Jon Taplin explains why knowing world history is valuable. The sad thing is that, of course, the story that makes his reason doesn’t appear in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills list for world history, nor in any other social studies course.

Now that the Texas State Board of Education has taken off the cloak of education and made it clear that social studies in Texas is considered a political free-fire zone, and that they plan to vitiate anything but the propaganda value for the Republican Party, Taplin’s piece has all the more poignance.

The Renaissance, and Florence, were more than just a minor question on the TAKS test.  Santayana’s Ghost weeps bitterly.

Why isn’t Jon Taplin’s blog required reading in more places, by more people in government and politics?  We know why the Texas State School Board doesn’t want anyone to read it — that alone should make people fight to see what Taplin says.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter likes charter schools, and often enough writes about them and his frustration that public schools and their teachers won’t roll over and play dead while charter schools steal money from them (my characterization, not Alter’s).

At Public School Insights, Claus von Zastrow suggested that maybe pundits like Alter ought to be subject to having their pay docked when they screw up, too.  Then he went further, and specifically criticized a recent Alter column, point for point.

A few comments down, who should show up to make his case, but Jonathan Alter.

Go watch, and learn.  Among other things, the discussion is much more civil than we usually see on blogs.  It’s a lesson for Christians and creationists especially.

It’s not much of a conflict of interest, but I have dealt with Alter before, in his previous job at The New Republic (back when it was not so much a bastion of neo-conservatism).  Alter did a major profile of Sen. Orrin Hatch.  Alter strove not to be flattering, and the biggest problem was the Vint Lawrence illustration, showing Hatch draped in the American flag as a cloak.  As I recall from those now-dusty decades, the profile wasn’t exactly correlated with the illustration on any issue.  Over the years, Alter’s been closer to correct more often than he’s been wrong, in my view — his views on charter schools being in that area where I think he errs.

Public schools have never suffered from a surplus of money.  Charter school advocates should not be allowed to steal income from public schools directly.  To shore up GM, we don’t allow GM to take a share of profit from Ford for every GM car sold.  Nor do we allow Ford to take a share of GM’s income.  Competition in education is a foolish pursuit most often, but we don’t need a competitive model that bleeds education on either end, as Alter’s advocacy favors.

In hard economic terms, free market, gloves-off, bare-fisted capitalistic competition has never been shown to work in education.  I never could figure out Milton Friedman’s advocacy for such competition since there is no case ever to be made that competition makes better schools, nor that privately-run schools work better for educating an entire nation than public schools.  I think all relevant evidence runs the other way.

Meteors from the Leonid shower could have been good viewing — generally, as I predicted, it was not spectacular.  At least BBC said so.

But if you can make the time, it’s almost always profitable — psychologically and spiritually — to look up at the sky.

Some who did look up got great photographs of the not-spectacular views.

"A fireball seems to shoot right through a house in Grafton, Ontario. Malcolm Park captured the image as he was setting up to photograph meteors on Monday night." (MSNBC caption)

If this isn’t spectacular, can you imagine what would be?

Newsweek features Sarah Palin on the cover this week, a couple of weeks after featuring Al Gore.  I thought the Gore cover was interesting, but could be interpreted to make him look sinister.

Sexist? Or sac-patriotic?

Palin, on the other hand, is featured in a full photo she posed for Runners World last year.  A flattering photo, it also features a U.S. flag, which we’ll get back to in a moment.

Palin complains that the cover is “sexist.”

Yahoo! News has the story, featuring Palin’s Facebook complaint.

“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness — a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention — even if out of context.

But look at the cover.  Newsweek brands Palin as a problem — for Republicans. Is the sexism charge designed to divert attention from what Newsweek is saying, editorially?

Look at the display of the flag.  Clearly out of flag code on all scores, it appears as if she’s using the flag much as an athletic towel.  Now think of the rage the right worked up to when candidate Obama didn’t wear a flag lapel pin.  Can you imagine the rage had any Democrat posed for a picture, leaning on the flag like that?

The photo reveals Palin and her handlers as ill-informed on the flag code, and willing to do almost anything to get a camera.  I find it interesting that now, more than a year after she posed for the picture, she’s concerned about her showing of leg and not about the political issues raised by Newsweek.

Almost no one worries about the disrespect for the U.S. flag.

_____________

Update: Good commentary at Obsidian Wings — and note the first five or so comments.  Smart readers there!  Much the same at Majikthise.

Adults worry about peer pressure.  Kids can goad other kids into doing stupid things, dangerous things, illegal things, and immoral things.

Pressure from adults on kids might be just as strong.

What about a 10-year-old kid who stands up to peer pressure, and stands for principle against adults who use all sorts of inducements to get him to do something he believes is wrong?

I offer a salute to Will Phillips of  West Fork School District, in Washington County, Arkansas.

Will believes homosexuals in America are not beneficiaries of  liberty and justice for all.  Will now refuses to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance for that reason.

It’s probably not what I’d advise the young man to do to protest, but he has every right.  He’s thought it through, which may not be said for the substitute teacher and the school administrator who tried to pressure him into giving up on his principles.

In the Arkansas Times, David Koon writes the story:

A boy and his flag

Why Will won’t pledge.

David Koon
Updated: 11/5/2009

WILL PHILLIPS: Freedom lover.

Will Phillips, freedom lover, in Arkansas (Arkansas Times photo)

Will Phillips isn’t like other boys his age.

For one thing, he’s smart. Scary smart. A student in the West Fork School District in Washington County, he skipped a grade this year, going directly from the third to the fifth. When his family goes for a drive, discussions are much more apt to be about Teddy Roosevelt and terraforming Mars than they are about Spongebob Squarepants and what’s playing on Radio Disney.

It was during one of those drives that the discussion turned to the pledge of allegiance and what it means. Laura Phillips is Will’s mother. “Yes, my son is 10,” she said. “But he’s probably more aware of the meaning of the pledge than a lot of adults. He’s not just doing it rote recitation. We raised him to be aware of what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s fair.”

