The Kermit Gosnell Story And Meta-Story: Two Very Different Things (UPDATE, UPDATE II, UPDATE III, UPDATE IV)

Let's just get something right up front here.  The facts in evidence in the case against Philadelphia Dr. Kermit Gosnell are a nightmare.  The clinic he ran wasn't an abortion clinic by any accepted understanding of the term; it was a house of horrors.

I know this because I read the indictment (.pdf).

What fascinates me is the meta-story, which began when Kirsten Powers* wrote a piece in USA Today insisting the story has national implications and should be covered that way.  Since then, both Conor Friedersdorf and Dave Weigel, the former at The Atlantic and the latter at Slate have chimed in, insisting that the cries of a media blackout rooted in a pro-abortion ideology on the part of the liberal media is keeping this story out of the national news.

Except, as Irin Carmon notes in today's Salon, the accusation is false (imagine Big Dead Breitbart and Michelle Malkin being wrong about something!):

If you’ve never heard of the Gosnell story, it’s not because of a coverup by the liberal mainstream media. It’s probably because you failed to pay attention to the copious coverage among pro-choice and feminist journalists, as well as the big news organizations, when the news first broke in 2011. There would be something rich, if it weren’t so infuriating, about these (almost uniformly male, as it happens) reporters and commentators scrambling to break open this shocking untold story. You know, the one that was written about here, here and here, to name some disparate sources.

In other words, the story was and continues to be covered.  The issue on the right isn't really the coverage; Google could clue in any interested party as to the extent of coverage.  No, the real issue on the right is the fact that these outlets and others - the Philadelphia Inquirer has been covering the story from the get-go, and doing a fine job at that - aren't covering the story the way those on the right want it covered.

For anti-abortion forces, the differences between the horror show at Gosnell's clinic and a clean, safe, fully accredited facility that works within the laws and regulations of the municipality and state within which it operates is one merely of degree rather than of kind.  Anti-abortion foes want this story to boil down to this: "This is abortion, folks."

Except, really, this isn't abortion, at least not as practiced in facilities that abide by the laws and regulations that govern the practice.  The charges against Gosnell include the murder of at five children who were born after the legal limit Pennsylvania imposes.  Anti-abortion activists want to scream and shout about the arbitrary nature of the cut-off for abortions; what makes a fetus at 23 weeks substantively different from a fetus at 24 weeks? they will ask.

The short, simple, and to-the-point answer to that question, at least in this case is: the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  With abortion a legal medical practice, with regulation and limitations permitted under a series of Supreme Court decisions, Pennsylvania has determined there is a cut-off point, after which abortions cannot be performed except under certain extreme conditions (none of which are even alleged in the case against Gosnell).

Since the case first arose two years ago, left-wing, feminist, and other journalists (especially those closest to the case) have noted again and again the fact that Gosnell's "clinic" and practices were allowed to run on far longer than they should, despite repeated inspections by various Public Health and accrediting agencies (Gosnell sought acceptance and approval by the NAF; they denied it, but like the rest of those outside agencies, they dropped the ball and didn't push for any investigation), because it operated for women who were largely poor, minorities, or were recent immigrants or perhaps even in the United States illegally.

Which brings us around to the fact that those outlets who have covered the story make the case - and one far more compelling than the whole "baby-murdering by any other name and practice" bunch - that in fact the story is about the need for greater access to safe abortion providers; more investment in public health, in particular women's health; more money to hire more inspectors; more money spent on training and inter-agency communication to catch horror-shows like this before the bodies pile too high for anyone to ignore.  Finally, the story is about the need to keep abortion safe, legal, and create even more vigorous oversight and inspection regimens to ensure that those populations most vulnerable - the young, the poor, minorities, immigrants whether here legally or otherwise - do not resort to death traps like Gosnell.

Death-traps that will surely metastasize should abortion ever be made illegal.

UPDATE: I just published this, but I think a point of clarification is needed.  I do not and will not quote at length from the indictment on the details of the events at Gosnell's clinic.  Doing so is a form of exploitation, even pornography.  One can read the indictment to learn the details, but be warned: you'll need a strong stomach and a box of tissues.

UPDATE II: (This is getting to be like a Glenn Greenwald post, but what can I do?)  I cannot make the point often enough that while this may be the view of many on the right:

The real complaint is that the story isn't being covered in order to protect the concept of abortion. Abortion itself is way past the indictment stage and honest people see it for what it is, and we'd be happy to explain it to the rest of you. 

The reality is quite different:

Whether the mainstream national media has given adequate attention to the Gosnell case is a matter of judgment, although claims that it's been entirely ignored are incorrect. (Consider, for example, Sabrina Tavernise's lengthy New York Times story from 2011.) But it should be remembered who hasn't been ignoring the story: feminist writers. Many prominent feminists, for obvious reasons, reacted with horror to the charges against Gosnell. To the extent that the mainstream media has not been as attentive, there's a clear reason: Gosnell's victims were predominantly poor women of color. As Salon's Irin Carmon puts it, "How often do such places devote their energies to covering the massive health disparities and poor outcomes that are wrought by our current system? How often are the travails of the women whose vulnerabilities Gosnell exploited—the poor, immigrants and otherwise marginalized people—given wall-to-wall, trial-level coverage?" The lack of coverage by broadcast networks is simply part of a larger trend of ignoring the problem of massive inequality in the United States.

As for the last sentence in the first quote above, I'll again turn it over to Limieux:

Finally, the Gosnell case is an illustration of a deeper problem with abortion politics in the United States. A number of pundits—most notably Slate's William Saletan and The Daily Beast's Megan McArdle—have argued that even though it's best that abortion remain formally legal, pro-choicers should concede that abortion is an icky, immoral procedure that should be discouraged. But the stigmatization of abortion, as it functions in the United States, greatly harms women. In most other liberal democracies, the Gosnell clinic wouldn't be an issue because even poor women could obtain safe abortions in a public hospital. In the United States, even where abortion is legal the constant stigma attached to the procedure—up to and including acts of violence against abortion providers and clinics—contributes to a making safe abortions less accessible. The best way to prevent future Gosnells is to treat pre-viability abortions like the ordinary, safe medical procedures they in fact are, not to engage in sexist moralizing. 

I cannot emphasize enough that (a) there has been no "silence" in the media on the Gosnell story, so charges there has been out of fear from pro-choice advocates is nonsense especially since it was feminist writers and pro-choice advocates who were on the story the most from the beginning; and (b), which follows from (a), pro-choice advocates are more than happy to have a discussion about the Gosnell case precisely because it highlights everything that is wrong with access to abortion in this country.  I've said it, am saying it, will say it; others who are also pro-choice have said it, are saying it, will say it: The case of Kermit Gosnell's "clinic" in Philadelphia, if it has any national implications at all, are all about how the anti-abortion forces have whittled away safe, legal access to abortion - along, of course, with the illegal harassment, intimidation, and murder of abortion providers and destruction of women's clinics - as well as slashed budgets for oversight and management and regulation of what clinics do exist creating a situation where Kermit Gosnell could perform illegal, late-term, post-viability abortions that resulted in infanticide, in conditions that threatened and eventually ended the lives of the women desperate enough to seek him out.

