The Society of Serpents and Doves

Now on my IPOD

2006-07-08T22:21:00.000-04:00

I have a playlist for Crooners. I suppose this explains why I am so hopelessly unhip, straight, and why I feel born a few decades (or centuries?) too late.

The Girl from Ipanema (Astrud Gilberto)--I am still trying to get my one-and-a-half year old to say "Ipanema." I am convinced she can say it, but she chooses instead to just give me a raspberry whenever I ask.
Minnie the Moocher (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy)--good band, great song.
Lover Man (Billie Holiday)--a unique talent, impossible to duplicate.
I Won't Dance (Blossom Dearie)--the best singer you have never heard of, but she is an acquired taste.
Just in Time (Blossom Dearie)--a lovely song
Give Him the ooh-la-la (Blossom Dearie)--cheeky
Mack the Knife (Bobby Darin)--better version than Armstrong's
Beyond the Sea (Bobby Darin)--way too under-rated by everyone except me and Kevin Spacey
Anything Goes (Cole Porter)--much better writer than singer.
Deed I Do (Earl Hines)--wicked piano introduction melts into steaming vocals.
Luck be a Lady (Frank Sinatra)--the greatest lounge singer that ever lived.
The Way you Look Tonight (Frank Sinatra)--a romantic's romantic song.
Fly Me to the Moon (Frank Sinatra)
The Lady is a Tramp (Frank Sinatra)
We are in Love (Harry Connick, Jr.)--sure he may be a Sinatra knock-off, but he's got pipes.
It Had to Be You (Harry Connick, Jr.)--in one of the funniest movies ever, When Harry Met Sally
I Could Write a Book (Harry Connick, Jr.)--ditto
I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire (The Ink Spots)--A Pyromaniac's love song.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole)--unbelievably moving.
As Time Goes By (Jimmy Durante)--Dooley Wilson's version is better, but I don't have it.
Beautiful Maria of My Soul (Los Lobos)--anchor of a movie called The Mambo Kings. Painful song.
A Kiss to Build a Dream On (Louis Armstrong)
Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby? (Louis Jordan)--Greatest title of all time?
Ain't Nobody Here But us Chickens (Louis Jordan)
Yes, We Have No Bananas (Louis Prima)--The Punch Line of So Many Jokes that no one gets except for me and a handful of social security recipents.
Dance Me to the End of Love (Madeleine Peyreoux)--the best voice since Billie Holiday
You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Madeleine Peyroux)
These Boots are Made for Walking (Nancy Sinatra)--go ahead, make fun, but it is brilliant on so many levels.
Straighten Up and Fly Right (Nat King Cole)--the best male crooner that ever lived.
Route 66 (Nat King Cole)
It's Only a Paper Moon (Nat King Cole)
Stardust (Nat King Cole)--written by Hoagie Carmichael, a fellow Hoosier.
Orange Colored Sky (Nat King Cole)
Mr. Cole Won't Rock 'n Roll (Nat King Cole)--hysterical if you have a clue
L-O-V-E (Nat King Cole)
These Arms of Mine (Otis Redding)--his best song
Fever (Peggy Lee)--been remade endlessly, but her version is my favorite.
What'd I say? (Ray Charles)--overrated but still excellent
You're the Top (Rosemary Clooney)--George Clooney's aunt, but she has talent.
It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)--the cheekiest lounge singer ever. If you have not seen Mars Attacks, do it just for the scenes with Tom Jones.
Old Devil Moon (Tony Bennett)--overrated, but durable, sort of the Karl Malone of singers.
Rue St. Vincent (Yves Montand)--sweet, though I don't speak French.

Flag Burning (Re)Considered

2006-06-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate failed, by a single vote (66-34), to ratify a constitutional amendment that would have allowed Congress to ban flag-burning in America. Such amendments require 2/3 of Congress to support the amendment, and 3/4 of states to ratify. This is the closest vote on this amendment.

Those opposed included 30 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and 1 independent. The Republicans were Chaffee (RI), Bennett (UT), and McConnell (KY). Opposing Democrats included Clinton (NY), Byrd (WVA), Libermann (CT), Akaka (HI), Joe Biden (DE), and Kerry (MA).

I have always waffled on this issue. I respect Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, for he may be the only real constitutionalist in the Senate. He voted against it based on free speech arguments, most notably that the amendment would de-value the Bill of Rights by carving out an exception to the freedom of speech. On the amendment, I probably agree with him.

However, this would not be an issue if the Supreme Court had not messed up with Texas v. Johnson (1989). There, the Court struck down a Texas law that punished those who desecrate the American flag. The Court reasoned that Johnson's act (of burning the flag as an act of protest outside the 1984 Republican convention in Houston) communicated a clear, political message, and that the state may not remove some symbols from the arena of communication. The Court's idea of speech was a broad one, broader than what I would prefer, but even if one assumes that Johnson's actions constitution speech, the Court could have allowed states to prevent public flag burning because of the potential response of those in the crowd. The Court allows what it deems "fighting words" to be regulated by the state, and this principle could have covered the case, and it probably should have. Since the Court struck down the TX law, and all similar laws, the only recourse open to those who disagree seems to be a constitutional amendment (however, the Congress could narrow the Court's jurisdiction over these cases).

Our culture struggles with the necessary relationship between rights (like speech) and responsibility (like respecting symbols). We all want to exercise whatever rights we can, but we don't want to recognize prudent limits to those rights. This lack of prudence probably should not be punished by the state, but our culture should condemn such actions so that they are socially ostracized. If the effect of burning the flag was outrage and condemnation, then no one would find it an appropriate method of political communication. This allows the culture, as opposed to the Courts, to curb the abuses of rights, but since Americans no longer share common proprieties, this seems like an empty hope for a future that will not exist.

Congress and the Whiff of Corruption

2006-06-22T11:02:00.000-04:00

The Washintongton Post runs an interesting story today about the possibility of corruption and the Congress's method of "earmarking" appropriations. Earmarks are targeted, specific congressional spending measures that are often inserted by members so that they are not subject to general debate. When a spending bill is approved by both the House and Senate, a Conference Committee forms to iron out the differences. After the conference produces a uniform bill, it goes back to the chambers, usually for an up-or-down floor vote. At that point, members either vote against the entire piece of legislation (which would probably take funding away from publicly minded projects) or they vote for it, which means funding an area of narrow spending measures.

The narrowness, at best, means that a good deal of government spending benefits small segments of the population, as opposed to wide swaths. An infamous recent example is of an earmark inserted by Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator from Alaska. The so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" will connect Ketchikan, Alaska (8,900 pop.) to the remote island of Gravina, Alaska (population 50). The bridge has received about $223,000,000 in federal funds. Stevens' seniority nearly guarantees that his earmarks will be largely unquestioned by his colleagues. In fact, when one senator, Tom Coburn, proffered an amendment to shift that funding to Hurricane Katrina relief, Stevens threatened to resign from his post. The Coburn Amendment failed by a vote of 82-15.

Why did it fail? The U.S. Senate is famous for its collegiality and its logrolling/back-scratching. Senators knew that if the Coburn Amendment passed, all such spending could be called into question. They were not willing to bring scrutiny to their spending for it is a key component to re-election. This type of spending is often detested by fiscal conservatives (of which there are few to none in Congress), but it has been an almost accepted price of business for Congress.

The Post's story today, though, raises an additional concern surrounding earmarks. Given that legislators sponsor earmarks, there is the possibility that members can benefit financially from federal spending. The article primarily examines the controversy surrounding Dennis Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House. Some groups are alleging that federal highway funding, that was controversial, has significantly increased the value of some property Hastert owns. Hastert and those near him are strongly denying a connection between the profits and the spending.

There is a simple solution for this, and if Republicans and Congress want to cleanse their image, they can do so. Federal judges, including those on the Supreme Court, must enter all their invested assets into double-blind financial trusts. The judges do not know how their funds are being invested, and those doing the investing, fund managers, do not know the investor's identity. This removes the whiff of corruption, which in recent months, has become more of an aroma on the Hill.

United 93

2006-06-18T21:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I have been out and about for so long that I have not posted any movie reviews for some time. That, dear ones, is coming to an end.

Just last week I went to the theater to watch United 93. As everyone with a pulse on 9/11 remembers, this was one of the ill-fated, hijacked planes, but what distinguished UA93 was the fact that it did not reach its destination, which the film assumes to be the White House.

The film makes several assumptions about the events that resulted in the plane's destruction, and the deaths of all aboard. We do not know if the passengers successfully breached the cockpit, so we do not know the precise cause of the plane's death spiral. We do not know, beyond some phone conversations had under extreme duress, the words exchanged, the plans devised, the amount of support or resistance those who decided to "roll" had from their fellow passengers. We do not know if they killed any of the hijackers. The film argues, then, from silence, but its pleas are powerful and provocative, and its construction of events seems likely.

United 93 presents a dilemma to any filmmaker. How do you tell a story well when everyone walking into the theater knows the basic contours of the plot and outcome? This is the same difficulty presented to George Lucas in his last three Star Wars films. We already know what will happen, essentially, so how do you make an interesting film in spite of this? Where Lucas failed, and where many films about historic events fail, United 93 succeeds. The film is riveting because of several critical decisions made by Director Paul Greengrass. First, there is no one running around playing dumb (usually a reporter, academic, or child) so all the other actors have to explain to them (read: The Audience) what is going on. We are thrown squarely into several Air Traffic Control centers (in NY, VA, OH, NORAD), and not once does someone slow down to tell us what a "squawk" is, or a transponder, or a vector, or anything else. We are watching professionals work, sweat, cry, and agonize as the situation unfolds before them. This gives these scenes a documentary quality, and the effect is suffocating.

Second, Greengrass decides to house most of the action on-board the flight. We know nothing about any of the characters, for there are no back-stories offered. There are few introductions, so you have to piece together some of the identities: we hear "let's roll" from one character's lips, but it is plaintive, begging, and apprehensive, and not a false bravado. We see a man wearing collegiate comfort wear, and we find out he is athletic, and ready, if necessary (though he is taking no glee in it), to snap a terrorist in half if it will save any lives. We see painful calls home to loved ones, and they torment the viewer because the outcome looms. If this film were fictional, we would spare few moments worrying, for clearly, the heroes will wrest control from the terrorists, land the plane safely (after all one of the passengers has some flying experience), and fall into the arms of those on the other end of the calls. But here we do fret, and we do suffer because we know this will indeed be the last phrases passed between husbands and wives, fathers and sons, daughters and mothers. For me the most wrenching part of the film was watching one woman find only an answering machine with her last call. She attempts to stay firm, positive, and reassuring, but she slowly disintegrates, pieces of her life and composure tumbling into our hands, hearts, and minds.

Third, Greenspan treats the terrorists as humans, albeit flawed ones. Greengrass portrays their religious motivation, but whenever they pray during the hijacking, they have blood, literally, on their hands, and the camera pans to the dead pilots, and screaming passengers. Greengrass portrays the victims' religion as well, for they cling to faith for comfort, while the terrorists grip theirs for the will to finish the mission. The terrorists are humanized, but not glorified or excused.

This is the finest film, in terms of craftsmanship, I have seen in several years. United 93 is an uncomfortable experience. Many will want to leave, and though I stayed, I physically felt the film for some hours after it was over. This is brilliant filmmaking, ruthless in its objectivity, and tightly focused. There is no hope, no happy ending, and no promise of a sequel. Many filmgoers should see it, but they will only see it once. In that sense, this film is most like the Passion of the Christ, but without the resurrection scene to soften the agony. There is only a blackness that shrouds the screen and the viewer.

The Emergent Church, a.ka. Google is a miraculous thing when not used in China

2006-06-16T12:32:00.000-04:00

My post on the emergent church, more musings than anything else, drew a good deal of commentary. Go see the comments section if you like, but the response ranged from "good post" to "If you have a Ph.D. in anything, it is only a testament to the squalor of American education."

I have no interest in answering much of anything, but let me add a few comments that are not intended as rebuttals, but more as explanations of where I am coming from on this topic.

First, some of the reaction was based on the presumption of my inherent hubris for using words like "heresy," "orthodoxy," or, even, "church." While I do not want to paint with a brush too broad, let me say that there is a strain within the emergent church that finds the assertion of truth, under any guise of humility, disturbing. Hence, anyone who uses a label runs the risk of offending those who are seeking a genuine, authentic relationship to the divine. What is particularly galling to this segment (which I hope is limited) of the emergent folks is arguments based upon exclusivity of any kind. In other words, if we cannot all hold hands around the campfire, journal, and admit our arrogance, then we cannot be authentically religious or spiritual. We are instead formulaic, cliched, modernist, and precisionistic. This is post-modern tripe of the highest order. The assumption seems to be that unless I am willing to admit that "I don't have it all figured out" then I am unfair, stupid, and unkind, and those who operate under this assumption cannot be bothered to consider that their assertion of relativistic humility becomes absolutist when used as a standard by which to judge other claims.

Second, I am unapologetically coming at this from the perspective of an orthodox Christian. How do I fit this movement into what I glean from Scripture? If that is an uncomfortable starting place for some, I understand, and we can discuss why that is my starting place, but I cannot pretend I am beginning anywhere else. (I am sure some will argue that I cannot start with the text, but that I start with what I bring to the text. A different argument, and one I am willing to engage in at some point, but that line of thinking denigrates the perspicuity of Scripture, as well as the role the Holy Spirit plays in our interaction with the text. This view comes perilously close to using a philosophical construction through which to examine the Scripture, as opposed to allowing Scripture to define those philosophical categories. If that makes me "modernist," so be it, but that is not how I define "modernism" in any sense of the word.)

Third, I must say I have a great deal of sympathy to those seeking a more authentic Christianity. Our churches could use a heavy dose of humility and genuineness. We are overly plastic, consumeristic, and, for lack of a better word, but one which I grew up with, "cheesy." We, as the evangelical church, have failed some of the basic callings of Scripture. We show little interest in the poor; we overemphasize some sins (homosexuality for example) while underemphasizing others (lying, gossiping, gluttony)--you know the whole speck/beam in the eye thing; we do not do well in loving our neighbor as ourselves; we struggle with loving the Lord, our God, with our minds. We are in need of a religious revolution in America and across the globe.

Fourth, I must say, though, that I do not agree with the thrust of some emergent thinking. I understand that it is centered on Christ's work, and that it defines authentic Christianity as following Christ's example. I cannot quibble with that, but I can argue against much of its implementation. God has revealed himself to us in three ways: Christ and Scripture (special revelation) and nature (general revelation). Those who follow Christ learn about him and his ministry through Scripture. It is often said that Christianity is not a religion, but it is a relationship. Perhaps I am going to get in trouble for saying this, but I believe this to be a false dichotomy. This is not an either/or proposition. Christ's work on the cross is the fulcrum of history, but it cannot be adequately understood apart from the special revelation of Scripture, and neither can a relationship with him be had fully except for on his terms, and his terms are defined by God's revelation. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. In order to acknowledge his role as my Lord and Savior I must acknowledge these roles on his terms. Why did I need a savior? How should I act with Jesus as my Lord?

These questions bring us to sin and its solution. A tendency that I find troubling in emergent thinking is the reluctance to grapple with sin and its consequences. We are unholy, undeserving of love, and without the potential for redemption in and of ourselves. When I read of, and talk to, many emergents, they see themselves as sitting at Christ's feet, just as his disciples did, and so they strive for simple living, an unmediated relationship with Christ. I cannot argue against that desire, but, again, I think the image they raise is an incomplete one. Christ is, according to Scripture, fully God and fully man, and given this, I believe we would find his presence thrilling and painful. Sitting at the feet of Christ would be like finding yourself torn between two magnetic poles, at once attracted and repulsed. We know that Christ is what we can be, and we would be drawn to this potential. This is like (and I am not trying for an exact analogy) spending time with a person you admire, someone who embodies what you would like to become. It is a mixture of reverence and awe. At the same time, however, being present with Christ would have to make me realize my inadequacy, my weakness, my fear, and my thorough inability to be like him on my own. His presence would, I am convinced, cause me great comfort and discomfort.

I suppose I am meandering to a point, perhaps. I believe the emergent tendency (again, I am not claiming expertise or anything remotely like it) is to focus on one aspect of Christ's character, and, perhaps, on only one member of the Trinity. We must wrestle not only with God's (writ large) immanence, but also his transcendence; his knowability and his unfathomable depths; his holiness and his justice; his love and his wrath. We learn of this God not through Christ alone, for if we limited our interaction with God to Christ's work alone, than his life and death can serve as nothing more than a model. The necessity of his life and death are grounded in our God's love, wrath, grace, and justice.

I am not sure this is making sense, and I am less sure it is persuasive. Let me conclude by saying that sitting at the feet of Jesus would be no picnic. Just look at the disciples. They were generally wrong, impatient, sinful, and confused. Mark (see chapters 4-6) makes it clear that his disciples, even when witnessing his miracles (calming the sea, feeding 5,000, walking on water), were afraid, did not comprehend this "man," and had hardened hearts.

Where has all the love gone?

2006-06-16T12:27:00.000-04:00

But seriously, I am sure my readers (all one or two of them) have run screaming in the other direction since I have failed to post or update for some time. Why didn't I post? I am not really sure I have an answer. I have been busy? My creative juices spilled from my veins, only to be "replenished" on a periodic basis? Maybe I have become a shill for the religious right? Perhaps my posts on the emergent church generated too much heat and not enough light? Maybe I am trying to "find" myself?

Well, all of that is crap, clearly. I just didn't post. There it is. Call it an electronic vacation, or call it a hiatus, or call it a withdrawal from my throngs of admirers. Call it what you like. I call it the big void.

March _______?

2006-03-21T08:56:00.000-05:00

March Madness has become tired. We need a new catchphrase to describe the NCAA tournament, which depletes corporate and institutional productivity across the country.

Here are some possibilities:

March Mayhem
March Mendacity
Meandering March
Mercurial March
The March March
The Torrid Tournament
The Tourney Journey

For all the gamblers out there: Second Mortgage March

For those who are depressed when others are happy: March Melancholy or Morose March

For those mid-major coaches auditioning for jobs with their tournament teams: The March to Gettin' Paid

For those atheltic directors who will pay them: The March to Spending Funds that Could go to more Student Scholarships and Faculty Salaries to Underwrite a Non-Educational Program for our University.

For Alums Who Write Big Checks to Fund Schools that Do Well: The March Toward Educational Mediocrity at the Expense of our Athletic Budget.

For Potential NBA Stars Who Take a Brief Respite in College Just to Improve their Draft Status: The March to Missing Even More Class So I Won't Get A Degree and My Agent Will Steal All of My Money Before I am 30

For University Presidents With Teams in the Tournament: The March to Raising More Money So I Don't Lose My Job

For Fans: The March to Figuring Out How to Miss Work or Class So I Can Watch As Much Basketball as Humanly Possible

As for my brackets, I am in reasonable shape, but I will need some upsets to do well. I have a Final Four of Texas, UCLA, UConn, and Villanova. I have UCLA and Villanova in the final with Nova pulling it out. If I was picking now, I might stick with UCLA, but I would probably go with Florida, Georgetown, or WVU as their biggest rivals.

Ruminating on the Emergent Church

2006-03-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

There is much talk in my circles--Christian college professor--about this thing called, "the emergent church." I have done some reading on the matter, but only enough to be dangerous. One question still lingers: what is this church "emerging" from?

My quick reading suggests that most movement adherents are emerging from legalism and toward what they consider to be a more authentic mode of both worship and relationally oriented Christianity. They seem to see human relations as the missing link in modern, orthodox Christianity. Also, they appear to be suspicious of overly plastic, consumeristic, business-model driven evangelicals who pray that their churches grow, but appear to care for little else.

I can understand all of those criticisms. Certainly, the "emergents" are right on those points. If they are, however, I would like to know why they have chosen to form new churches as opposed to reforming the churches of which they are already part? Is there something fundamentally different about the emergent church and the orthodoxy being taught in evangelicalism in general? If so, what is it? If not, then why leave?

If the emergents are correct, and leaving the organized church is the only proper thing to do, they are being separatist. How does one build authentic relationships with those in need by separating from the Body of Christ? If they are correct, then we, the organized church, are in need of change, and the emergents should be "salt" and "light" to the rest of us.

My studies and experience have shown that leaving a body rarely changes it. In fact, leaving exacerbates the problems that caused some people to flee in the first place. Take public schools as an example. During the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Christian schools boomed because parents were worried that the public alternatives were becoming overly secular, immoral, dismissive of God and his people, and, in some cases, academically untenable. Given the evidence, Christians left the public schools in droves. What was the result? The schools have become even more secular, immoral, dismissive of God and his people, and, in some cases, academically untenable.

Take another example. Fundamentalists left an array of denominations in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s because the denominations were too liberal and were drifting into heresy at the worst, or some brand of mushy heterodoxy. Denominations like the Northern Baptists (later the American Baptists), the Presbyterian Church of the United States, and the United Methodists all lost thousands of members who flocked to the General Association of Regular Baptists, Southern Baptists, Presbyterian Church of America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, or the Wesleyan Church, or they formed their own churches that were independent of denominations. The denominations the fundamentalists left have not reformed, and they likely will not do so because the life blood of orthodoxy has left them. They have simply dwindled.

In the process, America has grown away from its civil religion where Christianity exerted a powerful influence because it spoke with one (or at least a few) voice on key issues that confronted our country. While it is cliche, there is strength in numbers, but only if those numbers can be unified, and as American Christians began to fracture, the impact of broad, mainline Christianity waned and it has not yet recovered.

Let me be clear; I am not arguing Christians should have stayed in those denominations. What I am saying is that the choice to leave has consequences. I think the emergents, in their pursuit of authenticity, should understand that choice and the real possibility that they will divide themselves from their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Fundamentalists chose to leave because they could not tolerate what was being taught in their pulpits, and not because of worship or authenticity. If emergents cannot tolerate what is being taught, I am still not clear on what they cannot tolerate. The Fundies had problems with the Social Gospel, evolution, and the academy's higher criticism of Scripture's inerrancy and infallibility. In short, many Fundies left because, to an extent, they no longer considered the core teachings of the theological liberals to be Christian, so they were not, technically, dividing the body of Christ. Can the emergents offer similar critiques? Can they be the Luther to our Papacy? What are we teaching that merits separation? Are we teaching heresy so that we deserve separation?

In the end, if the emergents do become a significant portion of American Christianity, they will do so, it seems, by shunning organization and embracing house churches: by distancing themselves from hierarchy and by holding onto equality: by pushing away from mission agencies and publishing houses and by living a simpler life, one to which they think Christ has called them. This process has the potential to further fracture orthodoxy in America. One of the reasons why evangelical Christians are not MORE influential is because they are difficult to organize and because they have a web of allegiances--country, church, school, and community. The emergents will simply multiply that problem and, at least in terms of cultural and political influence, will weaken our influence. They are more likely to exacerbate our problems than to solve them.

Flying Cow Leaves Two Police Cars in Flames

2006-03-20T16:09:00.000-05:00

Need I say more? It is the sort of headline where you understand all the words--"cow," check, "flames," check, "police," check, "cars," check, and "flying," another check. But then when you arrange them in that order, it doesn't make sense. The headline could just as easily read:

"Flying Police Car Leaves Two Cows in Flames"

or even

"Flying Flames Leave Police Car in Cow"

and my reaction would be just the same. Huh?

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

2006-03-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: From the team that made Chicken Run, another claymation classic, comes Wallace and Gromit, a famous British staple, finally has a theatrical release.

The world would be a better place if Nick Park and Steve Box could be cloned, shipped to Hollywood, and forced to make more children's' films. These are films in the tradition of Bugs Bunny, and not of Shrek or of Madagascar or of Chicken Little. Those films rely on two levels of humor to succeed. They prefer obvious, sometimes profane humor to appeal to children (the "oh look, the princess burped," or "the ogre used his ear wax for a candle, how droll," variety), and pop-culture references to appease adults, and divert them from the base humor used to attract children (such as the, "oh look, that shot is a take off of Frodo/Gollum looking through the Ring, how droll"). These films, while amusing, are not all that clever or witty, and, for the thinking adult, cannot be viewed more than once, which is a key to quality family entertainment. After all, I am likely to view, or at least be in the presence of, some of these films two or three dozen times in the course of family trips, movie nights, or cases of illness. Wallace and Gromit employs a more sophisticated brand of humor, and though it is sometimes cheeky, it is never stupid. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is great fun because it treats children like they are more than slobbering idiots.

Wallace is a cheese-loving pest-control expert, and he is always aided (though in honesty it seems Wallace needs more help than his "assistant") by his faithful companion, Gromit, a wily canine. Together they run Anti-Pesto, a humane animal/pest control company. They are particularly busy because of the upcoming Giant Vegetable Contest, which has always been held on the Tottington family grounds. Lady Tottington (voiced by Helena Bonham-Carter) has a soft spot for bunnies, and hires Anti-Pesto to rid her land of the pests, but only if our intrepid heroes wont harm them. Wallace and Gromit employ a giant sucking machine (one of many hysterical contraptions in the film) to do the task, much to the chagrin of Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes), who is seeking to impress Lady Tottington, and who prefers a more traditional approach. Though Anti-Pesto succeeds in eliminating rabbits from the Tottington manor, the company is soon called in to find the Were-Rabbit, a raging furball that threatens the Contest by eating everyone's prize veggies. The plot unfolds in an unexpected way, and is not as linear or simplistic as that generally found in kiddy films.

The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is freakishly funny if you have a sense of humor. The film is quite British, with Lords and Ladies running about, and its giggles are more Fawlty Towers than Chicken Little, and we should all be thankful for that. There is hope for the future of children's animation so long as Pixar and Aardman (the company responsible for Wallace and Gromit) are around. Now, if they could just make films a little faster...

Good Night and Good Luck Sitting Through This Bore

2006-03-08T15:06:00.000-05:00

Good Night & Good Luck: George Clooney hovers over the film as its director, co-screenwriter, and a supporting actor. Clooney is talented in front of and behind the camera. The decision to film in black and white was a good one, and the director and cast capture the era well. (People with little sense of history, or those who are much younger, will be astonished at the amount of smoking and the sartorial elegance of the newsmen, reporters, and even administrative assistants.) This McCarthy era embellishment of life at CBS News and Edward R. Murrow falls short, though, for two reasons.

First, GN & GL is often ponderous. I enjoy "talky" movies that revolve around ideas, dialogue, and characters, but GN & GL is often repetitive and dull. While there is some sharp dialogue, and the acting talent is top-drawer (David Straitharn is brilliant, as Edward R. Murrow, in a role that seems created for him), the film is poorly paced. The only film I can compare it to is Robert Redford's Quiz Show, which is about the same era, and contains some common themes. It also was character and dialogue driven, but it was more interesting and crisp in execution. GN & GL plays at about 90 minutes, but by the end of the first hour, I began to hope for the ending.

Second, GN & GL slavishly toes the conventional, liberal wisdom as it scans backwards to the 1950s. In short, this film has a simple political and journalistic reality: McCarthy and those who were worried about the "threat of Communism" (the films prologue uses that phrase, which distinguishes these people from those worried about actual Communism) were dangerous, hostile to Civil Liberties, and disingenuous. Also, journalists, according to GN & GL, exist not to report the news, but to provide an opinion on the state of the news and newsmakers, so the journalist's craft is inherently subjective and assumes the journalists are adequate judges of the greater good of society. Journalists are, like the Hollywood scribes who created these fictional ones, leaders in a culture that is often wrong, backward, and hysterical. They are typewriter kings, shaping their preferred reality one peck at a time. The journalist, then, is an agent of justice, not a reporter. This noble view of the profession is the primary (or at least secondary) reason the mainstream news media in our country loses credibility by the day.

GN & GL also was created, clearly, as a commentary on our present politics, for Murrow questions why America is fighting for liberty abroad if we are unwilling to guarantee it at home. I almost expected a screed on the Patriot Act to be launched at any minute. The overwhelming sense of the film is that citizens are being suffocated not by the incessant smoking, but by a tyrannical government that strangles them (along with wicked corporations like CBS) until their freedom and money are gone. The great irony, of course, is that if America truly were tyrannical, greedy, and unconcerned about freedom, it would be hard to justify its foreign policy during the last one hundred years. The United States has been the greatest force for good in the world since 1917, and while it has been far from perfect (especially in its willingness to coddle dictators), it has been largely noble. If we were an empire, in the classical sense of the word, we would simply occupy and control countries until they outlive their economic usefulness. All of western Europe would be thoroughly Americanized (as distinct from modernized or classically liberalized), as would Japan, the Middle East, and whatever other regions we would have chosen. Instead, we have sought to export freedom (sometimes that choice has been foolish, but that is a different argument). We have rebuilt Western Europe and then protected it for a half-century from Communist domination. We rebuilt Japan and put it on the course to global, economic, competitiveness. We have not plundered the oil fields of the Middle East during the past five years, though we could have. We have watched as oil costs have sky-rocketed, and we have not, to my knowledge, even used those oil profits to pay for our military and economic losses in the region. We are hopelessly idealistic, we Americans.

The cold, hard truth is that America's stand against Communism did not destroy our rights and liberties at home, it instead defeated Communism. While I agree that McCarthy went too far in his investigations, and that he was a poor man to lead the fight domestically, there was reason for concern. The Rosenbergs were spies. Alger Hiss was a spy. They were not alone in their sympathy for, or allegiance to, the Communist menace.

Clooney and his ilk like to portray themselves as progressives, as leaders toward a happier America, as people who take great pains and make great sacrifices to shine the light of truth on America's history and frailties. (Let's put aside the debate about whether someone earning more than $15 million/film is sacrificing anything!) If this is so, it is stunning, then, that Hollywood has yet to produce a single film that examines the savagery of the USSR during the reign of Communism. I think some of Solzhenitsyn's work would make for riveting cinema. How about a film that chronicles the 50 million deaths during the Stalin's reign? How about one that examines, critically, Stalin's decision to starve his people into submission? How about a treatment of the gulags? Or, of the Katyn Forest Massacre where the Soviets executed more than 4,000 Polish Army officers?

The Hollywood spotlight finds its way toward topics with which the industry is comfortable, like the Holocaust, but it, magically, steers away from those that run afoul of Hollywood's love affair with socialism. Or, even those that touch upon the great liberals of American history. Only one mainstream film has been made about Roosevelt's decision to detain Japanese-Americans during the war. While Hollywood has fallen all over itself to document JFK's "heroism" during the Cuban missile Crisis, it has done nothing to expose his perfidy during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. While the Killing Fields did document the inhumanity of the Khmer Rouge, Hollywood has not chosen to examine the downfall of South Vietnam and the brutality visited upon its inhabitants shortly thereafter. It has made no heroic films of the boat people, either from Vietnam or from Cuba, nor has it chosen to condemn the wickedness of China's savagery in any meaningful way.

If Hollywood wants to wear the mantle of national conscience, please let it wear one that is broad enough to encompass all sins, not just those that are politically correct to expose.

Walk the Line Straight to the Video Store (or Netflix queue)

2006-03-08T15:01:00.000-05:00

Walk the Line: I am not a fan of the biopic as a rule. With someone as famous as Johnny Cash, it may have been just as interesting to do a solid documentary on his life. Most biographical films suffer from trying to do too much with the whole life. By definition, those deemed worthy of a film treatment are fascinating, layered, and in some ways, transcendent. So, filmmakers feel the need to squeeze it all into a two-hour film that will fall short in critical ways when trying to communicate these traits on-screen. Walk the Line avoids this pitfall by providing a short introduction of Cash's childhood, and then focuses most of its time on his young adulthood. By limiting the time-frame, the director is able to say much, much more.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Cash and Reese Witherspoon takes on June Carter. Both actors performed all their music. This is a difficult choice for directors like James Mangold. Do you lip-synch and allow Cash's vocal talents (and Carter's marginal talents) to sell your film, or do you let the actors cut-loose? Mangold's choice was the right one for this picture. Phoenix's voice is a poor imitation of Cash's, but it is serviceable. Witherspoon sounds as good as Carter. Their vocals give the characters some authenticity that helps with their performances, both of which were nominated in the lead acting categories (Witherspoon won). Phoenix is brilliant in his portrayal. He looks only a little like Cash, but he embodies him completely. Witherspoon is steely and sweet all at once in her role.

The heart of the film is the budding bond between the two leads. Though the pair eventually marry, they do so only after a tortured and painful relationship that destroys at least one marriage. Both Cash and Carter, it appears, needed to grow up and rid themselves of some particularly persistent demons before they were ready to wed. Cash destroyed himself and his family through his infidelity and his drug use. The film does not shy away from the devastation wrought by unfaithfulness, either real or imagined. This is a love story at its core, and it is so much more than Hollywood's general, superficial, sugary rendition. This is a tale of pain that forges a lasting love, and that is commendable.

Crash

2006-03-08T14:58:00.000-05:00

Crash: This is an excellent film, and entertaining in a disconcerting way. I appreciate movies that make me uncomfortable (within boundaries, of course), and this did manage to do that. Its portrayal of a sexual assault was especially difficult to sit through.

I appreciated the film's willingness to portray racial problems as cutting across racial and socio-economic boundaries. Crash did not pretend this was a white problem or a poor problem, but one that is broad in scope.

This, though, was also the film's most significant weakness. Crash lives in a universe where race colors all the decisions we make, and where we cannot move beyond racial barriers in any meaningful way. In the film, the primary identity of most of the characters is grounded in their race, and while I am sure there are people like that, I am not convinced it is on the same scale as, say, fifty years ago. Crash is well-acted, provocative, and interesting.

Catching Up on Post-Oscar Buzz

2006-03-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

My wife and I used to pride ourselves on seeing all the films nominated for Best Picture before the show itself. (That is if you consider self-flagellation something to be proud of.) That has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Perhaps we have grown wiser, or perhaps we are too poor or too busy to see everything we would like. Regardless, I am trying to catch up on the nominated films, and some others that have slipped through the cracks recently. Hence, the following reviews.

Hooray. Ugh. Sometimes, that is all you can say.

2006-02-28T16:56:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of Get Religion (which is a great blog for those interested in the media and religion), see these two stories.

One is about the actress Eva Longoria. For all her perceived superficiality (I admit it is perceived, for I don't know and have not met her), she is passionately devoted to her older sister who was born with Downs' Syndrome. Longoria wins a special place in my heart as a result of her obvious love for someone not necessarily valued by society at large. Kudos.

The other is about a woman in the UK who is suing doctors since they failed to abort one of her children. She went to obtain the procedure at 16 and found out she had twins. When she went to her doctor later (much later in the pregnancy), she discovered one of the twins had survived. The girl is now four, and appears to be cute as a button given the picture that accompanies the article. The mother is suing the medical practice for the costs and burden of raising her little girl.

Our culture's grasp of life's value is sometimes disgusting on the one hand sometimes uplifting on the other. The Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve carry the spark of godliness, and the glow it produces when it shines through is enough to warm us, even on the last day of February. At the same time, they carry the scars of the fall, and do not appreciate the wonder of existence, particularly in the beauty of children.

Breaking the Law: Church Style

2006-02-28T08:49:00.000-05:00

This story was tucked away in The Washington Times over the weekend, but it should put ministers and church leaders on notice.

Churches are, under American law, non-profit organizations (501(C)3) that must comply by particular guidelines to maintain their tax-exempt status. This status allows them to collect tax-deductable donations, and it means they do NOT have to pay taxes on their income. This status is offered to a wide variety of organizations, so it is not particular to churches, but it benefits churches tremendously because they can use more of their donations for church activities as opposed to shipping them off to the sink-hole in Washington, D.C.

As a condition to receiving this status, these NPOs must not engage in political activity. They cannot raise funds for politicians, donate funds to politicians, leaders cannot endorse political candidates, and they cannot organize on behalf of political parties or candidates. They can be politically active by taking clear positions on political issues, educating the public about politics, and even (if I am not mistaken) by registering voters, but when they begin to show clear partisan or candidate preferences, they put their status at-risk with the Internal Revenue Service.

According to the Times, during and after the 2004 election cycle, more than 100 complaints were filed with the IRS regarding churches and other NPOs that unacceptably skirted, or in some cases plunged over, the legal lines. The IRS completed 82 investigations, fined one group, is moving to take away the tax-exempt status from three groups, and sent 55 organizations (including 39 churches) letters of warning regarding illegal activity. According to the IRS, churches regularly violated the law by endorsing candidates, inviting candidates to social functions, or even by opening up the pulpit to candidates.

Not only is such activity illegal if churches want to maintain their tax-exempt status, I would argue it is bad for the church in general. Becoming overly connected to a party or a candidate can spell trouble for the church if things fall apart.

The best example in recent American history is Billy Graham's relationship with the Nixon White House. Graham was not terribly politically involved until Nixon became president. He made appearances with Nixon and was viewed, in some respects, as Nixon's friend and pastor. When the Watergate Affair destroyed the Nixon administration, not only did it damage the politicians, Graham was a public relations casualty as well.

Churches must ponder the consequences of tying themselves to parties and candidates. If there is a hint of a possibility that the Church's primary mission of spreading the gospel might be damaged, the Church should simply refrain.

Priceless Send-up of Cheney Shooting

2006-02-22T14:10:00.000-05:00

The Onion, as usual, has it together on the Cheney shooting. This is rich and worth reading. Here is a snippet:

White House Had Prior Knowledge Of Cheney Threat

Aug. 2005 Briefing Warned, 'Cheney Determined To Shoot Old Man In Face'

February 20, 2006 | Issue 42•08

WASHINGTON, DC—Government documents declassified today reveal that President Bush was briefed last summer of "a substantial risk" that Vice President Dick Cheney would shoot an elderly male in the face sometime in the next several months.

In a Presidential Daily Briefing given to Bush in August 2005, the CIA warned that the vice president was a potent threat to the senior population at large, and in particular "possessed the capabilities and intentions to spray a senior citizen with projectiles fired from a shotgun or other weapon." A second brief identified the population at risk as those "between 70 and 80 years of age," and warned that the vice president posed the greatest threat to "seniors in close proximity to the vice president when he is armed."

We Just Don't Get It Yet, Do We?

2006-02-19T17:29:00.000-05:00

The Bush Administration continues to be "tone-deaf" (as Lindsey Graham put it) when it comes to security and politics. The U.S. government has chosen to allow a private company to head up its port security at six of the nation's largest ports (Miami, New Orleans, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Baltimore). This might be tolerable given private efficiencies as compared to government inefficiencies, but the clincer is that the company chosen is headquartered in Dubai. While Dubai is considered an ally in the war on terror, the appearances are dismal for Bush.

This falls in line with the administration's refusal to take border security seriously in general. The President must advocate better, and he must support and devise clearer and common-sensical policies. What a disappointment.

Just In Time

2006-02-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

For my money, such as it is, Blossom Dearie gives the best rendition of Just in Time, a simple, yet powerful, song written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Dearie's voice is somewhere between a squeak and velvet, just excellent enough to be professional and unusual enough to be memorable.

The lyrics to Just in Time are a love letter from the one who was lost to the one who found them. The first verse is written in the first person:

"Just in time, I found you just in time. Before you came my time was running low. I was lost, the losing dice were tossed. My bridges all were crossed, nowhere to go. Now you're here, and now I know just where I'm goin', no more doubts or fear, I've found my way. For love came, just in time..."

After a satisfying bass solo, the second verse begins in the 2nd person:

"Just in time. You found me just in time..."

I will not claim that Comden and Green had any intention to write a metaphor for salvation, but as Christians, we tend to see God and his hand everywhere, and this is no exception.

Our conception of God's hand is always stronger after the fact. We cannot always know the path upon which he is pushing us, but we mistake our lives as products of our will while we occupy the moments that come. As we move forward, however, and as we learn and think more, we always see God's fingerprints on what took place. The salvation experience is no different. We are convinced it is all us at the time, but looking back, we see it was all him.

We think we found God "just in time," but we always must understand that he found us just in time.

An Alternative to Gay Marriage AND Civil Unions?

2006-02-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

Colorado is undergoing the gay marriage debate, just as my home state, Ohio, did last year. In CO, things have taken a bit of an interesting turn. There seem to be three alternatives to the marriage debate--full marriage rights for all, a ban on gay marriage, or something in between like civil unions, where gays get some state-sponsored benefits but not quite the imprimatur of marriage.

In CO, there is a new alternative being discussed. A conservative legislator, Shawn Mitchell, has introduced something called "reciprocal benefits." These would be open to ALL people unable to be legally married, and it would provide for shared medical decision-making and other benefits. So, relatives (brothers, parent/child), same-sex friends, or homosexuals, could get these benefits and the state would not be in a position to know the precise nature of the relationship, nor to endorse it. This a way to provide people to make decisions for their loved ones. It will not satisfy those who believe in the rightness or wrongness of gay marriage, but is an alternative with potential. For the story, the idea, etc..., see this story by Ramesh Ponnuru.

Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay

2006-02-16T08:34:00.000-05:00

I have a playlist on my IPOD dedicated to crooners, loosely defined. These are folks who were consummate singers, even though all of them aren't necessarily from the crooner's era of the mid 1930's to early 1950s. I am thoroughly eclectic in my music choices, and that is no different here. I also enjoy most of these songs because they are well-written. That does not necessarily mean they are complex, for many are simple, but simple can be profound and inspiring. Over the next few days I hope to post some mini-reviews of some of these songs. If you are not familiar with them, perhaps you will becomes so soon.

Song of the Day: The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding

Redding wrote the lyrics and recorded the song just a few days before his death in 1967. I know that growing up, when I heard the song I did not yet grasp the emotional impact. It has pleasant lyrics, relaxing accompaniment, and Redding's silver pipes blaring, and that combination was enough for me to enjoy it.

As I have grown a bit, I have listened more carefully to the words. The song is about malaise, a spiritual "blaaah" that passes over modern humans with alarming regularity. We cannot quite grasp why we are here on this globe as it spins across the galaxy, and if even if we could, we might not care. Redding tells the story, perhaps his own, of a man who travels across the country simply to sit and watch the tide roll in. This man's "loneliness won't leave him alone," as he mindlessly watches the bay's traffic pass in front of him, just "wastin' time." He is a do-nothing, frustrated shell, wondering how his insides were scooped out. This is the purposeless life spent enjoying the beauty that surrounds him, but little else. His frustration, which comes across in Redding's powerful performance, is evident, and the beauty is not enough to chase away his blues.

Redding's man at the dock of the bay is similar to Walker Percy's Binx Bolling, the lead character in the splendid novel, The Moviegoer. Bolling is intelligent, well-educated, connected to high society, and has, at his fingertips, most of what anyone could want, but he cannot shake the fact that his life and soul are empty. He is seeking redemption, and he cannot find it, so he prefers to glaze his mind and soul in movie theaters. Binx is what J.P. Moreland would call "The Empty Self," which our society breeds in great numbers.

The Dock of the Bay is a painful, tragic lamentation punctuated by brilliant vocal talent. I wonder what Redding would have produced had he lived longer? He was becoming transcendent, rising above genre, and I have little doubt he would have been a cultural icon, but what kind, we will never know.

For the lyrics of the song, go here.

Which Fuel Source Would Jesus Use?

2006-02-09T17:23:00.000-05:00

A group of Evangelical leaders just released an environmental call to action to their fellow Christians. Signatories include the presidents of many evangelical colleges and universities (Wheaton, Calvin, Goshen, John Brown, Houston Baptist, etc...), some policy types, activists, and religious leaders (most notably Rick Warren and Brian McClaren). The document makes several claims. It asserts that global warming is a problem and that human activity (via the burning of fossil fuels) is the primary cause of such warming. Ultimately, we are being called to support policies that limit these fuels because of global warming's disproportionate effect on the poor across the planet.

Iain Murray offers a response, here. I am not a scientist, and I cannot comment on the legitimacy of the scientific claims made in the initial statement. However, my ignorance would cause me to be more than timid about attaching my name to such a document. I hope the evangelical leaders took a critical look at the underlying issues before affixing their names.

My great concern, which is mentioned by Murray's critique, is that these leaders fail to understand the basic facts of opportunity cost and unintended consequences. First, every economic and policy choice made comes at the cost of other opportunities not taken. So, if we, as a government, determine to spend the money necessary to reduce the burning of fossil fuels by investing in more expensive (they must, by definition be more expensive or the market would have already corrected for this) technologies, we will have less money to spend elsewhere. What exactly is the tradeoff? Will it be education, defense, criminal justice, health care, welfare, social security, or some other area of spending that takes a hit as a result? Beyond that, we have almost no idea how expensive it will be to take such steps, and, perhaps more critically, we have no idea what the marginal reduction in global warming will be as a result. For instance, what if we determine we can spend $1 trillion to reduce global warming by one degree celsius? Or, $2 trillion for two degrees? At some point, we must choose between unknown benefit as they are attached to very real, and possibly dramatic, costs.

Second, these leaders have no concept, I am generalizing to be sure, of the law of unintended consequences. As Murray points out, if we wean ourselves off fossil fuels by force, what will happen to energy costs? They will surely rise (again, they must or the market would have already moved in this direction), which means real household income would decline. We would pay more to heat our homes, drive our cars, or whatever. The poor suffer most because for them, energy is proportionally a larger segment of their total expenses then when compared to wealthier people, such as those signing this statement. In other words, doing something will have consequences that might be as serious as doing nothing.

The Fuse Winding Toward the Muslim Powder Keg Hisses

2006-02-08T16:52:00.000-05:00

Stories continue to surface over the Danes' decision to print cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Violence continues to the point of death in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We have reached a pivotal moment in the war on terror.

President Bush has operated, since 9/11/2001, on the assumption that we are at war with something he calls "Islamism" or Muslim "Jihadism." The implication is that there is a sect of Islam that has reared its head against us, and that once that sect is ground to powder, we will be able to walk away from the war, victorious and safe.

The riots in France, and now the burning of embassies and killings revolving around cartoons reveal something much more sinister. Muslims have immigrated to Western Europe in droves, taking advantage of the tolerance extended to them. The hope was that once exposed to the glories of satellite tv and the internet, surely reform would follow soon. The evidence suggests otherwise.

Those rioting are not al-qaeda operatives, they seem to be average Muslims, bent on the destroying those who defamed their holy prophet. Were the situations reversed, and if my savior was being vilified, I would be plenty upset. In fact, something, arguably much worse, occurred in our country not that long ago. Robert Mapplethorpe, the avant-garde artist took pictures of a crucifix in urine and sold it as art. Christians were ticked, steamed, upset, and disturbed. Mapplethorpe was not killed, lynched, burned, or assassinated, as was the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had the temerity to make a film challenging Islam's treatment of women.

Islam cannot fold into the West, I am afraid. While I do not want to embrace unnecessary pessimism, I believe the root of Islam, not just a branch, is offended by modernity, particularly of the western variety, so much so that the two cannot coexist. We are, in essence, in a war with those who cannot function in a world in which we (Westerners) thrive. To pretend otherwise is naive.

The real question is simple: where is the end of our tolerance? What must happen for the West to understand the size and scope of the conflict in which it is now embroiled? September 11 was not sufficient. Theo van Gogh's murder did not do it. Neither did the fortnight of burning riots that laid France low. I cannot imagine how a few deaths at the hands of those who cannot imagine the freedom of the press will be any different.

A Week full of News, And...

2006-02-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

Faithful Readers:

Last week, we saw some dramatic, important news stories emerge in the world of politics, and I, of course, missed all of it. I was undergoing some employer-induced turmoil, namely, a two-year/tenure review. I had to put together a tenure portfolio, get letters of support, collect syllabi, student evaluations, and, most difficultly, a paper that discusses the integration of faith and politics. All in all, it is finished, and nothing needs be said about it again. At least for two more years.

In my absence, three massive stories unfolded. First, Samuel Alito was confirmed by the Senate to the U.S. Supreme Court. He did so with 58 votes. Only four Democrats supported him, and one Republican, the ever-wavering Lincoln Chaffee from Rhode Island. The Democrats attempted a fillibuster, but the GOP invoked cloture easily, thereby shutting off debate. In the end, this is a remarkable accomplishment for the president of the United States. He took a moderate-to-liberal Justice, in Sandra Day O'Connor, and replaced her with, at minimum, a moderate-to-conservative Justice in Alito. A net win for the President, but not enough to claim the Court has changed dramatically. The Court is much stronger with Alito's confirmation, particularly if you consider the possibility that Harriet Miers could have been confirmed in his place. Alito is not a wild card. He should reliably join the Scalia, Thomas, and (one thinks) Roberts wing. Now, Justice Kennedy becomes the ever-unpredictable swing vote on the Court, and for anyone who follows the Court, he will usually swing toward the left on the critical issues like abortion, privacy in general, and religion.

One other large event occurred. The Republicans in the House of Representatives elected a new majority leader to replace Tom DeLay. The election was a three-way affair between John Shadegg, John Boehner, and Roy Blunt. Blunt was the establishment candidate who represented the party leadership already in place, while Shadegg, and to a lesser extent, Boehner, were reform candidates, pledging to help return the party to its 1994/small government roots. Blunt and Boehner went to a final ballot and most of Shadegg's very conservative supporters went to Boehner. There is a possibility this represents a significant split in the party, with the old-hand, inside-the-beltway Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and an unsatisfied, chomping conservative wing who wants to re-energize the conservative movement in the House. This could be a significant event for Republicans in Washington, D.C.

Finally, we see the simmering pot, peppered with Islamic spices, of European stew. After Danish newspapers published some cartoons critical of Islam, the cartoonists' lives have been threatened, and the Danish embassy in Beirut has been burned. The root of Islam is intolerant. There is no inherent message of peace. While orthodox Christianity is exclusive, it is not, in essence, intolerant of other religions. Will Islam be able to co-exist with other religions? The answer, as of now, is clear. As it is predominantly found, Islam is not tolerant of other religions.

Grinding the Enemy Beneath My Heel

2006-01-29T05:33:00.000-05:00

While it is always risky to raise the image of the jackboot and goosestepping, they are the only suitable metaphors to describe what my family has been through in the past four days. Here is a briefing of the significant skirmishes at the Smith Household.

Wednesday: Late afternoon, our two oldest children were assaulted by vile, viral thugs that laid open their delicate intestinal systems. Battle highlights included a projectile vomit from the top of the stairs. If my son was aiming for the enemy, which I assume he was, he nearly took out his mother in the crossfire. My wife, my youngest daughter--she is little, but deadly with a shillalah--and I formed a perimeter around the afflicted and took careful aim at the offenders. We vanquished our foe with joy as the thugs fled during the night. They did not go easily, however, for they nicked our youngest, the baby, on their way out the door. She recovered quickly, and I awarded her the requisite medal for her noble courage.

Thursday: My lovely, devoted, beautiful wife was the next to suffer at the hands of the persistent horde. As any worthy enemy, the foe shifted tactics to keep the Smith battalion off balance. My wife was assailed not only with gastric difficulties, but with a massive headache at the same time. She is valiant. She played Dolly to my President Madison, and while our capital was burned temporarily, we would not relent. We triumphed and celebrated accordingly.

Friday: All Quiet on the Viral Front. Unconditional Surrender must be near.

Sunday: In the timeless tactics of the Weremacht, the defeated raised its head to shatter the sky with its final battle cry. Before we knew what was happening, the Viral Throng had advanced along my front, pinpointing my soft underbelly. Wounded, I will not fall. I will fight them on the streets of my bladder, in the canals of my duodenum, and in the bottle-neck of my esophagus. With my family beside me, we will never surrender. We will pierce the throng's head beneath our heels. Long live the Smith Family and Death to the Virus.

Grounds for Dem Filibuster Emerge

2006-01-28T16:03:00.001-05:00

Democrats in the Senate have decided, according to knowledgeable sources, to filibuster Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito. The decision to embark on the historic path was not made lightly.

"We have on good evidence that at some point in his educational career, Judge Alito may have discriminated against women or minorities or homosexuals. I think that is basis enough for a filibuster," Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) told reporters. When pressed for specifics, Kennedy refused, but promised to reveal all on the Senate floor. "Let's just say that President Bush should start taking more resumes."

Sources close to the Democrats' Senate Caucus were more forthcoming. "Judge Alito is a misogynistic, homophobic, anti-disabled coward," reported the source.

Senate staffers conducted extensive interviews with Alito's friends, teachers, and employers, and confirmed the allegations. The evidence indicates that Alito, when he was eleven, refused to share his jelly beans with his sixth-grade classmate, Nicholas Johnson.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," said Johnson to the staffers. "Sam was always bringing jelly beans to school for dessert with his lunch. I noticed he had a fondness for all the colors except for the black ones." Johnson, an African-American, grew curious about young Alito's motives. "So, I asked him about it. His response: 'I just don't like the black ones. You can have them if you want, but they're not for me.' That was all I needed to hear." Johnson decided to break off his friendship with Alito due to the stinging comments.

"I knew we could never be friends. We came from two different worlds. His world accepted all the jelly beans, but not the black ones. How could I stay his friend?" Johnson, according to reports, finished his statement in tears.

While Alito's racial bigotry seems well-established, this event did not explain his alleged homophobia and hatred of the disabled. Nicholas Johnson, now Nicole Johnson, holds the key to the rest of the story.

After graduating from high school, Johnson decided to undergo a sex-change operation. After the procedure, Nicole was struck by a milk truck, "colored white, naturally," Johnson said with bitterness, and became permanently disabled. Now confined to a wheelchair, Johnson later came to terms with not only her gender, but her sexuality. "I knew, not long after the accident, that I was living a lie. Sure, I had become a woman, but I just wasn't attracted to men. So, I knew then and there, I was a lesbian trapped inside a woman's body who used to be a man."

Thus, Senate Democrats were handed, via the noble form of Nicholas/Nicole Johnson, a rare trifecta of discrimination--gender, race, and sexual orientation. One staffer, clearly full of glee, said, "I am not positive about this, but I think Texas has executed people for less than that."

Since the Senate Judiciary Committee has already acted on Alito's nomination, his official role in the drama is over. Will he respond to these new charges? Only time will tell. But there is one Senator from Massachusetts who will be unlikely to stifle his outrage.

"It would be one thing," Kennedy said, "if Alito had been a wealthy but do-nothing son of a former ambassador close to a suspicious vehicular death that involved water, a bridge, and a young woman, or even if he had been in the KKK during his West Virginia youth, or an ex-president's wife who was investigated more than any first lady in history," the Senator paused, biting his lip. "But this sort of hatred cannot stand. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to stand firm against Sam Alito."

Commenting on Comments...

2006-01-25T13:35:00.000-05:00

After the most recent Alito post, one of the comments was as follows:

The comparison of Alito to Ginsburg and Breyer is just absurd. Were you referring to another nominee in the mold of O'Connor, it would be much more accurate. Moreover, as a simple matter of logic (a fallacy in this case), to generalize from this singular case to a blanket incrimination of the Democrats over this vote is a fallacy of the consequent, or in other words, an irrelevant conclusion. Simply because Republicans voted for previous Democratic nominees does not therefore make this nominee (Alito) equivalent in this context.
In addition, the very idea that this group of Republicans would vote in anywhere near the same numbers for those justices speaks to the ignorance and/or inaccuracy of such a statement as "only one party believes qualified justices should be confirmed regardless of the politics of the situation" given the current context. However, kudos for pointing out that some Democrats will take the cowards path on this vote simply because it is an election year; shame on all of us that this will no doubt become a fact.

My Response:

Sorry if I am not blown over by your reasoning, but you are just wrong. Alito is a mainstream conservative on a court that, given his addition, will make it still a moderate-left entity (Stevens, Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter will see to that), so in a sense, the vote on Alito will not tip the balance of power in any meaningful way except for in a few cases. Ginsburg and Breyer's nominations and confirmation were to a Court that was already tilted in their direction. In fact, they were replacing Justices White and Blackmun respectively. Their confirmations would make the Court, given White's departure, slightly more liberal, just as Alito's will make the Court slightly more conservative.

All three nominees were well-qualified as judged by the American Bar Association. The President making the nominations needed no minority party votes to guarantee confirmation, so the partisan balance of the Senate is not the primary issue.

Clinton made his nominations at a time when his popularity was sliding (Just as Bush's has been). In fact, Breyer was confirmed in a hostile, partisan atmosphere, not unlike what exists today in some ways. Gingrich was on the march in the U.S. House and the GOP was about to re-take control of Congress, so Republicans had an ideal political incentive to weaken the President as much as possible.

Perhaps the Republicans would not vote for Breyer or Ginsburg in the numbers they did then, but since no Democrat has made a nomination recently, you are speculating, while I am relying on the evidence at hand.

There can be no doubt that the Democrats in the Senate are attempting to hold onto judicial power like grim death, and they do so for at least two simple reasons. First, the Democratic party believes, in general, that the courts are the primary instruments of social and political justice in our society. They view the courts as policy instruments to a great extent. This predisposes them toward opposing any nominee that will not provide the policy outcomes they desire. (I would grant that some Republicans think the same way, perhaps even the President.)

Second, the Democrats' political agenda (such as it is) has proven wildly unpopular at the polls as of late. After all, it would take this level of unpopularity (in combination with a comically poor candidate) NOT to defeat Bush in 2004. Therefore, the party is clinging to any vestige of power it can find, so it feels bound to oppose the President's nominations as a matter of political power.

Regardless of the propriety of the Democrats' reasons, you must conclude that the nominee's qualifications play virtually no part in determining suitability for the bench. It is, then, a purely political calculation.

Given similar circumstances in the 1990s, the Republicans, according to the evidence, did not evaluate Breyer and Ginsburg in the same terms. Had they, we would have seen a different voting distribution.

You lament that some Democrats will take the "cowards (sic) path" and make an electoral calculation, and that choice should invite "shame" on the party and the Senators.

I would urge you to consider, at least the possibility, that the Democrats who are opposing Alito, for whatever reasons, are also making political calculations that are not necessarily courageous. In fact, many of the votes will be the product of group pressure and fundraising, and not due to a noble principle. After all, if it is a matter of principle, I would love to hear it articulated, for listening to the bloviating of the Bidens, Kennedys, and Laheys does not reveal even an inkling of nobility. (Certainly, many Republicans bloviate similarly and deserve similar treatment.)

In the end, there is no fallacy in the post. I am not generalizing from a singular event, but from the totality of the most recent and equivalent evidence. Consider the nominations of Roberts, Breyer, and Ginsburg (and soon to be Alito) and you must reach the same conclusion. In fact, go farther back to the nomination of Clarence Thomas or to that of Bork. Which party has revealed itself to be entirely politically motivated in the confirmation process? Democrats come closest to exoneration when you think of Scalia's confirmation, which was almost identical to Ginsburg's in tone and outcome, but given the evidence since then, the Democrats have made their opposition to Republican Supreme Court nominees not on the basis of qualifications, but upon ideology and politics . Are those unreasonable grounds for opposing nominees? Not necessarily, but don't pretend it is otherwise. I think the GOP should have opposed both Breyer and Ginsburg because they argue for a judicial philosophy that brings a maximum amount of power to the Court, and thereby removes it from the people. However, the heavy majority of the party's Senators, who likely found Breyer and Ginsburg's philosophy objectionable, decided it should not determine their votes.

Alito Comes Up for Vote

2006-01-24T08:51:00.000-05:00

Samuel Alito is coming up for his Senate Judiciary vote this morning. The committee has eighteen members, with 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats. All of the Republicans will vote for Alito, so he will go through committee and be reported to the floor very soon. Expect the full vote late this week or perhaps next Monday.

I would guess he gets around 65 votes altogether. There are enough Democrats in tight re-election races this year to push him up to that number. This pales in comparison to Republican support for previous Democratic nominees. Both Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were known to be quite liberal during the confirmation proceedings, and though Republicans asked them some pointed questions, the heavy majority still voted to confirm them. Breyer won confirmation with 87 votes (9 opposed), and Ginsburg with 96 (3). Apparently, only one party believes qualified justices should be confirmed regardless of the politics of the situation. In contrast, Alito may get ten or fifteen Democratic supporters.

Adding Songs to the IPOD

2006-01-23T02:12:00.000-05:00

All Hail the IPOD and its Progeny!

I am not pretending this is a news flash, but IPODs are pretty cool. I have been adding songs now and then, some from CDs and others from the Apple music store online. While it may interest no one, I thought I might share some of the songs that have made their way onto my white, Photo IPOD:

The Ink Spots--the Java Jive and I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire (Bonus Points for college students who have heard these songs)

Nancy Sinatra--These Boots are Made for Walkin' (I know it is cheesy, but I won't apologize for liking it and thinking it is catchy. Besides, some boots are made for walkin' and that's just what they'll do, and one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you. So there.)

Fatboy Slim--Weapon of Choice (The song is great, but not as great as the video. I am sure some you are shocked I, the bow-tie wearing, self-professed geek of a professor, has a song by someone named Fatboy Slim. Well, there is much about me that might shock you. I pray you find none of it out.)

Rick James--Superfreak (Must anything else be said? Didn't think so.)

Bobby Darrin--Mack the Knife and others

New Order--Bizarre Love Triangle (Can you ever get enough 80s alternative music? Oh, you can. Well, I can't. Long live the glory that was the peak of civilization, when men wore parachute pants and Members Only jackets--on purpose. Though I did not sport parachute pants, ever, I did own a royal blue Members Only jacket, and I thought I was the bees knees.)

Derek and the Dominoes--Layla

Wilson Pickett--In the Midnight Hour

It's Not Unusual--Tom Jones (Hey, sue me if you don't like it. I am secure in my eccentricities.)

Duke Ellington--Greatest Hits (Take the A Train, etc.... Classic)

Rossini--Barber of Seville

Boccherini--Minuet for Strings

Well, I am guessing it is pretty obvious that I have no real musical genre or taste that dominates. I like nearly everything except modern country (with one or two exceptions), heavy metal (almost no exceptions unless you count Hendrix or a smattering of AC/DC, which I don't), or rap (no exceptions I can think of). I am not sure what my music says about me, and I am not sure I care. I like what I like. I think I consume music based on need or mood. When I am working, I need music without words usually, but when I am driving or doing other things, I am not very particular. I just like music. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, music is proof that God wants us to be happy.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Iran?

2006-01-19T08:54:00.000-05:00

Charles Krauthammer, once again, eschews needless "feelgoodery" to discuss plainly our plight with Iran. In short, there are no palatable options if we hope to curtail the nation's quest toward nuclear status. Here are the most discussed choices that confront the administration:

First, we could continue to seek a diplomatic solution. The U.S. has stayed away from the table as the EU's Big Three (Germany, France, and England) have attempted to convince the Iranians that becoming nuclear is not in their own best interests. This has failed. Recently, Iran removed the IAEA's seals from its nuclear facilities, so we must assume they are continuing the research and work necessary to construct a weapon.

Second, we could seek to use the U.N. to place economic sanctions on Iran. This has some appeal because it is not necessarily bloody, but it is not likely to be implemented, or if implemented, to succeed. Russia and China are likely to use their veto powers to prevent sanctions, and even if they do not, Iran has threatened to choke the world's oil supply by pulling its 4 million or so barrels/day from the market. This would drive energy costs even higher and there is little evidence the West (both North America and Europe) has the stomach for that.

Third, we could opt to foment the incipient rebellion in the country and hope an internal revolution brings down the mullahs and changes the governmental and political culture. This might be our best alternative because it offers the most likely long-term solution. However, even if we aid the rebels, the future is uncertain. Will they succeed? If so, when? There are many "ifs" in this scenario.

Fourth, the U.S. or Israel can conduct a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, similar to what Israel did with Iraq in the 1970s. This is a short term solution even if it is successful. "Success" in this context would be defined as the annihilation of those facilities, thereby stopping the nuclear program and preventing, at least in the near future, their resuscitation. This level of success is unlikely given the uncertain nature of the facilities. How hardened are they? How many exist? Where are they located? Even if the strike is successful, Iran will likely revert to the threat it has raised regarding economic sanctions, so there would be some level of economic pinch as a result of the strike.

Why would anyone want to be President of the United States? I hope providence intervenes in Iran, for if it does not, it seems likely we will have a nuclear theocracy in the Middle East with the ability to deliver missiles to Germany, Iraq, and Israel.

If you assume that rationality will take hold of Iran's leadership, and result in some sort of a M.A.D. equilibrium, think again. Iran's President Ahmadinejad (pictured above), who evidence suggests was one of the leading radicals that stormed the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 66 Americans hostage for 444 days (and destroyed the Carter Presidency in the process), is an implacable foe of the United States and has already threatened to wipe Israel from the map. He does not strike me as the type to blink in the face of mutually assured destruction.

GOP Leadership Election is Pivotal

2006-01-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

Since Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) stepped down from his post as Majority Leader in the United States House of Representatives, the Republicans have been scrambling. As of now, three Representatives have entered the fray:

Roy Blunt (R-MO)
John Boehner (R-OH)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

All three are 56 years old and are experienced party leaders. Blunt is currently Majority Whip and is acting Majority Leader. He is the biggest "party man" among the three. Boehner was formerly Republican Conference Chairman. Shadegg is the GOP Policy Committee Chair (though he has given up that post in order to seek the Leader's post.)

Blunt is closely tied to DeLay, who is in his own legal quagmire at the moment, and he is tied to Jack Abramoff, the corrupt lobbyist who is currently cooperating with US Prosecutors. Blunt is an effective Whip, and has seemingly lined up the most support as of now. Blunt is an establishment Republican who has cooperated in the Party's profligate spending. He has exhaustive ties to lobbyists (as they all do to one extent or another, but Blunt's are the best known). Shadegg is the most conservative of the three, and represents the wing of the party that chafes under the leadership. Shadegg was a child of the Revolution of 1994, and he still carries with him some hope of scaling back the size and scope of government.

All three men are preaching, in light of the Abramoff scandal that is slowly unfolding around the GOP and will likely ensnare more of its members, congressional reform. Whether they are serious about changes in lobbying, access, travel, and earmarks (government spending that targets a specific member's district, perhaps connected to personal friends or business acquaintences, and usually placed in spending bills after the Conference Committee), remains to be seen, but they all feel the need to use the rhetoric of change.

Are the Republicans in the midst of making significant changes? Or, are they simply rearranging the Titanic's deckchairs with the iceberg of November's elections looming? How they choose their next majority leader may go a long way in answering that question.

To look at the basics about the three men, see these sites for Blunt, Boehner, and Shadegg. For excellent write-ups of the race and its dynamics, go here, here or here for more information.

The Agony of Fandom

2006-01-15T21:32:00.000-05:00

I am a proud fan of two football teams, one college, the University of Georgia Bulldogs, and one professional, the Indianapolis Colts. I grew up in Indianapolis and went to school at UGA. Rooting for my beloved teams of late has brought me an exquisite sort of pain, the kind that reminds me of paper cuts and lemon juice.

Today, naturally, the Colts ungracefully bowed out of the NFL playoffs. After posting the league's best record for the regular season, Indy looked stale, unenthused, and occasionally overwhelmed against Pittsburgh. Every last hope of a Super Bowl spilled from my veins and congealed in a pool of blue and white blood on the floor in front of the tv. Not good times.

Georgia, of course, ended the season almost as poorly when the Bulldogs took a dump on the artificial turf of in Atlanta as they fell to the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Sugar Bowl.

I must be one of only a handful of people in the universe who root for both teams. (If there are others, I would love to hear from you so we can commiserate.) The worst part of my twin fanatacisms is the commonalities the two teams share. They are both extremely talented with at least equal, if not superior, personnel when compared to their opponents. They have been quite successful in recent years, with the Bulldogs claiming two recent conference titles, and the Colts annually winning their division. Each team is coached by a well-respected man, with religious bona fides, with a placid demeanor. Both coaches have excellent winning percentages, and loyal fans have little room for complaints.

I suppose I am not like most fans. I want a championship, and I want it now. But again, I will wait for at least one more year. I am tired of being just good enough to be on the cusp of greatness without being able to spill over the edge. Are these good, decent, men the cause of my teams' inabilities to seize the moment? What is it that gives one coach that critical victory and not another? I fear both coaches are excellent, but not necessarily of championship caliber. The worst of it is that they share the same malady--timidity when brazenness is demanded.

Since Mark Richt, Georgia's head coach, has taken over the program, the Bulldogs have struggled in the redzone. Richt has also been unwilling to unleash fully his offense. He is predictable in his play-calling and when hard choices are to be made, he typically (though not always) plays it safe, or he is exploited by coaches who do not play it safe. Two times this past season, Georgia was victimized by fake field goals at the most critical points of games. Against both Florida and WVa, Georgia's defense stopped the opponents with just enough time for the offense to get the ball back and seek a winning score. On both instances, the opposing teams faked their punts and ran for first downs that essentially ended the games, both losses. By expecting other coaches to play by the book, Georgia is always victimized by those who do not.

Tony Dungy, the Colts' coach, is equally timid at critical moments. Dungy made what turned out to be a large mistake at the end of the second quarter of today's contest. Faced with fourth and goal at the two, and down fourteen to nothing, Dungy chose the field goal attempt. This choice was rational in many ways, but coaching is not purely about reason. Coaching is always about what you are, or are not, communicating to your players when you make decisions. By kicking the field goal, Dungy was telling his team that a) he did not believe they would make the touchdown from two yards out, and b) that he was not overly concerned with the game thus far, and c) he thought many more opportunites would come their way in the second half. The four points the Colts left on the field were the difference in the game, as they lost by three. (Granted, Dungy's crew still had a shot, but the Colts' kicker, Mike Vanderjagt, a makeable field goal attempt with just seconds left to play.)

I do not know if either Richt or Dungy have that killer's streak that is necessary to win championships. Teams must believe that you are a championship coach in order to play like a championship team. I do not know if the Bulldogs or the Colts believe that about their coaches. I hope they do. I fear they don't.

The Mouth Who Ate the Senate

2006-01-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

Joe Biden (D-Delaware) is the Senator's Senator. He is knowledgeable about foreign affairs, charismatic, and articulate. For all of his strengths, though, he carries a bag full of weaknesses (as do most of us, in fairness). His greatest, clearly, is his ongoing love affair with his own mouth and the torrent of words that stream from it.

Biden's mouth was on full display this week as he gobbled up the Senate Judiciary hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Biden swallowed nearly all of his alloted time talking as opposed to asking questions. If you think I am being overly harsh on the good Senator, just look at Richard Cohen's column on the matter. The brilliant intro:

"The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden."

For even better fodder, Jonah Goldberg, from National Review Online describes Biden thusly:

... He says interesting things, from time to time. I think he makes a fair point here and there. He was correct, for example, that Congress needed to have a real deabte over the war. I think he has some obvious verbal intelligence. But, again, what's fascinating -- and what might be distracting some folks from seeing his underlying-yet-occassional smarts -- is that he lets his ego and vanity get in the way. The man loves his voice so much, you'd expect him to be following it around in a grey Buick, in defiance of a restraining order, as it walks home from school. He seems to think his teeth are some kind of hypnotic punctuation marks which can momentarily disorient the listener and absolve him from any of Western civilization's usual imperatives to stop talking. Listening to him speechify is like playing an intellectual game of whack-a-mole where every now and then the fuzzy head of a good point pops up from the tundra but before you can pin it down, he starts talking about how he went to the store and saw a squirrel on the way and it was brown which brings to mind Brown V. Board of Ed which most people don't understand because [TEETH FLASH] he taught Brown in his law school course and [TEETH FLASH] Mr. Chairman I'm going to get right to it and besides these aren't the droids you're looking for....

Revel in the splendor of Joe Biden, ladies and gentlemen, you may not see his kind in the Senate again, at least until Chuck Schumer or Lyndsey Graham or John Cornyn or (fill in the blank with any random Senator) collectively open their gaping maws and threaten to swallow us all whole.

The Use and Abuse of History

2006-01-10T14:55:00.000-05:00

Carolyn Eisenberg, a member of Historians Against War, presented a paper at the recent annual meeting of the American Historical Association(AHA) entitled “Was Anything Learned from Vietnam?”(link to article) She started the piece with the following, “For many historians of a certain age, the Vietnam War was the formative intellectual experience, which shaped our understanding of the United States and its history.” She notes that she and her generation of historians learned that politicians lie, that the American military can cause suffering on those it claims it seeks to save and that American political leaders can allow soldiers to die in an effort that cannot be won. She then goes on to equate the Vietnam War with the war in Iraq. After discounting the American public’s ability to evaluate the current conflict, she calls for more historians, particularly focusing on the Vietnam War and foreign policy, who will act as “public intellectuals willing to address the actions of ‘powerful white men’…and debate the critical issues of our time.”

Ms. Eisenberg is entitled to her opinion, even her political opinion. What is more, she can express it in public. That is a fundamental right here in America. No such right is guaranteed at a professional conference like the AHA, however, or at least that once was the case. First, she presented a paper at the meeting that is nothing more than political rhetoric. That says as much or more about the association than the presenter and represents a fundamental lapse in the field. Historical methodology demands a distinction. The field of history expects the historian to pursue objectivity when approaching an historical subject. In addition, the historian must understand the context of an event to adequately evaluate it. Eisenberg failed to demonstrate either of these basic principles of research. First, her opening comment gives away the game. If, as she says, the Vietnam War shapes her intellectual approach to history, she has violated the foundational precept of the field. She is a political commentator abusing history to make some present-day point. Second, Eisenberg dismisses the Cold War era support for containment as the machinations of an intellectually deficient public. Her approach somehow manages to both defy the rules of historical investigation and arrogantly dismiss the American public’s ability to evaluate foreign policy. According to Eisenberg, the only remedy to this problem is a group of ivory tower-trained politicos steeped in Vietnam Era radicalism.

While much of what she learned in the Vietnam era is valuable, her connections with today are unfounded. The President can lie, but the assertions about President Bush fail to convince after only a cursory look at the facts. Norman Podhoretz is only the latest to debunk this political smear in a recent article in Commentary.(link to article) While she is correct that war does cause suffering for civilians, the US effort in Iraq has been exemplary. Noone would dispute that terrorism has cost far more lives there in the past two years than US military action has. Finally and certainly most disturbing is the assertion that a President allowed soldiers to die in a war that could not be won. Eisenberg argues “the antiwar movement had scored a significant achievement by making it politically impossible for any American president to increase the number of troops going to Vietnam.” Is it a viable to laud the achievements of these radicals in undermining the American effort in a war and then criticize the president for fighting a war that was unwinnable because of their actions? I think she is wrong on both assertions, but regardless, we again see a serious methodological lapse. Worse is the assumption a president could know that a war cannot be won—yet another argument haplessly applied to the war in Iraq as well. There were Americans who asserted we had no chance to win in World War I as well, but I wonder if Eisenberg would use them in the analogy. I wonder if the Historians Against War think the ideals at stake in the Second World War were not worth the sacrifice. If Eisenberg represents this group, these “historians” need to dig up their Introduction to History notes from their undergraduate days. They seem to have forgotten their basic historical methodology. If they have lost those notes, they might simply talk with a soldier, one of the ignorant masses she refers to, and see if he or she can help them find a way to balance their political agenda with historical, or in this case present-day, reality. In the field of History, the truth still matters. The AHA had better reevaluate its standards so as to require solid methodology for the papers it accepts at its meetings.

The Confederacy of Dunces Advances on Alito

2006-01-10T14:28:00.000-05:00

Samuel Alito is currently basking in the glow of all the brilliance that is the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate. A lesser man might shiver to death in the illumination provided by these dim bulbs, but not our fair Alito, who has apparently wrapped his brain in whale blubber so it might withstand the intellectual starvation currently afoot.

As he dances through his second day of questioning, Alito's inquisitors have steadily revealed themselves to be either incapable or unwilling to use reasoned arguments during questioning. Instead, they prefer to preen. The Senators understand, at least subconsciously, that they don't need reasoned arguments to use the occasion for fundraising or vote shopping. Times like these bring to mind one of Regan's quips that I will paraphrase as: "Politics is the second oldest profession in the world, and it bears an uncommon resemblence to the oldest."

Alito's confirmation is almost guranteed. There are no serious ideas being debated, and no Senators' votes hang in the balance. Alito, the record shows, is a mainstream conservative in the mold of Rehnquist and Roberts. He is not a firebrand like Scalia, nor a principled, natural-law jurist like Thomas, but, along with Roberts, he will join them in a proponderance of important decisions.

If you pay attention to the exchanges between Alito and the Senators, the impact of Roe v. Wade on the discussions is pervasive. Alito will not be the vote that overturns Roe (Stevens or Breyer or Souter or Kennedy or Ginsburg would have to be replaced for Roe to be threatened), but the case has distorted the relationship between America's elected officials and the Court. Pro-choice Senators attempt to corner him on the issue, and Alito is forced to hedge in his responses, out of fear he will not be confirmed if he comes out strongly against Roe. As such, he is forced to say inane things like, "I will keep an open mind" on abortion decisions when they come to the Court.

Let me be clear about something. There is not a constitutional law professor or student, Senator or staffer, Judge or clerk in the land who does not have a firm opinion on Roe v. Wade. Granted, a firm opinion would not necessarily dictate how a potential Justice would rule in an upcoming case on abortion, for the case's facts might be dispositive. We have created an environment, though, where nominees for our highest Court feel constrained when commenting on a 33 year old precedent. The Court's job is not to respect precedent alone. This nonsense talk of "super-precedents" reflects the talker's perception of the Constitution. Precedents that are not supported by the Constitution are unworthy of judicial respect. Pro-choicers speak longingly of Roe and Brown v. Board of Education, but they don't of Plessy v. Ferguson or of Dred Scott. Why? The precedent's appeal, like beauty, resides in the beholder's eye. The tie that binds correct precedents together should be their respect for the Constitution and nothing more, and not mere political expediency. The first question ought not be, then, "What do you think of Roe?" but "What do you think of the Constitution?"

Conservatives and pro-lifers have abdicated, at least culturally and at the highest levels of politics, the argument over abortion and the role of the Constitution. If you don't believe me, think of how astonishing it would be for Alito to respond to a question on Roe v. Wade by saying:

"Senator, with all due respect, I think the Burger Court over-stepped its bounds in Roe, just as the Warren Court had before it in Griswold. There is no right to privacy enumerated in the Constitution, and the Court's willingness to recognize one has taken some of the most important issues in our country and removed them from the people and their elected leaders. That is not good for the future of our country. Given your recent comments on the Presidency and wiretaps in a time of war, you seem concerned that the national government is infringing on our basic rights and liberties. I share your concern. Whenever the government inappropriately takes power from the people, and their elected leaders, I am concerned."

Pro-choicers feel the freedom to wax poetically about Roe, a constitutional right to sodomy, or the radical transformation of marriage in America. Conservatives, though, gag themselves when confronted by elected officials. Why? Public opinions polls routinely show conservatives to be quite competitive in the war of ideas surrounding abortion, gay rights, and marriage. Judicial conservatives (by that I mean those who take the text of the Constitution seriously) insert sock-covered feet into their mouths because of the peculiarities of the United States Senate, where the Mike DeWines, Olympia Snowes, or Lincoln Chaffees exercise inordinate influence. The Senate operates in fear of the "great" moderates, for it has institutionalized their ability to stall its operations with the flick of a tongue.

Senators think of themselves as part of the greatest deliberative body in the history of freedom. Lord, I hope they are wrong on that count.

Bulldog Flags Fly at Half Mast

2006-01-03T01:10:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to my colleague and friend, and sometimes co-blogger, Marc Clauson, for West Virginia University's victory in tonight's Sugar Bowl. The Mountaineers pulled out the win (38-35) over my beloved Georgia Bulldogs. While winning positively pulverizes losing, at least I can take some comfort in the fact it was an entertaining and well-contested game. I think Georgia's coach, Mark Richt, got outcoached by WVU's Rich Rodriguez. Hats off to the Mountaineers, for tonight, they were the better team. Boy, am I glad I did not agree to the bet that the loser shaves his head and wears a "I Love Jacob Arminius" sign for the first week of the semester.

Happy New Year and Mini-Movie Reviews

2006-01-01T23:34:00.000-05:00

The song says this is the most wonderful time of the year. Yes. And no. Holidays are such wonderful reflections of human nature, but with more belching, napping, and giving. And, for me, more movies than usual. I love movies. If I could earn a reasonable living writing, making, directing, reviewing, or talking to people who write, make, direct, or review films, I would do it.

I have three children, a loving wife, and a fairly demanding job. As such, I don't get to see nearly as many movies as I would like. Holidays, then, are one of my opportunities, so I frequent so many movie houses or rental stores that I am mistaken for an employee by the end of break. My favorite holiday phrase is not necessarily "Merry Christmas," but "Would you like a 128 oz. drink with that, Sir?"

So, on with my mini-reviews, some of which are only mildly timely or relevant.

Chicken Little--I saw this one with my kids because of the sheer dearth of family films. How was it? This was Disney's attempt to compete with Pixar (the two companies used to be connected but have now parted ways), and it appears Diseny, as a company, does not have a single creative person left in the company. The most entertaining part of the film was the end credits when two characters put a nice spin on the Elton John Kiki Dee hit from the 1970s, Don't Go Breakin' My Heart. So, to recap, the best thing about the movie is a remake of a bad pop song. Let us just say that this will not give The Incredibles, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Toy Story I, Toy Story II, Monster's Inc., much to sweat about in terms of quality, graphics, characterizations, plot, or creativity.

Cinderella Man--A story of Gentleman Jim Braddock's path to the heavyweight title in Depression Era America. Braddock, played by Russel Crowe, lost all of his fight money, which was invested in stocks, and due to injuries, was unable to fight for several years. Braddock regains his health and begins to fight again to feed his young family. Directed by Ron Howard, the film is emotional and uplifting. The Depression pervades the film and highlights the desperation felt by nearly all of the characters. I suspect that is why the film did not do well in the box office. It is certainly not "feel good" in theme, though the outcome inspires. The most interesting comparison is to Million Dollar Baby, where the title character was also fighting to change her life, though Cinderella Man does not have an Old Yeller moment attached.

Grizzly Man--a documentary about Tim Treadwell, an amateur environmentalist who spent 13 consecutive summers living with grizzly bears in Alaska. No points for guessing the outcome of this tale. Final Score: Grizzly Bears 1(technically 2), Environmental Nut-Job 0. The film is fascinating and I heartily recommend it. Treadwell is an extreme example of "environmentalism," that borders on religious devotion. Treadwell shuns the people world in favor of where he thinks he belongs, with the bears. He sentimentalizes nature, worships and loves the animals, and sees in them some kindredness that escapes me. Directed by Werner Herzog, who compiled most of the film from Treadwell's own footage, this is a case study of a man who is convinced that animals, even the most savage ones, are capable of bonding with humans, and respect is the glue that will join them together. Ultimately, Treadwell's view of nature may be closer to reality when Christ returns and restores order to a damaged universe, where the lion and the lamb recline together. The rub, naturally, is that the fall changed the relationships between man and animals and animals themselves.

King Kong--see below.

Office Space--for anyone who has held a job in an office environment, or at a restaurant, this movie is for you. Is it occasionally raunchy? Yes. Is it sometimes offensive? No question. Is it laced with truth? Unquestionably. For anyone who has ever dreamed of sticking it to the man, you must see this at some point. The lead character, Peter Gibbons (played by Ron Livingston), decides he has had enough of life on the job. He uses a drill to disassemble his cubicle, ignores his boss when it suits him, and decides to gut a fish atop an important company report. The scenes where this mayhem is taking place is accompanied by a rap song called "Feels Good to be a Gangster." Rap dominates the film's soundtrack, which is incongruous given the office setting. This film is really about the lack of respect that employers have for their employees. Instead of actually making their lives better, employers give employees motivational posters. Instead of making their jobs simpler, employees give their drones hawaiian shirt day once a month. Instead of giving them raises, employees hand their worker bees the sometimes birthday party with a bad cake that no one likes.

Coming Soon--Munich and Millions.

Was it Beauty that Killed the Beast?

2005-12-19T21:43:00.000-05:00

King Kong is about an ape, a woman, and a tall building. Yet, this film, unlike the earlier two versions (1933 and 1976), is about so much more. As all outstanding films, King Kong transcends its genre so that it is not an action film alone. It is a love story, a profile of human depravity, and a visual spectacle.

The synopsis is familiar. Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is a struggling actress who meets producer Carl Denham (Jack Black), who is one step ahead of his creditors and in desperate need of a leading lady for his next masterpiece. Darrow agrees and soon finds herself on a steamer bound for Skull Island. Also on board is the film's screenwriter, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) and an assortment of supporting characters, most of whom meet a series of untimely, yet entertaining, demises. (The film portrays an array of ways to die--stomped by giant ape, trampled by dinosaur, eaten by ape, flung into hard objects by ape, plane smashed to pieces followed by death dive in New York, speared by native, head smashed by native--but the worst, hands down, is having your head swallowed by a toothy slug. Some fates no man deserves.) The ship reaches its destination, Darrow is kidnapped by natives for a sacrifice to Kong, who decides he likes Darrow enough not to kill her, and a chase ensues. Eventually, Driscoll rescues her and unwittingly aids in Kong's capture. Once transported back to New York, Kong breaks free from his captors, recovers Darrow, scales a building, only to come down again, this time more quickly.

King Kong is, at heart, a tale of the bond between Darrow and her protector. Director Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings trilogy immortality) spends a fair portion of the three hour running time on the relationship between the beauty and the beast. The two share staggering sunsets, rudimentary communication, and a harrowing scrape with a trio of T-Rexes. Watts' acting in these scenes is astonishing, for she must travel from terror to hesitant trust to affection and love, all while looking in eyes not there. Kong is a purely digital creation, so Watts must interact with empty space at worst, or a person pretending to be Kong. Watts is a respectable actress with a burgeoning resume (I Heart Huckabees, Mulholland Drive, 21 Grams, The Ring), and anyone who has followed her career cannot be surprised at her performance here. She is luminous as she invests Darrow with a delicate blend of necessary athleticism, vulnerability, and strength. Darrow travels a long, personal path in the film, much farther than from Skull Island to New York. She transforms from a desperate damsel in need of her next meal, into a steel-spined heroine, willing to risk life and limb to protect film's noblest character, Kong.

King Kong has many messages at its heart. One of the most constant is the focus on human depravity. Though most of the characters are three dimensional (one or two are forgettable cliches, like the squinty-eyed sailor), they are (with the exception of perhaps four) cast with a core of selfishness that manifests itself as greed, cruelty, vanity, and shallowness. Denham wants money and fame; Captain Englehorn enjoys the thrill of the hunt and the dollar that goes with it; Baxter (Kyle Chandler's portrayal of the witless leading man in Denham's film) loves himself; the natives seek security and are willing to sacrifice lives to get it; the idle rich in New York want the thrill of a show, regardless of the costs attached to it. People are base, nasty, and wicked in King Kong, and while earthen nature is portrayed as red in tooth and claw, human nature fares no better.

Finally, Peter Jackson's film separates itself through the splendor of its visualizations. Jackson is a visionary with the rare ability of manufacturing dreams. Kong is a marvel. New York's sky line is breathtaking. Kong's fight with the T-Rexes is stunning and pounding. The attack of the insects beyond icky. Watts glows on camera without ever seeming phony. Skull Island's natives are nightmarish. There are six or seven sequences stamped on the brain after viewing, and great films can usually boast of two or three moments of awe.

Is Kong perfect? No. It is a tad long, and some of the dialogue is strained and predictable. On one or two occasions it teeters on the line that divides thrilling adventure from camp. Even given these drawbacks, King Kong deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Raiders of the Lost Ark when one ponders the heights of the adventure film.

Day 1: American Security Held Hostage by Congress

2005-12-18T21:46:00.000-05:00

The United States Congress, self-titled as the greatest deliberative body in the world, has once again shown its uselessness. As our country fights in a brutal war spurred by murderous thugs, our elected representatives scurry as they hide behind thoughtless cliches. When confronted with force, they seek dank corners to clothe their cowardice.

The Patriot Act was passed just before Christmas in 2001. It gave our national government a bit more authority in pursuing potential terrorists. There is some debate over whether the act did much of anything to disturb our domestic civil liberties, but it did allow the government to search library records, more easily tap mobile phones, and to conduct terrorist investigations more like internal criminal investigations. I do not think the Patriot Act has had any impact on our freedom as citizens, but let us assume it has. I am certain that if the Act had a chilling effect on American civil liberties, most of us were willing to wear a sweater for the time being in the hope that some people who hope to do us harm would be caught in the process. In other words, I think most people were willing to trade some measure of freedom in order to purchase a bit more security.

Congress, in all of its wisdom, has decided to allow the Patriot Act to expire. At the same time, we caught wind of President Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to monitor the electronic communications of people in America with suspected terrorist contacts. This program was authorized soon after 9/11, and it was classified, so someone had to break the law to leak the program's existence to the media. This has produced, naturally, a great deal of handwringing, accompanied by a multitude of "oh, dear"s and "how could he"s in Congress.

The painful truth is that one of Congress's most vital functions is the oversight of the executive branch agencies. Congress monitors the actions of the federal government to make sure the laws it passes are being properly implemented. As part of this oversight, Congress has set up intelligence committees to allow members to peek over the President's shoulder on all matters of security and intelligence. I am sure we will soon discover that many members were briefed on this "snooping" program when it was approved, and gave their tacit approval to it in the process. By not admitting this, however, members of Congress can now pretend they are outraged and use the opportunity to score political points against the administration.

So, while Congress fiddles, American security burns. They refuse to reauthorize the Patriot Act, feign distress over perfectly reasonable eavesdropping on suspected terrorists, and stand by as our southern border is porous, open to any enterprising terrorist with a dirty bomb and sneakers. What great leaders we have, eh?

Will 2008 Be Mormon in America?

2005-12-16T10:29:00.000-05:00

So asks Terry Eastland in the Daily Standard. Mitt Romney, Republican governor of Massachusetts, has announced he will not run for re-election in 2006, thereby, according to rampant speculation, freeing Romney to run for the presidency in 2008. Romney's position, as just another governor throwing his hat into the ring, would be unremarkable save for the fact he is a Mormon. Romeny has solid conservative credentials on fiscal responsibility (he effectively balanced Massachusetts' budget quickly, and he ran the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Games, which turned a $100,000,000 profit) and marriage (he has pushed for two years for a Massachusetts Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage). His position on abortion, though, might cause some concerns. He is personally anti-abortion but believes Roe v. Wade should be maintained as precende and that abortion ought to be safe and rare. He disdains the label "pro-choice," but is not necessarily pro-life in the traditional sense.

Romney's candidacy could do for Mormons what Jack Kennedy's did for Roman Catholics in 1960. Romney could nationalize the Mormon faith, but an effort might raise interesting tensions with the typical Christian Right. While most traditional Protestants at least recognize the common Christian heritage they share with Catholics, they do not give Mormons the same latitude. My guess is that in polling, most orthodox Protestants would call Mormonism a cult as opposed to another expression of the Christian faith.

For the Sheer, Brutal Exploitation of it All

2005-12-13T20:11:00.000-05:00

Cindy Sheehan shows the lengths to which she will go to make a political point. This is her, prone on the grave of her fallen son. Vanity Fair has the uncommonly stupid idea of publishing this, which plunges to the depths of distaste. Perhaps it would be more fitting if she had the corpse exhumed, stuffed in an action setting, and covered in the blood of Iraqi babies? Maybe she could then wheel it to the President's ranch in Crawford and demand some constructive dialogue? Is that going too far? I don't see why. Sheehan has systematically launched herself into celebrity on the back of this brave, young soldier, all for a cause to which she is willing to sacrifice everything, including her dignity and her son's memory. You see, to people like Sheehan, politics is the ultimate reality, the arena that embodies all that is worth controlling. There is no sense of the eternal, the transcendant, or the world more than six inches away from her skin. To the political god, then, all must be sacrificed.

Zeus's Beard!

2005-12-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

The Government of the United States spent the following in 2005:

About $2.5 trillion in the year.
$6.8 billion/day
$78,418/second
The average household income in the US was $44,389
Will of those lucky enough to join me, please raise your hand if your household makes less than what the government spends per second.

Courtesy of The Corner and Jonah Goldberg.

C.S. Lewis's Problem of Pain

2005-12-11T21:38:00.000-05:00

As the general public wraps its arms around The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Hollywood style, C.S. Lewis's star begins to climb once again. Lewis was the cover subject of the last U.S. News and World Report, and his books continue to be staples among American evangelicals. His influence is incalculable, particularly as an apologist in works like Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters.

For me, The Problem of Pain is Lewis's most memorable work. I am not arguing it is the best, or the most profound or influential, but for me it is compelling. From the outside, Lewis's life seems idealistic. A world-class scholar of medieval literature, tramping around the pinnacles of western education, Oxford and Cambridge, rubbing elbows with the great minds of his generation and shaping those of the next. (Please avert your eyes from my rank bitterness and jealousy.) There is nothing there that screams out pain.

But, given the human condition, much of our lives are shaped by pain. Lewis lost his mother at an early age, suffered in the muddy trenches of World War I, and had his true love, Joy Davidman Gresham, taken from him by cancer only two years into their lives together. Lewis spent years pondering God's relationship to his creation, and he wrote of the varieties of love through which God works. Near the end of his life, Lewis was confronted with a loving God who ripped apart his happiness, and he was left with the question that crosses all our lips at some point--"why?"

Lewis argues that pain is the chisel God uses to shape us into his image. The chisel is not pleasant as it chips away at our rough edges, the sinfulness that prevents us from becoming what we were intended to be, and it lands with hammer blows divinely aimed. God brings the proud low, the secure to dependence, and the liar to the truth. He strips away what our sin holds dear, and we emerge from the chisel better followers.

It is during our pain God speaks to us most. As Lewis notes, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

Because of God's constant tool, we should bear our suffering with joy. I have not had a hard life as normally defined. Like Lewis, I live the life I would choose. I teach, I learn, I read, and I write. My wife and family are happy and healthy. The world would look at us and say we are phenomenally average, or perhaps a bit weird. I have had my share of misfortune, but not compared to most, and I have my comfort, but not as much as many. God has given me setbacks, and some at the worst possible times from my perspective. He has given to me with his right hand and taken with his left, and there have been times I have wanted to curse him as a result. But as my sovereign God weaves together a tale meant only for me, I can see the love that lies behind the difficulties, and the joy that overwhelms the grief. I hope that God challenges me to the end of my days so that when I reach them I will look at my Lord and see myself in his eyes.

There are many things that mark a Christian, but to his fellow man, none more so than his reaction to life's hurdles. C.S. Lewis spent the last four years of his life, between Joy's death and his own, seeking God. Would that we all end so well.

When Religious Candidates Collide

2005-12-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

"What does God expect of us? To do justice and love kindness." So utters Jim Petro in his latest campaign commercial. The current Attorney General of Ohio, Petro is one of the two significant Republican candidates seeking the party's gubernatorial nomination. Even though the election is eleven months away, the primary's contours are emerging. Ken Blackwell, current Secretary of State, is the other Republican in the race; he was a lightning rod during the 2004 US Presidential race (he did have the gall to actually certify the results--imagine), and he is an African American. The pair inhabit a party, though, that has been damaged in Ohio. Governor Taft's legal problems have degraded the Republicans statewide.

Both Blackwell and Petro have determined, it seems, that religious conservatives are the most critical group to woo to secure the Republican nomination. Petro's latest commercial (From the Heart), referred to above, is posted at his website. The images include Petro's family, a large, black-leather Bible, which lies next to a pair of wedding bands. Petro bluntly crafts his message on religion, marriage, and gay rights in the span of five seconds.

As religious conservatives, it is a joy to be the object of serious groveling. I guess if politicians must pander, they may as well pander to people like us. We have traversed a long path from political afterthought to object of desire. All in all, this a positive development.

I am still not sure how to feel about Petro's commercials. We must be shrewd as candidates approach us for support. They must be worthy of the sweat and tears we will spill as we jump again headlong into the next campaign.

When Discrimination is a Right

2005-12-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

The word "discrimination" (or "discriminate") is generally used in the pejorative sense these days. It has not always been so. The Miriam-Webster dictionary provides this definition for the word as one of its selections: "to distinguish by discerning or exposing differences." Another entry noted that the word meant "to make a distinction...to use good judgment." In essence, the Founders of this nation would have used this sense of the word to describe what voters did when they went to the polling station. Even today, voters discriminate, or discern, between candidates and between issues. Ideally, they vote on the basis of what they view to be best for the nation as a whole. This judgment, according to William Bennett, "remains a cornerstone of democratic self-government."(Bennett, The Death of Outrage, Free Press, 1998, p. 9) Yet today we most often use the word to mean something else. Another Miriam-Webster selection notes it means "to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit." Generally we use it today to mean not favor, but adverse treatment on some basis. Our Constitution created the framework to prevent discrimination in certain areas. For example, the First Amendment prohibits the government from preventing a citizen from exercising her religious beliefs. Federal law has rightly expanded such protections to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender or race.

In a recent editorial, John Leo highlighted a discrimination case being brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union against the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. One of the diocese schools in Queens dismissed a teacher who had become pregnant out of wedlock. The teacher had signed a contract that noted the belief and behavior expectations of her as an employee of St. Rose of Lima School. Leo noted a 1987 Supreme Court case that allowed the protection of ministerial function to be applied to non-profit religious organizations.(Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos) In other words, a Catholic school can use judgment in who it hires, even for secular jobs. Such action constitutes discrimination and the NYCLU is arguing it is illegal discrimination.

Leo is right to suggest the NYCLU has made a mistake in pitting an anti-discimination law against the First Amendment. The issue here is clear. The St. Rose of Lima School and any other religious school or para-church organization in the country must have the right to hire on the basis of its beliefs. Those who do not agree with those beliefs or refuse to live by those standards are not obligated to work there. They have the right to work elsewhere and the organization has the right not to hire them. Personnel define the institution. To not allow such discimination would, in essence, rule out the notion of such religious institutions. Surely this would violate both the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment, something the NYCLU wishes to uphold. Americans should reconsider the use of the word "discimination." In some cases, it is a foundational right within a free society.

Jim Wallis's Politics or God's?

2005-12-05T21:47:00.000-05:00

Founder of Call to Renewal and Sojourners magazine, Jim Wallis has had a bullish year in 2005. A tireless religious and social advocate, Wallis has garnered a great deal of attention in this post-presidential election year. Wallis, a left-of-center Evangelical Christian, attained most of his notoriety by exhorting Democrats not to fear religion or religious voters, to speak of progressive values from a religious foundation, and to compete with the Christian Right for deeply religious voters.

Wallis splashed onto the NY Times bestseller list with God's Politics: Why The Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. Wallis's thesis is rather simple: the Christian Right's political focus is too narrow, and therefore fails to come to grips with the full gospel of Christ, while the political left is unable or unwilling to recognize the powerful role religion plays in shaping how many Americans think of politics. What America needs is prophetic politics, with Christians acting as social critics, like the Old Testament prophets, who not only chide their contemporaries but offer a positive alternative agenda. Wallis is convinced that conservative American Christians fail to grasp the totality of what religion has to offer politics, particularly in the areas of poverty and foreign affairs. In contrast, leftists understand those issues, and seek to justly remedy poverty and cooperate in foreign affairs, but they do not come to grips with the spiritual roots of many social problems.

In essence, Wallis seeks what he calls a fourth way in American politics: beyond liberal, conservative, and libertarian. He advocates a respect for life, a commitment to ending poverty, traditional approaches to sexual integrity and family values, good environmental stewardship, and opposition to what he views as purely military solutions to America's foreign affairs problems.

I want to tackle two parts of Wallis's argument, but my criticisms are really couched in one general theme. This book is not about about God's Politics, it is about Jim Wallis's politics clothed in a poor understanding of Scripture, human nature, and government. I cannot argue with Wallis's motivations, his heart, or his intent. The world would be a better place if there were more, not fewer, Jim Wallis's, but that does not mean I want him teaching Christians about politics.

POVERTY
Wallis argues that Christ's ministry was deeply concerned with poverty, and he laments what he perceives as the short shrift conservative Christians give it politically. He spends a good deal of time referring to passages like Matthew 25:45 ("He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'), Matthew 5:3 ("Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."), and Mark 14:7 (" The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.") to justify the centrality of the poor in Christ's ministry. Wallis spends several chapters arguing that government resources should be aimed at defeating poverty, but to his credit, he does not entirely ignore the reality that poverty is, at least in many cases, the consequence of bad decisions and unhealthy habits. Precisely how should government solve poverty? Wallis does not get much farther than the redistribution of wealth via tax increases on the wealthy.

Wallis accurately lambasts conservative Christians on this issue, for as a group, we have not directed enough time and resources toward the needy for fear of attaching ourselves to the social gospel. Our churches should direct much more of their resources toward America's dying cities and those who inhabit them, for how can we witness with a straight face if we bother not to clothe or feed those in need?

Wallis's great weakness, however, is his persistent mis-reading of Scripture to justify his political ideology. Wallis repeatedly fails to contextualize the biblical passages upon which he relies, and he fails to take all of scripture into account when interpreting difficult passages. Wallis regularly strips language from the Beatitudes and attempts to cobble together a political philosophy from it. However, Christ was speaking to individuals and followers when he made those comments. Does this bind government to make poverty a priority? I do not think so, for Christ's ministry was not inherently political. In fact, Christ was crucified, at least in part, because he was not the political leader many Jews were expecting in the Messiah, and when given the opportunity to speak directly to political powers of his day, he chooses not to make clear political statements. Instead of castigating the injustice of Caesar, who was surely harder on the poor than George Bush, and whose 'heirs' would soon put nearly all the disciples and hundreds of Christians to death, Christ simply told us to render unto Caesar and unto God.

Does the Sermon on the Mount yield a coherent political philosophy? Of course not. Is it a beautiful blueprint of interpersonal relations? Absolutely, but Wallis's need to justify his Robin Hood economic philosophy cannot be found elsewhere in Scripture, so he hangs his hat on the nearest peg. If you think I am being unduly harsh, and that governments should be run based on Christ's exhortations, ponder again his words: should government turn the other cheek in the face of violence? Should we seek criminal and international justice meekly, for only then will we inherit the earth? Ought we to outfit our troops with flowers instead of rifles so they might love those who seek to kill us?

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Christ's words are binding not only on his followers/believers, but on the government as well. If government is required to attempt to end poverty in order to enact justice, does Scripture require a particular method? Wallis assumes that through the redistribution of wealth alone can God be honored. He completely ignores the possibility that there are many views of poverty from all sides of the political spectrum. Conservatives are concerned about poverty, but they do not see the redistribution of wealth as a feasible solution. After all, America has spent tens of billions of dollars on poverty reduction programs during the past seven decades, but the problem persists, and, arguably, is worse. This is the trope of the radical left when confronted with any policy problem: throw more money at it and then it might go away. To be fair to Wallis, he understands the multi-faceted nature of poverty, but in the end, his criticism of the right centers on its unwillingness to take money from some so it might be given to others.

The historical ignorance on display is staggering. Many economies have been formed on the notion that if only property were redistributed, ills like poverty would dissolve, for then we could take from each according to his abilities and give to each based upon his needs. Every planned economy that has attempted to do this has not only failed dramatically, but has become corrupt and tyrannical in the process. While I am not accusing Wallis of outright Marxism in his approach to economics, the failings of Marxist/Communist regimes should be instructive. Even mildly socialist economies, like France, have failed miserably in the face of poverty, and its problems have increased, not declined.

Conservatives and Republicans favor economic incentives, more competition, free enterprise, and market-driven solutions. Does that make Republicans and conservatives ungodly in their approach? Wallis would say 'yes.'

What Wallis repeatedly does, then, is to use Scripture to justify his leftist political ideology. Let me be clear that I do not think Scripture can easily justify the conservative approach either. In the end, Scripture tells us to pay attention to the poor and to seek to ameliorate their suffering. As individuals, we do not have the choice to ignore Christ's call. As a political principle, then, I would support programs designed to address poverty. The principle, though, does not yield concrete means to address poverty. Means are the source of political debates, not of scriptural mandates. In other words, the Bible does not yield a simple, political ideology, but it does provide for some political principles, and within those, it allows for a range of approaches.

WAR AND TERRORISM

Wallis also views war, peace, and terrorism through the prism of the gospels and the prophets. He hinges his views primarily on Matthew 5:9 ("Blessed are the peacemakrs, for they will be called the sons of God."). Wallis notes that it is not enough for us to love peace, but as Christians we are obliged to make peace. He decries the Bush Administration's foreign policy as based on fear (as opposed to God's sovereign protection), overly unilateral, too militaristic, and all too ready to use God to rationalize aggression. He believes the Iraq war was not just, and that the Christian approach to terrorism must be international in nature, respectful of the root causes of terrorism (one of which is America's Middle East policies), and willing to bring perpetrators to justice. More than this, like preemptive war, is unjustified.

Here, Wallis's problem is his underutilization of other parts of Scripture that define government's powers and responsibilities. These are not found in the Beatitudes, but elsewhere. He avoids passages like Romans 13 because they do not support his argument. Government is given the power of the sword by God. It is God's instrument of justice. It is part of his sovereign plan to protect us from evil. Wallis's refusal to allow government to bear the sword in righteous anger is telling.

It reminds me of the old joke about the man trapped in the flood. He went to the roof of his house and a truck came by, asking him if he needed a ride. "No," he said, God will take care of me." Later, a rowboat and a helicopter make the same offer and the man gives the same response, "No thanks, God will take care of me." Well, the flood waters rise, the man's house is submerged, and he drowns. In heaven, he asks God, "Why didn't you help me?" God's simple response was: "What did you think the truck, the rowboat, and the helicopter were for?"

God has ordained government to do some things as part of his plan. Relying on government to wield the sword to protect its citizens, and to throw off the injustice of other governments, is part of God's sovereign protection. To expect him to do more than provide a free, stable, well-trained, humane military sort of misses the point. Granted, God may do more, but let us not forget he has already ordained an institution to carry out his will.

Wallis also pointedly fails to mention much of the Old Testament in foreign affairs, save for the prophets. Why does he not mention God's multiple instructions to Israel to use deadly force? Again, because they cannot fit well into his simplistic view of the world. I do not think we can easily take our government's marching orders from Israel's Old Testament theocracy because we are not Israel, and we do not have the unique relationship with God that it did. However, I do believe that a clear principle of what government can do with force can be gleaned from the Old Testament. Force is an option that is always on the table. We should not use the military as a whim, and we should do our best to eliminate the death of innocents. Wallis routinely characterizes the Iraqi conflict as a rush to war, a quick use of the military when diplomatic solutions were still plentifully available. He believes there were still peaceful means to preventing Saddam Hussein's procurement and use of WMDs. Wallis, like most pacifists, conveniently forgets the immediate history of the war: the dozen years of inspections that were continually rebuffed, the UN Security Council's unanimous resolution to resort to grave consequences, and Saddam's continual opportunity to prevent a war by cooperation. Economic sanctions, diplomatic solutions, international pressure, and legal wrangling had all been attempted and failed. This was the most measured use of force in our nation's history, but Wallis can only turn his back on this reality, for again, it does not fit well into his screed against the Bush administration and the Christian Right.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Again, I think Jim Wallis is a kind, decent, tireless advocate for the poor and the disadvantaged. I appreciate God's Politics because it at least forces us to consider Christ's role in our current politics. In the end, though, the book is unhelpful.

Think about Wallis's simplest proposal of raising taxes on the wealthy and using the money for more anti-poverty programs. What impact does increasing taxes have on the economy? What if by spending more of the public's money on the poor, the wealthy have less money to invest? What if a few less jobs are created as a result? What if 401(k) plans decline because companies suffer from a shortage of capital? What if the government spends the money unwisely? What if the impact of more money is negligible? What programs have shown success with poverty and which ones deserve more funding or less? What if the church determines, even more than it has, to let the government take care of the poor since it has the resources to do so? What if we, as believers, continue to fail to understand that we should help the poor not only to provide for them, but to live more like Christ?

Wallis reminds me of the politician who stands in front of the political rally and pounds the podium, reminding the crowd that he is against crime, against poverty, and against war. Who among us is for those things? Only monsters or idiots would qualify. Being against those things is fine, but it begs the complicated questions of how and why we should address these issues. Wallis believes the Bible provides the schematic for our politics. That makes him sleep easier at night because the world, government, and issues are clear and simple, begging to be solved if only we did the right thing.

The cold reality is that the world is more like Thomas Hobbes' description of life without government: poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. The world is a complicated, ugly place defaced by our sin and screaming for redemption. As politicians develop their vision to address issues, they have to make hard choices with outcomes that are not neat and clean. Will poverty go away if we just raise taxes? No. Will the world be safer if we just give peace a chance? No. Will education get better if we just pay teachers more? No. Will abortion get rarer if we just stress abstinence and discourage behavior that leads to bad decisionmaking? No. The world's problems, just like those of the human soul, require more than the right policies. They require Christ's redemption in conjunction with commitment, creativity, and objectivity. Every choice is a hard one, and all of them have consequences. But that message does not get you invited on Larry King and it does not sell many books. People want comfortable, simple answers to life's hard questions, and Wallis dutifully provides them.

Sic 'Em, Dawgs

2005-12-04T21:18:00.000-05:00

As a proud graduate of the University of Georgia, I count six of the best years of my life as those in which I lived in Athens, GA. I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, attended college in the South (Bryan College in Dayton, TN), seminary in the great white North (Trinity in Deerfield, IL), and went to Georgia for graduate studies in political science.

I love UGA. My wife and I had little to no money while in graduate school (some things never change), but we could afford season tickets to all the football games. As a student, I was able to purchase two sets for less than $60, but only after waiting in line for 8-10 hours. That was a small price to pay for the joy of filing into Sanford Stadium six times every Fall. The stands were full of the Red and Black clad faithful from across the state--Metropolitan Atlantans, south GA rednecks (I mean that in the most affectionate way), Old Money Savannahans, and north GA mountain-dwellers. Young, Old, Rich, Poor, Black, White. We attended almost every game for six years. We became adopted Bulldogs, if not purebred ones, and we took to our new family quickly and permanently.

All this makes Georgia's most recent victory gratifying for the Smith household, even as we dwell in frosty Buckeye Country. Georgia defeated the wicked LSU Tigers Saturday night by a score of 34-14, capturing their second SEC championship in four years. This launches UGA into the Sugar Bowl on January 2. On that day, they will battle West Virginia University, the beloved team of Marc Clauson, one of my fellow bloggers. Sorry Marc. I will apologize in advance for the thrashing the Bulldogs are about to put on your Mountaineers.

Bush's Iraq Strategery

2005-12-01T21:31:00.000-05:00

Slate.com has a reasonable rundown of reactions to President Bush's most recent speech on the war in Iraq. Responses are, unsurprisingly, mixed, and the level of satisfaction is closely related to partisanship and ideology. Liberals and Democrats are underwhelmed by Bush's comments, arguing either the President still does not get the problems in Iraq, which would make him somewhat incompetent, or that he is malevolently shaping a rhetorical reality to deflect attention from the disaster in the region, which makes him evil.

Conservatives and Republicans, meanwhile, congratulate the President for fighting against the persistent media bias that surrounds war coverage, and they seem to concur that things are going almost as well as can be expected.

There has been an array of commentary on Bush's rhetorical style. Some refer to him Churchillian terms, while others note his case for war is more compellingly made than any president's since Lincoln. While I am sure neither is necessarily arguing that Bush's abilities as a writer rival Lincoln's; nor does he reach the heights of Churchill's majestic mastery of the English language. Remember also that Churchill was a brilliant writer and orator, while Bush seems to do well only when others have slavishly prepared his text and when he can devote significant time to his delivery. This is why Bush's best speeches have been those with some lead time--his acceptance speech at the 2004 GOP Convention, and his "Dustbin of History" speech delivered just after 9/11 (I want to say it was 9/15) that made every American's soul sing.

One of the fundamental differences between Bush's use of the Bully Pulpit and Churchill and Lincoln, is that our nation is not terribly focused on the war. We have not militarized our economy, we have no draft, and there is no sense of shared purpose and sacrifice woven through our society. Given that our nation has not made the war its first priority, most citizens don't make hearing the President's speech their first priority either. Bush must compete with hundreds of cable channels, a world of online data and chatter, and XBOX 360. How can a speech matter, then, when the President cannot command the nation's ear? In a society that is continually more fragmented in its knowledge gathering, he cannot do so, even if he requests and is granted major network air-time.

This war, for Bush and perhaps any President, would be difficult to redirect rhetorically given the economic and information realities with which we are faced. Even if Bush could peer over the Mountaintops ascended by Churchill, or plum the depths of the nation's heart like Lincoln, it might not matter given the President's consistent choice to fight a war in America's background. Iraq is always with us, but it never commands us unless we know of a friend or loved one recently lost. Unlike World War I, II, or even Vietnam, the small number of American casualties means that few of us have felt the impact so deeply.

I know some of you reclining in your Lazy Boys or dorm room desk chairs are bristling, saying, "Wait a second, Mister. I care." Oh, really? Can you name one hero from the war? What was the latest military operation? Who is the general in command of the theater of operations? Yeah, I thought so.

Chilling Profile of Abortionist in LA Times

2005-11-30T10:17:00.000-05:00

Stephanie Simon, of the LA Times, has written a stunning profile of an abortionist from Fayetville, Arkansas. Registration is required to read full story, but it is well worth it. The doctor estimates he as aborted 20,000 fetuses (he admits that this is "taking life"). Here is an excerpt:

His Fayetteville Women's Clinic occupies a once-elegant home dating to the 1940s; the first-floor surgery looks like it was a parlor. Thick blue curtains block the windows and paintings of butterflies and flowers hang on the walls. The radio is tuned to an easy-listening station.

An 18-year-old with braces on her teeth is on the operating table, her head on a plaid pillow, her feet up in stirrups, her arms strapped down at her sides. A pink blanket is draped over her stomach. She's 13 weeks pregnant, at the very end of the first trimester. She hasn't told her parents.

A nurse has already given her a local anesthetic, Valium and a drug to dilate her cervix; Harrison prepares to inject Versed, a sedative, in her intravenous line. The drug will wipe out her memory of everything that happens during the 20 minutes she's in the operating room. It's so effective that patients who return for a follow-up exam often don't recognize Harrison.

The doctor is wearing a black turtleneck, brown slacks and tennis shoes. He snaps his gum as he checks the monitors displaying the patient's pulse rate and oxygen count.

"This is not going to be nearly as hard as you anticipate," he tells her.

She smiles wanly. Keeping up a constant patter — he asks about her brothers, her future birth control plans, whether she's good at tongue twisters — Harrison pulls on sterile gloves.

"How're you doing up there?" he asks.

"Doing OK."

"Good girl."

Harrison glances at an ultrasound screen frozen with an image of the fetus taken moments before. Against the fuzzy black-and-white screen, he sees the curve of a head, the bend of an elbow, the ball of a fist.

"You may feel some cramping while we suction everything out," Harrison tells the patient.

A moment later, he says: "You're going to hear a sucking sound."

The abortion takes two minutes. The patient lies still and quiet, her eyes closed, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. The friend who has accompanied her stands at her side, mutely stroking her arm.

When he's done, Harrison performs another ultrasound. The screen this time is blank but for the contours of the uterus. "We've gotten everything out of there," he says.

As the nurse drops the instruments in the sink with a clatter, the teenager looks around, woozy.

"It was a lot easier than I thought it would be," she says. "I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn't. The procedure, that is."

She is not yet sure, she says, how she is doing emotionally. She feels guilty, sad and relieved, all in a jumble.

"There's things wrong with abortion," she says. "But I want to have a good life. And provide a good life for my child." To keep this baby now, she says, when she's single, broke and about to start college, "would be unfair."

This is American civilization at its worst: a disdain for life, the glorification of the individual's wants more than the needs of others, and the mounting tide of "rights."

Praise Music, Tradition, and Feeding the Monster of Relevancy

2005-11-27T19:07:00.000-05:00

I am 35 years old. I have a wife and three children. I come from a conservative, Christian background, and the churches in which I grew up can safely be called 'fundamentalist.' I was reared on a steady diet of hymns at church, and the shift toward praise music did not impact me until I was in seminary. While at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, in Deerfield, Illinois, my wife and I visited Willow Creek, one of the first mega-seeker churches in the country, so we saw, first-hand, the booming culture of praise.

I now attend a fairly large, conservative church that is Baptist by tradition. Although we sprinkle an occasional hymn into the rotation, we are a PowerPoint driven, praise chorus congregation. We have a small orchestra on stage, and a worship leader. I would estimate the average age is between 45 and 50, with at least a fifth of the population over 60.

There is a tremendous push among evangelicals to conform to the almost new style of worship. I will not pretend to explain all the motivations behind this tendency toward the more emotional, individualistic mode of worship that discards so much of the church's traditional music. One clear reason is the desire to stay culturally relevant. In order to bridge the gap between the church and the world, we must communicate in the culture's language. You only have to scan the number of people sporting IPODs to know this culture values music, so we feel pressed to be sure ours is relevant. The motivation, at least in part, is to witness through our worship.

(I am leaving aside the discussion of whether we must indeed use the trappings of our culture to evangelize it. I am not convinced that an American church must reflect, in any way, its surroundings in order to advance the Kingdom of God.)

Culture changes in a blink. I am in some ways mired in the culture of my youth. I still insist the greatest pop music is, naturally, from the 1980s, the greatest movies are Amadeus and A Fish Called Wanda, and leg warmers, parachute pants, Members Only jackets, and up-turned polo shirt collars, are all still in style.

My parents still like Hee Haw and Andy Griffith, cling to the bluegrass music of their Appalachian youth, and are partial to films in black and white--especially Westerns and World War II movies.

But, the religious culture in which they reared me, we largely shared. We can all sing the same hymns, and we are collectively aghast when we hear instruments other than the organ (that is the large, pipey thing that sits in a dusty corner of your sanctuary--unless yours is a gym, er multi-purpose room) or a piano.

As I sit in church these days, and I look around at my fellow worshippers that wear a few more wrinkles, I notice that many of them mostly mumble through praise songs. When the PowerPoint slide shows a familiar rhyme, and when the drum beats out a recognizable rhythm, our elders' faces illuminate, their tongues sing in recognition, and you can tell, at least for a moment, they are transported back to a time and place where these songs framed their worship experience. Their glee is short-lived, for after a stanza of Amazing Grace, we are again punished with "It's all about you, Jesus" ten times or until the worship leader cries in emotional ecstasy.

I must think that for my parents, and those older, this music is a thumb in the eye. Our worship leaders may as well wear signs that proclaim, "Out with Fogies and in with the Newbies." Not only is the music of Fanny Crosby, Isaac Watts, and Charles Wesley sliding down our ecclesiological drain, but we are losing the language that binds generations. (Of course, it is possible the choruses we squeak our way through will become our shared songs, but given their quality, I hope not.)

William F. Buckley describes conservatism as a willingness to stand athwart history and yell, "STOP." Liberalism, or progressivism, I suppose would be a willingness to destroy history and yell, "GO." The shift toward the new kind of worship seems to coincide with the rise of the baby-boomer generation to positions of power within the church. If there has ever been a generation that unblinkingly discards tradition, it is that one. They tore down marriage, redefined sexuality, made recreational drug use socially acceptable, and denigrated American and Western history and civilization.

I know that many of our Christian leaders opposed the radicalism they swam against in their youth, so I do not want to impugn them unnecessarily. Cultural events, though, do not take place in the larger world and then disappear within conservative Christianity. Instead, trends are usually filtered through our prism, and like light, they can be bent in interesting ways. My theory is that many young Christians who came of age during from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, stood firm against so much of what their friends espoused, but they have not escaped it entirely.

The Christian baby-boomer eschews tradition (witness the downfall of denominations in America), trumpets the self, disdains their elders, feels more than thinks, and despises intellectual systems. It is under their watch this seismic shift in worship attitudes has happened, and that is not by accident.

There have been few voices yelling "STOP" as our worship culture changes. We should warm up our vocal chords before we are swallowed by unintended consequences. One of the most significant, and least discussed, is that our elders are being marginalized. The current generation of retired Christians is thoroughly isolated in the modern worship service, so the church seems to be pulling the welcome mat out from under those who paid for the buildings.

At its finest, the Church sits as a critic of the fallen culture that surrounds it. At its worst, the church simply mirrors the rottenness. Our culture does not value the old among us. We do not sit at their knees to learn their lessons, but we instead shuttle them to retirement homes so they might do us the decency of not bothering us as they die alone. Our need to be relevant screams irrelevance to those who traveled before us. We, as the Body of Christ, should do better.

And Now for the Important Story...

2005-11-21T21:57:00.000-05:00

The Countdown is on for the most important event of this calendar year. At Midnight tonight, Microsoft, in a move of glorious, capitalist, ruthlessness, seeks to dominate the media world through the introduction of the XBOX 360. More than just a video-gaming system, Microsoft is trying to make the machine the digital center of the home. The 360 plays DVDs, CDs, stores pictures, mp3 files, conducts video-conferencing, allows you to play your IPOD or other digital music player through tv speakers, and connects to the internet wirelessly for online gaming.

However, the real draw of the console is not its multi-tasking, but for the sheer joy it promises to those escapists in need of a new fix, a thrill, a rush of adrenaline. Whether your hooked on swapping sheet-metal a la NASCAR, pounding a drive down the center of a well-manicured fairway, or lobbing a grenade into an enemy's machine gun nest, hoping to be greeted by screams as opposed to the 'clink-clink' of a returned potato masher, 360 promises (and may or may not deliver) the great next step for those of us hoping to find a reality that is both more virtual and more real.

This is the great gaming paradox. We long for escapism into worlds more thrilling than our own, but the worlds must be as real as possible for us to be fully satisfied. So, the plunge into the alternative realm of existence is sweetened when that existence looks, sounds, and feels somehow familiar. We don't want a world so different from our own, we just want a life that is different from our own. At the root of most gamers' lust for the new experience lies boredom, malaise, and an unwillingness to confront the reality before us.

I have tried to slake my thirst for the different with Pong, the Atari 2600, Coleco-Vision, Intellivision, Atari 5200, Nintendo, and, eventually, an XBOX. I will not rush out and buy the 360. No, I have not determined that it is time to put away my adolescence. Why bother? I am working on a book, raising a family, and working a job. In that light, I don't have the money (the full 360 runs $400) or the time--yet.

When Murtha Speaks, the Administration Should Listen

2005-11-17T20:42:00.000-05:00

While strolling around The Corner, I followed a link to an interesting speech by Rep. Joe Murtha. Murtha's bio gives him some instant credibility. He is not a leftist who believes President Bush is the Anti-Christ. This is a former Marine who was in the service for 37 years. Murtha voted for the war. He represents Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District, which borders West Virginia. On the front of his webpage, he mentions Iraq, tax cuts, and veterans. This is the sort of Democrat President Bush can ill-afford to lose, and his rhetoric cannot be dismissed as partisanship alone.

In his Nov. 17 speech, Murtha calls the Iraq war "a flawed policy wrapped in an illusion." His most stinging criticism is that the President and the Pentagon have failed the troops by spreading them too thin, sending them into hostilities without adequate support, and by failing to provide resources and networks to the families left behind. This war, Murtha argues is the most protracted conflict in our history that has not involved the militarization of our economy and a draft. As a result, the regular troops shoulder the burden with little help from their countrymen.

Besides the strain on the military, Murtha believes the mission in Iraq is in jeopardy. He does not see the progress he expected, and he believes the presence of the troops inspires the insurgents more than it inhibits them. Ultimately, Murtha believes: "Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME."

More Controversy: Muslims, France and the US

2005-11-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus, I thought what better way to get back into blogging than by throwing some fuel on the fire of controversy sparked by my colleague Dr. Smith over the last couple of days. Never one to stay away from the difficult, he has raised some pertinent issues for this nation. Not directly related, but perhaps tangential to the topic is a discussion of Muslim immigration. Cal Thomas, in his regular editorial this week, examined the impact of Muslim immigration into France and the recent outbreak of violence there. This topic, too, raises some very difficult issues for us as Americans, and perhaps more poignantly, for us as Christians.

As with my colleague, I enter into this discussion tentatively. As with his topic, this one is a mine field, fraught with possible misunderstandings about what is and what is not being said. The Political Correctness crowd have indoctrinated Americans from my generation on that the United States should embrace, highlight, and even celebrate the differences among us here in the United States. Some particularly misguided souls have attempted to use my discipline, history, as support. While not disagreeing with all that they seek, if we look at America’s history, we don’t see many examples of this approach in action. The Founding generation certainly did not envision an America where all comers were welcome and all cultures and faiths were embraced. Most of the colonies had established churches prior to the Revolution. Many continued afterward. All states required some type of Christian oath for service in public office ranging from affirmations of the Trinity or belief that the Bible was Truth. Even the most fringe or anti-Christian, the few Deists among the Founders like Franklin or Jefferson, recognized the importance of Judeo-Christian values in the success of the nation. The notion that they would have encouraged a Muslim to immigrate to the young republic is absurd.

Fast forward to the 19th century, particularly the 1830s and 1840s and then again the Gilded Age when much of the immigrant foundation of this nation came in two great waves. Most of these immigrants shared some type of “Christian” faith, yet even they faced the pressures of the Melting Pot. They were expected to embrace the values of America such as individual responsibility, allegiance to the nation, and the preservation of the rights of others. And they did. The Melting Pot is aptly named, particularly for this century. There was little embracing of the differences. In fact, success in this country meant the breaking down of many of those cultural distinctives. They were not totally stripped by any means, but they were melted and melded, and acceptance of that which was American was demanded. It is only in the 20th century, and really in the last half of it, that anyone has suggested a different view of immigration and the mixing of cultures.

The conundrum of the Muslim immigrant is particularly difficult. From birth, Muslim children are taught that the greatest evil in the world is found in western (historically Judeo-Christian) civilization. Even those not in the radical extreme are taught to hate—it is sanctioned by the Muslim god. Muslim states are almost always repressive. The individual is not valued. This is demonstrated in the oppression and abuse of women and children and manifested in the extremist who kills indiscriminately. This is because of a radically different perspective of god. The Muslim god is anthropomorphic. He evidences the worst aspects of humanity in his lust for domination and his demand for thoughtless subservience, public and repetitious displays of worship, and immoral acts. Eternal rewards for the suicide bomber include a litany of earthly desires: kingly status, material reward, and a large number of virgins. This god is not a god of love, but of terror (by that I do not mean terrorism but rather inordinate fear). Man was not created in his image, fostering love, but he is created in man’s image, fostering hate. There is no sense of individual responsibility or respect for those of a different perspective. And there is most certainly no allegiance to democracy or America. The United States is the best example of a nation dedicated to the notion that the individual has inherent value. Originally founded in competing strains of Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment principle, the value is still maintained. The God who sacrifices his Son for mankind is a God who values human beings. As Christians, we are called to love, but does that demand that we open the nation's doors to them? Does valuing the individual include accepting those who do not? Historically we can find no other group that Americans have allowed to enter that does not embrace this value. I fear Cal Thomas was right. No one celebrates exclusion, but America has the right to prevent its own demise. France is reaping the harvest of embracing a group of people who have no affinity for, no allegiance to, and indeed no desire to see its system succeed. While I would not want to paint all Muslims as terrorists, for that would be untrue, what is true is that the type of terrorism that America and the West faces is driven by Muslim belief. The majority who are not so radicalized, still have no desire for the US to succeed. History has shown us what happens when Muslims gain a majority in a nation. France is showing us what can happen when they become a sizable minority. What can we celebrate in a culture that seeks our demise?

More on Torture...

2005-11-15T09:14:00.000-05:00

Thoughtful readers have posted comments on my limited advocacy of torture in very specific circumstances. One's comments are instructive:

"...intel agencies have repeatedly found that physical torture simply doesn't work on psycho maniacs. And then of course there's the backlash it would cause..."American spies are torturing prisoners of war! Gasp!" It'd be Abu Graib all over again, and that's the last thing the Bush Administration (and the American image as a whole) needs. It would simply provide more ammo/rhetoric/ideology for why the West is so evil. Not to mention the fact that the next time one of our spies gets kidnapped, you know the bad guys will take free rein to do whatever they darn well please...So I'm afraid I must stand behind the good Senator..."

A couple of quick comments.

First, each individual captured is different. You cannot make a defensible blanket statement that "torture simply doesn't work on psycho maniacs...." There are different approaches that would work better or worse with different people. The fact it might not work in some situations is irrelevant to the DUTY the executive has to protect his people, and it does not help us explore the possibility that in some cases it will work. Again, let me make this clear; I am not arguing for a policy of torturing all detainees, but I think in very extreme circumstances, where we know the moral standing of the prisoner and we know they know critical information that will potentially save tens of thousands of lives, torture should be a legal option for non-Americans in custody.

Second, the reader makes the mistaken assumption that our people are mistreated because of how we treat (or have treated) prisoners or detainees. Our people are tortured and killed because we are the targeted enemy. We have been the targeted enemy for thirty years now. Can Abu Graib explain the taking of the embassy in Tehran? The killings on the Achile Lauro (my spelling may be off here)? The first or second World Trade Center bombings? The bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut during the Reagan Administration? The USS Cole? The beheading, on camera, of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal? Has our overwhelmingly humane treatment in Gitmo earned us good will in the Arab community? Clearly, giving detainees Geneva Convention protections or, even worse, American Constitutional protections, will have no impact on how they treat our prisoners and it will have no impact on our enemies' decision to continue to hunt and kill Americans.

Third, even if torture has a limited net gain, should that remove it from the realm of possibility? Should our government have at its disposal any means necessary to protect its citizens? What would we ask our president if Houston is destroyed by a nuclear or biological weapon if we found out, after the fact, that some detainees may have known the details of the plan? Could the President live with himself if he failed to puruse every conceivable way of finding out that information? If I were President (and may all of America rejoice that I am not), I could not.

My guess is that Senator McCain and his colleagues on the Hill would move to impeach and remove any president who made conscious choices NOT to pursue information that could have saved tens of thousands of American lives. Perhaps this makes me a moral neanderthal, but I think we need to understand the gravity of the choices that confront our leaders. I have said it before, but it is worth repeating: until we change the cost and benefit ratio in the minds of those who seek to kill us, they will continue to do so. We must make it clear that the cost of attempting to strike at America will far outweight whatever benefit they have in mind. Until we do that, they have no incentive to stop their war against us.

Torture, the Image of God, and Punishment

2005-11-14T09:40:00.000-05:00

I have not had much time to think carefully about the following issue, so if I am rash, chalk it up to an off-the-cuff reaction, which blogging encourages. (That is one reason why blogging is hard for academics. We are used to taking all the time we need to formulate sentences, paragraphs, papers, and arguments. We are not used to shooting things off at a moment's notice.)

John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona, proposed a recent amendment to the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act. Senator McCain, a former POW in Vietnam, proposed that the United States bind all of its agencies and military personnel to the Geneva Conventions when dealing with prisoners of all kinds. So, the effect of the amendment would be that terrorists, who fought under no flag and in no uniform, and who have made sport of beheading Americans on camera, would be given respect equivalent to soldiers from other nations. There would be no room for torture under the McCain Amendment, even in extreme circumstances.

In response, the Bush Administration, in the form of Vice President Cheney and Porter Goss, Director of the CIA, asked for an exemption within the amendment for the CIA. McCain's amendment passed the US Senate by a 90-9 vote, while Cheney's proposal was rejected. (The U.S. House has not yet acted on the Amendment, and any action would need to pass through a conference committee before it lands on the President's desk for his signature.)

As Christians, how should we think of the McCain Amendment? Consider the following situation. Americans have captured Zarqawi, or even Bin Laden himself, and learn terrorists have successfully smuggled a nuclear weapon into the country. We KNOW that the prisoner KNOWS the whereabouts of the weapon and the planned time of detonation. The prisoner refuses to speak. We have engaged in low-level psychological and physical coercion with no response. The clock ticks and the phone on the president's desk rings. The caller asks for permission to torture the prisoner so the information might be gained.

If Mr. Spock, the rational Vulcan from the Star Trek series/movies, were answering this question, he would not hesitate. He would allow torture for the greater good. In other words, his utilitarianism would kick in, and he would argue that the pain of one, even to the point of death, cannot outweigh the pain and death of the many. I suspect that most Americans would find themselves in sympathy with this line of thinking. The prisoner, then, is tortured in every way imaginable, even to the point of death and/or the death of his loved ones, until he yields the desired information.

If Dr. Bones McCoy, the ship's surgeon on the same series (I am meeting my quota of Star Trek references for the year), were answering the question, he would say, I believe, it is wrong. Why? Because it is. There is no other explanation needed. Reason cannot alone guide decision-making processes, for it is cold, heartless, and calculating. Reason must be moored by principles or it becomes ruthless.

As Christians, I believe we should oppose the McCain amendment, but not for the same reasons as Dr. Spock would. One of the bedrock principles of orthodox Christianity is that all human beings are created in the image of God. They are worth something. We should honor, protect, and defend life at all costs. In the abstract, then, our first principle should be to protect life, even at the expense of our own if required. This is one reason we should laud our soldiers as they march into the fields to protect those who cannot protect themselves. On a personal level, then, we ought to be willing to lay down our own lives to protect our fellow image-bearers.

However, government bears additional responsibilities. Romans 13 makes it clear that our rulers are put in place by God, and that they bear His sword of justice. Government is God's instrument on earth. It is ordained and established, at minimum, to restrain evil, and the godly ruler will love his people and seek justice. Government, then, bears a sword that does not belong to the citizen, and a responsibility to protect its citizens. How does government protect us? It punishes evil-doers so that they may not continue to harm the innocent. This is a second principle with which we must grapple.

God's image does not absolve the criminal from punishments, even extreme ones like death. Scripture is full of support for the death penalty (Gen. 9:6--I am not pretending there are reasonable religious roots for opposing the death penalty, but I think the evidence for it is stronger than the evidence against it.) The third principle, then, is that government is given the power to punish the wicked, even to the point of death.

How do we wrestle with the three principles simultaneously? If, in the course of conducting a war, we capture a known terrorist responsible for the deaths of tens, hundreds, or indirectly, thousands, and that terrorist has information that will save the lives of tens of thousands, we must allow our government to engage in even grisly means to extract that information. This is not an honorable soldier, like John McCain in Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton; this is a murderer and a criminal by any civil definition. He has forfeited his claims on our good will by his behavior. He has chosen to kill the innocent and he cannot expect respect in return, and neither would the Scripture require we give it.

I would condone, then, the government sponsored torture of a sociopathic, terrorist, murderer, if it was the only means necessary for uncovering information that would save the lives of tens of thousands. I would not condone the torture of the innocent (even if they had the information), even if it might convince the guilty to divulge the information. The moral standing of the person being tortured must play a role, then, in the decision to torture or not. Does that make me heartless? Cruel? Overly rational? Perhaps, but I do not believe, yet, that it makes me ungodly or unbiblical. (I welcome, of course, any arguments to the contrary. Again, this is a first whack.)

Imagine if we embraced the alternative, and clung to the first principle alone. The phone rings on President Bush's desk, and he refuses permission to the mythical caller I alluded to earlier. The next day, a nuclear weapon incinerates the District of Columbia, killing hundreds of thousands, including the President. I cannot conceive of a just God, a vengeful God, who jealously protects the innocent, and who willingly sacrificed His Son, the ultimate "image-bearer," to save us, who would look upon the President and say, "Well done my good and faithful servant."

The Effects of Tuesday's Elections

2005-11-10T22:39:00.000-05:00

Like the six blind men of Indostan, the media's overwhelming tendency is to distort and misinterpret the events that surround them. There are two significant perceptual problems with the media and political events. First, the media always assumes that concurrent events must be related to one another. Exhibit A could be the Tuesday elections that just occurred. President Bush's popularity is plummeting, and Democrats maintained gubernatorial seats in Virginia and New Jersey. The media cannot help linking these two things. As The Washington Times notes, "Bush 'Sank' GOP in Virginia."

In reality, off-year elections (odd-year elections) are probably the least effected by national trends. There are no national elections taking place and no federal elections in the U.S. House or Senate. In other words, these are almost purely state elections. Though it is impossible to completely distinguish between state and national effects, these elections have to be the most isolated of all elections. Democrats held the governor's seat and retained it. The Republican candidate, Jerry Kilgore, was a poor candidate by all accounts, made the death penalty the focal point of his campaign, and refused to take a principled stand on taxes. The GOP lost the seat, but won the Attorney General's and Lieutenant Governor's races, so if Bush sank the governor's race, he must not have had an impact on the others, or at least not to the extent the media can recognize. In other words, concurrent events are not necessarily related to one another.

Second, the media always views future events through the prism of the now. Tuesday's elections are a perfect example of that phenomenon. DeRoy Murdock, whom I admire generally, and with whom I substantively agree in the article, falls into the trap, thinking the Tuesday results in Virginia and New Jersey (where Sen. John Corzine bought a term as governor with more than $100 million of his own money) portend ill for Republicans in 2006. Again, political dynamics change dramatically over time, so predicting future events is tricky for experts and disastrous for amateurs.

2006 will be a different election cycle with Representatives and Senators comprising the majority of candidates. These candidates will benefit from built in incumbency advantages and nearly all of them will likely win (80-90%). It is possible the few losers line up on one side or another, and a few open seats might go the same way, and we could see a shift in party control. However, that is a string of possibilities that cumulatively are unlikely.

What is the lesson with all this? Don't listen to what the media tells you. Look at the results for yourself and be patient. 2006's elections are a long way away.

To Blog is Divine

2005-11-10T22:18:00.000-05:00

Faithful Readers,

Fear not, the Society will return in force. As professors, as almost all of us are here, we go through peaks and valleys of busyness. This point in the semester is generally a peak, as you can tell from the lack of traffic on the blog. For classes with three exams, this is the natural time for the second exam, and this is when student advising for next semester hits us hard. At some point, I hope to make the blog a daily affair, a tiny vessel on the sea of current events, sailing toward sanity.

More Thoughts on Paris

2005-11-08T11:23:00.000-05:00

I got an email from someone asking me about the Paris riots. Here was my response, which further explains what I was getting at in previous posts:

"Always great to hear from you. I have blogged on the Paris riots, but not much. I think one commentator captured my thoughts when he talked about "Eurabia." The assumption behind European (and American) immigration policy has been that western economic, religious, and popular cultures exercise an intense influence on immigrants, who though they might maintain some aspects of their previous culture(s), will eventually be assimilated AND that this process strengthens the dominant culture(s) within the country.

Most elites (in America and Europe) go a step beyond this reasoning, as you well know. Not only are these other cultures valuable in their ability to influence our dominant culture, they are normatively the same, and we should not aggressively seek to assimilate immigrants. There has been an increased willingness, especially in Western Europe, to carve out geographic and legal enclaves for large immigrant populations. The major motivation is not necessarily philosophical, but political. These are voters waiting to be brought into a governing coalition. (We see some of this in America since both major parties are willing to make exceptions for hispanic immigrants because of their potential political potency. This is the root behind the general unwillingness to secure our Mexican border.) So, there is a political and philosophical motivation to NOT forcing high levels of assimilation.

I think we are seeing the results of these policies in Paris, and I fear we might see it continue in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and perhaps Britain (where we have already seen some evidence). The Muslim immigrants in France (mostly from North Africa) have been both unwilling and/or unable to assimilate. This is true because of the cohesive nature of their religious subculture. It is essentially undemocratic, intolerant (politically), and bent toward violence at the extremes. Western liberalism (by that I mean classical, free, economic, tolerant liberalism, not ideological liberalism) is being tested and might be forced to redefine itself in light of these threats."

Again, feedback is appreciated.

Mark Steyn Provides Perspective on Paris

2005-11-08T00:56:00.000-05:00

Mark Steyn, the great opinion columnist, has a take on the violence in France, and the burgeoning unrest in Brussels and Berlin. What does he think? Let's just say he uses the terms "Eurabia" and "civil war." This is a European powderkeg, according to Steyn, we should only expect to get worse.

This possibility raises an interesting question about American immigration and culture. If Europe proves unable to assimilate Muslims youths, can we expect to escape the same fate? The popular view of American immigrants has been that they add "diversity" to our culture and that this diversity is eventually folded into America's powerful religious, political, and economic cultures, which are altered, somewhat, by the absorbed cultures.

This view, obviously, assumes that all cultures are normatively equivalent, and that any effort to aggressively assimilate others is seen as unfairly ethnocentric or racist. What we are seeing in France, however, is a failure to assimilate a cohesive religious group that is given a tremendous amount of deference.

In an effort to squelch it, expect this particular line of thinking to be called xenophobic or bigoted. These labels, though, cannot reconfigure reality. The Muslim subculture has proven particularly resistant to assimilation. Just my quick thoughts.

More on Star Wars

2005-11-06T18:49:00.000-05:00

Just to prove my point of my kids' obsession with Star Wars, I have provided clear visual evidence. Unless it is unclear, I am the one prone, likely just finished writhing in agony as the tools of my death carve holes of fury in my flesh. (I think, perhaps, the LightSaber explains much of Star Wars' appeal.)

What is it about Star Wars?

2005-11-05T23:21:00.000-05:00

I am a fan of the Star Wars films, though I have become less of one over time. I thought the most recent three (technically the first three in the order of the series) films were poor compared to the others, and I think George Lucas is a special effects genius, but he is a terrible director of actors, and an awful writer of dialogue. All that being said, I have decided not to allow my children to watch the films yet. They are simply too young (5, 3, and 1).

My son (5), however, seems to know the entire story of the six film series because of one kids book he has and due to my decision to buy him a Star Wars Legos game for X-Box. As a result, he is fanatical about everything related to the movies--characters, toys, props, costumes. Now, he runs around the house using the force on his sisters.

I suppose my only question is about the alure of Star Wars. Certainly, the movies are not that good. Why are they insanely popular? Why are my kids obsessed with the story? I have some theories about it, but again, I am curious what all of you think. Is it the setting? effects? lightsabres? monsters? space action? myth?

What is Going on in France?

2005-11-05T23:16:00.000-05:00

What is happening in France? I understand that most of the time when bloggers ask questions, or when professors do, for that matter, they already think they know the answer. That is not true here. I would love to know any and all opinions about what you think is happening.

Is France being targeted by Muslim extremists because of its weakness? At what point will the Chirac government understand the extreme severity of what is happening?

I am, unashamedly, an Americanist by training, by disposition, and by orientation. However, I sometimes wish I had a better grip on international affairs. Any opinions are welcome.

DeWine Appears Ready for Battle

2005-11-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

Constant blog reader, Aaron Welty, a former student and current intern at The Heritage Foundation, forwarded this link to me. It appears that Mike DeWine, one of the wobbly gang of 14, is ready to do battle over Alito's nomination. In short, DeWine insists that any effort to filibuster Alito would cause him to vote for a rules change in the Senate, thereby taking the filibuster off the table for judicial nominees. These are pretty strong words for DeWine, who is not known for them. DeWine's comments are near the bottom of the blog link, so scroll down for them.

Alito is the Man

2005-11-01T21:18:00.000-05:00

As you know, President Bush has chosen Samuel A. Alito to replace soon-to-be departing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the United States Supreme Court.

On the whole, this is a great choice. Alito has a defined philosophy. He typically is deferential to the legislature, has a restrained view of both government's power and the extent of individual rights, and he appears unwilling to allow the Judicial system to set the nation's course on our most contentious issues. This is an outstanding choice.

David Frum, a smart, plugged-in, former speechwriter for the Bush Administration, has predicted that Alito will likely get more than 70 votes. I think Frum is largely correct. Alito was unanimously confirmed when he was nominated to the Appellate Court in 1991. He is within the mainstream of conservatism. In other words, he is no more conservative than Ginsburg is liberal. If anything, Alito may be somewhat more qualified than Ginsburg was, so assuming he handles himself well in the hearings, 65 or 70 votes seems reasonable to me.

One of the things we need to remember is that U.S. Senators have to offer no reason for voting up or down for candidates. There is no constitutionally defined standard for them to follow. They simply choose to provide their consent or not. There reasons are their own. Now, this is not about what should be the proper grounds for voting against a judicial nominee, but only about the possible grounds, which are limitless.

I am the Longshanks!

2005-11-01T09:51:00.000-05:00

Which General From History Are You? I Got the Link via The Corner. I am Edward I, a.k.a. Longshanks. Apparently, I am intelligent (Don't tell my wife!), ruthless when necessary, shrewd, but I have my people's interest at heart. That is good as long as you are my people, I suppose.

Miers Withdraws

2005-10-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

Right now I am listening to the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony--loudly. Could I sound more like an elitist if I tried? Probably not. Such is life. I am who I am.

While I think the President could be weakened by this, I doubt it will be long term. We see here a fundamental difference between the role conservatives play within the GOP and the role religious conservatives tend to play. The religious are still feeling their way through this process, so they are uncomfortable criticizing a President that has given them so much rhetorically.

However, by criticizing, prudently, you can exercise some level of independence from the Party and the President. That degree of independence is necessary so that you do not become like African Americans or the labor movement in the Democratic Party. They have little desire or willingness to take on the Party squarely, or if they do, it is done in private. Sometimes a public dust-up is needed to establish perspective and priorities. Going along to get along is not the best approach. Going along because the ideas and emphases are right is the best policy.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

2005-10-25T00:18:00.000-04:00

In the post below I noted ten movies I judge to be better than Goodfellas. While flipping through channels this evening, I thought of another that merits special mention. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was the best film I saw in 2003. I mention it not due to its excellence alone, but for the fact it was a mediocre box office draw. If you have not seen it, you should. There is much to admire in it.

M & C is based on two novels by Patrick O'Brian, who made a career by telling the finest sea stories ever put to paper. O'Brian was a stickler for historical accuracy as he chronicled the exploits of Captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey and his ship's physician, Stephen Maturin. The setting was the early 19th Century at the height of the Napoleonic Wars.

I realize this description is enough for many to determine they will never see the film nor read the books. A quest to uninspire the 21st Century mind could begin with the words history, Napoleonic, male, and below-decks. This is a testament more to our hopelessness than it is to our superiority over the past.

M & C is politically incorrect, which is only one of its minor virtues. There is hardly a woman present, and it spends most of its time in the tight quarters that have been home to sailors of all ages. Like Das Boot, another astounding film about life and death at sea, M & C is sometimes suffocating. The men eat, sleep, gamble, and converse always within a finger's length.

Fittingly, the heart of the film is Aubrey's (Russell Crowe) relationship with Maturin (Paul Bettany). They are men of the same age; they love beautiful music, passionate debate, and the sailors with whom they serve. Beyond that, they are opposites. Aubrey is a bombastic extrovert who treasures company, sea shanties, and the thrill of the nautical hunt and battle. He is a born leader. Aubrey's great flaw is his pride, which prevents him from admitting mistakes and requires bold decision-making that sometimes has fatal consequences.

Maturin is introverted, a reasoned naturalist who craves privacy and time, two things in short supply on their vessel. He distrusts authority and believes that power corrupts. He is at ease only with himself. Maturin's rationality is often at odds with Aubrey's hard-charging instinct. Maturin's shortcoming is his pessimism. He recognizes only the limits of his captain and the crew, so he fails to understand the potential present in others, and he misunderstands Aubrey's uncanny ability to squeeze the potential from all around him.

The two men find fellowship in the captain's cabin, where they meet to play beautiful music. Aubrey's violin is accompanied by Maturin's mournful cello. The instruments are, clearly, reflective of the personalities of the men who hold them. The film makes great use of these unspoken moments, where each man is lost in the notes, unaware, if only briefly, of the war and death that surrounds them.

The movie's plot surrounds Aubrey's orders to hunt a French vessel, a formidable craft that seems to appear at the worst possible times, always managing to catch Aubrey by surprise. He pursues the ship to the end of the earth. He is obsessed with the prize, and at various points in the film, he is tempted to sacrifice all to the quest. The end of the ship's capture justifies nearly every available mean at Aubrey's disposal.

The film spares little in its portrayal of naval battle. Cannon balls split the air and the ships' wood. Steel and splinters tear into flesh with predictable results. Nautical death does not respect rank, class, intelligence, or valor. The brave often die and the cowardly often live, but it is the brave who occupy the place of honor in Master and Commander. Aubrey's great skill is his ability to lead men into battle. He is fierce and full of wrath as he descends upon his enemy, and his courageous men follow him to death with the hope of glory.

Peter Weir directs M & C with the skill and talent one would expect from the man who helmed Dead Poet's Society, Witness, and Gallipoli. Weir's choices in cast, crew, location, tone, pace, and script are perfect. Russell Crowe delivers another staggering performance in another wonderful film. His resume, which includes A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, and L.A. Confidential, will only be bolstered by this effort, and the same is true for Paul Bettany, Crowe's co-star in this film and in A Beautiful Mind, where he played the phantom roommate.

This film is a fine piece of art. It portrays the range of human nature, just as the Bible, for it is only because of man's depravity that war happens; within this condition, though, man's potential is glimpsed. He is sometimes heroic, brave, loving, selfless, and creative. Master and Commander, like war, shows the human silhouette. We are a shadow against a white backdrop which reveals the flaws of our true nature. We are at once seen for who we are and for what we might become.

Art makes us more cognizant of both, for if it dwells on the flaws alone, it wallows in the fractured space of reality, focusing only on our sin. Dark art is maudlin and macabre. Art must portray not only the extent of our sin but the possibility of redemption, and it must display an understanding of our whole reality. What is our world but a canvas upon which triumph and tragedy are both drawn? Without tragedy there can be no triumph, and without triumph, tragedy is a black hole, from which no ray of good can escape. Master and Commander gets this balance, and a lot more, right.

One other parenthetical comment is necessary. Master and Commander should be seen for music alone. The soundtrack is littered with greatness, including Yo Yo Ma's unaccompanied cello Prelude (which only a Philistine could dismiss) and Boccherini's La Musica Del Strada Di Madrid (4th Movement). The choices were exquisite and lovely and they added to the film.

Greatest Movie Ever Made?

2005-10-24T21:44:00.000-04:00

Apparently, someone thinks Goodfellas is the greatest film ever made. This is, of course, patently absurd. Miller's Crossing is a better mob film. I think I can name at least ten different films that are far better. Anyone care to name some? For starters:

Dr. Strangelove
Ben Hur
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Amadeus
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Chariots of Fire
Das Boot
Red
Unforgiven
Glory

The list goes on. Any nominations for best film ever?

Paying for A Seat at the Table

2005-10-23T23:28:00.000-04:00

For years the Christian Right, via Ralph Reed, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell, has asked only for a seat at the proverbial table where political decisions are made. We don't want to control the country, they say, and neither do we want to be ignored. We want to be involved, but we do not want to push our political views on others, or legislate our moral agenda to the detriment of the rights of others.

Well, few would question whether or not we have a seat at the table. The President of the United States is, depending on your definition, either part of the movement or at least highly sympathetic to it. He ought to be since the movement's strength likely propelled him into office in both 2000 and 2004. Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, the best political mind produced by the Christian Right, and now a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor in Georgia, was Bush's key organizer throughout the South, and one of his most effective tv advocates.

The Christian Right was even consulted, it appears, before the Harriet Miers choice. According to news reports last week, James Dobson, the movement's 800 lb. gorilla, knew about the choice well before the public. Jay Sekulow, director of the American Center for Law and Justice, a tentacle of Pat Robertson's organization, was, according to U.S. News and World Report, one of the key players in the White House's judicial selection process. He has been given some influence over selections, but in exchange, has the responsibility of selling the choice to the political world, escpecially religious conservatives. Sekulow has attempted to stay loyal to the President's choice of Miers, as has Dobson, who gave her a tentative endorsement out of the gate. After all, Miers, purportedly, is a strong, evangelical Christian.

The Christian Right's influence has come within the Republican Party, and it has become a key component of the party's base. As elites within the Christian Right become enmeshed in the Republican Party's power structure, they will be required to play political ball. In other words, in order to have influence, they will be required to be loyal. What is the price you pay for a seat at the table? In exchange for influence, you must tender some of your principles, which must be tempered by compromise.

As the Christian Right has become more of a mainstream, partisan movement, it will lose, and has already lost, its rhetorical edge. Christian Right leaders will tell their constituents to go along and get along. In order to be invited to the party, you have to bring a gift. We are told to support Harriet Miers because she is 'one of us,' and she thinks the right way. President Bush has said that he knows her heart, and he is confident she will not stray from her basic beliefs.

The Christian Right, after almost three decades in existence, must make a fundamental choice. Is it to be a loyal component of the Republican coalition or is to reserve some counter-cultural status so that it might critique the system itself? Clearly, the trend is to become a partisan, as opposed to a unique religious, political, social movement. The Republican Party provides the Christian Right with its greatest opportunity to have direct political power, but it also shackles the movement by forcing it to remain loyal. We must decide if loyality is to be our chief value as Christians engaged in civic life.

I remember during the several Clinton investigations, that his staffers were routinely interviewed and asked about serving this particular president. Why would Lanny Davis, Rahm Emmanuel, Paul Begala, and so many others continue in a White House that was so clearly unmoored from any ethic? They repeatedly said that for presidential advisors, loyalty was the most important quality. Loyalty is a critical trait that should be cultivated by the virtuous. Loyalty cannot be absolute, though. Blind loyalty can be destructive, especially if it forces us to sacrifice principles we hold dear.

Nomination QuagMiers

2005-10-22T23:56:00.000-04:00

I am sure you are growing ever more sick of my semi-constant raving on the Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court. Well, bear with me for only the next two posts. I believe this is a critical moment not only for Republicans and Conservatives (do you need more evidence these two groups are somewhat distinct?), but for Conservative Christians as well.

First, it appears the White House might be making plans for a Miers withdrawal according to The Washington Times. The White House seems to be checking with conservatives outside government (imagine the novelty!) for advice on how to handle a pull-out.

Second, George Will writes another devastating critique of Miers and her suitability for the Supreme Court. The money paragraph:

"As for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscientious conservers of the judicial branch's invaluable dignity. Finally, any Republican senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush's reckless abuse of presidential discretion -- or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such -- can never be considered presidential material."

Will is clearly trying to goad some key Republican Senators, who desparately wish to be President, like John McCain, Sam Brownback, Bill Frist, George Allen, Chuck Hagel, to stand firm and prove their timbre. I think this role seems particularly well written for John McCain, who has had no trouble standing against the administration or his party when necessary. (That is why I still harbor admiration for McCain, though I often disagree with him.) A step up here, in other words, might create a front-runner for 2008. This temptation might be too much for at least one Senator to resist.

Will is also plugging into the growing unease among conservatives about the very unconservative policies that spew forth from the United States Senate. Even with a solid Republican majority in the chamger (55 seats), there seems little desire to be faithful to conservative principles. In other words, there is growing evidence, according to Will, supporting the argument that it does not matter which party is office, for in the end, the voters are the ones to get screwed. Will is imploring Republican partisans to pressure their elected officials to oppose the nomination.

Third, it appears, much to my chagrin, that Miers has a history of supporting affirmative action, and set-asides based on gender and race. According to The Washington Post, Miers has been a persistent supporter dating back to her time with the Texas Bar Association. President Bush has insisted that Miers supports his judicial philosophy. Perhaps we do not know enough about the President's beliefs or Miers'. I think, at best, she is squishy on some issues that conservative care deeply about, and that alone is enough for us to oppose her.

I hope she withdraws, and soon.

Miers' Nomination Not Going Well in Senate?

2005-10-20T14:18:00.000-04:00

According to the Washington Post's story today, Harriet Miers' nomination may be struggling for a lack of competence if for nothing else.

In a questionnaire sent to her, Miers noted, in one of her answers, that the Constitution requires proportional representation via the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. I hope this is a simple mistake and not indicative of her knowledge of the Constitution. I can say with confidence that most of my introductory government students know that one of the things that makes American government unique is its lack of proportional representation in legislative bodies. This form of representation, among other things, is why we have a two-party system.

Regardless, the Senate's Judiciary Committee seems miffed at her answers and unsatisfied with the amount and quality of information Miers has sent their way.

Considering African American Religion

2005-10-17T20:32:00.000-04:00

Fredrick Harris's Something Within is the best book I have encountered on African-American religion and politics. Harris argues that for African Americans, the church provides social networks, information, political cues, and a culture that supports political activism. Candidates, particularly Democrats, cannot resist what the church offers: organization, moral legitimacy, financial support, volunteers, and generally the endorsement of spiritual leaders.

The congregants get plugged into the political regime, while candidates get ready made resources. Pastors get prestige and access to decision-makers, with the hope they can influence the politicians, particularly on moral issues. Why moral issues? The pastors and politicians are likely in broad agreement on economic and civil rights issues. However, African-American Democratic office-holders are pressured by their party, colleagues, and interest groups to be sympathetic to abortion and gay rights.

Harris's most interesting contribution, in my mind, is his decision to examine two rival theories connecting the community's religion and politics. The opiate theory asserts that religion is a tool used by elites (particularly whites) to oppress African Americans and remove their incentive for political engagement. Under this theory, religion focuses the believer on the next world, not the present, so pursuits of justice, for example, are fruitless since God will judge us perfectly in the afterlife. This theory is obviously built on Marx's understanding of religion and society.

The competing explanation, which Harris labels inspiration theory, is nearly the opposite. Christianity's emphasis on the body and the soul necessitates social activism, especially as illustrated in parables like The Good Samaritan, and in the exhortation to love your neighbor as yourself. The gospel, then, is relevant to all aspects of life, and Christ's message has the power to transform souls and societies. Under this theory, the devout are inspired to combat personal and social sin through conventional and unconventional political means.

Harris concludes that inspiration theory is well-supported by the evidence, but not at all times or places. Harris argues that from the post-Reconstruction era through Jim Crow, the African American church functioned as an opiate, but with the onset of the Civil Rights movement, attitudes about the church began to change, and lay-people started to recognize the political utility of church involvement.

Frederick Harris's book is an excellent piece of scholarship. He uses multiple methods (participant observation and statistical analysis, primary and secondary sources) to study the complex phenomenon of religion and politics. I highly recommend this work.

Harriet Miers Cartoon...See link below

2005-10-13T22:35:00.000-04:00

Miss Beazley is President Bush's dog. For a wicked cartoon that makes a comment on Harriet Miers' loyalty, go here.

Our Politics and Our Church

2005-10-12T22:32:00.000-04:00

The Harriet Miers hubbub has revealed an apparent split within evangelicalism, and between evangelicals and political conservatives. There is clear disagreement about what we as Christians ought to expect from government in general, and the Courts in particular.

One truth is self evident. There is no leader of evangelical Christianity. There are subcultures that cling to particular leaders, but no personality can step forward and speak for the movement. James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Rick Warren, Billy Graham, and Charles Colson all speak for aspects of evangelicalism, but so do George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Buckley, and Richard Neuhaus. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of our culture assumes we are easily-led, mindless, grace-seeking automatons. The fact that we do not march in lock-step with any one person is a plus.

There are other obvious lessons to learn, and one in particular is painful. We, as orthodox Christians, do not know what to think of government. We do not yet understand what it means to have a Constitution and the rule of law. We do not allow our doctrine of anthropology, which focuses on human sinfulness, to shape how we view government's limits. We do not understand the differences between being used by political parties and using political parties. We are not yet clear on whether we want government to reflect our morality, or whether we want to be political pluralists. In short, we have no political philosophy. American Christians are awaiting their Kuyper, their Gladstone, to help adapt American Christianity to American politics in the post-Christian era.

Why are we still searching for our political mind? We are searching because we have no theological or religious mind. Mark Noll said, famously, that the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is no evangelical mind. How can we think of how our religion mixes with our politics when we do not understand our religion? This is not a new critique, but it is one that must be repeated, even if it means I am howling at the moon.

Writing in 1947, in The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, Carl F.H. Henry argued that fundamentalists were ineffective in their engagement of the public square because, at least in part, of how our churches are perceived by others. His words are at least as relevant today as they were then, and they are a reminder that our politics must reflect our church:

[There appears to be] an un-ecumenical spirit of independent isolationism, an uncritically-held set of theological formulas, an overly-emotional type of revivalism. There is also a tendency to replace great church music by a barn-dance variety of semi-religious choruses; some churches have almost become spiritualized jukeboxes (20).

Here I am...Back Again..

2005-10-11T15:58:00.000-04:00

I- Dr. X- am finally back. After a long and bloody battle between Agent Smith and myself, I have been allowed to return to this blog. For weeks, my presence has not been felt and millions of my minions have been pressing for my return. The illustrious Agent Smith did not give any reason for the unilateral decision to exile me to my own private Isle of St. Helena. But a secret escape plan had been arranged and I was brought back to the blog mainland. I am of the understanding that a new exile Isle is being arranged for me. Until then, I shall blog 'til I can blog no more.

My comments today shall be brief. I would like to address the movie "CRASH." If you have not seen it- what are you doing reading this blog? GO SEE IT! My usual caveat applies: it has much profanity of various kinds. But beyond the crude realism that characterizes it, it is one of the most vivid portrayals of race relations in America that I have seen in a long time. In Crash, no one escapes condemnation. Every one is a self-centered racist- from blacks who only care about their social status and see social justice only as means for corporate ladder climbing, to Asians who enslave their own people, to Whites who are pathetically shallow racists, to Hispanics who must live with the aftermath of their poor communal associations, to Muslims who are no better than anyone else and pursue violence as a means to settle differences. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE escapes from being a labeled a racist in this movie.

Honestly, that was quite refreshing. We are all racists in some way. I was actually happy about this and after watching felt comforted! Why? Because the usual communique of today's social and multicultural intelligentsia is that only White people are racist given their ancestry and psychological predispositions. Now I at least know everyone is a racist. We truly are all equal.

But beyond this egalitarianism, the movie also portrayed a deeply disturbing image of human nature. There is no redemption possible for any of the characters in this movie. All are racists and remain racists. Whatever good they do is purely accidental and has no redemptive qualities. It is as if humans merely react to life and are part of a context or web from which they cannot escape or which they do not even recognize. Everything is an accident yet everything is related and connected. But it is an accidental connection with no deep or abiding meaning. Thus, life is a crash, goodness is an accident, and ultimately we are not responsible for anything we do since we are affected by accidental and random forces.

This picture of humanity is hopeless and grim. We are all pathetic racists but we cannot escape this condition because we do not how we arrived there nor can see the condition for what it really is. We are hopeless and the producer asks the audience to be sympathetic to the plight of weak and pathetic creatures.

Talk about the bar being lowered.

Football: The Devil's Greatest Invention

2005-10-10T01:19:00.000-04:00

I am becoming convinced that Satan hatched the game of football, and that his malevolence is on display every Fall Saturday and Sunday.

While I cannot speak to the evil deeds of others, I can comment on my own fallenness. Satan removed from me every urge to be productive this weekend by cleverly scheduling a multitude of enticing match-ups. The dark prince is especially adept at beaming into my household the very games most tempting to me. I grab the fruit of the tree at every offering, unwilling (which sometimes feels like unable) to resist his wiles.

On Saturday, Satan made certain to send the Georgia-Tennessee tilt my way. As a graduate of UGA, and an avid supporter of the red and black, I could not turn away from the Sirens' song. I swallowed at least three hours of bile in one sitting.

The Devil is at his most dangerous when he makes our sins seem virtuous. The fact that Georgia triumphed in a dominating performance made me happy as sloth washed over me.

Satan continued to feed me what I did not need as Ohio State-Penn State ushered me into the evening. Penn State's victory against the wicked Buckeyes was even more satisfying.

Sunday saw no break from the Dark One's relentless assault on my purity. My beloved Indianapolis Colts filled the screen and decimated the Left Coast's 49ers in the late afternoon. Even on the Sabbath, my thoughts turned toward the pigskin.

On second thought, perhaps, given the weekend's results, with good clearly triumphing over evil at every turn, football's metaphysics may have to be reconsidered. Perhaps football is the earthly, physical manifestation of the spiritual warfare in which we find ourselves. Given the constant redemption I found this weekend, I am leaning toward this interpretation. By watching increasing amounts of football, then, I may be, if even slightly, paying homage to the sometimes small amounts of goodness around me. Yes, I am clearly beginning to favor this approach.

So, in spite of the books unwritten, the children unloved, and the household chores left to fester for at least another week (or season!), football can, nay, must, be for the greater good. From henceforth I will treat it as such, at least until I have reason to believe the Devil is at work again (e.g. a Georgia or Colts' loss would surely do the trick).

Krauthammer Nails Miers and the President w/ Right Cross

2005-10-07T13:11:00.000-04:00

See Krauthammer's op-ed here.

The money quote:

"When in 1962 Edward Moore Kennedy ran for his brother's seat in the Senate, his opponent famously said that if Kennedy's name had been Edward Moore, his candidacy would have been a joke. If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her."

Oh My.

Miers, Miers, and More Miers

2005-10-06T12:44:00.000-04:00

The tide of opinion seems to be swinging against Harriet Miers amongst conservatives. Here are three solid, interesting, thoughtful arguments against her: David Frum is beginning to mount some evidence against Miers' competence and her reliance on process over substance, while John Yoo, who is measured and respectful, and has a world of talent and credentials, notes that Miers has not been helpful on issues that matter to conservatives (like Affirmative Action). George Will takes no prisoners in his assault on the President and Miers. He goes so far as to argue that the Senate should in no way feel bound to defer to the President in any respect given the poor quality of the pick.

I may be wrong on this, but unless Harriet Miers assuages all these fears in a sterling confirmation performance, she stands to lose the support of 5-10 Republicans in the Senate, and that may be enough to jeopordize her nomination.

Conservatives have yearned, for two generations, to restructure the Court so that it might restore our Constitution to the position it deserves in our nation's law and society. That is the reason why this pick was so unfortunate. Even if Miers is a reliable vote, she is almost surely not the intellectual heavyweight needed to pull the Court in a different direction. Conservatives have excellent thinkers on the high Court (Thomas and Scalia for certain, and likely Roberts), and they need more of them. How else do you undo the damage wrought by Warren, Brennan, Douglas, and Souter?

We need the intellectual weight to shift the balance of power, not just a vote: for votes once thought safe often turn out to be otherwise if there is no intellectual or philosophical foundation (see Justice Kennedy as example A) to undergird the thinking behind the vote. Such people often become ships at sea with no anchor. Those ships, inevitably, go where the wind blows.

After all, if Harriet Miers' chief qualification is her loyalty to the President, how then will she behave once she is no longer beholden to him for protection and career advancement? We do not know the answer to that question. Therefore, the risk of supporting Miers seems too large to swallow for many conservatives. In response, the President says, "Open up and say 'AHHHH.'"

Miers is an evangelical Christian?

2005-10-04T21:43:00.000-04:00

Oh, boy, things just got interesting. Apparently (I am sorry there is no link available), James Dobson believes Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian, so he is cautiously supporting her nomination to the Court.

In the post below, I argued two things: first, the president squandered an opportunity to serve notice to Congress, the Courts, and the country about the proper role of government. In this sense, then, President Bush is not conservative, which is not a surprise given his fiscal and foreign policy records. Second, I argued that Bush and the Republicans have done little to mollify conservative Christians. There is one additional argument that I think can and should be made: Miers is less than ideally qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. She has not practiced constitutional law; nor has she been a judge or held a significant post in a government agency that would prepare her for the intellectual content of the Supreme Court.

Of these three arguments, the fact that Miers is an evangelical Christian only addresses the second argument. If Miers is indeed a commited, evangelical, that could indeed help the movement. The first and third arguments still stand until further evidence is presented.

Beyond that, evangelicals need to ask themselves why they would be happy about a sympathizer on the Court. In other words, is there an "evangelical" approach to the Constitution that is different than a secular, liberal, or mainline approach?

I believe that evangelicals don't really want judges that take the Constitution seriously, or respect the separation of powers and federalism. They want judges that are Christian activists, and that is how they (Dobson, Sekulow) determine judicial suitability. If you don't agree with me, think through the following scenario:

The Supreme Court hears a case that challenges Roe v. Wade and all abortion cases that followed it. Would you want the Court to make abortion illegal (except in perhaps life-threatening cases) according to federal and state law? If so, you want a Christian activist Court. Constitutionally, over-turning Roe v. Wade would allow states to legislate on abortion, for on purely constitutional grounds, the Court and the federal government should have nothing to do with abortion, either by outlawing it or requiring states to protect it. Therefore, some states would surely have abortion, while others would not. This would be the natural result of a purely constitutional decision.

Christians need to respect the rule of law and they should hope for Justices that will interpret the Constitution faithfully. Ultimately, that will allow us to have protected rights that endure, including religious freedom. If we prefer and allow for judicial activism, even when we agree with the outcome, our rights are threatened, for then the law and the Constitution are subject to whatever activism reigns at the moment. Sometimes Christians might like that activism (as practiced by evangelical judges), but they will suffer during others. Remember, it was an activist Court that struck down school prayer, made abortion laws unconstitutional, and decided that sodomy laws violate a fundamental right of privacy. Either we must support activism at all times, or we must oppose it.

I think we should oppose it. If we, as Christians, support a system that protects rights and liberties against government intrusion, then we can always expect a baseline of freedoms. In such an environment, Christians and Christianity will flourish.

In the end, I believe we want competent Justices able to read, interpret, and apply the Constitution faithfully. Judicial philosophy, then, is more important than whether the judge is religious, evangelical, or whatever.

What we should want as evangelical Christians is a well-qualified evangelical able to interpret the Constitution faithfully--not as an activist, but as a reasoned jurist with great ability. Is that Harriet Miers? I cannot believe she is the best qualified person to fill the post. (John Ashcroft has sterling credentials and is clearly an evangelical. Perhaps he is not close enough to the President?) Ability should be more important than whether or not the judge fits into a category with which we feel comfortable, or if they have a personal relationship with the President of the United States. Those are my two cents for now, but stay tuned: that could change as I think through the ramifications.

Miers Redux

2005-10-03T18:30:00.000-04:00

I don't want to read too much into a nominee we know little about, but the President's choice of Harriet Miers sends alot of wrong signals to conservatives.

I believe President Bush is guided by simple ideas of the Constitution and political philosophy. By simple, I am not saying simplistic. Simple can be good. I am not sure the President grasps the scope of his opportunity here. We are not just looking for jurists who won't legislate from the bench, or who are "strict constructionists." I want a Court that fundamentally shifts the way our political and legal culture looks at the Court and the rest of the federal and state governments.

We have ceded way too much power to the Court, and to the federal government in general. I want someone who comprehends this and who can articulate it in a convincing fashion. I want someone who is able to lead the Court in a direction more respectful of the Constitution and toward a more limited view of governmental power. Chances are good that Harriet Miers is not that kind of person. There are judges with long records of clear, cogent thinking on these subjects (Luttig, McConnel are just two, and for non-judges, how about John Kyl, Mitch McConnel, or John Ashcroft). Miers is just a void. Instead of sending a message to the nation, Congress, and the Country about the proper balance of power between the Court, Congress, and the Presidency, as well as the balance between national and state governments, the president chose the path of little resistance. He has offended his base for the sake of political expediency.

More disturbingly, religious conservatives are lining up behind the pick so far. We are far from shrewd as a movement. We demand so little from the President, and that is precisely what we get in return. Remember all those issues upon which the President ran in 2000 and 2004? Gay marriage, family values, pro-life? They have clearly been ignored so that the President can focus his time and resources on Iraq, Social Security, and cronyism. Perhaps a day will come when we hold our President and our party accountable for their shocking disregard.

The Nominee is............Harriet Miers?

2005-10-03T09:35:00.000-04:00

President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to Supreme Court this morning. I assume I am expressing the feelings of people everywhere when I say, "Huh?"

Miers graduated from Southern Methodist University for undergraduate and law degrees. She has served in a large (400 members) Dallas firm, and has been Counsel to the President since last November. Miers has no judicial experience, but she has been undeniably successful in her career.

Contrary to what you might think, it is not all that unusual for presidents to nominate non-judges to the Court. William Rehnquist worked in the Department of Justice before being tabbed for the high Court by Richard Nixon. Hugo Black was a sitting Senator from Alabama when President Roosevelt chose him to serve.

This will be the official White House line for conservatives. "Don't worry, she will be fine, and this has happened before even with your beloved Rehnquist."

The problem here is that Nixon's choice was for a Court way left. Rehnquist had virtually no impact on the Court until much later. Justice Black was chosen to sit on a Court that was already heading leftward, and though he did make a significant contribution, it is hard to argue he was a swing vote on a divided Court.

Miers' choice is confounding because the seat is so critical right now. Issues like school vouchers, affirmative action, and partial birth abortion are 5-4 decisions that Miers will significantly influence simply by casting a vote, regardless of her skills or intellect. This Court needs a push and the President failed to do it. There is a long list of potential nominees with clear records (Lutig, McConnel) that the President chose not to nominate. Instead, he went back to the familiar and comfortable, just as he did with Director Brown at FEMA and Julie Myers for ICE. This is not a good day for conservatives.

UPDATE: David Frum says all this better than I could here.

Burnt Sienna Like Disco (a.k.a. Blue Like Jazz if written by a political scientist)

2005-09-30T17:15:00.000-04:00

(Disclaimer: If you have not read Blue Like Jazz, this will make no sense. Regardless, please understand that this is a parody of that book and does not represent my thoughts. Instead, this is a representation of what I think of the book and all of its flaws. For the Record: I did not vomit during any presidential election. I am also very, very, very, very, orthodox in my theology. Remember: this is a parody of the book.)

Presidents come at us in all shapes and sizes. Some are fair-haired, happy chaps like Richard Nixon, while others strike a patrician tone with a twinge of congeniality, like George HW Bush. They are the "other," though, always at arm's length, massaging us for our votes.

This is how I grew up with my political authority figures. Much of the rest of my life has been spent in purposive gazing at the lint that occasionally creeps into my navel, for only there, in that steady gaze, can I reach out, with arms raised, to the men who have formed my existence from their office shaped like an oval.

My school teachers spoke of our presidents in fables of cherry trees, log cabins, and bully pulpits. They made them larger than life in their deeds, but farther away in my imagination. As I stride through my vapor-like existence, I have come closer to the presidents, for I have studied them, but they are still hiding from my mind's eye. So for them I search.

I remember my first presidential election. It involved my father. And loads of projectile vomit.

My father is a good man, rigidly partisan for his beloved Republicans. I thought of the president as a father. I know that is inadequate, but it is an image typical of fundamentalist Christians. We were huddled around the television watching election returns in November, 1976. My Dad was entranced, and I was free to graze. Popcorn, ice cream, brownies, Pepsi, jelly beans, and doughnuts found their way down my gullet. The amalgam of salty, chocolatey, syrupy tastes coated my tongue until it stuck to the roof of my mouth.

As the results came in, I continued to eat and my father focused harder on the tv as he rocked to and fro in his wooden chair that made grooves in our red shag carpet. My Dad's evening contiuned to spin out of control as Carter, the weak-kneed Democrat, appeared to be taking control of the election against Gerald Ford, the bumbling Republican.

Just as the evening reached a crescendo, the contents of my stomach began to lurch. As Jimmy Carter neared the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory, my Dad began to despair. I interrupted his misery with a stream of vomit. On the shag carpet. My mouth was filled with the remnants of bitter stomach acid. The mixture of my chunks and the inch-long shag formed a color that burned my retinas: burnt sienna like disco. This was my introduction to politics and Jimmy Carter's introduction to me and the partially digested contents of my mid-section.

My elementary and high school years were spent in churches that were so fundamentalist Christian that I was asked to believe the Bible was authoritative, I was a sinner, and in need of redemption. I longed for a pastor that would hold my hand, pat my back, and say "Well done" as I sinned my way through adolescence by killing small animals and plotting to overthrow the government. Instead, I got some old, white, patriarachal crank who insisted that I needed God. I needed a guide, but I instead a got a judge. My treatment in his hands left a foul smell in the air surrounding me: it was raspberries like opera. To this day I cannot crack open a can of jam or listen to an aria without seeing that looming, judge-like figure above me.

The clouds began to part for me in the fall of 1980. As disco bid adieu to our land, the president who molded me came to power. Ronald Wilson Reagan strutted across the stage and delivered his lines with a polish so bright it hurt the eyes and ears. He was so good, right, and pure, that I felt I could touch him. Finally, the president made sense to me. I began to understand that he was not a judge, and not my father, and not Jimmy Carter. Instead, he was the institutionalized president, tossing lightning bolts at a squirming Congress, and folding us into his contagious laughter. This is power, my friends. Reagan was "Hail to the Chief," "So Help Me God," and "Tear Down that Wall" all rolled into one. He was everything I ever needed and he always will be.

I am almost over the hill now. My president died not long ago but he awaits me. When I see Ronnie he will extend his hand, give me a hug, and ask me about my journey. "Mark," he will chortle, "it is all about the journey, not the destination."

And then, at that very moment, a rainbow of colors (aquamarine, buckskin pony, ivory, and midnight blue) will wash over me and I will know that I am home.

I'll Take a Roberts Vote With a Twist

2005-09-30T15:16:00.000-04:00

We now have a new Chief Justice. One of the questions I continually wonder about is why the CJ does not have a theme song like the President's "Hail to the Chief?" What would it be? I am open to suggestions from readers.

Anyhow, I wanted to say a word or two about the Roberts vote in the Senate. Roberts won 78-22. This is a sizable victory, not in historic terms, but in the context of our current politics. To get 78 senators to agree on anything besides a pay raise for themselves is somewhat unusual with contentious issues. Granted, maybe Roberts was not that contentious, but I believe any Supreme Court nominee is potentially contentious.

The results were interesting:

All 55 Republicans voted for Roberts, and 22 Democrats (out of 44) voted for him. (He also won the vote of the Senate's lone "Independent," Jumpin' Jim Jeffords of VT).
Of the 22 Dems who voted for Roberts, 15 were Democrats from states that supported Bush in the 2004 election.
Bush won 31 states in 2004. So, that makes for a possible 62 Senate votes on Roberts. Roberts won 59 of those 62 votes.
16 Senate Democrats are up for re-election in 2006. Of those, Roberts got 7 votes, and of those states, Bush won 5 in 2004. The remaining nine are either not running for re-election (Corzine), are from very safe, liberal states (Feinstein, Sarbanes, Kennedy, Clinton, Akaka, Cantwell), or could be in trouble if they aren't careful (Stabenow, Dayton).
Clearly, the two Nelsons (Ben-Neb, Bill-Fl) are playing ball. They represent Bush states as Democrats, but voted for the president's choice.

Flash: Religion bad for Societal Health

2005-09-29T20:26:00.000-04:00

It has finally happened. A recent study published in the Journal of Religion and Society (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html), but originating in England, purports to show empirically that religion that belief in and worship of God are "not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actuially contribute to social problems." We should be wondering at this point how the researchers (dare I use that word?) arrived at such a conclusion, though we should probably not be surprised that someone did. Well, the answer seems to be a marvel of statistical unreasoning. Let me explain.

The author, Gregory Paul, using data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other data, compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide and teenage pregnancy across nations, correlating these to the the religious self-perception of the nations. Paul's research found an inverse correlation between more secular nations and the rates of the indicators listed above, while he found a positive correlation between religious belief and the incidence of the indicators. His conclusion, using England ad the focus? That "England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America." According to Paul, this diparity was even greater compared to France, Japan and Scandanavian nations.

How do I respond to this most intriguing study? Mr. Paul has I think failed to do homework completely. The nations he compared with the USA are much smaller and much more homogeneous than the US. When one compares a large and heterogeneous population, it would be easy to find higher incidences of murder, abortion, suicide, etc. Why didn't he take similar population makeups to compare? Is it possible he had a preconditioned agenda? Moreover, why choose only the indicators above? Yes, England may have a lower murder rate, but does it have a lower rate of all types of misbehavior or criminal behavior? In addition, I am not sure I would label the US particularly religious as a whole, though it ceetainly has more vestiges of Christianity than England--unless one counts the really neat old church buildings, largely unused. Finally, it simply doesn't follow that because one sees societal ills in a nation and that nation is religious, that religion is a bad causal element of that. How much worse might things be without the external check of religious belief? That is unmeasurable.

But let me get to the heart of this issue. This study epitomizes the idea that the Christian religion is somehow bad. I suspect there have been people who have wished to "prove" it for some time. And I further suspect that many are reading it with glee right now. I am simply thankful that God doesn't read such studies.

Tuning in to Lost

2005-09-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

Just a quick comment. I am a big fan of the show "Lost" on ABC tv. I have a pet theory that I have heard elsewhere. I think the survivors are really stuck in purgatory. Personally, I am not a believer in the great gap between here and the beyond, but perhaps the show's creators are. I believe the characters are all sinful and deeply flawed people working through their salvation on the island. Again, this is a very Catholic view, and not one I endorse, but it fits the evidence. Note how all them have deep problems in their past that need to be resolved. Any comments?

(Re)Discovering the Mop Tops from Liverpool

2005-09-27T23:46:00.000-04:00

I understand this will make me hopelessly uncool (as if there is not already a mountain of evidence to support this assertion), but I am just now getting around to discovering The Beatles.

Well, I guess discovering is the wrong word. I have always known some of their music (particularly the early stuff), but only recently did I immerse myself in their tunes. Here are my thoughts which will be seen as heretical by my musical predecessors.

So far, I am impressed with the range of songs (from Hey Jude to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to Eleanor Rigby to Revolution), their creativity, and their influence. The Beatles are clearly the root of much of the pop-music in the 1970s, 80s, and even into the 90s. They are rarely boring, but occasionally pretentious.

However, I must disagree, fundamentally, with this notion that in one hundred or two hundred years, we will listen to The Beatles alongside the musical giants of the past--Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and The Beatles? They are, perhaps, the best rock-and-roll band ever. They are not immortal, and they will be just another reason for the 60s generation to gloat over a decade that defined them but is receeding into our past.

Dare I say The Beatles are over-rated? I told you it was heretical.

Why George Will Is My Hero

2005-09-25T21:34:00.000-04:00

Any writer who has the nerve to take up prime space in The Washington Post's editorial page with a column that mentions the "necessary and proper" clause in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, deserves to be lauded. George Will is a professor's columnist, and I pray his pen never dries, for we may not be able to replace him. But this is the beauty of the blogosphere: hacks like me can clickity-clack until our hearts are content, and some of us are professors, just as Will once was. And while we may never equal Will's influence, we can at least imitate his brilliance.

Boxing Our Way to Oblivion

2005-09-24T23:37:00.000-04:00

Levander Johnson, the lightweight world champion, died Thursday as a result of injuries suffered in the ring last Saturday.

I am watching a boxing match this evening for the first time in years. I am neither a prude nor a pacifist. I have not found boxing to be necessarily distasteful, but I have not been drawn to the sweet science.

The match this evening was between up-and-comer Sam Peter and largely dismissed Wladimir Klitschko. Each fighter was attempting to answer significant questions about his past and future. Peter is a hard-throwing stump of a man with little pure boxing skill, but a great deal of heart and rage. Klitschko is the boxer from central casting. The Ukranian is tall, powerfully built, and technically brilliant for a heavyweight. He was at one time thought to be a future giant within the sport, but Klitschko has suffered recent defeats. Even the commentators spoke of his glass jaw and miniature will.

As an observer of the human species, there is no better microscope than boxing. The courage required simply to rise off the stool is more than most of us will ever muster. Ferocity stalks the square as Tenacity clings to Hope. Skill grinds his opponents into making Mistakes, where Opportunity wields twin hammers of Speed and Guile. Only magnificent creatures can part the ropes, and only depraved beings could revel in the systematic destruction of a fellow image-bearer.

Boxing is the human condition that struggles between the Fall and Redemption. It is a glimpse of what we were meant to be, and a perfect view of what our sin has made us. Does this make it something we ought to avoid as Christians? Can the sport be redeemed?

On this evening, after 12 brutal rounds, Wladimir Klitschko, the declared winner, would likely attests to its healing powers.

Roberts Escapes Committee

2005-09-22T23:41:00.000-04:00

George Bush's nomination of John Roberts for Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court cleared its first hurdle Wednesday. Roberts' nomination was voted out of the Judiciary Committee on 13-5 vote. Three Democrats supported the nomination: Kohl and Feingold (both from Wisconsin) and Leahy (Vermont). Dianne Feinstein (California) voted against Roberts' nomination this time, but voted for him when he was nominated to the DC Court of Appeals.

My guess is that the shrewd Democrats (like Leahy) are positioning themselves to oppose the next nominee. The argument will be, "see, we supported Roberts, but this person is just too conservative, so we will have to vote 'no' or even filibuster." They know that the swap between Roberts and Rehnquist will be a wash, while O'Connor's replacement has the potential to shift the Court's balance to the right.

In short: expect the next one to be nasty. Roberts will probably get 70-80 votes. The next one will come closer to 55 or 56.

Death by Political Appointment

2005-09-20T00:19:00.000-04:00

We found out last week that Michael Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was a political hack. The President's former roommate at Yale, Brown had little or no relevant experience, and it showed during the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

American presidents have a long and distinguished history of staffing federal posts with political friends. The use, or misuse, of the "spoils system" does little to excite the public, which usually dismisses it as politics as usual. (Of course these appointments might damage agencies in many ways, but that is a different argument.) In these days, however, political appointments in sensitive areas that deal with matters even tangentially related to security and terrorism are a different matter altogether.

We can no longer afford hackery in positions of life and death. Well, it looks as if President Bush may be at it again. The President has nominated Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, which is part of Homeland Security. During her initial Senate hearing, Myers, 36, was revealed to have a thin resume for such a post. ICE has 20,000 employees and a budget of more than $4 billion. More importantly, ICE is responsible for enforcing the country's immigration policy (such as it is). What makes her qualified for the post? She is the niece of the outgoing Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, and she recently married Michael Chertoff's (Sec. of Homeland Security, who will be her boss if she is confirmed) Chief of Staff, John Wood.

There is no doubt that border security is an important part of the war on terrorism. After all, the 9/11 hijackers exploited lax enforcement of immigration laws to concoct and carry out their assaults on New York and Washington. The President must learn that politics as usual is not acceptable in this environment. The safety and security of Americans ought to trump politics. Can the President, with a straight face, argue that Myers' nomination is in the best interests of Americans?

We the People...

2005-09-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

To all those interested and in the area, tonight, at Cedarville University, we are celebrating Constitution Day. By order of the federal government, we, and I believe every educational institution that accepts federal money, are required to celebrate the Constitution. Tonight, at 7:30 pm at the Stevens Student Center, Judge Robert Nichols will speak about the Constitution and its role in our society. The event is free and open to the public.

I believe this is a good thing. I think Judge Nichols will do a fine job. The rub of this, of course, is that it is possible that by requiring educational institutions to celebrate this day, Congress perhaps acted unconstitutionally!

When dubiously asserting its power, Congress likes to rely on the "general welfare" clause in the Preamble. Needless to say, if Congress can legislate and coerce us in any way it sees fit so long it is for the "general welfare," there is precious little Congress cannot do. Come to think of it, with only a few exceptions, there is already precious little Congress cannot do, except perhaps:

Pass a balanced budget
Construct a functioning bureaucracy
Address social security, immigration, or energy policy in any meaningful way
Be more than a rubber-stamp for the White House

Other than those things, Congress is doing a solid job.

Re: Legal Heresy

2005-09-15T11:09:00.000-04:00

If you have not, please scroll down to read Dr. Clauson's post on legal heresy before you read mine (and for that matter, keep scrolling down--there is some good stuff down there by the good doctors and Vigilius). Otherwise, mine will not make much since.

There is little doubt that our country's elite, as embodied in our educational institutions, the Judiciary, and a majority of the mass media, have declared a none-too-subtle war on religion. They have some reason to be suspicious of religion's encroachment on government. After all, Western Civilization is littered with examples of the state's abuse of religious minorities in the name of God. The most common modern example used is the Protestant/Catholic struggle in Northern Ireland.

However, most jurists, elites, and scholars refuse to admit that America is different in a fundamental way. Our nation was established as religiously pluralistic. This was the great benefit of being founded in the late 18th Century, as opposed to the 17th or 16th. But our pluralism should never be read to disallow civil religion, of which we have a long history in the nation--everything from Christmas as a federal holiday to "In God We Trust" on our currency to "God save this honorable Court" is evidence of this. I place the Pledge of Allegiance squarely in this category. The state has always had the ability to endorse a broad notion of religion. There is neither historical nor textual grounds for denying the state's ability to do this.

As Christians, though, I agree with Dr. Clauson's contention that we have over-dramatized these cases. I also agree that by doing so, we have avoided the real issues with our educational system, which has destroyed the minds of several generations.

I fear I know one reason why this is the case. Denigrating the Court, the law, and the interest groups (like the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State) connected to these issues, has built the careers and filled the coffers of many politicians. These cases translate into cheap, simple political points that can be used to rile voters and donors into a frenzy. They allow our so-called leaders to avoid our real problems and then focus on the ephemeral ones over which they have little direct control.

During the next day or two, the most dangerous place in the nation will be between a conservative politician and a camera. We will hear cries of "oppression," "humiliation," or "marginalization," and perhaps even some calls for impeachment or at least investigations. The skilled ones will connect this to their support for John Roberts, whom they have great faith in but little evidence. The twisted demagogues might argue for civil disobedience.

The reality is that as Christians, these decisions are almost meaningless. The Court has not touched my life. They have not forbad my prayers, confiscated my Bible, locked the doors of my church, or dragged my pastor into the street. I have not been cast into a den of lions, and neither have I been thrown into fiery furnace over my refusal to bow to the god of the state. In short, courts have done nothing to change my faith or alter my practice.

If the Judiciary, or the elite culture, has marginalized me or my faith, then my faith is tepid and my God is small. Carl F.H. Henry, the under-read and under-appreciated theologian, argued that evangelicals have had so little influence on culture because culture has had so much influence on evangelicals. This is yet another example. A vibrant, meaningful, engaged, rigorous, gracious, reflective, and loving faith cannot be marginalized by any man or woman robed in black. Let us, then, make our faith impossible to ignore by renewing our minds first, and then our churches, and then our culture.

Legal Heresy

2005-09-14T21:11:00.000-04:00

Well, this time, I aim to smash a few idols--but I hope to do it graciously. My post addresses the recent (just today) circuit court ruling that the recitation of the phrase "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstiutional infringement of church into state, or religion into the affairs of the state. First, let me say that I think the decision itself was actually quite stupid from a legal standpoint. But then, I think most of these church-state decisions have been completely devoid of either logic or historical understanding and have been largely driven by ideological considerations of the judges or a blind devotion to the god of "stare decisis" even when it makes no sense. Clearly, the Founders did not intend some sort of rigid wall of separation to exist, and I can, I think, assert this pretty confidently despite the sometimes notoriously difficult problem of discovering "original intent." But that is another story.

Having said that, let me add that I thought today's decision was irrelevant, as most church-state cases have been. In other words, I didn't care, I felt little or no outrage--except at the density of the court's thinking. Why do I utter such legal heresy? I do so simply because these types of cases are symbolic issues and not substantive. Why should we really care whether we can recite the Pledge, or display the Ten Commandments, or build a manger scence on public property? These are all nothing but symbolic acts. Now I know symbols can be very important for any culture and I don't denigrate them. That isn't my point. My point is that we have long ago given up on the real issues and capitulated to the state with regard to those real issues. Let me give a few simple examples. We make much of prayer in schools or the words of the Pledge, but the real issues is what the public schools actually teach our children. We fight like bulldogs to keep prayer--a non-descript prayer to something--but we say nothing when the schools are teaching our children to deny religion as the archaic vestige of a quaint age. We say nothing--or little --when the schools teach that man is basically good and the child can "be anything" so long as he believes in himself (tripe). We look the other way when their teachers continuously pound into our children the gospel of self-esteem and dismiss the idea of sin as a ridiculous religious idea. Or what about teaching that the earth is "billions and billions" of years old, without so much as a nod to a younger earth--not to mention creationism (that would be greeted with the usual shouts that we are foisting religion on children, forgetting that any scientific theory is rooted in certain presuppositions which are irreducible, just like religious beliefs). History treats religion as man's oppression of women, slaves, and just about everyone else, ignoring conveniently the fact that the Christian religion was largely reponsible for a great shift in civilization from the beginning of the Middle Ages on which improved life for all, notwithstanding the unfortunate failures. I could go on, but you get the picture. We are "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel."

If we don't realize the real issues the worldviews of our children will be skewed to such an extent that by the time they get to college, there may be little reason to send them to a Christian college. They are already predisposed to reject the Christian faith along with its worldview. But let me add that families, parents, are still repsonsible to educate their children, regardless of who formally does the education. So there is hope, even if the public schools fail to do the right thing. But it takes constant diligence on the part of all parents and all churches. We must do better on this count. Nevertheless, I conclude by re-asserting the thesis that we have focused our ire on the wrong issues. We must begin more ernestly to exert influence on the substance of what our children learn--the things that "shape" their worldview. That will obviate the need to get so worked up over a court case that excises the "God" word from the Pledge. Call me a heretic--I won't object. At least I'm only a legal heretic.

And the Recriminations Continue

2005-09-14T07:32:00.000-04:00

"Who Screwed Up" blasts the cover of U.S. News and World Report this week. The continuing harangue about who did what, who didn't do what and who is blame continues. The blame game is a favorite in the press and unfortunately, in Washington. Everybody is blaming somebody. I have only heard the president take responsibility for any of it so far. Where is everybody else's confession? The better question is "Who didn't screw up?" The litany of failures is long, stretching from the the private decisions of those who decided not to leave amidst all the warnings, to the bungling of the city government in failing to use the school buses, to the governor's delayed declaration of a state of emergency, to refusal to allow the Red Cross to bring food and water into the Superdome to FEMA's inability to respond quickly. This list is much longer. But what does it gain us to continue this pursuit? Yesterday the attorney general of the state of Louisiana charged two nursing home owners with homicide charges because they failed to evacuate their elderly residents. Good idea (note the sarcastic tone). Who's next? Are they going to indict the Mayor of New Orleans for not using the resources he had to evacuate people? Should they indict the hospitals for not evacuating? How about the businesses that stayed open? And what about the parents that kept their families home. They, too, could be held liable for any injury, or worse, that their children might have sustained under this line of thinking. Let's hope the absurdity of this decision is not lost on the good people of Louisiana.

This has been called the nation's worst natural disaster ever. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. The people affected deserve an accounting and I believe that there is a time and a place for evaluating what went wrong and trying to correct it. But there are two problems with doing that now. First, all attention should be focused on the relief and recovery effort. Politicians at various levels trying to cover their backsides is simple not helpful. Second, let's not forget that the government cannot do everything. In the 20th century we began asking the government to do more and more. We ask it to do everything from educating (and in some cases raising) our kids, to fighting crime, to providing school breakfasts and lunches, to providing defense, to building our infrastructure, to giving subsidies to this and that sector of the economcy, to providing welfare, to ensuring the safety of our work environments, and even taking care of us when we are old. This week we are expecting it to be able to foresee an act of nature and prevent us from being injured by it. Let's be real, the government cannot do it all, certainly not when we have something this powerful and rare hit. Perhaps we have all screwed up by asking for so much from our government, that it cannot do anything particularly well. Perhaps it is time to stop the reciminations and have a serious talk about what our government must be responsible for, and take the rest on ourselves.

Thinking Out Loud about War

2005-09-12T22:59:00.000-04:00

In light of the recent commemoration of the 9/11 attack, I would like to ruminate a bit on the war in Iraq and potential wars elsewhere. Let me assure everyone that I am by no means a modern political liberal. In fact, what bothers me most about the liberal opposition to the war is the general complete lack of logical or even semi-coherent argument in support of the liberal position. But while the liberals may be way off base in their rationale--lack thereof--and while their motives for opposition appear to be suspicious at best, thsi does not mean a case cannot be made against this war. On the other hand, a case might be made for the war also. As I said, I am thinking out loud, so don't expect a firm answer yet.

The so-called just war theory has a long history. The theory arose out of the Christian theology of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and so is rooted in the accepted tradition of Christian thought. I(ts main tenets are that a war may be legitimately prosecuted if: (1) it is declared by a proper authority; (2) it is for a just cause; (3) force is intended to advance good or avoid evil; (4) war is the only way to right the wrong; and (5) there is reasonable hope of success. There is no doubt that the war against Iraq was declared by a legitimate and constitutional authority, so liberals have no room to object here (unless some argue that Bush "stole" the election--a quite ridiculous argument--and Congress has no authority to fund it--another wrong-headed argument). Is the war for a just cause? Just causes included self-defense, avenging wrongs or punishing an unjust nation. Here again, the liberals fail. It can be argued that the war is one of self-defense. We don't know that, but then again, I don't have enough intelligence information to say otherwise. I have to defer to the government, notwithstanding the alleged neo-conservative "conspiracy" determined to make the United States an empire (by the way, I am not saying that a good many advisors to President Bush aren't neo-conservative in political philosophy, but just how far they would go is very open to debate). The "avenging wrongs" justification is interesting, since it seems to have referred to one's own nation, not another. But the third, punishing an unjust nation, seems to clinch the argument. Is a dictator who blatantly murdered thousands of his own people not the unjust ruler of an unjust regime? If not, who and what is? Of course, I don't think we ought to tale delight in punishing any nation, but sometimes it must be done. To ignore wrong is to be complicit in it. Someone may respond that this would obligate us to punish all unjust nations and would involve us in endless wars. Well, first, some nations are not unjust but do unjust things from time to time. And second, yes, some are unjust and might well require action of some sort. But we always have to be careful before rushing into any action of this sort. So I give the liberals about a tenth of a theoretical point on this one-- not for their reasons, or non-reasons, but for Christian reasons. The war in Iraq I think falls well in the sphere of legitimacy on this one.

Next, the prosecutors of the war must intend to advance good or avoid evil. Now I don't pretend to know the minds of the advisors to the president and some may have dubious motives. But on the other hand, it is difficult to conceive of a completely evil motive--greed for oil, etc. If they wanted oil, why not declare war on Saudi Arabia on a pretense (the liberals would argue, because Iraq was easier)? Nevertheless, the aim seems to promote good and that has been evidenced in actions taken. If anything, the president could be faulted for not having clear and consistent aims--a part of this element. But even here, he seems to have been relatively clear, if somewhat ambiguous at times.

Fourth, the war must be the only way to right the wrong. We waited 13 years through countless United nations resolutions and saddam Hussein's continual flaunting of those resolutions. We talked, and talked, and talked and talked more. We warned and warned and warned more. At some point it should have been obvious that saddam was lime a child testing its parents to see whether they would act, much like Hitler continually testing Europe before WW II to see whether anyone would act to check him--no one did until it was too late.

Finally, there must be a reasonable hope of success. Here we have to agree that the Unted States and allies certainly have more than a reasonable hope of success. This is clear. But do we have the political will? That is less clear, but that is not part of this criterion. We can succeed and by any human standard we ought to succeed.

Besides these criteria of jus ad bellum the prosecuting nation must conduct the war with a minimal feasible loss of civilian life. Of all wars, the United States in thsi one has bent over backward to avoid killing civilians. There is nothing we could do to better comply with this requirement. Moreover we have not used greater force than necessary, another requirement related more to the way the war is conducted.

No one, save a few rather distorted individuals, wants war for war's sake. But if we call oursleves Christian in any sense of the word, if we have any semblance of Christian principles embedded in our legal and political philosophy and policy, we would have to say that this war is legitimate, even if we don't like it--and I don't like it particularly. Some Christians argue that the only just war is a war of pure self-defense. I don't agree, though I respect that position far more than the empty liberal mantra. That finishes my reflection, and I guess I did reach a conclusion. Take it for what you will amd perhaps the principles outlined above will stimulate us all to more careful reflection on this most sobering issue.

9/11 Revisited

2005-09-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

I was living in New Orleans on September 11, 2001. That provides me with some sort of nasty hybrid of tragedy, at least in an experiential sense, I suppose. We had one child at that time, and we were a 20 minute walk from Tulane, where I was teaching political science. My wife's habit was to walk with me (with my son in a stroller) and then return home. That morning, a Tuesday, I had an early class (American Government), and I did not find out about the tragedies that had befallen New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., until the events were already unfolding.

I remember being told by a student from the next class that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. I walked back to my office and went straight to the small conference/break room for political science faculty. I was very new to my colleagues, most of whom did not bother to introduce themselves to me at any point during the academic year, but I already had a good idea they were raving leftists. My experiences that day did nothing to dissuade me of this initial impression.

The lounge was full and a small tv was tuned into a cable news channel. Silence was thick. I stood only for a moment or two until a professor, expert in comparative politics, strode out of the room wearing a smirk. He looked at me, a person he had never met, and said, "That will teach us to build a missile defense shield." I am certain there were several layers of meaning in the phrase, and I will not attempt to parse it. What he did not say, is more revealing than his comment. There was no expression of grief, fear, anger, confusion, or even dismay. He chose, instead, to make a political statement.

I went back to my office, phoned my wife, and got an update on what was happening. She picked me up shortly after. I went home, watched tv for an entire day, and barely started to grasp the horror. I remember feeling small and helpless. I remember Tulane's particular pain since almost a majority of its students are from the New England area, many of them from New York and New Jersey.

In retrospect, 9/11 changed everything. Our country has, as my pastor said this morning, "gotten used to a new normal," where we expect the worst. How many of us would be surprised if a major American city is destroyed by terrorists? Note, I did not say sad, angry, or heart-broken, but surprised. It is the natural end-result, I fear, of the war we are now in. Perhaps then we will decide to fight the enemy on the terms he deserves, and not on those we wish to extend.

Ultimately, we must change the ratio of costs and benefits. We must make it so that terrorists will choose not to attack because the costs are so great. To do that, we will have to prosecute the war ruthlessly, just as I thought we would after 9/11.

Will Katrina Kill Kongress?

2005-09-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post runs a story today on the supposed impact of Hurricane Katrina on the upcoming Congressional elections of 2006.

A couple of quick comments. First, the election is more than a year away. Politics is too fluid to predict how this event will influence those elections.

Second, the blame for the response will be distributed across the spectrum, and this dispersion will likely be sufficient to prevent any one party from taking a hit. Also, don't forget that the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana, both Democrats, will have some blame to bear.

Third, mid-term elections have less turnout than presidential election years. This turnout usually means that those who are more informed about politics will vote, and those voters tend to be committed partisans. These votes are not likely to switch party attachment.

Fourth, congressional elections are more local than national. Even though voters may not be pleased with the President, or with Congress, that does not mean they are ready to get rid of their own incumbent member.

Fifth, and finally, only about ten percent of congressional elections are really competitive. Remember, to defeat an incumbent, you have to have a challenger that can raise funds and pose a reasonable threat.

Fourth

Deadly Bureaucracy

2005-09-08T20:57:00.000-04:00

Bobby Jindal, a Republican Congressman from Louisiana, makes an argument that supports the musings I have in a post below. The gist: bureaucratic red tape was a major problem post-Katrina.

Dean's Wicked Either/Or

2005-09-08T10:45:00.000-04:00

Howard Dean made a wicked statement recently about President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina's victims. In his heated political rhetoric, Dean argued that Republicans are now consciously choosing between cutting taxes and giving hurricane victims flood relief. Dean then went on, in his comments to the National Baptist Convention, which is a mostly African-American denomination, to argue that people in New Orleans are dead because of their race and economic situations. In other words, they would still be alive if they were white or wealthy, for then the administration would have deemed them worth saving.

Let me tackle this in three quick points. First, Dean's comment about the budget is a political game that politicians often play in their rhetoric. We could say "either or" about any two things in the budget. For example, I could say, "should we spend money to save the snale darter's habitat in California, or for educating America's urban poor?" "Should we spend money on agricultural subsidies or on protecting our country from terrorists?" The sheer idiocy of these comparisons is obvious to anyone who thinks more than a few seconds about budgets. It is almost never an "either/or" proposition. Budgets are hundreds of pages of compromises that force politicians to make difficult funding decisions about thousands of projects and programs.

Are some of these projects or programs silly and wasteful? Absolutely. Should they be eliminated? Probably. Either a program or funding decision is worthy or not on its own merits. To say it is an either or choice is almost stupid, and Dr. Dean knows better. If Dr. Dean wants to attack tax reductions, fine, let him make that argument. But to pretend that a tax cut is directly related to funding for hurricane relief is disengenuous. A Republican could stand up and say that Dr. Dean would rather pay for food stamps than build our military. That would be equally silly.

The cold truth is that Congress has already appropriated more than $10 billion for emergency relief, and the President is seeking an additional $40 billion as I write.

Second, Dean assails the administration's response to the Hurricane in racial terms in front of a largely African-American audience. This is the worst kind of pandering. Dean marshalls no evidence because he has none. Has he used this attack against Governor Blanco in Louisiana? She is white and there is growing evidence that she dithered away precious time arguing over authority issues with the President and the mayor, and that she failed to mobilize the state's national guard units until August 31, two days after the disaster struck. Was she racist? No, we have no evidence to suggest she was, but she is not accused of racism by Dean because, I presume, she is in his party and therefore beyond reproach.

Third, former Governor Dean is playing politics while corpses are still floating, bloated, and bursting, in New Orleans' streets. There are hundreds in the city who refuse to leave. Thousands of relief workers have been exposed to toxic water filled with sewage, petroleum, and disease, and their maladies will only manifest themselves in the days and weeks to come. If avoidable mistakes were made in handling hurricane relief, we need to find them out and hold those responsible accountable, including the President, Congress, FEMA, DHS, Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin, or anyone else. Before we investigate, however, let us first treat our dead with dignity, rescue those in need, and comfort the survivors. Petty, partisan, politics can wait.

This episode shows us the sickness that pervades so much of current American politics. There is no right and no wrong, there is only politics and the power victory yields. There are no arguments, but only assertions. There is no evidence, but only political ammunition. There are no values to bridge the polarized, partisan chasm that divide us. This is a politics devoid of virtue and truth. The cynics will say, "what more do you expect from politicians?" It is time for us to expect more and better as voters and citizens.

So Long, Little Buddy

2005-09-06T23:13:00.000-04:00

When oh when will the news take a turn for the better? First, a hurricane destroys much of the Gulf Coast. Second, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court departs us. Now, the country is dealt yet another blow with the demise of Bob Denver, a.k.a. Gilligan of Gilligan's Island.

Surely, American leftists are even now concocting theories to explain Gilligan's death. Jim Robbins, of National Review Online, relays a sharp reader's comment: "No wonder [Bob Denver] is dead. Bush left him on that island."

It is to Denver's credit that I feel festive at the news of his death. After all, can you think of Gilligan and do anything but smile? I hope Denver's family is warmed by the nation's giggles as it mourns in the only way that seems appropriate.

I am not the nostalgic sort, but just looking at the picture I posted forces me to reconsider my childhood. Those last days of disco were in no way innocent, not with the onset of Watergate, the American humiliation in Vietnam, the impending hostage crisis in Iran, and fuel shortages combined with double-digit unemployment and interest rates. In the grip of Jimmy Carter's presidency, America needed to laugh.

As for me, I laughed at Gilligan repeatedly and hysterically. I could never get enough of the Professor's coconut-themed inventions, the Skipper's persistent look of exasperation (what a great, comedic, plastic face Alan Hale, Jr had), and the class friction between the Howells and everyone else. Naturally, I married a red-head, so I suppose that makes me more of a "Ginger" fan than a Mary Anne. Those were good days in spite of the calamity surrounding me. I didn't know any better. This is the hope I cling to as I watch my children grow up in a world that seems much harder, crueler, and more deviant than that of my childhood. May God bless Gilligan.

P.S. Did you know the show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz, wrote the show so that the characters would represent the seven deadly sins--pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth? Class project--which characters represented which sins?