Will’s family has a number of gay friends. In recent years, Laura Phillips said, they’ve been trying to be a straight ally to the gay community, going to the pride parades and standing up for the rights of their gay and lesbian neighbors. They’ve been especially dismayed by the effort to take away the rights of homosexuals – the right to marry, and the right to adopt. Given that, Will immediately saw a problem with the pledge of allegiance.

“I’ve always tried to analyze things because I want to be lawyer,” Will said. “I really don’t feel that there’s currently liberty and justice for all.”

After asking his parents whether it was against the law not to stand for the pledge, Will decided to do something. On Monday, Oct. 5, when the other kids in his class stood up to recite the pledge of allegiance, he remained sitting down. The class had a substitute teacher that week, a retired educator from the district, who knew Will’s mother and grandmother. Though the substitute tried to make him stand up, he respectfully refused. He did it again the next day, and the next day. Each day, the substitute got a little more cross with him. On Thursday, it finally came to a head. The teacher, Will said, told him that she knew his mother and grandmother, and they would want him to stand and say the pledge.

“She got a lot more angry and raised her voice and brought my mom and my grandma up,” Will said. “I was fuming and was too furious to really pay attention to what she was saying. After a few minutes, I said, ‘With all due respect, ma’am, you can go jump off a bridge.’ ”

Will was sent to the office, where he was given an assignment to look up information about the flag and what it represents. Meanwhile, the principal called his mother.

“She said we have to talk about Will, because he told a sub to jump off a bridge,” Laura Phillips said. “My first response was: Why? He’s not just going to say this because he doesn’t want to do his math work.”

Eventually, Phillips said, the principal told her that the altercation was over Will’s refusal to stand for the pledge of allegiance, and admitted that it was Will’s right not to stand. Given that, Laura Phillips asked the principal when they could expect an apology from the teacher. “She said, ‘Well I don’t think that’s necessary at this point,’ ” Phillips said.

After Phillips put a post on the instant-blogging site twitter.com about the incident, several of her friends got angry and alerted the news media. Meanwhile, Will Phillips still refuses to stand during the pledge of allegiance. Though many of his friends at school have told him they support his decision, those who don’t have been unkind, and louder.

“They [the kids who don't support him] are much more crazy, and out of control and vocal about it than supporters are.”

Given that his protest is over the rights of gays and lesbians, the taunts have taken a predictable bent. “In the lunchroom and in the hallway, they’ve been making comments and doing pranks, and calling me gay,” he said. “It’s always the same people, walking up and calling me a gaywad.”

Even so, Will said that he can’t foresee anything in the near future that will make him stand for the pledge. To help him deal with the peer pressure, his parents have printed off posts in his support on blogs and websites. “We’ve told him that people here might not support you, but we’ve shown him there are people all over that support you,” Phillips said. “It’s really frustrating to him that people are being so immature.”

At the end of our interview, I ask young Will a question that might be a civics test nightmare for your average 10-year-old. Will’s answer, though, is good enough — simple enough, true enough — to give me a little rush of goose pimples.  What does being an American mean?

“Freedom of speech,” Will says, without even stopping to think. “The freedom to disagree. That’s what I think pretty much being an American represents.”

Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson smiles.

"Lady Howe mates Ben Franklin," 1867 painting by Edward Harrison May - public domain

Resources:

• Ben Franklin and his essay, “The Morals of Chess,” by John McCrary
• A history of Ben Franklin and chess, from Wholesale Chess

Claudia Meininger Gold practices pediatric medicine in Great Barrington, Vermont.  When someone recently suggested offering flu shots at polling places, it struck her that, like voting, getting a flu shot is a good citizen’s duty.  She wrote about it in the Boston Globe.

AS A pediatrician, I received my swine flu vaccine without a moment’s hesitation. I wanted to be available to treat the onslaught of illness, and to be able to go comfortably into a room with a coughing, miserable child knowing that I was not putting myself or my family at risk. I was astounded, therefore, to read recently, in a popular newsletter for pediatricians, a column by a pediatrician stating that he would not recommend the vaccine to his patients. His arguments were that the illness was relatively mild and the vaccine might not be safe.

In my practice, there are many parents who choose not to immunize their children. As a mother myself, I sometimes wonder if part of the motivation for this choice is to combat the helpless, scary part of loving someone so much. It can become overwhelming to contemplate everything that can possibly go wrong. Perhaps parents refuse vaccines because it is something they can control, a way in which they can “protect’’ their child. In the case of swine flu, or H1N1, this action is, in my opinion, misguided.

There are many different fears associated with vaccines, but the specific fear around H1N1 has its origin in a 1976 outbreak of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease that damages nerve cells, after mass vaccination against a swine flu. The website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention addresses this issue:

“Several studies have been done to evaluate if other flu vaccines since 1976 were associated with GBS. Only one of the studies showed an association. That study suggested that one person out of 1 million vaccinated persons may be at risk of GBS associated with the vaccine.’’

The current method for making the H1N1 vaccine is the same as that for the seasonal flu vaccine. The only difference is that seasonal flu vaccine is prepared in anticipation of flu season, while manufacturing of this one was begun while the pandemic was in its initial stages. High-risk groups, such as the elderly and young children, receive the seasonal flu vaccine without a second thought.

It is true that for the majority of people H1N1 is a mild illness, generally causing two to four days of feeling lousy. But the virus is highly contagious. The sheer numbers are staggering. A school in Chicago closed last month when 800 of its 2,200 students were sick. With any flu there are people who will have complications and die. As the number of cases continues to climb, statistics are not in our favor.

For high-risk groups, such as pregnant women, talk of “mild illness’’ is meaningless. Stories are multiplying of the devastating losses of both baby and mother. In our small town there are young adults who were previously healthy now on respirators in intensive care units.

In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Douglas Shenson proposed the use of polling places for vaccination. This led me to think of vaccination as a responsibility of being a citizen, analogous to voting. Just as one vote does not determine the outcome of an election, one person immunized does not halt the spread of illness. Yet voting is a civic duty. Similarly, vaccination, while benefiting the individual, serves to protect the population as a whole. Short of shutting down the country, mass immunization is the only way to stop the spread of this virus.