Because this is the way abortion used to be prior to Roe, let's have that talk.

UPDATE III: And, thankfully, we have Mr. Charlie Pierce.

UPDATE IV: I swear this is the last "update".  I'm only doing this as a service to Art because he apparently has no idea how to use Google to find pro-choice advocates who are happy to write about the Gosnell case.  This last link, to a piece by Jill Filipovic writing at Al Jazeera (she also posts at Feministing), needs to be read in full, but the final paragraph is full of juicy goodness.

The lessons of Gosnell's house of horrors are clear: women in the US need access to good health care, including abortion care. Just like outlawing abortion, stigmatising it and making it unavailable for low-income and rural women does not make abortion go away; it just makes it dangerous and unregulated. The lessons from the Gosnell media criticisms are similarly obvious: Do not trust known liars with an agenda. 

And because I wasn't aware of this detail until today: After the Gosnell was indicted in 2011, the judge issues a gag order on the case.  Now the case is at trial and there has been daily coverage in the Philadelphia press.  Initially, there was a flurry of coverage; now that the trial is underway, there is coverage again.  It makes sense there was silence in between because there was nothing to report and a legal restriction on information.  So, yet again more evidence that the non-existent media blackout on this story actually wasn't a blackout at all but an absence of new information in the long run up between Gosnell's indictment and trial.

So tell me, again, Art, what point am I missing here?

*Full disclosure.  Years ago, when I had my first trial run at blogging on a different blog, as well as doing a lot of dialogue and discussion at Huffington Post and other sites, Ms. Powers contacted me by email and, over some ensuing days, had a very thoughtful, and on her part encouraging, exchange.  When I criticized a piece she wrote at HuffPo, however, the emails and encouragement ended.  I have followed her career with interest nonetheless, and and still glad I received that kind of encouragement from a woman who, despite being controversial among liberals, still has a certain media cachet.

Being In A Clergy Family

I got thinking about the topic after reading this article at United Methodist Insight.  What's aggravating (to this reader, at least) is the lack of any specificity about the conflict between Adams' family and church.  What, precisely, was the source and course of the conflict, a conflict that resulted in the resident Bishop siding with the local church over the clergy family?  It is impossible to get even a glimmer.  For that reason, it is impossible to say much of anything at all.

It did get me thinking, however, about living for the past two decades as a clergy spouse.  My first rule as a minister's husband has been: Do no harm to Lisa's ministry.  I think I have, by and large, managed to avoid doing grave and long-lasting harm.  The assumption behind this rule is that Lisa's ministry is more important than I am, or we are.  Whether or not I agree or disagree with something she says or does, well, I can take that matter up with her in private.  Thankfully, there's only one serious matter where I've come down pretty hard on her.  All the same, that was done between the two of us, out of the earshot of anyone.

That's also the reason why, for most of her time as a pastor, while I had the right as member of the congregations she served, I have not attended most of the Church/Charge Conferences.  When I have, I have both refrained from saying anything (by and large, little has gone on except reporting on general activities; there was one exception of a special called Charge Conference where I attended and voted but did not speak) and abstained from voting on her salary.  Far better to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest (and voting "yea" or "nay" on a spouse's salary is pretty much the definition of conflict of interest).

I have not always rested easy with the assumption behind Rule No. 1.  Because I am far from perfect, I have become indignant, occasionally passive-aggressive (such a lovely trait, I know), and just plain angry that Lisa's work for the church keeps her from home and family as much as it does.  Usually, the end-game of these little family set-pieces has been the same: She gets weepy and apologetic, and I, having vented, insist that I am the one needing to apologize.  The simple fact of the matter is that Lisa manages quite well balancing her ministry with her life as a wife and mother.  All the same, living out a call to ministry is difficult under the best of circumstances; adding family responsibilities on top of that increases the difficulty; add gender difference to the mix, and the difficulty becomes one of near impossibility.  If, that is, you pay attention to the nagging voices from all around.

Which brings me to one of Lisa's more remarkable traits: She is quite adept at keeping her priorities, ministry & family, always in view.  If there's one thing that blows me away is her ability to balance the expectations she hears in her call, the expectations of the institutional church, and the expectations of her family, and improvise so many ways to cut through the too-often insisted upon either/or with a surprising, joyful, both/and.

All the same, as I told her during one of our chats after I melted down a bit, I was not and am not really angry at any of this.  On the contrary, that is the way it should be.  I love Lisa, and respect Lisa, and am so happy to call Lisa my wife, precisely because she lives out a call to ministry that comes first in her life.  That I occasionally let that bug me, well, that's my problem not hers.  I'm no less selfish than most other people, and probably a good deal more when it comes to my wife and the many demands upon her time and people who demand her attention.

I suppose you're wondering about Rule No. 2.  In fact, there really isn't one.  The only reason I call it Rule No. 1 is, when Lisa moved to her first appointment, I started with that thinking there would be more needed.  In fact, as long as Rule No. 1 is kept in mind - never interfere with her ministry; always understand the ministry comes before me - there really isn't a need for any more rules.

Correlation Is Not Causation: The Surprises Science Brings Us

On my way home from work today, I heard this story on NPR's "Science Friday" program.

Reporting in Science Translational Medicine, researchers write that amyloid-forming proteins, traditionally thought of as enemies to the nervous system, may actually be protective 'guardians' instead. Study author Lawrence Steinman, a neurologist at Stanford University, explains how amyloid injections helped paralyzed mice with a multiple-sclerosis-like disease walk again.

 Listening to Dr. Steinman explain the experiment, what struck me most was his repeated insistence that the experimental results were the opposite of those hypothesized.  Amyloids are present in a variety of neuro-degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and Multiple Sclerosis.  For a couple decades now, it's been thought they are, if not the cause, certainly a destructive element in the course of these diseases.  Dr. Steinman also noted that recent trials of amyloid-inhibiting drugs on humans had either no effect or, in a few cases, actually sped up the course of degeneration.  Taken together with these findings, I think it is at least possible that a natural response to limit destruction of nervous system tissue has been misinterpreted due to its ubiquity in those effected by these diseases.

While Dr. Steinman was clear enough there were still many questions that need to be asked and answered, as well as caution in interpolating these findings and considering a radical treatment for human multiple sclerosis, at the very least the experiment demonstrates the marvelous way science corrects itself.  It also is a cautionary tale in that marvelous bugaboo that haunts statistical sciences - the appearance of two things together does not define causation.  It only notes what it notes, viz., that two things occur together.  The mechanisms that bring them together may be a variety of things.

