Hillary supporters, by definition probably not the most reasonable and objective of creatures, have of late taken to accusing the media of sexism in its coverage of their erstwhile savioress. SWNID finds this about as blind as asking whether energy drinks are associated with risky behavior.
As SWNID seems to recall, Ms. Rodham-Clinton's political career has depended on the coattails of her supremely talented and supremely philandering husband William Jefferson "Slick Willie" (Rodham-)Clinton. We recall further the number of her supporters who expressed their enthusiasm for Making History by electing the First Woman President.
In other words, Hillary would never have made it as far as she did without the rather ancient American political habit of anointing the wife as the husband's political successor and heir.* And her candidacy would have lacked much of its juice if female presidents were common enough not to be viewed as "historic."
So if the goose is entitled to such special goose sauce, is it wrong to point out that the goose does not in fact have gander sauce?
We'll say further that a truly historic female presidential candidate would be one who owed nothing to the man in her life for her political standing. Like, say, the candidacy of one Condi Rice, if such a candidacy ever existed. The brilliantly accomplished and permanently unattached Dr. Rice cannot be accused of having leveraged her career through her personal relationships, except maybe to get some NFL tickets now and then. And as a lifetime adherent of the Evil Republican Sexist Conspiracy, Dr. Rice could not expect her candidacy to be met with support from self-styled "sisters." Hers would be a run made on her merits, against the tide of identity politics.
But because of her obvious lack of ambition for elected office, a Rice candidacy is something that one can only imagine wistfully.
_____________
*Various states in our federal republic have famously elected wives of governors or senators to their husband's former offices when the husband could no longer serve by virtue of term limits, illness or death.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Megabus Update: New Pickup and Dropoff Point in Chicago
To alleviate congestion around Union Station, Chicago's city fathers are mandating that Megabus move its pickup and dropoff point one block south of Union Station, on Canal Street between Jackson and Van Buren.
Intrepid travelers should not be discouraged about this move. It means less confusion around the buses and a closer point of arrival and departure to the Clinton Street CTA Blue Line Station.
Intrepid travelers should not be discouraged about this move. It means less confusion around the buses and a closer point of arrival and departure to the Clinton Street CTA Blue Line Station.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Are "Energy" Drinks the Problem Drinks?
Today's Inside Higher Ed reports on concerns about possible linkages between college students' consumption of so-called energy drinks and engagement in risky behavior.
SWNID finds this discussion among the most poignantly dysfunctional on record.
It doesn't take much familiarity with the behavior of undergraduates on the typical American campus to identify the drinks most associated with students' risky behavior. For the willfully blind, these are alcoholic beverages, so commonly consumed in immoderate to dangerous quantities that the behaviors of drunkenness, with their attendant dangers, are largely accepted as normal among undergraduates. Promiscuous sex, sadistic hazing and impaired driving are among those dangerous behaviors. Alcohol poisoning is disturbingly common in institutions of higher education, as are drunken students' falls from heights or immolation in house fires. When students get plastered, they often get sick and injured. Sometimes they die.
Most campuses, however, have decided that there's nothing to be done about collegiate alcohol abuse. Few do anything meaningful to discourage it. Some actually subsidize it with college-sponsored parties. Turning the other way while students binge drink is part of the cost of doing business on just about every non-evangelical campus in America. The cost is borne by the students, both those who drink dangerously and those who live and study with them.
But the attention of this study is to the correlation between the consumption of energy drinks and risky behavior. It's like worrying about your complexion when you're dying of cancer.
SWNID finds this discussion among the most poignantly dysfunctional on record.
It doesn't take much familiarity with the behavior of undergraduates on the typical American campus to identify the drinks most associated with students' risky behavior. For the willfully blind, these are alcoholic beverages, so commonly consumed in immoderate to dangerous quantities that the behaviors of drunkenness, with their attendant dangers, are largely accepted as normal among undergraduates. Promiscuous sex, sadistic hazing and impaired driving are among those dangerous behaviors. Alcohol poisoning is disturbingly common in institutions of higher education, as are drunken students' falls from heights or immolation in house fires. When students get plastered, they often get sick and injured. Sometimes they die.
Most campuses, however, have decided that there's nothing to be done about collegiate alcohol abuse. Few do anything meaningful to discourage it. Some actually subsidize it with college-sponsored parties. Turning the other way while students binge drink is part of the cost of doing business on just about every non-evangelical campus in America. The cost is borne by the students, both those who drink dangerously and those who live and study with them.
But the attention of this study is to the correlation between the consumption of energy drinks and risky behavior. It's like worrying about your complexion when you're dying of cancer.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
And on Obama's Speech
We recommend this parody of a victory speech from the winner of the Democrats' Epic Struggle.
On Hillary's Demise
We've read two pieces that delight us on the end of Hillary's Bid for World Domination.
The first is by Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the indispensable National Review Online. She opens with the great insight, thereafter developed in her essay:
The second is from Scott Ott, creator of the indispensable Scrappleface. Ott's is a parody concession speech by Herself. Again, we excerpt the opening:
The first is by Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the indispensable National Review Online. She opens with the great insight, thereafter developed in her essay:
A beautiful thing happened on the way to a 2008 Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton obtained the feminist dream: She was treated equally.
The second is from Scott Ott, creator of the indispensable Scrappleface. Ott's is a parody concession speech by Herself. Again, we excerpt the opening:
No matter the outcome of the presidential race this November, the year 2008 is a watershed for Democrats. For the first time in the history of either party, a woman selflessly withdrew from a race she was winning to lend a merciful, helping hand to a young African-American in his time of need.
The Way of a Man with a Maid
Some bits of anonymous wisdom circulated via the Internet are more valuable than others. We share this bit:
MEN ARE JUST HAPPIER PEOPLE
NICKNAMES
a. If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
b. If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.
EATING OUT
a. When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
b. When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.
MONEY
a. A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
b. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.
BATHROOMS
a. A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel .
b. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.
ARGUMENTS
a. A woman has the last word in any argument.
b. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
FUTURE
a. A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
b. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
SUCCESS
a. A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
b. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
MARRIAGE
a. A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
b. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.
DRESSING UP
a. A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
b. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.
NATURAL
a. Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
b. Women somehow deteriorate during the night.
OFFSPRING
a. Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
b. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!
MEN ARE JUST HAPPIER PEOPLE
NICKNAMES
a. If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
b. If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.
EATING OUT
a. When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
b. When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.
MONEY
a. A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
b. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.
BATHROOMS
a. A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel .
b. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.
ARGUMENTS
a. A woman has the last word in any argument.
b. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
FUTURE
a. A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
b. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
SUCCESS
a. A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
b. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
MARRIAGE
a. A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
b. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.
DRESSING UP
a. A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
b. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.
NATURAL
a. Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
b. Women somehow deteriorate during the night.
OFFSPRING
a. Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
b. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Until November
Take a look here at the Electoral College prospects, and you'll see that once again, it all comes down to Ohio.
We will be turning our TV off for a few months, until the usual round of commercials for beer, cars and prescription drugs returns.
We will be turning our TV off for a few months, until the usual round of commercials for beer, cars and prescription drugs returns.
Web Service for Post-Rapture Communication
Several years ago the Wittenburg Door asked readers to submit the weirdest thing they could find for sale in a Christian bookstore. The winner was the "Critter Cross," a cardboard cross on which believers could inscribe the names of their pets, then hanging the handsome accoutrement on their front doorknobs to notify left-behind pagans of animals needing care during the tribulation. N.B. that the marketers of the Critter Cross never indicated whether pets would need to be marked with 666 to be fed during those awful times. Whether the Critter Cross might lead roving bands of pagans to identify Puff and Fido as potential sources of emergency nourishment seems not to have been considered.
The Critter Cross has now been updated and expanded by YouveBeenLeftBehind.com, a service that notifies your pagan friends why you and so many (or maybe not so many) others have gone missing.
We will defer to the thorough description offered here. Suffice it to say that because the service costs money, we discourage our anti-dispensational readers from signing up just for the fun of it.
Hat tip: alert gentle reader Scott.
Suggested comment: other methods people have come across for explaining the Rapture in the absence of the Raptured.
The Critter Cross has now been updated and expanded by YouveBeenLeftBehind.com, a service that notifies your pagan friends why you and so many (or maybe not so many) others have gone missing.
We will defer to the thorough description offered here. Suffice it to say that because the service costs money, we discourage our anti-dispensational readers from signing up just for the fun of it.
Hat tip: alert gentle reader Scott.
Suggested comment: other methods people have come across for explaining the Rapture in the absence of the Raptured.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
New Megabus Review
For those who aren't already converted to the Gospel of the Megabus, we offer a recent review by a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Tom Uhlenbrock. Bottom line: Megabus is cheap and pleasant.
We agree, of course.
Anyone up for a road trip?
We agree, of course.
Anyone up for a road trip?
Free Tutorial on the Trinity
Though not a systematic theologian, frequently SWNID gets asked to explain the Trinity. To save a few more discourses, we refer gentle readers looking for a clear discussion of the topic to the "Theology in the News" posting on Christianity Today's blog network by Collin Hansen. Prompted by the recent allegorical novel, The Shack, Hansen gives a brief, clear and pretty thorough discussion of this challenging and foundational theological concept.
Just a Reminder Why Obama Might Not Want Hillary on the Ticket
Because in the event of a Democratic win in November, President Obama would have to deal with this man's 24/7 access to Obama's Oval Office.
If there's been a more obvious example of the Clinton's unintentionally self-referential use of "the politics of personal destruction," we are unaware of it.
If there's been a more obvious example of the Clinton's unintentionally self-referential use of "the politics of personal destruction," we are unaware of it.
Monday, June 02, 2008
McClellan Surrenders His Only Qualification
Scott McClellan's tenure as Dubya's press secretary was at best undistinguished. Folks in the rarefied world of the Washington press corps came to the judgment that his primary qualification was loyalty to Bush.
