WCS 45: One nation, way too into God

w/: FDA meets MDMA + Simone's confessional + the final Kendrick-Drake item

As a pre-teen I was a fervent evangelical Christian. Cannabis entered my life in middle school. Soon after, I began to understand that humanity’s ideas about God are distorted by our experience here on Earth. Man liked to be worshipped, so he made and popularized a story-guidebook about him.

In high school, the idea that too much religion is bad for you tattooed itself on my brain. May all of you be similarly tattooed, and soon.

We talk about election religiosity around its fringes, but the most under-reported story of this unprecedented election cycle remains the power of the Christian Right, a voting bloc so hopped up on prophecy that its members convinced themselves that the most baldly evil person ever platformed is our species’ ticket to salvation.

America’s religious conservatives are an enormous collection of voters, organized over decades by hucksters and hypocrites and—let’s be real—some Americans acting in good faith. We need to talk about the ramifications of Christian conservatives’ behavior even more than we do.

You may need to talk to your mom.

Maybe our moment is the climax of anti-intellectual living in The West. One could think that’s the case upon hearing about churches that turn on parishioners for not supporting their “vessel of God,” as conservative writer David French saw happen to him.

The Christian lobby’s monstrous influence on Israel’s land policies definitely feels like the end of… something.

Okay, let’s focus: When’s the last time you saw a protagonist in a big-budget American movie pray? Where’s the representation?

Almost as much as racial animus has been underplayed in popular storytelling, the role of belief as an animating element in the lives of those around you has been given short shrift. Should November’s elections turn as I think they will—see below—let’s use the opportunity to tell mainstream stories that show the true face of religiosity.

For now though? Let’s consume the news.

10 Park Fire arsonist is a whole POS

Last week super-drunk Chico Man Ronnie Stout, 42, pushed a burning car into a dry, Upper Bidwell Park ravine. The resulting conflagration has burned an area 12 times the size of San Francisco.

Park Fire Arsonist Arrested In California. Oregon Begs Feds For Help. 2 Aviation Fatalities In CA.

The Park Fire is now the fifth biggest in state history.
Chico Enterprise-Record / Hot Shot Wake-up

• More than 500 structures have been destroyed and thousands of people are displaced.

• Superior Court Judge Kristen Lucena has charged Stout with malicious and willful arson.

• Police arrested Stout early the following morning, at his mother’s trailer park home. Stout, who has a conviction for forcing a 12-year-old girl to fellate him, was legally drunk when they found him.

Lil Hits

• Last week US college athletes were awarded $2.78 billion in anti-trust damages. Now that they’ll be paid, big questions lay ahead for the Olympic movement.
  Associated Press

• Most of the usual West Coast suspects are on this list of the planet’s top weed- consuming municipalities. Except for Portland, which got robbed.
  Earth

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Kamala Harris got in position to run the world because great things happen in Oakland. This audio event, for example, popped off last night. Here are many of this great Amazon show’s non-verbal sounds. Just not on vinyl.

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9 Who will get out the vote for the GOP?

The most arresting new idea I’ve heard emerge from the Presidential election campaign came from a rhetoric professor who was speaking on WNYC. (Apologies for forgetting their name). This prof pointed out that Trump has the ability to make reporters carry out his messaging, even though they mainly disapprove of him.

Forty-five has a gift for framing and re-framing conversation. What he doesn’t say is what matters. And the former President is not talking about his campaign’s sketchy ground game plan for battleground states.
Washington Monthly