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.

It Isn't The Mind That's Small

Zerlina Maxwell is a pretty tough cookie.  According to Josh Marshall she's a pundit, an activist, and a law student.  Add to that, she went on Hannity (of all forums) and talked about guns, rape, and even outed herself as a victim of rape.

How is she rewarded?

This is just a sample of the tweets she's received, the source of which is explained in this comment at LGM:

No, they’re arguing for rape as a means of punishing the black woman who had the temerity to disagree with them in public, thus joining a long chain of men throughout history who have used it as a means of colonizing and taking control of women’s bodies, especially those of women who are also ‘other.’ This is an old, very ugly story.

Isn't it odd, to say the least, that all these frothing manly-men who insist they have to have their guns to protect them from the ensuing Zombie apocalypse are so threatened by a young woman who says, "You know, you're not quite right about that."?

How sad to live a life threatened by women and minorities, seeing the change in our country and world not as something about which to wonder and in which to move, but rather something against which to struggle, even to the point of threatening a brave, soft-spoken, woman.

Also, too - for people who are commenting on various threads about this matter around the internet, if you feel it necessary to type something along the lines of, "Obviously rape is horribly wrong," and then go on to explain how Maxwell, a victim of rape, doesn't know what she's talking about, you should stop, count to ten, and then ask yourself, "Do I really want to type that comment?"  The fact of the pause answers the question before it was even asked.

More of those good people Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about. 

Watching Good People Be Stupid

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a gifted, hard-working journalist.  His work, along with Matt Taibbi's, is the best being done anywhere by anyone.  It is no surprise, then, that an essay published in yesterday's New York Times is receiving a lot of attention.  The best is the simple highlight at Lawyers, Guns, & Money.  The very first commenter manages to demonstrate Coates' position so well, it's a thing of beauty:

I would like to see his definition of ‘racism’. Is it based on the idea of racial superiority? Or does it include racial profiling, based on experience and common stereotypes? Because these are different things, different categories. It would make sense, I believe, to separate them, to use different words.

Does that deli employee believe that people who look like Forest Whitaker are inherently inferior? Or is it that he knows, perhaps by experience, that they are more likely to be poor and desperate (or raised in a poor and desperate environment)? This seems kind of important. To me, anyway. Commenters on these fora reliably disagree, and they reliably express their disagreement by strong denunciations… Oh, well…

A more thoughtful person would hesitate before writing what amounts to, "Now wait just a goddamn minute!  I'm not racist!"  Alas, it is precisely this impulse that is the substance of Coates' complaint.

Thus, nearly three hundred comments long, the tiny notice at LGM shows the world how far too many "good" people still have to go.

The best response in the discussion is this:

I sure see no great tragedy in a multimillionaire celebrity being frisked at a deli. Should I?

If you believe in a society where people are treated with compassion and dignity, yes. You should.

Are your morals subject to means testing?

As polite a way of saying, "When you're in a hole, first put the shovel down," as I've read in a long time.

If you are white and don't see yourself in Coates' article, then you aren't paying attention. 

Busking In The Senate Chamber (UPDATE)

So it seems some American liberals and those further to the Left are trying to make an old truism true: Go far enough to an extreme, and you meet your opposite number.  Thus you get folks like Charlie Pierce, Wonkette, and Think Progress saying, essentially, that while pretty much wrong on everything else, Rand Paul kinda-sorta might have an eentsie-teeny-weenie point.

No.

I'm not surprised at Glenn Greenwald.  Filled with his own special brand of self-righteousness, Greenwald's feces ceased emitting an odor the moment Barack Obama was elected and Greenwald could prove he wasn't a liberal stooge by going after the newly elected President for . . . doing things all American Presidents since at least Harry Truman if not before have done.  Not that I agree with them; I think I've been pretty clear that, for example, Truman's decision to send American troops to Korea without seeking a Congressional declaration of war first was when the flat ground disappeared and we found ourselves on a very steep, slippery slope.

All the same, does any thinking human being believe any President won't act as President's act?

In any event, on this matter in particular, I refuse to grant Rand Paul even a scintilla of credibility.  Unlike, for example, the writer of the above-linked Think Progress piece, I could never write the following:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who referred to himself and Paul (both whom have strong records on civil liberties issues) as the “checks and balances caucus,” also joined the questioning.(italics mine)

Rand Paul strong on civil liberties?  Seriously?  The guy who thinks both the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional?  The guy who thinks a 100-year-old Supreme Court case (that has since been overturned by later Supreme Court cases) that claimed labor laws interfered with the Constitutional "right" to contract for work is a "wonderful decision"?  How can anyone even remotely familiar with recent events write something about Rand Paul like that?

All the same, I wouldn't make common cause with the two biggest attention-whores in the United States Senate, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.  As Wonkette makes clear, they are just upset that Rand Paul is stealing their precious face time before the cameras.

In point of fact, I would refuse to acknowledge any point to the entire exercise.  This isn't about any concern Paul feels for civil liberties; it's using a reputation other's have given him to do what Republicans do, viz., obstruct yet another Obama appointee to high office.  BATF hasn't had a director since Obama took office in 2009.  There are 87 federal judgeships vacant, with 32 nominees waiting approval.  The ridiculous circus surrounding Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's nomination was of a piece with this entire rigmarole.

Furthermore, granting Paul any legitimacy on this point cedes the debate wholly to the terms he has staked: Hypothetical possibilities.  It does no one any good to say, "Well, if we say it's OK for Obama to have the power to kill Americans, what happens if a crazy person is President?"

Um, Pres. Obama is not claiming the power to kill Americans.  That and the constant badgering about "drones" completely distorts the entire matter.  The President used his power as Commander-in-Chief to order a strike against an American ex-patriot who was overseas fomenting terrorism against the United States.  After his death, his son picked up the paternal mantle, and he, too, was killed.

Those kinds of things happen in war.

I'm sorry if I sound like I don't care about "due process".  I really do.  The thing is, these men were, for all intents and purposes aiding and abetting enemies of the United States of America.  They were legitimate military targets.

All the discussion since their deaths has been much ado about, "What if . . .?"  Indeed, Sen. Paul said over and over again yesterday that he wanted assurances from Attorney General Eric Holder that the President doesn't have the constitutional authority "to kill Americans here in the United States".  Absent any context or set of initial conditions, this is as meaningless as asking if the President has the constitutional authority to fly to the moon and back.

And Sen. Paul did get an answer:

I should probably mention there's this whole law usually known as posse comitatus.  It was actually revoked by Congress in 2006 and signed in to law by Pres. George W. Bush in that year's NDAA.  It was put back in 2009 and signed in to law by . . . the same President Rand Paul seems to think would kill us in our sleep for no other reason than he felt like it.

Like everything else with these guys and gals, it's best to take a couple deep breaths and realize they're still crazy.