His widely publicized book seems to confirm that, except that now he's caved on the loyalty. Reviewers and insiders are pretty clear on a couple of points: the book tells us nothing that we didn't already "know," and it entirely repeats the Democratic boilerplate that Bush's deputies did a bad thing with Valerie Plame.
Whether McClellan decided to take this tack because he wanted to make money on the book, because he wanted to gain standing with the left-looking media establishment, or simply because he is subject to the influences of his surroundings, no human can know.
We cite two discussions of the book as most important. One is Bob Novak's. Novak is distinctly well suited to opine on this matter, as he published Richard Armitage's "leak" that Ms. Plame got her husband on the junket to Niger to investigate the yellowcake allegations. Novak lets loose on not just McClellan but also special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who continued his investigation even though he knew the leaker when his investigation began. As far as Novak is concerned, McClellan's book is rendered worthless by his studied refusal to acknowledge the factual situation of his narrative centerpiece.
The second comes from the editorial board of the WSJ. They contribute the underreported but vitally important information that McClellan's book is being published by a company controlled by George Soros. SWNID dislikes conspiracy theories but is sometimes attracted to the notion that rich people of ambition can finance campaigns of disinformation. Soros has so many fingers in so many PACs, media ventures and other propaganda instruments that one can hardly resist blaming him for much of the nonsensical tenor of present political discourse.
We will guess that McClellan's book may represent the nadir of Bush's reputation. While the book is being published, the fortunes of the war and the economy seem to be turning positively, perhaps decisively. In a few years, McClellan's book may well be remainedered off to people who want it as a historical curiosity, testimony to the disconnect between conventional wisdom and empirical realities in the last months of this presidency.
His widely publicized book seems to confirm that, except that now he's caved on the loyalty. Reviewers and insiders are pretty clear on a couple of points: the book tells us nothing that we didn't already "know," and it entirely repeats the Democratic boilerplate that Bush's deputies did a bad thing with Valerie Plame.
Whether McClellan decided to take this tack because he wanted to make money on the book, because he wanted to gain standing with the left-looking media establishment, or simply because he is subject to the influences of his surroundings, no human can know.
We cite two discussions of the book as most important. One is Bob Novak's. Novak is distinctly well suited to opine on this matter, as he published Richard Armitage's "leak" that Ms. Plame got her husband on the junket to Niger to investigate the yellowcake allegations. Novak lets loose on not just McClellan but also special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who continued his investigation even though he knew the leaker when his investigation began. As far as Novak is concerned, McClellan's book is rendered worthless by his studied refusal to acknowledge the factual situation of his narrative centerpiece.
The second comes from the editorial board of the WSJ. They contribute the underreported but vitally important information that McClellan's book is being published by a company controlled by George Soros. SWNID dislikes conspiracy theories but is sometimes attracted to the notion that rich people of ambition can finance campaigns of disinformation. Soros has so many fingers in so many PACs, media ventures and other propaganda instruments that one can hardly resist blaming him for much of the nonsensical tenor of present political discourse.
We will guess that McClellan's book may represent the nadir of Bush's reputation. While the book is being published, the fortunes of the war and the economy seem to be turning positively, perhaps decisively. In a few years, McClellan's book may well be remainedered off to people who want it as a historical curiosity, testimony to the disconnect between conventional wisdom and empirical realities in the last months of this presidency.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Promises, Promises!
NY Post gossipist Liz Smith reports that Susan Sarandon, who as far as SWNID knows is either an actress or a shaper of public opinion, has vowed to move to Canada or Italy if John McCain is elected.
If only . . .
We add that we question the judgment of a person who sees moving to Canada or Italy as equivalent.
We double add that Ms. Sarandon is perhaps not aware that Italy recently elected a conservative government, led by Silvio Berlusconi, whose outrageousness as a conservative outstrips anything ever found on a Republican Party national ticket.
Perhaps Ms. Sarandon should merely drive off a cliff this coming November.
If only . . .
We add that we question the judgment of a person who sees moving to Canada or Italy as equivalent.
We double add that Ms. Sarandon is perhaps not aware that Italy recently elected a conservative government, led by Silvio Berlusconi, whose outrageousness as a conservative outstrips anything ever found on a Republican Party national ticket.
Perhaps Ms. Sarandon should merely drive off a cliff this coming November.
Sound Homiletical Advice
In the selection and delivery of sermon illustrations, the preacher must never portray himself as the hero of the story or leave any denigrating impression of those closest to the preacher. Here's an interesting take on the issue:
Hat tip to gentle reader "Raymond" for this tidbit.
Hat tip to gentle reader "Raymond" for this tidbit.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Laptop as Classroom Multitasking Distraction
We thank gentle reader Steve-O for directing us to the comments of Josh Waitzkin (the subject of the wonderful film Searching for Bobby Fischer) on the epidemic of "multitasking" via laptop computer in the college classroom. We're not as sure as Waitzkin that No Child Left Behind typifies the kind of approach to education that engenders this unadmirable habit, but we affirm his notion that good classrooms are reflective places, not havens of frantic, multiple activities.
We continue to contemplate whether the fall 2008 semester will be the one in which we ban the laptop from our classroom. In our Tory way having tried moral exhortation ("If you use a laptop, use it carefully and sparingly") and found it impotent against the lure of the glowing screen, and still unwilling to embrace the libertarianism that allows students to do as they please and suffer the consequences, we may take a step toward benevolent fascism. For learning's sake, of course.
We continue to contemplate whether the fall 2008 semester will be the one in which we ban the laptop from our classroom. In our Tory way having tried moral exhortation ("If you use a laptop, use it carefully and sparingly") and found it impotent against the lure of the glowing screen, and still unwilling to embrace the libertarianism that allows students to do as they please and suffer the consequences, we may take a step toward benevolent fascism. For learning's sake, of course.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Experiencing the Holy Land Experience
Newsweek also has some interesting video on Orlando's "Holy Land Experience" theme park, now the property of Trinity Broadcasting Network.
We mostly offer the link for consideration without comment. Well, without a lot of comment. Maybe just a couple:
We mostly offer the link for consideration without comment. Well, without a lot of comment. Maybe just a couple:
- It's too much to hope that people could stop talking about Christianity and Judaism as separate and begin talking about them as the two surviving post-temple Jewish groups.
- We find ourselves discomfited by the notion of a theme park depicting the death of Jesus but less so with the well-established practice of churches doing so. It's a right-brain reaction, so we're not exactly sure why, except that churches are doing it outside the context of "fun" and provide the setting for establishment of relationships that can enable people to process the message and be integrated into the community of faith.
- We wonder what the present frontrunner for Most Embarrassing Christian,* John Hagee,** has to say about all this. And we hope we never have to find out.
OK, three comments, not counting footnotes.
___________
*Current runner up: Rod Parsley.
**Moral on Hagee: run, do not walk, away from dispensationalism, which mishandles the Bible, distorts the gospel and continues to bring the faith into disrepute.
Newsweek: Cincinnati's Walnut 2nd Best in Midwest
Newsweek continues its vain pursuit of US News's list-making prowess with its annual ranking of "America's Top Public High Schools."
Cincinnati's Walnut Hills High School once again makes the list at number 56. That's second in the Midwest and first in Ohio.
We doubt that such rankings mean much except to point out yet again that it's possible to get a good education in some public schools, even one in the middle of a big city with a public school system famous for its problems.
Cincinnati's Walnut Hills High School once again makes the list at number 56. That's second in the Midwest and first in Ohio.
We doubt that such rankings mean much except to point out yet again that it's possible to get a good education in some public schools, even one in the middle of a big city with a public school system famous for its problems.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Lieberman on Democrats and November
Joe Lieberman delivered what was from all accounts an impressive speech over the weekend, and WSJ does the service of printing a redacted version of it today.
Lieberman's argument, in sum, is that his party was once committed to the notion that freedom, our Republic's in particular, has enemies who must be resisted forcefully (in the literal sense). Among these Democrats were FDR, Truman and JFK. After 1968, the Ds became passive pacifists until Bill Clinton and New Democrats managed to turn matters around after twelve years in the wilderness (twenty if you count the Carter administration as wilderness for everyone). But partisan opposition to Bush has driven the whole thing back to its McGovernite past, most recently in the naive pronouncements of Barack Obama.
We add two observations. One is that the Ds have had this problem since their party quietly welcomed socialists in the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in FDR's naming Henry Wallace as his 1940 running mate and Wallace's running against Truman in 1948 after being passed over in 1944 for a second term as VP on the insistence of thoughtful Democratic Party leaders who prevailed on FDR.
The other is that no individual presently embodies this issue more starkly than Al Gore. On him, we urge the reading of James Taranto's chronicle of Lieberman's response to Taranto's question about Gore following Lieberman's speech.
Lieberman's argument, in sum, is that his party was once committed to the notion that freedom, our Republic's in particular, has enemies who must be resisted forcefully (in the literal sense). Among these Democrats were FDR, Truman and JFK. After 1968, the Ds became passive pacifists until Bill Clinton and New Democrats managed to turn matters around after twelve years in the wilderness (twenty if you count the Carter administration as wilderness for everyone). But partisan opposition to Bush has driven the whole thing back to its McGovernite past, most recently in the naive pronouncements of Barack Obama.
We add two observations. One is that the Ds have had this problem since their party quietly welcomed socialists in the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in FDR's naming Henry Wallace as his 1940 running mate and Wallace's running against Truman in 1948 after being passed over in 1944 for a second term as VP on the insistence of thoughtful Democratic Party leaders who prevailed on FDR.
The other is that no individual presently embodies this issue more starkly than Al Gore. On him, we urge the reading of James Taranto's chronicle of Lieberman's response to Taranto's question about Gore following Lieberman's speech.
More Polygamy: Anthropologist Imitates SWNID
We really hesitate to provide multiple postings on polygamy, but when the opinion page of WSJ echoes our post of two days ago, our ego compels our drawing attention to that fact.
Lionel Tiger, an anthropologist (!) from Rutgers, argues nicely for the social awfulness of polygamy and the complete sham that is the "theology" undergirding it for unreformed "Mormons" like the FLDS. We note some quotes that most lead us to believe that he read this blog before writing his article.
Lionel Tiger, an anthropologist (!) from Rutgers, argues nicely for the social awfulness of polygamy and the complete sham that is the "theology" undergirding it for unreformed "Mormons" like the FLDS. We note some quotes that most lead us to believe that he read this blog before writing his article.
In this blow to simple decency, the Texas polygamists are not pathfinders. Multiple wives are of course permitted in the Islamic religion, and co-wives are a feature of dozens of human groups in which powerful men control sufficient resources to be able to support more than one woman.
This is usually because the societies in which they live are sharply unequal. Sex and offspring flow to those with resources.
One of the triumphs of Western arrangements is the institution of monogamy, which has in principle made it possible for each male and female to enjoy a plausible shot at the reproductive outcome which all the apparatus of nature demands. Even Karl Marx did not fully appreciate the immense radicalism of this form of equity. . . .
The victims are not only young women but young men too. They are reproductively and productively disenfranchised, and are in effect forced to leave the communities to become hopeless, ill-schooled misfits in the towns of normal life. No dignified lives as celibate monks with colorful costumes for them.
Again, the issue is cross-cultural. Osama bin Laden has at least five wives, which means that four young men of his tribe have no date on Saturday night and forever. They may become willing jihadists, or desperate suicides eager to soothe their god by killing infidels and Americans.
Elsewhere, preference for sons has meant a sharp shortage of women in China. It is known that raiding parties from there cross into bordering countries with more regular sex ratios to steal women.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Note for Calendar: Global Warming to Resume in 2015
As we doughty Midwesterners continue to don sweaters and crank up the furnace in the week before Memorial Day, climatologist stand ready to explain what's happening to us.
Canada's National Post reports that Noel Keenleyside of the Leibnitz Institute for Marine Science and the Max Plank Institute of Meteorology now says that our planet will not warm at all for the next several years, though warming may begin again in 2015.
So what do we do with all those carbon offsets that we bought this year? Sell them at a garage sale? Maybe we could trade them for some thermal underwear.
Canada's National Post reports that Noel Keenleyside of the Leibnitz Institute for Marine Science and the Max Plank Institute of Meteorology now says that our planet will not warm at all for the next several years, though warming may begin again in 2015.
So what do we do with all those carbon offsets that we bought this year? Sell them at a garage sale? Maybe we could trade them for some thermal underwear.
Hillary Now Turns to Super-Duper Delegates
The mathematical reality of her defeat in acquiring pledged delegates and super delegates having become starkly apparent, Hillary Clinton this morning announced that her campaign would now focus on gaining the support of "super-duper delegates."
"I'm still here because I think I would be the best president," said the candidate characterized of late as either indomitable or delusional. "So now it will be up to the super-duper delegates to decide."
Officials in Clinton's campaign took time from updating resumes and checking monster.com to explain, on the condition of anonymity, her remark. Super-duper delegates, they said, are rather like a combination of Greek gods, comic book super heroes, and the tooth fairy. Invisible to ordinary humans, they manifest themselves in various forms to the politically entitled. Clinton expects them this year to appear in the form of older white women in the working class.
"Senator Clinton is counting on them to show up at the convention, announce that Obama is unelectable, and hand her the nomination," said one staffer. "It's not a lot to base the campaign on, but you've got to remember that the Senator has a lot of experience with this kind of thing. You know: Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, all that."
"I'm still here because I think I would be the best president," said the candidate characterized of late as either indomitable or delusional. "So now it will be up to the super-duper delegates to decide."
Officials in Clinton's campaign took time from updating resumes and checking monster.com to explain, on the condition of anonymity, her remark. Super-duper delegates, they said, are rather like a combination of Greek gods, comic book super heroes, and the tooth fairy. Invisible to ordinary humans, they manifest themselves in various forms to the politically entitled. Clinton expects them this year to appear in the form of older white women in the working class.
"Senator Clinton is counting on them to show up at the convention, announce that Obama is unelectable, and hand her the nomination," said one staffer. "It's not a lot to base the campaign on, but you've got to remember that the Senator has a lot of experience with this kind of thing. You know: Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, all that."
Monday, May 19, 2008
Myanmar Update: One News Story
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette briefly covers the return of Joshua and Khin Htaik Leme to Myanmar with relief supplies provided by American Christians.
Gentle readers will note well that Joshua Leme is a distinguished alumnus of Cincinnati Christian University and the president of Eastern Bible Institute in Yangon. The water purification systems that he is carrying into the country were funded by International Disaster Emergency Services.
Meanwhile, donations to IDES for Myanmar relief have not been forthcoming. The IDES staff speculates that the media hasn't provided the kind of visual images that motivate giving. We also suspect that donors may not realize how readily IDES can get supplies into Myanmar despite its xenophobic military junta.
In any case, we put out the call again. Click here to give online. Send checks to:
IDES
PO Box 60
Kempton, IN 46049-0060
Gentle readers will note well that Joshua Leme is a distinguished alumnus of Cincinnati Christian University and the president of Eastern Bible Institute in Yangon. The water purification systems that he is carrying into the country were funded by International Disaster Emergency Services.
Meanwhile, donations to IDES for Myanmar relief have not been forthcoming. The IDES staff speculates that the media hasn't provided the kind of visual images that motivate giving. We also suspect that donors may not realize how readily IDES can get supplies into Myanmar despite its xenophobic military junta.
In any case, we put out the call again. Click here to give online. Send checks to:
IDES
PO Box 60
Kempton, IN 46049-0060
What's Wrong with Polygamy? Do the Exegesis and the Math!
Today's Philly Inquirer carries an opinion piece by Martha Nussbaum, a professor in an endowed chair at the University of Chicago, arguing that polygamy is just fine.
We think that her quasi-libertarian, John Stuart Mill-inspired analysis is problematic on two major counts.
First, she suggests that polygamy is positively enshrined in Western Civilization because it is found in the Bible. Such a reading of the Bible is utterly flawed, however. The biblical narrative begins with monogamy at the center of the ideal creation (Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve and Gwendolyn and Sadie and Margaret). Deviations from monogamy are universally treated negatively in biblical narrative. To say it bluntly, every polygamous arrangement in the Bible has a very sad ending. Polygamy in the Bible is treated honestly as a fact of the culture, and the Mosaic Law seeks to regulate it without endorsing it, like slavery. But it is never something that is OK because Abraham or Jacob or David did it. Those dudes had nothing but problems because of it.
In sum the Bible portrays polygamy as a deviation from the divinely established norm, a consequence of unfaith and a sign of accommodation to the surrounding pagan culture, and ultimately as poison to harmonious familial relationships. Nussbaum's reading of the Hebrew Bible is miserably one-sided, reflecting a level of hermeneutical skill far below what one would expect of a tenured professor in a prestigious law school (the other kind of school besides a seminary that values interpretation as a professional skill).
Second, she doesn't do the math, and the math is enormously easy. Polygamy is problematic socially because it dooms poor men to being wifeless. Because men and women exist in nearly equal numbers, and because multiple wives cost extra money, polygamy inevitably leads to the accumulation of wives by the rich and the deprivation of marriage to poor men. Nussbaum cites with apparent approval the Mormons' 19th-century propaganda that plural marriage reduces married men's proclivity to visit prostitutes. Ignored in that equation are the men who remain unmarried because the available women have been taken into polygamous arrangements, who on the argument's assumption of unrestrained male sexual desire would be driven to the very thing that polygamy was supposed to prevent.
Note this well: SWNID hates economic arguments based on the assumption that wealth is a zero-sum game. But the marriage market is most definitely a zero-sum game. We can't increase production of women to meet the demand for plural marriage.* In the case of marriage, non-centrally controlled socialism is the social necessity. One wife per gentleman only, please! And the government has a mandate to say that, so that the liberty of all, in this case to have a chance at marriage, can be protected.
SWNID also hates slippery slope arguments, but Nussbaum does give one pause on this point. Advocates of such inventions of same-sex marriage have protested mightily when opponents have said that the innovations open the door to other arrangements, like polygamy. Well, what will the gay marriage advocates say to a prominent law professor arguing for the very thing, on related social and historical grounds?
______________
*China is reaping a social whirlwind as its one-child policy yields a generation in which gender-selected men far outnumber women.
We think that her quasi-libertarian, John Stuart Mill-inspired analysis is problematic on two major counts.
First, she suggests that polygamy is positively enshrined in Western Civilization because it is found in the Bible. Such a reading of the Bible is utterly flawed, however. The biblical narrative begins with monogamy at the center of the ideal creation (Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve and Gwendolyn and Sadie and Margaret). Deviations from monogamy are universally treated negatively in biblical narrative. To say it bluntly, every polygamous arrangement in the Bible has a very sad ending. Polygamy in the Bible is treated honestly as a fact of the culture, and the Mosaic Law seeks to regulate it without endorsing it, like slavery. But it is never something that is OK because Abraham or Jacob or David did it. Those dudes had nothing but problems because of it.
In sum the Bible portrays polygamy as a deviation from the divinely established norm, a consequence of unfaith and a sign of accommodation to the surrounding pagan culture, and ultimately as poison to harmonious familial relationships. Nussbaum's reading of the Hebrew Bible is miserably one-sided, reflecting a level of hermeneutical skill far below what one would expect of a tenured professor in a prestigious law school (the other kind of school besides a seminary that values interpretation as a professional skill).
Second, she doesn't do the math, and the math is enormously easy. Polygamy is problematic socially because it dooms poor men to being wifeless. Because men and women exist in nearly equal numbers, and because multiple wives cost extra money, polygamy inevitably leads to the accumulation of wives by the rich and the deprivation of marriage to poor men. Nussbaum cites with apparent approval the Mormons' 19th-century propaganda that plural marriage reduces married men's proclivity to visit prostitutes. Ignored in that equation are the men who remain unmarried because the available women have been taken into polygamous arrangements, who on the argument's assumption of unrestrained male sexual desire would be driven to the very thing that polygamy was supposed to prevent.
Note this well: SWNID hates economic arguments based on the assumption that wealth is a zero-sum game. But the marriage market is most definitely a zero-sum game. We can't increase production of women to meet the demand for plural marriage.* In the case of marriage, non-centrally controlled socialism is the social necessity. One wife per gentleman only, please! And the government has a mandate to say that, so that the liberty of all, in this case to have a chance at marriage, can be protected.
SWNID also hates slippery slope arguments, but Nussbaum does give one pause on this point. Advocates of such inventions of same-sex marriage have protested mightily when opponents have said that the innovations open the door to other arrangements, like polygamy. Well, what will the gay marriage advocates say to a prominent law professor arguing for the very thing, on related social and historical grounds?
______________
*China is reaping a social whirlwind as its one-child policy yields a generation in which gender-selected men far outnumber women.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Ds' Primary Strategy: Run Against Bush
Yesterday's and today's indignant responses from the Obama campaign about Bush's criticism of attempts to negotiate with terrorists are being misreported by the media. That is, misreported as to the significance, not as to the facts.
Yes, Bush said in the Knesset that it's silly to think that we'll convince terrorists that they've been terribly wrong all along. And who can argue?
Well, Obama can. Not that he says it's smart to talk to terrorists, though he did say that he's willing to have direct talks with no preconditions with state sponsors of terrorism and nuclear proliferation like Iran, Syria and North Korea. He says that Bush was aiming at him and unfairly criticizing him while abroad. "Dishonest and divisive" are Obama's words, certainly not new ones in recent Democratic discourse.
The Bushies said no, the remark was about Carter, or at least that they figured people would think that they were criticizing Carter. Carter, of course, deserves all that and more. If the Knesset wanted to burn Carter in effigy, Bush would be justified in lighting the match.
But the underreported key is that Obama wants Bush to criticize him in public, as much as possible and as directly as possible.
Why? Because the primary Democratic strategy this year is to run against the one man who constitutionally can't be on the ticket for the Rs. Everything that McCain proposes is a continuation of the failed policies of George W. Bush. Every remark that Bush makes is yet another divisive, unfair slam of Obama.
The question is whether the electorate will continue to believe it in six months. If, as seems at least plausible, the economy continues to rebound and the war continues to go well, we wonder whether the efforts of the media and the Dems to portray the present as the apocalypse will remain convincing to 51% of citizens 18 or over. We don't expect people to start liking Bush. But we do wonder whether they'll think that a modified continuation of Bush is better than an unmodified reprise of Carter.
So Obama isn't being hypersensitive or self-absorbed with his response. He's being sly, keeping the Dems' most salable characteristic--we're not Dubya--in front of everyone.
Yes, Bush said in the Knesset that it's silly to think that we'll convince terrorists that they've been terribly wrong all along. And who can argue?
Well, Obama can. Not that he says it's smart to talk to terrorists, though he did say that he's willing to have direct talks with no preconditions with state sponsors of terrorism and nuclear proliferation like Iran, Syria and North Korea. He says that Bush was aiming at him and unfairly criticizing him while abroad. "Dishonest and divisive" are Obama's words, certainly not new ones in recent Democratic discourse.
The Bushies said no, the remark was about Carter, or at least that they figured people would think that they were criticizing Carter. Carter, of course, deserves all that and more. If the Knesset wanted to burn Carter in effigy, Bush would be justified in lighting the match.
But the underreported key is that Obama wants Bush to criticize him in public, as much as possible and as directly as possible.
Why? Because the primary Democratic strategy this year is to run against the one man who constitutionally can't be on the ticket for the Rs. Everything that McCain proposes is a continuation of the failed policies of George W. Bush. Every remark that Bush makes is yet another divisive, unfair slam of Obama.
The question is whether the electorate will continue to believe it in six months. If, as seems at least plausible, the economy continues to rebound and the war continues to go well, we wonder whether the efforts of the media and the Dems to portray the present as the apocalypse will remain convincing to 51% of citizens 18 or over. We don't expect people to start liking Bush. But we do wonder whether they'll think that a modified continuation of Bush is better than an unmodified reprise of Carter.
So Obama isn't being hypersensitive or self-absorbed with his response. He's being sly, keeping the Dems' most salable characteristic--we're not Dubya--in front of everyone.
Gray Lady Right for Criminally Wrong Reasons
We knew it couldn't be so.
The NY Times today editorializes against the farm bill that passed the House and Senate yesterday. Bush has pledged to veto it, and for good reason.
So has the insular editorial staff of the Times finally exited its echo chamber and entered reality?
No.
The best objection to the current farm bill, indeed to farm subsidies generally, is that they perpetuate inefficiency in domestic agriculture while stifling the development of agriculture in the developing world, thereby making the whole world poorer and hungrier than it would be otherwise.
But no! The Times objects because the farm bill rewards rich farmers when agricultural prices are high. The issue for the Times has nothing to do with getting more food at cheaper prices for the world's humans. It is redistributing government largess from rich farmers to poor folk.
We find ourselves alternately indignant and exhausted by the elite public media's insanely sanctimonious posturing on such issues. The facts are so clear that our so-called Newspaper of Record seems able to look straight past them to the zero-sum myth that the primary problem is distribution of current production, not the development and distribution of means of production.
We say this to the left with a bit of SWNIDish anger: we are sick unto death of the self-righteous accusation that conservatives love the rich and hate the poor. Whether the left realizes it or not, their policies enshrine a contempt for the poor that traps them forever in a client-patron relationship that demeans their human spirit at the same time that it deprives their material existence. And the real beneficiary of all this noblesse oblige is the self-esteem of those who believe that by taking a few ducats from others and passing them out to the needy, they have saved people who are perpetually helpless.
And now a bit of SWNIDish advice: we urge thoughtful people to stop decrying the unequal distribution of wealth and start working on the unequal distribution of opportunity. Shut up about how awful it is that 0.001% of the world's population enjoys 99.99999% of the world's caviar, or whatever it is this week. Instead, get busy encouraging microfinance, supporting education, agricultural and industrial development, promoting property rights and the rule of law, and doing other things that are already lifting millions of people out of poverty worldwide.
Oh, yeah: the Times also wants better support for organic farming. Yes, ma'am! Let's feed the world by eliminating agricultural efficiency for an outcome that has no demonstrable effect on human health, devoting more acres to grow less food that produces not one smidgeon of improved nutrition. How cute!
For a thoughtful alternative to the Times's criminal ignorance, we recommend US News and Book of Lists for this week's feature article, "8 Ways to Fix the Global Food Crisis." We are less convinced than they that overcrowding of the planet is the problem, not least because rising prosperity tends to curb population growth. But most of the suggestions here expose the Times agenda in all its foolishness.
The NY Times today editorializes against the farm bill that passed the House and Senate yesterday. Bush has pledged to veto it, and for good reason.
So has the insular editorial staff of the Times finally exited its echo chamber and entered reality?
No.
The best objection to the current farm bill, indeed to farm subsidies generally, is that they perpetuate inefficiency in domestic agriculture while stifling the development of agriculture in the developing world, thereby making the whole world poorer and hungrier than it would be otherwise.
But no! The Times objects because the farm bill rewards rich farmers when agricultural prices are high. The issue for the Times has nothing to do with getting more food at cheaper prices for the world's humans. It is redistributing government largess from rich farmers to poor folk.
We find ourselves alternately indignant and exhausted by the elite public media's insanely sanctimonious posturing on such issues. The facts are so clear that our so-called Newspaper of Record seems able to look straight past them to the zero-sum myth that the primary problem is distribution of current production, not the development and distribution of means of production.
We say this to the left with a bit of SWNIDish anger: we are sick unto death of the self-righteous accusation that conservatives love the rich and hate the poor. Whether the left realizes it or not, their policies enshrine a contempt for the poor that traps them forever in a client-patron relationship that demeans their human spirit at the same time that it deprives their material existence. And the real beneficiary of all this noblesse oblige is the self-esteem of those who believe that by taking a few ducats from others and passing them out to the needy, they have saved people who are perpetually helpless.
And now a bit of SWNIDish advice: we urge thoughtful people to stop decrying the unequal distribution of wealth and start working on the unequal distribution of opportunity. Shut up about how awful it is that 0.001% of the world's population enjoys 99.99999% of the world's caviar, or whatever it is this week. Instead, get busy encouraging microfinance, supporting education, agricultural and industrial development, promoting property rights and the rule of law, and doing other things that are already lifting millions of people out of poverty worldwide.
Oh, yeah: the Times also wants better support for organic farming. Yes, ma'am! Let's feed the world by eliminating agricultural efficiency for an outcome that has no demonstrable effect on human health, devoting more acres to grow less food that produces not one smidgeon of improved nutrition. How cute!
For a thoughtful alternative to the Times's criminal ignorance, we recommend US News and Book of Lists for this week's feature article, "8 Ways to Fix the Global Food Crisis." We are less convinced than they that overcrowding of the planet is the problem, not least because rising prosperity tends to curb population growth. But most of the suggestions here expose the Times agenda in all its foolishness.
Quick Economic Primer on Benefits of Immigration
To those gentle readers still not persuaded by SWNIDish wisdom to support a more open immigration policy for our Republic, we commend today's summary in the WSJ of Jason Riley's book Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders.
Riley appears to make a mostly-economic case for supporting immigration, and as an amateur economist, we find it completely sound. We add that welcoming immigrants is also very consistent with an enlightened approach to loving one's neighbor, a pretty important moral imperative for folks like us.
Riley appears to make a mostly-economic case for supporting immigration, and as an amateur economist, we find it completely sound. We add that welcoming immigrants is also very consistent with an enlightened approach to loving one's neighbor, a pretty important moral imperative for folks like us.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
For Reminders of Iraq, Depend on Barone
Michael Barone's most recent column reviews the recent book War and Decision by retired Defense Department number 3 Douglas Feith. We find this paragraph a particularly helpful reminder about that war that everyone knows was so stupid:
Unfortunately—and here Feith is critical of his ultimate boss, George W. Bush—the administration allowed its critics to frame the issue around the fact that stockpiles of weapons weren't found. Here we see at work the liberal fallacy, apparent in debates on gun control, that weapons are the problem, rather than the people with the capability and will to use them to kill others. The fact that millions of law-abiding Americans have guns is not a problem; the problem is that criminals can get them and have the will to kill others. Similarly, the fact that France has WMDs is not a problem; the fact that Saddam Hussein had the capability to produce WMDs and the will to use them against us was.
CA Supremes: Ain't No Legislation Strong Enough
The ruling today of California's Supreme Court overturning legislation requiring that marriage partners be singular and oppositely gendered now becomes the prime exhibit on the need for judicial restraint.
In November California voters will doubtless approve an amendment to their state's constitution defining marriage in the traditional way. In the meantime, the justices have their moment to bask in their self-defined superior moral judgment. In the months in between, Californians will deal with an even more intense version of the signature social chaos of the Left Coast.
We urge readers of this blog to recognize the sobering reality that one candidate running for POTUS is pledged to appoint federal judges who exercise restraint and read the law according to its original intent. The other is committed to judicial activism, the Living Constitution, and other labels that name the kind of thing that happened today in Sacramento. Since federal judges, appointed for life, live as long as Galapagos tortoises these days, the effects of the next election will be felt for a very long time.
In November California voters will doubtless approve an amendment to their state's constitution defining marriage in the traditional way. In the meantime, the justices have their moment to bask in their self-defined superior moral judgment. In the months in between, Californians will deal with an even more intense version of the signature social chaos of the Left Coast.
We urge readers of this blog to recognize the sobering reality that one candidate running for POTUS is pledged to appoint federal judges who exercise restraint and read the law according to its original intent. The other is committed to judicial activism, the Living Constitution, and other labels that name the kind of thing that happened today in Sacramento. Since federal judges, appointed for life, live as long as Galapagos tortoises these days, the effects of the next election will be felt for a very long time.
Daily Dem Update
Observing perpetual vigilance against Evil Democrats, we today claim credit for the resignation of boorish Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann. Clearly our post yesterday morning prompted his resignation yesterday evening.
On the national stage John Edwards has once again shown why so many regard him as a courageous, visionary leader. Well before the outcome of the Democratic Presidential Nomination was clear, long before pundits proclaimed the nomination settled, for reasons based on the obvious policy differences between the two remaining candidates, and with no desire to reclaim a share of the limelight or even make a bid for second place on the ticket, John Edwards yesterday surprised 300 million Americans by endorsing Barack Obama.
It is reported that as many as three working-class, white, Southern Democrats who saw themselves as supporters for the self-styled working-class, white, Southern Democrat Edwards will now support Obama.
Speculation immediately turned to whether Edwards would indeed become Obama's running mate. In 2004 Edwards clearly helped John Kerry move up to a strong second-place showing nationally, well ahead of Ralph Nader, so we can expect the same in 2008.
On the national stage John Edwards has once again shown why so many regard him as a courageous, visionary leader. Well before the outcome of the Democratic Presidential Nomination was clear, long before pundits proclaimed the nomination settled, for reasons based on the obvious policy differences between the two remaining candidates, and with no desire to reclaim a share of the limelight or even make a bid for second place on the ticket, John Edwards yesterday surprised 300 million Americans by endorsing Barack Obama.
It is reported that as many as three working-class, white, Southern Democrats who saw themselves as supporters for the self-styled working-class, white, Southern Democrat Edwards will now support Obama.
Speculation immediately turned to whether Edwards would indeed become Obama's running mate. In 2004 Edwards clearly helped John Kerry move up to a strong second-place showing nationally, well ahead of Ralph Nader, so we can expect the same in 2008.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Artful Political Juxtaposition
On Hillary's resemblance to the dead parrot in the classic Monty Python sketch, see Dana Milbank in WaPo.
Next up:
Next up:
- how Obama's promise of tax relief for the middle class plus massively expanded government benefits resembles the claim to have any cheese that one can name in the classic Monty Python cheese shop sketch.
- how the Democrats' attitude toward military power resembles Eric Idle's paranoia about being attacked by someone with a pointed stick in the classic Monty Python self-defense course sketch.
Recommended comments: other political parallels to Python (must include the word "classic" to qualify).
Will Rogers Speaks to Hillary, Mark Dann
Immortal American humorist Will Rogers is credited with this aphorism: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
This remark speaks through the ages to two current political dramas: Hillary's refusal to quit, and Mark Dann's refusal to quit. Both speak volumes about the endemic disarray of the Party of Jackson.
In August 1974, a delegation from Congress, led by the esteemed senior Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, visited embattled President Nixon to tell him that with the revelations of the Oval Office tapes that he had participated in a conspiracy to cover up the Watergate break-in, his support from congressional Republicans was gone. Consequently, he resigned immediately, specifically citing his loss of congressional support as the proximate cause. The Republic was spared paralyzing impeachment proceedings precisely because Republicans had the modicum of principle and the power of influence to prevail upon a President of their party who had won a landslide reelection two years before.
Today there is no such Democrat who from a stature of integrity and statesmanship can speak to someone of Mark Dann's stature, let alone Hillary Clinton's, and get that person to accept reality for the good of the party, let alone the Republic.
We less stridently make a further point. We seriously doubt that those Democrats who knew Mark Dann prior to his election as Ohio's attorney general only recently discovered that he lives like a frat boy. We know for sure that lots of Ds understood Hillary Clinton's narcissistic, unprincipled ruthlessness after her decades of public life filled with financial scandals, character assassination, and other acts of self-serving shadiness. Those people never spoke up, publicly or privately (at least to any effect) to dissuade either these candidates or their potential supporters from electoral quests that by the hour are proving more and more damaging to their party's dignity and political prospects.
Granted that scoundrels are hard to identify preemptively and, when the scoundrels are talented, harder still to dislodge from power, we note this phenomenon as another disturbing indicator of the gutlessness of FDR's heirs. These sorry sagas would not have happened in Truman's day.
This remark speaks through the ages to two current political dramas: Hillary's refusal to quit, and Mark Dann's refusal to quit. Both speak volumes about the endemic disarray of the Party of Jackson.
In August 1974, a delegation from Congress, led by the esteemed senior Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, visited embattled President Nixon to tell him that with the revelations of the Oval Office tapes that he had participated in a conspiracy to cover up the Watergate break-in, his support from congressional Republicans was gone. Consequently, he resigned immediately, specifically citing his loss of congressional support as the proximate cause. The Republic was spared paralyzing impeachment proceedings precisely because Republicans had the modicum of principle and the power of influence to prevail upon a President of their party who had won a landslide reelection two years before.
Today there is no such Democrat who from a stature of integrity and statesmanship can speak to someone of Mark Dann's stature, let alone Hillary Clinton's, and get that person to accept reality for the good of the party, let alone the Republic.
We less stridently make a further point. We seriously doubt that those Democrats who knew Mark Dann prior to his election as Ohio's attorney general only recently discovered that he lives like a frat boy. We know for sure that lots of Ds understood Hillary Clinton's narcissistic, unprincipled ruthlessness after her decades of public life filled with financial scandals, character assassination, and other acts of self-serving shadiness. Those people never spoke up, publicly or privately (at least to any effect) to dissuade either these candidates or their potential supporters from electoral quests that by the hour are proving more and more damaging to their party's dignity and political prospects.
Granted that scoundrels are hard to identify preemptively and, when the scoundrels are talented, harder still to dislodge from power, we note this phenomenon as another disturbing indicator of the gutlessness of FDR's heirs. These sorry sagas would not have happened in Truman's day.
So Much for Free Speech and Freedom of Inquiry
The University of Toledo has fired human resources officer Crystal Dixon over her publishing in the Toledo Free Press an opinion piece objecting to the classification of homosexuals as civil rights victims.
Ms. Dixon's article articulates the statistical fact that there is no evidence of economic discrimination against homosexuals and her theological conclusion that the created order makes heterosexual behavior the norm. Along the way she notes examples of individuals who have abandoned homosexual behavior because of religious conviction and conversion. (We SWNIDishly affirm her articulation of the entire issue, for what it's worth.)
The university says that someone who holds these views cannot possibly treat employees fairly. So she's outta there, summarily fired in a work environment where the norm is perpetual employment regardless of productivity or proclivity.
The University of Toledo, one of thirteen public universities in the state of Ohio, is acting in a way that confirms what everyone seems to know about higher education but few in higher education will acknowledge: that most institutions are committed not to freedom of thought but to the dogma of the political left, and so their greatest hostility is reserved for people who think in ways that adhere to Christian orthodoxy, commonly labeled as retrograde, ignorant superstition or pathology.
Elsewhere, the University of Colorado is embroiled in controversy over the appointment of a professor of conservative thought. The established left at what is doubtless one of the most politically and socially liberal public universities on the planet decries the deliberate inclusion of a conservative. Conservatives, nearly all by definition outside the university, decry the inclusion of a labeled "conservative" as if such a creature were on display in a freak show. Then there's the question as to whether the occupant of the chair will hold conservative views or merely "study conservatives," which is to say treat them as freakish advocates of retrograde, ignorant superstition and pathology.
Meanwhile, Wheaton's careful and principled receiving of the resignation, per clear internal policies, of a professor who is divorcing and who refuses to let the circumstances of his divorce be reviewed is still the object of publicity, though in yesterday's WSJ it was positive publicity. What's positive, of course, is that Wheaton is not acting like Toledo. Wheaton makes no pretense of welcoming all points of view. It tells its people in advance where it stands. At Toledo and other public and secular private universities, everyone knows what the orthodoxies are but no one will say them clearly as matters of policy, pretending all the while to welcome diverse opinions while systematically excluding the Christian ones.
SWNID normally eschews whining about such matters, which are facts of life in this present, evil age. But some examples are just too extreme to ignore. The senior administration of the University of Toledo could not have acted in a way that more clearly confirms the unspoken reality of higher education. The folks at Boulder are more subtle but no less uncritical or even unaware of their own subculture and how it shapes their behavior.
Ms. Dixon's article articulates the statistical fact that there is no evidence of economic discrimination against homosexuals and her theological conclusion that the created order makes heterosexual behavior the norm. Along the way she notes examples of individuals who have abandoned homosexual behavior because of religious conviction and conversion. (We SWNIDishly affirm her articulation of the entire issue, for what it's worth.)
The university says that someone who holds these views cannot possibly treat employees fairly. So she's outta there, summarily fired in a work environment where the norm is perpetual employment regardless of productivity or proclivity.
The University of Toledo, one of thirteen public universities in the state of Ohio, is acting in a way that confirms what everyone seems to know about higher education but few in higher education will acknowledge: that most institutions are committed not to freedom of thought but to the dogma of the political left, and so their greatest hostility is reserved for people who think in ways that adhere to Christian orthodoxy, commonly labeled as retrograde, ignorant superstition or pathology.
Elsewhere, the University of Colorado is embroiled in controversy over the appointment of a professor of conservative thought. The established left at what is doubtless one of the most politically and socially liberal public universities on the planet decries the deliberate inclusion of a conservative. Conservatives, nearly all by definition outside the university, decry the inclusion of a labeled "conservative" as if such a creature were on display in a freak show. Then there's the question as to whether the occupant of the chair will hold conservative views or merely "study conservatives," which is to say treat them as freakish advocates of retrograde, ignorant superstition and pathology.
Meanwhile, Wheaton's careful and principled receiving of the resignation, per clear internal policies, of a professor who is divorcing and who refuses to let the circumstances of his divorce be reviewed is still the object of publicity, though in yesterday's WSJ it was positive publicity. What's positive, of course, is that Wheaton is not acting like Toledo. Wheaton makes no pretense of welcoming all points of view. It tells its people in advance where it stands. At Toledo and other public and secular private universities, everyone knows what the orthodoxies are but no one will say them clearly as matters of policy, pretending all the while to welcome diverse opinions while systematically excluding the Christian ones.
SWNID normally eschews whining about such matters, which are facts of life in this present, evil age. But some examples are just too extreme to ignore. The senior administration of the University of Toledo could not have acted in a way that more clearly confirms the unspoken reality of higher education. The folks at Boulder are more subtle but no less uncritical or even unaware of their own subculture and how it shapes their behavior.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Myanmar Relief: Boo, Kleptocratic Military Rulers! Hooray Intrepid, Generous Christians!
The news is filled with reports of how relief is not getting through to the victims of the cyclone in Myanmar, thanks to the paranoid, narcissistic interference of the thieving generals that run the country.
We're here quietly to report that aid can get through by other means, not reported by the MSM. Christians in Myanmar have developed sophisticated, effective means of transporting Bibles, Christian literature and other supplies into the country. Those Christians are now ready to do the same with rice, water purification systems, plastic sheeting for temporary roofs, medicines, clothing and the like.
And as gentle readers fulfill their generous impulses to help, we recommend again that they do so through International Disaster Emergency Services. IDES is already sending funds to on-the-ground Christians who can have immediate and long-term impact.
Here's a link to recent info from IDES on what's already going on. As a member of the board of directors, we assure gentle readers that this is just the start. Folks connected to IDES are finishing up work that other organizations abandoned or never really started in other disaster spots. The same can be expected in Myanmar.
To give to IDES online via a secure web site, follow the instructions here.
To give the old-fashioned way, send a check to:
IDES
PO Box 60
Kempton, IN 46049-0060
And check the link above for updates on the situation in Myanmar.
We're here quietly to report that aid can get through by other means, not reported by the MSM. Christians in Myanmar have developed sophisticated, effective means of transporting Bibles, Christian literature and other supplies into the country. Those Christians are now ready to do the same with rice, water purification systems, plastic sheeting for temporary roofs, medicines, clothing and the like.
And as gentle readers fulfill their generous impulses to help, we recommend again that they do so through International Disaster Emergency Services. IDES is already sending funds to on-the-ground Christians who can have immediate and long-term impact.
Here's a link to recent info from IDES on what's already going on. As a member of the board of directors, we assure gentle readers that this is just the start. Folks connected to IDES are finishing up work that other organizations abandoned or never really started in other disaster spots. The same can be expected in Myanmar.
To give to IDES online via a secure web site, follow the instructions here.
To give the old-fashioned way, send a check to:
IDES
PO Box 60
Kempton, IN 46049-0060
And check the link above for updates on the situation in Myanmar.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Obama: Big Plans for Federal Republic
Looks like DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, the UP of Michigan, the Florida Keys, and maybe southern Ontario have some big changes ahead in an Obama administration:
Actually, there must be some more, since the Senator isn't counting Alaska and Hawaii. So maybe New York City and Chicago will be divided from Upstate New York and Downstate Illinois respectively. What else is in the offing? Mexico?
We're gonna need a bigger flag.
Actually, there must be some more, since the Senator isn't counting Alaska and Hawaii. So maybe New York City and Chicago will be divided from Upstate New York and Downstate Illinois respectively. What else is in the offing? Mexico?
We're gonna need a bigger flag.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Hillary Revives Dixiecrat Party, But Where's Harry?
Gentle readers are no doubt familiar with the outlines of the 1948 presidential election. Harry Truman was the Democrat incumbent, but the immortal Missourian had managed to alienate two crucial constituencies, both of which broke from the party to run independent campaigns.
On the left, Truman had alienated the pinkish, socialist Ds with his confrontation of the Soviets after the close of WWII. Those folks ran Henry Wallace, FDR's VP in his third term, finding Truman's anticommunism repugnant.*
Elsewhere (but it's not the right, as racism is in fact alien to conservatism), the segregationists of the solidly Democratic South were incensed by Truman's integration of the armed forces.** They ran South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond (who later switched to the Republican Party that embraced a mild form of segregationist rhetoric in 1968) to punish Truman for stepping away from segregationist orthodoxy.
Truman, of course, managed somehow to win, having been expected to lose to Republican nominee Thomas Dewey, a popular governor of New York who had given FDR a decent challenge in 1944. His blend of populist rhetoric, anticommunism, folksy charm, unimpeachable integrity and political energy proved irresistible to the mainstream of American voters.
On Wednesday, remarking that hard-working folk and white folk would prefer to vote for her than Obama, Hillary Clinton evoked memories of Strom Thurmond. It remains to be seen whether she or her party will ever pay for this awful revival of everything that is worst about the political party that Lincoln didn't belong to. If recent history is any predictor of the near future, the answer is no. Latent racism in the Democratic Party is still largely eclipsed by the Republicans' adoption of the so-called "southern strategy" in 1968, a legacy that continues to hinder their wider demographic appeal.
In this comparison between 2008 and 1948, what strikes us is the absence of a figure like Truman among the Democrats. There has been no vigorous internationalist and economic moderate among the Ds. Indeed, there hasn't been one on the national scene (though locally they do seem to survive) in decades.
While it would be unfair to say that Obama, or virtually any recent Democrat, is as hospitable to socialism as Henry Wallace and his menagerie of Trotskyites, Obama is certainly more a man of the conventional left than the mainstream middle. What record of legislation Obama has and what specifics of policy proposals he lays forth are all the predictable, dreary, oft-proved-to-be-self-defeating positions in the heritage of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern (now an Obama supporter, as if anyone wanted his support), Walter Mondale, Tom Daschele, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman.
To put it differently, Obama is clearly to the left of where Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton governed. The blood runs cold at the thought.
As to Obama's being the post-racial candidate, Hillary has now spoiled that celebration, with unfortunate help from Jeremiah Wright.
______________
*Democratic party leaders, the guys now derided as inhabiting the "smoke-filled room," forced FDR to accept Truman as running mate because they expected FDR to die in office and believed that Wallace would be awful for the country as President. Those were the days!
**Truman in his personal life expressed the conventional racism of his time, using racial and ethnic slurs and stereotypes and enjoying racist jokes. Yet he had the courage, principle and vision to integrate the armed forces. That impresses us all the more.
On the left, Truman had alienated the pinkish, socialist Ds with his confrontation of the Soviets after the close of WWII. Those folks ran Henry Wallace, FDR's VP in his third term, finding Truman's anticommunism repugnant.*
Elsewhere (but it's not the right, as racism is in fact alien to conservatism), the segregationists of the solidly Democratic South were incensed by Truman's integration of the armed forces.** They ran South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond (who later switched to the Republican Party that embraced a mild form of segregationist rhetoric in 1968) to punish Truman for stepping away from segregationist orthodoxy.
Truman, of course, managed somehow to win, having been expected to lose to Republican nominee Thomas Dewey, a popular governor of New York who had given FDR a decent challenge in 1944. His blend of populist rhetoric, anticommunism, folksy charm, unimpeachable integrity and political energy proved irresistible to the mainstream of American voters.
On Wednesday, remarking that hard-working folk and white folk would prefer to vote for her than Obama, Hillary Clinton evoked memories of Strom Thurmond. It remains to be seen whether she or her party will ever pay for this awful revival of everything that is worst about the political party that Lincoln didn't belong to. If recent history is any predictor of the near future, the answer is no. Latent racism in the Democratic Party is still largely eclipsed by the Republicans' adoption of the so-called "southern strategy" in 1968, a legacy that continues to hinder their wider demographic appeal.
In this comparison between 2008 and 1948, what strikes us is the absence of a figure like Truman among the Democrats. There has been no vigorous internationalist and economic moderate among the Ds. Indeed, there hasn't been one on the national scene (though locally they do seem to survive) in decades.
While it would be unfair to say that Obama, or virtually any recent Democrat, is as hospitable to socialism as Henry Wallace and his menagerie of Trotskyites, Obama is certainly more a man of the conventional left than the mainstream middle. What record of legislation Obama has and what specifics of policy proposals he lays forth are all the predictable, dreary, oft-proved-to-be-self-defeating positions in the heritage of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern (now an Obama supporter, as if anyone wanted his support), Walter Mondale, Tom Daschele, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman.
To put it differently, Obama is clearly to the left of where Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton governed. The blood runs cold at the thought.
As to Obama's being the post-racial candidate, Hillary has now spoiled that celebration, with unfortunate help from Jeremiah Wright.
______________
*Democratic party leaders, the guys now derided as inhabiting the "smoke-filled room," forced FDR to accept Truman as running mate because they expected FDR to die in office and believed that Wallace would be awful for the country as President. Those were the days!
**Truman in his personal life expressed the conventional racism of his time, using racial and ethnic slurs and stereotypes and enjoying racist jokes. Yet he had the courage, principle and vision to integrate the armed forces. That impresses us all the more.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Another Compendium of Bad Language
No, not profanity, but poor use of English. We recommend a quick trip to "English Fail," a collection of photos detailing the global abuse of Shakespeare's tongue.
Another Obama Video
Which is better in this one: Bill Clinton as the Emperor, or Abraham Lincoln as Obi Wan?
We tip the SWNIDish hat to PS/SWNID for this recommendation.
We tip the SWNIDish hat to PS/SWNID for this recommendation.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Historic CCU Footage Available
Gentle readers who spent the Carter Administration with SWNID at the Harvard of Price Hill will enjoy viewing again the 1978 Cincinnati Bible Seminary Talent Night film created by Ron and Jon Vance (a.k.a. the Coen Brothers of the Restoration Movement).
Age has not treated the film kindly as far as clarity is concerned, but we enjoyed viewing so many old friends when they weren't so ... well ... settled in life.
Our thanks to the esteemed brothers Vance for making this film available.
So does anyone know if Paul Brunsman (a.k.a. the Eisenstein of the Restoration Movement) has YouTubed the "Luther" films yet?
Apologies to gentle readers who aren't part of this little subculture. We won't occupy the blog regularly with nostalgia.
Age has not treated the film kindly as far as clarity is concerned, but we enjoyed viewing so many old friends when they weren't so ... well ... settled in life.
Our thanks to the esteemed brothers Vance for making this film available.
So does anyone know if Paul Brunsman (a.k.a. the Eisenstein of the Restoration Movement) has YouTubed the "Luther" films yet?
Apologies to gentle readers who aren't part of this little subculture. We won't occupy the blog regularly with nostalgia.
Monday, May 05, 2008
P.J. Alert: Graduation Advice
We direct gentle readers yet again to the wit and wisdom (mostly wit) of P. J. O'Rourke, this time at the LA Times. His faux graduation address is an excellent counterpoint to the sloppy sentimentality of mildly leftist seasonal orations.
For less-alert gentle readers: SWNID doesn't equate capitalist acquisitiveness with virtue, though we do think that a bit of this perspective is a needed antidote to the equation of anti-capitalism with virtue.
For less-alert gentle readers: SWNID doesn't equate capitalist acquisitiveness with virtue, though we do think that a bit of this perspective is a needed antidote to the equation of anti-capitalism with virtue.
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Campaign: Nothing New, But Well Said
With the slow-motion train wreck that is the Democratic nominating process having attained an even slower motion, we commend today's WSJ column by Joseph Epstein, who manages to wring from the monotony of an electoral draw between two flawed candidates enough new comparisons, mostly literary, to amuse us hardened political observers.
A delicious quotation:
A delicious quotation:
I have always considered the Clintons as little more than a branch of William Faulkner's Snopes family, in their cases Snopeses who have given high SAT scores a bad name. I don't find it easy to imagine how anyone outside her immediate family could find Mrs. Clinton, in her bouncy campaign persona – Hubert Humphrey in drag – appealing.
More easily imagined is Mrs. Clinton at the start of a new day, slipping into yet another pants-suit, stepping into the makeover room, plastering on that frozen smile, and taking three deep breaths before hitting the bricks in the hope of coming across as more sincere than a Brian Williams necktie – while doing her best impression of a deeply caring person.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Duelling Expelled Reviews
At tothesource this week gentle readers may imbibe contrasting reviews of the anti-Darwinism movie Expelled.
In favor is Dinesh D'Souza of Stanford's Hoover Institute. Against is John Haught of Georgetown University.
We still haven't seen the film. So our comments will be tentative. But being Seldom Wrong, we have opinions even on movies that we haven't seen.
We expect many gentle readers to be excited about the way, as noted by D'Souza, Expelled exposes Richard Dawkins's belief that life on earth was seeded by extraterrestrials. That is genuinely as good a demonstration as one can imagine that it's not reasonable to think that life arose by chance. We like the ET versus God dilemma that this problem presents, because we think God wins.
We have some sympathy for Haught's objection that Expelled throws out the entirety of "Darwinism" because of its failure to address the origin of life or to point inexorably to the existence of God. However, we think that Haught is ignoring a very real issue here, and probably the one that the movie addresses, even if imperfectly.
And so we return to a common complaint: in the United States we glory in interdisciplinary education unless it has to do with the relationship of science to religion. Then the purity of scientific inquiry must be protected against sinister inroads from religion.
We think that science can take care of itself and seriously doubt that rampant superstition and a revival of alchemy or sorcery will break out if discussion of the existence of God or the likelihood of life arising by chance is seriously discussed in a science classroom. We also think that religious belief can take care of itself in such a forum if it is not unfairly disparaged along the lines of the trash talk between professional wrestlers. And we think that no one much cares about the origins and development of life except as it relates to the ultimate question of God and whether human life has significance.
We assert further that evolutionary biology and ID are really only different in very narrow areas that have to do with these very questions: is it reasonable to think that life arose by chance, and is it reasonable to think that an intelligence designed the universe?
What Haught won't acknowledge is that mainstream higher ed is dominated not just by a division between science as a way of knowing and other disciplines but by an exaltation of scientific knowledge as the best knowledge and an irrational hostility to religion (or Judaism and Christianity, really, probably with some recent uneasiness with Islam, but for different reasons). That hostility is illustrated in many reactions to the announcement of a Wheaton College professor's resignation because of his divorce (see previous post below).
That's the problem: that the folks who control much of the power in higher ed want to exclude religion from consideration in our most exalted educational institutions, except to be studied as a curiosity of human behavior--one that can be explained (away) in evolutionary terms.
In favor is Dinesh D'Souza of Stanford's Hoover Institute. Against is John Haught of Georgetown University.
We still haven't seen the film. So our comments will be tentative. But being Seldom Wrong, we have opinions even on movies that we haven't seen.
We expect many gentle readers to be excited about the way, as noted by D'Souza, Expelled exposes Richard Dawkins's belief that life on earth was seeded by extraterrestrials. That is genuinely as good a demonstration as one can imagine that it's not reasonable to think that life arose by chance. We like the ET versus God dilemma that this problem presents, because we think God wins.
We have some sympathy for Haught's objection that Expelled throws out the entirety of "Darwinism" because of its failure to address the origin of life or to point inexorably to the existence of God. However, we think that Haught is ignoring a very real issue here, and probably the one that the movie addresses, even if imperfectly.
And so we return to a common complaint: in the United States we glory in interdisciplinary education unless it has to do with the relationship of science to religion. Then the purity of scientific inquiry must be protected against sinister inroads from religion.
We think that science can take care of itself and seriously doubt that rampant superstition and a revival of alchemy or sorcery will break out if discussion of the existence of God or the likelihood of life arising by chance is seriously discussed in a science classroom. We also think that religious belief can take care of itself in such a forum if it is not unfairly disparaged along the lines of the trash talk between professional wrestlers. And we think that no one much cares about the origins and development of life except as it relates to the ultimate question of God and whether human life has significance.
We assert further that evolutionary biology and ID are really only different in very narrow areas that have to do with these very questions: is it reasonable to think that life arose by chance, and is it reasonable to think that an intelligence designed the universe?
What Haught won't acknowledge is that mainstream higher ed is dominated not just by a division between science as a way of knowing and other disciplines but by an exaltation of scientific knowledge as the best knowledge and an irrational hostility to religion (or Judaism and Christianity, really, probably with some recent uneasiness with Islam, but for different reasons). That hostility is illustrated in many reactions to the announcement of a Wheaton College professor's resignation because of his divorce (see previous post below).
That's the problem: that the folks who control much of the power in higher ed want to exclude religion from consideration in our most exalted educational institutions, except to be studied as a curiosity of human behavior--one that can be explained (away) in evolutionary terms.
Wheaton Prof, Divorcing, Resigns: Some in Higher Ed Seethe
In the world of Christian higher education, the big news is that a Wheaton College professor of English has resigned his position because he and his wife are divorcing. Professor Kent Gramm could discuss the circumstances of his divorce with Wheaton administrators for their judgment as to whether his divorce fits biblical parameters but has chosen not to do so.
Press coverage notes Gramm's personal dilemma and sense of grievance, naturally. We do not blame him for anything that he expresses. We simply acknowledge two points. One is that what is reported is much less than what is known by the parties involved, so outsiders should restrain themselves from making judgments. The other is that Christian institutions that take seriously the moral lives of their employees face the necessity of making inevitably imperfect decisions in formulating policies and applying them. The alternative to facing these difficulties is never adhering to behavioral standards, which for those who think that such behavior matters is the worse alternative.
In sum, we offer our sympathy to Prof. Gramm and to Wheaton. This is hard on everyone--no doubt harder on Prof. Gramm but no picnic for the people who were compelled to carry out Wheaton's policy.
We draw attention to the comments on the article that we have linked, as they likely come from members of the higher education community. In particular, we note those who equate religion with ignorance. We know of no definitive study of how widely such attitudes are expressed by folks in higher ed, but we certainly know that these comments fit a certain stereotype. More on that in the next post (above, for those who need reminding that blogs move backward in time from top to bottom).
Press coverage notes Gramm's personal dilemma and sense of grievance, naturally. We do not blame him for anything that he expresses. We simply acknowledge two points. One is that what is reported is much less than what is known by the parties involved, so outsiders should restrain themselves from making judgments. The other is that Christian institutions that take seriously the moral lives of their employees face the necessity of making inevitably imperfect decisions in formulating policies and applying them. The alternative to facing these difficulties is never adhering to behavioral standards, which for those who think that such behavior matters is the worse alternative.
In sum, we offer our sympathy to Prof. Gramm and to Wheaton. This is hard on everyone--no doubt harder on Prof. Gramm but no picnic for the people who were compelled to carry out Wheaton's policy.
We draw attention to the comments on the article that we have linked, as they likely come from members of the higher education community. In particular, we note those who equate religion with ignorance. We know of no definitive study of how widely such attitudes are expressed by folks in higher ed, but we certainly know that these comments fit a certain stereotype. More on that in the next post (above, for those who need reminding that blogs move backward in time from top to bottom).
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Virginia Tech: An Honest Report
A year after the shootings at Virginia Tech, we welcome in Christian Standard the reflection on the last year from Virginia Tech campus minister and utterly-respected-by-SWNID CCU alum Steve Wilkin. His narrative is remarkably frank, free of self-promotion or sensationalism and reflective of honest ministry.
We offer a quote of the kind that, if other Christian organizations spoke with such honest modesty, would indicate that the church had entered a new level
of discipleship:
We offer a quote of the kind that, if other Christian organizations spoke with such honest modesty, would indicate that the church had entered a new level
of discipleship:
We rejoice that many students who were only nominal believers and who were dabbling in the “pleasures of this world” have been sobered (in more ways than one) by this tragedy. With the help of their fellow student believers in the campus ministries, many of these students are now experiencing a vibrant relationship with God.
I wish I could say this is happening on a massive scale and revival is breaking out like wildfire. That’s just not the case. Some people have been drawn closer to Christ through this adversity, and others have not.
Preemptive SWNIDisms on Critical Reaction to Expelled
A gentle reader informs us that critics don't much like the anti-Darwinism, pro-ID documentary Expelled. Not having seen the movie, we'll offer the following generalizations that may or may not apply:
- Movie critics do react to the ideology of films more than they realize or will acknowledge. We remember in the early 80s that a number of critics panned Chariots of Fire because of its religious content, seeing anything that ventured into such territory as sentimental and manipulative.
- If the movie uses the Michael Moore techniques of “documentary” filmmaking, we can certainly understand someone seeing it as less than entertaining or honest.
- Christians have operated at least since the 1970s with the false hope that if they just had the right media products to get their message out, massive revival would break out. One of Bill Bright’s last public statements was that The Passion of the Christ represented the greatest evangelistic opportunity of our lifetimes. Well, so much for that.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The "Secular" Campus and Religion
As a follow-up to our recent posting on Sex and the Soul, we point to the article in Inside Higher Ed on a recent attempt of some colleges to address how being "secular" affects their addressing "big questions" on their campuses.
We suggest slogging through the article with the following SWINDism in mind: "secular" colleges indulge and even endorse their faculty's abdicating responsibility to gain even a rudimentary grasp of the religious and philosophical issues that their various academic disciplines touch. That is nowhere better reflected than in the quotation that ends the article:
Indeed they are, because no one really cares about the little questions, only the big ones. But putting up boundaries of various kinds is exactly what the "secular" classroom does, and in contrast to the "religious" classroom, the boundaries "aren't written down" or even publicly acknowledged.
That's why Donna Freitas can marvel at the integration and community of the evangelical campus and find it utterly lacking on the secular campus.
We suggest slogging through the article with the following SWINDism in mind: "secular" colleges indulge and even endorse their faculty's abdicating responsibility to gain even a rudimentary grasp of the religious and philosophical issues that their various academic disciplines touch. That is nowhere better reflected than in the quotation that ends the article:
When religious content comes up, “Every classroom has very different rules and those rules aren’t written down anywhere,” [Bucknell chaplain] Reverend Oliver says. “What I describe it as is approaching a boundary or a limit and as you get closer you begin to feel like you’re treading into more and more difficult territory because people don’t know what kinds of responses they’re going to get.”
“Those are moments,” he says, “when people pay attention.”
Indeed they are, because no one really cares about the little questions, only the big ones. But putting up boundaries of various kinds is exactly what the "secular" classroom does, and in contrast to the "religious" classroom, the boundaries "aren't written down" or even publicly acknowledged.
That's why Donna Freitas can marvel at the integration and community of the evangelical campus and find it utterly lacking on the secular campus.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
We're Breaking Editorial Policy for This
This blog is most obviously not about "cute stuff." See all the forwards in your inbox for that. If something even remotely resembles "cute," we refuse on principle to link it.
We violate that to link this. It is probably "cute," but we place it here because we think that the singer shows an impressive grasp of dynamics, rhythm and tempo for her tender age. Her breath control also seems precocious, and her pitch is probably pretty good considering her youth as well.
But it's not here because it's "cute," OK?
We violate that to link this. It is probably "cute," but we place it here because we think that the singer shows an impressive grasp of dynamics, rhythm and tempo for her tender age. Her breath control also seems precocious, and her pitch is probably pretty good considering her youth as well.
But it's not here because it's "cute," OK?
Hamas to Carter: What Hamas Were You Talking About?
It seems that Jimmy Carter's misoverestimation of Hamas's desire for peace was noticed by everyone except Jimmy Carter. This from the BBC:
Seems Hamas's offer is to live in a Palestinian State that includes all the West Bank and Jerusalem with a 10-year truce and no recognition of Israel. In Israel, this alternative is known as "unconditional surrender followed by genocide."
How did our Republic ever elect that sanctimonious Southern clown to anything? Or as Mort Zuckerman of US News closes his column this week (hat tip to JB in CA): "A senior foreign policy official summed it all up: 'Carter is an idiot savant,' he said with a sigh. 'But hold the savant!'"
Palestinian militant group Hamas will not recognise Israel, its political leader Khaled Meshaal has insisted.
He was responding to comments by former US President Jimmy Carter, following their talks in Syria at the weekend.
Seems Hamas's offer is to live in a Palestinian State that includes all the West Bank and Jerusalem with a 10-year truce and no recognition of Israel. In Israel, this alternative is known as "unconditional surrender followed by genocide."
How did our Republic ever elect that sanctimonious Southern clown to anything? Or as Mort Zuckerman of US News closes his column this week (hat tip to JB in CA): "A senior foreign policy official summed it all up: 'Carter is an idiot savant,' he said with a sigh. 'But hold the savant!'"
Video Commentary on the Democrats' Epic Struggle
On the advice of multiple gentle readers, we note with amusement the following YouTube artifacts offering provocative perspectives on the Democratic Party's presidential candidates.
We also express our thanks that at least we don't have to look at John Kerry much this year.
We also express our thanks that at least we don't have to look at John Kerry much this year.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Carter: This Time We Can Really Trust the Terrorists
AP reports the following:
We're not amazed that Carter is naive enough to believe these guys. We're amazed that he's still that naive after the number of times he's been through things like this.
We're also amazed that (a) after all these years the press still reports Carter's babe-in-the-woods comments; (b) Americans voted for this guy once.*
The phrase "prepared to accept" should be considered in other hypothetical contexts:
_________________
*That, at least, can be ascribed to the grim despair of the 1970s, and maybe partly to the use of illegal narcotics.
Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the
right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."
We're not amazed that Carter is naive enough to believe these guys. We're amazed that he's still that naive after the number of times he's been through things like this.
We're also amazed that (a) after all these years the press still reports Carter's babe-in-the-woods comments; (b) Americans voted for this guy once.*
The phrase "prepared to accept" should be considered in other hypothetical contexts:
- The alcoholic: "I am prepared to attend AA meetings."
- The smoker: "I am prepared to quit smoking."
- Bill Clinton: "I am prepared to stop seeing young women."
- SWNID: "I am prepared to stop blogging arrogantly."
We expect adults to understand the nature of statements like this.
And we urge gentle readers to remember that no current politician resembles Carter more than the one who says that he'll immediately have talks with all the Bad Guys as soon as he's inaugurated._________________
*That, at least, can be ascribed to the grim despair of the 1970s, and maybe partly to the use of illegal narcotics.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Not to Be Missed: P. J. on the Theodore Roosevelt
Our hero-worship of P. J. O'Rourke is sustained by his latest journalistic tour de force, an article for the Weekly Standard detailing his experiences visiting the US Navy's aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt.
Normally we offer a quote or two to whet the appetite. But O'Rourke is so inventive that we don't want to spoil for gentle readers the effect of reading his best lines in context for the first time. So just follow the link and read the whole thing.
Recommended comments: quote your own favorite line. Ours is his description of Barack Obama.
Normally we offer a quote or two to whet the appetite. But O'Rourke is so inventive that we don't want to spoil for gentle readers the effect of reading his best lines in context for the first time. So just follow the link and read the whole thing.
Recommended comments: quote your own favorite line. Ours is his description of Barack Obama.
Friday, April 18, 2008
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:
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:
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.
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.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
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:
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!
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!
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
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.
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.
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.
_________________
*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.
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.
_________________
*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.
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.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, April 04, 2008
We Thought He Was Silent Before His Accusers
Headline in the Cincinnati Enquirer, April 4, 2008: "Christ Defends Practices"
Thursday, April 03, 2008
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).
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
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.
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