Musing's musings

Good-bye to all that (I hope)

2009-11-11T11:00:00-06:00

Fourscore and eleven years ago, at this hour, the guns fell silent at the end of the war that was supposed to end all wars, forever. Regrettably, that hope did not materialize. Indeed, a far bloodier and more brutal war would erupt in Europe barely a generation later, to be followed by countless skirmishes, "police actions," and undeclared strife of all kinds.

It is traditional in much of the world to remember the day by wearing a poppy flower or a representation thereof:

Regrettably, along with tending to forget the holiday itself, that tradition also seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur in the United States. I remember in my salad days that the VFW or one of its auxiliary organizations still made and provided the poppies for Veterans Day. I can't tell you the last time I saw anyone actually offering them to people, though I was pleased to see, over the last week or so, most of the coaches and other bench staff in the National Hockey League wearing them in their buttonholes during games.

The tradition of the poppies comes from the poem "In Flanders Fields," written in 1915 by Lt. Col. John McCrae, MD, during the Second Battle of Ypres. He would die himself before the war's end, of pneumonia in Boulogne-sur-Mer, in January 1918. The poem was very nearly not published: McCrae was not satisfied with it and at one point threw it away. A fellow officer retrieved it, and it was published anonymously in Punch just about a month after the Armistice.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Thanks to all veterans for their honorable service, including my father, my stepfather, whole rafts of other relatives, and three very distant, long-dead cousins who signed up to fight for this country before it even truly existed, one of whom paid the last full measure of devotion, in Lincoln's immortal words, that horrible winter at Valley Forge. You are not forgotten.

On the public...and options

2009-11-10T22:28:10-06:00

Apologies for my long absence. To make a long story short, too much to do, too much to think about, too much that makes me angry, and not a lot of energy for blogging.

Several of the things that have been making me angry and giving me food for thought are coming together in this post. I was flabbergasted this past weekend to see that more than forty so-called Democrats cast their votes for the Stupak amendment to the health insurance reform bill (to give it its proper name: it isn't reforming health care, it's reforming health insurance--and that just barely). Among the more common rationalizations and excuses offered for those votes is the notion that people shouldn't be asked to support, through their tax dollars, things which they personally do not approve of.

The thing that burns my onion is that the only time anyone ever seems to think that's a good or an important idea is when the matter in question is allowing men to control what a woman does with her body (i.e., abortion). It's not an altogether unreasonable idea, but before I could get behind it as a principle of government, it would have to apply to everything that our taxes fund.

For example, earlier this evening the Commonwealth of Virginia ~~executed~~ judicially murdered John Allen Muhammad, who was one of the two snipers who terrorized the Washington, D.C. area seven years ago last month. That's certainly something I don't support, and that I don't like to think about funding with my taxes. Another thing that was boosting my blood pressure was the tenor of some of the comments on Muhammad's pending execution that I encountered on allegedly progressive web sites: comments to the effect that he deserved what he was going to get, that he was worthless, and similar drivel that I would have expected from a right-wing site, but not at places where I spend time online.

One of those comments argued that unless one had been part of the community that Muhammad and his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized through random violence, one was somehow not entitled to have or to express an opinion about what would, or would not, bring closure to the families of the victims. As I pointed out in response to that comment, this is precisely why we have a justice system. We do not allow the victims of crimes (or their relatives) to determine the fates of those charged with committing crimes against them, because they lack the necessary objectivity.

Now, I was not in D.C. that autumn, and I did not experience the Muhammad/Malvo spree in person. I have not lost a family member or a friend to random violence, and I can't claim to know what that is like. I do, however, have a membership that I did not seek out in a club that, in the words of NIU President John Peters, no one wants to join. I was on campus at NIU on February 14, 2008, and not far from Cole Hall when the shooting spree began. There, too, I was fortunate: I was not injured, and no one that I know personally was numbered among the wounded--or the slain. But I absolutely know what a gut-wrenching experience it is to find one's safe, normal, peaceful world turned upside-down amid the shrieks of more sirens than anyone should ever have to hear in a lifetime. I know what it's like to wonder if it's safe yet to go outside, and to experience anxiety in a place that one never, ever thought would engender it.

