There he is on television, along with a gaggle of celebrity friends, urging me to vote. This is done mostly through t-shirts bearing the threatening slogan, but also through hip-hop music, which we all know is the magic key to young peoples’ minds.

Is this what the founding fathers had in mind? Political advice from a man who changes his name every two years, but still can’t manage to get rid of the word “Puff”?

Vote or die is right, I say. But only insofar as it’s taken to mean, “Don’t do both.” We have enough trouble with near-dead voters in Florida as it is. I know it’s Halloween and all, but we don’t need no senile zombie disenfranchisement.

Ah, but why do I make light in the face of such momentous events? Is because I can’t contribute anything worthwhile to the fair and flowing stream of thoughtful commentary on the presidential race? HA! Of course not. I have many arguments sitting right here beside my desk waiting to be thought out. _Right…over…here…_ (runs away with laptop under his arm).

I have once been chided for providing political observations in this space, and I do not intend to be chided again. It is boring, I was told. Boring boring boring.

Plus, really, there are three-hundred-and-seventy-two billion political writers out there already. There’s no need to add another drop to the already swollen waters.

Basically it breaks down like this: when the Jehova’s witnesses came to my door wanting to discuss abstinence and Jesus, I said no-thanks-I’m-Jewish and my-girlfriend-lives-here-though-she-might-want-to-talk. When the Cub Scouts (OK, just one, actually) came to my door wanting to sell me a holiday wreath, I said no-thanks-I’m-Jewish but the-neighbors-are-Lutheran-and-I-bet-they-want-one (I was later informed that wreaths are religion-spanning; news to me).

When a young, hip-looking man with a goatee came to my door asking for contributions to the __________ National Committee I said no thanks. That’s all, just no thanks.

I don’t find myself motivated to participate in nitty-gritties of the democratic process. Just like I don’t see much reason to play along with the whole Christmas decorations fundraiser racket. I figure, if I don’t buy a wreath, millions of other people will ensure that sufficient wreath buying does in fact take place. Christmas will go on without me (oh, sorry; The Holidays will go one without me).

Does this mean I spurn the glorious civic act of voting in favor of an apathetic know-nothing attitude? By all means, sort of! Well, no. I voted the first chance I got after I turned 18. I voted again in 2002. And I will vote again in ’04 (not sure how).

I treasure my vote, really. I would gladly purchase and wear one of Mr. Daddy’s ‘Vote or Die’ t-shirts (although I think ‘Vote and Die’ would be a lot funnier). But the last thing I want is for my vote to be a life or death matter. I want to be on the winning or losing side of a large margin. Something where my decision couldn’t possibly have made the difference.

And isn’t that the whole point of a democracy, after all? I mean, the nice thing about voting is that (at least in theory), your vote never makes _all_ the difference. It’s the distribution of individual responsibility. Otherwise we’d just have a random person choose every four years, and 7 out of 10 politicians would be WrestleMania stars. (By the way, have you seen Jesse Ventura lately?)

No one wants to go to the polls thinking that there’s going to be a 50-50 tie, and their vote will break it. And lord (the lord of ‘holiday’ wreaths) knows we wouldn’t be very comfortable if democracy worked that way.

Democracy provides shelter in the crowd. It makes difficult decisions anonymous and compromised. And that’s how it should be. It’s set up precisely so you aren’t faced with the choice between Vote or Die.

You can vote. You _should_ vote. But if for some reason you fail to get to the polls on election day, don’t go doing anything drastic.

Yom Kippur started last Friday evening, and I got off to a pretty good start; I went to services and thought long and hard about all the sins I had committed. Fortunately, the Torah has some tips for those people who aren’t predisposed to feeling bad about themselves. On Yom Kippur, the old book says, you must account even for those sins you committed unknowingly. “Trust me, you’ve been bad, I should know,” God says.

But not knowing about them make makes repenting for those sins a little hard; the most you can say is, “Um…sorry for all the bad stuff I didn’t know I was doing.” Or you can take some educated guesses: “Let me think…oh, I know! When I ordered General Tso’s Chicken at that bad Chinese place! That was a sin, right?”

It’s tricky. Almost anything can be a sin, if you think about it enough. And God wants you to say sorry for all of them, or else you’ll DIE! Well, maybe not die, but you might not get inscribed in the Book of Life, which seems like kind of a downer, at least.

At this time I’d like to point out that while I am Jewish, and I am vaguely qualified to talk about the importance and meaning of this holiday, this has not been and will continue not to be in any way an accurate or truthful description of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. If you are writing a term-paper on the subject and have arrived here via wild and thoughtless Googling, please turn around. I am joking. This is a better place to look.

