ash wednesday, and the news is pretty bad. alan greenspan thinks the right way to deal with our budget deficit is to cut social security. mel gibson's anti-semitic trashfest arrived in theatres at midnight. president bush is "keeping faith" with his conservative base by attempting to institutionalize discrimination based on sexual orientation.

it all seems a little overwhelming, and very prideful, and i can't help thinking that if bush or gibson, for example, were really thinking about the meaning of ash wednesday (and consequently the meaning of lent), he could not continue to act or speak in such ways. greenspan, perhaps, is another matter. rather than blustering about religion and morality, he has couched his argument in arid economic terms. nevertheless, it's difficult not to see a person who asks the elderly and unfortunate to pay for excesses of corporate and military might as something less than a paragon of virtue.

are bush and gibson giving anything up for lent? if they are, do they know why? i have always understood this season as one of repentance, humility and identification with suffering. i don't eat sweets in lent, largely because it keeps me mindful. (what can i say -- i really like sweets. not having any requires a conscious effort at least a couple of times a day.) my uncharitable mind sees bush foregoing the candy in the interests of a trim waistline, and gibson cutting out dessert just because he's supposed to, and both of them feeling very smug indeed.