This Year's Hot Book on Social Science, Religion, Higher Education and That Other Thing

Our gentle readers' attention is of late being given to a newly published book with the provocative title Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America's College Campuses. Clearly if the author, Donna Freitas, had figured a way to work Brittney Spears and American Idol into the title too, she could have an even-bigger seller.

The book's contents appear to be most interesting, and so we refer our gentle readers to the most informative review we've seen so far, at Inside Higher Ed. Freitas's findings include the following, which we quote from the review:

At Catholic colleges, Freitas writes that many students were apathetic about faith traditions and some “literally laughed out loud” at the church’s teachings on sex. And at Catholic and nonsectarian public and private colleges, hookup cultures — hookups are defined as physically intimate encounters occurring outside long-term relationships — dominate the social scene.

But Freitas finds that many students who participate in the hookup scene do so with
serious qualms – and “suffer in silence.” . . .

By contrast, she finds that students at evangelical institutions are extraordinarily well-anchored. “Religion and sex are inseparable. You can’t even begin to think about sex without grounding that reflection in God and your Christianity.” But, Freitas points out, for students who feel they can’t live up to or fit into the pervading purity culture, the anchor weighs them down – sometimes tragically.

There's more, of course, including observations about the difficulties of students who experience same-sex attraction on evangelical college campuses. That bit is suffused with the usual identification of sexual attraction with "self," a move that SWNID finds uncritical and problematic.

Still, our heart is strangely warmed by another observation made by Freitas:

“On the flipside at evangelical campuses, what I saw that I didn’t see at other places was a level of integrated community. Talk about educating the whole person. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Freitas says. “Watching a community build itself around shared values was pretty extraordinary and I think really fulfilling for most of the students even if it can be stressful.”

We figure we ought to read this book, and we figure everyone who cares about any issue in the title might want to give it a look. On the other hand, we note that only one reader of Inside Higher Ed deigned to comment on the review, a low number for a hot topic at a web site that normally gets a dozen or so comments on ordinary articles. This suggests to us the general refusal of the "secular" and "spiritual" higher-ed community to take any interest in the sexual behavior of its undergraduates, for such interest would lead to taking responsibility to address their behavior, the last thing these folks seem to want to do.

Politics: More Condi or Less, Hypocrisy on Global Economics, What Dems Should Regret Most

We offer this WSJ video for its informative mix of current political topics, with the following SWNIDish commentary:

• If McCain has really said that Condi bears some responsibility for the "failed strategy" that initially guided the Iraq invasion, then he has poisoned any possibility of sharing the ticket with her, having handed the Democrats a sound bite that they can use in endless ads. More's the pity.
• Hillary's firing Mark Penn, who was working on the side for the Columbian trade deal's passage, is exhibit A in the case against the Democrats for hypocrisy on global trade. They know that these trade deals are good for everyone, but they talk like their goofy union supporters. Of course, the Republicans are equally hypocritical on immigration: they know that undocumented workers are good for the United States and would be better if they were documented, but they talk like their goofy xenophobic supporters. Call this one a draw for the parties and a loss for the globe.
  
• Howard Dean says that the only thing that can sink the Dems in the fall is their failure to unite now, and that it's his job to do that. The first statement is false, as the Dems have shown: Obama's sketchy friends and Hillary's sketchy declarations are just some of the Dems' other potentially fatal flaws. But what's worse is the second part, since Howard Dean is demonstrably the last person on earth that anyone would ask to negotiate a settlement on anything.

Dog Bites Man, But We Link It Anyway

Lake Superior State University told a professor to remove from his office door the political cartoons and other materials that the university deemed offensive. The materials were politically conservative. Now with the help of a conservative legal defense organization, the professor is litigating against the university.

We inform gentle readers not because there's anything surprising about a politically conservative professor being held to a different standard than his liberal colleagues who numerically predominate. We bring up the affair simply to underline the point that institutions of higher education often become so insulated that they can't realize when they're acting like the most common negative stereotypes of insulated institutions of higher education.

Individuals do the same, of course.

Burns put it well in the immortal "To a Louse," aptly set in a church:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

Or we could state it as a prayer: O God, please help me not to act like the stereotype of people like me. I pray in the name of Jesus who destroyed stereotypes by bringing your victory by his death on the cross, amen!

Reflections on Green Energy and the Science Classroom

Tonight's All Things Considered story on the development of a wind farm in Lewis County, New York, provides unintentional demonstration of two too-seldom observed truths.

The first is that even the "greenest" energy sources have environmental impact. Before we succumb to the apocalyptic scenarios offered by environmental alarmists, we should recognize that we have already radically reduced the environmental effects of our technology but we will never eliminate the human footprint on our privileged planet. The most advanced countries aren't exactly poisoning the planet as it is, and we aren't ever going to leave "nature" undisturbed. It is an unfortunate myth that the world is better off without us, after all.

The second is more indirect. The story closes with the vignette of an eighth-grade science class discussing how communities might more effectively manage the development of wind farms. We draw attention to this exercise not just for the uncritical way that the teacher affirmed students in solutions that offered vague, bland, collectivist approaches that erode the private-property rights that provide the financial incentive for development that benefit communities. We note instead that science teachers have no qualms whatsoever about using the science classroom to discuss what is not natural science but social science, i.e. politics and economics.

Such interdisciplinary learning is, of course, encouraged in public school classrooms. And we encourage its encouragement. However, interdisciplinary learning in the public school classroom is not encouraged if the disciplines are evolutionary biology, cosmology, philosophy and religion. There the lines must be drawn and maintained at any cost.

Could SWNIDish Dream Become Reality?

The recent PBS Frontline series on the Iraq War (entitled "Bush's War" with a smugness that confirms the belief that PBS is un-self-consciously left wing) documented who the clear winner in the Iraq War has been: Condi Rice, whose power has increased throughout the war as her views have been vindicated and her political maneuvers have been successful.

SWNID has admired the former National Security Adviser and current Secretary of State as a forthright, honest and intelligent analyst of human affairs. We have hoped that Dr. Rice would appear on a national ticket in 2008.

She has consistently denied that she is a candidate for Vice President. But today CNN is reporting two most interesting Rice-related factoids.

One is that recent polling shows a McCain-Rice ticket narrowly beating either Clinton, Obama or both in the extremely blue Empire State. Any Republican win in NY is the mathematical end of the Democrats' chance at the Big House.

The other is that Dr. Rice recently spoke at the weekly meeting of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist's high-powered organization of conservative insiders.

We sincerely hope that the first is the incentive that Dr. Rice needs and the second is the indication that she has the inclination to continue to serve our Republic.

Yet Again: Health Insurance Nonsense

Back to something serious, we note with dismay the inability of our body politic to acknowledge reality in the debate about "healthcare" (really health insurance).

Thanking gentle reader and nearly-co-blogger JB in CA for his tip, we offer the incisive commentary of Maggie Gallagher, who lays bare Hillary Clinton's repeated use of a "healthcare" sob story that has all the political virtues except a basis in fact. Of course, Hillary's story about a woman who died after being denied treatment (when in fact she wasn't denied treatment) is her means of suggesting that the enemy death itself can be defeated if only we will let Hillary do What's Right for America. Gallagher nicely lays out the issue of health insurance as it actually exists: if the government controls costs, it also controls supply. If you like the idea of the government rationing something that can save your life, you'll love the Hillary Plan.

Still in denial, but honestly so, is "economist" Paul Krugman, who last week in the Gray Lady seriously offered that government control of healthcare costs would be preferable to market forces. His example? What he styles as the enormously successful Veterans Administration hospital system!* We applaud Krugman for admitting what the rest of us have been saying for a long time: if you want to know what government-funded healthcare will be like, go to the VA.

Krugman decries the fact that Americans spend more on healthcare than anyone else. We'll leave aside the question as to how much of that spending has to do with interference in the market by government and and undersupply of providers created by quasi-governmental professional associations. Instead, we'll celebrate the relative liberty and prosperity that gives Americans the ability to decide to use their huge piles of mammon (that's for you, Rustypants) on healthcare if they want to.