So.

Friday was OK. I went home a little tired and pensive. “How can I be a better person?” I asked my girlfriend.

“What?” she said. “What are you talking about? Is that a joke?”

It was, sort of. But I couldn’t decide. She fell asleep and I lay awake thinking how I could improve. Most of my answers involved me doing something exciting and getting super-famous. Somehow I don’t think becoming a professional sky-diver is what God has in mind.

Saturday it was impossible to feel bad about yourself, or anything, for that matter. It was the most beautiful day so far this year (calendar year, not Jewish year). Cool, but not cold. Warm, but not hot. Sun and breeze and air so sweet you wanted to run with your mouth open (but only if you could cover your mouth with bug-netting first).

I tried hard to be solemn, but the weather was uncooperative. So I just gave up and decided to be happy. “If this is a sin,” I thought, “I don’t know about it.”

Fasting was no big deal, as usual. When people hear that I’m fasting they always seem shocked. They ask if I’m really not going to eat all day. But not eating for a day is like not going to the bathroom for a day; it’s easy if you just forget about it. In college there were times when I wouldn’t eat for more than a day and not even realize it. That had more to do with being on a 10-meal-a-week meal plan than religion, but still.

Evening came, and I went with my family to the Jewish student center, Hillel, where we always go for services. It’s not really a synagogue; it’s much smaller and less formal, but I’ve always felt comfortable there. The only bad thing is that it’s on the University of Minnesota campus. Actually, it’s right on fraternity row.

The fraternity brothers weren’t feeling too bad about themselves, as far as I could see. Then again, maybe they were actually repenting for their sins while at the same time having a few beers with bikini-clad co-eds in the hot tub on the fraternity lawn. It’s possible. People talk to God in many different ways.

But probably not in that way. It must’ve been homecoming, or awaycoming, or just a football game, or maybe just Saturday, because the -farts- frats were filled with people. It seemed like all of them were having parties. And the one next to Hillel was definitely having a party. The hot-tub was well-stocked with water, alcohol, and people of opposite sexes. Also they had loud music. Such loud music.

On the way in, I thought, “Oh, ha, that’s funny. Bet it won’t be a problem once inside, though.”

Once inside, I thought, “Oh, ha, that’s funny.”

It was a problem. Even with the windows closed tight and the blinds down, the bass-thumping was easily discernible. While I couldn’t pin down the songs, I could clearly pick out the genre. For example, during the first Amidah (The Great Prayer), I am certain they were rocking some East Coast shizznit. Perhaps Jay-Z or Puffy. Then, during the Neilah, it was pretty obvious Slim Shady was up in that mug. Well, not Slim himself, but one of his albums.

Yom Kippur prayers, despite the recent modifications by the reform movement, are not known for having much low-end. You can chant Neilah pretty loud, if you try, but you just can’t get it to bump. Y’know?

So it was tough. During the communal prayers when everyone was singing you could sort of forget the party next door (or at least try to pray in time with Biggy, or whoever). But when it was just the rabbi talking or the cantor sounding a few high, lonesome notes, it wasn’t much of a contest.

By the end of the service, I was pretty ready to get out of there; I hadn’t eaten all day, I’d been standing up and praying for the last half-hour, and I kept having to resist the urge to shake my thang. So as the last prayer concluded, I was pleased to see a nice young woman going up to the front of the room, shofar in hand, ready to mark the end of the beginning of the new year (see here if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Somehow, the merry-makers outside found a moment of peace; the music went silent and, briefly, the random moronic yelling ceased. The ba’al tokea (person who blows the shofar) took a deep breath and then let out a long, impressive blast of ram’s-horn-sound. It lasted almost a minute, and it ended in the traditional way, with an abrupt, shrill note.

We were all pleased. “This will be a good year,” I thought. “I will work hard to be a better person.” If only God could give me a sign, something to show me that my sins had been atoned for, that I was on the right track…

And then from outside came a tremendous sound. It rumbled and thundered in an awesome way. There was no doubting it. It was unmistakeable.

It was the Dave Mathews Band.

Come to think of it, this isn’t the first time an oppressive regime of schoolchildren has been targeted by militants; it happens in Israel all the time. Hamas and other Palestinian groups regularly attack targets, like city buses, where young kids can be found. Again, we can all agree that an attack of this sort – in which the suicide bombers’ belts are often packed with nails and ball bearings – are outright atrocities. But the long suffering of Palestinians at the hands of little Israelis under the age of 14 gives us a window into those suicide bomber’s minds. Years of humiliation at the (diminutive) hands of Israeli 10-year-old border guards, countless hours standing in line for work permits that Israeli school-children don’t even need, and of course the destruction of scores of peaceful homes (OK, maybe a few were bomb-factories) by unfeeling 6-year-olds driving gigantic bulldozers – is there any doubt that all this has contributed to a culture of hatred and violence?

Terrorists around the world have had enough; they’re tired of wasting precious time and ball bearings on misguided targets. It’s children – oil-grubbing, capitalism-spreading, virtue-corrupting children – who are the real source of their problems. In Israel and Chechnya: children. In Iraq and Indonesia: children. Spain, Turkey, and Bali: children again.

Of course, it’s contrary to public opinion to treat the little ones as legitimate military targets. But the terrorists are up against a vast propaganda machine; a sprawling conspiracy of misinformation meant to warp the minds of the world in favor of children. In the media (especially the western media) they are made out to be a peace-loving, innocent bunch. But, the terrorists argue, this is not an accurate depiction of reality. On the streets of Palestine, Chechnya and Iraq there is suffering so great, humiliation so deep that some feel their only recourse is to strike back – through deliberate, targeted attacks – at the ones who have caused them so much pain: school-children.

Let us all denounce this unacceptable means of protest. There is no place in the civilized world for kid-killing. But let us at the same time send a strong message to children in powerful countries; your foreign policies are breeding hatred in the streets, and if you don’t do something to change that, it won’t be long before every school in Israel, Russia, Iraq, Spain, Turkey, France, England, Argentina, Germany, and the United States is a target for terrorism.

Let’s just hope it’s not too late.

If you are Jewish, as I am, at some point in your life someone will decide it\’s a good idea for you to go to Jewish camp. It\’s like the chicken pox, if you\’re lucky, it will happen to you as a child. If it gets you later in life, the results are sure to be much worse.

I was lucky, if you want to call it that, because my parents sent me to Jewish camp when I was nine. Camp Butwin was a summer destination of little distinction; more like a glorified motel than a full-fledged camp. It had a tiny, tattered swimming pool, a wobbly pontoon boat, and one horse.

Or two horses, I can\’t remember. Either way they were, G\’d bless them, low-quality horses. I only hope no one ever describes me that way.

But I went there happily, along with my sister, blissfully ignorant of the camp\’s failings. In fact, its deficiencies only stand out in retrospect. At the time, the most important thing was that it was better than the one we\’d gone to the summer before; a YMCA day camp where we had to recite The Lord\’s Prayer before meals (the only other thing I remember from that camp was a song called, approximately, \”Jesus planted an apple seed\” which seemed to have had something to do with Johnny Appleseed).

Compared to that Butwin was a step up. But it was still a day camp, which meant we reached it via a daily two-hour bus ride. That was tough at first, since it meant we had to do even more of what we hated doing during the school year; getting up early and sticking to those sweltering green vinyl bench seats. But it got easier as time went by, especially after I fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful blonde deaf girl, and had something to look forward to.

Here I begin to speculate, but I think it\’s safe to say my sister also found someone at camp to look forward to. A fellow camper, a counselor, a lifeguard. At that age and in those circumstances, finding someone to have a crush on is like finding a cartoon show to watch; anything\’s fine if you just stare enough.

Anyway, between my daydreams about the dog my future wife & I would have (and how we\’d teach him sign-language), and Debbie\’s CPR-rescue fantasies, the morning rides went fast. The rides homes were usually spent napping in the orange afternoon sunlight, our heads propped against the jittery windows.

Now, Butwin being a summer camp, we were encouraged to drink plenty of water throughout the day. I complied, perhaps hoping to impress my secret sweetheart with my un-rebelliousness. Unfortunately, all that water-drinking and showing off meant I was busy right up until the moment the buses left. And that left no time for a quick trip to the motel restroom, the bushes or even the swimming pool (oh come on, it was summer camp, everyone did it, right?).

I distinctly remember walking up those tall stairs, looking at the big-bellied bus driver, and realizing the vehicle he commanded wouldn\’t be making any potty-stops for two hours. My bladder lurched at the thought of it. All that bouncing…the vinyl seats…the three-to-a-bench rule!

Already thinking ahead (talk about quick under pressure), I forced my way to the very back seat, next to the emergency exit. Normally reserved for bullies, this was the only single seat on the bus.

Then, I did the full-bladder salute: I crossed my legs tightly, folded my arms across my chest, and rocked forward and back. Fortunately, I could pass this off as bobbing in rhythm to the songs the kids were singing (mostly \”Summer Nights\” from Grease, and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen).

How many hours do you think that worked for? Two? If you guessed two, you are wrong. Have you never done the full-bladder salute?

After an hour and a half, it became clear that my heroic urination suppression effort was going to fail. By that time, there were no kids sitting in my immediate area; my sister sat a few rows ahead of me. Lucky her.

I quickly switched into damage control mode and assessed my resources. I had an empty water bottle and a beach towel. That was good, but I needed more.

\”Debbie,\” I whispered, \”give me your towel.\”

\”No. Why?\” she replied.

Must think quickly.

\”My…seat…is wet,\” I said. Oh, good one.

\”Huh?\”

But it was too late to explain. The small mouth of the water bottle proved a difficult target, and the vinyl seating was much more splash prone than I\’d expected. Sensing that my, uh, difficulties would be audible in the now-quiet bus, I jerked the towel out of my backpack and made myself a little skirt.

A wet, warm little skirt.

By the time we reached our stop, the skirt had ceased absorption, and a small puddle now wandered beneath the seats, subject to the bumps and turns of the bus. When we got off, I left the towel behind, and was careful not to make eye contact with the bus driver.

My mom asked why my trunks were wet, and I said, “Swimming,” which was half-true. At least, it didn\’t seem to bother her.

“Anything interesting happen at camp today?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” I said. “Went horse-back riding, lost my towel, impressed a girl.\”

“Really?” she said.

“Yup.”

“That’s great!” she said. “What’s in the water bottle?”

There are also Christians (many more of them, I think) who, in the same circumstances, have asked the same question as a joke, and then wiped the tire iron on their pants.

Christianity, it turns out, is not the same as the AAA. Jesus may be the one who will judge us all when the day of reckoning comes, but he will not change your flat tire.

\”Saved!\”, a new film directed by Brian Dannelly, sets out to make that point, and to draw the distinction between the tire-changing Christians and those waiting for Jesus to come along in a tow-truck.

Saved! is a teen movie on religious crack. If you thought American Pie pushed boundaries by bringing alcohol, sex, and obscenity to the teen movie genre, Saved! will shock you in reverse. It takes on a subject even American Pie wouldn\’t touch. Worse than pastry-assisted masturbation, worse than \”One time, at band camp,\” this movie talks about religion.

Jena Malone plays Mary, a born-again (and again and again) Christian teen going into her last year of high school. When she finds out her boyfriend Dean (Chad Faust) is gay, she concludes her Christian duty is to fix him with a one-time shot of sex.

Not exactly what Jesus would do, but hey, whatever works.

Except it doesn\’t work. A few months later Dean is still broken and Mary is in a fix of the Planned Parenthood nature. As the school year goes on Mary\’s growing belly brings her a new skepticism about religion that clashes with her best friend Hilary Faye\’s saucer-eyed \”J.C.\” devotion.

Hillary Faye, played believably by Mandy Moore, is the movie\’s obvious antagonist. She knows the right words (\”I\’m just glad we have the body of Christ with us today\”) but not what they mean. For her, it\’s not WWJD?, but WWHFWJTD (What Would Hilary Faye Want Jesus to Do?).

Throw in Macauly Caulkin as Hilary-Fay\’s wheelchair-bound brother, and Heather Matarazzo as Tia, the school rebel (who happens to be Jewish), and American Pie starts looking tame by comparison.

Saved!, for the most part, is a very funny movie about the dangers of religious excess. It\’s less funny when, late in the film, everything stops for a \”climactic moment\” (a preachy, cheesy speech) where the message (the one you understood right away) is spelled out. The plot also suffers from having to move the audience through the nine months of the school year/pregnancy; there are times (like when we jump-cut from Christmas to Easter) when it feels like a scene has been cut out.

When it stays off the religious soapbox, Saved! is a pretty entertaining, twisted teen movie. And despite all the jokes at Jesus\’ expense, it struck me as pro-Christian and pro-religious. Along with co-criter Michael Urban, Dannelly has given the story an air of self-deprecation, not of cynicism or worse, disgust.

This movie won\’t get any Christian fundamentalists to pass out condoms before prom, and like Mary\’s one-time shot of sex, it\’s probably not going to fix anything. But it does provide a rare shot of humor into the otherwise drab religious conversation.

Luckily, my family long ago abandoned that ritual. We now eat indoors, at the table, in a clean and pleasant environment.

Or, we did, until this year. That\’s because my mom\’s house – where we normally celebrate – is under heavy construction. Where walls once were, there are now foam panels. And all the furniture that was once against those walls has been moved to other places in the house. Like the dining room.

So we will be indoors, and we will be at the table, but I don\’t how pleasant or clean it will be.

We thought about having Passover at my house this year (I even offered to cook), but my mom wouldn\’t have it. she said it would be more trouble to cook everything at her house and then bring it over. Note that she never even considered the possibility of letting me cook.

I am a bad cook. She knows that.

If you don\’t know, or don\’t remember (it\’s OK, I forget sometimes too), Passover is where we celebrate the Exodus from Egypt, an event of dubious historical authenticity that may or may not have happened thousands of years ago.

For a week, we don\’t eat bread with leavening, because in their flight from Egypt, the Israelites had no time to let the bread rise. Hence matzoh; the Saltine without salt.

By the way, they were Israelites. They weren\’t Jews yet. That would come later, after a few decades wandering in the desert, half starved and crazy from the matzoh. \”Crazy from the Matzoh\” … sounds like a Beastie Boys song.

So we\’re scheduled for tonight at my mom\’s house, the whole family, girlfriends and boyfriends included. No word yet on where we will sit, or if the electricity will be working. But one thing\’s for sure, there will be joy and elation, because we were once slaves in Egypt, and now we are free. Take that, Pharaoh.

The reporter (Steve Inskeep) said the attacks had caused much anger, and that some religious leaders were calling for Iraqi solidarity against terror. But much of the response, predictably, was directed towards the Americans, for allowing the attack to take place. Since the U.S. is the occupying power, the argument goes, it should be responsible for the security of the people of Iraq.

While I think this argument has some value – it\’s important to scrutinize U.S. security strategy – I am, as usual, surprised at the lack of outrage against the actual terrorists who hit the \”kill innocent worshippers\” button on their bomb belts. The criticism directed at the terrorists often seems half-hearted, mechanical.

But if you\’re trying to shift blame around, it\’s good to distribute it as much as possible, as the reporter\’s next example showed. The piece ended with a reaction that was said to be fairly representative of the mood there. It was from a street-preacher.

Now, I don\’t know how much trust the average Iraqi puts in a street-preacher. I trust street-preachers (there are a few here on campus) about as much as I trust street-doctors. I\’ll listen, as long they don\’t touch me.

Either way, the man\’s comments are telling: the Iraqis, he says, are fed up with terrorism, the Americans, Jews and Zionists.

The first one, I understand. Me too.

The second one, well, OK, the Americans do get a little pushy sometimes. And maybe we could be doing a better job on security.

But the Jews and Zionists thing?

Whaaaaa?

What did Jews and Zionists have to do with the bombings on Tuesday? Did a Jew detonate the bomb? Did a Zionist plan the attack?

Last I heard it was MUSLIMS who did both of those things. To other Muslims.

Or maybe this guy was thinking of the Vast Jewish Global Conspiracy? You know, the one that can make the U.S. invade Iraq but can\’t seem to put an end to suicide-bombings in Tel-Aviv.

Speaking of Them, what\’s with all these parking tickets I\’ve been getting? I\’m worried my license is going to be revoked.

Sheesh. What good is a vast conspiracy if you can\’t even drive to the meetings?

On the other hand, Bill Safire doesn\’t like Mel Gibson, so I guess that evens things out.

Oh I know, I \’ve heard people say that nobody, NO BODY, will leave the theater without having had a strong emotional response. But just \’cause they say it don\’t make it so, and I\’ve had similar experiences with other films (see my yet unwritten post about how everyone peed their pants about \”The Lord of The Rings,\” and when I finally went to see it I just felt sleepy).

This review by David Denby in The New Yorker gives me a pretty good impression of what the film is like.

It\’s bloody. Just like \”The Patriot\” and \”Braveheart\” before it. In a way, I guess, it\’s a logical progression. \”The Patriot\” was just \”Braveheart II\” with the men wearing wigs instead of skirts.

And \”The Passion\” sounds like it\’s going to be \”Braveheart III\” with the men wearing robes instead of skirts.

So, basically, Mel Gibson\’s movies have a marked tendency towards blurring gender lines and extreme violence.

And remember that scene in \”Braveheart\” where the whole hard-scrabble army, with Gibson at the fore, turns and moons the evil English? Maybe there\’s a scene like that in this film. I can\’t even bring myself to describe what it would be like.

But I don\’t think you can count on moving audiences by just showing them Jesus and the apostles mooning the Romans. And I don\’t think you can really shock people by showing them a bunch of blood and dismemberment. This stuff is not news to us. We have seen it before.

And if \”The Passion\” ends up being more about the violence of the crucifixion than Jesus himself, it may still be a good movie, but it won\’t be that big of a deal.
Unless they put Jesus in a kilt … now that\’s real cinema.

I\’m telling you, man, kilts!