Obey No One!!....except me

I loved this insight from a review of the Green Day show at Merriweather last night. The review, by the quality DC weblog DCist, praises the Green Day show up and down, saying that it came close to being a perfect concert.



But reviewer Martin Austermuhle was most insightful when he explained how lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong dominated the night.

Nothing happened during Green Day's two-hour show that Armstrong didn't specifically orchestrate or command.

While amusing and engaging, Armstrong's able manipulation of the audience stood in stark and ironic contrast to the message of many of the band's songs -- don't be anyone but yourself and distrust authority. Armstrong managed to whip the audience into a quasi-militant frenzy, directing thousands of free-thinking Americans to pump their fists in unison while chanting "hey, hey, hey" repeatedly. The audience displayed a surprising alacrity to follow even the slightest hint of instruction from Armstrong, who clearly relished the power he wielded.

In the end, Green Day came off energetic while polished, punk rock while fully mainstream, dangerous and unpredictable while pre-packaged and choreographed. Dyed hair and piercings were balanced by $10 foam hand, $15 stuffed animals, $25 t-shirts, and $50 sweatshirts, all bearing the band's moniker. The band played like the biggest band on the planet -- which, after six awards at this year's MTV's Video Music Awards, they very well might be -- a band angry enough to appeal to rebellious teens but catchy enough to capture the attention of screeching 12-year old girls and their mothers.

Yet Austermuhle says this is a great concert? I don't get it.

I've got nothing against a great-sounding band, but part of Green Day's appeal, I think, to many youngsters is the persona they've created and the feeling they give to their fans. Fans listen to their music and think, "Yeah! I don't care what anybody thinks. I'm going to be myself and do whatever I want to do!"

Without psychoanalyzing this too much, I have to point out that the band is making a lot of money off of this empty feeling that doesn't match up with reality in their shows, and doesn't work in real life.

Despite Austermuhle's cluelessness about the meaning of his own insights, this review shows how so often those who scream (in this case literally) about doing whatever you want to do often have an agenda. In this case, one of those agendas no doubt involved the sale of those $50 sweatshirts.

Please Pray

I just saw a devastating report by Fox News Shepard Smith, who somehow managed to get his camera crew down near the Louisiana Superdome, where there are thousands of people, all of them black and from the low-income projects near the highway, who have nowhere to go and are stranded on the highway. There are young children, old women, and nobody has been able to help them so far.



Please pray that God would help these people.

And then go give money to the Red Cross if you haven't already by clicking here.

Blogging for Aid to Katrina's Victims

I've added the Garage Scholars blog to a list of blogs that are asking readers to consider giving money to help the rescue, cleanup and reconstruction efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, which could end up becoming the worst natural disaster in our nation's history.


The most immediate thing anyone can do, as far as I can tell, is to give money to the Red Cross.

Click here to go to a page where you can enter an amount and your credit card info, and it's as simple as that. (This page may be overloaded, and you may have to go to the Red Cross main page to donate.

Instapundit has a list of other charities or relief organizations you can give to.

Here is a list of all the blogs participating in today's effort to raise money for Katrina's victims.

And, just to fight the stereotype that all rich people are greedy bastards, I've linked to a page that has donations given by corporations.

In the weeks to come, we'll listen for what kind of things we can do (collect items, canned food, materials) to help as they assess their needs, and all of us should organize some collection drives once we know what to do.

Lastly, pray. Al Mohler has some good thoughts on trusting God at this time.

Mohler quotes from British hymn writer William Cowper's 1774 hymn, "God Moves in Mysterious Ways":

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines of never-failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs, and works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain; God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.

X the IRS

I just picked up a new book about getting rid of the IRS and the income tax and implementing a flat national sales tax. It's called, "The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS," by Neal Boortz.

I'm looking forward to reading it.

It's another example of a fresh, innovative, daring idea that I don't care who came up with it. But, lo and behold, it's an idea that originated with conservatives, and is championed by them. Boortz is a libertarian, but his co-author on the book is Republican Congressman John Linder, of Georgia, who has sponsored a bill to get rid of the IRS since 1999.

I'm going to guess that most liberals would be too busy crying about welfare to even pay attention to the ideas in the book, to see whether or not the needs of the poor could be addressed some other, less communist-minded way.

Keep in mind that the Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, is in favor of eliminating the income tax, as the Washington Post reported a year ago after reading Hastert's book.

People ask me if I'm really calling for the elimination of the IRS, and I say I think that's a great thing to do for future generations of Americans," Hastert wrote.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote about Boortz, a radio show host, and his book:

Neal Boortz is a New York Times best-selling author. So, as Boortz loves to say on air, "Bite me."

His literary accomplishment, "The FairTax Book," debuted at Numero Uno for nonfiction titles, and it's there for a second week in a row. That puts him ahead of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and "Confessions of a Video Vixen."

Consider it a satisfying endorsement for Boortz, especially since he did it with a book that doesn't bash liberals — a favorite topic — but instead suggests throwing out the federal income tax and replacing it with a national retail sales tax. He also sees it as sweet revenge because he says his earlier book, "The Terrible Truth About Liberals," wasn't even stocked by many stores.

Boortz, 60 and a fixture on Atlanta radio for more than half his life, is doing all he can to pump up sales of the new book. For weeks he has promoted the book on his nationally syndicated radio show, which airs locally on his home station, WSB-AM. Since the book came out, he's been rushing around the Southeast urging listeners and crowds at book signings to get on board.

His 4 million weekly listeners — 480,000 of them in metro Atlanta — make for a national audience significantly smaller than that of Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Now Boortz has the kind of book credentials those bigger-name talkers enjoy. He's expecting to get some mileage out of it, winning converts for the tax plan and perhaps persuading more radio stations to carry his show, though he says that's not why he wrote the book.

A War to Be Proud Of

That's not my title above. It's the title given to a piece by Christopher Hitchens, the always fiery and never predictable British writer, in this week's Weekly Standard, which is fast becoming a regular must read magazine.

In the piece, Hitchens says President Bush and his administration have been undermined in their case for war in Iraq by bickering between the CIA and DOD, and have just plain done a messy job of presenting the reasons for war.

Hitchens presents some positive results of the war in Iraq:

A positive accounting could be offered without braggartry, and would include:

(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction--a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.

(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.

(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)

(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.

(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.

(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.

(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

It would be admirable if the president could manage to make such a presentation. It would also be welcome if he and his deputies adopted a clear attitude toward the war within the war: in other words, stated plainly, that the secular and pluralist forces within Afghan and Iraqi society, while they are not our clients, can in no circumstance be allowed to wonder which outcome we favor.

Great interview

Hugh Hewitt is brilliant because when newspaper reporters call him and ask to interview him (he worked as an attorney for Reagan along with John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee), he says, "Sure, I'll do the interview, as long as you agree to do it on the airwaves on my radio show." Most reporters, especially New York Times and Washington Post reporters, have declined.

However, Tim Rutten, of the Los Angeles Times, did agree to an interview taped Friday and played on the air tomorrow or Tuesday. It's a great interview, full of Hugh's no-nonsense, common sense argumentation. You hear Hugh, and you think, is it really that simple? And often, it is, and Hugh is just exposing our tendency to evade tough truths by clouding the issue.

The interview, from reading the transcript is funny and civil. But there is one short part where Hugh says something really harsh. It's after Rutten has hemmed and hawed and evaded just about every question Hugh has thrown at him. And Hugh just lets loose.

I'll tell you, reporters are the most self-delusional people, and writers and newspaper people, as to why their newspaper is hated. And I honestly believe it's like being a drunk. Until you guys own up to the problem, you're never going to get sober.

Ouch!

Read the whole thing.

Real Reporting

Wow. I have not read anything like the reporting this guy, Michael Yon, does from Mosul Iraq.

Here is a sample of the insanely close-up war reporting he's doing:

The Yarmuk traffic circle is fantastically dangerous. On the first mission I ran in Mosul, we lost two soldiers and an interpreter, all killed by a car bomb. Others were horribly burned, scarred for life. Many of our wounded and killed soldiers got it right here, or in the immediate vicinity. The ISF takes serious losses in this part of town. But it's not entirely one-sided--the Deuce Four has killed well over 150 terrorists in this neighborhood in the past 10 months. But almost none of those made the news, and those that did had a few key details missing.

Like the time when some ISF were driving and got blasted by an IED, causing numerous casualties and preventing them from recovering the vehicle. The terrorists came out and did their rifle-pumping-in-the-air thing, shooting AKs, dancing around like monkeys. Videos went 'round the world, making it appear the terrorists were running Mosul, which was pretty much what was being reported at the time.

But that wasn't the whole story. In the Yarmuk neighborhood, only terrorists openly carry AK-47s. The lawyers call this Hostile Intent. The soldiers call this Dead Man Walking.

Deuce Four is an overwhelmingly aggressive and effective unit, and they believe the best defense is a dead enemy. They are constantly thinking up innovative, unique, and effective ways to kill or capture the enemy; proactive not reactive. They planned an operation with snipers, making it appear that an ISF vehicle had been attacked, complete with explosives and flash-bang grenades to simulate the IED. The simulated casualty evacuation of sand dummies completed the ruse.

The Deuce Four soldiers left quickly with the "casualties," "abandoning" the burning truck in the traffic circle. The enemy took the bait. Terrorists came out and started with the AK-rifle-monkey-pump, shooting into the truck, their own video crews capturing the moment of glory. That's when the American snipers opened fire and killed everybody with a weapon. Until now, only insiders knew about the AK-monkey-pumpers smack-down.

An Argument that Deserves Moral Seriousness

Thank God for Christopher Hitchens!

The atheist crank of a brit hits it right on the head with two columns (here and here) in the liberal online mag Slate about Cindy Sheehan, the mother protesting the war in Iraq because of her son's death there.



This is a snake pit of a debate, because while I think Sheehan is very, very wrong to exploit her son's death for political purposes, he is still dead. She has, after all, still lost her own offspring in the very bloom of his youth, in a war. That truly is horrible, and who knows or who can judge where her judgement is and where her heart is.



However, Hitchens takes Maureen Dowd's (the other insane and inane New York Times columnist besides Frank Rich) argument that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute," and he throws it up in the air, he looks at it closely as it drops towards him, and then he smacks it down the road with an aluminum bat, striking it squarely on the sweet spot.

"Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive," Hitchens writes in his first piece, from August 15.

He ends that first piece by saying that he distrusts the political opportunisits who have taken Sheehan and made her into their puppet, "the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them." Then in Hitchens' second piece, he winds up and lets it go some more on these cowards, along with the good-hearted but naive souls who are demanding immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

"I hope I don't insult the intelligent readers of this magazine if I point out what the consequences of such a capitulation would be for the people of Iraq. Paint your own mental picture of a country that was already almost beyond rescue in 2003, as it is handed back to an alliance of homicidal Baathists and Bin-Ladenists. Comfort yourself, if that's the way you think, with the idea that such people are only nasty because Bush made them so. Intone the Sheehan mantra—repeated this very week—that terrorism is no problem because after all Bush is the leading terrorist in the world. See if that cheers you up. Try it on your friends. Live with it, if you are ready to live with the consequences of what you desire.

Ouch. That slapping sound you hear is reality hitting the cheeks of MoveOn.org types and Howard Dean acolytes.