Face it: if you had unlimited cash and limited scruples, you'd spend everything you could to improve your health and forestall your death. That's what Americans are doing. The load of baloney that they're considering is the notion that Uncle Sugar will pay the bill for them with the reckless abandon with which they would personally pay if only they could. If Americans take the Democrats' bargain, Americans will gain nothing in exchange for what liberty they had over their own health.

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*SWNID gratefully asserts that many employees of the VA work hard to make the system work, providing superb personal care whenever they are given the opportunity. SWNID insists that for nearly all veterans, VA hospitals are providers of last resort.

Not a Fair Fight: Ehrman vs. Wright on Problem of Evil

We commend this week's To the Source column, a comparison of the recently published explorations of the problem of evil by contrasting Neutestamentlers Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright.

Even more briefly than the review, we summarize: Ehrman, darling of the media looking for interesting skeptics, continues to exploit his biography as Former Believer by asserting that biblical responses to the problem of evil are inadequate. Wright, by contrast, asserts that the biblical responses are far more nuanced, paradoxical and shocking than often thought, and become eminently challenging and so, to the eye of faith, satisfying.

We will add a bit of SWNIDish dogma to the mix: when people say that the Bible does not adequately address the problem of evil, what they really mean is that they don't like what the Bible says about it and are not prepared to give up their objection to theism. By contrast, far too many believers have personally suffered far more than Ehrman, have wrestled with the limits of their understanding and the burden of their experience, and have said at the end that they know that their Redeemer lives. That, it seems to us, is satisfaction.

A Wholesome and Educational Diversion

Tired of world affairs, discouraged at the bottom-line entry of our 1040, we turn to the vast resources of the Internet to amuse our SWNIDish self. And what do we find but a most excellent blog, The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, featuring photos of signs and notices sporting pointless inverted commas.

We enjoyed the feeling of punctuational superiority that this delightful and public-spirited blog gave as we perused its menagerie of quotation marks used for every reason except marking a quotation.

We salute the intrepid blogger and wish him well in his quest for yet more vestigial curlicues.

Words to Live By

We Thought He Was Silent Before His Accusers

Headline in the Cincinnati Enquirer, April 4, 2008: "Christ Defends Practices"

We Thought They Gambled for His Clothes at the Cross

Headline from today's Enquirer: "Christ Suit Could Cost $400 Million."

Richard Dawkins As Rapper

We gleefully contribute to the viral marketing for the upcoming faux-Michael-Moore documentary film Expelled by embedding this video (warning: content mildly vulgar in parodying rap and militant Darwinism).

McCain the Comedian

While the Dems implode, the GOP is having a laugh. John McCain did just fine trading scripted insults last night with Letterman.

Al Gore on Reality, Fantasy

CBS is reporting that on this week's 60 Minutes Al Gore will compare people who doubt that global warming is caused by human activity to people who think that the moon landings were staged in Arizona or that the earth is flat.

First, we lecture Mr. Gore.

Here's how global warming skeptics are not like people who think the moon landings were fake. Global warming skeptics aren't conspiracy theorists, who believe against all probability that there are hundreds or thousands of people, sworn to secrecy, putting one over on the rest of the world. Rather, they are students of history who know that certain broad concepts can take hold in communities and become fashionable, even required for membership in those communities. They know further that climate is too complex ever to be attributed to a single cause or kind of cause.

Here's how global warming skeptics are not like people who think the earth is flat. One can demonstrate the curve of the earth to any sighted person by means of observation: watch the mast of the sailing ship appear on the horizon before the body of the ship. One cannot, however, directly observe the effects of human activity on the climate. One can only infer it from a broad array of suggestive data, and again, one cannot know to what degree the climate effects have specifically human causes.

So, Mr. Gore, please do not disparage--even "a little," as you characterize your remarks--those who remain skeptical about human causes of climate change. They're better at understanding the limits of evidence than are you.

Now we move from lecturing to celebrating.

CBS writes this story with the kind of mildly disparaging and incredulous tone normally reserved for religious conservatives and publicity-seeking demagogues. Gore is termed the "Self-avowed 'P.R. agent for the planet.'" He is said to have been "confronted" by reporter Leslie Stahl with the reality of skepticism. He is said to have formed "unlikely alliances" with the likes of Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, hardly on CBS's good-citizenship list. They also show a photo and a video clip of Gore which can charitably be described as taken in an unflattering light.

This is not the end of the media wars. But it does show that even CBS can reach its limit with the liberal dog-and-pony show.

Is Yale a Diploma Mill?

A South Korean university is suing storied Yale University for having sent a letter affirming that an prospective faculty member for the South Korean University had a Yale PhD when in fact that individual did not. Yale claims that it made the mistake under the pressure of doing business.

SWNID, despite our motto, makes mistakes,* as does the institution we serve. We thank God that this isn't our mistake.

But we wonder, how did Yale, with all its billions of dollars, get so busy in the registrar's office that it sent out a letter affirming a doctoral degree, in essence a de facto transcript, without actually checking the files? If a huge pile of mammon can't buy bureaucratic accuracy, what can it buy?

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*For example, we repeatedly shift ungrammatically between third person singular and first person plural when referring to ourself [a word that does not exist] on this blog.

Guess Who Lives More Generously?

The answer to that question will not surprise those gentle readers who see the world SWNIDishly, though it will irk those who affirm our humane values but reject our economic and political means to humane ends. As summarized by WaPo mega-columnist George Will, Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks has found that conservatives give more time, money and blood (literally) than do liberals.

The best indicator of how much a person gives is religion. And since religion in the United States is largely Christianity, well, you can do the math.

It's worth noting as well that those who don't agree that government should redistribute wealth to reduce the gap between rich and poor give a substantially higher percentage of their income to charity than those who do agree to forced income equality.

And liberals are 6% richer than conservatives to boot.

So we say, Away with the sanctimony, lefties. Or if you just have to assert that you're more compassionate than all those right-wingers, at least put a little more money where your mouth is. If we can't have income equality, maybe we can have generosity equality.

Intercollegiate Studies Institute 2008 National Leadership Conference

Thanks to their interest in Christian values and market economics and because a disproportionate number are students, our gentle readers may well be interested in the upcoming National Leadership Conference of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Entitled "The Free Market and the Common Good: Wilhelm Roepke and the Future of the Humane Economy," the conference will be held April 12 at the Columbia Club in downtown Indianapolis. Registration for students is free (who says economic conservatives aren't generous?) and available online.

How to Settle Obama's Pastor Problem

Scott Ott, creator of Scrappleface, offers the political satire we'd most like to offer ourselves. He's permanently linked on this blog, but we draw special attention to his latest entry: "Obama to Disown Pastor If Hillary Dumps Bill." How we wish we'd come up with that.

Greatest Action Story Ever Told

Well, we went through an Easter season without a media blockbuster story about Jesus. So perhaps this sketch from Mad TV was all that there was.

Is McCain in Catbird Seat?

We break blogging silence to draw attention to Gallup's latest finding, which warms the cold, hard SWNIDish heart.

If Obama is nominated, 28% of Democrats who support Hillary say that they'll vote for McCain.

If the unlikely happens and Hillary is nominated, 19% of Obama supporters say that they'll vote for McCain.

Either way, if this pattern holds, it will be way, way hard for either Democrat to cobble together a majority in the Electoral College. Such demographics could put blue states in play in a way that will deplete campaign coffers and threaten down-ticket candidates.

We will sleep well tonight.

Prof. SWNID Assigns Required Reading

We assign as a requirement for all gentle readers the text of Senator Obama's speech delivered today in Philadelphia, which we read not long after posting the preceding missive on his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Our differences with Senator Obama in regard to particulars of economic and foreign policy do not for us obscure the impressive clarity with which he expresses the ideals of American citizenship and the present state of race in our Republic. We can't recall a better recent statement of either gravid matter.

Only three speeches belong in the first rank of American oratory: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address and King's "I Have a Dream." We will rashly nominate Senator Obama's speech today as belonging in the second rank.

Those gentle readers who fail to read the speech will hereafter be known as "harsh nonreaders."

Jeremiah Wright or Wrong

We respond at last to the clamor of our gentle readers for our take on Barak Obama's pastor problem. We warn our readers that we are likely to frustrate their desire for red meat.

In short, we think that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and especially his parishioner Senator Obama should be given a pass on this one. Mostly, that is. We don't deny that Wright has made multiple statements that are highly provocative, even offensive, and sometimes just silly. We don't deny that Obama has some explaining to do about his relationship with Wright. We just aren't as exercised about this as are many of those who share our wish that a candidate besides Obama be the next POTUS.

But here's the deal (and we say it with massive love and respect for the profession we are about to characterize, as we are one ourself): Wright is a preacher. Saying stuff like this is what preachers do.

OK, now that most of our readers are as mad at us as they were at Wright, we will hasten to explain our intemperate remark.

Preachers orate. Oratory involves highly charged, provocative rhetoric, intended less to describe or inform than to summon to commitment and action. When Wright referred to the US of KKKA or said that America deserved the 9/11 attacks for its own terrorism or suggested that because of the country's many sins of oppression the appropriate song would be "God Damn America," he was doing what preachers do as they reach the emotional climax of their messages: having gained the congregation's trust and carried them to the point of decision, he was crystalizing the message in sharply ironic language that left no room for indifference.

It has been widely observed that Wright's remarks on 9/11 were similar to Jerry Falwell's except that their cited proximate causes were on different sides of the political spectrum (for Falwell it was abortion and homosexual behavior that left America deserving what it got). Let's say further that (a) the same could be said for thousands of obscure sermons preached in the wake of 9/11 from varying political perspectives; (b) any of Wright's other remarks could find parallels from various preachers on the religious right (e.g., "United States of Infanticide" has probably been uttered in more than one American pulpit). These observations have been widely employed to argue whether a politically conservative candidate would be called to account for his pastor's similar remarks (and the obvious answer is yes). We cite them merely to illustrate that there's nothing unique about Wright's language.

Further, many of Wright's remarks were particularly expressive of frustrations about racial issues in the United States. We are not terribly shocked that an African-American preacher would be so blunt on the subject. It is not so long ago that rampant racism produced lynchings, Jim Crow laws and various other acts of systematic exploitation of African-Americans. Though the worst of racism blessedly is now history, its legacy is hardly erased in the day-to-day experience of many. By definition, SWNID is not an object of racist attitudes, but we find it hard to imagine that our being otherwise would be less than a source of outrage for our otherwise placid self.

All that having been said by way of excusing the Rev. Wright, we nevertheless offer some less charitable evaluations.

By all accounts, Jeremiah Wright is an enormously talented preacher, powerfully charismatic (in the non-theological sense). In our experience, preachers of exceptional talent are sometimes seduced by their talent into a habit of intemperate and inconsiderate expression. Seeing only a glimpse of Wright through media reports and clips of recordings, he might just fit that category.

What's obvious about the Rev. Wright, however, is that his commitment to making the gospel relevant in the here and now is a commitment to the political agenda of the radical left. For that, we find fault. The failures of American society are many, but the solutions of the left can only deepen those failures. When concern for the plight of the oppressed glibly equates to pacifism and socialism, critical judgment has failed.

Some of Wright's failures of critical judgment are pretty obvious. While it's not at all outrageous to suggest that the higher legal penalties for the usage of crack cocaine over powder cocaine have had a disproportionate impact on African-Americans, it's silly to suggest that the government created crack to oppress blacks. Same goes for suggesting that the government created AIDS for the same reason. And giving an award to Louis Farrakhan is the epitome of silliness.

So we SWNIDishly judge Jeremiah Wright guilty of being an uncritical thinker who lets his talent get the better of him, but in largely harmless ways. That's a venial sin, not a mortal one. We absolve him. Preachers do that kind of thing. We reserve the privilege of nominating him as Most Embarrassing Christian, but that's about the worst of it.

Now, where is Obama in all this? He's been a member of Wright's church for 20 years, is reported to have donated $20,000 to the church in that period (a figure that Thomas Sowell cites as considerable but which should be a source of shame for someone with Obama's family income), and names Wright as his spiritual mentor. Why is Jeremiah Wright's church Barak Obama's church? Should Obama be castigated for his long-time association with Wright?

Well, we ask SWNIDishly, why is your church yours? We suspect that the answer is more complex than we are inclined to admit. It always has to do with much more than our agreement with what we hear from the pulpit. People choose churches for all kinds of reasons, but in general I suspect that most would say "It feels like a place where I can belong."

For the Obama family, prominent and ambitious members of Chicago's African-American community, Wright's church would present a place where they could "belong" in many respects. It was a church where being black is the norm (those who think it reprehensible that Wright's church is avowedly "Afrocentric" should consider how "Eurocentric" are other churches, without their admitting it openly). It had plenty of members like them, black folk on the move to power and prestige. It was big enough that their celebrity would not be an enormous distraction. There are lots of churches in Chicago, but probably not many that offered all that.

And Wright's church was a place where the Obamas could network with other members and with the church's powerful pastor. If Barak Obama wanted a mentoring relationship with an older man of color who had used his talent to gain influence and who could help him think about how to process his life in politics from the perspective of faith, he could have that relationship by joining Jeremiah Wright's church.

In making that move, Obama was in no sense endorsing or agreeing with everything that his pastor might say, let alone his offensive-to-many way of saying it. He took the bad Wright with the good Wright. And SWNID actually thinks that's typical and decent. Leaving a church every time you have a disagreement with the preacher is not exactly what we call good churchmanship.

We actually wonder whether Obama hasn't all along realized that to accomplish what he seeks to accomplish, he will need a very different rhetoric than his pastor's. As Lincoln was to Garrison, so perhaps is Obama to Wright.

Still, it's hard to believe that Obama didn't see this one coming. How could any professional politician with national ambitions expect not to be called to account for his pastor's incendiary remarks? Perhaps Obama's habit of mind, week by week filtering Wright's rhetoric, was so deeply established for him that he couldn't hear what others would hear. Perhaps his loyalty to a friend was so strong that he ignored an issue that he should have at least thought through in advance. Perhaps he thought that anything that didn't come up in a Chicago or Illinois political campaign, where political hardball was perfected, wouldn't come up in a national election. Whatever the cause, not having a planned-in-advance response to the pastor problem was a political mistake that any good politician shouldn't have made.

So for us, the rap on Obama coming out of the Wright imbroglio is not that Obama might be as radical as his pastor. It's that it may show him to be as naive as his opponents suggest he is.

Eliot Spitzer: The Crusader as Compensator

We begin with an apology for gentle readers who have been unable to function in the absence of regular posts. Our excuse is that we have a life outside the blog.

And we take up one of the two hot political stories of the last week: the downfall of New York's crusading and whoring governor, Eliot Spitzer.

With many others, we ask why he did it. But we are asking about a different "it." Most pundits have asked why a successful, powerful, rising politician would risk his future by consorting with prostitutes. The predictable answers repeat the well-worn truism about the congruence of the lust for power and the lust for forbidden sex. The observation that Spitzer regularly stepped outside the bounds of ethics and even legality in his use of prosecutorial powers has been widely collated with his just-revealed habit of stepping outside the bounds of his marriage vows.

We ask a different question: Why did a man who lived a sordid private life fashion his public image as a moral crusader? Spitzer wasn't just a powerful politician addicted to sex, like Bill Clinton. He was an aggressive "reformer," a prosecutor who went after the most powerful figures with what was often the slimmest of justification. Meanwhile, he was privately using his own personal fortune--and likely some of the public purse in the form of security details--to break state and federal laws, not to mention his most sacred personal commitments.

In the SWNIDish experience, such a disparity is not surprising. Those who adopt the persona of crusader and whose crusades appear unbridled, disproportionate to the real nature of their object, are all too often those who harbor some hidden moral failing for which they seek to compensate with their crusading.

We note a particular case of our own experience, with particulars unaddressed to protect the identity of the guilty. Not quite a quarter century ago, we made brief acquaintance with a minister who took brief but intense interest in our SWNIDish career as a young graduate student. The minister decided to ask us about our view of an article, recently published in a prominent Christian journal, that addressed a topic of mild controversy. Expressing our qualified support for the article's point of view, we then experienced about 90 minutes of verbal scorn from our new acquaintance. Being young and inexperienced, we attempted dialogue in violation of the dominical saying recorded in Matthew 7:6, with predictable failure to come to a meeting of the minds. We left the conversation puzzled as to why anyone would argue so vociferously with a new acquaintance on a point of theology that was at most marginally consequential.

Months later, our adversary was revealed as a serial adulterer.

Since then, we have been impressed by other such cases in which individuals with secret moral failures attempt to balance them with their public posturing as ideological or moral exemplars. This, by the way, is more than the talented, charismatic public figure (politician or clergyman) who gratifies his ego with public adulation and private sexual predation. It is the individual who is privately drawn, even addicted, to a darkly immoral behavior and who couples it with a public persona of not just moral rectitude but aggressive moral leadership.

We hasten to add the obvious: not all crusaders are compensating for hidden sins, and not all who hide their sin compensate by crusading. But when a crusader is revealed as was Spitzer, we find ourselves unsurprised.

For SWNID, the lesson of such cases is this: human beings are inherently and persistently compelled to view themselves as moral creatures. Eliot Spitzer, no less than less prominent and powerful folk, wants to be fancied--by himself as much as by others--as a good person. Crusading against corruption in business and government gave him that sense, for him putting a bandage on the gaping wound of his sexual misbehavior.

For us, this is more than an example of the dangers of rationalization or the seductions of power or the pitfalls of relativism. It's ironic confirmation that people at their most lost want nothing more than to be restored to uprightness and significance. We just want to be found.

A Tribute to Human Ingenuity

We thank one of our colleagues for sharing this impressive photo with us, a example of the endless creativity and adaptability of human beings, even those who belong to the most despised classes.

Where the Dems Are These Days

It's not a pleasant place to be.

We commend the Huffington-Posted rant of one Seth Grahame-Smith, who uses a few hundred words to articulate his determination no longer to enable the former First Enabler, Senator Clinton. Ms. Rodham-Clinton's* flaws of character and experience are so many and varied that they eventually overcome even those whose politics commit them to the habitual ignoring of obvious realities.

Meanwhile, it remains a mathematical unlikelihood that the Democrats can avoid having their candidate chosen by party elders, the so-called superdelegates, which puts on display the inherent commitment of the left not to be bound by any rules or principles, even of their own making.

The Party of Jefferson and Jackson a generation ago devised a presidential nominating system that largely enshrined "the will of the people" to select its nominee but still empowered a large class of senior sages to make the final determination when the people's will was unclear. With the power to review and revise that system whenever it wished, the party continued with it happily until it actually needed the wisdom of the sages whom it so empowered.

And so now the party's own chairman has publicly told the sages not to exercise their judgment against the will of the people, as if such a thing could be discerned in such a tight series of primaries. Meanwhile, the calls continue for a mulligan for Michigan and Florida, forbidden to seat committed delegates by party rules and rulings. So one wonders after such a do-over is granted whether Iowans and New Hampshirites will ask to choose again from the now shortened list of candidates who endure the Democratic nominating spectacle. After all, they wasted some of their votes on Edwards and Biden and (saints preserve us) Kucinich. And things have changed since January. And we must count every vote! Every day!

One further wonders how a party that fully expects to be able to fund a government takeover of 18% of the US economy refuses to pay for a mail-in primary for two populous states that it styles as disenfranchised by its own ineptitude.

Such a cycle cannot end for those for whom principle is mere sentiment, laws are subject to endless reinterpretation, and contracts can be voided on political or magisterial whim. The relativists are hoist by their own petard, bereft of even the most obvious fixed points by which to extricate themselves from their self-laid trap.

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*One of the world's shortest books: Republicans with Hypenated Last Names.

Shroud of Turin Accidentally Washed with Cardinal's Red T-Shirt

One of the better recent Onion parodies of religion, topic per title above, is found here, just in time for Easter.

What's sad is that the "real" media will likely come out with something no less funny, just not intentionally so.

SWNID Inquires: Hairstyles

Normally we use this blog to tell our gentle readers what to think and why to think it. Today we reverse roles. Teach us, O blessed flock!

Specifically, we are ignorant of a cultural phenomenon that has recently entered our consciousness, namely, that young men have taken to combing the hairs on top of their head from the left and right sides toward the middle, so that the ends of the hairs stand upright, perpendicular to the ground in a ridge that runs along the circumference that intersects the nose and the spinal cord. We note that these same young men may have instructed their hairstylists to leave the hairs of the central top circumference longer for this very purpose.

We'd call this cut a "Mohawk," but we recall that that hairstyle involved shaving the head except for the central circumference. This doesn't. Further, Mohawks sported hair ridges that were generally wider, if memory serves.

If we were naming it, we'd probably call this style a "Shark Fin," though in all SWNIDish honesty it really should be called a "Silly Haircut."

We would supply an illustrative picture, but we don't know what keywords to use to find an image.

So our questions are these:

1. What is this hairstyle actually called?

2. Where in the world did it come from?

3. Why would anyone bother to do that with his hair?

4. Are women doing this too?

N.B. that we have noticed this style as of late we have observed various students and alumni of our august institution of higher education. We are committed to the maxim that when a trend reaches our students and alumni, it is by definition out of style. More simply, when a trend is spotted at 2700 Glenway, it is at that moment untrendy. We encourage comments on the mindset of CCU students and alumni who pursue such trends despite this immutable truth.

Take the Church Leaders Survey

Our gentle readers, who by definition are church leaders, are gently urged to take the church leaders' survey being conducted by the excellent folks at Christian Standard. It's fun and easy!

Be sure to indicate that you read SWNID regularly and consider SWNID critically important to your life and to the future of the Restoration Movement.

The Morning After: SWNID Pontificates

Our SWNIDish observations on political matters local and national following yesterday's highly significant primaries:

• Locally, the most obvious effect of the highly contested Democratic Party Presidential Primary is the passage of the Cincinnati Public Schools tax levy. Such could not happen without the large number of Democrats who came out to vote for their preferred liberal Their natural inclination being to ratify taxes for just about any purpose, the levy squeaked by despite little campaigning and much high-profile opposition. As a qualified fan of CPS, we take ironic pleasure in this outcome.
• In essence, McCain won all the primaries last night on both sides. He can now depend on the Dems to continue to go negative on each other, giving his campaign staff plenty of footage that they can assemble next fall for their own ads. He can also depend on the Democrats' slugfest to awaken grouchy conservatives to the stark reality that he is not just their only choice in November but is a fundamentally better choice than enduring four years of a left-wing executive with a congressional majority. The fight between the Democrats will both split them and energize their opponents, in other words.
• Hillary still can't possibly win the nomination outright on the first ballot, but Obama likewise has a tough road to a majority of delegates if she continues to run and to capture around half of the committed delegates that remain to be chosen. This leaves the Dems with a nomination that must be decided by its own rules and its own leadership, the so-called superdelegates. But given the Democrats' proclivity to fighting about their rules and litigating election results, we think that the most interesting bets are on the proposition that before all this is over, Hillary and Obama will end up in court over something, perhaps the standing of delegates from Michigan and Florida. We wonder whether Vegas bookmakers are taking bets on that. We also expect this spectacle further to damage the party of the left.