Here's hoping there's more research on the effect amyloids have on the nervous system.

Still A Long Way To Go

Two very different stories demonstrate that, despite the enormous strides toward social equality in the United States over the past half-century, we still have a very long way to go.  And, no, this isn't about gay marriage. I think, like many others, it is far too early for supporters of marriage equality to fold up their tents and go home.  As the stories make clear, even those victories many thought complete are not.

First is the story out of Georgia about segregated proms.  A group of friends are complaining because they cannot attend the same prom and, because it's 2013, it might be a nice idea to integrate them.  Call me naive, but I was so appalled by the story when I read it, I quite literally was stumped as to how I felt.  I realize that behind the two proms exists a nagging fear of interracial dating, dancing, and because we all agree with Dorothy Parker's observation about dancing, sex.  Still and all, it's a prom.  A rite of passage for most high school students.  Trying to wrap my head around the excuses/rationale/reasons for such a thing made me sad and angry.  It's nice that it's kids at the high school involved who are pushing to get rid of the segregated proms.  It would be far more nice if there was no need to do so.

The other story is more a meta thing.  By now, most folks should be aware that some high school kid managed to get model Kate Upton to agree to attend his prom (speaking of proms . . .) by putting a video on YouTube in which he outlined all the reasons Upton wouldn't go and asking her anyway.  Now, it seems, Upton has managed politely to back out, for which I say, "Yea."  On Good Friday, Amanda Marcotte wrote a piece at Slate in which she made the point, according to the title of her article, that the kid in question wasn't being cute, but rather more than a little creepy.

Instead of applauding Davidson for this, adults should be appalled. All that's been taught here to young men is that they are entitled to women's attention simply because they ask for it. This lesson not only feeds the unjustified grievances of the Reddit users that Stoeffel describes as "tallying up women's socially obligatory acts of kindness." It also helps build the undercurrent of fear that many women, especially younger women, have to live with in their daily lives. This entitlement we teach men crops up all the time for women, and it's rarely as cute as a silly comedy video: When a man demands that you stop on the street to entertain his proposal of going back to his place and then follows you for blocks because you pretended not to hear him. When a rape victim is told that if she didn't want to have sex, she shouldn't have gone to the rapist's hotel room. When a woman files for a restraining order because she's afraid her abusive husband means it when he says that if he can't have her, no one can.

For Ms. Upton, as Marcotte notes in the prior paragraph, the entire situation was more than awkward; being a celebrity she was trapped in a situation with no good end-game.

Davidson's prom video put Upton in a no-win situation. Say yes, and you have to go through with this prom date that will probably be one of the most awkward and embarrassing nights of your life, where you have to socialize with teenagers while being paraded around like a show pony. Laugh at the obvious ridiculousness of this entire situation, and now you're a big old meanie-head. But what Upton chose to do, which is to let him down easy while pretending to be flattered, isn't really much better. Everyone knows she's just saying that. The lesson learned: You may be a rich and famous model, but any random man can, just by making a video, force you to do a little song and dance about how delightful his attentions are.

These things are neither remarkable nor even controversial.  "Don't be creepy," is a rule far too many young men don't learn.  Part of male privilege is assuming it's OK to act creepy because it isn't creepy to men.  This is made worse in a celebrity-mad society in which women, particularly models, are characters rather than people; characters who have to play certain roles including "being nice to not-famous people who can be kind of creepy".

Alas, these rather mundane observations - mundane, yet still important to make - are too much for some on the Perpetually Aggrieved Right.  For some reason, Marcotte's noting that a creepy act is creepy, and an example - yet again - of men believing they have the perpetual right to a woman's attention just because he noticed her is, in this case, wrong-wrong-wrong.  Why?

Like everything else on the right, the answer is the same: Because I say so.

It is with a sad shake of the head that I realize how much further we still have to go.

Gay Marriage: Some Pastoral Thoughts

There are currently nine states that have legalized same-sex marriage.  Illinois is poised to be the tenth (if the lower chamber of the State legislature can get its act together).

What is a United Methodist pastor to say to a same-sex couple who happen to be members of a congregation?  "Sorry, but you'll have to go to an Episcopalian, UCC, Unitarian, Lutheran, or Presbyterian church"?

We either face up to the fact that we will, for all practical purposes, practice discrimination and admit it and announce it; or, we practice penance toward our members who are sexual minorities, and humbly offer them space and blessing for their wedding vows.

Rape Again? Really?

For some reason, a certain kind of right-winger just can't get enough mileage talking about rape.

Let's suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm—no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I've read, was not even aware that she'd been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?

After adding some thoughts and clarifications, he edits his "thought experiment" to clarify the issue(s) involved:

Some commenters have suggested that Question 3, unlike Questions 1 and 2, involves a violation of property rights. T his seems entirely wrong to me; in each case, there is a disputed property right - a dispute over who controls my computer, a dispute over who controls the wilderness, a dispute about who controls my body. To appeal to a "respect f or property rights" solves nothing, since in each case the entire dispute is about what the property rights should be in the first place. 

Not only does he attempt to compare our reactions to pornography to our reactions to the discovery we have been raped; he then insists the whole matter boils down to "property rights".

Another point of clarification reads:

I'm having trouble articulating any good reason why Question 3 is substantially different from Questions 1 and 2. As long as I'm safely unconsious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn't the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits? And if the thought of those benefits makes me shudder, why should my shuddering be accorded any more public policy weight than Bob's or Granola's? We're still talking about strictly psychic harm, right?

If a person is having trouble articulating why outrage over pornography and outrage over environmental destruction are substantially different from rape, I think there are more issues than bad analogies afoot.  The second sentence, with its ending phrase "reap the benefits", certainly offers a view of moral choice that raises more than a few red flags.

Why would anyone believe it acceptable to use a rape victim as an example in a thought experiment?  Are people like this so atrophied in their moral faculties that it doesn't occur to them this is yet another violation?  What the hell is wrong with these people?

Concern Trolling: An Adventure In Real Life Parenting

Just about midnight Sunday, our older daughter returned from a 10-day trip to the Caribbean.  About a year and a half ago, Moriah's life-long friend and this friend's family invited Moriah to be a part of her friend's "Sweet Sixteen" present: A Caribbean Cruise.  The only cost for us were the passport (they were stopping in the Bahamas) and the airfare to Ft. Lauderdale.  After a red-eye from O'Hare and a couple days lounging around a hotel pool, Moriah and her friend spent a week aboard this ship:

Not too shabby for a 15 year-old, right?

To say that we sent her along on this trip without a care in the world would be ludicrous.  Dad, in particular, had a bit of a freakout moment her last morning with us.  I think it was the relentless stories about the Steubenville rape case, but I had a sit-down with her about safety and etiquette that, once done, made me feel better.  The best part of that whole encounter was, for the first time in a long time, I told Moriah something and she didn't roll her eyes and sigh, "I know that, Dad."  Because she didn't know that, and was wise enough to hear what the old man had to say.

We were very happy to let Moriah go on this trip.  I, for one, said over and over that this was the opportunity of a lifetime.  What a joy to help her experience something like this.

Alas, there are always those who believe it necessary to point out that giving children opportunities to experience new and exciting things is bad parenting.  And they aren't afraid to let you know.

For all those folks who wondered aloud how on earth is was possible we let our child, our baby, out of our sight and out of our country without being attached to us at all times, all I can say is this.

Mind your own goddamn business.

Listening to the folks who real-life concern trolled me, I thought, "Don't you have your own lives to screw up?"  I was asked several times if I thought about possible scenarios that ended with Moriah's rotting corpse turning up months from now in a shallow grave in some Caribbean paradise.  The truth of the matter is, of course I did.  Because I'm a parent.

Moriah isn't a baby.  While she has yet to learn how to turn off the television when she leaves the room, by and large she is far more sensible and responsible than many 15 year olds; certainly more than I was.  She is a fifteen year old, not a baby, not even a child.  As an adolescent, she is in the mid-way period of life.

One person asked me, "How could you let her do this?"  I responded, "How could I not let her do this?"  I'm so happy for her, and looking at the pictures she took and hearing her talk, I am even more happy because she worked very hard to see and experience pretty much everything she could.  She appreciated the entire time, knowing it was special.

The world is a dangerous place, to be sure.  Which is why you teach your kids how to be safe, to think and use some common sense; and then you open the door and out they go, and you keep your fingers crossed and you pray and in the end you know none of that guarantees they'll walk back through the door.

You can't keep that door closed very long, though.

We let Moriah go because we are her parents and we love her and want her to do things and see things even though it's a big, scary, dangerous world out there.  Anyone who thinks otherwise really should pay attention to their own children.

The Best Yet

The head of the Republican Party in Georgia is so precious:

Sue Everhart, chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, told the Marietta Daily Journal in a story published Saturday that once gay nuptials are legally permitted, there will be nothing to stop a straight person from exploiting the system in order to claim marital benefits.

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.” 

As an argument against marriage having any legal benefits over single-living, this is perfect.  As an argument against marriage equality, we have an example of EPIC FAIL.

A Side-Note To The Easter Event

[T]he resurrection of Jesus radically ruptures the natural order of the universe. Everyone dies and dead people stay dead – what is more certain than that? But this provocative Galilean rabbi – he dies alright, but he doesn’t stay dead. Here, in a graveyard in Jerusalem, the world breaks open – and its reordering begins. - Kim Fabricius 

I have written many times that there are several words with which I would do away had I that kind of power.  One of them is "nature" and its adjectival form, "natural".  Like the other words I'd discard, they are too often used thoughtlessly, as if both speaker/reader and hearer/reader knew exactly what the words mean.

As Christians, it is usually a good idea to start thinking all sorts of things from the point of the resurrection.  Doing that, we realize that our usual, casual understanding of what constitutes "nature" and "natural" becomes, like the rest of the creation, crucified with Christ and, as Fabricius says further down the sermon quoted above, unrecognizable precisely because it is the new creation, unrecognizable for who and what it is.   As such, talking about "nature" as if it were a thing unaffected by the death and resurrection of Jesus is, as with so much of our talk without reference to this central point of all creation, is just jabber, meaningless babble that leaves us wondering what, exactly, anyone's talking about.

In Revelation, the Lamb sits on the throne and says, "Behold, I make all things new."  That means all things.  The usual order of our experience, the round of days and nights, the cycle of seasons and years, the coming in to being and passing away of things both living and inanimate; all these will disappear as death, the final enemy, is destroyed and all creation, made new, gives praise to God in Christ through the Spirit who gives us new life, eternal life.

Oh, and I would highly recommend reading the whole sermon Fabricius printed.  It is, as a really good Easter sermon should be, shocking and, like the resurrection itself, overturning of all our expectations.

Happy Easter, all.

And He Shall Reign Forever And Ever

When first composed in 1741, George Frideric Handel's The Messiah was intended as an Easter oratorio.  It debuted in Dublin in April that year, then in London the next spring.  Somehow through two and a half centuries, it has morphed in to Christmas music.  Looking at the text and plan of the whole composition, it's clear enough, however, that Part I, dealing with the Old Testament prophetic declarations of the coming Messiah had their fulfillment in Part II, which concerns itself with the Passion.  The third part celebrates the resurrection of the dead and the final consummation of the covenant in the New Creation.

With its grand and glorious praise for the risen Christ (not the newborn Christ; that's dealt with, if at all, in Part I), the finale for Part II is, perhaps, the one piece of classical choral music that is recognizable by people who know nothing about Easter or choral music.  The "Hallelujah", in which the chorus declares praise for the risen Lord, and proclaims the Good News that "He shall reign forever and ever", sets up what is to come, the declaration of the promise that this reign, inaugurated in the resurrection of the Son of God, is for all of us.

On this Easter Sunday, let us all with one voice declare, "Hallelujah!  Christ is risen, indeed!"

A New Pope

In the post immediately below, I completely forgot to mention my silence on the new Pope.

When I heard Benedict XVI was resigning, I set to one side all the questions raised in the press about having two living popes for the first time in centuries, and wondered why the man who had spent most of his adult life yearning for the Throne of St. Peter would vacate it before the coroner pronounced him dead.  As Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict was neck deep in covering up the world-wide endemic of child rape on the part of priests.  Perhaps the only thing worse for the Roman Catholic Church than thousands of priests around the world convicted of pedophilic rape would be the Supreme Pontiff indicted by a court in one country or another.  Considering that Pope Benedict XVI managed to do what hundreds of years of English occupation failed to do in Ireland - turn the Irish against the Roman Catholic Church - he had to know some prosecutor in one country or another would turn their eyes toward Vatican City.  Best to hightail it to St. John Lateran and spend the rest of his days in prayer that Jesus and Mary take him before a Spanish, Italian, Polish, Irish, Australian, or American court do.

Most folks who pay more attention to these matters than I ever could noted, over and over, that hopes for a different kind of papacy from Benedict's successor should be held in check.  After all, the College of Cardinals is filled with men appointed by John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  Those folks didn't get their little red caps by rocking boats, particularly with Joey Ratz (as one FB friend refers to the retired Pontiff) in charge.

The conclave elected a 76-year-old.  My first thought was, "Place-holder".  My second thought, when I heard he was a Jesuit, was "Conspiracy theorists will love this."  Before there was JFK's assassination and Roswell and Area 51, the Society of Jesus was always a target for rampant speculation about its plans to convert the non-Catholic world.  My third thought, upon hearing Jorge Bergoglio was from Argentina was two word: "Dirty War".  And at first, there was not so much chatter as whispering that, while Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he sided with the military junta, even turning over a couple fellow Jesuits who join the ranks of the desaparecidos.  It turns out, however, that no less a person that Argentina's Nobel Peace laureate has nothing but praise for what Bergoglio did during those years of horror.

Still, it is nearly impossible to view the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church without seeing it through the rage stemming from rampant child rape, covered up in no small part by the recently-retired Pope.  All things considered, not least Benedict's preference to keep at least one hand on the wheel of power, I figured there would be little to no difference between what had been and what would be.

And Pope Francis I is making it very hard for this non-Catholic to be cynical.  He's even making all the right enemies.  While I have no skin in this particular game, at least on one level, on another I most certainly do.  I wrote recently about the Roman Catholic Church I love; I was afraid to hope for new life to be breathed in it not least because the forces against such a possibility seemed far too small.  All Christians are my brothers and sisters in the faith; we have different traditions, to be sure, as well as different things we emphasize.  At the heart of it all, however, we are disciples of our Lord and Savior.  When any part of the Church of Jesus Christ fails in some way to be the Church, it hurts all of us.

There are, as Robert Frost wrote, miles to go before we sleep.  The Church of Rome has much to do and years ahead of it should it choose to do penance for the monstrous crimes it has worked so long and hard to conceal.  Still, just a month along and Papa Francesco has, through small acts, awakened the sleeping giant "hope", perhaps not for real, radical change, but at the very least for real difference.  Seeing the pictures of Fr. Bergoglio washing the feet of imprisoned children including two young Muslim girls was moving; that it ticked off some who harrumphed about Church law and tradition is all to the good.  I don't want to nurse that hope too much. Still, I can feel it stirring.

So, Pope Francis, this United Methodist is praying for you, for your ministry, for your witness, and for the whole Church which you embody.  May the Spirit move you to remind your one billion confreres that "Church" isn't vestments and shoes and tradition, but the service we render those whom society - including the Church - insist are beneath our notice and outside our circle of concern and care.  May you continue your prophetic witness, and may it be embraced by all Christians of goodwill who yearn for a vigorous Roman Catholic witness to the world.

A Confession?

Since the turn of the new year, I've been relatively silent.  I've been wrestling with that, wondering why, even as we get pushed from one manufactured crisis to another, I've chosen to write sparingly.  When I do write, it's been on Christian themes that seem divorced from the ebb and flow of nonsense.

It is that last word that should clue us all in.  So much of what's going on is just that: nonsense.  The sequester is so horrible?  It's a law, passed by Congress.  The quickest way to end it would be . . . to repeal it.  Congress could pass another law that says the whole sequester thing no longer has legal force.  Easiest thing in the world.  Instead, we continue to have these long, drawn-out scenes where everyone involved behaves like teenage drama queens.

I did comment on Rand Paul's headline-whoring filibuster, in which he demanded the President answer a question never asked.  The result of that has been a dust-up among some on the alleged left, with a few of the dimmer lights in that particular political room - David Sirota and Glenn Greenwald being the most prominent - cheering Paul on, as if his entire history of neoconfederate rhetoric and a record on civil liberties that makes Obama look like Clarence Darrow were non-existent.  What's worse, these brogressives (I love the term, despite a tad bit of pushback it's received) seem to be cheering a Rand Paul Filibuster that existed wholly within their imaginations.  The whole farce boiled down to demanding Pres. Obama promise not to use drones against his political opponents (please read "White Conservatives" here).  The on-going back-and-forth between those folks (including me) who saw through this ridiculous waste of time and oxygen and the brogressives has become, like so much else, tiresome.  Both sides are reduced, now, to calling one another names, not least of them racist, and declaring the opposition apathetic to horrible crimes.

Then there is the gun debate.  From the moment Wayne LaPierre took to the podium and insisted that nothing could change despite the massacre of children in Connecticut, I was aware the direction the discussion would take.  Helpless in the face of the spittle-flecked rage the NRA has managed to stir up, all hanging loosely on some weird fear of imminent societal collapse, I have chosen silence because there is not even the possibility of getting a hearing for all the shrieking going on.

Then there are our elected officials.  Good Lord, but we have a crew this Congress, don't we?  If it isn't Louie Gohmert wanting to arrest the President, it's Ted Cruz insisting Harvard Law School is filled with commies or Don Young calling farm workers wetbacks.  It makes one yearn for Newt Gingrich.  Almost.  Even Michelle Bachman's psychosis seems whimsical these days.  Of course, the fact that the biggest foe of immigration reform right now, Ted Cruz, happens to be an immigrant is just luscious.  That and his mansplaining the Constitution to Dianne Feinstein.  We got rid of Joe Walsh, but he's been replaced by an even bigger joker.

Finally, there's the marriage equality debate.  The consensus, both left and right, seems to be that marriage equality either has won or will win.  Liberals and the left seem happy; the right, while conceding the loss, is nevertheless indignant that America is making a choice that paints opponents as bigots.  When the debate suddenly shifts to the tender fee-fees of people who favor discrimination rooted in bigotry, it does seem time to move on and let them nurse their self-inflicted injuries in peace.

So why the silence?  My oft-stated preference not to repeat myself is part of the reason.  There are only so many times I can write, "What the hell is wrong with people?" before I get bored.  The perch I currently occupy is tiny, the noise around me far louder and stronger.  Sometimes silence is the best option, if for no other reason than one more voice in the chorus adds nothing.

With Easter here, and spring forcing its way through the cold air and frozen prairie, while I have much to do what with packing for yet another move, getting our daughters enrolled in yet another school, and dealing with the emotional issues arising from losing my pastor of 19 years, I do foresee more blogging in the near future.  Just as there is a time for silence, so, too, is there a time to speak up and out, despite the din around all of us.

Being In Solidarity With The Dead

N.B.: This was originally published on April 23, 2011.  I have made some minor corrections for spelling, but otherwise it is at it appeared two years ago.  I can't imagine saying more, or better, what I wrote here.  Wait and watch with me, as we consider the dead Jesus in the interconnected reality of the Triune Life of God.

The vision of death by the mode of immediate experience, is the most complete punishment possible. And since the death of Christ was complete, since through his own experience he saw the death which he had freely chosen to undergo, the soul of Christ went down into the underworld where the vision of death is. For death is called "underworld", infernus, and it has been loosed from out of the deeper underworld, ex inferno inferiori. The lower or deeper underworld is where one sees death. When God raised Christ he drew him, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, from out of the lower underworld, after delivering him from the torture of that underworld, solutis doloribus inferni. That is why the prophet says, "He did not leave my soul in the underworld." Christ's suffering, the greatest one could conceive, was like that of the damned who cannot be damned any ore. That is, his suffering went to the length of infernal punishment. . . . He alone through such a death entered into glory. He wanted to experience the poena sensus like the damned in Hell for the glorifying of his Father, and so as to show that one should obey the Father even to the utmost torture. That means praising and glorifying God in every possible way for our justification - which is what Christ has done.

Nicholas of Cusa
De Civitate Dei

We are in that time over which the Gospels remain silent. From the moment on Friday evening when Jesus corpse is laid in the tomb until the arrival of the women on Sunday morning there is nothing. One sentence and paragraph ends, another begins. The Sabbath lies in-between. The only hint that day contained anything of substance is given not in the Gospel, but in 1 Peter, where the author claims Jesus preached to the dead.

Which, of course, raises far more questions that such a short phrase could possibly answer.

The mystery of the Passion is boundless. On this day of Biblical silence, we are nevertheless pushed to consider the naked fact of Jesus' death. What does that mean for one who claimed solidarity with the God of Israel whom he called his Father? In a sense, reflecting upon this day only becomes possible because of Easter. Had there been no resurrection, there would be no reason to consider this day, what Hans Urs von Balthasar calls "the hiatus". Yet, there is this hiatus, this break. Jesus is dead. The silence of the witnesses is deafening in the questions it raises.

The same von Balthasar noted above has a short yet powerful meditation on the Passion, Mysterium Paschale, from whose pages the Nicholas of Cusa epigram comes. The chapter on Saturday is entitled "Going To The Dead", and in it, von Balthasar considers the 1 Peter passage as well as later doctrinal developments, the question of the development of the idea of Sheol, Gehenna, Purgatory, Limbo, Hell, within the context of the fact of Jesus being dead. His final move is to a Trinitarian consideration of the event, which is, to me, the starting point of a fuller understanding (never full; the events of these days are without full measure). From pp. 174-175:

That the Redeemer is solidary with the dead, or, better, with this death which makes of the dead, for the first time, dead human beings in all reality - this is the final consequence of the redemptive mission he has received from the Father. His being with the dead is an existence at the utmost pitch of obedience, and because the One thus obedient is the dead Christ, it constitutes the "obedience of a corpse" (the phrase is Francis of Assisi's) of a theologically unique kind. By it Christ takes the existential measure of everything that is sheerly contrary to God, og the entire object of the divine eschatological judgment, which here is grasped in that event in which it is "cast down". . . . But at the same time, this happening gives the measure of the Father's mission in all its amplitude; the "exploration" of Hell is an event of the (economic) Trinity.

--snip--

If the Father must be considered as the Creator of human freedom - with all its forseeable consequences - then judgment belongs primordially to him, and thereby Hell also; and when he sends the Son into the world to save it instead of judging it, and, to equip him for this function, gives "all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22), then he must also introduce the Son made man into "Hell" (as the supreme entailment of human liberty). But the Son cannot really be introduced into Hell save as a dead man, on Holy Saturday. This introducing is needful since the dead must "hear the voice of the Son of God," and hearing that voice, "live". (John 5:15) The Son must "take in with his own eyes what in the realm of creation is imperfect, informed, chaotic" so as to make it pass over into his own domain as Redeemer. . . .

This vision of chaos by the God-man has become for us the condition of our vision of Divinity. His exploration of the ultimate depths has transformed what was a prison into a way. . . .

There is much more in this vein, but the point, I think, should be clear. Even as that moment of abandonment lingers, it bears the character of inner-Trinitarian obedience, of the furthering of the mission of the Father by the Son through the Spirit. What von Balthasar calls throughout the solidarity of the dead Christ with the dead captures the fullness of this mission, in both its immanent and economic Trinitarian forms, and what the historic doctrine of the descent to Hell and the Harrowing of Hell by the dead Christ cannot. What constitutes the character of this obedience is nothing more or less than taking in to very existence of the inner life of the Triune God that which cannot be, that which was before God created, chaos and lifelessness. Matters of Hell and Gehenna, of Purgatory and Limbo, not only cross a line where speculation rooted in misunderstanding and silence should calm our nervous spirits, but in any event continue to see the Passion as something rooted in human existence, human needs. The being solidary with the dead is part of the Divine desire to be in relationship even there, with the dead in the nothingness, the powerlessness (he quotes the Hewbrew refa'im, those who are powerless, to emphasize the utter passivity of Jesus even in death) which is their lot. Salvation is not only God's act for Creation. Considering the death of Jesus within the context of the Trinitarian life of God leads one to see the fullness of God's desire to take in to that mysterious love of the Three for one another that which cannot be a part of it. The Passion becomes, through the emptiness and silence of Holy Saturday, more clearly understood as a working out of the depth of the Three Persons for One Another in the world God created, even to that which denies creation.

We are in a time of vigilance, of waiting and watching. As we wait and watch in silence, what no eye has seen nor ear heard is about to burst forth. We believe this and proclaim it as the heart of the Good News which even now rests in the silent depths of the grave. On this Holy Saturday, only because we can look back from Easter, we see just how far Jesus is willing to go, not only for us, for for the Father who loved him, and left him alone to die on the cross.

Heading To A Holy Time

It begins tonight with Maundy Thursday, as we recall and live again the institution of the New Covenant and the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  Tomorrow, of course, is Good Friday.  On Saturday, we wait and wonder.  Then, on Sunday morning, we greet the rising sun and the Risen Son.

As solemn and sorrowful as this time is; as filled with anticipation for the "Christ is Risen!  He Is Risen Indeed!" of Easter morning; as much as we should move through these sacred days with reverence, our hearts focused on the tragedy-that-is-not-a-tragedy of the crucifixion followed by the overwhelming joy of Easter and all it portends for defeat of the final enemy; for all that, my heart right now rests at peace.  I am, as always, thankful for all the blessings in my life.  Starting, of course, with the simple fact of my life.

For anyone who wonders if God's Grace is a real thing, all I can say is, "I'm here."  More than just being here, I'm surrounded by a loving family and dear friends.  None of these things are deserved.  On the contrary, were we to measure a life by dessert, the truth is I would be alone and friendless, were I alive at all.  Each breath is a gift; each time I see my wife and daughters, each time we laugh together, or are just together, is a gift.  Each time I look around at this life I have, I am grateful for every single moment, every single person.

Is grace a real thing?  You betcha.

As we head to this holy time, and reflect on the infinite love for all creation God reveals on the cross and in the empty tomb, I am thankful for how that love is manifest in my own life.  I wish it were possible to return to each person in my life even a small portion of what I've received.

Tonight we begin with a service in which we re-member the New Covenant; we also, alas, remember the first act of those gathered under that New Covenant, viz., to flee and betray their Lord.  Let us move through these next four days in prayer and thanksgiving that our God does not and will not ever betray and flee from us.

Return Unto The Lord Thy God

How lonely sits the city
   that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
   she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
   has become a vassal. - Lamentations 1:1

I made a happy discovery this past week.  Looking for a variety of music to which to listen while at work, I typed "choral music holy week" in the search bar on Spotify.  Among many other things there appeared several choral settings for the Lamentations of Jeremiah.  It turns out a musical setting for this short book was an integral part of the liturgy of Holy Week, once upon a time.

The Lamentations were used in the office of matins of the Holy Week. matins. There are 3 offices, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Over time, the office moved from morning to the night before, so that in some cases the lamentations are named for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: for example in the Charpentier version. At the Sistine Chapel, where traditions died hard, the matins still took place in early morning in the 19th century.

Each office consists in 3 vigilae; each vigila consists in 3 psalms with respons and 3 lectures with respons. The Lamentations were read/sung in three lectures at each of the first vigila (the other lectures were drawn from the New Testament and Saint Augustine respectively). The Lamentations therefore consist of 3 sets of 3 lectures, for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Each lecture is ended with the call: Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum (Jerusalem, return onto the Lord thy God) which actually comes from Hosea 14:1.

While there are three offices, the five chapters have been set to separate movements by a variety of composers.  Some of the best are the Renaissance composers  Thomas Tallis, Giovanni Perluigi de Palestrina, and Tomas Luis de Victoria.  I have chosen Palestrina's; ChoralWiki lists sixteen examples from different composers, but these are hardly exhaustive.  In Latin, the text for the first Lamentation reads as follows:

Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae prophetae.

Aleph. Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo? facta est quasi vidua domina gentium, 

princeps provinciarum facta est sub tributo. (1,1)

Beth. Plorans ploravit in nocte et lacrimae ejus in maxillis ejus. (1,2)

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum

On The Eve Of Holy Week

Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. - Mission Statement of the United Methodist Church, adopted 2008

With Holy Week about to begin, as we move from the triumphal entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday through the betrayal on Maundy Thursday, the crucifixion on Good Friday, the silence of the tomb on Holy Saturday, and the first declaration of the Good News on Easter morning, I think it is important to be in prayer and contemplation for what these events mean for us.

Not in terms of our salvation.  The overarching reality of the passion narrative is that this is God's work for us, full and sufficient for the purpose for which it was divinely ordained and intended: the reconciliation of fallen creation with God.

Getting stuck on that, as far too many Christians tend to be, makes the entire enterprise small.  It also makes God small, powerless in the face of human freedom and the snares of the Devil.  For far too many, however, it is preferable to consider themselves on the inside while the rest of creation slides irrevocably to perdition.

What, then, is this reconciliation for?

For God.

We exist, we have been created, we have been saved, in order to declare to the world the simple reality revealed in Jesus of Nazareth: That God is love, and wants us to acknowledge that love in all we say and do.

This simple reality, this kernel within the husk of dogma and two thousand years of excess verbiage, is the most revolutionary force ever.  We need no longer fear our separation from the God who creates and sustains us; God has offered the Divine Life  in order that we may yet live and love in the never-ending presence of Love Incarnate.  Our job - and we do have one - is to get the word out to the rest of the world that there is nothing to fear any longer.  There is nothing in others to fear and hate.  There is nothing even in death, that last enemy whose time has come even if it isn't aware of it, that can separate us from the love we have from the Father in the Son through the Spirit.

As we move through the days and events of the coming week, even as we hear the call to remember the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, we are to give praise and thanksgiving to God.  We are to get the word out about this love.  Doing that might just change everything.

Love Is Sufficient

Wherefore, the man who lives in love reaps life from God, and while yet in this world, he even now breathes the air of the resurrection; in this air the righteous will delight in the resurrection. Love is the Kingdom, whereof the Lord mystically promised His disciples to eat in His Kingdom. For when we hear Him say, “Ye shall eat and drink at the table of my Kingdom,” what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love is sufficient to nourish a man instead of food and drink.  - St. Isaac of Nineveh, Homilies I, No. 46, pp. 357-358

Quite by happy accident, I stumbled across a series of posts at Eclectic Theology that features the work of 7th century mystic,ascetic, and preacher St.Isaac the Syrian.

I suppose all those folks who have been heaping scorn on Rob Bell for suggesting God's Love is more powerful than our sin (something you'd think these folks would remember from, I don't know, Easter) are quite ready to toss blessed St. Isaac on the same dung heap.

The series is excellent, and the long quotations from St. Isaac's sermons, while sometimes odd to contemporary ears for their occasional neo-Platonism, nevertheless circle back around, again and again, to the heart of the Scriptural testimony: that God's love, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, is fully revealed in the death and resurrection; from that flows the Spirit of this same love that fills all creation, renewing us so that we might yet be what God created all to be - all creation living to love and give praise and thanksgiving to God for our existence.

While I'm sure some folks won't like what St. Isaac wrote concerning hell and punishment, it is rooted in the heart of the Scriptures, the Gospel of Divine mercy and love revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.  This is why I think the one area where Isaac kind of misses the boat is his argument that mercy, rather than justice, describes God's dealings with creation.  It might be better, as Karl Barth (and those following him) said, that love and mercy define the quality of God's justice.  Revealed in the passion, God's justice is a justice that forgives, an anger that is satisfied with mercy, and a double election that swallows up the contradictions in the cross and empty tomb.  In that sense, I think, while it is all well and good to speak of the prodigality and scandal of Divine Mercy, it should always be done as a description of the revealed quality of Divine justice.

That, however, is a relatively small nit to pick.  There is beauty in these sermons.  There is, above all, a vision of Divine Love and Grace, the very heart of the Gospel as revealed in Jesus crucified and raised, that is refreshing as it is, more than likely, scandalous to far too many wedded to a vision of themselves as winners of the Great Cosmic Lotto.

I recommend these posts, in particular as we move in and through Holy Week.

Stupid

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this photograph. It, along with some of the comments on the original from a page titled "Prepare to Take Back America", sums up everything that's wrong with our politics.

The media don't call him President.  He is the President.  There was that whole election thing.  It was in all the papers.  He won it with relative ease.  He won it with a very comfortable margin, both in the popular vote and the Electoral College.

As for the whole "Enemy Within" . . . Really?  What, precisely, has he done that qualifies for a description as "the enemy"?  Has he attacked our institutions?  Has he allowed foreign nationals to attack Americans and American interests with impunity?  Has he surrendered our sovereignty in any meaningful way?

Of course he hasn't.

It is impossible to deal with people who think this is real.  It is impossible to deal with people who think "the media" call him President, as if somehow this were some grand conspiracy to place an individual in office without the consent of the electorate.

Thankfully, the number of Americans who really think this way is relatively small.  Yet, they have powerful allies.  That's why Congress does nothing.  Opponents of the President refuse to do anything to advance his agenda.  Not because they "disagree" with it in some polite fashion.

Because their constituency calls him "the enemy within".

Everything that is wrong with the United States right now comes down to this.  Our inability even to grasp the simple proposition that our problems, as big as they are, are manageable as long as we are willing to work together, is unintelligible because there are those who refuse, "on principle", to work with the President.

What, exactly, are either the President or Democrats in Congress doing that enrages them?  Is your pet issue gay marriage?  A majority of Americans support its legalization.  Ten states recognize it, with more on the way.  Is it guns?  The harshest thing anyone in a position of authority has offered is removing the so-called gun show loophole, something a vast majority of Americans support.  The assault weapons ban was killed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is (you knew this was coming) a Democrat.  So this fantasy of gun-grabbing, goose-stepping liberals is thwarted by . . . a Democrat.

If you are really worried about spending, consider how much the President has cut spending in his first four years; that federal spending, as a percentage of GDP is at its lowest in decades; with the sequestration in place, meat as well as fat is being tossed in the garbage disposal.  You'll excuse me if screeching about spending makes me turn away.

Taxes?  Seriously?  Americans are the least taxed industrialized people on the planet.  Our wealthy, for all intents and purposes, are not taxed at all.  Neither are our largest corporations, at least those who haven't scuppered to the Cayman Islands (without incurring any penalties or fees for emigrating to avoid what little tax liability they do face).

All in all, the reality in America should encourage us to work together.  Except, alas, for the person "the media" calls President.  I wonder what's so different about him that has some people all up in arms?  I can't put my finger on it.

Help me out here.

The Important Stuff

So the weekend started out with the CPAC convention hitting the giant rock of racism, then sinking without a trace as serial quitter Sarah Palin wowed 'em with boob jokes and pretend fellatio on a cup of soda.  Having a couple yahoos talk about "race pride" makes me want to slink off to some other country; I have nothing but pity for people too stupid to realize Palin lives by a motto Frank Zappa put on the cover of an album:  She's in it for the money.

These and other bits of CPAC ridiculousness - like the gay press trolling Craiglist ads to catch some major-league hypocrisy - kept much of the left-wing giggling behind its collective hand.  All the while two pieces of news, each horrible in its own way, emerged with only scant attention paid.  First, there was the revelation Friday not only that Richard Nixon actively worked to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks while he was only a candidate for the Presidency.  It turns out Lyndon Johnson knew about it because Hoover's boys had the transcripts thanks to a bug on the phone of the South Vietnamese ambassador.  Johnson was tempted to go public, but decided he didn't want the extent of FBI wiretapping on the diplomatic corps revealed.  Even though both Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, called what Nixon was doing "treason", they kept it hush-hush.  The story, as well as how it links up with later Republican international ratfuckery, can be found at Alternet, and is worth the time to read the whole thing.

The other big news item was the guilty verdict in a rape case in Steubenville, OH.  What makes this case, and the subsequent verdict, important are really two things.  First, is the intersection of good-old-boyism and the Internet, with videos of the victim and perpetrators uploaded to YouTube, videos that pretty clearly demonstrate how the poor victim was not only incapable of granting consent, but that not only the two young men on trial but others involved treated the young woman like a piece of meat.  The other is the way the trial, and the media's coverage, divided this small city of less than 20,000.  A young woman, passed out from too much alcohol, is repeatedly raped and sodomized and there is far more attention paid to and sympathy expressed for the young men convicted of these horrific acts than the young woman in question.  Excuse me while I withhold my sympathy a bit from them, and pretty much hold anyone who defended them in contempt.  Their conviction is a victory for justice in the midst of far too much ugliness.

Head, Meet Wall With My Assessment Of Obama Administration Policy As An Extra

Did I miss the tipping point, when the people who serve elective office decided that being stupid was some kind of advantage?

Several members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have sent a letter [PDF]to the Obama administration demanding greater openness on all aspects of its counterterrorism-related targeted killing program.

The majority of the letter focuses on if and when armed drones could be used to target U.S. citizens on American soil, . . .

The question has been asked, and answered, numerous times.

Let us consult the Wayback Machine, traveling back to autumn, 2000.  That was when a United States warship, the USS Cole, refueling off the coast of Yemen and was attacked by suicide bombers in a small boat that came up alongside the cruiser.  While a US judge ruled Sudan guilty of the attack, the fact is it occurred off the coast (if you read the previous sentence) of Yemen.

Fast forward eleven months and we all remember what happened in September, 2001.  Within a couple months, our troops were on the ground in Afghanistan in force.

Fast forward a few months and, suddenly, the Bush Administration was demanding we go to war with Iraq.  For all sorts of reasons, none of which made sense, and none of which were related to reality.

Fast forward to 2008 and we had hundreds of thousands of American service personnel in combat in two countries in large numbers, and in smaller numbers elsewhere.  There was a Presidential election that year, and the guy who won promised he'd end the ground war and bring the troops home from Iraq.  True to his word, he did just that.  He also said he would "refocus" attention on Afghanistan.  True to his word, he increased American troop presence in Afghanistan by almost 100,000.  While the goals for the latter policy were always shifting, this also allowed this same guy to declare "victory" (without ever really explaining what "victory" meant) and promise to start drawing our troops out of Afghanistan.  And he's doing that, too.

What we have, in early 2013, is the collision of multiple realities.  Reality the first is the presence of groups of individuals determined enough to strike targets of opportunity in dramatic fashion, expressing their hatred for the United States, rooted loosely in really bad interpretations of Islam.  Reality the second are the many years of mismanaged war-and-occupation by a barely credible American President and Administration that left thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands of non-Americans, combatants and non-combatants, dead and wounded.

Reality the third is the fact that Pres. Obama, elected to end the war/occupation of Iraq, did just that; elected to refocus on Afghanistan, did just that; re-elected to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, is is doing just that.  All the while he faces the pre-existence of reality the first and reality the second.

In the process, Pres. Obama has been trying to figure out how best to strike against forces hell-bent on attacking the United States, its interests, and its persons without going full-monty invasion.  The development and advancement of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ("drones" in common parlance) offer one among a myriad of solutions to this problem, particularly in regions where it would be ridiculous to commit even commando units (read Pakistan, parts of the Arabian peninsula, and countries in central Africa) on short notice.  Balancing the first two realities, which kind of fed on one another, and the third reality, which created conditions for a new set of problems, leaves us with a set of policy choices that range from unrealistic to bat-shit insane to sucky but preferable to drifting along doing nothing.  Among the "unrealistic" are the folks who insist that every person accused of participating in acts of violence against the United States be treated like criminals.  Some have been, to be sure, and it seems the Obama Administration is doing a pretty good job of this, whether here at home or overseas.  Among the "bat-shit insane" folks are people write things like this.

We had a situation prior to 9/11.  The Iraq invasion and the long-term occupation  both of Iraq and Afghanistan have exacerbated that situation.  Pres. Obama can't ignore it.  He can't bring every terrorist to justice.  What he can do is create a set of possible reactions that are flexible enough to meet currently-understood contingencies.  This includes, alas, using UAVs to kill an American living overseas who was fomenting war against the United States.  Would it have been preferable to have apprehended him and brought him to trial?  Sure.  In the event, however, the President made the call to do something else.

I have no problem with questions being asked.

I do have a problem with stupid questions that have already been answered being asked over and over again.