In addition, I feel that as a physician, it is my responsibility to uphold the recommendations of the CDC. If every individual citizen took it upon himself or herself to decide what was best for the country, there would be chaos.

Washing hands, covering our mouths when we cough, and staying home when we are sick are all ways to contribute to the common good. As responsible citizens, when the opportunity arises, and in keeping with CDC guidelines, we should all do our part and immunize ourselves and our children.

Dr. Claudia Meininger Gold, a pediatrician, practices in Great Barrington.  Copyright to Boston Globe.

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<!– Citizen, heal thyself: Get the swine flu vaccine Boston Globe Just as one vote does not determine the outcome of an election, one person immunized does not halt the spread of illness. Yet voting is a civic duty. Similarly, vaccination, while benefiting the individual, serves to protect the population as a whole. Claudia Meininger Gold November 16, 2009 –>

Claudia Meininger Gold

Citizen, heal thyself: Get the swine flu vaccine

By Claudia Meininger Gold November 16, 2009

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AS A pediatrician, I received my swine flu vaccine without a moment’s hesitation. I wanted to be available to treat the onslaught of illness, and to be able to go comfortably into a room with a coughing, miserable child knowing that I was not putting myself or my family at risk. I was astounded, therefore, to read recently, in a popular newsletter for pediatricians, a column by a pediatrician stating that he would not recommend the vaccine to his patients. His arguments were that the illness was relatively mild and the vaccine might not be safe.

Actor Will Smith and chess board, photo by Robert Snyder

Actor Will Smith worked with chess masters to improve his game — literally.  Photo and story from 2001 at The Chessdrum.

Space.com’s story on tonight’s Leonid meteor shower doesn’t encourage me to stay up, or get up to watch (tomorrow morning’s meteor shower, really).  A “strong show,” but not spectacular numbers, and our living so close to Dallas will help obscure much of what would be visible normally.

The first cloud of comet dust was released from the nucleus of Tempel-Tuttle back in the year 1567. North America will be turned toward the constellation Leo when these particles begin pelting the upper layers of our atmosphere, some 80 to 100 miles (130 to 160 km.) above us. Earth’s encounter with the comet dust is going to be brief – possibly no more than several hours long.

Unfortunately, we won’t be going directly through the center of cloud, but rather skim through its outer edge on Nov. 17, chiefly between about 4:30 and 10:30 GMT. As a consequence, the meteor rate is not expected to get much higher than 20 or 30 per hour (on average about one meteor sighting every two or three minutes). Still, this is about two to three times the normal Leonid rate.

At the beginning of this window, it will still be dark across Europe and western Africa with Leo high up in the southeast sky, but within an hour the sky will be brightening as sunrise approaches, soon putting an end to meteor watching.

North Americans – especially those living near and along the Atlantic Seaboard – will be able to watch for Leonids from after 1 a.m. local time right on until the first light of dawn, which comes soon after 5 a.m. local time.

I’ll wager more people will be up watching the new movie 2012 about a wholly fictional collision with Earth than will watch the real collisions from parts of an old comet (Tempel-Tuttle).

More data

• Stardate on meteor showers with dates and viewing tips
• NASA’s more hopeful view (“500 per hour”)

A composite, all-sky image of the 2008 Leonid outburst over Colorado. Credit: Chris Peterson, Cloudbait Observatory. (NASA) This is a composite image of 141 meteors collected over four evenings, November 16-19 UT. Because the images were collected over many hours, the radiant of the shower is spread out. The Moon was present during the peak activity period each night, so only bright meteors have been recorded. The Moon has been removed from the composite image. (Cloudbait)

Heckuva story.  Earl Blumenauer is the man responsible for the language in H.R. 3200 that Sarah Palin erroneously claimed created “death panels.”

He’s a Congressman from Oregon.

In Saturday’s New York Times he detailed how critics hijacked the debate with false claims.  Fascinating story.

A very odd result:  Because of the false claims, a provision to help people plan to avoid death panels was stricken from health care reform proposals.  More citizens will face death panel-like decisions as a result.

Previously I thought Orwell was convoluted.

A friend wrote about enjoying a production of “Pirates of Penzance” at Oregon State.  I looked for YouTube versions . . .

Oh, my!

(Better:  Rent one of the movies, either of D’Oyly Carte, or the Linda Ronstadt/Rex Smith/Kevin Kline version.)

Musing on a short break from grading:  Is it possible to read Eschaton without getting horribly depressed at the incompetence and meanness in the White House — up to Obama?

And then one thinks of the challenges facing Obama.  The Great Depression was more psychological than economic.  Mine is, anyway, right now.

I’m cutting the monster a lot of slack with the headline.

P. Z. Myers publicized the e-mail exchange involving Bodie Hodge, a minor deity at the anti-science, creationist organization Answers in Genesis (AiG).  Myers was nice to the guy, contrary to the usual creationist cartoon of Myers as somehow immoral for being a non-worshipper of gods.  Well, he was nicer than I would have been.  But Myers expects Christians to exhibit no sense of shame, no common sense, and twisted morality.  I expect bettter of them.

A reader posed that age-old question to Hodge:  Is the Christian rule against lying so strong that a Christian should tell Nazi troops where Jewish families are hiding?  Hodge weasels later by saying he hopes he never has to make such a choice, and that he really doesn’t know how he’d act in that situation.  But this comes only after he says that telling  a lie to Nazis to save Jews will get one burned in hell.  And then he goes on to note it’s better to be in good with God than to act morally.

In other words, better to become an accomplice in the murder of Jews than to stand up against murderers.

I don’t get how these charlatans of religion, reason to such a point.

What would Jesus do?  We know.  When the crowd was threatening to stone to death a woman guilty of adultery and she sought refuge with Jesus, Jesus stood up to the mob and saved her life.  Just execution of Biblical law or shelter the accused, Jesus stood against the murder, even murder sanctioned by the religious rules of the community.

We also know that scripture endorses deception from time to time.  You know these AiG clowns are charlatans when they say stupid stuff like this.  Hodge tries to explain away another case of deception by inventing a scenario not found in scripture in which the lie doesn’t get told.

He’s forgotten the story of Jacob and Esau, and how Jacob and his mother conpsired to deceive Isaac in order to steal away Esau’s birthright (Esau and Jacob were twins, by the way).  Jacob got away with the deed, was then blessed by God.  He took a new name:  Israel.  He lived on to be the seed of Judaism, the religion Jesus followed and the foundation of Christianity.

To AiG, it appears that scripture is just a dusty old book, except when they can twist it to support their bigotry.  Here’s irony for you:  The story of Jacob is in Genesis.  You know, as in “Answers in Genesis.”  They don’t even know their own namesake book!

Here in America, as a nation we overcame that morality-or-religion problem with Huck Finn.  The ill-educated young teen, an absentee to grammar, faces the moral decision as he floats down the Mississippi with Jim, an escaped slave who has saved Huck’s life and is in other ways a very good friend.  Huck notes that the preachers are all agreed that Huck’s moral duty is to turn Jim in as an escaped slave, to condemn Jim to a continued life of slavery, should Jim survive the lashing.  Huck Finn puts the dilemma squarely:  Whether to obey God and turn in Jim to the authorities, or to burn in hell and let Jim live the life of a free man.  Huck agonizes, but decides:  He’ll burn in hell rather than give away his friend.

Myers wrote:

As a non-Bible believing amoral godless atheist, my first thought was that this is trivial: you lie your pants off. The ‘crime’ of telling a lie pales into insignificance against the crime of enabling the death of fellow human beings.

According to Bodie Hodge of AiG, though, I’m wrong. The good Christian should reject lies, Satan’s tools, in all circumstances, and should immediately ‘fess up the location of the Jews. He backs it up with Bible quotes, too.

If we love God, we should obey Him (John 14:15). To love God first means to obey Him first–before looking at our neighbor. So, is the greater good trusting God when He says not to lie or trusting in our fallible, sinful minds about the uncertain future?

Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don’t know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life–keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway.

As Christians, we need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ reigns. All authority has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18), and He sits on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33; Hebrews 8:1). Nothing can happen without His say. Even Satan could not touch Peter without Christ’s approval (Luke 22:31). Regardless, if one were to lie or not, Jesus Christ is in control of timing every person’s life and able to discern our motives. It is not for us to worry over what might become, but rather to place our faith and obedience in Christ and to let Him do the reigning. For we do not know the future, whereas God has been telling the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).

Gosh. I never thought of it that way. So…all those Christians who sheltered Jews during WWII are actually burning in hell right now for their sinful wickedness? That is so counterintuitive, it must be true!

One more time we should side with morality, and against creationist distortions of Christianity and morality.

With all the learning they get at that reeking cesspool the creationism museum, you’d think they could demonstrate the moral fiber of a tobacco-chewing, food-stealing, school-cutting runaway teen, Huckleberry Finn.

Full AiG post below the fold (I expect them to strike it down when they rethink; let all Christians pray to God they do rethink).

Here’s the post at AiG’s site.

The following is an email exchange between a reader and Bodie Hodge:

You, know I almost hate to do this because I know how much email you guys handle . . . But I want to respond to Bodie Hodge’s “contradictions” article on Rahab’s “lie”. Bodie is almost always right on the mark and is probably my favorite feedback man, but in this case I have to take exception to his saying that it is always wrong to lie . . . The ninth commandment says we should never bear false witness against our neighbor (or anyone). But if the Nazis are looking for Jews, and you know where they are, it would not be wrong to lie, in order to protect them, nor would this be bearing false witness “against” someone . . . I think in the same way the Israeli midwives lied to the Egyptians about the birthing of male babies in Moses’s day . . . I know its a rare exception, but there may be other circumstances when it might be appropriate to “lie”, although obviously, 99% percent of the time it would be wrong . . . Keep up the good work, all of you, your ministry is the most awesome in the world, just blows me away

—M.H.

---

Thank you for contacting Answers in Genesis and thanks for the comments. I know this can be a touchy subject, but please bear with me as I try to explain. Keep in mind that I, too, am not perfect but will try to answer as scripturally as possible. (Also, sorry for the length—but this feedback will allow me the breadth that I did not have with the contradiction article on Rahab on the website.)

Righteous Lies?

Bearing false witness is a lie, and in Hebrew the word for false in Exodus 20:16 is sheqer, which literally means “lie.” It is derived from the Hebrew word shaqar, which means “deal falsely, be false, trick, and cheat.” There are many verses in the Bible that reaffirm the Ninth Commandment, and a couple are:

Leviticus 19:11
You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.

1 John 2:21
I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

The devil is the father of lies (John 8:44), and one lie to God the Holy Spirit was worthy of instant death for Ananias (Acts 5:3–5). Paul points out that even if he were to lie for the glory of God, he would be deemed a sinner for such an act:

Romans 3:7
For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

In light of such passages, does a “righteous lie” really exist? The most common example sent to me was envisioning the Holocaust and being placed in the position of lying to potentially protect someone’s life. Like most, if placed in such a difficult situation, it would be very difficult. In fact, I could never be sure what I would do, especially if it were a loved one.

But consider for a moment that we are all already sentenced to die because we are sinners (Romans 5:12). It is going to happen regardless. If a lie helps keep someone alive for a matter of moments compared to eternity, was the lie, which is high treason against the Creator, worth it?

It would be like sitting in a cell on death row and when the guards come to take your roommate to the electric chair, you lie to the guards and say you don’t know where the person went—while your roommate is hiding under their covers on the bed. Does it really help? Since we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), death is coming for us, and there is an appointed time (Ecclesiastes 3:2).

Proverbs 12:19
The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.

Is it worth sinning against God to try to buy a moment of time next to eternity—intentionally lying is foolish and would only harm the extent of your own life (Ecclesiastes 7:17). Lets’s look further at Scripture for an example of a situation where a lie could have saved a life.

Stephen

Stephen in Acts 6–7 preached Christ, and men came against him. This culminated with a question by the high priest in Acts 7:1 who said: “Are these things so?”

At this point, Stephen could have done a “righteous lie” to save his life so that he could have many more years to preach the gospel. However, Stephen laid a long and appropriate foundation for Christ—then preached Christ. And they killed him.

But this event triggered a persecution that sent the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 11:19) and peaked with Paul (who consented to Stephen’s death) coming to Christ and taking the message to the Gentiles and writing several books of the New Testament. The Lord had a greater purpose for Stephen—even though it cost him his life. Keep in mind, however, that this, and other examples, are about the person in question—not another.

Do We Know What God Had in Mind?

I often wonder if a Nazi soldier asked if someone was there hiding and they told the truth before God, could the Lord have in mind a greater purpose? Could God have used that person to free a great many people who ultimately died in the Holocaust? Or have done something to stop the war earlier? Or cause a great number of Jews and Nazi’s to come to know Christ? It is possible, but we simply cannot know. And one should not dwell too long on “what ifs” anyway.

No doubt, there is great value in the truth (John 8:32). As fallible, sinful human beings, our imperfect thoughts may not be able to comprehend what God has in mind, and we need to strive to trust God when He speaks on this subject, regardless how hard it may be. We need to place our faith fully in Christ and trust in God in all things—and not lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

I’m not saying this to be “preachy,” because I really don’t know what I would do in such a situation. However, I would pray that the Lord would grant me the wisdom to know what to say and how to say it—but more preferably—how to avoid being in that situation in the first place.

If Forced into This Situation . . . What Then?

Let’s consider again the Nazi-Holocaust situation: there seems to be a conflict in the situation to lie before God to try to save someone else’s life. The result is often called the “greater good” or “lesser of two evils.”

I’ve been told in the past that the lesser of these two evils would be to lie to save a life—hence the common phrase “a righteous lie.” This is often justified by appealing to the command to love our neighbor (Romans 13:9).

But how does God view this, remembering that God is a discerner of our motives. To God, a lie for selfish motive was worthy of death to Ananias. But, in fact, just one sin is worthy of death (Genesis 2:17). (This should be a reminder that we should continually praise God for His grace that is bestowed upon us). But let’s look at Scripture again. The two greatest commandments are:

Mark 12:28–31
Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first¹ commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus tells us that all the commandments can be summed up into these two statements. But of these two, the first is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. So, this would trump the second. Our actions toward God should trump our actions toward men. Peter also affirmed this:

Acts 5:29
But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

If we love God, we should obey Him (John 14:15). To love God first means to obey Him first—before looking at our neighbor. So, is the greater good trusting God when He says not to lie or trusting in our fallible, sinful minds about the uncertain future?

Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don’t know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life—keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway.

As Christians, we need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ reigns. All authority has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18), and He sits on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33; Hebrews 8:1). Nothing can happen without His say. Even Satan could not touch Peter without Christ’s approval (Luke 22:31). Regardless, if one were to lie or not, Jesus Christ is in control of timing every person’s life and able to discern our motives. It is not for us to worry over what might become, but rather to place our faith and obedience in Christ and to let Him do the reigning. For we do not know the future, whereas God has been telling the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).

---

Wow, you put a lot of work in to that answer Bodie, and from a biblical basis too. I agree with you 100% about lying to protect yourself, that could be interpreted as mere cowardice, and I think most of your biblical examples dealt with that. However there is a scripture in Exodus ch.1 vs. 15–22, in which the Jewish midwives are told to kill all the male babies they delivered but refused to do so. When asked why they hadn’t destroyed the babies, they told the Egyptians the Hebrew women simply gave birth faster than the Egyptian women, and had the babies before the midwives got there. Vs.17 however says that the Jewish midwives saved the male children alive, so here they are lying not only to save the male babies but probably to escape punishment from the Egyptians. Vs. 20 says that God dealt well with the midwives for doing this. I think this is one of the rare examples or cases where lying would truly not be offensive to our Creator. At any rate, I think this scripture shows that not all lies are equal, at least to my mind. In that most lies are done for self advancement, self protection, greed, etc., but some are done at least with the intention of protecting others, their reputations or physical selves. I can’t fault your stance though, your conscience and the Word must be your guide. Keep up the good work.

—M.H.

---

I looked up the passage about the midwives, and I, personally, don’t believe they lied. Scripture doesn’t really say they did. Please see the context:

Exodus 1:15–22
Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.” Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”

Naturally, their fear of God led them to refuse the order to murder. It makes more sense to me that they could have informed the Hebrew wives what the Pharaoh had commanded, and, thus, many of the Israelite women were giving birth before the midwives would arrive so they would not be in a position of killing the child. Perhaps the midwives took their time to arrive as well. That would allow the children to survive and the midwives to speak the truth to Pharaoh.

What would make pregnant mothers more vigorous or lively to have the child born? Make them aware that if they do not give birth quickly their child’s life may be in danger. There are any number of ways the mothers and midwives could have avoided it.

With humbleness in Christ,
Bodie

“Humbleness in Christ?” What about reason? What about sanity? What about morality? What about a little sense of shame?

Another blogger decided to take some potshots at the environmental protection success that banning DDT was is.

edwinleap.com laments that the brown pelican flew off the Endangered Species List this week.  “Brown pelicans 1, brown human beings 0,” the headline reads.  The piece claims that banning DDT use in America has somehow increased malaria, or prolonged it, in Africa and Asia.

Clearly the writer can’t didn’t read a map, or figure distances, and knows nothing knew little about the migratory habits of mosquitoes.  Stopping the spraying of DDT in Arkansas didn’t stop the use or manufacture of DDT in Africa nor Asia, anywhere.  Nor did mosquitoes not killed in America fly to Africa to infect kids.  Someone who has decided to rail against wise science probably isn’t interested much in the facts, though.

I responded there:

DDT has never been banned in Africa, nor Asia.  Today, China and India together manufacture thousands of tons of DDT for use around the world.

Odd — in the nations where DDT was banned (for use on agriculture, never to fight malaria), malaria is eradicated or all but eradicated.  In those nations where DDT is still legal, still manufactured, and still used in great quantities, malaria runs rampant.

Perhaps a lack of DDT doesn’t have anything to do with the spread of malaria.

There are very few, if any, serious malaria fighters asking for DDT.  Improved medical care is the basis for beating malaria in humans.  Malaria is a parasite that must live for part of its life cycle in mosquitoes, and for part of its life cycle in humans.  If your goal is to wipe out malaria, you could do it more effectively by wiping out the humans that harbor the parasite.  That would be stupid and cruel, and very expensive.

Fortunately, DDT is not a powerful acute poison to use against the mammals where malaria breeds.  Perhaps unfortunately, it’s no panacea against malaria, either.

Why did African malaria fighters stop using DDT in the middle 1960s?  Mosquitoes had become resistant and immune to DDT.

Ronald Reagan once said for every serious problem there is a solution that is simple, easy, and wrong.  DDT is that simple, easy and wrong solution for malaria.

Why is this man so bigoted Let’s hope it’s ignorance of the issue and not bigotry against brown beings that he thinks leads anyone to think the brown pelican should have been sacrificed, and that  he thinks brown Africans are too stupid to figure out how to fight malaria with DDT, if DDT would in fact save them?  [See Mr. Leap's comment below. Not stupid at all, he just didn't have the facts.  Great to find someone willing to admit error.  Clearly, I was wrong assuming he knew better -- see edits throughout the post.  It's actually pleasant to discover one was wrong in a case like this.]

Rachel Carson was right: We should have restricted the use of DDT to save wild populations of animals, and to have preserved its efficacy for fighting malaria in carefully planned and delivered programs to fight malaria and other insect-borne diseases around the world.  Carson proposed we use integrated pest management (IPM) to fight disease, and this is the program and process Africans and Asians have turned to over the past decade as other slap-dash methods of fighting disease faltered.

In diverting attention from improving medical care to fight malaria, to a hopeless campaign to reintroduce DDT where it would not work the miracle claimed, edwinleap.com favors too many people favor  malaria over the kids in reality.  Odd position for a health professional to take, and we can be relatively certain that he’s responding to political hackery, and not basing his views on any sound science or history.

The brown pelicans‘ migration from the Endangered Species List pays high tribute to Rachel Carson’s views on saving life in the wild, and verification once again that she was right.  Perhaps its time more people paid attention to her accurate and effective ideas about how to fight human disease, without trying to poison all of Africa.

A posed photograph:  Three Boy Scouts, from at least two different units, holding a poster Scouts were distributing about international cooperation in World War II.  They are saluting, and behind them rises the dome of the U.S. Capitol on a brilliantly sunny day.

Caption from the U.S. Senate Historical Office: "Boy Scouts aid the war effort by delivering posters that encourage a united fight for freedom, ca.1943. credit: Library of Congress"

1943?  Who were the Scouts?

The photo is online in the collection of the U.S. Senate Historical Office (a good source of images, by the way).

I just wondered, who are those Scouts, and where are they today?

Boy Scouts assisted war efforts in a lot of ways in a lot of American cities, towns and villages.  Affiliates at the Tom Harbin Scout Museum at Camp Wisdom in Dallas (Circle 10 Council) have papers documenting and detailing massive scrap and paper drives, and a lot of other activities we probably wouldn’t let Scouts get into today.

The three Scouts in the photo wear what appears to be two different neckerchiefs, suggesting they come from at least two different troops or other units.  All three wear the uniform of the Boy Scouts of America, but two of the three look as though they may be immigrants or children of immigrants.

The date given is a “circa 1943.”  But the poster plugs a “United Nations” — could it have been as late as 1945 or 1946 and the official organizing of the United Nations?

What do you think?  What do you know?

Update: Wikimedia puts the date of the poster as 1941.  Shorpy says the photo is 1943:

“Washington, 1943. “United Nations Fight for Freedom: Colored, white and Chinese Boy Scouts in front of Capitol. They help out by delivering posters to help the war effort.” View full size. 4×5 Kodachrome transparency by John Rous for the Office of War Information. What photo expert out there can tell us about the numbers on these Kodachromes — how and at what point in the manufacturing/ exposure/ developing process they were made, and what they signify.

All those details and not the names of the Scouts?  In comments at Shorpy we also see that the temporary patch for the Scout on the left is for a 1942 campout.  So we know the photo was later than 1941.  The community patch for the Scout on the right says Washington where the city patch should be, with no state patch (if they had separate patches then).  So it’s probably a Washington, D.C. unit — and it’s Troop 11.  Anybody from National Capital Council ever read this site?  Were all three of these Scouts from Troop 11?

I have found, but cannot yet examine, another photo from the same roll of film, showing just the Scout in the middle.

Update 2: This may identify one of the Scouts, with an astounding story:

Caption from CityDesk.net: "July 1941. Local Boy Scout Anderson Grimes in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., holding a copy of a WPA poster designed for the city’s landmark water conservation program."

That solo Scout is clearly the same one in the first photo, so we have one name:  Anderson Grimes.

But the entire story from CityDesk.net is more amazing, if true:

July 1941. Local Boy Scout Anderson Grimes in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., holding a copy of a WPA poster designed for the city’s landmark water conservation program. Shortly after this photo was taken, he was to present the poster to local congressman Harford Collins in a brief ceremony. Tragically, Grimes, along with several local reporters and congressional aides, instead found Senator Collins slumped over his desk, dead from a heart attack.

Thirty years later, Grimes ended up serving the same seat in Congress for four terms. He did not die in office.
- RJ White

If true?  I can’t find a listing for a Sen. Harford Collins in the Congressional biography pages, nor for any Member in either house named Anderson Grimes.

More mystery.  Is the Scout even named Anderson Grimes?

Okay, after j. a. higginbotham wrote in, I finally got it:  CityDesk.net is a satire site.  They wrote a phony story to accompany the photograph.

That’s right:  I got hoaxed.