From Our Correspondent: An Obama Insider Speaks

We thank a gentle reader who will remain totally anonymous for sharing these tidbits from a conversation while seated on an airplane next to an Obama staffer, which we quote in our correspondent's own words:

• The Obama camp are shocked at how well things have gone. They thought they could give her a run for the money but no one thought they could possibly TKO her at this rather early date.
• His head campaign directors (Axelrod & Pluff are the last names I think) are seen as geniuses within political circles and their strategies will be copied for years to come.
• The Clinton machine is unbelievably well built and he respects his adversary immensely.
• The base of their support sounds a lot like a large scale Huckabee type operation…literally millions of people volunteering their time and giving small donations over and over again to keep the campaign rolling at a phenomenal pace. In fact in front of me was a kid from Stanford who flew in between exams to work free for the campaign for the weekend in Cincinnati. A ton of volunteer free labor that dwarfs Clinton’s army.

Friday Potpourri

On Bill Cunningham and John McCain: Now that Jerry Springer is in Chicago, Marge Schott has gone to her reward, and Pete Rose has paid his debt to society, Bill Cunningham is Cincinnati's only residual embarrassment. We urge our entire Republic forever to turn off this faux conservative's program, consigning his vulgar rants and insinuations to the oblivion they so richly deserve.

At the McCain rally, Cunningham wanted nothing more than for Cunningham to become the story. He succeeded. As a radio personality, he is not a controversialist but one who must himself be the focus of controversy.

That the McCain campaign extended their invitation to Cunningham does not inspire confidence in Senator McCain's prospective ability to manage intelligence gathering and analysis.

On Global Warming: It appears that currently we are enjoying the most widespread snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere since 1960. Meanwhile, sunspot activity is notably low, an indicator of reduced energy discharge from the sun. Not doubting that changes in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere influence temperatures marginally, we are still drawn to the overwhelming conclusion that nearly all of our planet's climate is determined by factors that have nothing to do with human activity.

We assert that this February sets a record not only for snow cover but also for length. It's been the longest month in our experience. The combination of cold, precipitation, gloom and the endless sniping between two liberal presidential candidates has driven us nearly to despair.

On NAFTA and Globalism: The Democrats' bash-NAFTA extravaganza has yielded one positive outcome: articles from various sources detailing the massive consensus among economists that the United States has benefited economically from free trade, not least from the NAFTA agreement. In the run up to Ohio's primary, anti-NAFTA speech is the only alternative for candidates who can't publicly admit that Ohio's economic woes mostly have to do with the long-term decline of the Big Three auto manufacturers, largely because of their own mismanagement, aided and abetted by the United Auto Workers.

On the Ohio Primary: We urge gentle readers to vote in favor of Issue 10, the Cincinnati Public School's tax levy. This small levy will preserve vital services in a district that performs better than most of its urban peers. (Note to our most rabidly anti-tax, anti-public-school, gentle readers: no one said that the district is less than wasteful and inefficient, just that the alternatives are all worse in the near term.)

On Jeopardy: We belatedly congratulate Walnut Hills High School sophomore Rachel Horn, friend of Daughter of SWNID, on crushing her opponents in the finals of the Jeopardy teen tournament.

Remember the Dancing Hillary Flash Video?

A comment from a web site featuring video of Obama "dancing" on Ellen DeGeneres's program:

WOW. I LOVE OBAMA! Obama so great. Obama so wonderful. I wish Obama was like canonized right now. He deserves it. Obama is just so awesome. So articulate. So beautiful. So Majestic. I love Obama'a ears. Obama should replace Jesus. Who needs Jesus anyway? He's like so... dead. Obama will open the skies and the trumpets will sound and bliss... OBAMA '08.

-Paid for by friends for Obama. Duuude.

SWNID asks those who know: does Obama's dancing surpass SWNID's?

Recent Global History Lesson

As a late boomer, we commend this entertaining flash presentation to those who haven't lived through the history of the last 60 years but need to know about it, and for those who have and don't mind being reminded of it.

Hillary's Rant, Strickland's Two-Step, Obama's Unintentional Praise of McCain

We enjoyed this CNN video for a couple of reasons.

First, it captures Hillary in the full expression of her signature self-righteousness. Title it, "Don't Cross the Queen or You'll Lose Your Head." We figure that this is a close as we'll get to the profanity-enhanced tirades in the White House in which she threw the Republic's china at the Head of State.

Second, it captures Ohio Governor Ted Strickland nervously shifting his weight and his eyes back and forth as he witnesses his chances at a national ticket dissolving before his eyes.

We recommend watching this morning's series of CNN videos a bit further to hear Obama say that McCain wants to continue George Bush's economic and foreign policies. We want to reply, "You got a problem with that? We happen to be partial to lower taxes and safety from terrorists."

That Other Country That Had a Revolution

We thank gentle and erudite reader Scott for pointing us to Gray Lady piece chronicling what has proved to be a controversial proposal from the President of France: that all French schoolchildren should learn the story of a French child who died in the Holocaust.

Sarkozy's most provocative statement about this proposal is undoubtedly this, as reported by the Times:

Adding to the national fracas over the announcement, Mr. Sarkozy wrapped his plan in the cloak of religion, placing blame for the wars and violence of the last century on an “absence of God” and calling the Nazi belief in a hierarchy of races “radically incompatible with Judeo-Christian monotheism.”

Fair enough, we say, and true enough. For the French, however, you'd think that the very foundations of the Third Republic had been shattered. The article is fun reading mostly to see how French intellectuals are decrying the proposal. Apparently, a pupil who learns about a child who died at the hand of the Nazis will be permanently traumatized, unable to function in the placid society that is today's enlightened France.

We are reminded again of the two paths taken in the Enlightenment's two great political revolutions. In France the path was anti-clericalism and anti-religious secularism, shot through with radical idealism about the capacity of human reason. In America the path was a sober assessment of human limitations as demonstrated in history and taught in Protestant Christianity, yielding protection of religion from the state as well as the opposite.

We remain convinced that on balance, the path taken by our Republic is better than theirs.

SWNID a Hillary Supporter?

In the last two weeks SWNID has received three phone calls from the Clinton campaign, all assuming that we are inclined to support the New York Junior US Senator's presidential bid.

In one we engaged in conversation for some time with a very polite and articulate campaign worker. When we expressed reservations about Ms. Clinton's role in the 1990s as First Enabler, not something we regard as a positive example for the women of our Republic, the campaign worker, after pausing, replied, "Well, we're trying to steer clear of Bill." Our response, "I wish Hillary had permanently and legally steered clear of Bill in 1998," provoked no further discussion on the subject.

Certainly the image of Ms. Clinton's "readiness" for office is not confirmed by her campaign's inability to recognize someone publicly devoted to the cause represented at this web site.

Still, we find ourselves SWNIDishly ruminating on the vote we will cast on March 4. Shall we take advantage of Ohio's open primary to cast a vote for the Democratic underdog, now Ms. Clinton, hoping to complicate the Democratic party's choice of candidate and thereby boost the chances of our preferred lesser-of-evils, Senator McCain? We are torn between what might be a useful political tactic and the immutable repugnance of even appearing to affirm a Clinton.

So the ironic possibility remains that we will do what the legions of Hillarians who phone our home have begged us to do. Call us again, Clintonistas! We'd love to talk!

CCU Viral Marketing

Follow this link to see all entrants in the CCU student promotional video contest sponsored by CCU's marketing department.

We are awed by the talent of these amateur videographers.

Bush as Truman

We commend to gentle readers today's WSJ opinion piece by William McGurn, former Bush speechwriter and current NewsCorp executive.

McGurn reminds the skeptical that the much-maligned Bush has been proved right on a number of big issues, like tax cuts, stem-cell research and the Iraq surge. Of course, "proved right" is still subject to interpretation of the data, but data there are.

We'll add two other items to the list headed "Bush was right," namely, Social Security and health insurance.

On the former, Bush advocated the introduction of private investment accounts. As we have noted before, born-again Democrats who insist on a budget surplus and Social Security "lock box" are in effect arguing that Washington should tax people beyond the rate of federal spending and invest the surplus for people's retirement. Bush thinks it's bad for Washington to make investment decisions and good for people to make them for themselves. But in 2007 his proposal died thanks to the doctrinnaire opposition of the Reid-Pelosi Congress.

On the latter, Bush advocated taxing high-end, employer paid health insurance and offering tax deductions or credits for individually purchased policies. The notion was to begin to make it easier for the uninsured to buy insurance and to fund government subsidies for those who can't afford insurance. Again, the proposal died in Congress without as much as a committee hearing.

In all this, we cannot help but compare Bush to Truman, a POTUS beset with a multitude of domestic and foreign problems, confronted by a difficult military situation, sometimes subject to the excesses of his own personality (government control of steel mills was not the greatest of Truman's ideas, nor was his intemperate letter to the critic who reviewed his daughter's voice recital), but over time proved right-headed in his most significant actions.

Brooks on Obama Comedown Syndrome

David Brooks has been reading comments on this blog, apparently. Today he assesses the "dialogue" between PS/SWNID and JB in CA regarding the Hope Pope, Barak Obama.

We offer a few morsels of quotation (attributed, thereby avoiding the trivially alleged plagiaristic tendencies of the object of discussion:

Is giving Robert Byrd’s campaign $10,000 the kind of change we can believe in?

If he values independent thinking, why is his the most predictable liberal vote in the Senate? A People for the American Way computer program would cast the same votes for cheaper. . . .

The victims of O.C.S. struggle against Obama-myopia, or the inability to see beyond Election Day. But here’s the fascinating thing: They still like him. They know that most of his hope-mongering is vaporous. They know that he knows it’s vaporous.

But the fact that they can share this dream still means something. After the magic fades and reality sets in, they still know something about his soul, and he knows something about theirs. They figure that any new president is going to face gigantic obstacles. At least this candidate seems likely to want to head in the right direction. Obama’s hype comes from exaggerating his powers and his virtues, not faking them.

Those afflicted with O.C.S. are no longer as moved by his perorations. The fever passes. But some invisible connection seems to persist.

How long will it persist? At least until November?

Opposing Independence for Kosovo a Surrogate for Domestic Politics

Kosovo has declared independence, and the United States is the first to back it up diplomatically. Certain other nations object. On request of gentle readers, we make the following SWNIDish observations:

• This is the fruit of Wilsonian foreign policy, which in Bush's hands (and oddly in Clinton's hands in this one instance) has become muscular Wilsonianism. We think it's good for the United States to encourage the development of liberty and democracy where it has the opportunity and the means. Albanians in Albania and Kosovo are now the only people in the world who are predominantly Muslim, pro-American, pro-Bush and pro-Clinton. And Bush's trip to Africa highlights the benefits of his enlightened concern for that continent as well, with good results for both sides of the exchange.
• There is no way imaginable that Kosovo could have returned to Serbian control after the murderous ethnic cleansing campaign mounted by the Serbs in the 1990s. Our personal experience in Kosovo was brief, but it included multiple exposure to billboards listing names of hundreds of missing and dead, with the simple, heartbreaking English caption, "We are still missing them." So independence is the only way this episode could go next.
• The nations that are protesting this aren't concerned about Kosovo at all but about their own separatist movements. Those countries probably need to reckon with a couple of realities: (a) their own economic and political development can blunt the felt need for independence among ethnic minorities; (b) membership in the European Union makes such independence much less problematic for those from whom the minorities separate, as they tend to become members of the larger European family.
• The Russians are protesting this not only because they face separatists but because the Russian regime needs foreign enemies to justify its domestic fascism. Russian leaders for centuries have used the myth of Russian-Serbian brotherhood to stoke the fires of nationalism and so to distract Russians from their miserable internal situation. For those who worry about offending Russia, we counter that Russia wants to be offended.
• Kosovo now needs two things: (a) to get some economic development going; (b) to follow through on its pledge to protect its own minorities (as enshrined in the design of its new flag). In other words, it needs something like the economic and political ideals pursued by the "better angels" in the country that it lionizes, the United States.

Obama and Hillary Follow the Loser

Today's WSJ provides an important gut check for Americans infatuated with "change."

Gentle readers will recall a certain faux populist, noted for his excellent hair and recently retired from the contest for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, who tried to get the big prize by pitting American business interests against American workers. It worked so well for him that he lost every primary in which he ran, including his home state's.

Now the two remaining Democrat candidates, per the perceptive reporters at Murdoch's Crown Jewel, have adopted the soon-forgotten John Edwards's William-Jennings-Bryan-redux rhetoric. NAFTA is bad, trade is bad, corporations are bad, profits are bad. Workers are good, jobs are good, staying in the same assembly-line job all one's life is good.

We draw attention to the obvious, which is our spiritual gift:

• Stable manufacturing jobs depend on corporations that make a profit, as the recent history of the American automobile industry illustrates negatively.
• The candidates of "change" are this week running on rhetoric that eschews change in favor of somehow restoring the American economy that existed briefly between the end of World War II and the beginning of the microchip revolution.
• This political strategy failed Edwards but is for some mystical reason now embraced by his surviving former rivals who are locked in life-or-death struggle.

Pardon us if for genuine change we continue to look toward the GOP, whose sole surviving candidate is sensibly recommending that we reduce our highest-in-the-developed-world rate of corporate taxation as a means of becoming more competitive globally. That's true populism.

The Varieties of Baptist Experience

We want gentle readers to appreciate this juxtaposition.

The first is a YouTube video* of a Baptist minister preaching on a phrase in the KJV that probably offends certain elements of contemporary taste. It was forwarded to us by a professional colleague who savored it as an example of, shall we say delicately, biblical interpretation that eschews thoughtful principles. And let's just say that it represents what is one extreme of the Baptist movement in the United States at present.

The second is an article from the utterly necessary WSJ detailing the recent "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant," a gathering of Baptists sympathetic to the views of former President and current Embarrassment Jimmy Carter. We quote this paragraph as a taste of an event not widely covered in the media:

Novelist John Grisham offered an audience of several thousand his advice for how "we as Baptists [can] disarm our critics" (as if that should be their main concern). "Stay out of politics," he advised. Of course, it all depends on what you mean by "politics." Mr. Grisham made sure to mention the need to eliminate the death penalty. Earlier in the day, activist Marian Wright Edelman advocated reaching out across political divides to solve the problems of America's children -- by making sure, for instance, that the Bush tax cuts don't become permanent. (Just how such folks will handle fiscal matters when they get into power became clear when a Covenant official addressed the crowd: He asked for several dollars more than had been previously requested, since each printed program ended up costing $3 to produce, not $2.)

We SWNIDishly enjoy exposure to these extremes of someone else's ecclesial family, reminded that our kooks are not much different from anyone else's kooks.**
_________________
*We link rather than embed out of respect for those gentle readers who would rather not hear a minister of the gospel repeatedly use an English term that was more socially acceptable in the 17th century than it is today.

**Thanks to Professor Jacob Neusner for once formulating the dogma of kooks on a Firing Line program in the 1990s.

The Great Kemp to Conservatives: Get a Grip, Support McCain

SWNID is a Jack Kemp Republican. Jack Kemp is Seldom Wrong. He should have been at least Chief-Executive-in-Waiting, if life were just.

In a recent column Jack Kemp reminds conservatives, the people who supposedly enjoy reading history, that certain Great Conservatives were distrusted by their conservative peers. The result was not the glory of the skeptics.

The point is that conservatives need to get over their animosity toward Senator McCain and channel their energy into getting him elected.

But judging by the comments on the article, most conservatives would rather watch their cause go into the deep freeze for eight years than reward someone who occasionally deviated from orthodoxy and party discipline.

WHHS Student Obliterates Jeopardy Opponents

We offer SWNIDish congratulations to friend-of-daughter-of-SWNID and Walnut Hills High School sophomore Rachel Horn on her massive triumph on Jeopardy last night.

Horn proves what we say all the time about WHHS: it's a place that nurtures teens' academic abilities rather nicely. There's nothing trivial about it.

Jazz at the Top: Fans Ask Why

We would like to impute good taste to our Republic with the announcement that jazz giant Herbie Hancock's River is the Grammy winner for Album of the Year.

But with critics like Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, we can't.

Kot calls the award a lifetime achievement surrogate for a recording that isn't the artist's best, given in a year when members of the academy didn't want to vote for other nominees for various nonmusical reasons.

We wonder whether it wasn't also a vote, like the Oscar votes for An Inconvenient Truth and Nobel votes for Gore's warm globaloney, that is a surrogate for the presidential election. Herbie is notable as an Obama Brahmin, after all.

But, to borrow a phrase, whatever. Listening to an OK Herbie Hancock recording is better than listening to the best pop recording in any year.

Political Prophet Brooks: Dem President Will Outrage Dems

The Gray Lady's token center-right commentator David Brooks today offers a reality check, by way of certain-to-be-true prognostication, on Democratic hopes for hope in a Democratic presidency. The obvious truth that Brooks soberly exposes is that neither potential Democratic POTUS will be able to fulfill promises to the party's base to withdraw American troops from Iraq or initiate massive the federal programs with their attendant spending. That is, neither will be able to do so without creating disasters that will expose the lie of the left's agenda.

Brooks is best when he points out that the same contradiction was at the heart of the 1992 Clinton campaign. Remember the middle-class tax cut that evaporated a week after the election? Robert Rubin's fiscal realities crashed Robert Reich's hope for change. And we doubt that Slick Willie was the least bit surprised.

In the harsh light of obvious realities, "Yes we can"--really the appeal of both Democrats, whose policy positions, insofar as they are available to us, are indistinguishable--becomes yet another vapid, positive-thinking mantra that really amounts to shallow self-delusion.

SWNID repeats our own parable on such matters. Simply wanting an outcome deeply is no assurance that the outcome is possible. SWNID may want to dunk a basketball through a rim at standard height using no artificial means of attaining altitude. SWNID may work hard at improving our vertical jump for said outcome. But SWNID's bitter and obvious reality is shortness and middle age, preventing even our most dearly held hoop dreams from becoming reality.

Before "Yes we can" must come answers to fundamental questions, like "What can we do with what we have?"

We Ask Three Questions About Hillary

On our own: why is no one commenting on the weirdness of Senator Clinton loaning $5 million to her own campaign. We know that she had to hustle to get a grip on the upper middle class as a governor's wife, corporate lawyer and cattle-futures speculator. We know that she wrote books that made a lot of royalties, ostensibly donated to charity. We know that Senators and Presidents make low six figures. We know that her husband is the world's best paid public speaker. We assume that she and Bill maintain some separate assets (and other separate stuff), given the nature of their relationship. So we figure that she has some money but isn't rich the way a lot of politicians, who were born to money (cf. any Kennedy) or had big business interests (cf. any Bush) before entering politics, are rich.

We know that she desperately wants to be POTUS.

But she's willing to part with $5 million of her own swag, wherever it came from, to try to do it? How desperate is she, anyway?

With Peggy Noonan: what will Senator Clinton do now that she's losing? Is she capable of doing what Romney did? Or will she destroy herself and damage her party in what's starting to look like certain defeat?

On our own again: it's widely assumed at this moment that Senator Clinton has a decent chance to defeat Senator Obama in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Is this because old-line, lunch-bucket, union-member, factory-worker, white Democrats won't vote for the black guy? So is Senator Clinton willing to become the Democrat who revives the party's segregationist roots?

When Celebrities Unite, SWNID Wants to Run Away

A bunch of Hollywood types have joined to create a video incorporating words from an Obama speech with some things that resemble music.



There's creativity in this thing. But there's also creepiness. We think Obama is a very able guy. If his voting record in the Senate weren't so at odds with everything that we hold to be true, we'd seriously consider voting for him.

But this is starting to look like a personality cult. There's not a word of substance in this speech, and there's little substance in anything that seems to come from him. Of course, why deal in boring specifics when you can get folks going with positive-thinking mantras like this?

But we'll say that the worst of this is that Herbie Hancock has been reduced to plopping down a few chords in these bland changes and tinkling a couple of ornaments on top near the end.

Romney "Suspends," So Dems Now Have Big Problem

The big, unexpected breaking news is that Mitt is "suspending" his campaign. On the fly with even less contemplation than usual, we opine the following:

• Suspended campaigns never get revived. Mitt is done for 08.
• There's so obviously no hope for Huckabee (and we won't mention the man with two first names who's alleged by some to be a Republican candidate). If Huck doesn't drop out soon, he'll look like a party pooper, while Mitt looks extremely classy and statesmanlike.
• To be sure, Mitt probably realized it would take more of his own millions to make a go, and a man who earned that much money isn't likely to throw it away on a quixotic campaign.
• So McCain is the nominee for sure and can now start acting presidential. With condolences to Mitt's and Huck's and even Paul's supporters among our gentle readers, we invite all to rally around the inevitable lesser of two evils (the nature of every political choice in our Republic or any other) in November. On this we will even extend grace to the likes of Ann Coulter, who is surely a regular reader of this blog, though not apparently inclined to listen on the first round.
• This is a HUGE problem for the Dems, who look set to have a tough fight that may go until the convention and involve litigation, which is how Democrats prefer to settle close elections these days. While their candidates destroy each other, McCain can look like a statesman.
• Romney is well positioned to win the GOP nomination in 2012 or 2016, depending on whether McCain wins and whether, if he wins, he runs for a second term at his advanced age. Republicans have largely nominated people who have been VP, are related to a recent president, or were the most recent runner up for the nomination. If Jeb Bush doesn't run, that means that on the next contested nomination Romney would need only defeat McCain's VP if McCain is elected.
• Of course, Romney may become McCain's VP. But we're still for Lindsey Graham. Or Colin Powell. Or Condi Rice.

Dirt Cookies in Haiti

The desperation of the world's poorest citizens is well illustrated in this AP article on hunger in Haiti.

We won't dare to offer a comprehensive solution to the profound problems of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. We agree with the opinion offered several years ago in the Atlantic by a former US State Department official who said that Haiti's economic problems are rooted in the worldview of voodoo, which creates the social chaos that makes even a subsistence economy impossible. Hence, opined the retired diplomat, the only solution to Haiti's problems is religious conversion.

We do suggest, however, that those who believe that because they have received the grace of God, they must live graciously can alleviate some of the problem, at least for many, with their generosity. We can't make Haiti "work," but we can feed some suffering Haitians.

As is our habit, we recommend gifts to International Disaster Emergency Services, which regularly funds feeding programs administered by churches in Haiti. You gift will have tremendous impact if channeled through that highly efficient organization.

Update: The article we referenced is Lawrence E. Harrison, "Voodoo Politics," Atlantic 271:6 (June 1993) 101-07. For those with access to EBSCO Host (CCU library users and others with similar access), the article can be accessed here (from outside CCU's network) or here (from within CCU's network). We have discussed the article with our most excellent Haitian friends, who agree heartily with its conclusion, though we recognize that not all are persuaded. Harrison is more recently the author of The Central Liberal Truth, which argues that culture is the primary determinant of a country's prosperity. Harrison's is not a popular position in the circles he frequents, but he has the advantage that evidence seems to favor his conclusion.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Today's WSJ opinion page is graced by an article ascribed to the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is apparently running for President. In said article, Ms. Rodham Clinton purports to offer her formula for restored American prosperity.

We hope to offer point-by-point observations on Ms. Rodham Clinton's program, should time allow. For now, we can suggest only a few points to consider.

• Much of this program merely announces intentions, not the means to fulfilling those intentions.
• At the center is what Ms. Rodham Clinton describes as the "most aggressive" plan to address health care (really health insurance). We note that her plan is the most aggressive because it is the most radical departure from the present system, about which a large majority of Americans express personal satisfaction, though worrying about others' health insurance. We are reminded of a famous remark from the ever-insightful P. J. O'Rourke: "If you think that health care is expensive now, wait until it's free!"
• We note that in Massachusetts, Governor Romney's mandated health insurance, like Ms. Rodham Clinton's plan, has driven up costs enormously and not created universal insurance. Somehow, when government pays for something, it becomes more expensive.
• Overall, Ms. Rodham Clinton apparently does not believe that a problem as complex and longstanding as health insurance should be addressed incrementally. She favors sweeping, aggressive, immediate change for a problem whose roots are in the price and wage controls of the 1940s and whose span encompasses the single largest segment of the economy, not to mention the lives and health of all the Republic's citizens. If in the health care game America is behind five runs in the bottom of the 9th with no runners on base, Ms. Rodham Clinton apparently believes that the best strategy is to swing from the heels.
• Ms. Rodham Clinton's discussion of health care in particular and govenment in general is laced with language about controlling costs. That means, of course, limiting the availability of certain kinds of services. The notion that government can be more efficient than private enterprise in distributing services has little theoretical or empirical support. At any rate, we recall that Vice President Gore was charged with comprehensive governmental reform in the 1990s. And how did that help, exactly?
• Much of what is presented as policies for the economic well being of all is actually for the benefit of certain favored classes. Specifically, we wonder how a program to get more women and minorities in STEM careers is important for global competetiveness, as opposed to getting more Americans in general in those fields (if indeed more are needed, an open question according to many statistics). We wonder too how making it possible for a union to organize a shop without a secret ballot, the so-(Orwellian-)called Employee Free Choice Act, will accomplish prosperity for anyone, least of all in a global economy.
• Ms. Rodham Clinton speaks as if the only efficacious investment is government investment of tax funds. Our future depends on government spending on research and development, not on, say, reducing the corporate tax burden so that American industry can research its own solutions that are economically viable.
• Ms. Rodham Clinton's plan to encourage savings is coupled with promises to make savings unnecessary: shoring up Social Security, providing more government funds for higher education, solving the housing problem, providing more direct payments to the unemployed and underemployed, providing health insurance as an entitlement. The reason to save (concern about the future) evaporates if her ambitious goals are fulfilled in other areas. Ironically enough, Americans' failure to save is most optimally explained because of their relative lack of concern for their futures, thanks to the belief that government will bail them out (rather similar to the reason that mortgage lenders threw caution to the subprime wind). Ms. Rodham Clinton would have us believe that we are extremely anxious about the future but unable to save for it without an external incentive.
• Furthermore, a program of tax breaks for retirement savings sounds very much like the Bush plan to allow a part of payroll taxes to be devoted to individually controlled retirement accounts, something that Ms. Rodham Clinton vigorously opposed. We are not altogether sure why this means of accounting is better to her, except that it has the government doing more handling of the money.
• We remember the great promises of 1992, including the middle-class tax cut. Another Clinton withdrew that promise days after the election, claiming that his new access to government figures (actually the OMB's estimate of the federal deficit, a matter of public record) made him realize that such a tax cut was impossible. In this case, Ms. Rodham Clinton tells us that the plan for paying for all this is on her web site. We looked at the site and will note that (a) on the home page there's no obvious link to the pay-for-it part of the Grand Plan: (b) Google doesn't find any occurrence on the site of the phrase "pay for my economic plan," the very phrase in the WSJ article that is supposedly explained on the site.

In sum, we recall a deservedly famous song by the Who that summarizes our outlook on all these wonderful plans. For those who prefer a different kind of summation, there's always Barry Goldwater's.

Log of Superbowl Statements from Senators Kerry, Clinton, Others

We provide gentle readers with an overlooked part of Superbowl festivities, namely a log of statements made during the game by US Senators from the home states of the two teams, plus some other relevant stuff.

Pregame Joint Statement from Senators Kerry and Clinton: While we do not trust the Bush administration to provide the leadership that America needs to provide a Superbowl that will restore our nation's security at home and its respect abroad, we nevertheless affirm the pressing need for America to engage in this historic struggle. We vote to authorize the Super Bowl.

Statement from Senator Kerry at 5:01 in 1st Quarter: While I supported this game initially, I am now opposed to it. Intelligence that had the Patriots as favorites was clearly trumped up by the Bush administration, one of the many lies that this President has told the American people. I urge an end to this game as soon as possible, as a Patriot's victory is now clearly impossible.

Statement from Senator Clinton at 14:57 in 2nd Quarter: Had I known at the beginning of this game what I know now, I never would have supported it. Our only course of action is to end this game immediately. America's sports resources need to be devoted to the real contest, the NBA championship. Or NASCAR, if you're from the South, like I am, y'all.

Statement from Senator Kerry at 11:05 in 4th Quarter: It is by now clear to everyone that the Bush administration has completely mismanaged this game. Not another drop of Patriot blood should be shed for this unjust and unwinnable contest. I urge the President to withdraw our forces immediately.

Statement from Senator Clinton at 5:12 in 4th Quarter: I am the only person who can bring a dignified end to the debacle that this Super Bowl has become. I have the experience necessary to lead our country out of the quagmire that the Bush administration has created and bring our New York Giants home. Not another minute should be spent on this unwinnable game.

Statement from Senator Kerry at 2:07 in the 4th Quarter: This game was built on a lie to the American people. We were told that the Giants would welcome us as liberators. Instead we are engaged in a contest based on false intelligence foisted on us by the neocons who run the Bush administration. Not even my lucky hat is enough to bring victory to our New England Patriots.

Statement from Bill Belichick at 0:02 in the 4th Quarter: I've had enough of these statements, and I'm more embarrassed by these Senators than by my team's performance. Let's end this thing now.

Statement from House Speakere Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid During Postgame: President Bush's cronyism and tax cuts for the rich have yielded yet another injustice for the American people. In the last two years, the Super Bowl MVP award has gone to 0.07% of the families of NFL players. America's working families deserve better. We call on the President to redress the imbalance created by his unjust policies. Mr. President, it's time we restored the American Dream for everyone!

Old St. George Suffers Fire in Spires

We alert our global readership of former Cincinnatians that the spires of the historic Old St. George church building burned last night. Recently a center for eclectic community and religious activities and more recently closed, the building on the National Historic Register, increasingly a white elephant, now may be doomed to destruction.

We hold many fond memories of OSJ, where we attended theatrical performances, weddings, receptions and other events and where members of our own circle of friends sometimes resided. Like other local landmarks important in our personal experience (the original Skyline Chili location, CCU's Old Main, Grammer's Restaurant, Riverfront Stadium, WNOP), it may now slip into nothing except such memories.

24, Past and Future

We thank gentle reader Rob for directing us to this paleodigital trailer of the early exploits of Jack Bauer:



We direct gentle readers further to the informative article on the travails of 24 production for Season 7 in this day's WSJ. Besides the writers' strike and the problems of keeping any television franchise fresh, producers are struggling with Hollywood culture's reaction to charges that the show has normalized torture.

And so we challenge the comic minds who created the video above to make a second that examines 24 in the political environment of the 1990s. Maybe Jack trying to stop a corrupt cattle futures or real estate deal, head off an extramarital tryst, or prevent a corrupt presidential pardon?

Meanwhile, it appears that the cursed Audrey has been revived and thanks to the trauma of her Chinese incarceration been transformed into a bimbo featured on Lipstick Jungle, a program whose name and publicity demonstrate it so patently execrable that we promise never to watch once or comment upon again. We do thank the show for one public service, however: the assurance of no more Audrey sightings on what's left of our favorite TV experience.