The actions of Steven Kazmierczak, like the actions of Muhammad and Malvo six years previously, were violent, unexpected, morally indefensible, and created pain and tragedy for people they could not possibly have known, much less had any grievances against. Nevertheless, had Kazmierczak not taken his own life at the end of his shooting spree, I would not support having the State of Illinois take his life from him in my name. As the old bumper sticker put it, killing people to prove that killing people is bad is just plain stupid. It does nothing but to run up the toll of the dead. It will not bring the victims of the first murder back to life. It will not bring closure to their families and friends. It will not wipe away the memories from the minds of all who were there that day--or who knew and loved someone who was there that day--of what happened. And yet we continue to hear that capital punishment is moral and useful and helpful. To whom?

I'd also like to opt out of paying for the stupid, callous, homophobic, hateful legislation that has been pouring out of governments all across this nation--up to and including the Obama administration, which has yet to demonstrate, at least to my satisfaction, that it is in fact an advocate of any kind for much of anything at all, much less the "fierce advocate" for gay rights that Mr. Obama promised to be when he was still trying to get to be the president. I never expected him to do much on that front, and he has, regrettably, lived down to that expectation. The problem is, in the wake of this past Tuesday's elections, nervous nellies in the administration and the Democratic Party have been urging both power structures to drop anything from their respective agendas that even looks like it might have to do with gay rights, on the (invalid) assumption that doing so will lose them the support of more voters than they would gain.

That is, in fact, an arse-backwards assumption. If you look at the results carefully, the voters turned away from rabid conservatism--and also from the kind of lukewarm appeasement that has been passing for Democratic policy and politics since President Obama took office. Voter turnout, particularly among Democrats, was abysmal--quite likely because we were offered abysmal candidates who ran away from the very kind of policies that Mr. Obama espoused in his successful run for the White House last year. If you want to get those people back into the voting booths, you're going to have to offer more than stale centrism and safe pragmatism. You're going to have to stand up for the things you said you stood behind--and mean it. You're going to have to give up this quixotic (dare I say Sisyphean?) quest for bipartisanship and admit that the Republican, at least as presently constituted, are not acting in good faith and will not support you or your policies no matter how many compromises you offer them nor how many times you reach out your hand. We did not vote you into office to enable the Republicans. We voted you into office because we were sick unto death of the Republicans and their corrupt ways--and because we wanted you to clean up the messes they left for you. The Republicans set the table, and were quite happy to tell us that we could not sit at it or eat from it when they were last in the majority. Let them find out at first-hand exactly how badly that sucks by using their own rules and their own tactics against them. We do not need their votes or their support to govern, or to enact our agendas. We should stop trying--especially when that trying takes the form of starting from a disadvantageous position to begin with, and then giving away the store in a vain attempt to garner even a single Republican vote, with the end result being legislation that, as with the health insurance "reform" legislation I referenced at the beginning of this post, neither addresses the problem it was intended to fix, and satisfies exactly no one.

I have been opting out, at least financially speaking, from the Catholic Church. For quite some time, in fact. But if they go on as they have been for much longer, I may have to opt out more drastically. The present pope, and most of the bishops with him, are, in my estimation, leading their flock astray. They may be scrupulous in their observance of the minutiae (or at least the minutiae about which they choose to care) of the faith, but they are forgetting what Jesus had to say on that topic:

οὐαὶ δὲ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι κλείετε τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων· ὑμεῖς γὰρ οὐκ εἰσέρχεσθε οὐδὲ τοὺς εἰσερχομένους ἀφίετε εἰσελθεῖν. οὐαὶ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι περιάγετε τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ τὴν χηρὰν ποιῆσαι ἕνα προσήλυτον, καὶ ὅταν γένηται ποιεῖτε αὐτὸν υἱὸν γεέννης διπλότερον ὑμῶν. ...οὐαὶ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι ἀποδεκατοῦτε τὸ ἡδύοσμον καὶ τὸ ἄνηθον καὶ τὸ κύμινον καὶ ἀφήκατε τὰ βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου, τὴν κρίσιν καὶ τὸ ἔλεος καὶ τὴν πίστιν· ταῦτα δὲ ἔδει ποιῆσαι κἀκεῖνα μὴ ἀφιέναι.
And woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you slam the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people's faces. You will neither go in yourselves, nor allow to enter those who wish to go in! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across land and sea to make a single convert: and when you get one, you make of him a child of hell twice as bad as yourselves. ...Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, but you have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. You ought to have attended to these, without forgetting the others.

--Matthew 23:13-15, 23; my translation from the original Greek

How the Freepers see America

2009-09-23T20:15:43-05:00

Via Joe. My. God., here's how the Freepers (hell, no, I'm not linking to that sewer) see America.

