Best consumed by March 2, 2006

In a world where it’s popular to search for porn on our cell phones, one man will save us in 30 minutes or less. Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan plans to renew the vows of one piece of American property by investing approximately $403 million to build a town run on strict Catholic principles. What he won’t tell us in the fine print is his plan comes with the added topping of undermining our American ideals.

The town would be home to 35,000 people. Five thousand residents would be students at the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in 40 years while the rest would move there simply to be a part of a community with no pornography and no abortion clinics. The city will prevent the sale of pornography or construction of an abortion clinic through conditions in the lease agreements for those Americans that choose to build a home or business there.

Where is this heavenly city? Ave Maria, barely under construction, is located just 90 miles northwest of Miami. I am sure the planners thought this one through, but 90 miles from Miami seems like building an Amish settlement 30 feet from Silicon Valley. Do you really want to put your Vatican village right outside of the devil’s playground? Monaghan’s home state of Michigan denied him permission for such a city, but Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, signed off on Monaghan’s vision. In fact, officials laud the community and its city center, a 100-foot-tall private chapel, as a flourishing development.

Last time I checked, we were the land of the free. I must have missed the disclaimer that guaranteed the Bill of Rights only in selected cities or counties. The first American settlers thought it was important to separate church and state. Does that same ideal not require a separation of church and city? The whole idea of basing one city’s society on Catholic principles seems to contradict the American image.

Sure, the Mormons tried it in Salt Lake City, and, to some extent, maintained a society centered on Mormon principles. When bad seeds move into town, Salt Lake City still hasn’t made it illegal or impossible to betray Mormon laws through city regulations or zoning–and they can’t. If Salt Lake City cannot prevent non-Mormons from ruining the neighborhood, how can Ave Maria prevent non-Catholics from ruining their society?

By setting apart the city as a haven for Catholics and Catholic values, Monaghan may guarantee outsiders will feel uncomfortable invading his community. The lone Catholic bubble boy will be able to shelter its residents for years without disturbance.

Monaghan sees his city as a response to Islamic fundamentalism with its promise of a more “religiously dynamic west.”  He defends it as a reconstruction of a utopia in a country suffering from cultural collapse. Maybe Monaghan missed President George W. Bush’s speech where Bush said that in order to really show our perseverance in the face of tragedy, we should stick to our guns and not let it change our way of life. Maybe he skipped his history class that might have conveyed to him that the American way is not to shut our doors and abandon beliefs that made us Americans when we look for a solution. Maybe Monaghan hasn’t thought this one through yet in his own religious fervor.

Today, almost five years after one of our darkest hours, we should come together to promote everything that makes us American rather than crawl back into our respective affiliations. Perhaps this Catholic philanthropic endeavor is just an ill-conceived attempt to help the nation. It may help certain people feel closer to God or relieve a mother’s worry for her children’s innocence and safety. At the same time, it is all a mirage. Children who come out of that bubble will be like Brendan Frazer emerging from his bomb shelter in Blast from the Past.

Some civil rights groups have spoken up against the city and have threatened to take legal action against restrictions that undermine our Bill of Rights. Residents do choose to live in this city which is allowed by our Bill of Rights, but is moving to such a city in their best interest? While our society may be losing its principles, we should not bring them back by isolating ourselves in our respective fetal positions of religion. We bring this upon ourselves for the same reason we order a pizza after a hard day’s work–it’s easy. It’s easy for us to hide from our problems and shelter ourselves from the issues we face everyday. It’s not easy to return a pizza once the delivery guy is knocking on the door–unless you are a real jerk. Will it be easy to return our country?

Technorati tag: Monaghan, Dominos, AveMaria, Catholic, Florida.

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Maxie Rains was never fake. Brutal honesty–that was her policy. More than once, she upset a holiday gathering by saying what she was thinking regardless of how it would make others feel.

Walking around her garden in the backyard, Maxie and I would find grub worms among her prized plants and “put their lights out.” Brutal. When she received socks for Christmas, she didn’t feel the need to thank you or pretend they were the best socks she had ever owned; she simply set them aside and nodded to you as if you would get yours later. Brutal. If a visitor she disliked came over to her house, you were going to hear about it as soon as that person left the room or turned their back. Brutal. She kept binoculars on the coffee table right in front of her couch groove to grab when any suspicious or new characters entered the neighborhood. There was no hiding from Maxie. Brutal.

At the same time, Maxie had a softer side. She was like Sears–once you got past the hardware section, you stumbled upon the silk pajamas. She exchanged jokes with her closest friends, collected elephant figurines, and loved anything and everything about nature and animals–except grub worms and slugs. She watched out for her neighbors and bragged about her adopted grandkids–me included. She complimented others when she felt the need and always followed it with her signature, swift wink.

When lung cancer struck her, it was also brutal. Years of smoking caused her to deteriorate quickly, and, by February, doctors could do nothing more for her. In these moments before her death, Maxie became a fragment of her former self–flashes of silk and drill bits.

Despite her reputation for sometimes being bitter and cranky, Maxie inspired close to if not more than fifty people to sparsely fill the chapel at her funeral–sparsely, but she filled it. Even lacking some eloquence, she touched the lives of many. Brutal. She would have liked to be missed by few, but that is not the case.

The day of her funeral, the temperature dropped to below freezing with a miserable drizzle. Brutal. As the pallbearers removed her casket from the funeral home van at the cemetery, the baby carrier in my grandmother’s car, holding my nephew, fell back onto the steering wheel and blared the horn for more than a few seconds.

“Some people get a 21-gun salute,” the preacher said. Brutal. Maxie did always like to be the center of attention.

Nature is brutal and so was Maxie.

Technorati tag: cancer, maxierains, funeral, brutal, death.

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We are a scared nation. September 11, 2001 [note: link removed for http://www.september11news.com/ because it is now 403 Forbidden] trapped America in one tightly-watched nightmare. Many just want to forget about it, so we easily put it all on the shoulders of our president. When are we going to wake up, and what will the world be like when we finally do?

A radio show on my drive back to Austin discussed a news story about an outraged retired college professor. Homeland Security opened and inspected a letter to the professor from a friend in the Philippines. The government sealed the letter back with a congratulatory Homeland Security sticker before allowing it to be delivered, but the professor felt he was violated by the government. The radio host’s commentary shocked me when he said he would prefer that the government did these things without telling us. Claiming many former administrations exercised similar powers without our knowledge, the host argued we were better off not oblivious to such injustices unless they led to an arrest.

Wake up, America! President George W. Bush listens to our phone conversations, opens our mail and tracks our email. Current controversy about the legality of government phone taps is only part of the issue. Are we so unconcerned with our future freedoms that we will let President Bush do anything his administration desires?

It’s not a dream anymore. Terrorism took more than two towers; it took our privacy. If any suspicious American must be constantly monitored and watched to assess threats to the United States, haven’t the terrorists changed our way of life enough to put one in the win column? The tension, the fear, the high security and the hurt should lessen at some point in most engagements. When will it if President Bush keeps us all so tightly wound and secured?

We are outraged when protests discouraging freedom of speech break out in the Middle East–no welcome place for cartoonists–but we are not protesting as Bush strips our freedoms from all Americans. We have Big Brother for a president. It’s not 1984 yet, but we could soon be getting assigned numbers and tracking chips if we stay indifferent.

Someday, we will all come out of this dreamy state and want our lives of freedom back. Five years after 9-11, we need to stop living in fear and become productive citizens again. We need to stand tall and take back responsibility for our country.

Technorati tag: 9-11, 1984, Bush, privacy, freedom.

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