Still looking for information on the Scouts and their troop(s).

Update, November 15: Is the water conservation poster in the version above a PhotoShop addition?  Here’s a photo held by the Library of Congress:

From Library of Congress: "United Nations Fight for Freedom: Boy Scout in front of Capitol. They help out by delivering posters to help the war effort"

No, not current senators — don’t get your ignoble hopes up.

With more than 40,000 photographs and other images, the Senate Historical Office has images of almost all people who have served as members of the U.S. Senate.  5o members are completely absent from the Senate collection, however.

Got any idea where to find images of these guys?  This comes from the Senate Historical Office:

Senators Not Represented in Senate Historical Office Photo Collection

The Senate Historical Office maintains a collection of more than 40,000 still pictures, slides, and negatives. The collection includes photographs and illustrations of most former senators, but to date no photo or other illustration of about fifty members has been found. Below is a list (by state) of U.S. Senators for whom we have no image in our collection. If you have an image, or information that may lead us to an image, please contact the Senate’s photo historian.

__________________________

Alabama: – 2
William Kelly, 1822-1825
John Williams Walker, 1819-1822

Connecticut: – 2
Thaddeus  Betts, 1839-1840
Perry Smith, 1837-1843

Delaware: – 1
Outerbridge Horsey, 1810-1821

Georgia: – 5
William Bellinger Bulloch, 1813-1813
Thomas Willis Cobb, 1824-1828
Alfred Cuthbert, 1835-1843
James Gunn, 1789-1801
Josiah Tattnall, 1796-1799

Kentucky – 1
George Walker, 1814-1814

Louisiana – 3
Eligius Fromentin, 1813-1819
Allan Bowie Magruder, 1812-1813
Robert Carter Nicholas, 1836-1841

Massachusetts – 1
Eli Porter Ashmun, 1816-1818

Maryland – 6
John Henry, 1789-1797
Robert Henry Goldsborough, 1813-1819, 1835-1836
James Lloyd, 1797-1800
William Dunhurst Merrick, 1838-1845
John Selby Spence, 1836-1840
David Stewart, 1849-1850

Mississippi – 4
Robert Huntington Adams, 1830-1830
John Black, 1832-1838
Joseph Williams Chalmers, 1845-1847

New Hampshire – 2
Charles Cutts, 1810-1813
Nahum Parker, 1807-1810

New Jersey: – 3
Jonathan Elmer, 1789-1791
Aaron Kitchell, 1805-1809
James Jefferson Wilson, 1815-1821

New York – 1
Obadiah German, 1809-1815

North Carolina – 4
Timothy Bloodworth, 1795-1801
Jesse Franklin, 1799-1805, 1807-1813
Francis Locke, 1814-1815
James Turner, 1805-1816

Ohio – 3
Stanley Griswold, 1809-1809
Joseph Kerr, 1814-1815
John Smith, 1803-1808

Pennsylvania – 1
Samuel Maclay, 1803-1809

Rhode Island – 7
Nathan Dixon, Sr., 1839-1842
Benjamin Howland, 1804-1809
Henry Frederick Lippitt, 1911-1917
Francis Malbone, 1809-1809
Samuel John Potter, 1803-1804
Joseph Stanton, Jr., 1790-1793
William Sprague, 1842-1844

South Carolina – 1
John Hunter, 1796-1798

Tennessee – 3
Daniel Smith, 1798-1799, 1805-1809
Jesse Wharton, 1814-1815
Jenkin Whiteside, 1809-1811

Vermont – 4
Dudley Chase, 1813-1817, 1825-1831
Nathaniel Chipman, 1797-1803
Jonathan Robinson, 1807-1815
Israel Smith, 1803-1807

_________________________

You just know that somewhere out there, a local museum has a painting of one of these guys.  Or, someone has a painting or drawing of an old-timey guy hanging over a fireplace, a family heirloom that features one of these guys.  I mean, how could a guy like Outerbridge Horsey fail to inspire an artist somewhere?

Do you know of one?  Contact the Senate Historical Office, and let us know here, too.

Fly your U.S. flag today — thank a veteran.  We have a lot to thank veterans for, and veterans need a little more appreciation today.

US Veterans Administration tells the history of celebrating Veterans Day on November 11:

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as “Armistice Day.” Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first “Veterans Day Proclamation” which stated: “In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.”

• 
  
• (Other resources, from Google)
• Update: MFB post for Veterans Day 2008

Google's 2009 tribute to Veterans Day

Remind others to fly their flags, too:

When I first joined the Dallas Bar I quickly met a delightful woman who had some experience from which she spoke:  Louise Raggio.  On a few occasions I was fortunate enough to sit with her at a continuing education session and benefit from her explanations of how law really works in Texas.

I was interested to get an e-mail from her this morning, in which she complains about Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions’s vote on the health care bill that passed the House of Representatives Saturday.  You might enjoy it, too:

A Message from Louise B. Raggio
(a.k.a. the Texas Tornado)

This is an outrage.

As our Members of Congress debated health care reform legislation late into the night this weekend, our incumbent Congressman Pete Sessions likened the insurance industry’s practice of charging higher rates to women to their practice of charging higher rates for smokers.  According to Sessions, being a woman is a pre-existing condition – and it merits higher insurance rates (read it here).

Hey Pete, are you serious?

Rep. Sessions’ blatant disrespect for women is precisely why we need a change in Congress.  Will you contribute now to help bring new leadership to Washington?

Give online today at Act Blue!

When I first became a lawyer in the 1950s, Texas women could not buy or sell their own property, could not sign contracts, and could not have control over their own paychecks or open their own bank accounts without their husbands’ permission.  I decided to devote my career to changing those laws so I helped write legislation that secured legal equality for married women and became the Texas Family Code.

Now my son Grier is running for Congress.  I couldn’t be prouder to see him carry on our family’s legacy of public service.  After hearing about Rep. Sessions’ remarks pushing gender inequality, I am more determined than ever to do whatever it takes to send my son to Congress and to stand up for women.

Can you help Grier with his campaign?  We have to send a message to Pete Sessions and his allies in Congress when they try to turn the clocks back on women’s rights – we can’t let this stand.

Please help by contributing today!

Thanks for all you do to support my son and his campaign for Congress.

Sincerely,

Louise B. Raggio

PS:  Grier is traveling to Washington, DC tomorrow to meet with DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen to discuss his efforts to unseat Rep. Sessions.

Please help Grier show Chairman Van Hollen that he has the support and commitment of Democrats like you.

Donate today!

It came to me as a message paid for by Raggio for Congress.  There’s no cash floating in the Bathtub; I pass it along for the entertainment and information value.

KXT-FM hits the airwaves at 7 a.m. Central Time, in Dallas today.  91.7 on the FM band.

KXT is a sister station to public broadcasting KERA-FM, 90.1.  In the past 20 years KERA’s outstanding music programming slowly gave way to talk and news — good talk and great news, but the music suffered.

In response to member requests, North Texas Public Broadcasting decided to launch a separate station for music.

KXT is a new radio station found at 91.7 FM in North Texas, and at kxt.org worldwide. It’s an incredible selection of acoustic, alt-country, indie rock, alternative and world music, hand-picked just for you – the real music fan.

KXT features between 9 and 11 hours of local programming each weekday, bringing you an eclectic variety of artists and genres, including a number of performers from North Texas and elsewhere in the Lone Star State.

Gini Mascorro will host the KXT Morning Show, Monday through Friday from 7 to 11 a.m. Joe Kozera will take listeners home weekdays with the KXT Afternoon Show from 3-6pm and the KXT Evening Show from 6-8pm.

90.1 at Night with host Paul Slavens, which appeared on KERA-FM for a number of years, has moved to KXT and is now known as The Paul Slavens Show.

National shows appearing regularly on KXT include Acoustic Café, American Routes, Mountain Stage, Putumayo Music Hour, Sound Opinions, The Thistle & Shamrock, UnderCurrents and World Café.

KXT should be a boon to Texas music, to live music, and to music generally.

You can listen to KXT live on the internet, or pick up podcasts.

Dallas still lacks serious rock and roll broadcasting, being mostly a city in the shadow of Clear Channel music censorship.   One step at a time.  KXT is a great big step.  Or maybe more accurately, KXT is a great, big step.

Help broadcast the news about the broadcast music:

High school sophomores in Texas study world history, and juniors study U.S. history. At 16 and 17 years old, they have difficulty figuring out the fuss over the Berlin Wall. It’s just pictures in their textbook.

The Wall was already three or four years gone when they were born. They don’t remember living with the Soviet Union at all — it’s been Russia to them for their entire lives.

I have some hopes that the celebrations set for this week will aid their understanding, on the 20th anniversary of the breaching and destruction of the wall.

Caption from CBC: "Dominoes are placed where the Berlin Wall once stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in the German capital. (Herbert Knosowski/Associated Press)"

An enormous line of giant dominoes is set up along the line where the old wall stood – to be toppled on November 9, the anniversary of the official breaching of the wall.

It’s the “domino theory” in reverse.

About 1,000 plastic foam dominoes will fall to the ground Monday along the route where the Berlin Wall once stood to mark the 20th anniversary of the crumbling of the Cold War barrier.

The 2.3-metre-high blocks, painted by schoolchildren, stretch for 1.5 kilometres in a path near the Brandenburg Gate and the German parliament.

Former Polish leader Lech Walesa, whose pro-democracy movement Solidarity played a key role in ending communism in Eastern Europe, will tip the first domino at 8 p.m. local time.

I made one visit to the wall, late on a night in 1988.  American Airlines explored the possibility of taking over the service authorized from Munich to Berlin.  Soviet and East German rules required passenger flights to stay at a very uncomfortable 10,000 feet.  Pan Am had the route, but Pan Am was in trouble.  We spent a day with Berlin airport authorities and real estate agents trying to figure out how to set up a reservations office and other ground facilities.  European airports tended to force foreign carriers to share gate facilities, which was a problem, and we devoted a lot of time to gathering data for computer lines.

But then, after a smashing dinner of sausage and German-style potatoes in a great, small Berlin pub, we talked our taxi driver into giving us a tour of the wall.  He drove a spot near the Brandenburg gate, and there on a chain link fence keeping westerners from the wall were eight fresh wreaths.  Eight people had died trying to cross from East Berlin to West Berlin in the previous six months.  One wreath for each death.

Just over a year later, the Berlin Wall itself would be gone.

West Berlin acted much like a normal, western European city.  But the wall was there as a constant reminder of the oppression on the other side, a dull fog to constantly dim even the sunniest day.

Old posts on the Berlin Wall here at the bathtub are suddenly popular — usually they get a lot of hits after March when U.S. schools get to the post-World War II era, the Cold War and the Berlin airlift.  I imagine the current popularity has something to do with the anniversary.

I hope somebody has some great video of the dominoes toppling.

Dominoes acerbicly note the irony:  While the U.S. feared nations would fall under communism in a “domino effect,” especially in Southeast Asia (Indochina), communism broke up in a domino effect, as one communist-dominated country after another found freedom near the end of the Cold War.  Why has no one done a serious essay on the domino effect of freedom?

More news and resources:

• Who brought down the wall?  Americans and Europeans disagree over who gets credit, according to Steve Erlanger writing in the New York Times (also check out the photos and interactive material there)
• Washington Post video on the fall of the Wall (see below)
• Voice of America story on the celebrations for the anniversary of the fall
• Irish Times story on the 20th anniversary festivities — U2 and other celebs from 1989 entertain
• CNN stories on the Fall of the Wall, and the events leading up to it – some very good video
• Newseum’s interactive web feature on the Berlin Wall and its fall (see especially the interactive piece on propaganda in the Soviet Union, “The Commissar Vanishes”)
• New York Times interactive backgrounder on the wall
• Basic story of the wall at Wikipedia
• Berlin Wall history at Dailysoft.com

A sign of old times, now unneeded

Viral dominoes: Help spread the news: