The Night Writer - Culture Nights

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Of mass, and men, and the remains of the day

by The Night Writer

I thought I was pretty well-read, being a fan of history and having minored in poli-sci in college (though my profs were generally left-of-center and one was a flaming communist), but my wife forwarded me an essay the other day by someone I'd never heard of — and really should have: Albert Jay Nock. The essay is entitled "Isaiah's Job" and originally appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1936. It makes a strong case for refusing to pander to the "masses" in favor of serving the nearly invisible and unknown "remnant".

It was especially relevant to me because I've been thinking a lot lately about how far one can compromise in politics (or anything) without losing a working grasp on one's principles. This has been especially true in light of the series Mitch Berg has been doing on what the Republican Party needs to do to develop and disseminate its message in Minnesota. I've frankly long-since grown weary of the philosophy of voting for the lesser of two evils (since that's still voting for evil), which forces me to think in terms of what I really believe is important and what I'm willing to do to achieve it — even if it means "losing" a few election cycles. Reading Nock's essay it was amazing and stirring to see how eloquently he was stating some of the conclusions I've come to, some of which have found their way into recent posts here.

(Click here for a brief biographical sidebar on Nock.)

Even though some of what I've learned so far about Nock suggests that he gets out on some philosophical ledges where my brain isn't willing to go, I'd like to read more about him. In this essay alone I feel my brain stretching in unexpected ways as he describes the differences between the masses and the remnant, and the potential rewards and ultimate futility of pandering to one with the nominal rewards but lasting utility of serving the other.

The term "remnant" has developed strong religious overtones in certain evangelical circles where it has become a by-word of particular eschatological beliefs. In Isaiah's Job, Nock begins with the prophet Isaiah and the original biblical references, but connects the concept to the writings of Plato and Marcus Aurelius as well, offering a classic "old times" rather than "end times" perspective along with a stirring call to embrace an apparently impossible assignment.

(Click here to read the rest of this post.)

The prophet's career began at the end of King Uzziah's reign, say about 740 B.C. This reign was uncommonly long, almost half a century, and apparently prosperous. It was one of those prosperous reigns, however – like the reign of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, or the administration of Eubulus at Athens, or of Mr. Coolidge at Washington – where at the end the prosperity suddenly peters out and things go by the board with a resounding crash.

In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. "Tell them what a worthless lot they are." He said, "Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life."

Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job – in fact, he had asked for it – but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so – if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start – was there any sense in starting it? "Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it."

Isaiah's job, then — and the case Nock makes for his reader — is to strengthen the things that will remain, even if these are nearly buried by the spirit of the age and even though it may appear more popular and lucrative to tickle the ears of the masses. But who, what or which is which?

What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?

As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, labouring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass-man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.

The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable. In his view, the mass-man – be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper – gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak-minded and weak-willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous.

That smacks of an elitism that would get you drummed out of any Party caucus and get you mocked on national television since it flies in the face of nearly 100 years of public education and the facile lip-service of our social, political and cultural icons. It is far easier to simply feed the beast rather than stick your arm in and try to pull a bone from its maw.

Everyone with a message nowadays is, like my venerable European friend, eager to take it to the masses. His first, last and only thought is of mass-acceptance and mass-approval. His great care is to put his doctrine in such shape as will capture the masses' attention and interest. This attitude towards the masses is so exclusive, so devout, that one is reminded of the troglodytic monster described by Plato, and the assiduous crowd at the entrance to its cave, trying obsequiously to placate it and win its favour, trying to interpret its inarticulate noises, trying to find out what it wants, and eagerly offering it all sorts of things that they think might strike its fancy.

Appealing to the masses is a great way to sell beer or American Idol, but a treacherous way to build a foundation, especially for anything that has to last.

The main trouble with all this is its reaction upon the mission itself. It necessitates an opportunist sophistication of one's doctrine, which profoundly alters its character and reduces it to a mere placebo. If, say, you are a preacher, you wish to attract as large a congregation as you can, which means an appeal to the masses; and this, in turn, means adapting the terms of your message to the order of intellect and character that the masses exhibit. If you are an educator, say with a college on your hands, you wish to get as many students as possible, and you whittle down your requirements accordingly. If a writer, you aim at getting many readers; if a publisher, many purchasers; if a philosopher, many disciples; if a reformer, many converts; if a musician, many auditors; and so on. But as we see on all sides, in the realization of these several desires, the prophetic message is so heavily adulterated with trivialities, in every instance, that its effect on the masses is merely to harden them in their sins. Meanwhile, the Remnant, aware of this adulteration and of the desires that prompt it, turn their backs on the prophet and will have nothing to do with him or his message.

Isaiah, on the other hand, worked under no such disabilities. He preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favour, and answerable only to his august Boss.

If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants. They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedious business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one’s resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. The prophet of the American masses must aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste and character among 120,000,000 people; and this is a distressing task. The prophet of the Remnant, on the contrary, is in the enviable position of Papa Haydn in the household of Prince Esterhazy. All Haydn had to do was keep forking out the very best music he knew how to produce, knowing it would be understood and appreciated by those for whom he produced it, and caring not a button what anyone else thought of it; and that makes a good job.

The thing about the masses is that while they can be hard to predict, they are generally easy to detect and their reaction, whether it be honor or approbation, is immediate (if short-lived). The Remnant — again those with the intellect to grasp the principals and the character to live by them — are harder to find. Indeed, they may appear to be extinct.

One of the most suggestive episodes recounted in the Bible is that of a prophet's attempt – the only attempt of the kind on the record, I believe – to count up the Remnant. Elijah had fled from persecution into the desert, where the Lord presently overhauled him and asked what he was doing so far away from his job. He said that he was running away, not because he was a coward, but because all the Remnant had been killed off except himself. He had got away only by the skin of his teeth, and, he being now all the Remnant there was, if he were killed the True Faith would go flat. The Lord replied that he need not worry about that, for even without him the True Faith could probably manage to squeeze along somehow if it had to; "and as for your figures on the Remnant," He said, "I don't mind telling you that there are seven thousand of them back there in Israel whom it seems you have not heard of, but you may take My word for it that there they are."

The Remnant may be hard to find, but Nock strongly suggests that finding them isn't your job.

The other certainty which the prophet of the Remnant may always have is that the Remnant will find him. He may rely on that with absolute assurance. They will find him without his doing anything about it; in fact, if he tries to do anything about it, he is pretty sure to put them off. He does not need to advertise for them nor resort to any schemes of publicity to get their attention. If he is a preacher or a public speaker, for example, he may be quite indifferent to going on show at receptions, getting his picture printed in the newspapers, or furnishing autobiographical material for publication on the side of "human interest." If a writer, he need not make a point of attending any pink teas, autographing books at wholesale, nor entering into any specious freemasonry with reviewers. All this and much more of the same order lies in the regular and necessary routine laid down for the prophet of the masses; it is, and must be, part of the great general technique of getting the mass-man's ear – or as our vigorous and excellent publicist, Mr. H. L. Mencken, puts it, the technique of boob-bumping. The prophet of the Remnant is not bound to this technique. He may be quite sure that the Remnant will make their own way to him without any adventitious aids; and not only so, but if they find him employing any such aids, as I said, it is ten to one that they will smell a rat in them and will sheer off.

The lesson for those that cleave to liberty, self-government and self-discipline and want these to endure is that the standard must be planted and held fast, even if the masses move far away. You may lure them back by cutting off strips of the banner, but then the standard becomes unrecognizable. If you succeed in getting them to carry the altered banner they will only disgrace the original. Let the mass convulse one way and the other in pursuit of its pleasure; in time it will develop a stomach ache and seek relief and will look for the something that is clearly different and will deride that which they thought would make them happy. It's important that they see there is a difference. Who knows, maybe through the process some of the masses will receive the revelation of what doesn't work and will be able to apply and cleave to the value of the lesson, and become part of the Remnant you have loyally served and jealously guarded.

So long as the masses are taking up the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, their images, and following the star of their god Buncombe, they will have no lack of prophets to point the way that leadeth to the More Abundant Life; and hence a few of those who feel the prophetic afflatus might do better to apply themselves to serving the Remnant. It is a good job, an interesting job, much more interesting than serving the masses; and moreover it is the only job in our whole civilization, as far as I know, that offers a virgin field.

(hide)

Update:

Today's Day by Day cartoon is apt:

Posted on April 15, 2009. 3 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

On poverty and the fat of the land

by The Night Writer

The open palm of desire, wants everything, wants everything, wants everything...
— Paul Simon, "Further to Fly"
Here's an interesting article I read yesterday:

1 in 5 Four-Year-Olds Obese, Study Finds
Associated Press Online
Lindsey Tanner
April 07, 2009

A striking new study says almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age.

Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests. Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.

The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.
(...SNIP...)
Jessica Burger, a member of the Little River Ottawa tribe and health director of a tribal clinic in Manistee, Mich., said many children at her clinic are overweight or obese, including preschoolers.

Burger, a nurse, said one culprit is gestational diabetes, which occurs during a mother's pregnancy. That increases children's chances of becoming overweight and is almost twice as common in American Indian women, compared with whites.

She also blamed the federal commodity program for low-income people that many American Indian families receive. The offerings include lots of pastas, rice and other high-carbohydrate foods that contribute to what Burger said is often called a "commod bod."

"When that's the predominant dietary base in a household without access to fresh fruits and vegetables, that really creates a better chance of a person becoming obese," she said.

It's a conundrum of American culture that our poorest people, regardless of age, are more prone to be overweight than those with more education and higher incomes. It's not a new revelation, but this article jumped out at me because of something else I heard recently.

I attended a Catholic wedding and at one point the priest led a group prayer asking for God's intervention and/or blessing in a number of areas and listed "the elimination of poverty" in the petition. The elimination of poverty? I mean it's a fine and "Christian" sentiment, but didn't Jesus say we would have the poor with us always? It got me to thinking about just what poverty is (or isn't) and what exactly can be done about the symptoms and the root causes. Can you define poverty by the amount of money someone has (or hasn't), by where he lives, by his clothing...or by his actions, attitudes and habits?

The problem in defining poverty is that it is a relative term, subject to perception; i.e., "I may not be able to tell you what poverty is but I can tell you what it looks like" (or, "I know it when I see it.") There are people here in the U.S. that you can look at and consider themm to be "poor" — until you go to the Philippines and see a family living on (not in) a piece of cardboard in the city dump. To that Filipino family the poor man in America with an apartment, food, television and midnight basketball looks wealthy and his bag of Cheetos and Big Gulp are an excessive indulgence; meanwhile that American looks at my nice house, two cars, big yard, smells the sirloin grilling on the patio — and wonders why I'm so "lucky". And I think that if I won $100 million in the lottery I'd still clear nearly $50 million after taxes and could buy a mansion where fresh bon-bons could be delivered twice a day.

My wife, in her training as a police chaplain, has taken a number of classes to help her understand the stresses and job hazards of police officers as well as the social issues that make up the environments in which they have to do their jobs. I think one of the most interesting for her was the series on understanding that the poor, the middle class and the wealthy all really do think differently and have a nearly "secret" way of communicating within their groups that are almost incomprehensible to outsiders. I know, I know...it sounded kind of specious to me, too, until she shared some examples that made me go, "Hmmmm."

I won't go into all that now as it could easily be three or four posts, but I will offer that I think attitudes, habits and actions have more to do with a person's poverty than bad luck or conspiracy to keep one down. Recognizing that, we have several times in the past helped "poor" people out not just in money and goods, but in trying to show them where the critical decision-making points are, how our family manages things and how to have a vision for navigating to a better result. You've heard the old saying about giving a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime, right? We've helped people out with the equivalent of boats, equipment and fishing lessons, only to see them happily shove off and get out a little ways ... and eat their bait.

That doesn't mean that we'll stop trying to help or stop trying to renew our own thinking so we can be better at it. It does make us very dubious, however, of the proposition that redistributing wealth is going to do anything to reduce poverty. The problem isn't the amount of resources, it's information and perspective. The poor people in America who are obese aren't lacking food so much as they lack good nutrition; similarly education doesn't help if it's the wrong information. Look around and there's all kinds of evidence that so-called "smart" people in all walks of life are making dumb decisions when it comes to finances, whether it's in their own lives, in their families or — God help us — in our governments.

Posted on April 8, 2009. 3 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The fairness of your doctrine

by The Night Writer

Tasha Easterly in her blog at Salvo Magazine, comments on a recent Camille Paglia radio interview.

Camille Paglia Says Democrats Betrayed the Soul of Their Party
Camille Paglia appeared on WABC-AM's 'The Mark Simone Show' yesterday to talk about the Fairness Doctrine, and you may be surprised at what she said. Paglia blasted the Democrats for even mentioning a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, saying "I don't get it . . . the essence of the 1960's, my generation, was about free speech . . . that's what Lenny Bruce was about - it was about the free speech movement, for heaven's sake, at Berkeley! What are my fellow Democrats doing? Not for one second should the government be wandering into survelliance of, monitoring of, the ideological content of talk radio. The Democrats, they've totally betrayed the soul of the party to even mention this."

Posted on February 24, 2009. 2 Comments 0 Trackbacks

The Greatest "Degeneration"?

by The Night Writer

Someone was writing the other day and reminiscing about The Greatest Generation, those gritty Americans who survived the Great Depression and still had the strength and will to defeat Hitler and the Axis powers. The writer contrasted that generation with our current citizens, referred to as "The Laziest Generation."

At first I thought that an apt description, but I only had to think about it for a few moments before I realized that people are pretty much people, regardless of the time they live in. The people who lived through the 1930s and 40s, and came back from the war to build a new world and birth a new generation in the 50s and 60s, all overcame hardship and adversity and realized prosperity, and I thank God for them and ask Him to bless them.

But they also didn't have a lot of choice.

Today it is worthwhile to celebrate and honor their mindset to do what had to be done, but in doing so perhaps we sell short our own capacity to do the same. Given the opportunity, I think that past generation — faced with economic collapse and a global thirst for totalitarianism — would have just as soon let that cup pass them by. That option, of course, was not granted them and they knew it. Perhaps the greatest difference between their generation and ours is that today we think such a choice exists.

They grew up with cash on the barrelhead, "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" mantras; they had witnessed what financial speculation and excess led to. The only thing they deferred was gratification as they scrounged to support their families or slogged toward Germany, all to the tune of When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World. Yet the generation that couldn't say "No" to its fate gave birth to the generation that apparently can't say "No" to anything.

You can't blame our forbears for having suffered much and desiring that their children not know the fear, hunger and torment that they endured. Out of that love, perhaps, it was natural to have a vision of raising up a generation that would know no limits...and one, unfortunately, that also knows no "No." Our generation defers no gratification, only the payments, and won't the next generation be thankful?

To be honest, the Greatest Generation also voted repeatedly for the New Deal, the ancestor of today's stimulus package — yet they were likely the first ones to come up with the analogy that's going around today of trying to increase the amount of water in a swimming pool by hauling buckets from the deep end and pouring them into the shallow end! They were human, capable of taking what looks like an easy way out but also quite capable, when pressed, to digging deep within themselves to persevere through hardship and work for something better and bigger than themselves.

We, too, are human and even with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement we are capable of the same inner reserves and faith. Like our parents and grandparents, we may not willingly seek out adversity, but we shouldn't run from it either. We can meet it, defeat it, and give the next generations stories to tell rather than debts to pay.

If only we get the chance.

Posted on February 24, 2009. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

A way of the gun

by The Night Writer

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the gun in my right hand. It was black, with a dull gleam, a scent of oil and cordite. It wasn't beautiful, it wasn't ugly, it didn't look like anything other than what it was...functional — and with a very specific function.

"My God," I thought, "what have I done?"

(Continue reading:)

Posted on February 17, 2009. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Not nearly frightened enough!

by The Night Writer

(from boing-boing)

Nancy features the word "zombie" in her Word for the Week on Fritinancy, and offers an entertaining history of the origin and uses of the word as well, of course, as its place in our entertainment and culture. Included in this is the following punditry she's come across recently:

But it's the ongoing global financial crisis that has truly reanimated "zombie." References to zombie banks and zombie companies have proliferated over the last 12 months. "The threat of zombies here and now is real," wrote Alyce Lomax in the Motley Fool blog last week:

That is, the zombie banks and zombie corporations that are artificially kept alive even though in any rational, natural world they should be dead. And if these reanimated corpses are still stumbling around, growing greater and greater in number, well, I'm pretty sure we all know what appears to be causing the dead to rise.

In a Jan. 18 column titled "Wall Street Voodoo," New York Times op-ed columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman wrote about a hypothetical bank, "Gothamgroup":

On paper, Gotham has $2 trillion in assets and $1.9 trillion in liabilities, so that it has a net worth of $100 billion. But a substantial fraction of its assets — say, $400 billion worth — are mortgage-backed securities and other toxic waste. If the bank tried to sell these assets, it would get no more than $200 billion.

So Gotham is a zombie bank: it’s still operating, but the reality is that it has already gone bust. Its stock isn’t totally worthless — it still has a market capitalization of $20 billion — but that value is entirely based on the hope that shareholders will be rescued by a government bailout.

I think in these cases the zombies are roaming the streets moaning for "Brains!" not because they want to eat them but because they seem to have misplaced them. This does give me an excuse to link to a classic from Tiger Lilly, however:

(Finally, the Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader-level trivia question: What movie did the headline of this post come from? Hint: it wasn't a zombie film.)

Update:

To find out what the zombies don't want you to know (i.e., who you're really borrowing from) go here. (HT: Through the Illusion).

Posted on January 27, 2009. 2 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, December 29, 2008

For your pleasure

by The Night Writer

An interesting excerpt from the foreward of the book Amusing Ourselves To Death.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This hits on part of what I was getting at in my post earlier this month Just Desserts in an Appetizer World.

HT: TechnoChitlins, via American Digest.

Posted on December 29, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Just desserts in an appetizer world

by The Night Writer

For the world offers only the lust
for physical pleasure,
the lust for everything we see,
and pride in our possessions.
These are not from the Father.
They are from this evil world.
(1 John 2:16, NLT)

Earlier this month I happened across an article about a study looking at the impact the media has on health. The study was actually a consolidation of some 173 different research projects over the past 28 years that looked at lifestyle links to bad health in children and adolescents.

Media Bombardment Is Linked To Ill Effects During Childhood
Washington Post
December 02, 2008

In a detailed look at nearly 30 years of research on how television, music, movies and other media affect the lives of children and adolescents, a new study released today found an array of negative health effects linked to greater use.

The report found strong connections between media exposure and problems of childhood obesity and tobacco use. Nearly as strong was the link to early sexual behavior.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Yale University said they were surprised that so many studies pointed in the same direction. In all, 173 research efforts, going back to 1980, were analyzed, rated and brought together in what the researchers said was the first comprehensive view of the topic. About 80 percent of the studies showed a link between a negative health outcome and media hours or content.
...
The average modern child spends nearly 45 hours a week with television, movies, magazines, music, the Internet, cellphones and video games, the study reported. By comparison, children spend 17 hours a week with their parents on average and 30 hours a week in school, the study said.

While the study was looking exclusively at children, this isn't a problem exclusive to children, of course. The appeal of media is entertainment; entertainment attracts eyes and whatever attracts eyes is going to attract advertising, and advertising deliberately sets out to stoke our appetite for what feels good or looks good or that we absolutely have to have. And ever since Eve first cast eyes on that juicy apple our appetites have gotten us into trouble. There's even an old saying about one's eyes being bigger than his stomach, referring to someone who has bitten off more than he can chew, or has more on his plate than he can digest.

It is not an uncommon failing that our lust often outpaces our wisdom, which tags along behind like a troublesome little brother shouting, "Hey, wait up!" or perhaps like Boo-Boo timidly suggesting, "The Ranger isn't going to like that, Yogi," as our hero launches into another misadventure in quest of a "pick-a-nic basket!" Jane Austen would not be dismayed today to learn that "Sense" still outpaces "Sensibility".

I'm not talking just about food, either. There's hardly a "crisis" in our society today not caused by our unchecked appetites. We have an increasingly obese population packing on pounds as we pound down the pomme frites (believe me, I know whereof I speak); we over-extend ourselves financially choosing rewards over reason, all as the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) goes up every year while the supposed adults shrug their shoulders and say, "What are you gonna do?"

Now you didn't need me to point out those things in the previous paragraphs, or to suggest that something's just not right. We all "know better", yet things always seem to get out of hand. Why? Because we're living in an appetizer world and all too often wind up with our just desserts.

We like to think we're sophisticated and impervious to the countless advertisments bombarding us everyday, yet this is the air we breathe and the water we swim in. Most of the media messages we see, and almost all of the advertising, is in one or more quadrants of the "You know you want it/gotta have it/deserve it/you can get it easy" matrix, driving a nearly insatiable hunger that goes beyond mere calories, rendering restraint as something quaint and to be ridiculed.

Well, self-restraint, anyway. External restraints are all the rage today as those who would scoff and say abstinence is unnatural and impossible will turn around in the next vote in the legislature and ban smoking and then cast their eyes on the grease merchants. Self-government is the highest and purest form of government and the hardest to achieve because it threatens all other forms of government and these fight back and they play for keeps.

Those who would seek dominion over us will tell us to have sex with whoever, whenever and however but we can't be trusted with what we put in our bodies or how we spend our money and everyday "we" prove them right in our greed and excess because everyone else is doing it. Conservatives like to say that the government should learn to live within its means like the average family does, but how can that be when the average family itself is over-leveraged? I heard a speaker say recently that people aren't using credit now for luxuries or splurges but to cover the bills for the necessities.

If we don't govern ourselves someone else will be glad to do it and even be embraced for it, at least initially. Why is there always so much interest in the latest diet? Because we all want an easier way to lose weight other than eating less and exercising more and hope springs eternal that some outside agency, or eating plan, will come in with its rules and make us thinner or better over night. The mortgage crisis was created by programs that portrayed home values as a Big Rock Candy Mountain of paradise and finance as being nothing but whip cream and bon-bons — and then Hansel and Gretel are shocked when they wind up with a tummy-ache and find out they're trapped. Then the government steps in and says, "Oh, you foolish children, look what I have to clean up" and we bob our heads sheepishly and say, "Yes, Mum" without asking who set the table in the first place.

The government is now our financial diet plan but rather than trying to restrict our intake it seeks to pour more money into the candy store, hoping that it is a rising tide that will lift all boats when in fact it is a a rising tide of obligation that levels, rather than lifts, all debts. The water rises but now all of us will be up to our necks.

Posted on December 18, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Perspective and thanks-giving

by The Night Writer

Writer, traveler and international woman of mystery Buffy Holt recently paid a vist back to the West Virginia mountains where she got her start. This trip back she received some more timeless wisdom from her nearly-timeless grandfather, "Pa." Pa still chops the wood to heat his home and carries jugs of water from the spring into the house. He also fills his coal bins and freezers and works hard to provide for his family's needs. Hard times? Not so much.

I thought, again, My grandfather shouldn’t have to have it so hard and asked him “Do you ever sit around and wonder at how different things are? Back when you were young and now. How different things could have been or might still be?”

This is what he told me:

“You know, a lot of things have changed. A lot of people aint around any more. I think about that a lot. Sometimes. But it don’t bother me like all the talk going on now. What bothers me is people saying ‘I don’t know how we’re gonna make it. Times is so tough’.

“I can’t understand it. Everybody talking about the hard times we’re in. They don’t know a thing about it. That’s the trouble. Talking about hard times and such. They don’t have no idea what hard times is. People starving in other parts of the world. Let me tell you, there’s all kinds of things that start to not-matter real fast when you can’t put food in your belly.

“Buddy I know about that stuff. I aint kidding you. Back when we was raised up there was times there wasn’t things to eat. And winters! You aint never seen such winters. You couldn’t even walk in the snow it was so deep. I remember wearing old thin shirts. Shoes you had to strap on cause they wasn’t nothing much but bottoms. I seen many a day where all there was to eat was a little meat grease and some green onions. I had that a lot. And it tasted real good too.”

He laughed.

“It was years ago. Man, that comes back to me whenever I see people filling their plates so full they gotta throw half of it away. Then standing there, shaking their heads and rubbing their bellies and talking about how hard times is.

“Why, I never had it so good. Neither have they. They just don’t know it.”

It reminded me of my grandfather and his life, and of the November when he was a little boy when the family farmhouse in the Ozark foothills burned, leaving him, his parents and his many brothers and sisters "homeless". They moved into the barn, my grandfather and his brothers sleeping in the loft where there were finger-sized spaces between many of the boards; when they would wake up in the morning there was often snow on their blankets. It was hard and it was discouraging, but there wasn't anything that dismaying about it: you just did what you needed to do to survive.

Buffy's account also reminded me of a poem by Richard E. McMullen:

One Time My Dad
One time my dad said to me, I don’t
see why people complain about how hard they work
or how tired they are. Nobody works hard but
farmers, miners, lumberjacks and foundry workers.
This was before power tools, tractors, and such things, and all
the work was done by hand. When farmers in Upstate New York
left to get away from the stones, what
they found in Southern Michigan were: more stones.
As they cleared the land, the horses hauled the black walnut trees
and stumps to the side of the field and the farmers burned them.
Black walnut was no good to them, too hard to work.
Grandpa Conde, when he finally left the farm and moved
to Milan, got a job in the foundry and walked to work
and back, six days a week, 12 hours
a day, for 50 cents a day. He thought
he was sitting pretty. Whenever the noon whistle blew, people
would say, Well, Hell’s out for lunch. But he would sit
down in a cool place and eat his lunch.
Once, when she was a little girl, Aunt Ida
asked her father, who was working in his garden, why
he worked so hard and wasn’t he tired? Grandpa
straightened up from his hoeing and answered: I never get tired.

Posted on November 25, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The long way

by The Night Writer

"I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in,
the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in,
and the personal freedom that America used to believe in."
-- Doug Mataconis, Below the Beltway blog

The building where I work was envisioned by its famous architect to have two reflecting pools alongside it. Therefore it features two rectangular cement depressions on its west side. In the nearly 30 years that I've been coming to this site, "envisioning" the pools is about all you've been able to do because when they are filled with water they leak prodigiously and incorrigibly, despite many efforts over the decades to correct the problem. The property managers ultimately gave it up as a lost cause and left them empty, despite my suggestion that they would make wonderful planters.

Earlier this year, however, the building was sold to new owners who have taken up this grail. As a result workmen have been milling around for the last several weeks, measuring and marking and ultimately tearing up sections of the bottom of the pools; the short, repeated bursts of jackhammers on cement sounding just like the staccato ripping of a German MG42 in the WWII Brothers in Arms xBox game I like to play in my spare time. In the game when you hear that sound you get down or you die and I involuntarily ducked my head a couple of inches the first time I heard that rat-a-tat as I approached my office a couple of weeks ago.

The larger pool runs the length of the building, while the smaller is to the north, separated by a 30 foot wide plaza that leads to the portico at the front of the building. The plaza provides the path for me to get into the building as I walk from the light rail stop. A couple of weeks ago a tall, chain-link construction fence formed a parenthetical bracket along the north end of the large pool to keep gawking civilians out of the work area; for our safety, of course. Personally, I would be able to control myself and my curiosity enough to stay clear, but you know you can't trust the masses.

A day or two later a similar construction framed the south end of the smaller pool, creating a fenced path across the plaza, still about 30 feet wide. As construction has proceeded, however, the fences have been moved closer to each other as the plaza itself is bisected to lay a drain pipe. Last week we were down to an 8-foot-wide access across the plaza. Ugly, and a little inconvenient, but at least we could get through.

Today when I walked up the 8-foot access was gone and solid fencing extended all the way across the plaza. To get in I had to walk a quarter of a block around to the north and come up on the building from the other side while the chill November wind continued to abuse my ears. Tomorrow I'll come via the Skyway route from the train, which means, ironically, I'll actually take an underground tunnel for the last block to reach my objective.

It's been getting colder for some time now; it could be a long winter.

"I'm working so my grandchildren will have the same freedoms
my grandfather enjoyed."
--Rev. Dr. Tom Jestus

Posted on November 18, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

St. Sabine, St. Adalbert and St. Paul

by The Night Writer

One day last week I was driving home from work listening to Hugh Hewitt and he introduced an audio clip from a guest speaker at Obama's church. Unbidden, my mind pictured a black guy.

Then Hugh said the speaker was Father Michael Pfleger; my mind then pictured "Catholic" and "white guy." Then the cut played and the whispery voice and cadence of Fr. Pfleger spun my brain around again and I thought, "oh, a black guy." (What really would have scrambled my brain was if the speaker - black or white - had said something I agreed with).

Then, last weekend, I eventually saw a photo of the priest and, lo and behold - a white guy. I had a bit of a laugh at myself and at how automatically our brains grab onto whatever clues it can to create a picture in our minds to help us try to make sense of things on the fly. The picture may not always be right, but without this processing trick our lives and interactions would bog down tremendously, and you could just about kiss off reading comprehension. And in a way, it makes life more interesting when your assumptions are confounded from time to time.

Anyway, I was reminded of this recent sensory experience again this morning when I read Mr. Dilettante's post about his initial awareness of Fr. Pfleger years ago while living in Chicago, and then the connection Mr. D later made with another "activist priest" after moving to the Twin Cities. The post is only Part One of I don't know how many, but I found the introduction very interesting and I'm looking forward to the next installment(s). Who knows what may be confounded this time? Check it out.

Update:
Michelle Malkin has the story of Fr. Pfleger being suspended for two weeks by his bishop in the wake of his remarks. Included is a funny photoshopping of Fr. Pfleger into Vanilla Ice. Word to your, er, Father.

Posted on June 3, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, June 2, 2008

American congregations giving record amounts to poor countries

by The Night Writer

American church congregations of all denominations — Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu — gave $8.8 billion in private relief and assistance to the developing world in 2006 according to a recent study by the University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Religion and Society and the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Prosperity (CGP). According to the Institute, that amount from religious congregations was more than one-third of the official U.S. government aid of $23.5 billion.

“The study examines religious and development giving that goes directly to orphanages and schools and other efforts in areas such as Mexico and Haiti, as well as monies given directly to U.S.-based organizations such as the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services,” said David H. Sikkink, associate professor of sociology and the Center’s director.

More than 50 percent of the congregations gave an average of $10,500 to U.S.-based organizations that are involved in relief and development efforts and more than 30 percent made donations directly to programs in developing countries. More than 30 percent conducted short-term mission or service trips.

Sikkink also pointed out that while congregations consider evangelism and service to both be part of a holistic ministry, the survey measured only expenditures for items such as food, clothing and medicines and excluded financial support for evangelism.

“The sample was randomly selected: it was diverse and in addition to mainline and conservative Protestant congregations, it included Catholic parishes, synagogues and Muslim and Hindu congregations,” Sikkink said. “It was also more ethnically diverse than earlier surveys, which had difficulty surveying low-income and African-American congregations.”

Among the findings from the study is that Catholics tend to work with U.S.-based aid agencies, while Protestants (particularly conservative Protestant organizations) work more directly with overseas programs.

Interestingly enough, a recent article (with a great graph) in The Economist about this high level of American private giving cites "An established culture of philanthropy and charity contributes to direct aid-giving, as does a generous tax regime." (Emphasis mine). Aside from the inference that the U.S. government is "generous" in the amount of their own money it allows its citizens to keep, it belies the notion that Americans who think they can do better things with their money than the government can are "greedy."

Posted on June 2, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A little something off the top

by The Night Writer

The Art of Manliness had a post last week in praise of the masculine sanctuary known as the barber shop. It struck a chord with me because of my own experiences, especially at one barber shop in particular.

Growing up, barber shops were something I went to with about as much enthusiasm as going to the dentist. In fact, if I could have gone to the barber shop as often as I went to the dentist (twice a year) I would have been happier. Nevertheless my mother would take me to get my haircut about once a month, dating back to the days when the barber would plop a booster seat in the big swivel chair and my mother would request a "Regular Boy". I think she was referring to the style of haircut and not to me, specifically.

As I got older one of my aunts would often cut my hair in her beauty shop, though once I got to college my desired "twice-a-year-whether-I-need-it-or-not" schedule became more of a reality. Once into the corporate world I visited a succession of walk-in centers ala Cost Cutters or Fantastic Sam's. Then in 1993 we bought a house over on St. Paul's east side and I soon discovered a classic barber shop on Payne Avenue, just a couple of blocks from my house, called Parkway Barbers.

Walking in the first time I knew I was in a real-live, honest-to-goodness barber shop. It had the classic candy-striped rotating pole outside and four barber chairs inside. The barbers were a couple of older guys named George and Ted (who were in charge) and a couple of younger guys. Brick walls, sports magazines and Popular Mechanics defined the waiting area, with some chairs set along the wall in front of the barber chairs so people could sit and join in on the conversations taking place in the big chairs. The smell was a masculine concoction of leather, tonic, shaving soap, pomade and Clubman Pinaud as distinctive in its own way as walking blind-folded into a bakery. It was as comfortable as slipping into a favorite sweatshirt or old leather jacket.

I'd walk in on a Saturday morning, shortly after opening time and if the shop was busy (usually) I'd maybe get a cup of bitter coffee and flip through one of the magazines. More often I could just drop into whatever conversation was going on at the time. Most of the customers were guys my age or older, and it felt as if we knew each other, even if we didn't. Some of the men were in there with young sons, introducing them to the Ways of Men. One time I was in Ted's chair when hockey legend Herb Brooks came in and plopped down in one of the waiting chairs. "Hiya, Herbie," Ted said. Turns out Herbie was another regular.

Most of the men who came in had "their" barber and would wait for him to be available if the shop was busy, but I'd generally take George or Ted, whoever had an open seat first. The thing is, nobody was ever in a hurry. It was a great place to hang out while knowing you were going to be able to check something off your schedule of weekend projects. Once you left the shop it was back to the "honey-do" list. It's not that women weren't welcome; I'm sure that any woman who came in there would have been treated very respectfully. It's just that it was a place where men went to get their hair cut and there was no reason for a woman to poke her head in. Even after we moved out of the neighborhood I'd still drive back every month for my cut (no blow dry).

Both George (first chair by the door) and Ted (second chair) had an amazing ability to remember who you were and what you'd talked about the last time. Sometimes it almost seemed as if they'd pick up the conversation right were it left off in the previous visit, keeping track of kids, jobs and the golf or fishing trip you'd been planning. Some of those conversations inevitably turned to their retirement plans, to cutting down on the number of days in the shop, to moving to Arizona. Being men of their word, that's what they ultimately did. I'm not sure what the transaction was but after they were gone the other two guys stayed on and I continued to stop in. Business may have been dropping off though, because one time when I went in they had converted the back half of the shop to a beauty parlor and a woman was operating a chair and a hair-washing station.

I went back a couple more times out of loyalty, and even had the woman cut my hair once, but it wasn't the same anymore. The constant hum of the hair-dryers and the sound of the women trying to talk over them drowned out other conversation, even if you still really wanted to talk about putting a new front end into an '89 Oldsmobile. The smell of the perming solution similarly overwhelmed the more understated, manly scents from before. You'd see one the regulars come in the door with a smile on his face and almost immediately go quiet, taking a chair to wait and fidgeting uncomfortably, perhaps taking a distracted flip through a magazine.

I'm sorry to say that it no longer seemed worth the drive for me to go back there to get my haircut. I found another barber shop closer to home. Still with some of the old-fashioned feel, though not quite as comfortable. I went there for a few years but never felt like I was part of a club. Eventually the time came around where my daughter started to cut my hair, and now when I get my haircut I just have to go downstairs. It's comfortable all right, with all my stuff and favorite people around, but you know, somehow it's just not the same. Maybe I need to buy some Clubman Pinaud.

Posted on May 27, 2008. 3 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Are you marriageable?

by The Night Writer

Last week Brett at The Art of Manliness had a post about how to tell if the woman you're interested in is "the one" to marry. They were good questions but they made me think that there should be some good questions a guy should be asking about himself first to see if he, too is marriage material. I've also been thinking lately of developing some discussion topics and exercises for some young men I know on how to become marriageable. My outline for that covers six to eight weeks of classes and exercises, but here are some of the highlights.

A lot of guys hope or assume that they'll be able to sense when it's time to marry, either because they'll find someone they feel they can't live without or they feel it's time to settle down. Both of those feelings are important, and feelings provide valuable momentum, but they don't necessarily indicate that you have the proper outlook or skills to marry. Yes, of course, people do get married in the throes of passion and somehow manage to develop the proper survival skills on the fly when reality sets in. Then again, many people try it this way and fail spectacularly. Ask yourself, would you rather learn to swim by being thrown into the deep end to see if you'll go up or go down, or after you've been able to rehearse a few techniques while still at the side of the pool? Here are a few questions to try out on yourself.

How's your conditioning?
Marriage is a marathon, but most of us spent our single days as sprinters, chasing women and running away from commitment. You get yourself into a distance race, though, and you'll find you may look good for the first couple hundred yards and then you start to seize up. Blisters form from the friction, and just about every part of your body screams, "What were you thinking?" Now I'm not saying that you prepare for marriage by a series of progressively longer relationships; that may "condition" you, but not for marriage. What I am suggesting is that if your objective is to get married that you look to the condition of other things (ideally before you even meet the woman you'd like to marry). For example:

(Click here to read 6 important "conditions" - )

What is the condition of your heart?
By that I mean, "What is your view of women?" Are you looking at them as your lover, your maid, your mommy? The fact is most people (men and women) get married because of what we think the other person can do for us. After all, both people have just spent the last however many months and years trying to put their good sides forward as they dated/courted/pitched woo. Then the first time someone doesn't hold up his/her end of the (perceived) bargain you feel betrayed. You should be thinking in terms of what characteristics make for a good partner — and not just in her! What do you bring to the table besides your bad manners? (More on that later.)

What is the condition of the other relationships in your life?
How do you get along with your parents? Your boss? Your friends (you do have friends, right)? If your other relationships are volatile, it may be time to consider what (or more accurately, "who") is the common denominator in each of those. Why do you think a wife is going to understand you any better than these others do?

Also, ask yourself if you are a faithful person. Not so much in terms of whether you'd cheat on a wife or girlfriend, but in regards to whether you're someone who shows diligence in other areas of your life. Love is a decision, not a feeling, and so is diligence. Do you show up for work on-time, see projects through to the end, do your friends rely on you because they know they can count on you to show up when you say you'll do something? Getting a wife may help you develop in all these areas, but why inflict this learning curve on someone you said you'd love and cherish? It's a HUGE headstart toward a happy marriage if you've refined these qualities in yourself.

What is the condition of your parents' marriage?
What are the things you admire in their lives? What things might you change if you had the chance? It couldn't hurt to take the time now to actually write down the things in two columns, not to criticize and find fault, but to try to identify how the good and bad may have affected you. When the pressure is on in your own marriage you're more than likely to respond instinctively in the same manner you saw your parents react to the same issues. Thinking about this in advance won't necessarily keep you from acting the same way, but it will make it easier to recognize the reaction for what it is when it comes and could give you the opportunity to take a step back and then step forward in a slightly different direction. After you've made your first list, write down a second list of the things you're prepared to do reinforce the good things you saw, and to prevent the bad things from recurring in your marriage. As a side benefit, you'll likely gain a greater understanding of and appreciation for the challenges your parents faced.

What is the condition of your finances?
It's probably considered to be old-fashioned these days, but are you ready to support a wife? Sure, she may have a job of her own, but money (or the lack of it) is one of the biggest stressors in any marriage (newly-wed or longly-wed). It's not just a matter of income, but lifestyle and out-go. Are you carrying significant debt? Do you really want to bring that debt into the marriage as a gift to your spouse? Having a mortgage isn't a bad thing (if you've not been foolish and over-leveraged yourself and strapped yourself into a back-breaking monthly payment), but what do your credit card debts say about your lifestyle? Are you prone to impulse purchases, or charging something because you want it right now instead of setting aside money so you can pay cash for it later? Will getting married suddenly make you more responsible? It's far better to work on building good habits now when you only have your own flesh to discipline. Establish a budget, including savings for some long-term objective (perhaps paying for an engagement ring, wedding and killer honeymoon so you can start your marriage without these common debts hanging over you.)

What is the condition of you?
Do you have your act together in terms of physical condition, hygiene, manners, clothing? Sure, you may be a diamond in the rough, but are you really hoping to attract a woman who's interested in a "fixer-upper"? Hell, second door on the right. Showing some self-respect is actually a good way of demonstrating that you have respect for others, which will help out a lot when you're married. Taking care that your body and your behavior are not unintentionally offensive to others is a good start, especially if you can translate that into picking up after yourself. Far better to nag yourself now into a good habit rather than wait for someone else to do it. By the same token, practice leaving the toilet seat down now and you will be her Prince Charming later.

Finally, what are your conditions?
When you're single and looking to get married, but no partner is on the immediate horizon, it's a good time to make a list of the things you want in an ideal mate (especially if you're busy working on your own traits). Be honest with yourself and don't feel shallow if looks are important to you. Just admit that you're normal and then move on to listing the other things that make your ideal woman attractive. What spiritual qualities are you looking for; what goals do you need to have in common (work or stay home, kids or no kids, career ambitions), what recreational activities would you like to share? The more you think about it, the more things will occur to you. Write them down, you can always edit or re-prioritize later.

The purpose of this is to give you a foundation or a tool for evaluating your prospects when some hunk of beautiful turns your head right around. Consider it building a hearth before starting a fire (or another way to put it is "when all you've got is a hammer, everyone looks like someone to nail.") It's better to have your list completed and familiar to you before you meet someone, otherwise you could become infatuated and then when you try to create a list everything starts looking like her. Some re-prioritizing is likely to happen as you evaluate a real-live person in comparison to your list, but if you've already established the things that are important to you (even non-negotiable) then you'll be better equipped to recognize a no-win situation early on, ideally before you've broken your heart and hers. Also, some things on the list may move up or down as you get older as your perspective changes; just try not to update your list while you're looking at someone you think you want.

This isn't a perfect or even comprehensive list. The things I'm planning to cover, should this actually become a class that I teach to the young men in our church, will be more detailed and will include "homework". I'll probably even learn some new things (or change some things) while I'm doing it. I'm also open to including lessons that my readers think are important. Leave a comment below and I will most certainly consider it.

I also most certainly can't say that I did all these things myself (far from it) before I got married, yet our 20-year marriage has been a blast! That is largely because I picked up on a lot of these things as we've gone along and early on (even if I haven't always picked up my socks).

P.S. Since there is a young man on the scene who would very much like to marry my eldest daughter some might jump to the conclusion that I wrote this with him in mind. The truth is the outline for the "marriageable" class is something I originally created several years ago and set aside as other priorities came along. Reviewing these points now, however, I am pleased to say that my prospective son-in-law has nearly all of these well in-hand. NW

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Posted on May 21, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Opportunism is stimulated

by The Night Writer

Well, the so-called "economic stimulus" checks have certainly stimulated some creative thinking. I can't count the number of email and junk-mail offers that have tried to attract my attention lately, each mentioning the imminent tax rebate checks and, of course, suggesting that this particular service or product is the best way to do my patriotic duty. One in particular stood out yesterday; an offer from a carpet company offering a $300 voucher on their product and touting that that amount combined with the average "economic stimulus" check would give lucky me more than "$1500 in buying power!" That's not a match for my brain power, however.

Given the slate of presidential candidates before us, one of whom actually has to win, I think the smart investment is in guns and gold. Interestingly enough, a one-ounce American Gold Eagle bullion coin and a Desert Eagle handgun are both running close to $1,000. Maybe a Sig and some silver are the solution for future home security.

Speaking of opportunists and home security, we also received two visits last night from "advertising directors" offering us a free home security system in return for posting one of their security signs in our "fabulous" front yard for advertising purposes. This is becoming an annual event, though we've never had two different duos (both from the same company) hit us in the same night as they worked our neighborhood. Well, of course, I'd buy a security system from somebody going door-to-door, just to avoid the hassle! Wouldn't you?

Oh, wait - I don't have to buy it, it's free because I'm going to let them put their sign in my yard! But what if my security system somehow keeps Santa Claus from dropping in? You know, sometimes you just know you're being scammed even though it's hard to see exactly what the scam is. Trust your gut and then hit the internet, which is what I did some time back when these offers started to show up at my door. If you fall for it, what happens is that they install some cheap keypad/sensor/siren apparatus (usually hooked up to one window or door; if you want more "protection" it costs extra) and they con you into signing the service agreement for an over-priced monitoring service that adds up to thousands of dollars - and will cost you nearly that much if you try to break the contract once you find out what you actually agreed to (more details here and here).

Anyway, as it stands right now our economic stimulus is still safely in-hand and I've resisted the siren call of the free home security system. Until we decide what to invest the windfall return of our own money into we'll be going with the tried-and-true security system of smearing jello on the floors, even though that means I'll have to venture into the black market for Diazinon for the inevitable ants.

Posted on May 20, 2008. 4 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Friday, April 18, 2008

An inconvenient truth?

by The Night Writer

Is Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" a know-nothing polemic ... or ahem, an inconvenient truth? I imagine the movie's debut will stir up quite a lot of response from differing viewpoints, or it may just sink beneath a wave of apathy. Either way, our family is going to see it tonight while we can.

The trailer above certainly poses some interesting questions; among them Stein's observation that every area of our society tolerates freedom of speech (even, or especially, if bizarre — such as the theory that life was "sown" by alien visitors) except when it comes to Intelligent Design, and nowhere is this more vigorously persecuted than in academia (I guess I'd at least question Stein's view that free speech is tolerated in academia given the events at the University of St. Thomas in the last year).

Watching this movie should be an interesting counter-point to a show I happened to come across the other day on the History channel: Life After People. The show speculates on what the earth would be like if all humans suddenly disappeared, using CGI technology to illustrate conditions 30 to 10,000 years after "we're gone." The show was interesting, if somewhat snicker-inducing at how seriously it was taking itself. I found myself following along as each millenia rolled by, revealing what a wonderful place this could be. Somewhere around 1,000 to 2,000 years into the "future" I started to wonder if — with all this abundant life — the show would forecast the evolution of another human race.

In fact, the show did, toward the end, ask the question if whether tool-using primates would evolve into humans, capable of not only looking at the starry night sky but also viewing it with wonder and imagination. The conclusion offered, however, was that, though certain primates may become somewhat more advanced, it was extremely unlikely they would become humans. Soooo...I wonder how the producers of the show figure that humans ever showed up in the first place?

Maybe they could have asked Ben Stein....

UPDATE:
Rich Karlgaard posts his thoughts and encourages comments on a similar theme in his blog today.

Posted on April 18, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, April 14, 2008

Elitist, moi ?

by The Night Writer

Both the blogs and the MSM have been featuring Obama's estimation of why just plain folks seem to not be warming to him in Pennsylvania:

"So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

[Image HT to Gino, via The Lumberjack, who really knows how to get his whacks in.]

While the blogs tend to feature the entire quote, the MSM (or the apologists offering commentary in the MSM) tend to focus on the "bitterness" part of the statement while ignoring the rest of Obama's ignorant statement. I say "ignorant" here not in terms of "stupid" but according to the "lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified" meaning of the word. Essentially, Obama's statement is an ill-informed assumption on his part, based on his experience or world-view. I say it's ignorant because I was reminded of a Pew Research Center study that I blogged about back in 2005 after reading about it on Craig Westover's blog. My post read, in part:

The study suggests that the old political party stereotypes of rich and poor, educated and less-educated no longer hold up as the two major parties now have similar demographics in terms of the distribution in these categories. The primary difference is now along the lines of attitude. From the Washington Post article:

The most striking differences between lower-income Republicans and lower-income Democrats come in their perceptions of the power of the individual. Both Pro-Government Conservatives and Disadvantaged Democrats include a substantial number of people who consider themselves to be struggling financially. Overwhelming majorities in both groups say they often cannot make ends meet.

But where they part company is in their overall sense of optimism, with the Republican group expressing much greater faith in personal empowerment. Three-fourths of the Pro-Government Conservatives agreed that people can get ahead by working hard, and four-fifths agreed that everyone has the power to succeed. Just 14 percent of Disadvantaged Democrats agreed with the first statement, and only 44 percent agreed with the second.

Meanwhile, this faith in one's ability to overcome may be rooted in a greater faith:

For all their similarities on income and education, Enterprisers on the right and Liberals on the left diverge on religious habits and cultural attitudes. For example, almost half of Enterprisers attend religious services at least weekly, while just a fifth of Liberals go to religious services that often. A fifth of Liberals are classified in the Pew study as secular - defined as atheists, agnostics or those who say they have no religious affiliation - compared with about one in 20 of the Enterprisers.

So, the way I put this together is that even though they are about the same in terms of income and education, the group with the more positive view of the future is the one that puts its faith in God and in themselves. The group with the most pessimistic outlook puts its faith in the government.

Which group do you figure already knows who its Savior is, and which one is most likely to turn, in their bitterness and hopelessness, to the next one that happens to come along?

Nevertheless, Obama has proven himself to be nothing if not resilient and adaptable. I expect that once he leaves the high-falutin' San Francisco fund-raising circuit and returns to campaign in Pennsylvania his next quote will be, "Git 'er done!"

Posted on April 14, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

One reason why I blog

by The Night Writer

Back in January Mitch Berg had a post likening the abortion issue to a ribbon in the middle of a tug-of-war rope, with each side trying to move the ribbon (i.e. public opinion) closer to it's position. Mitch thought he was seeing signs that public opinion has pulled more to the right of late. That naturally triggered a comment string that centered around the role of faith in one's view and of legislating belief. Surprisingly, it actually turned out to be one of the most civil debates I've seen on his site, and one I was proud to have participated in.

I've thought about that discussion several times since then, and while the topic at that time was abortion, I've realized that my comments then pretty well encapsulated my thinking on many issues and, unintentionally, provided an explanation for one of the reasons for why I blog, limited as my contribution may be.

I've extracted the main portion of my comment from that day (addressing another commenter, not Mitch) and posted it here to help me remember, on nights like these when I'm really tired, why I keep doing this.

... I merely want to address your view that the abortion issue is an issue of faith. It is a matter of faith, but not necessarily “faith” as in being Catholic, Evangelical or Humanist, but in terms of “belief.” The underlying point I took from Mitch’s post is that what people “believe” about human life appears to be changing, and ultimately what a society believes is reflected in its laws (for good or ill). Inevitably some beliefs are going to be in the minority. Thank goodness the vast majority today believes it’s wrong to hang people from trees, though a few still say it’s okay to threaten to do so, while even fewer would be willing to do it. (At what point prosecution should enter into that example is a topic for another day).

It’s not a process of legislating faith (or belief), but of faith/belief affecting legislation. The fact that some will disagree or be offended by the result is not reason in and of itself to not act on the greater will. Thus the ribbon, as Mitch says, is moved. That does not mean, however, that the minority doesn’t have the right to protest, or to work continually to change the beliefs of the majority, even to the point of risk and sacrifice (since risk and sacrifice are what differentiates belief from emotion). Though I may be in a minority on a number of issues (or because I’m in the minority on a number of issues), I thank God (not goodness) that we live in a society where these beliefs can still be contested.

Posted on April 1, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Of isms, schisms, colloquialisms

by The Night Writer

There was a classic Saturday Night Live sketch where Chevy Chase was interviewing Richard Pryor for a job (transcript here, blurry video here). The last step was for Pryor to take a word association test where he'd say the first word that came to his mind after Chase read a word from a list. The test is innocent enough at first, but soon the words — initially ambiguous — start to take on racial overtones: "black" = "white", "tar baby" = "ofay", "jungle bunny" = "cracker" as each man gets a little angrier and more confrontational. Ultimately Chase drops the "n" word, not even looking at his list, and Pryor responds menacingly with "Dead Honky." This was way back in the 70s when SNL was a startling new phenomenon, pushing the edge of satire and taste. To dare to use the "n" word in a humorous context to satirize the volatility of the race issue and the absurdity of the language was to also push the nuance envelope. The skit confronted the words rather than running from them and drew them out into the light so their bulbous ugliness could be punctured and deflated by the sharp needle. It was ground-breaking, it was liberating, it was as if it were prophesying a new day where we could at last talk.

That glimmer of hope appears long gone. I doubt that skit could run today. In fact, many of the links I originally found to the video now have messages about "video removed for content violation." Whether it was for language or copyright violations I don't know, but it makes me wonder. Yesterday's satire is now reality, as any racially-tinged language provokes instant word association-type reflex responses of reaction unfettered by reason. "Racism" has become such a loaded word that no one can pick it up without getting a hernia. It even occurred to me after I posted the Tom Lehrer video earlier that some might watch that and fail to see the irony and would instead react with, "That's mean" or something worse, missing the satire completely. No emails like that yet, fortunately.

Ultimately, racism can't be changed by talking about it, but by living without it. I know, that sounds impossible, especially since I concur with what Mitch Berg had to say earlier his week:

I’m going to start out with a very broad statement: “Isms” are part of the human condition. All people are conditioned to favor people who are like them, and to suspect people who are different from them, whether tangibly (skin color, language, accent, smell, dress) or subtly (class, education, geography). Many white people get uneasy around many black people, sure, but that’s an easy one. Middle-class white people get uneasy around mullet-headed bikers; New Yorkers sneer down their noses at Arklahoma accents; light-skinned blacks disdain darker blacks (or so said Spike Lee); farmers roll their eyes at people in suits and ties and clipped city accents and manners.

This is true across every culture on this planet.

In many of those cultures, that suspicion is codified in the language. In many languages, the word for “Human” varies, depending on how closely-related or situated the subject is to the speaker; for “humans” whose tribe is closer to that of the speaker, it’s a fairly benign or amiable term; the farther afield the subject, the less-benign and more derogatory the term will get.

To say “everyone’s a racist” is itself simplistic; it would be fairer and more accurate to say “we are all we-ists”; all of us, black or female or suburban or mentally ill or urban or atheist, are more comfortable around people who are like us. And every single one of us practices “profiling”, whether you’re a black couple “profiling” some agressive drunk rednecks, or a Xhosa turning on a Bantu in anger, or Molly Priesmeyer “profiling” white males, or even the stereotypical white middle-class guy sizing up…anyone else.

We separate ourselves in countless ways, not just by skin color. I was just back in my rural hometown the other day, a small community of about 3,000 people, almost all caucasian. I saw a list of the churches serving this small community. There were 13. Among that 13, there were seven varieties of Baptists. We all pretty much use the same Bible, know that we're called to join and knit in the Body of Christ, and yet even in a small community that would appear to have so much in common, we can't help but separate ourselves.

We are all "We-ists" by nature. As a Christian, however, I know that that our basic nature is essentially base and sinful. It is natural to identify with "our" group, to get beyond that we need to begin seeing ourselves as a member of wider and wider groups.

I fellowship regularly with, and minister occasionally to, a group of men overcoming addictions in their lives. The group is roughly 50/50 blacks and whites, and range in age from their 20s to their 60s. Some are from the south, some from the north, some are from the country and some have lived in the city all their lives. There are any number of reasons for individuals in this group to stand apart from other members and perhaps some do. Greater, however, is the overall sense of what we have in common, including our purpose. One of our preachers is a fiery black man who knows first hand what it means to beat up on someone, and to be beat down. If anyone could righteously spout the things that Rev. Jeremiah Wright says, it would be this man, yet he preaches that our enemy isn't some person or some group - our enemy is ourselves.

About 10 years ago part of this group went on a weekend fishing trip. One of the young black men who came along was just out of prison, and he didn't have a very favorable opinion of white folks. Early Saturday morning I went down to help out in the kitchen and found this man working by himself on the bacon and eggs. He was large and imposing, the size of an NFL linebacker. I asked him I could help him by turning the bacon.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "No."

I tried again. "How about I stir up the eggs then?"

"Nope. I got it." We could have been ice-fishing for the chill in that cabin.

"Oooh-kaay," I said, looking around and spying about a dozen loaves of bread on the counter, waiting to be toasted. "I think I'll just hang out over here with all this white bread."

It was very quiet, except for the sound of the bacon sizzling. "I am about to die," I thought to myself.

"HAWW!"

Ever since then we've been buds. My friend still comes often to the Saturday meetings, and I ran into him last week as the meeting was ending. The message had been about discipleship, and about whether you are a follower or an imitator of someone else. I hadn't seen him come in earlier so I gave him a big hug, which he returned. He then turned to introduce me to the man he had brought with him, who turned out to be his brother.

"This is John," he said as I shook the other man's hand. "He's somebody I've been trying to imitate."

I couldn't make out the look in his brother's eyes, because my own eyes suddenly got kind of misty.

Posted on March 27, 2008. 2 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Getting along, if only in song

by The Night Writer

Ben's post, Perpetuating Racism By Talking About It reminded me of a Tom Lehrer classic, of how much I love Lehrer's music — and how great it is that we have YouTube.

Lehrer, the predecessor to Mark Russell (though much funnier and not as smarmy as Russell), used to appear on national television in the 60s in a show called "That Was the Week That Was" (scroll down for details about the American version) where he would do a satirical song about something in the news that week. I had an album of his best from TW3 when I was in college that I soon had memorized, but I'd never seen a photo of the reclusive Mr. Lehrer until I saw this YouTube video. As funny as Lehrer was as a songwriter and vocalist, he is incomparable when you can actually see his facial expressions.

Now, ripped once again from the headlines, Tom Lehrer and "National Brotherhood Week" (the screen is black for several seconds at the beginning of the video):

Posted on March 25, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Left. Right. Left, Right, Left. Marching toward what?

by The Night Writer

Rich Karlgaard is among those pondering a return of the religious left:

Yet while secular politics are unwelcome in our church, I have noticed subtle shifts of late. The mood of the ministry and congregation is moving left. The music is moving toward a folk-rock sound of the 1960s and 1970s. Youth ministers wear berets and soul patches. The younger ministers don’t identify themselves as “Christians” but as “Jesus followers.” I would guess that most of them are Obama supporters, but I don’t ask.

To my thinking, "Christian" is ideally something that other people should call you because of what they see in you, rather than something you'd necessarily call yourself. "Follower of Christ" doesn't do much for me, since Jesus had a lot of people following him around during his ministry, perhaps just for the food. Personally, I like "Imitator of Christ" myself (more on that later).

America’s religious left seems to be mounting a comeback. I’m happy for this development, even though my own tilt is to the right.

The religious left has a distinguished past in American history. It led the abolition fight in the 19th century. It led the civil rights movement in the 20th century. Organizations like the Red Cross grew out of progressive Christianity.

Yes, and I think the basis of America's welfare program appealed to our country's Christian heritage and the well-meaning desire to do good and to help the poor. That welfare has had the un-Christian effect of destroying families and perpetuating multi-generational poverty also has to be acknowledged — something the religious left is loathe to do. It has also been, at best, ambivalent about abortion, and its infatuation and even outright embrace of communist and socialist totalitarianism from the Soviets to Castro, Ortega on through Chavez, and it's apparent commitment to replacing God with Government throughout U.S. policy is also disturbing. (That's not to say the Religious Right hasn't supported it's share of dictators and made its own alliances of convenience).

The strange disappearance of America’s religious left during the 1970s has been noted but not examined much. My own guess is that drugs, music, sex, New Age religions, body worship, tree worship, earth worship and so forth, siphoned off an entire generation of seekers who had previously found their mystic/activist fulfillment in the left hemisphere of Christianity.

Now one detects that many old hippies, and sons and daughters of hippies, are returning to progressive Christianity.

We’ll see how this plays out politically. If there must be a left, then let's cheer for a religious and not an atheistic left. However, I do think the trend benefits Democrats and is one reason why Democratic primary voter turnout has far excelled Republican voter turnout this year. The mainstream secular media, as usual, has utterly missed this story.

I think I agree with Karlgaard that if there's going to be a left let it be a religious left rather than an atheistic one. My caveat, and especially my prayer (for both the left and the right) is that the focus is on seeking and doing God's will, ideally by trying to be like Christ.

Earlier I mentioned being an "imitator" of Christ. Because we're all human (left and right), it is an easy step to try and move from "imitator" to "impersonator", wherein we try to rule by proclamation as if we, ourselves, were God. That's certainly long been a fear and a warning from the left side of the church aisle regarding the motivations of the right, while the left's own similar tendencies are ignored or attributed to "doing good" or "meaning well."

My belief is that any "theocracy", whether left or right, is fatally flawed by our own human imperfections and tendency to turn moves into movements; movements into monuments; and, ultimately, monuments into mausoleums. By all means, we should pursue faith in our lives and we should hope that our personal beliefs will be reflected in our public behavior individually and through policy. Our responsibilities to the poor (and the poor's responsibilities to God and others); to be stewards of the earth; to deal ethically and compassionately with others are all things that must be done and honored by individuals, not discharged to a collective or government to be taken care of while we blithely go our own selfish way. As I've written here before, if God asks me if I helped the poor (as if He doesn't already know) I don't think He's going to be impressed if I say, "Well, I paid my taxes." Being religiously left or right, highly taxed or not, doesn't lessen our responsibilities to do something on an individual basis, no matter how many marches, protests or church services we go to.

We often hear the phrase, "What would Jesus do?" as a guide to behavior. I suppose that's all right as far as it goes. A better statement might be, "What is Jesus doing?" and then trying to line up with that. If we believe Jesus is still at work around us, and not that He's gone off and left us to our own freedom-eroding devices, we can purpose to look for those things and and align ourselves accordingly. I urge those of the religious left, and my friends on the religious, to put our focus on glorifying God, not our own group or idealogy. If we can do that — though we may disagree from time to time — I think we'll be all right.

Posted on March 20, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, March 17, 2008

What's in a game? Don't ask the 8th Circuit Court

by The Night Writer

Back in the day, and I mean really back in the day when I had an Apple IIe computer and a computer game called Castle Wolfenstein. The game was on a 5" floppy disk and was essentially a puzzle maze where you were a WWII Allied prisoner trying to escape from the lowest dungeons of an old castle turned Nazi fortress. Graphically it was about as crude as it could be, and by crude I mean laughably simplistic by today's standards. It was a one-color, two-dimensional, third-person shooter where the game characters were essentially stick figures whose arms would only extend at 45 and 90 degree angles to shoot at other characters. To "kill" a Nazi guard you had to maneuver around the screen and try to plink him before he got you. If you succeeded, your victim fell over like a tree in the forest. Nevertheless it was hours of fun as you worked your way through various rooms, traps and puzzles while searching crates for keys, ammo, grenades and bullet proof vests.

A few years later I was using a company laptop and one day in a clearance bin I saw an updated version of "Wolfenstein" on a diskette advertising new, 3-D graphics. "Cool," I thought, and plunked down the $5, took the game home and loaded it up, finding myself in a full-color dungeon, armed with a Luger. I worked my way around a corner and a uniformed guard came rushing at me. I raised my gun and fired and — HIS HEAD EXPLODED! Blood, meat and brains went flying and I actually felt a little ill. In this case the graphics were, well, graphic and unbelievably "crude" but not in the same way as the first game. I later learned that the updated game was based on the "Doom" game engine — quite a leap forward from the tin-man stick figures of my old game. I decided it was too intense for me and turned it off, never to go back to it.

Even then, of course, the "new" graphics were still not as realistic as they are now; the game, after all, was on a little 3" diskette, running on a computer with a processor that would embarrass a calculator today. Today's games and game engines are highly advanced, technically, but some are still as base as they can be in their renderings of violence. I've changed, too, of course and I don't mind a little of the ultra-violence in a game as long as it's not too real. I've hacked and slashed my way through orcs, trolls, bug-bears, goblins and fire-breathing demon dogs without flinching (Baldur's Gate II) or sniped German storm-troopers (Brothers In Arms) while still looking forward to lunch, but while these games are well-rendered the "dead" aren't excessively gory and they thoughtfully disappear soon after falling. I've even played these with my youngest daughter, a sweet-natured girl who used to cry if someone fell off a horse in a TV show, but who now snickers if she gets the drop on a mummy and dispatches it with a spinning kick.

Perhaps this isn't the nicest daddy-daughter activity we can engage in, but I know that there are games out there that are much worse and that strive to outdo each other in replicating the most realistic dismemberments. These games typically have "M" for "Mature" ratings. These games do not come into my house. I was thinking of this today when I read the news story that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals had struck down (how violent!) a law banning selling "mature" or "adults only" video games.

Minnesota may not enforce a law restricting the sale or rental of "adults only" or "mature" video games to minors, according to an opinion issued Monday by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel said the court previously has held that violent video games are protected free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. For that reason, the law can only be upheld if it is proven "necessary to serve a compelling state interest and ... is narrowly tailored to achieve that end," the panel ruled.

As I read it I was also thinking about the day a few years ago when I went into the video arcade at Valley Fair and watched an expert player using both pistols on the big-screen "House of the Dead" game to mow down realistic, nearly life-sized zombies and monsters. He was fast and unhesitant. He was accurate and stylish, often using the turn-the-gun-sideways grip so popular in today's action movies. He was about eight years old. I wondered then if maybe something inside a young person doesn't get seared a bit from playing a game as graphic as that (or even an older person for that matter). Could you "play" enough so that the real thing wouldn't seem like that big of a deal?

About 15 years ago I was at a conference where we were all taken out to a dude ranch for the evening's entertainment. One of the things you could do was engage in a quick-draw contest with a friend. In this you each had an authentic style and weight double-action revolver in a leather holster. You actually faced each other from about six feet away and when the cowpoke "referee" gave the signal you'd draw, work the double-action, aim at your opponent and pull the trigger. Sensors determined who fired first, while the referee determined if your gun was pointed in an "effective" manner. My friend Nick and I faced off three times; each time he won. The ref looked at me and shook his head. "Dude," he said (it was a dude ranch, after all), "you're clearing leather and cocking the gun ahead of him every time, but you don't pull the trigger fast enough.

"Really?" I said. "I don't feel like I'm hesitating." We tried three more times, each time I focused on pulling the trigger with grim resolution. Three more times I died. I just couldn't overcome the split-second hesitation, even though I knew the gun was fake and the action wasn't for real. The ref just shook his head. "You're a cold-hearted bastard, Nick," I told my partner. He rather enjoyed that.

Somehow I don't think the little kid I saw playing the game at Valley Fair would hesitate. This is a good thing, perhaps, if you're under zombie attack for real but since that doesn't happen much when the legislature isn't in session I wonder if, all in all, it's not such a good thing. I also wonder at the bizarre reasoning of the 8th Circuit Court which based it's ruling in large part that graphic violence is protected as free speech and therefore can't be restricted, even by age. Which, in turn, makes me wonder if the Court will now repeal motion picture ratings and allow over-the-counter sales of pr0n magazines to 10-year-olds under the same logic.

I'd like to be just as sophisticated and blasé about the potential impact of the CG-enhanced violence in games available to kids and the TV shows and movies that are so accessible. The scientists, after all, assure us that there's a negligible effect. "Tosh," I'll think to myself, "the schools and parents are doing an excellent job of teaching manners, respect and impulse-control to today's young men. What's the worst that can happen?" And then I'll turn from the comics page to the local news section.

A young man upset about a girlfriend issue takes a rock in a sock to a knife fight and is killed by two other young men. Another man beats his friend to death with a baseball bat. A five-year-old boy takes a knife to school in order to threaten his gym teacher. A 15-year-old boy points a replica gun at police officers, who respond with real bullets. The last article appeared in the paper two days ago, the first three articles, along with the story about the court ruling, were all in today's paper. I'm sure it's all just coincidence.

Let's play two.

Update:

Then there's this: Five arrested with weapons outside St. Paul school. Three of the five are minors.

Posted on March 17, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Mary Ann caught with Mary Jane?

by The Night Writer

A politician caught cheating on his wife with a prostitute?
Ho-hum.

China abusing human rights only months before the Olympics?
Shocked, I'm shocked, I tell you (not).

Someone with the Hillary campaign caught saying something negative about Obama?
Yeah, never saw that coming.

An Obama staffer calls Hillary a "monster"?
Paging Captain Obvious.

A Minnesota DFL legislator's knee jerk reaction to a problem is to ban something?
Is the Pope Catholic?

But Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island gets caught with dope?
Ok, let me off here, this world is getting way too weird.

Posted on March 11, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, March 10, 2008

Unto the next generation

by The Night Writer

“We are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth... This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy.”
— Thomas Jefferson

I just spent a week away from my children. Curiously enough, I spent a surprising amount of this time thinking and talking about home education.

One afternoon I played golf with a fun couple who have two boys, aged 4 and 2, who are nicknamed "Search" and "Destroy." The mom had learned from my wife the evening before that we home educate and was interested in what was involved. I heard the usual questions from her about college admissions (colleges are now, in fact, actively recruiting home-schooled teens) and socialization (personally, I'm more concerned about socialism).

I told her that my children had always had a wide circle of friends their age, either cousins or kids from church or even the neighborhood, but also had had the experience of talking to and working closely with adults on a one-on-one basis. One of the results of this, in my opinion, is that my daughters have always been poised and comfortable whenever they speak with non-parental adults. They are respectful, but not awed or overcome with shyness or cupidity. In short, they act as if talking to other, older people is completely natural (imagine that!). Interestingly enough, the woman I was talking to and her husband spend a great deal of time (and earn a fair amount of money) trying to teach adults to regain or re-engage the child-like creativity and imagination they had had before years of education and "socialization" had beaten it out of them.

Two days later I was in the home of my wife's cousin Kay and her husband, Adrian. With us were, I think, 9 of their 11 kids, plus a few sons- and daughters-in-law (and a prospective daughter-in-law) and their own children. We were enthusiastically and effortlessly added to the dinner table where our presence scarcely created a ripple. I think that with this many kids and grandkids around on a regular basis, most of Kay's recipes start with "Take one whole cow..." One of the things you can't help but notice, besides the number, is how fresh-faced and attentive all the young folks are, even the ones that have married in. Kay home-educated all of her children, some of whom are currently pursuing college degrees.

Normally when I'm around a family gathering of this size the rising clamor will eventually start to get to me, raising my blood-pressure and level of discomfort. This night, however, though there was a steady hub-bub, I had nothing but a feeling of peace, though I'd scarcely met any of these people before that night. Several of the children cycled through our table talk as the evening rolled on, with every age having something to contribute to the conversation.

The next morning we met Adrian, Kay and their oldest son, David, at their favorite local restaurant for breakfast. One of the topics that came up was the recent California appellate court ruling requiring home-schooling parents to have a teaching certificate. More compelling was one judge's written opinion:

"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

The ruling sent shock waves throughout the estimated 166,000 home-educators in California as well as through the California legislature and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said, "Every California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts, and, if the courts don't protect parents' rights, then, as elected officials, we will." Interestingly enough, Schwarzenegger's signing of SB777 last year may be one of the things that have led many parents to abandon the public schools. Give the Governator credit though; he may not be great at logic but he definitely knows how to count votes and probably realizes that whatever other political beliefs a homeschooling family may have, telling them that they have no right to educate their own children trumps them all.

Personally, I'm not shocked. California has long been the most overtly hostile state toward home-educators (ironically it's own school system struggles to place a certified teacher in every classroom, yet would seek to mandate it in every home-school). Similarly, Education Minnesota has no love lost for home-educators and my hunch is that they wouldn't mind if their pet DFL pupils in the Minnesota legislature were to bring them a similar bill as if it were a bright, shiny apple.

Of course, it takes a real socialist mentality to proclaim that the State is the rightful owner of your children, as I've documented before regarding events in England and Germany. The Germans, in fact, are still embracing the 1937 law instituted by a certain mustachioed megalomaniac that mandates compulsory state school educations. Seventy years later they're still enforcing it by forceably taking kids from their homes to school in police cars or even removing children from their parents' homes and hiding them in psychiatric hospitals for evaluation.

Many home-school parents in California are having to consider possibly leaving the state. That's a drastic measure for sure, but one that has had to be taken by many German parents, as described by Sheila Lange in her blog, Trying to Homeschool in Germany, which details the personal struggles of her own family (now living in South Africa) and other home-school German families.

Of course, that's all happening very far away, in Germany or even California, right? Closer to home, former Nebraska state senator Peter Hoagland is on record as saying, "Fundamentalist parents have no right to indoctrinate their children in their beliefs. We are preparing their children for the year 2000 and life in a global one-world society and those children will not fit in."

Especially not if I can help it.

Posted on March 10, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

If wishes were fishes

by The Night Writer

I wish...that every time I see someone with a Hispanic name in a crime report that I didn't automatically wonder if they were an illegal alien.

I wish...that every time I see a dominating performance by an athlete that I didn't wonder if he or she was on steroids.

I wish...that if I have to read a story about an athlete being arrested that it didn't always mention a strip club.

I wish...that when overpaid athletes complain about their contracts that they didn't claim they just want what's fair.

I wish...that every time Bill Clinton wags his finger that it didn't make me laugh.

I wish...that every time the Minnesota legislature is in session that I didn't think about moving to South Dakota.

Posted on February 26, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

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Illuminating fun, faith,
family and foolishness.

“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson