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A few years ago, while pleading poverty on many other things, the Ohio State University (OSU) found money for a massive renovation of Ohio Stadium. They added club seats and luxury skyboxes. Gone were the Stadium Dormitory, which once provided non-luxury accommodations for scholarship students, and the stadium’s track, where OSU alumnus Jesse Owens had once competed. Total seating capacity increased by almost 20,000. Construction took more than a year and cost almost $200 million, or roughly $10,000 per additional seat.

The stadium renovation was controversial at the time, because there are so many other things that could have been done with that much money. For example, you could pay for a single day of the war in Iraq.

Maybe the Bush Administration can learn from OSU, which sells “naming rights” to parts of the stadium and other facilities. Just think of the branding potential — every day, on every network, in every newspaper, we would hear reports like this:

Today in the Halliburton War in Iraq, dozens of Iraqi civilians were killed when a terrorist truck bomb exploded just blocks from the Hilton Hotels Green Zone. Meanwhile, sectarian violence raged in a village just north of ExxonMobil Baghdad.

You can’t buy that kind of blanket exposure — at least, not until the Administration starts auctioning naming rights. Don’t you suppose someone would pay a pretty penny to own the raid that killed terrorist al-Zarqawi? How does “the Microsoft airstrike on Zarqawi” sound? Ka-ching!

Of course, when it comes to real money, OSU and its piddling $200 million just isn’t in the game. Warren Buffett recently pledged $31 billion to charity through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With that much money, he could have bought five whole months of war — enough to stretch from the unsuccessful AT&T Regime Decapitation Airstrike of March 20, 2003 to the Lockheed-Martin “Mission Accomplished” photo-op of May 1, 2003, with more than three months to spare.

Instead, Buffett decided to spend it fighting poverty, ignorance, starvation and disease. That’s all well and good, I suppose, but where’s the zazz? Where’s the earth-shattering Kaboom?

Bush and Cheney have different priorities. Forget poverty, ignorance, starvation and disease. Expect no shortage of earth-shattering Kabooms.

The world is very complicated. There are bad things happening all the time. But there are good things happening all the time, too. Sometimes bad things come disguised as good things. Sometimes good things look like bad things. It’s tempting to see only the things you want to see, or only the things you expect to see, and thus to deceive yourself.

The New York Times periodically reviews progress in Iraq by looking at the numbers on the ground. The results, like reality, may seem contradictory, giving cause for hope, and cause for hopelessness. Here is the latest update on The State of Iraq. The chart pops up in a separate window, and covers a number of metrics from May 2003 to May 2006. The economy seems to be growing. So is violence, particularly against civilians. As the authors note:

it is increasingly hard to describe Iraq as a glass half-full.

No wonder some of us prefer virtual reality to actual reality.

Rev. Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics, tells how to recognize members of Congress among the many people on Capitol Hill: they’re the ones holding a wet finger in the air, testing which way the wind is blowing.

The great practitioners of real social change, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, understood something very important. They knew that you don’t change a society by merely replacing one wet-fingered politician with another. You change a society by changing the wind.

Wallis says that shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, King went to the White House to urge President Lyndon Johnson to take the next step, a voting rights act that was essential for real change. Johnson told King he had used up all his political capital to pass the Civil Rights Act, and it would be years before a voting rights law could be passed.

King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began organizing — in a sleeply little town nobody had ever heard of, called Selma, Alabama.

On one fateful day, King and the SCLC leaders marched right across the Edmond Pettis Bridge, alongside the people of Selma, to face the notorious Sherriff Jim Clark and his virtual army of angry white police. On what would be called Bloody Sunday, a young man (and now congressman from Atlanta) named John Lewis was beaten almost to death, and many others were injured or jailed.

Two weeks later, in response to that brutal event, hundreds of clergy from all across the nation and from every denomination came to Selma and joined in the Selma to Montgomery march….

The whole nation was watching. The eyes of America were focused on Selma, as they had been on Birmingham before the civil rights law was passed. And after the historic Selma to Montgomery march for freedom, it took only five months, not five or ten years, to pass a new voting rights act: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King had changed the wind.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson writes about a moment of clarity in Washington:

Once in a while the fog machine that’s kept on “high” around here to obscure everyone’s real intentions breaks down. There’s always a mad rush to crank it up again, but for the briefest moment we can see our elected representatives for what they really are, not what they pretend to be. Wednesday we had one of those rare high-definition moments, when the House Republican caucus defied its leaders and refused to back renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

That tells you about all you need to know, doesn’t it?

…

The renewal probably could have won easy approval on the House floor, since Democrats would have voted for it, but Hastert’s policy is to not bring out any bill that lacks majority support from Republicans, so he had no choice but to yank it.

So much for the erstwhile “party of Lincoln.”

Sometimes you may need to change the wind. But there are other times when all that’s needed is to throw the bums out. This, clearly, is one of those times.

Nobody plays The Game quite like Bush political advisor Karl Rove. He plays for keeps. The lives of Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers are only pawns in Rove’s game.

Officials at the White House say they had always planned to use the formation of a new, permanent Iraqi government as a lever to seize control of a debate that had been slipping away from them. The killing of the top terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, provided another useful lift. And, they said, Democratic calls for speedy troop withdrawal provided an opening for them to use a “cut and run” argument against Democrats, which Mr. Rove used last week in a speech in New Hampshire.

Apparently, there are some people in Washington who think that war is not a game. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, like Rove a Republican, said this on the Senate floor:

There is no issue more important than war. The war in Iraq is the defining issue on which the leadership of this Congress and this Administration will be judged. The American people will demand a serious debate about serious issues from serious leaders. They deserve more than a political debate. This debate should transcend cynical attempts to turn public frustration with the war in Iraq into an electoral advantage, and it should be taken more seriously than to simply retreat to focus-group tested buzzwords and phrases like “cut and run.” Catchy political slogans debase the seriousness of war.

Of course, unlike Rove, Hagel is a veteran. Those folks always seem to take war and casualties pretty seriously. They get all worked up when U.S. soldiers are used as pawns. With that kind of attitude, how do they ever expect to play The Game?

From Tuesday night’s episode of Frontline, here’s Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s bin Laden team:

The test of an intelligence officer is not so much the ability to accumulate information; it’s to judge between different pieces of information. There is what you could call “intelligence information” available to prove almost any case you wanted to prove, if you were a non-discerning intelligence amateur.

The Bush Administration continually starts with the conclusions and then carefully picks facts to support those conclusions. That might be a good way to win an argument, but it’s a terrible way to fight a war. They may not have much respect for “the reality-based community,” but in real life-and-death struggles, reality keeps trumping fantasy, and real people pay with their lives.

Back in 2000, presidential candidate George W. Bush needed to pick a running mate. He asked Dick Cheney to look over all the prospective candidates for vice-president and get back to him.

Mr. Cheney labored long and hard over the assignment, then reported the results of his intensive search to George: “I’m the guy. Big time.”

George agreed readily, thinking “Gee, that was easy.” If Mr. Cheney knew anything, he knew that George likes stuff easy.

And it came to pass that George came to be called President, and Mr. Cheney came to be called Vice-President. And Mr. Cheney continued to work hard to keep stuff easy for George, becoming a sort of co-president.

Tonight on PBS, Frontline examines Cheney’s role in the role on terror, the war in Iraq, and beyond.

There’s so much garbage on television that it’s tempting to think television is nothing but garbage. But Frontline is consistently superb. My DVR is programmed to automatically record every episode. Sometimes I’ll read the summary of an episode and be tempted to erase it without watching it. But I don’t think there’s been a single episode of Frontline that wasn’t well worth watching. It’s true educational programming, because I learn something every time I watch it.

Many stations run Frontline more than once. If you miss it tonight, see if there’s a repeat showing on your local station. If you have a high-speed internet connection, you may be able to watch this program and other programs online at the Frontline website.

(Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the link to this episode.)

While I stood in line waiting to vote in November 2004, I overheard two poll workers puzzling over why there weren’t as many voting machines for this high-turnout presidential election as there had been two years earlier for the low-turnout midterm election. “Probably because the turnout was so low for the midterms,” one said. He thought there was an innocent explanation. So did I.

The truth was not so innocent. Elections in Ohio were run by Ken Blackwell, the Secretary of State and co-chair of the Bush campaign in Ohio. He was determined to keep Bush in power by hook or by crook, and one way to do that was to make it hard for Democrats to vote. Throughout Ohio, there were shortages of voting machines in Democratic-leaning precincts.

I thought about Blackwell when the telephone woke me up this morning.

The caller said he was from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The DCCC is raising money to win back Congress from the Republicans. Just a couple months ago, I made what, for me, was a large contribution. I told the caller that I’d already made a contribution, and couldn’t give any more right now. He renewed his spiel, and again I said I couldn’t give anything now. Once again he started to tell me how important this election would be. I said, “OK, that’s it,” and hung up.

Those campaign solicitors can be relentlessly pushy. Because I’ve made some significant donations, in the past most callers have been very polite to me, unlike today’s caller. You don’t annoy your friends. I was annoyed. I found myself wishing I’d said, “Put me on your do-not-call list. I don’t want any more calls like this.”

And that’s when I thought about Ken Blackwell.

Political contributions are a matter of public record. If you know where to look, anyone can find out how much I’ve given to particular campaigns and organizations. I checked my caller ID, which said “Unknown call.” Last time the DCCC had called me, it said “Democratic Cong.”

Maybe some Republicans are trying to poison the well, purposely annoying people who have contributed to Democratic causes in the past, and pinning the blame on those same Democratic causes.

I could be wrong. Democratic fundraisers are certainly capable of being overly pushy. Caller ID doesn’t always work. Maybe I’m just paranoid. But given the shady way the past two elections turned out, I’m no longer inclined to accept the innocent explanation. A little paranoia feels just about right.

Consumer tip: Don’t assume a caller soliciting a political donation is who he claims to be.

Another consumer tip: Don’t give your credit card information to anyone who called you, unless you know the caller personally. Even with caller ID, you can’t be certain that the caller is who he claims to be. For political donations, ask to be mailed a pledge form. Anyone who won’t mail you a form doesn’t get your money.

Deep down, I’m a very old-fashioned person, and I’m not comfortable taking joy from the death of a fellow human being. But for this guy I can make an exception.

By the way, according to some informal back-of-the-envelope figgerin’, this unofficially marks the 710^th turning point in the Iraq War. Only four more turning points, and the war’s turning point count will be tied with Babe Ruth’s home run record. The war is on a pace to pass Hank Aaron’s amazing 755 homers later this year.

(It has been pointed out to me that turning points in the Iraq War have absolutely nothing in common with baseball home run records. That’s true. I would just note that every home run has three turning points, and ends up right where it started.)

Cartoonist Mark Fiore says core values training shouldn’t be limited to the military.

There’s a lot of hype about today being 6/6/06. Scary, huh?

Might be a good time to remember this:

Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.

That’s right. We should have been all frantic and paranoid last Thursday, and we missed it! Dang!

At the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, after he introduced the band who had come from all around the world to perform for free, George Harrison stopped suddenly and shouted, “We’ve forgotten Billy Preston!”

No, we haven’t. In 2004 I saw Eric Clapton in concert. The keyboard player looked like a middle-aged minister, but man, could he play. Midway through the show, Clapton introduced his band, and the crowd let out a roar when he came to the great Billy Preston.

I was sorry to hear that Billy Preston died today, and that he had been in a coma since November.

I saw Preston in concert early in the 1970s. At that time, I wouldn’t stand up and clap my hands to the music at a concert. I wouldn’t sing along. But somehow, Billy Preston got me on my feet, clapping my hands and singing along to “That’s the Way God Planned It,” and I’ve never been quite the same since.

He sure could dance. I think you had to see him in person to understand just how amazing his dancing was. In the film of Concert for Bangladesh, the cameramen lost track of Billy when he stepped out from behind the keyboards during “That’s the Way God Planned It.” You can hear the crowd roar, but the cameras miss almost all of Billy’s amazing footwork.

I saw him again in 1976, at a Rolling Stones concert, where he sang one of his own songs and danced across the stage to the cheers of the stadium-sized crowd. At one point he went to the side of the stage and pulled out someone to dance alongside him. I felt sorry for the poor victim, who seemed awkward and fumbling next to Preston’s fancy footwork. It took a moment to recognize the poor victim was Mick Jagger.

I’m going to be playing a lot of Billy Preston songs tonight.

From last night’s NewsHour on PBS, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla talked with economics reporter Paul Solman about global warming and the choice of doing nothing:

Khosla: I won’t contend that I can prove with 100% certainty, but 98% of the scientists, maybe more, believe that we have a serious climate problem. … You can’t prove that your house is gonna burn down.

Solman: No, I don’t think my house is gonna burn down.

Khosla: No, you don’t. But you still pay — every year, year after year — your insurance premiums, to make sure, just in case. Are we willing to take that kind of risk at the planetary level, for earth, and not buy any insurance?

The PBS program Frontline recently observed 25 years of AIDS by airing a 2-part, 4-hour program on the subject. Very enlightening. I especially liked this, from Rev. W. Franklin Richardson of Grace Baptist Church, about churches that turned their backs on AIDS and AIDS sufferers:

“Bad Bible” is what I called it. We used to do Bad Bible, and make HIV some kind of plague that God had sent upon homosexuals. It was a terrible time for the church.

In his book God’s Politics, Jim Wallis tells how he and several fellow seminary students “scoured the Old and New Testaments for every single reference to poor people, to wealth and poverty, to injustice and opression, and to what the response to all those subjects was to be for the people of God.” They found thousands of verses.

After we completed our study, we all sat in a circle to discuss how the subject had been treated in the various churches in which we had grown up. Astoundingly, but also tellingly, not one of us could remember even one sermon on the poor from the pulpit of our home churches. In the Bible, the poor were everywhere; yet the subject was not to be found in our churches.

Then we decided to try what became a famous experiment. One member of our group took an old Bible and a new pair of scissors and began the long process of literally cutting out every single biblical text about the poor. It took him a long time.

…

When the zealous seminarian was done with all his editorial cuts, that old Bible would hardly hold together, it was so sliced up. It was literally falling apart in our hands. What we had done was to create a Bible full of holes.

I began taking that damaged and fragile Bible out with me when I preached. I’d hold it up high above American congregations and say, “Brothers and sisters, this is our American Bible; it is full of holes.”

It seems to me there’s a lot of Bad Bible going around these days, and the proponents of Bad Bible seem awfully quick to call down condemnation on those who resist.

Susan B. Anthony was onto something:

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

Cartoonist Marc Fiore brings us the Ethics Liquidators Congressional Sale-a-bration! How do we keep our prices so low, and corruption so high? Volume!

Too busy to read? From email, here are four books that won’t cut into your busy schedule.