall]

I arrived in our nation’s capital yesterday evening.

Unlike the iconic Mr. Smith, I didn’t here to clean the place up; when it comes to corruption I am content to express sardonic ridicule. Nor am I here to see the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito, though it would interest me greatly; if I had sufficient time or insomnia I’d be interested to watch the whole thing live or in late-night C-SPAN rebroadcasts. Nominally, I am here for something greater than Politics: Science, specifically the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

In fact, however, like many pilgrims to this place where levers of power are pulled, the attraction is something even greater than Science: Mammon. Or, as a minor character in my secular holy book puts it, “the spondulicks the cash the moolah the bread the bread.”

In fact, perhaps a more extended playful likening of this passage unto ourselves is warranted. In the quote below the minor character Hawthorne Crossley is broadcasting rock music, in the days of its adolescence, from a rusty tin can of a ship off the coast of England because of the illegality of such broadcasts on the mainland. In the wee hours of the night he reaches out over the air to his mother, who was shamefully abandoned by his father to follow unnatural proclivities (and has since degenerated into unnaturalness of her own). Hawthorne is caught in the middle, between loyalty to his mother who dutifully raised him under difficult circumstances, and the financial support of his depraved father needed to support his righteous work:

If you’re listening, Antionette Corinth, you witchy insomniac, and I know you’re listening because you always are, then this one’s for you. This comes to you from Hawthorne with love… This one is to honor your genius, O queen of the black arts, princess of the pentangle, Baroness Samedi, priestess of Wicca, adept of the secrets of the Great Pyramid, dispenser of all good things, dressmaker extraordinaire, O Mother who gave us suck. We took your name and you at once let it go, espousing, instead, the noble Corinthian tradition. Mother forgive us for we are royally arseholed. Forgive us Mother for we have taken the shilling of him what done you wrong. As you have surmounted your bitterness towards him, as you have found it in your mighty soul to transcend your most righteous anger, so also let us not come into your bad books, if that’s at all possible, because we really needed the spondulicks the cash the moolah the bread the bread. Forgive us Mother for we are soldiers of the Queen our Father and this is wonderful 199, Radio Freddie, and for all you night owls and our own dear Mum here’s Manfred Mann to promise us that god is on our side.

In the present application of this passage, the mother is likened to all you dutiful taxpayers, who may wonder why your hard-earned money is being spent on work like ours; the father is likened to our unnaturally corrupt government; and Hawthorne is likened to research groups like ours doing righteous work eminently worthy of government funding.

You see, a recompetition of the program under which our collaboration’s work is funded will be occurring over the next few months, so our fearless leader is leveraging this AAS meeting’s fortuitous location in Washington by arranging for a special poster session showcasing our collaboration’s most glorious work. The idea is to present an overwhelming united phalanx (facilitated by matching mandatory Microsoft PowerPoint poster templates imposed upon all collaboration members) designed to impress not so much our fellow scientists—we’ve never done anything like this for any other conference—but specially invited representatives from the relevant funding agencies.

Anyway, the bottom line: tell me what you like or recommend in Washington, D.C.!



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Posted by Christian Y. Cardall to The Spinozist Mormon at 1/09/2006 03:29:00 PM