UPDATE: Not only is he funny, he's far more articulate than I could ever be.  Tbogg sums up my view of just how stupid too many lefties are about Rand Paul and DDDDRRRROOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNESSSS!!!!:

Ted Cruz wants to know if it is Constitutionally permissible to kill an American on US soil with a drone. Is it okay if a SWAT sniper shoots a kidnapper who is threatening his victim? If yes, then how about with a drone if that were possible? But when Eric Holder tried to explain that Cruz’s question left out any nuance or circumstances, he was browbeaten for not giving it a blanket thumbs down. That is the stupid discussion we are having now in America.

It’s the whole scary “flying killer robot” thing that is making everyone stupid. As for the Bin Laden thing, many of these same people have called his killing an “extrajudicial murder” which is where they lose me because they seem to have no regard for the safety of the people who actually have to do the dirty work of getting in there and getting out. They shouldn’t be pawns in someone’s late night dorm room discussion about ” how the world should be”.

Does the surveillance aspect of drones bother me? Not anymore than stop light cameras that catch some people running red lights and discourage others from doing so. Or CCTV that helps to prevent crime or even exposes the police when they act like criminals. It’s a tool and sometimes it gets misused, but on the whole it serves its purpose and we never think to complain about it then.

Also this.  As an aside, I should add that I'm a tad less blase about the civil liberties aspects of everything from our surveillance society to the militarization of our domestic police power.  All the same, a bunch of mostly white, privileged men sitting around tutting about Barack Obama being history's greatest monster (and by extension, any people who disagree with them being either stooges or stoooopppidd) while waving away what actually is happening makes me want to drop them in the middle of Somalia.

 And I’m not saying drones are passé . Only that I know how the argument is going to go for the next few days, and I have no interest in arguing (again) with people who, in the end, are just going to call me history’s greatest monster because I am not as fanatically obsessed with drones ( or Bradley Manning for that matter) as Glenn Greenwald or Kevin Gosztola to the exclusion of actual everyday issues that affect people who don’t have the leisure time to sit around and have wonky debates at high decibel levels.

Put simply: if you think Osama bin Laden was “assassinated”, as has been asserted, then I’m no more interested in your opinion than if you want to talk about the fake moon landing.

On The Death Of Hugo Chavez

This is just me, but (to quote Alan), "Meh."

I think this from Lawyers, Guns, & Money (including the comment section, a rare example of sanity considering several comment threads there have of late been hijacked by trolls) kind of sums up so much of what is wrong with the way the power structure in the US views the world.  Imagine!  Venezuela earned all those petro-dollars and used them to help the people of the country!  Horrors.

And hanging out in OPEC with all those horrible dictators like the King of Saudi Arabia the leader of Iran.

Considering he survived an American-sponsored coup d'etat, is it any wonder he spent much of his time flipping the United States the bird?

He's dead.  The majority of Venezuelans are more than marginally better off because he was President.  That's something to celebrate, regardless of his clumsiness as an international actor.

All the rest is state-sponsored froth.

Once Upon A Time

Erik Loomis sounds an awful lot like me.

I wonder if any such image in our media-saturated uberironic brains could make any such impact today. Or would we just tell a joke and write it off as ironic in some vague and poorly defined way.

What image would that be?  Well, really, there are two images.  First, the newer one:

 See that tiny dot just to the right of center of the screen?  That's the planet Venus seen through the rings of Saturn, courtesy of the Cassini spacecraft.

The second, earlier image is more famous.

As Apollo 8 orbited the Moon at Christmastime, 1968, and the three astronauts read the first creation story from the book of Genesis, this image appeared on television screens across the world.  Our home.  It's really not that far away, a quarter-million miles.  Yet even from that small distance, there's something so fragile about that image.  Our home planet, as enormous as it seems from our homes and roads and even skies, is a delicate jewel.

That was our first real exposure to what our planet really is.  Those three men, further from their home than any human beings had ever been, were seeing things from a perspective that no one had ever had.  Sharing that perspective with the rest of humanity, it awakened feelings of fear and love, and most certainly wonder, among millions.

Once upon a time, we Americans were inspired to do good and great things.  Once upon a time, we Americans refused to let any obstacle interfere with the expressed wish to accomplish any goal.  Now, our politics is held hostage by Vandals, barbarians of our own making, who would rather watch it all come down than accede to the belief of the majority of the country that there are things we can only do together, and that we do better together.

Once upon a time, we saw images such as these, and we embraced the fear and wonder they engendered and said, "Yes.  We can do this."  Now, we look at our broken roads, our crumbling sewer systems, even our federal system of mail delivery that continues to be the envy of the world, and because a few people insist there is nothing that can be done, nothing is done.

Once upon a time, America was a great place.  That this occurred in my lifetime saddens me no end.  I do so hope some other nation picks up the challenges represented by these photographs and does something about them, because I do believe our fairy tale is over.

The ending, alas, was not at all happy.

"Such Alone Will Shake The Gates Of Hell"

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth. - John Wesley

I love this line.

Entering my seventh month in an administrative position in a small United Methodist Church in the northwest Chicago suburbs, I've learned a few things.

Thing One: A line like this would land like a chorus of farts in most congregations.  See, a name was misspelled in the bulletin, and you do know that we just can't adopt technology that would make giving easier and is proven to increase giving because someone somewhere might notice people aren't putting anything in the offering plate on Sunday.  Oh, and did I mention that a birthday was mentioned of a person who hasn't darkened the doorway of the church building in almost five years.

Even more than Lazarus' death, this is the kind of thing that makes Jesus weep.

Thing Two: If churches actually heard a line like this, not necessarily over and over, but perhaps just two or three times, some folks might think, "Really?  We can do that?"  Not everyone; one thing is as sure as God made the sun rise in the east, and that's the simple fact some folks will complain about everything.

Thing Three: I think this phrase should be emblazoned above every United Methodist sanctuary in the United States.  Maybe the world.  John Wesley wasn't messing around; of course, I doubt John Wesley knew how to mess around.  Even the smallest congregation has is something that should inspire awe in any group gathered together calling itself "church".

I shouldn't sound so harsh.  Our churches, regardless of size, already do so much in and for this hurting world.  And, of course, it is never enough.  All the same, we need to be reminded just who we are, and what we could do, if we let go of our fear that someone might notice we're being faithful. 

I Have Some Questions

The latest iteration of our largely stupid gun debate was the so-called "Day of Resistance", featuring people walking around on Saturday with rifles strapped to their backs.  Because nothing says "freedom" like a bunch of strangers itching to shoot someone, am I right?

I've been largely silent about the whole gun debate for quite a while, because I am enraged by that most vocal minority who seem to insist, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that their inalienable right to own a murderous weapon trumps all other rights defined by the Constitution.  It trumps our collective need for safe and secure communities.  It even seems to trump the nation itself, these so-called patriots insisting that this right is an anti-governmental right, never once caring about the inherent contradiction in such a position.

But I digress.

The topic isn't the law or constitutional propriety of gun control.  Even under the Heller decision, regulation and prohibition of gun sales and ownership is allowable.  What's been proposed, and passed in New York, can best be called cosmetic changes to gun laws - reducing magazine capacity; restricting the sale and possession of a few types of weapons whose only purpose is the killing of other human beings; doing research on gun violence that has been blocked for far too long by the NRA - and all of it is certainly out of all proportion to the need to act.

Which leads me to my topic: In the wake of the Newtown massacre, many "gun rights advocates" have been overly vocal, insisting with the caps lock broken both literally and figuratively that whatever is proposed or passed, it is all about attacking them.  You hear it and read it all the time, how "law abiding gun owners" are being vilified.  You read about the impending gun-grab, which is never proposed nor even thought.  The Day of Resistance was set for February 23 because the ammunition size, .223, is one held up by gun control activists as particularly vile because it fits in civilian style semi-automatic weapons designed to look like military rifles.

It is the ammunition the shooter used in Newtown to kill 26 people, 20 of them children.

I have a question that I know will never be answered in any satisfactory way, but it should be asked: What the hell is wrong with you people?  Let's pretend for a moment that the body count hasn't continued to rise, with over 2,000 corpses in the two months since Newtown.  Let's pretend for a moment that Columbine and Aurora and Ft. Hood and Portland and all the other mass shootings never took place, that what happened in Newtown, CT was some kind of aberration instead of the regular sacrifice of life that seems necessary to ensure the continuing presence of guns in our national life.  Let's pretend all that so someone can tell me how a bunch of people being slightly inconvenienced is such a threat to fundamental liberty.  Let's pretend all this and someone tell me if anyone has given a moment's thought not to themselves but to the families who had to spend the week before Christmas burying their children, presents for them sitting under their Christmas trees never to be unwrapped.

This is something more than narcissism.  The way this whole thing turned from a necessary consideration of steps to make it more difficult for people to create corpses into an ugly shoutfest featuring our worst citizens insisting, "IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!!!" makes me wonder if it's even possible for a society such as ours to govern itself.  Ours is not a society aided by modern communications technology, as the small minority of people who believe the lies of the NRA are amplified beyond any reasonable sense of proportion.  Apparently, there continues to be the thought that if one shouts loud enough and long enough, people won't notice how few people are actually shouting.

Just as an aside, I should also note there are people on FB friend list who do this kind of thing.  They copy and paste the same crazy photos and memes, repeating the nonsense about Obama being a tyrant and how owning a gun is the most sacred of all the Constitutional liberties, blah-blah-blah.  Some of them are not stupid people by any means.  They are teachers and preachers, some who I've known since we were kids.  I really want to ask them: Really?  Have you actually looked at what's being done before posting that thing about Obama being a dictator?  Do you really think you're right to purchase a gun - and, really, isn't this enshrining consumerism as a constitutionally protected right? - trumps any sense that we live together in a society in which we need to live together in peace and quiet and, most of all, trust?  Have you given even one second's thought to the families of those dead children?  Or, has it all been a sudden rush of fear that this incident, of all the shootings and death across our land, would be used to inconvenience you?

If you buy the nonsense about tyranny and gun-grabbing and our barely contained state of nature outlined by Wayne LaPierre, then I really have very little respect for you.  Since there is not a shred of evidence to support it, if you just click "Share", or copy and paste stuff from others without thinking, then you are worse than stupid.  You are allowing yourself to be duped by people who's agenda is quite simple - they want money.  Specifically, money from gun sales.  They'll take your money and make your homes quite a bit less safe, and then tell you it's all about freedom, and you lap it up because . . . why, exactly?

With roughly a thousand corpses a month thanks to gun violence - homicides and suicides, accidental shootings and domestic disturbances that escalate to murderous violence - we need to act.  The steps on offer barely scratch the surface of what should be done.  Yet we are distracted from acting by a small group under the influence of gun manufacturers, a small group into whose ears are whispered threats of tyranny and oppression disguised as well-meaning legislation.

How do these people sleep at night, with the voices of the dead pleading for action?

The Catholicism I Love

With yet another accusation against yet another Roman cleric, I find myself in a strange position, beset by conflicting feelings and attitudes.  First, as a non-Roman Catholic - indeed, a proud member of that body of Christians the current, retiring Pontiff insists should return to the ancient faith for the sake of our soul's eternal peace - there's a large part of me that couldn't care less about the whole institution.  That a bureaucratic game-player with ultra-montane tendencies managed to finagle his way to the Throne of St. Peter is neither unsurprising nor disheartening (unless you are still one of those who believe the Papacy a divine institution, in which case you probably aren't reading this blog post).

Second, as a human being with normal moral and empathetic sensibilities, the on-going scandal involving the sexual abuse by the clerisy of those placed under their charge enrages me no end.   The absolute refusal of any part of the institutional Roman Church to address this in a manner that resembles anything Christian infuriates me even more.  Their latest gambit - Let's Blame The Gays! - is failing miserably, as it should.

Finally, in between insouciance and rage is a kind of sentimental fondness for at least part of what the Roman Catholic Church has been in its sixteen or so centuries of existence.  To whit, in a Europe beset by rival princes and panjandrums, rival paganisms and the rise of Islam, as learning and trade and communication withered on the vine, the Holy Mother Church not only held at least some ancient learning in its loving arms; through the hard, often dangerous work of monks - especially those from Ireland - that learning was spread to the rest of a continent struggling to escape the many assaults upon it.  Even in the Darkest of what was once called The Dark Ages, there were those who believed it their calling from God to spread learning and understanding far and wide.

When the Crusaders brought back the news that their Muslim enemies were both better-learned and more advanced, the Roman Church was at the forefront of investing in education, helping the growing cities and towns catch up, understanding that if Christendom was to compete with their neighbors, they needed learning and understanding of their own.

The Church was, while perhaps neither cradle or even the womb of the Renaissance and subsequent expansion of knowledge and understanding, and was certainly its sworn enemy at many points, I have often felt it was at least partially the seed-bed of those movements that awakened much of the European continent from its too-long slumber.

From St. Augustine and his predecessors in the West (as well as the Cappadocians in the East) through Erasmus, the great, level-headed humanistic opponent of Martin Luther, the Roman Church nurtured many scoundrels and scandals to be sure; it snuffed out reformers like Wycliffe and Hus and Peter Waldo; its Popes became Warrior-Kings, far more concerned with winning battles than souls to the One True Faith; those who disagreed, whether Jew or heretic, found themselves living a life of perpetual peril.  All these things are true enough.

If that were the only truth, I would perhaps not be worried so.  Yet there were other stories as well. St. Francis and St. Dominic.  William of Occam, opposing the papal division, writing tracts on the need for political unity on the European continent.  St. Thomas taking what he learned from Albertus Magnus and offering a view of God's Divine action that was both rational and grace-filled.

And still and always, the brother and sisters in monks and convents, their days ever circling the need for prayer and praise for the world to God; because of the peculiarities of geography and the insistent schedule of the Hours, each hour there are still monks and nuns praying for our world, lifting all creation up to the care of the Creator.  This is a marvelous, awe-inspiring testimony to the power of faith, a power that we Protestants have, I think, lost in our enthusiasms.

Perhaps the best thing for the Roman Catholic Church would be for Vatican City to dissolve itself as a nation-state and open its archives and books to outside auditors and inspectors; for the election of the Pope no longer to be about pretending to a tradition tracing back to St. Peter but the simple politics of maintaining the status quo, and for those outside the Church who are simultaneously fascinated and repelled by the practice of celibacy to recognize its worth as a spiritual practice as long as the Mother Church recognize the way it could lead to the horrors of abuse from around the globe.

There is a Catholicism I love.  For now, it is eclipsed by the Catholic Church I despise, ruled by men beneath contempt.  Perhaps, in my lifetime, it will understand that redemption begins with repentance.  At this moment, that is my prayer.

Outside The Mainstream

Thanks to Facebook, I stumbled across this interview with Jon Durant.  Thanks to the digital age of music production and distribution, excellent musicians such as he can create and release excellent works and get them in the hands and ears of fans with little muss and no fuss.  His collaborator on this project is Colin Edwin, bass player in Porcupine Tree.  Like PT's founder, Steven Wilson, Edwin is involved in a variety of musical projects outside his long association with Porcupine Tree (20 years this year).  One is a heavy metal band, Random Noise Generator.

Another is the unclassifiable Metallic Taste of Blood.

Still another is the ambient heavy metal/electronica duo Ex-Wise Heads

Finally, there is his work with Durant, mentioned above, under the title Burnt Belief.

None of these musical projects share anything but Edwin's presence.  None are in any way commercial projects.  Yet, all are available for people to purchase and listen despite the enormous pressures on mainstream music from the major labels in a time when the amount of money available seems to shrink.  The reason for this is simple enough.  Technology has made the majors important only for those artists and musicians who would prefer making a lot of money and having their names recognized and their faces in the tabloids.

A few decades ago, producing music like this would take hours and hours of studio time that cost a lot of money.  Then there was the mix, which could take days, again at enormous expense.  Finally, masters would need to be made, from which the pressings would flow.  The whole process was time-consuming and expensive, with a need for sound engineered spaces and the huge analog equipment necessary for the whole process.

Now, it can be done in a room, and collaborators can email unfinished tracks to one another, add layers and overdubs, then send them back for comment and tweaking.  The whole process is fairly inexpensive and certainly not nearly as time consuming as it once was (although there are bands, like Marillion, that take an inordinate amount of time to work on an album; they worked for two years, on and off, producing Marbles).

I guess my only point here, beyond featuring some exciting, interesting, avant-garde music from a gifted musician and his many collaborators, is to point out, yet again, what an exciting time it is both for musicians and fans of music.  Quite literally anything is available for people who keep their ears open; musicians have more opportunities than ever to offer all sorts of music to the public.

So let us all celebrate the on-going slow collapse of the corporate business model for music production and distribution!

An Actual Real Discussion On The Internet!

Rarer than hen's teeth or a full bottle of booze in John Boehner's liquor cabinet!

It starts with a book review at Salon.  It moves over to a critical note at Lawyers, Guns, & Money.

Best of all, while the comment sections of both posts are haunted by idiotic Christian trolls, there are actual discussions and amplifications that add both heat and light to a fascinating topic.

Not knowing nearly as much as I should about the whole context, while perhaps having some investment in one side of the discussion, I refuse to take a stand on the historical verdict, or the dissent from that verdict.  Suffice it to say that, every once in a while, it is possible to have an adult discussion and disagreement on the 'net, complete with trolls, in which readers learn things.

I recommend both, if you're interested.

Sex In Church

Well, talking about it anyway . . .

Allegheny College's Ford Memorial Chapel, which conducts Catholic mass and non-denominational services every week, hosted a sex-positive class last Wednesday focusing on topics like the female orgasm, body image, and consent.

Horrors!

Of course, there's more.  What other reasons would there be for the anti-sex crowd to froth at the mouth about this?

[T]he sex educators had also told students masturbation is not a sin.

"Some people figure out masturbation and orgasm as teenagers, some people figure it out later than that," said Weinberg, describing her lifelong fascination with pleasuring herself. "And some people figure it out earlier than that. Like preschool age. I was part of that last category."

If that wasn't bad enough:

 "Sometimes it can be difficult finding your G spot by yourself, because it involves inserting a finger or fingers inside the vagina into the front wall of the body, and that kind of results in an awkward, kind of clawlike hand position," Weinberg said, demonstrating with a pawing motion as the audience giggled. "Obviously, there are better ways you can position your body. Or if you've got a partner, you can get your partner to insert their finger or fingers inside your vagina in the front wall of your body in a sort of a J curve."

The outrage!  A bunch of college students learning stuff!  About an important part of their lives!  In a positive, safe environment!  And some of them giggled!

Of course, pederast apologist Bill Donohue sent "a strongly worded letter" to the college President.  Apparently, spending much of your time defending boy-child rapists in the Catholic Church makes you forget there's another gender out there.

I have a rule.  In fact, on a ride to see our life insurance agent Friday afternoon, my wife and I were talking about this very rule.  There is no more safe place to talk about anything than church.  The fact that this is a non-denominational chapel on the campus of a private college unaffiliated with any religious denomination  doesn't make this any less holy ground.  While the college patiently explained to anyone interested that the space was used because it was the only one large enough to accommodate the expected audience, this doesn't lessen the reality that, far from being outraged that this particular topic used space also utilized for Christian worship, I'm glad.

Because, you know, God made sex.  It isn't like us talking about it is either going to offend or surprise God.  The only thing that might surprise God is that some folks are talking about it in healthy, positive ways.  Particularly for women.

Finally, I should probably add that folks who get upset over stuff like this really need more to do.

Navigating Irrationality

The above illustration, from M. C. Escher, is a good illustration of the twisted nonsense of so much of the American right-wing's discussion about guns.  I would be remiss in this discussion if I didn't note what may well be the single stupidest comment - revealing a level both of ignorance and reality that is astounding - I have come across (and considering the person in question, that is really saying something).  In a discussion about gun laws, a person noted the not unimportant Supreme Court case DC v Heller, the case that noted the Second Amendment seemed to extend the right to bear arms to individuals qua individuals, yet also was clear that right was neither absolute nor outside the state's legitimate interest to regulate.  The response to this important citation?  Ahem:

I've seen this before. What I haven't seen is Scalia's support for this opinion. He seems to going completely on precedent, but upon what was that precedent founded originally? He is an originalist, but I am unaware of anything from the founders that would support

"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose"

Says who other than the opinion of other justices? To insist we have an inalienable right to defend ourselves and then turn around and presume to dictate how we can do that doesn't make any sense. I know for you own sake you are content to lazily default to SCOTUS opinion as if it is God's Word written in stone, but I doubt that in this case it truly matches what the founders had in mind.

As to the last line, what is in common use is what is used by the military. If they are bearing automatic weapons, then we are to have that same weapon for ourselves. Also, what constitutes an "unusual weapon" is a rather subjective measure upon which agreement would be difficult. 

Quite apart from the tortured prose, I'm astounded by the comment author's waving away the simple reality that the entire discussion he's having revolves around gun laws, specifically how Heller impacts what and how far the state can regulate gun sales to individuals and gun ownership by individuals.  The law, apparently, is irrelevant in at least one person's world when discussing, you know, law.

Another level of crazy, and one surely to make the rounds, I discovered when reading this post at Whiskey Fire. Now, Jim Hoft has been awarded "Stupidest Man On The Internet" and for very good reasons.  His latest call to arms concerns the Department of Veterans Affairs notifying veterans deemed mentally and/or physically incompetent that they will no longer have access to firearms.  He enlists the help of another right-winger whose caps-lock gets stuck a lot, "Michael Connelly, J.D.", a self-described "Constitutional Attorney", who breathlessly titles his screeching headline, DISARMING AMERICA'S HEROES.

Thers at Whiskey Fire makes the unsurprising point that this is part of an entire program the DVA has set up, with all good intentions, to deal with the tens of thousands of walking wounded our wars of choice have left us.  Thers also makes the point this system, repeating that it is well-intentioned, is severely broken.  He isn't the only one who says it; the DVA knows it and is trying to fix it.

Thers also notes that this doesn't involve only firearm ownership; it has to do with removing any legal and fiduciary rights and responsibilities from those deemed by the DVA mentally and physically incompetent.  Not only can't these folks own guns; transfer of their financial well-being is often transferred to others, resulting in well-documented fraud and abuse going back before the turn of the millennium.

The system needs to be changed.  The system should be changed.

All the same, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, am I the only one who remembers that there was mention made of keeping guns out of the hands of those who have a history of mental illness?  Aren't there those who, while perhaps through no fault of their own, have been exposed to situations resulting in extreme cases of Post-Traumatic Stress that might well lead them to pose a danger to themselves and others?  Is it possible this is a situation both the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs has been trying to get people talking about for a while?  Why, yes!  Yes it is.

Wasn't a highly decorated member of the United States military recently murdered by a veteran with severe PTSD?  Why, yes!  Yes he was!

Haven't we been hearing as nauseum that we need all those guns of ours to protect us from . . . THE UNITED STATES MILITARY THAT MIGHT BE ORDERED TO ROUND US UP AND TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOMS?!?  Why, yes.

Yes, we have.

Sitting around and calling veterans "heroes" out one side of one's mouth, while simultaneously instilling fear of these same people as potential agents of tyranny against whom all real patriotic Americans should arm themselves is not just the height of hypocrisy.  It is insulting and demeaning.

Not to mention just plain stupid.

Look, we have all sorts of serious problems.  Some of those problems include wars of choice that have left tens of thousands of young Americans wounded in ways that aren't visible to the naked eye, yet every bit as debilitating as having lost a limb.  The military has made huge strides over the past decade of war in dealing with and treating the mental wounds from exposure to extreme combat situations, for which they should be applauded.  Part of that effort includes recognizing that sometimes, some of these individuals, while definitely in need of care, also pose a very real, very grave danger to themselves and others.  Restricting their access to deadly weapons, most especially firearms with which they would be familiar and well trained, is an important part of protecting them and others around them.

In the real world, including the world in which we've been talking about restricting access to firearms to people with diagnosed mental illnesses (as ridiculous, insulting, and truncated as that discussion has been over the past couple months), this is important stuff.  It is necessary.

For people who routinely navigate the Escher-like recesses of their own minds, however, all these contradictions and nonsense can only mean the camel's nose of gun-grabbing is already in the tent of American freedom.

Here's What's Not Happening (UPDATE)

Since Christmas, I've been doing a lot of reading at Wonkette and alicublog, two sites that are dedicated to pointing and laughing at some of the whackier things on the American right.  The trouble is, too much immersion in this kind of thing can lead a reader to despair for the United States.  Yet another story about how some blogger or writer on the right is proposing a conspiracy theory about Benghazi or Newtown or Pres. Obama skeet shooting and you begin to wonder if it's possible for the United States to survive.

Add to this a recent foray to the Fox News website fore the first time - it was for reasons that had nothing to do with blogging, suffice it to say - and I realized it isn't just fringe places like American Thinker or World Net Daily.  Right there on Fox are stories that, put together like a jigsaw puzzle, really do create an alternative America.  It isn't one that exists by any stretch of the imagination; all the same, sad to say, it is the picture that millions of Americans accept because it is their source for news about our country and our world.

So, in a kind of public service, here are some things that just aren't happening:

• No one from any government agency is planning on taking anyone's guns.  No one from Congress or the Executive is planning on asking for permission to take anyone's guns.  No one from Congress or the Executive is even thinking about planning on asking for permission to take anyone's guns.  In fact, Pres. Obama signed two laws during his first term that expanded gun rights.
• The government has not and will not take over health care, or the health insurance industry.
• Government spending, as a percentage of GDP, is at its lowest point since the Eisenhower Administration.  Since taking office, even taking the stimulus package in to account, the Obama Administration has cut federal spending by over $1 trillion in four years.
• Tax rates, both on individuals and corporations, are lower now than any other OECD nation; tax collections are at their lowest levels, as a percentage of economic activity, than at any time since the Great Depression.
• Our borders are not open, and people are not rushing across them at record rates.  On the contrary, since taking office, Pres. Obama has strengthened border security, increased the number of armed border patrol agents, and the number of people seized and deported is greater during the years Obama has been in office than all previous Administration's combined.
• Recent catastrophic weather events - the on-going drought through the middle part of the country; Hurricane Sandy; the massive noreaster recently on the East Coast; this past summer's heat wave across Russia - all have direct links to global warming.  Even the recent series of cold snaps across the middle part of the United States, followed by a few days of moderate weather, then back to bitter cold temperatures, are the result of warming oceans as well as warming temperatures in the lower atmosphere effecting change in the wind patterns in the stratosphere.  Addressing climate change is something we should have been doing for 10 - 15 years.  We cannot wait, nor can we avoid many other results that are already in the pipeline, as it were.  We can, however, act to prevent it from being a far worse problem over a far longer period of time.

This is the real world.

You're welcome.

UPDATE:  It isn't just dorks on the internet, acting like mother birds and regurgitating whatever they eat at right-wing news sites.  Breitbart.com raised the question whether Chuck Hagel had ever spoken to a group called "Friends of Hamas", but it turns out it came from an over-the-top comment made by NY Times columnist Tom Friedman New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman.  Hagel may not get the nod as Secretary of Defense because the writers at Big Dead Breitbart aren't smart enough to take ten seconds to use the internet.

Then, there's the news today, as Alan mentions in comment, that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell actually wasted time and money after a constituent took an Onion article seriously.

Do these people need cue cards to help them breathe?

UPDATE II: Just when you think the event-horizon of stupid has been reached, you stumble across this:

In a typical fair and balanced panel, Fox News warned on Wednesday that Al Jazeera is set to “infiltrate” the United States amid dire warnings about “sleeper cells” in the Muslim suburbs of Detroit.

Host Megan Kelly began a segment about Al Jazeera’s expansion into the American television market by raising questions about the network’s “real anti-American bias.” Contributor Lisa Daftari agreed, veering into blatant Islamophobic fear-mongering in the process:

 DAFTARI: The point is they want to differentiate themselves from their sister network, but at the same time, it’s the same thing. They’re having the same type of coverage. They’re apparently expanding to eight cities, including Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is a large ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans and sleeper cells have been detected. You can Google this, you can find out all this information. So if you’re trying to set yourself apart the Qatari petro-dollars are backing this, you’re still developing in this area where the sleeper cells have been detected. They’re going to have do do much more to prove to me that they’re different from their sister network.

There are so many wonderful and strange and scary things in the world.  And Fox News viewers know about none of them because of garbage like this.

Drawing Out

A big emotional and logistical hassle of our impending move to a different city is the fact that our children will be switching school systems.  Again.  Our older daughter will be finishing her sophomore year in high school, our younger sixth grade.  Clearly, for the high schooler, there is much more angst and emotion, although this shouldn't be thought to discount our younger daughter's hurt at leaving her friends and a school where she's been both happy and successful.

Add to this that the public schools in the city of Rockford aren't the best, as well as being quite large, and the result is this is the single most important issue facing us.  Indeed, it was the first matter Lisa and I discussed even before we talked about whether or not to accept the appointment or not.  Of course, not accepting the appointment would have meant trouble for her; on the other hand, I know Lisa would have accepted it for the sake of our children.

Before we went much further down the way of discussing the matter itself, Lisa mentioned the possibility of private schools.  In fact, not far from where we shall be living is the campus of Rockford Christian Schools, a non-denominational K-12 school that, while expensive, won't be outside our ability to afford.  Our older daughter, in particular, is interested in music and theater, so we checked out what the school offered for someone like her, and were pleasantly surprised to find all sorts of programs, many of them similar to those at her current, public, high school.

At the same time, we thought it important to check out the public schools the girls might attend.  The high school for our area of the city has a student body of 2,000, with a faculty/staff of 200.  That's not a pleasing ratio, at least for me.  At the same time, the school offers music and theater courses, too, providing opportunities for students to explore these particular art forms.

So, Lisa and I decided the best thing to do is offer the girls a choice.  When we started talking about this matter when we let them know about the move, we had them take a look at the websites for the schools.  Of course, there are other private schools in Rockford - a Lutheran High School and a Catholic High School as we well as the non-denominational "Christian" school -and we may yet take a look at them, too.  All the same, our younger daughter seems willing to go the private school route.

One thing that got me thinking was the fact that, while unaffiliated with any denomination, the school does include religious instruction, including required courses in Bible reading and study.  Obviously, I don't care much about that one way or another; at the same time, I did wonder whether the schools would offer real science classes or teach "creationism" or "intelligent design".  As soon as I thought about it, though, I realized I couldn't care less.  If the girls want a real science education and the school doesn't provide it, that's something they can get at home.  The far smaller student body - each class, K-12, has about 100 students in it - combined with a Christian atmosphere, are all advantages; also, being a private school, the other students will be far more accommodating to new students than an enormous public school, filled with kids who have already drawn the social lines firmly and clearly.  All in all, I would be much happier if our older daughter chose to go to Rockford Christian, but we are determined to honor her choice.

Education literally means "to draw out" our "draw up".  Rather than pound a lot of facts in empty skulls, the whole point is to get people to use the tools education offers them to be the best persons they can be.  I can't think of a better, more healthy, more accommodating atmosphere than a Christian school for two girls who will be making a big transition in life, all the while still needing to learn and grow.

The Rockfordphiles

I've been pretty much absent the past couple weeks because something big has been brewing on the homefront.  It's something I couldn't talk about, except in hushed whispers with my wife.  The news was made public yesterday, so now I feel a bit more relaxed about sharing it.

My wife is being appointed Superintendent of the Rockford District of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Like all appointment changes, this is bittersweet.  We've only been here at Cornerstone UMC for three years, very short to say the least.  As with all the churches Lisa has served, we have all come to know and love the people of Cornerstone; they are our church family, people with whom we worship and learn and grow in faith.

At the same time, I am, as usual, excited at the thought of something new for us as a family; a new challenge, with tremendous responsibility, for Lisa; something new, yet familiar (we lived in the Rockford metro area for six years, so we are returning, in a sense, to a place we know well), that will offer all of us challenges and opportunities.

The office of District Superintendent is one of those weird things that's like Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin: It just growed.  Once upon a time, many if not most of the circuit riders serving small Methodist congregations were local pastors, not "ordained" yet still called to serve.  In order that order and discipline (a favorite word for we Methodists, you know), a system of presiding elders was created.  These were persons who went through seminary, were ordained, and served not so much as managers or overseers as much as senior clergy, arriving at these small churches to consecrate the elements for communion, to perform the sacrament of baptism, and to perform other duties where they might see a need.

Over the years and decades, as the Methodist clergy became both better educated and more professional, the role of the presiding elder began subtle shifts and changes.  While there is a long section of the Book of Discipline on the Superintendency, the best way for non-United Methodist folks to think about the office is this: Middle Management.

Our is a connectional system; that means that each and every local church is linked to all the others.  These linkages spread out to embrace the whole of the denomination.  At the same time, for many local churches, these links can seem less tangible and concrete, the relationships not only among United Methodists, but even with the Annual Conference of which that church is a part can seem more theoretical than actual.  For many people, the District Superintendent is an embodiment of the connection, the personification of the links among United Methodists, and more specifically from the local church to the Annual Conference.

The District Superintendent has many responsibilities; one thing, however, is missing.  They do not serve a congregation.  For the first time in 19 years of ministry, Lisa will not be working through a sermon each week; she won't be presiding at funerals and weddings; she won't be baptizing or confirming or serving the Lord's Supper with a congregation.  These have been and will continue to be important, vital parts not so much of her "job", but her identity.  I know she is struggling with how that will fit with her new tasks.

So, the packing begins.  As does the whole "saying goodbye" part, with which there is, of course, also a "say hello", although in this case it will be strange.  I would ask that Lisa be remembered in your thoughts as she moves in to this odd and wonderful new ministry opportunity.  I would ask prayers for our family, particularly our children, who are making a move none of us expected, yet dealing with all the emotional back-and-forth and up-and-down that comes with moving.  Finally, a prayer for the United Methodist churches of the Rockford District, whom I believe Lisa will serve with her usual combination of love and deep, abiding faith; their clergy, for whom Lisa will be "the boss", but always one whose first concern is the health of their ministry; and finally a prayer that the mission and ministry of the United Methodist Church - "Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world" - will live on through the Spirit that gave and gives it life, and that the clergy and members of the Rockford District will come to see and hear in Lisa yet another embodiment of that same Spirit.

And, boy, am I glad I can finally talk about all this!

Clueless

I am not someone who has a whole lot of rules about living.  One of the few I hold dear is as follows: No one over the age of 30 should pretend to understand pop culture.

This also applies to politicians and church people.  Trying to create some kind of "credibility" with younger people through the earnest insistence that individuals and institutions are culturally "hip" is embarrassing.  Remember the recent election, with Paul Ryan attempting to demonstrate credibility by claiming to be a fan of heavy metal music, saying his iPod has songs "from AC/DC to Zeppelin".  First of all, neither of these bands are really heavy metal.  Second, the latter isn't even a band.

Now we have Marco Rubio, apparently well-known as a fan of hip-hop, being heralded as being able to connect with young people because "he knows who Tupac is."

Tupac Shakur's been dead for seventeen years.  So, maybe not so current?

On the church side, this kind of thing makes me lunge for something to poke my eyes out.  Not the article so much, which is both vague and slightly condescending; the comment section, rather, produces exactly what one would expect - equal parts clueless pandering and the kind of "Neener-neener" back-and-forth that make the Internet so mind-numbingly stupid at times.

Look, I love music, and am always looking for something new and exciting.  I find myself moved by songs from performers as diverse as the Grateful Dead, Lady Gaga, and Opeth.  I would never pretend, however, that gives me some kind of credibility with young people.  Even being a disc jockey, playing music for high school dances only demonstrates I know how to read pop radio playlists.  As for the "moral lessons" from contemporary films such as Knocked Up, I couldn't agree more but I also find such things irrelevant.

We middle-aged and older folks should just admit our basic cluelessness when it comes to contemporary popular culture.  After all, it isn't being produced for us; Carly Rae Jepsen isn't being marketed to folks much beyond high school graduation, and plenty of people I know are scandalized by films by Judd Apatow, even as the films themselves are remarkably conservative in their view of American life.

It is important to give people tools to see and hear with grace-filled eyes and ears the movement of the Spirit in things as diverse as contemporary art and music and film.  We shouldn't pretend, however, that we either "get it" in some way other's do not; nor should be pretend to know things about popular culture in some misguided effort at appearing relevant to youth.  Leave youth culture for them.  They deserve it.

At The Hour Of Our Death

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  It is the day in which we who are followers of Jesus do as he did and turn our faces toward Jerusalem, knowing as Jesus did this means suffering and death.  On Ash Wednesday we, like the person in the image above, come face to face with the terrible reality that we are mortal.

Far too often I've read and heard critics of the Christian faith claim ours is a faith that denies death.  In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.  Our most holy and solemn feast days and seasons begin with the affirmation of death.  Death in all its horrible ultimacy; death in all its barren emptiness; death in its monstrous potential to tear apart the living.  We Christians no more deny the horror of death than we deny any other reality.

On Ash Wednesday, we believers are called to remember that we have been created from dust and it is a simple reality that to dust we shall return.  We cannot embrace the hope and promise that is the cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ unless we confront the awful reality that our days are numbered, and once our final day arrives, absent the grace of the Father in the Son through the Spirit, we face what the Bible calls "the final enemy" alone, without hope.

This is the terrible reality of Ash Wednesday.  Yet, there is even on this solemn day, a measure of Good News; precisely because we do this remembrance as followers of the crucified and risen Christ we need not fear this reality.  That death is a monster goes without saying; that we need not fear it because our hope and our trust lie in the One who defeated death on Easter Sunday, even as we call to mind our own mortality, we also are reminded that we do not rest on any strength or ability that is ours.  Rather, we have the Advocate who has already beaten back death.  We can look in the abyss of our own tomb and praise the Living God as the One who will call us out to a new creation.

I look forward to taking the ashes tonight, knowing I am coming face to face with the great enemy with the power of the Incarnate Son of God on my side.  I can then move forward through Lent, holding this moment as a word, just not the final word, of my existence.

Not Enough Awe

My original plan was to write a rather lengthy article about Ted Nugent being at tonight's State of the Union address.  In the middle of my original draft, however, my mind took a left turn and I realized that I really wanted to write something else.

There's not enough wonder in our world.

Really.  Our politics is void of any sense of possibility not least because I think, at some point, we gave up our ability to appreciate the transcendence, the possibility, inherent in any given moment of life.  Not just our life together, but our personal lives as well have been drained of any notion there might well be something beautiful about them, something mysterious, something wonderful.

For a long time, I've been fascinated with the fact that the word often translated as "fear" in the Old Testament, when referring to our need to "fear the LORD", would better be translated as "awe".  That combination of fear and love, of wonder and apprehension, when facing the unknown - that should be how we approach the God who created the Universe, the God who is the Father of our Lord and Savior, who called Jesus the Son in whom the Father was well pleased, the God who raised this same Jesus from the dead.  How else should we approach this God?

We are told by St. Paul that in Christ and with Christ we can approach the throne of God with boldness, a position I think makes sense.  In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes that we Christians are like Moses coming off the mountain with the Law, reflecting the Glory of God; unlike Moses, however, we can do so with unveiled faces, letting the light of the Glory of God shine for the world to see.

Our lives reflect the Glory of God.  In that and with that understanding, how is it possible we can move through our days without wonder?  How is it possible not to appreciate the moments we're offered by our gracious God who holds us and keeps us?  Far too much of our lives is spent complaining, far too little in grateful thanks and wonder that right here, right now, we are alive, surrounded by those we love, in a world we still barely know or understand.

The matter is simple enough for me: I would much rather celebrate the possibility we have to be who and what God has made us to be, and through Jesus Christ saved us to be, than sit around and complain about how ridiculous our politics are, and how ridiculous far too many people in our public life.  Before you finish, take a moment and just consider where you are, at this particular moment in time.  Consider the people around you.  Consider the world outside the door of your house or apartment.  Have the courage to consider, in faith, that all of it is a loving gift from God.  Made for us, so that we might live in praise and thanksgiving for God in return.

What would the world be like, what would our lives be like, if we each did this, just for a few moments each day?

It Isn't About Drones

With the NBC's discovery last week of internal memos supporting the killing of American citizens abroad who have been determined to be an imminent threat to the security of the United States, we now know what we've known for a while - when it comes to waging war, Pres. Obama is little different from his predecessors, including the little-missed Pres. George W. Bush.  Roy Edroso at Alicublog says it well, quoting Chomsky that all American Presidents since Truman are deserving of war crimes trials.

Too much of the patter, however, has focused on the use of UAVs, or "drones" in popular parlance.  Duncan Black at Eschaton calls them "flying death robots", which they are not.  Like the President they are criticizing, the critics are a bit too enamored of these remotely-operated fighter-bombers.  I keep wondering if these same critics would approve of the use of Special Operations Forces to do the same things.  Of course, I'm guessing their answer is "No", but that just brings me back to the whole matter of focusing on the method of ordnance delivery rather than the underlying "legal" rationale.

My criticism not only of Obama but pretty much all Presidential actions like this going back, like Chomsky, to Truman, is simple: The Constitution just doesn't give the President the power to act in this way.  Truman tried to be cute, and all forward-looking, using the United Nations in Korea, calling it a "police action" so he could side-step the Constitutional requirement of a Congressional declaration of war.  It is odd, indeed, to find myself agreeing with the late Sen. Robert Taft, one of the few voices speaking out forcefully and prophetically against the kind of imperial Presidential power-grab Truman was performing.  Taft was just slightly to the right of Louis XVI, but at least on this matter his claim to be speaking on principle rings true, even sixty-three years later.  The whirlwind sowed in the windy Korean peninsula arrived with the whole lying business that was Vietnam; one would think Democrats of either party would have learned the simple lesson that, at the very least, if we're going to commit our troops to battle, they need the vocal support of the people's representatives in Congress.  The closest we have come to an actual declaration of war was the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  The fact is, it's been just over 71 years since the United States has formally declared war; in those decades tens of thousands of Americans have died in battle.

And the Executive always has an excuse and reasons ready at hand.  All they lack is the one necessary thing - the Constitutionally mandated declaration of war.  In 2003, I doubt Pres. Bush would have lost such a vote; yet, just as his war planners insisted on doing the war with as few troops as possible, and without paying for it (one would have thought the Roosevelt Administration's example would have been honored at least in name by these same people who compared 9/11 to Pearl Harbor and insisted al Qaeda was an big an existential threat as the combined Nazi and Japanese Empires; alas, they were too cowardly), so, too, did they see no need to get a formal declaration of war from Congress.

Were Pres. Obama really confident he had the authority to kill Americans overseas, he would ask Congress to declare war on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and wherever else our troops are currently engaged in conflict, then use that as his authority to act.

My problem with the whole business isn't "drones".  My problem is the unconstitutional action on the part of all Presidents since the Second World War who insist that using Congress is just too cumbersome, a problem FDR couldn't even have imagined when he went before Congress and asked for a declaration of war against the two greatest military powers the world had seen until that time.  If there are Americans who are aiding and abetting our formally declared enemies in a formally declared war, then I don't see where there are legal issues with him killing them as part of larger war efforts.  Focusing on "drones" is a bit like focusing on "tanks" as large, noisy things that might crush a soldier under its treads, or blow a soldier to pieces with a Sabot round.  Focusing on "drones" misses the point that the President wants to do this war both on the cheap and by-and-large out of the public's eye, instead of taking it to the people.

"This Is Not A Game"

I think I've been immersing myself a bit too much in the alternate Universe that is the American Right.  Reading Roy Edroso's "Alicublog" and Wonkette is like entering a world where there is no sense, no facts, not even the comforting sense that time has a direction.

In the midst of the right's freak-out over America re-electing a black man President, the House busied itself today passing a non-binding resolution that President Obama set a date for a balanced budget.  Because, you know, that's really important!

Meanwhile, the real business of America gets ignored.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday $46 billion in U.S. military budget cuts would "degrade our ability to respond to a crisis."
Speaking at Georgetown University in Washington, Panetta said the impending automatic cuts, or sequestration, would result in "a serious disruption in defense programs and a sharp decline in our military readiness." . . .

"This is not a game. This is reality," Panetta said. "These steps would seriously damage a fragile American economy and they would degrade our ability to respond to a crisis precisely at a time of rising instability across the globe."

If you think he's joking, well . . .

The outgoing Pentagon chief delayed the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and the USS Gettysburg guided missile cruiser, which were due to leave Virginia later this week, because of uncertainty over the department's finances, Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

"Facing budget uncertainty ... the U.S. Navy made this request to the secretary and he approved," Little said in a statement. "This prudent decision enables the U.S. Navy to maintain these ships to deploy on short notice in the event they are needed to respond to national security contingencies." . . .

The decision to delay the carrier deployment came hours after Panetta warned in one of his final speeches as U.S. defense secretary that lurching from budget crisis to budget crisis was threatening U.S. national security.
He told students at Georgetown University that Congress' failure to deal with the government's financial problems put the Defense Department on the brink of having to absorb $46 billion in spending cuts over seven months.
The cuts, which are due to go into force on March 1 unless Congress acts to avert them, would require the Pentagon to put as many as 800,000 civilian employees on unpaid leave for 22 work days, reduce Navy operations in the western Pacific by up to one-third and cut Air Force flying hours, Panetta said.

"It's difficult to believe, frankly, that the Congress would simply stand aside and ... allow the defense, economy and quality of life of America to be irreparably damaged," Panetta told the students. 

Governing is not a game.  Except for the children who currently hold the purse-strings in the House of Representatives.  Remember who actually pays for things.  It isn't the President of the United States.  It isn't the Secretary of the Treasury.  It is the House of Representatives.

They love the military, and they support the troops.  They just don't want to pay for any of it, nor do they want any wealthy Americans to pay a larger portion of their income in taxes in order to pay for them.

We are governed by mindless, stupid children.

An Experiment

I'm going to test a theory.  I propose that Marshall Art will defend pretty much anything a Republican official says or writes, regardless of its merit.  The test is simple.  All he has to do is read this article at Wonkette and I guarandamntee you he will put something in comments about how this guy in question shouldn't be called a racist dick.  Because we liberals are the real racists.