Unfortunately for their ability to get a good night's sleep for the next few years, this is how that map ought to look, courtesy of the New York Times.

Worse still, also from the Times, is this map, showing the change from 2004 to 2008. Counties that went more Democratic in 2008 are colored in blue (with the shading indicating how big the shift was), and counties that went more Republican in 2008 are colored in red.

No matter how you slice it, the Republican Party is in disarray. It's losing members right and left, its approval ratings are in the toilet (and swirling the bottom with the rest of the turds), and no one can readily identify the person who's in charge. Even Tom DeLay, hardly known for being either a liberal or for sugar-coating unpleasant truths, admits that the GOP is wandering aimlessly in the desert. I don't agree with him that Obama's situation, politically or otherwise, is "dire," but the rest of his analysis is spot-on. The Party of No knows only how to ~~win~~ steal elections, smear opponents, and oppose progress. When it comes to actually running the country, formulating policy, or articulating a new idea, they're as hopeless as newborn babes. They haven't had a new idea in a generation, and the voting public has finally caught on to the fact that the ones they do have don't work--and never have.

It is certainly within the realm of possibility that the Republicans will manage to turn this shit parade around. They may even manage to do it in time for the 2012 presidential elections, though I'd lay long odds against both eventualities. The bigger issue, as I see it, is what (or who) will replace the Republicans when they either disappear from the scene or find themselves marginalized for the next little while. If we continue our historical pattern, another party will emerge to take the Republicans' place. Perhaps a better solution, however, would be the emergence of several parties--all across the political spectrum.

The dominance of our political dialogue by the Republicans and the Democrats has, I believe, weakened our nation and artificially polarized our society. Worse, it inclines us to think in paired binaries: left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, and the like. The real world, on the other hand, is colored largely in shades of grey, and admits of far more complexity than most voters would probably find comfortable. There are plenty of good ideas that don't easily fit into the available pigeonholes in American politics, and I, for one, would like to see them find vehicles whereby they might be expressed--and, God willing, put into action. We'll never have a better time to experiment, so why not take the plunge?

The caution flag is waving

2009-09-06T15:08:03-05:00

For the second time, officials in the Obama administration (at a considerably higher level than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius this time) seem to be walking back the president's commitment to the public option, in advance of his speech to a joint session of Congress later this week. If past history is any indication, it is entirely possible that further statements and clarifications that directly contradict today's will be issued tomorrow--but the very fact that the administration is even looking ready to give up on this wimpy-ass public option is a matter for concern.

As I said last month, the only way we're ever going to get real health-care reform (as opposed to a purely cosmetic health-insurance reform, which is basically what the administration's plan boils down to) is to go the single-payer route. That option was never even on the table. The one plus to the public option was that it would at least fire a warning shot across the bow of the rapacious insurance giants that are the real arbiters of health care in America. It isn't a matter between a patient and her doctor (which it should be, and the way Republicans, Blue Dogs, and other opponents of reform would like to pretend that it is)--rather, it's a matter between a patient, her doctor, and the insurance company that mediates everything the first two partners do. Absent some kind of new regulations, these companies will continue on as they have been--raising premiums well beyond the rate of inflation, reducing coverage, cutting services, refusing to pay for expensive or experimental treatments, and generally doing everything they can to suck as much profit out of as many people as possible--never mind that their purpose is supposed to be helping those people get the medical care and attention that they need.

I was never under the impression that Obama was a liberal, and I certainly didn't buy into all of the hype his campaign put out about hope and change. That was simply rhetoric and a marketing strategy. Anyone who's looked at his record (to say nothing of his campaign platform) can see that Obama is a centrist: slightly to the left of center, yes, but still a centrist. Consequently, I'm not terribly surprised to see him embracing a centrist and fairly corporatist agenda through the first eight months of his term in office.

But what does surprise me--and concern me, as it should concern Democrats and progressives and liberals of whatever political stripe--is how staggeringly ineffective the Obama administration has been at selling its message. This is a huge contrast to the campaign, where message discipline was one of the hallmarks of the operation that crushed all opposition in a bruising two-year primary, and then snuffed the life out of the McCain-Palin ticket in the general. What we have seen since Inauguration Day has been a hapless, unfocused, undisciplined tacking hither and yon, without any discernible course. Further darkening the horizon, one of the few campaign promises President Obama has yet delivered on is his desire to be a bipartisan president.

Bipartisanship has become the shibboleth of the Obama administration. If these people had a signature tune, it should be "Bipartisanship über alles." Long past the time when most people would have given up, long past the time when the handwriting on the wall should have been obvious to the man some have called one of the most astute politicians in a generation, the president continues to woo his opponents, even though those opponents have made it perfectly clear that the only thing they want to do with the president is hand him one defeat after another. There will be no working compromises: they want what they want, and the only acceptable outcome to them will be getting it. Never mind that the Democrats have working majorities in both houses of Congress--Obama doesn't seem willing or able to move forward on anything unless he's got cover from the other side of the aisle.

His political advisers had better be sending him memos telling him to back off on that, because the hemorrhaging is getting serious. Obama hasn't picked up any ground with Republicans (not surprisingly), and he's lost a plurality of independents who are now solidly on the fence. But the worst drop in support for the president has come from his base: Democrats' opinion of the president's job performance has been trending steadily downward, just as the campaign season for the 2010 midterm elections gets under way.

Ergo, the title of this post. The president has gotten off track, and he needs to hear it from us--just as he asked us to do during the campaign. The problem there is, there's a very small, but even more incredibly vocal cadre of Obama hyper-partisans who will tromp on anything that looks even remotely like dissent, criticism, or any suggestion that President Obama isn't the smartest, most perfect, bestest, most liberal, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious president EVAH! Speak but one discouraging word about the president, and these folks come out of the woodwork screaming about how it's only been eight months, and how Bush the Lesser left the country in such a God-awful mess how could anyone possibly have done better than Obama, and how he's way smarter than we are, and a much better politician, so shut the fuck up with your negativity already and wait and see: he'll get around to giving you your goddamn pony, you whiny single-issue voter--and oh, by the way, I suppose you think a President McCain or a President Palin or a President Romney would be doing a better job?

It's too early to think about primarying the president. But it's not too early to start expressing concern about the direction and tone his first year in office has taken. It is certainly time to let the party leaders know that unless things start changing for the better, we're going to be a lot harder to get motivated to donate and work for Democratic candidates next year--let alone this president in 2012. Sure, it's only been eight months--but eight months is enough time to get a pretty good idea of what the next eight months are going to look like. Thus far, I don't like the picture I'm seeing.

One of these things is not like the other

2009-09-01T20:54:32-05:00

ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις· οὐ φονεύσεις· ὃς δ' ἂν φονεύσῃ, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει· ὅς δ' ἂν εἴπῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ· ῥακά, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῷ συνεδρίῳ· ὃς δ' ἂν εἴπῃ· μωρέ, ἔνοχος ἔσται εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός.
You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder. Anyone who commits murder shall be liable to judgment." But I say to you that everyone who grows angry with a brother or a sister shall be liable to judgment. Whoever insults a brother or a sister shall be liable to the Sanhedrin. And whoever says "You fool" shall be liable to the fires of hell [literally, "the Gehenna of fire"].

ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη· ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου καὶ μισήσεις τὸν ἐχθρόν σου. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν· ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκόντων ὑμᾶς, ὅπως γένησθε υἱοὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς, ὅτι τὸν ἥλιον αὐτοῦ ἀνατέλλει ἐπὶ πονηροὺς καὶ ἀγαθοὺς καὶ βρέχει ἐπὶ δικαίους καὶ ἀδίκους.

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise upon the wicked and upon the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust alike."

ὁ λέγων ἐν τῷ φωτὶ εἶναι καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῶν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶν ἕως ἄρτι. ...ὁ δὲ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶν καὶ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ περιπατεῖ καὶ οὐκ οἶδεν ποῦ ὑπάγει, ὅτι ἡ σκοτία ἐτύφλωσεν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ.

Anyone claiming to be in the light and who nevertheless hates a brother or a sister is still in darkness. ...Anyone hating his or her brother or sister is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he or she is going, because the darkness has blinded his or her eyes.

πᾶς ὁ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστίν, καὶ οἴδατε ὅτι πᾶς ἀνθρωποκτόνος οὐκ ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἐν αὐτῷ μένουσαν.

Everyone who hates his or her brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

ἀγαπητοί, ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους, ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀγαπῶν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγέννηται καὶ γινώσκει τὸν θεόν. ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν θεόν, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

ἐάν τις εἴπῃ ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῇ, ψεύστης ἐστίν· ὁ γὰρ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ὃν ἑώρακεν, τὸν θεὸν ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακεν οὐ δύναται ἀγαπᾶν.

If anyone should say "I love God" and yet hate his or her brother or sister, he or she is a liar. For anyone who does not love the brother or sister whom he or she has seen cannot love the God whom he or she has not seen."

--Matthew 5:21, 5:43-45; 1 John 2:9, 11, 3:15, 4:7-8, 4:20: my translation from the original Greek

If you're a homosexual, I hope you get brain cancer like Ted Kennedy.
MS: You want all gay people to be executed, correct?

SA: That is correct. It is what the Bible teaches.
--Steven L. Anderson, in an interview with Michelangelo Signorile

Mr. Anderson (I absolutely, categorically refuse to use the honorific "Reverend" in reference to this man, as I find in him nothing worthy of reverence) claims to be a minister and is one of the fundamentalist types who has begun praying and hoping for the president to die. This man may have a church, and claim to be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it's fairly obvious to me (and should be so to anyone who has ever actually read the Gospels) that he is a liar. Indeed, the words of the Beloved Disciple I quoted above convict Mr. Anderson of being a liar out of his own mouth, since he has stated elsewhere that he hates President Obama and everything he stands for.

As for Mr. Anderson, if that is the stance he's going to take about gay people (and he really should go back and re-read his Bible, since the prohibition he's referencing only speaks of men who have sex with other men--it never mentions lesbians), then here are a few of the other things he had better not have done himself, or for doing which he should be demanding that people be put to death:

Eating pork, lobster, shrimp, clams, mussels, or crab (Leviticus 11:9-12; Deuteronomy 14:9-10)
Eating meat rare (Leviticus 7:24, 17 passim)
Wearing clothes made from blended fabrics (Leviticus 19:19)
Shaving (Leviticus 19:27)

I'd be willing to bet that Mr. Anderson has done at least one (if not all) of those things--and has probably violated many more of the precepts of the Holiness Code. But that, ultimately, is a matter for him to settle with his god. (And no, his god is absolutely not the God in whom I believe.) I cannot speak definitively, of course, but I tend to suspect that when Mr. Anderson does go to meet his Maker, he's going to have more than a little 'splainin' to do. It would be a delicious irony if, as my late spiritual director was fond of hypothesizing, we see God under the guise of the sort of person we found it most difficult to deal with in life--which would mean that God would likely appear to Mr. Anderson under the form of a black handicapped Jewish lesbian.

The thing that I absolutely do not get is why the Secret Service lets this man wander freely about the country, making appearances and spreading his message of hatred. This is part of what Michelangelo Signorile said of his interview with Anderson:

Anderson actually told me that, though he wouldn't encourage it, he would not condemn any person who killed President Obama or call that person a murderer. He does not believe that the man who allegedly killed Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions, a murderer. And he said he would not call someone who shot a group of gays and lesbians with a machine gun a murderer.

He wouldn't encourage anyone to kill the president--but neither would he discourage anyone from doing so. Indeed, he would likely tell anyone who was thinking of committing such a heinous act that it was a righteous thing to do and that he (it would almost have to be a he) would be rewarded for it in heaven. Fortunately, Mr. Anderson doesn't get to make that call, either.

It amazes me how people can claim to be disciples of the Prince of Peace, and yet preach hatred and violence and murder without so much as batting an eyelid. I mean, hello?! How does one get from "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" and "Do not return evil for evil" to "Kill anyone who disagrees with you" and "Persecute everyone who doesn't believe as you do"? Makes me want to go root around in the Christian Scriptures and check the verb tense on the shortest verse in the Bible: I think the present tense ("Jesus weeps") would be at least as appropriate as the simple past ("Jesus wept").

This is, I contend, one of the deepest problems with fundamentalism--of whatever flavor. The moment fundamentalism enters the picture, reason flies right out the window. One of the prime tenets (if not the prime tenet) of fundamentalism is, effectively, "Thou shalt not question anything except what we tell you to question." It would seem to me that anyone with more than a nodding acquaintance with the Scriptures (either part) would see the cognitive dissonance in stating, for example, that God hates anybody--much less the idea that God approves of killing. That last one is particularly galling, given all the hyperbole of these people on the question of abortion--rhetoric which they conveniently leave out of the discussion when the question is war or capital punishment, both of which they are manifestly in favor of.

Yes, the First Amendment absolutely gives these people the right to believe as they see fit. I can't figure out, however, how they've managed to convince people that they're the "true" Christians, and anyone even slightly more broad-minded than they are is a heathen, a "cafeteria" Christian, or just fooling themselves. Seems to me that those of us who do understand the cognitive dissonance have quite a job of work to do, reclaiming the religious label from those who have perverted it to the point where it is barely recognizable.

Marketing madness

2009-08-31T18:05:09-05:00

So I'm sitting at home, debating about what to make for dinner and watching coverage of the first day of the U.S. Open, when a commercial comes on for a certain product. I like this product, and use it myself--but I'm shaking my head at the content of the commercial. Nor is this commercial the only place I've seen this kind of hyperbole: I regularly get surveys that feature it. And I don't get it--at all.

The line that got me thinking along these lines was "Your [product] completes my life," and was voiced by someone appearing to be a teen-age girl. First off, I rather doubt that's the kind of thing that the average teenager would say without being prompted. More to the point, I also doubt that this product (or any product, really) rates that highly. Yet, as I already noted, I see these kinds of tropes in marketing campaigns all the time. I regularly get asked, about this brand or that product, whether it makes me feel hip, or special, or cultured--and whole lists of other adjectives. Every time I get one of those surveys, I scratch my head and wonder what sort of people have such drab, nothing lives that using a particular product, eating a certain type of food, staying in a certain hotel, or flying on a certain airline, would make them feel other than who they were.

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate nice things, good food, and the like, just as much as the next person. But I don't define my life in terms of what I eat, where I sleep, or how I get to where I'm sleeping. What I want out of my food is that it be safe and nutritious, reasonably priced, and something that I like. Beyond that, I don't give it another thought. Same thing with wine and spirits, juices, teas, sodas, and all the rest of the universe of consumer goods with which we surround ourselves in these United States, and about which we are constantly bombarded with information trying to get us to prefer Brand X over Brand Y.

The things that complete my life, that make me feel special, are not the sorts of things that one can buy in stores. They are the friends and family members who enrich my life, the wonders of the world that I get to enjoy (and occasionally to photograph), the teachers who open up new intellectual horizons for me, that sort of thing. I have a few nice things, materially speaking, and I enjoy and appreciate them. But for most of them, what makes them special and enjoyable are the memories associated with them, the person(s) who gave them to me, the occasion(s) which they were intended to commemorate, or some other immaterial factor. I don't own a Rolex watch, but neither would I think of myself as somehow smarter, hipper, or more sophisticated if I did. It's a watch, for crying out loud--all I really care about is that it tells the time accurately and be readable.

I am reminded, in this context, of something John Shea wrote in his book Starlight. He was quoting someone else, whose name I can't remember, but who mused, as he was sitting at a shopping mall some years ago during the Christmas season, that people weren't shopping for things they wanted (or wanted to get), but rather came to the mall looking for something to want. And that's a problem. Scripture tells us that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, but I'm inclined to think that the love of material things is, if not one and the same root, at least a closely related one.

This problem can only get worse in an economy where fewer and fewer people make things and build things, and more of them try to stay employed by selling people the things that others make. This is at least one of the reasons why our last president urged us, in the aftermath attacks on the World Trade Center and the useless series of wars he started thereafter, to go shopping--because if we don't, the economy gets even worse. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not an idea that works for me. I don't define myself by what I own, and I don't go shopping unless there's something I either need or want. I refuse to feel guilty about that, and I considered it crass (to say the least) when that was the appeal that Bush made to the American people. Not because I think that possessions are evil, or that people working in retail shouldn't make a good living--but because I don't want to live my life around what I own, how I come to own it, where I go to buy it, or anything so essentially trivial.

Now he, too, belongs to the ages

2009-08-26T18:13:44-05:00

I awakened this morning to the sad news that Senator Edward Kennedy had died early this morning of the brain tumor that was diagnosed just about a year ago today. Just yesterday afternoon, I heard a park ranger at Ford's Theatre quote the words of Edwin M. Stanton on the passing of Abraham Lincoln, and they were the first words that leapt to mind as I contemplated what to title this post.

After watching a bit of CNN's coverage, I got cleaned up and left the hotel bright and early to walk down to the Mall. From what I could tell, there didn't appear to be any visible signs of mourning: the flags surrounding the Washington Monument, and on every building I saw, governmental or otherwise, were all still at the top of their staffs. (I suspect that even once President Obama gave the order to lower the flags in Washington, those around the monument will stay up--they don't appear to have a mechanism for lowering them.) However, as I hiked further east toward the Capitol, I finally noticed a flag at half-mast. It was flying, somewhat interestingly, over the Rayburn House Office Building. Finally, when I got close enough to the Capitol itself to make out the flagstaff in the morning haze and the glare from the sun climbing higher in the sky behind it, this is what I saw:

By the time I walked back down the Mall to the Washington Monument to see if I could get in for the first tour of the day, I noticed that the flag over the White House was also at half-mast, though that was the only other one I noticed. By the time I headed back to the hotel to get a shower and check out, I was noticing flags at half-mast all over the place. And, to borrow a phrase I saw carved into the wall of the Lincoln Memorial a couple of nights ago, "it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this." Whether one liked Kennedy or loathed him (and/or his politics), the fact that the man served in the United States Senate for longer than I've been alive is something worthy of respect.

Fortunately, I've been mostly incommunicado all day--but I gather, from things I've seen here and there, that the haters have been out spewing their typical bile--and on the same day that the man died. Probably just as well I haven't been confronted with any of that BS, because I'd absolutely freak if I did. Again, say what you like about the man's politics--or his personality--but for the love of all that's holy, if you must tear him down, couldn't you at least have the common courtesy to wait until he's had a chance to cool off in his grave? Once upon a time, we knew the meaning of the phrase nil de mortuis nisi bonum, "speak nothing but good of the dead." Now, not so much, apparently.

With Ted Kennedy's passing, we may also have witnessed the passing of the last remnant of comity in the U.S. Senate. As one of the morning talking heads on CNN observed, one of Kennedy's closest friends was Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican whose political positions are about as far away from those of Senator Kennedy as it's possible to get. After nearly fifty years in the Senate, the man knew how to get things done--and had the clout and the character to make it happen. How many of his ninety-nine remaining colleagues can honestly say that of themselves, in this era of the politics of personal destruction? At the time Ted Kennedy entered the Senate, when a senator uttered the phrase "the enemy," he did not mean his colleagues on the other side of the aisle, he meant those idiots on the other end of the Capitol--the House of Representatives. We really should do what we can to return to that way of thinking--especially if we ever want to get any of the umpty-bajillion bits of pressing legislation passed that we have to get passed.

A couple of nights ago, I was sitting on top of a tour bus, coming across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, on our way to the Marine Corps War Memorial. In the darkness, just below the Custis-Lee mansion, I caught a glimpse of the eternal flame that burns on John F. Kennedy's grave. It flickered for a moment, and then disappeared from sight. It almost makes one believe in omens.

I hope to see his brother laid to rest there beside him, or in some other place of honor and respect. It is only his due, after a lifetime of service to this country. Good night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. We shall absent ourselves from felicity awhile in your memory.

Arrived safely

2009-08-23T19:46:17-05:00

Despite having to get up well before the ass-crack of dawn, today was one of the better traveling experiences I've had recently. Next to no traffic anywhere on the way from home to airport, some lovely and interesting scenery to look at along the way (including a spectacular fog bank on a lonely country road before dawn, and a lovely line of clouds along the eastern horizon before the sun actually came up), the plane had something like 50 empty seats (meaning I got a row all to myself, and moved myself from aisle to window), left early, arrived early, a quick taxi ride from National to the hotel, which is just a stone's throw from the White House and the National Mall. Quick check-in, unpacked, checked in for the conference, then back up to my room to change into shorts and outdoor gear, followed by a quick schlep down to the Mall and a nice walk to the National Archives--where, I'm happy to say, the Constitution is still safely preserved (and my new camera does a much better job of photographing it)!

A lovely reception after the final "pre-conference" conference session tonight, but I'm still feeling a bit peckish. Thinking about heading down to the hotel bar for a nosh and an adult beverage or three. Tomorrow will be a full day, though I don't have anything scheduled for the last session--and I do have a night tour scheduled for 6:30, starting at the Willard Hotel, so maybe I'll drop by the Old Ebbitt Grill for dinner beforehand. Sure hope I get some equally good pictures tomorrow night!

Elvis has left the building

2009-08-23T05:18:00-05:00

I'm heading out to O'Hare to catch a plane to Washington, DC for a few days. I'm sure the conference will be great, and that I'll come back with all kinds of useful information to pass on to the people who need it. Mostly, however, I'm looking forward to a chance to get away from the office and relax a little bit. I'm hoping to do quite a bit of writing and polishing on my exam paper draft: I'd like nothing better than to be able to hand it in when I get back, though I'm not committing to that. I'm also looking forward to visiting some of my favorite DC haunts: the National Archives, the World War II memorial, and the like. I've got a nice new camera and I'm eager to see what it can do for me in such great public spaces. Not that I have anything against my trusty little Sony, but it definitely had its limitations. I'll be back home, Deo volente, on Wednesday.

Why our children isn't learning good

2009-08-22T13:45:38-05:00

(Apologies for the atrocious grammar in the post title: It was deliberately done to make the point.)

It is a regrettable truism in textbook publishing that as Texas goes, so goes the nation. With so many schools needing books, the biggest states like Texas and California have a disproportionate influence on what is, and is not, available from textbook publishers. No publisher wants to come out with a book that school districts in mega-states won't buy, so they tend to tailor their materials to what they know they'll be able to market in the biggest markets they have available to them.

This should be a textbook illustration of why unfettered capitalism is not always a good thing. But of course, such an opinion would be highly unlikely to pass muster with the Texas Education Agency, which recently released a draft of its new standards (PDF link) for the teaching of U.S. history since the Reconstruction. The standards were revised with the advice of what the TEA terms expert reviewers, though I would argue that their definition of that term is considerably looser than most historians would probably be comfortable with. Of the six individuals listed, two are professors of history, two are tied to evangelical ministries and have absolutely no academic background in history whatsoever, one is a lawyer whose academic background is not clear, and one is a professor of education with no discernible training in history.

I don't recognize the name of either of the two historians on the panel, but that is not in and of itself significant, since I'm a Europeanist by trade. According to his bio page at Texas State University, Jesus Francisco de la Teja holds a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Texas at Austin. How this qualifies him to address U.S. history is not precisely clear to me. Lybeth Hodges' biography page at Texas Woman's University does not explicitly address either her academic background or her research interests, which is somewhat unusual in academic history. It does seem to me that both of the historians on the panel were chosen primarily for having done all of their academic work in Texas, rather than having the academic background to be able to address questions of American history.

Don't even get me started on having two evangelical Christians empaneled as "expert reviewers." Both David Barton and Peter Marshall appear to have an interest in history, but "having an interest" in a subject is not the same thing as having the necessary background and training to be able to evaluate how it is taught--not to mention the fact that the majority of both men's interest in history appears to involve removing from the teaching of history anything of which they personally disapprove (and they disapprove of quite a bit). If it were not such a serious issue, it would be hugely ironic to see, in Mr. Barton's review of the current standards (PDF link), his disgust that so few American high school graduates can, among other things, find Iraq on a map, name even one Cabinet-level agency in the federal government, or state the freedoms protected by the First Amendment. I agree with Mr. Barton that this lack of what I would consider elementary knowledge is appalling--but I would also argue that it is precisely the inclusion of people like Mr. Barton on review committees that explains why so few of our students come out of high school in possession of such elementary knowledge. They are too busy being force-fed blind patriotism and religious dogma in the guise of education to have the time needed to learn and remember things that are truly important.

It is also ironic to see that the draft standards include (p. 13) an expectation that students will be able to "use standard grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation" (an expectation which Mr. Barton derided as belonging more to language arts than to social studies or history), when, in one of the comments (A47, on page 5), the reviewers or the staffer who put together their recommendations into final form described Chester Nimitz as the "navel [sic] commander in the Pacific theater." (I should also note that, while the note in question says that Nimitz was added to the list of significant military leaders in World War II, his name does not in fact appear on the list of such leaders that students are expected to know about.) And while I agree that Nimitz played a significant role in WWII as CinCPac (and would argue that he was far more significant a military leader than Douglas MacArthur was), I suspect that his being a Texan might also have an impact on why the TEA wants students to learn about him.

It is not too much to ask, I believe--and particularly in an era when we are trying to get back to the idea that before someone can be certified to teach a particular subject, s/he should have to have received some academic training in it--that anyone asked to review educational standards should have to have the relevant academic background to be able to address whatever standards s/he is being asked to evaluate. If we're talking about the standards for teaching history, then we should be asking historians. If we're talking about mathematics, then it should be mathematicians on the panel--and not megachurch ministers, even if they're very good at counting to large numbers. Parents would rightly be outraged to learn that their children were being taught by people who had no real training in the material they were trying to teach. Why should they be satisfied to have "experts" reviewing the curricular standards that their children's teachers will be forced to follow (and which will likely have a disproportionate impact on the kind of textbooks get published for the next five to ten years) who lack such training?