Also, did you know that Sheehan did get a meeting with President George W. Bush one year ago? Not only did she and her husband meet with him for 10 minutes, but Sheehan said afterward that because of the meeting "the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together."

Mrs. Sheehan told The Reporter of Vacaville, Ca, of the president after meeting him: "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."

Her husband Patrick told the same reporter, "I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us."

So what's changed?

The Myth of Enlightenment

I simply cannot say it any better than this column below. And there is no more worthy target than Frank Rich of the New York Times. Such a diseased mind behind such a pleasant face!

If you want a good guide to the pathologies of the liberal mind, look no farther than Frank Rich's weekly column in the Sunday New York Times. In everything he writes, Rich combines an arrogant pretense of enlightened rationalism with a laughable indulgence in modern myths and irrational prejudices, an intellectual incoherence typical of most self-styled "progressives."

Rich's column of December 12 is particularly revealing in this regard, for it touches on what is fast becoming a liberal paranoid obsession: the pernicious power of the Christian "fundamentalists," those unsophisticated, undereducated zealots whom Karl Rove manipulated into reelecting George Bush, thus creating what Rich calls a "cultural twilight zone" as the cowardly media rush to kowtow to this powerful constituency.

What set Rich off was the New York PBS station's short-lived decision not to run an ad for Kinsey, the just-released movie about sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, whom Rich calls a "pioneer" for his 1948 Kinsey's Report, which according to Rich taught Americans that adultery was widespread, that "women have orgasms too and that masturbation and homosexuality do not lead to insanity." In other words, in Rich's universe, Kinsey is a hero, a torch of scientific reason dispelling the murky fog of disinformation, shame, guilt, and neuroses brought on by sexual repression.

As such, Rich's take on Kinsey plays into one of the modern world's most powerful myths--the myth of enlightenment. According to this gratifying tale, the neuroses and ignorance fomented by Christianity had kept people enslaved to their fear, shame, and guilt, leading to unhappiness and destructive behavior. Then came the fearless clear-eyed thinkers of the 18th century Enlightenment and their heirs, who began to shine the light of science and reason on the dark clouds of religious stupidity, so that the knowledge of the true nature of man and the world could liberate us from all the evils that afflict us.

Particularly in terms of sex, thinkers like Freud and later Kinsey exploded the old superstitions of religion, which had deformed the natural innocence of human sexuality, thus paving the way for the sexual revolution of the sixties. Today, only the throw-back religious fundamentalists are preventing this liberating knowledge from freeing even more people from the old oppressive intolerant strictures that turn them against their own sexual identities, incite them into repressing the sexuality of the liberated, and prevent people from acquiring the knowledge and contraceptives that could make their natural sexual experiences pain-free and fulfilling.

To use the Times headline for Rich's column, these religious nuts are carrying out their "plot against sex in America."

This is the story, one our culture repeats incessantly in television sitcoms, movies, pop songs, popular psychology, and the advice of self-help gurus like Dr. Ruth. And despite all the assertions that this story is simply a rational account of fact, it is instead a self-serving myth full of historical error.

First, Kinsey's significance lies not, as Rich thinks, in revealing new information about sexual behavior to an America mired in Puritan ignorance; Richard Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis was available in English as early as 1925, and a watered-down Freudianism had for decades been seeping into popular culture and establishing as received wisdom the notion that "sexual repression" was a bad thing and that science was better placed to guide our sexual behavior than were the old-fashioned superstitions and taboos of traditional religion. Kinsey is important because he popularized this movement, and because, unlike Krafft-Ebbing, he didn't designate any of this behavior as "deviant." Also, Kinsey's success at becoming a media sensation occurred because the culture was ready for such a message, particularly in the flush triumphalism of the post-war years, when everybody was in the mood for cutting loose and enjoying the new freedom created by the war. Kinsey simply gave a patina of science to a message many Americans were already primed to hear.

As for Kinsey, what we now know about his personal life seriously compromises the claims that he was some objective, crusading scientist simply recording the truth of human sexual nature. In fact, Kinsey was what used to be called a "pervert," an omnivorous sexual obsessive whose research provided cover for indulging his proclivities. According to James Jones' sympathetic biography, "Within the inner circle of his senior staff members and their spouses, [Kinsey] endeavored to create his own sexual utopia, a scientific subculture whose members would not be bound by arbitrary and antiquated sexual taboos. What he envisioned was in every sense a clandestine scientific experiment, if not a furtive attempt at social engineering: unfettered sex would be the order of the day." With the exception of sex with children (according to Jones), "Kinsey decreed that within the inner circle men could have sex with each other, wives would be swapped freely, and wives, too, would be free to embrace whichever sexual partners they liked."

I may be old-fashioned, but this all has a creepy, Jonestown vibe to it, and at the very least certainly raises serious questions about the value of "research" carried out on a topic in which the researcher has such an intensely vested, not to say neurotic, interest. Nor did this sexual "liberation" seem to make Kinsey happy; according to one of Kinsey's favorite male sex partners, "Mr. Y," during sex Kinsey got "'a kind of long-suffering look on his face . . .' like a man," Jones writes, "who seemed weighted down with some awful burden . . . . Mr Y. remarked that Kinsey 'looked almost grotesque.'"

Kinsey hasn't been the only person to discover that "sexual liberation" isn't all it's cracked up to be. We've all found out that the promised boons of throwing off the sexual shackles and inhibitions our culture had developed over the centuries didn't quite materialize, and in fact that our liberation simply subjected us to a whole new host of evils. This is where the myth of enlightened sexual liberation Rich preaches fails most obviously: the way it ignores the destructive effects of the sexual license that exploded in the sixties: venereal plagues like AIDS, the debasement of women, the vulgarization of popular culture, teen pregnancy, rampant abortion, the explosion of pornography, and the general cheapening of our humanity that follows when we are reduced to the lowest common denominator of appetite and pleasure.

Rich's myth is wrong as well on the role Christianity presumably played in sexually oppressing us. Another popular myth holds that before Christianity--and in those parts of the world not afflicted with it-- a more natural and tolerant attitude towards sex held sway. The Greeks, we are told, were jolly hedonists, blithely hopping from boys to girls and back. Then came a grim Christianity with its irrational hatred of the body as the devil's playground, and all that sexual happiness disappeared, to be replaced with shame, guilt, crippling inhibitions, and all the psychological maladies that follow such repression.

Again, the story is not even half true. The Greeks were very distrustful of the power of sexual passion, and developed a rich vocabulary and imagery to convey that destructive power, comparing eros to fire, disease, insanity, and the violence of war. They recognized that irrational passion is a force of disorder unless controlled by the taboos, laws, and customs of culture--look at the story of Troy, a whole civilization destroyed because of the adulterous passion of Paris and Helen. There were, of course, differences between the Christian and the Hellenic understanding of sexuality, but in many respects there is a definite continuity in both cultures' awareness that irrational passion is a volatile, potentially destructive power it doesn't do to trifle with.

So too with the idea that non-Christian cultures, particularly primitive societies, were paradises of sexual freedom. This myth of the sexual noble savage explains how easily anthropologist Margaret Mead was duped by the Samoan girls she interviewed, who spun lies about their carefree sexual freedom that Mead faithfully recorded and that many sophisticates held up as examples of how our middle-class, Christian civilization had warped our natural innocence. The simple fact is that human sexuality and passion can be a force of destruction and disorder, which is why every human culture develops various restraints and taboos to control it. Only in the modern world, where modern science and technology mask (at least for a while) some of the physical consequences of sexual license, can we indulge the myth of sexual liberation as the road to happiness.

Rich's use of these common cultural myths, however, ultimately serves a political point. In the next few years we will be subjected to a campaign of disinformation as liberals attempt to protect the entitlements that were given to them by activist judges and that stand little chance of succeeding in the arena of democratic politics, where such issues are supposed to be decided, and where Supreme Court justices who respect the Constitution will send them. Thus Rich warns against the "right-wing groups" that will press President Bush for "further rollbacks" of "gay civil rights" and "reproductive rights for women," serving the "larger goal of pushing sex of all nonbiblical kinds back into the closet and undermining any scientific findings, whether circa 1948 or 2004, that might challenge fundamentalist sexual orthodoxy as successfully as Darwin challenged Genesis."

That last sentence encapsulates beautifully the arrogant ignorance of too many liberals, who dress up their self-serving myths and quasi-religious creeds in the robes of rationalism, just as Alfred Kinsey camouflaged his sexual obsessions with the mantle of "science." And that arrogance is indicative of the modern world's greatest delusion: that it can discard the wisdom of centuries, explain all the mysteries of human life, and create a world that suits our desires rather than adjusting our desires to the reality of the world.

copyright 2004 Bruce S. Thornton

Mexico Horror Show

If you want to know why immigration from Mexico is such a big problem right now, AND understand more about Mexico's history than you ever wanted to know, click here.

My personal favorite:

The U.S. Constitution was written once. Just once. It has been amended some 27 times, but these amendments are attachments to the original. Also, the first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, were agreed to prior to the signing of the original document. If not, many of the signers wouldn't have signed the original. So the first 10 amendments could be considered as a part of the original, which means that, in effect, our Constitution is the original, amended 17 times in some 217 years. The U. S. Constitution can arguably be viewed as a document that describes the makeup of the central government and then tells that central government what it cannot do. The Mexican Constitution, on the other hand, well, see if you can follow me here.

The first constitution was drawn up in 1824. We'll call it the 1824 Constitution. It was modeled after our constitution and basically set up the Mexican government much the same way as our government. It was also basically ignored which made it basically irrelevant, basically. An example would be presidential succession. Between 1824 and 1857 only one president completed his term and handed over power to an elected successor. These guys weren't leaving office early for family reasons, I can assure you. They were forced out, shot, hung, assassinated, exiled, etc.

In 1833, Santa Anna - he of Alamo infamy and San Jacinto fame - dumped the 1824 constitution and instituted the Siete Leyes (7 laws). So you might call this the 1833 Constitution. You might.

In 1857, both the 1824 constitution and the 1833 constitution were dumped and a reformist constitution was written. This resulted in a 3 year civil war. This we shall call the 1857 Constitution.

Then, in 1917, in the midst of the decade of pain, another constitution was written, which is called the 1917 Constitution. This constitution is in effect today, more or less, and contains some 9 Titles with various Chapters under each Title and various Sections of each Chapter under each Title. And then there are 16 Transitory Articles at the end which were for the express purpose of governing the implementation of said 1917 Constitution. There are a gazillion amendments, but the Mexicans don't attach the amendments. They are incorporated into the body of the constitution so that one needs to have a history reference book or be a brilliant historian with a photographic memory to determine what the amendments are and when they were incorporated. Then there are some Additions to the constitution which are additions, not amendments. Pay attention. The 1917 Constitution was amended, as of 2002, in 1937, 1937, 1937, 1940, 1940, 1942, 1942, 1943, 1943, 1944, 1944, 1944, 1944, 1944, 1946, 1946, 1946, 1946, 1947, 1947, 1947, 1947, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1950, 1950, 1950, 1951, 1951, 1952, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1962, 1962, 1962, 1962, 1962, 1963, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1966, 1966, 1966, 1966, 1966, 1966, 1966, 1966.

Then there were Additions to the constitution in 1940, 1942, 1942, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1960, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966. There were also some deletions (probably concerning clean water, clean air, clean streets, free elections and drug trafficking and border control), but they are listed as "Deletions by Amendment", so I included them as amendments. There were also a handful of "Additions by Amendment", some of which inadvertently may have been included on both the above lists. So sue me.

All of these various constitutions, decrees, plans, and treaties, with a myriad of amendments, additions, deletions and suspensions along with civil wars, revolutions, wars against foreign powers (including us, twice) as well as the attendant corruption, betrayals, treasons, assassinations, overthrows, hangings, firing squads, exiles, presidents, emperors, military rulers, presidents-for-life, etc. have brought Mexico to where it is today, a basket case. Out of control. Ungovernable, except by force and bribery.

Don't Trouble Ourselves

"The last war showed only too clearly that we can have no faith in imperialist crusades to bring freedom to any people. Our entry into the war, under the slogan of 'Stop Hitler!' would actually result in the immediate introduction of totalitarianism over here. . . . The American masses can best help [the German people] by fighting at home to keep their own liberties."

This is reportedly a quote from Partisan Review, the far left's favorite magazine at the time this was written in 1939. According to David Gelernter of the Wall Street Journal, this was a pre-Pearl Harbor anti-war statement by some of America's leading intellectuals.

Hear any ringing similarities between then and now?

Another Reason to Not Read the New York Times

The arrogance and irrationality I continue to see evidence of on the far left in the West, all in the name of enlightenment and intelligence, never fails to astound me.

Scott Johnson has a great column in the Weekly Standard about how many movie reviewers have criticized "The Great Raid," which is a great movie you should go see right now.

He focuses on New York Times critic Stephen Holden, who panned the movie for not having enough of a human element and because "its scenes of torture and murder also unapologetically revive the uncomfortable stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic, slant-eyed fiend."

So, let's take up those two complaints.

The first one is simple. Holden did not understand the human element because "The Great Raid" is about real men and real masculinity. The movie is true, first of all, and the characters do not stand out because they are all part of a team with a mission that is larger then themselves.

As the Post's Stephen Hunter (one of the few reviewers who did get it) wrote in his review:

By subcategory, it's what's called a "unit tribute," in which the organizational entity itself is the hero, not the individual members of it. This was a staple of immediate postwar moviemaking, all but gone now save for throwbacks like this one.

That, as much as anything, explains why the movie is essentially starless, with its cast drawn mostly from television or from film supporting roles. It is indeed strange to see a production as big as this, as expensive as this, as detailed as this, and as long as this (almost 2 1/2 hours) without a Brad or a George or a Matt or even a Harrison anywhere around to advance its fortunes on mag covers and talk shows. In fact, as a commercial proposition, the nearly anonymous nature of the cast may still prove to be a marketplace disaster.

But the lack of a star frees the screenwriters and the director, noir specialist John Dahl ("The Last Seduction" was his biggest), to tell the story as it happened and to put an emphasis on group ethics, teamwork, loyalty and stamina, not individual derring-do. George Clooney, a natural choice to play Lt. Col. Henry Mucci, the 6th's commanding officer, might never have let himself play it this way, but a much less powerful actor, a TV guy still looking for his place in the film world, Benjamin Bratt, has no choice. And thus we don't get an idealized commanding officer, but a man who's a commanding leader but maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer. His junior officers aren't sure they trust him (he hasn't been with the outfit that long). He is equal parts bombast and bravado, and seems to make decisions too quickly. There's a lot of eye-rolling when he gives pep talks, which is, everybody agrees, a little too often. But he has one saving grace: He's not bullheaded. And when he realizes he's made a wrong choice, he corrects it."

"The Great Raid" is a great film to show every 13-year old boy. And after he sees it, he should be sat down and told, "Those were heroes. Those were real men, unlike the self-important, self-promoting fools in the NBA and NFL who trumpet themselves as the greatest thing in the world. The solders portrayed in "The Great Raid" put their lives in danger and didn't ask for any recognition or special treatment; all they were looking for was an opportunity to prove themselves, and then get back to their wives and families.

Holden does not get this, and he says "the actual raid, when it finally happens in the movie's last 40 minutes, provides no visceral release; the prolonged, soggy fireworks display is devoid of suspense, excitement or human drama."

Holden apparently wishes for one of the U.S. soldiers to stop in the middle of the raid and deliver a speech to an injured Japanese soldier on how all men are equal and it's a shame that we have to have to break into your prison with these guns and all this shooting and nastiness, but these are our guys and you won't mind if we take them back home, will you. And the Japanese soldier would have an epiphany, and become blood brothers with the U.S. soldier, but not before imparting some ancient far east wisdom to the naive Yank.

But Holden is in liberal fantasy land, not reality. Hunter understands why "The Great Raid"s final scene is thrilling. It focuses on what happened and not how everybody was feeling when it happened.

This is war as track meet. The Rangers hit the installation at a dead run and veer to preselected, tactically advantageous firing positions. They simply beat the enemy to the good shooting sites and from them soak the place in automatic-weapons fire. It almost never works out so cleanly, but in this mission it did.

The second reason far-left liberals like Holden don't like "The Great Raid" is because, as Holden puts it, the movie's "scenes of torture and murder also unapologetically revive the uncomfortable stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic, slant-eyed fiend."

Johnson, in his Weekly Standard piece, nails Holden's empty rhetoric for the politically correct nonsense it is.

Contrary to Holden's implication, however, the brutalization of American soldiers by the Japanese has never been faithfully depicted in a big-budget Hollywood film. In fact this faithful depiction of the Japanese treatment of American POWs in the Pacific shows that the "uncomfortable stereotype" of Hollywood has failed to do justice to the depths of Japanese military depravity during World War II.

Johnson links to an outstanding column by David Gelernter from a year ago, about how the Japanese viewed POW's.

The Japanese army saw captive soldiers as cowards, lower than lice. If we forget this we dishonor the thousands who were tortured and murdered, and put ourselves in danger of believing the soul-corroding lie that all cultures are equally bad or good. Some Americans nowadays seem to think America's behavior during the war was worse than Japan's--we did intern many loyal Americans of Japanese descent. That was unforgivable--and unspeakably trivial compared to Japan's unique achievement, mass murder one atrocity at a time.

In "The Other Nuremberg," Arnold Brackman cites (for instance) "the case of Lucas Doctolero, crucified, nails driven through hands, feet and skull"; "the case of a blind woman who was dragged from her home November 17, 1943, stripped naked, and hanged"; "five Filipinos thrown into a latrine and buried alive." In the Japanese-occupied Philippines alone, at least 131,028 civilians and Allied prisoners of war were murdered. The Japanese committed crimes against Allied POWs and Asians that would be hard still, today, for a respectable newspaper even to describe. Mr. Brackman's 1987 book must be read by everyone who cares about World War II and its veterans, or the human race.

If you need any more evidence that Stephen Holden of the New York Times is full of crap, read these examples of Japanese atrocities during World War II. This is from a PBS website:

Many [American POW's in the Cabanatuan prison camp that were rescued in the movie] had been through the infamous [Bataan] death march -- where the Japanese army had marched an estimated 72,000 Americans and Filipinos 65 miles to San Fernando, Pampanga. Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers, estimates that 750 Americans and 5,000 Filipinos died on the march -- victims of starvation, disease, and random executions. (It should be noted that estimates vary widely. A study document put out by the Department of Veteran's Affairs puts the American deaths at 650 and Filipino deaths at 16,500. Forrest Johnson, author of Hour of Redemption, puts the U.S. deaths at 2,275 and Filipino deaths between 9,000-14,000.)

On the march, the men witnessed arbitrary executions of their fellow American and Filipino soldiers and of Filipino civilians who had offered food or water to the marchers. Bert Bank remembers:

One of the POWs had a ring on and the Japanese guard attempted to get the ring off. He couldn't get it off and he took a machete and cut the man's wrist off and when he did that, of course, the man was bleeding profusely. [I tried to help him] but when I looked back I saw a Japanese guard sticking a bayonet through his stomach.

On the second day, a fully pregnant Filipino woman threw some food out... this POW in front of me picked up the food and started eating it; and a Japanese guard came... and decapitated that POW... and then he went and cut the stomach out of the Filipino woman. She was screaming "Kill me, Kill me," and they wouldn't do it.

The POWs also experienced intense cruelty at the hands of their captors in Cabanatuan. All had witnessed hundreds of their compatriots die for lack of food and medicine. All had witnessed torture and summary executions. All had experienced Japanese brutality firsthand.

Former POW Richard Beck remembered:

It's a very sinking feeling to know that you are going to be abused for a long period of time, and that's exactly what it was, it was a long period of abuse -- starvation, beatings... Some people were shot for no reason at all, so you never knew how to assess the situation, whether you should try to lead a low profile. It was a case of never knowing how to cope.

The Kill-All Order
The Cabanatuan POWs' fear of becoming victims of another large scale massacre were well founded. After the war, it became clear that there existed a high command order -- issued from the War Ministry in Tokyo -- to kill all remaining POWs. This order, read in part:

Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, and whether it is accomplished by means of mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, or decapitation, dispose of them as the situation dictates. It is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces.

Hell Ships
It also became clear after the war that the Japanese were responsible for horrific abuses of POWs aboard tankers leaving the Philippines and bound for Japan. These tankers became known as hell ships. The Japanese put masses of men in the holds of tankers and gave them little food, light, room or water. The men died at an alarming rate -- of suffocation, thirst, and madness. They also died of allied bombing , since the hell ships were not marked with a white cross, as specified by the Geneva Conventions, to indicate POWs were on board. The men who survived these tankers became slave laborers in Japanese mines and factories.

Extensive Barbarism
Throughout the Pacific theater, the Japanese treated POWs and civilians barbarically. Survivors of camps in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Burma and Laos all reported experiencing tremendous cruelty, torture, disease and starvation. It is an astounding fact that while POWs died at a rate of 1.2% in Germany, they died at a rate of 37% across the Pacific.

Blogs Helping the Right?

Hugh Hewitt thinks so.

Dean Barnett of Soxblog has penned a couple of crucial essays on the effects of lefty blogs on the Democratic party that remain must-reads (here and here). Barnett is expanding on a theme sounded by Michael Barone in February column in U.S. News & World Reporta where Barone asked and answered his own question: "So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans' adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans."

While the lefty blogs are helping to push the Democrats over the cliff, the center-right blogs continue to grow in influence and to innovate. Two examples deserve widespread attention.

Emptyland

EMPTY: containing nothing, HOLLOW, without purpose, BARREN, desolate, FORSAKEN, meaningless, SENSELESSNESS.


This is where we live. Three examples:

Example numero uno ----> THE PREMISE ----> There is no truth.

Jonah Goldberg writes a column in National Review. He says that left-liberals respond to criticism by saying things like, "This is my genuine, authentic point of view and I have a right to express it."

Goldberg asks this question: "Who cares if it's authentic if it's wrong?"

The answer: Nobody believes it's possible to know what's right anymore, so the new right and wrong is no longer true vs. false; it's authentic vs. fake. Let me tweak that: it's authentic-seeming versus fake-seeming. It's all about style, uniqueness, appearance, presentation. Welcome to the United States of Entertainment.

Example numero dos ----> THE VEHICLE ----> MTVization of the Media

Rob Long writes in National Review (print issue, unavailable online) about Al Gore's new television station, where viewers can add their own programming by uploading it via the web.


The idea is going to catch on, Long writes, and be successful. But this is not necessarily good for how people will receive information and, consequently, how they will think and communicate with each other.

"There's no real structure or theme," Long writes, "just a loose, random collection of segments ranging from the Reagan assassination attempt, to how young people in Iran sneak out to parties, to rock climbing, to rare-sneaker collecting. It's an iPod shuffle for the eyes."

Example Numero tres ----> THE RESULT ----> Emptyland: Meaninglessness (and, ultimately, tyranny)

Dean Barnett writes in the Weekly Standard:

"...Prominent left-wing bloggers such as Steve Gilliard and Markos Moulitsas are in the process of formulating and promulgating a 'litmus test' for Democratic politicians that is literally--and intentionally--devoid of any substantive issues. Instead, the emphasis is exclusively on style. A few of the newly-minted litmus test's requirements are that the candidate 'make it clear that he opposes Bush and the Republicans, . . . act like he wants to win, . . . not distance himself from the party [and] be proud to be a Democrat.'
...The newly-devised litmus test combined with the left-wing blogosphere's full-throated enthusiasm for Hackett suggests that to win the support of the blogging community, a candidate's sole real requirement is that he have his Bush-hating bona fides in proper order.

Whatever their faults, organizations such as the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) owe their existence to an ideology. It may be a rickety, tottering ideology--but it's something. The shift from the DCCC to the blogs may signal that the Democratic party will no longer even pretend to be a party of ideas, but will instead become a party of oppositionism somewhat akin to Great Britain's current sad sack of Tories.

Left wing blogs represent the younger generation of left-wing thinkers. And this is what they believe in. Not ideas. Rather, feelings. Not excluding hatred. Based on perceptions and style, and tiny bits of information that are fashioned into a reputation.

ADDENDUM: The Result (#2) ----> Humans stampede one another for cheap computers


Watch the video here.

Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros' new single, "Saeglópur," came out today. It's quite good.

Sigur Ros' music is similar to Sufjan Stevens. It is connected by a single word: reverence. Both artists have reverence for the sacredness of their music, of their art, of their emotions, of all of life. They recognize that when they make beautiful noise, they are participating in something holy.

Check them out here.

Remember these words

Christopher D. Morris wrote a column in the Boston Globe this week. He "suggests that Christian leaders -- both Roman Catholic and Evangelical -- should be called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to say whether they would discipline a church member who, as a judge, voted to uphold Roe v. Wade," as Al Mohler summarizes.

Catholic bishops talked of refusing John Kerry from receiving communion last fall during the election race.

Morris writes:

Asking the bishops to testify would be healthy. If they rescinded the threats made against Kerry, then Roberts would feel free to make his decision without the appearance of a conflict of interest, and Catholic politicians who support Roe v. Wade would gain renewed confidence in their advocacy. If the bishops repeated or confirmed their threats, the Senate Judiciary Committee should draft legislation calling for the automatic recusal of Catholic judges from cases citing Roe v. Wade as a precedent.

There you have it folks. The first step has been taken towards putting Christians in jail for their beliefs.

Morris is saying that it should be unlawful for Christians' beliefs to have any role in how they make their decisions as public officials or judges. Once that kind of a law is drafted, say during Hillary Clinton's administration, then Christians who refuse to obey the law of man and obey the law of God instead will be prosecuted and jailed.

And it will all be in the name of maintaining "judicial objectivity" and preventing a "judicial conflict of interest" as Morris writes.


This is wrong for two reasons. One, it is a specific targeting of Christians. Every non-Christian judge or official makes their decisions based on their own beliefs about God and ultimate reality.

A man who calls himself an agnostic or an atheist is still religious. Because we all have gods. We all worship something or someone. We all put our hope or find our meaning in something. Whatever that is, it is our god.

Most intelligent people (judges, politicians) have thought in some measure through their belief system, and so they might call themselves an agnostic. Well, that worldview will shape how he makes decisions on an abortion case.

Roe V. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973, was decided by Supreme Court justices who used their own "religious views" to justify the legalization.

Chuck Colson explains:

Basically, the ruling had three legal pillars. It held (1) that the constitutional "right of privacy" broadly includes a woman's freedom to choose abortion; (2) that the unborn are not "persons" entitled to constitutional protection; and (3) that the state has a compelling interest in, or may protect, only the viable fetus (the fetus that might survive outside the womb, even with artificial life support).

The view that an unborn baby is not a person is a belief. Science has not proven otherwise. If anything, scientific evidence has led us to the overwhelming conclusion that the unborn are persons. (If you don't believe me, click here). But we already knew that also, from Psalm 139:13.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Why, if the evidence supports that the unborn are persons, do our politicians and groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood agitate so violently in support of abortion?

A woman's right to choose.

Al Mohler:

"We are obsessed with personal safety, but have made the womb a place of great danger. Our concerns for personal "rights" have eclipsed our understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Great advances in medicine have prolonged life for many, but we accept the most barbaric forms of the murder of the unborn. We have elevated convenience over conviction, and comfort over compassion. We have treated the blessings of parenthood as a burden. We have rejected the gift of life, and claimed this as a "right to choose."

We are living on borrowed time. A nation cannot long prosper in its economy when it has sold its soul for personal choice. A nation is not strong when it destroys its weakest members. Americans demand rights rather than righteousness, and we are reaping a harvest of unrighteousness unparalleled in its magnitude.

Over the past three decades, Americans have aborted nearly 40-million unborn children. We have allowed an entire industry of murderous clinics to rise in our midst, and many politicians stand ready to defend, if not to celebrate, these abortuaries and their operators.

Second, apart from all that I've already said, Morris' argument is also unconstitutional.

Mohler breaks it down:

The reason this proposal must not be pursued is that it runs into direct conflict with at least two sections of the U.S. Constitution -- the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty and Article VI, Clause 3: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

To read the Constitution, click here.

CNN on Gaza Pullout

CNN has been doing some really good work on the Gaza Pullout scheduled for next week.

What is going on there is unbelievable. It seems like it could get pretty violent next week.


Israel bans nonresidents from Gaza

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- In a policy change prompted by activists staying in Gaza to protest Israel's plan to close Jewish settlements there, Israel announced that nonresidents will not be allowed into the territory.

Israel's Southern Command on Thursday announced "only residents of the Israeli communities in the Gaza Strip will be allowed" entry into Gaza, where the Jewish state plans to end its decades-long presence.

Israel also will stop issuing permits to close relatives of settlers.

The Israel Defense Forces said, however, that "rescue and security personnel and others responsible for supplying basic goods and services to residents and those employed to transfer the belongings of the residents" will be allowed into Gaza.

This announcement said the "policy change was decided upon in light of the illegal presence of a large number of individuals who have remained in the Gaza Strip long after their entry permits expired; these individuals disrupt the daily lives of residents and aim to prevent the implementation of the disengagement plan."


This is a reference to recent infiltration of pro-settler activists into Gush Katif, a collection of 17 separate settlements in Gaza.

Next week, Jewish settlers will start leaving Gaza and a few communities in the West Bank.

The move, spearheaded by longtime settlement supporter Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is being applauded by some Israeli Jews and opposed by others.

It has been greeted positively by Palestinians and throughout the international diplomatic community.

Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/11/gaza

I had no idea

Stephen Hunter writes another great review (big surprise) of "The Great Raid," which is based on Hampton Sides' amazing book, "Ghost Soldiers."


Check out why Hunter likes "The Great Raid," and then notice what an amazing piece of history he puts in. It's unbelievable.

The best thing about the film is its -- no phrase existing, I'll make up a barbaric neologism -- "World War IIness." That is, both generically and at the level of execution, it has far more to do with '40s movies than with modern ones, which is to its benefit, not its disadvantage. By subcategory, it's what's called a "unit tribute," in which the organizational entity itself is the hero, not the individual members of it. This was a staple of immediate postwar moviemaking, all but gone now save for throwbacks like this one. The best may have been "Go for Broke," the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made of Japanese Americans who, despite their parents' incarceration in internment camps, were the most heavily decorated unit in U.S. history. The idea is that the men, somehow, are less important than the traditions and nobility and can-do, mission-oriented spirit of the outfit, and they are heroic to the degree that they submit to its discipline, master its culture, do as it directs and suffer the consequences with utmost humility.

The most heavily decorated unit in U.S. history? Why haven't we heard about them before?



A South Carolina University website says this: "Despite the rampant racism towards Japanese Americans during this period, many volunteers felt that if there was to be any future for Japanese in the United States, they had to demonstrate their loyalty by fighting for their country."

Here are some other websites about the "go for broke" boys.

http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_veterans_442nd.asp

http://www.katonk.com/442nd/442nd.htm

http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/nisei/index3_442nd.html

http://www.njahs.org/research/442.html

Clouds talk

"We learn to praise God not by paying compliments, but by paying attention."

Frederick Buechner



"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge."

Psalm 19:1-2

Earning Sex

A woman has every right to expect that her husband will earn access to the marriage bed...I mean that a husband owes his wife the confidence, affection, and emotional support that would lead her to freely give herself to her husband in the act of sex.

God’s gift of sexuality is inherently designed to pull us out of ourselves and toward our spouse. For men, this means that marriage calls us out of our self-focused concern for genital pleasure and toward the totality of the sex act within the marital relationship.

This provocative statement is part of a speech by Al Mohler, president of Southern Theological Seminary, to the Men of Boyce College, on March 13, 2004.

Click here to read a summary, with a link on that page to the full speech.

Listen to the talk by clicking here.

Christians have no right to be embarrassed when it comes to talking about sex and sexuality. An unhealthy reticence or embarrassment in dealing with these issues is a form of disrespect to God’s creation. Whatever God made is good, and every good thing God made has an intended purpose that ultimately reveals His own glory.

Till Feelings Do Us Part

Al Mohler has some interesting and pathetic new variations on wedding vows.

Traditional wedding vows:
"for better or for worse"
"for richer or poorer"
"in sickness and in health"
"in joy and in sorrow"
"until God by death shall separate us"

New Wedding Vows:

"in cocktails" (yes, the drinks -- Britney Spears (pictured) said this in her vows at her first wedding; the marriage lasted 48 hours)
"as long as love lasts"
"until our time together is over"
"as long as our marriage shall serve the common good"

And over our heads the hollow seas closed up

This is from an essay by Gilbert Meilaender called "Bioethics and the Character of Human Life."

Mr. Meilaender holds the Richard and Phyllis Duesenberg Chair in Theological Ethics at Valparaiso University and is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. This essay was originally prepared as a discussion paper for the President’s Council on Bioethics.

In Canto XXVI of [Dante's] Inferno, with Vergil still his guide, Dante encounters the “false counselors,” those who had used their gift of great intellect in ways that ultimately led others astray. Here it is that Dante meets Ulysses (Odysseus) and hears his story. In a passage that Dorothy Sayers called “perhaps the most beautiful thing in the whole Inferno,” a passage that is evidently Dante’s own invention and is certainly found neither in Homer nor in Vergil, Dante describes the last voyage of Ulysses.


Ulysses has made it safely home from years of wandering after the Trojan Wars. He has returned to his home—and to Ithaca, which he is to rule. But, in this invention of Dante’s, he does not remain there.

No tenderness for my son, nor piety
To my old father, nor the wedded love
That should have comforted Penelope

Could conquer in me the restless itch to rove
And rummage through the world exploring it,
All human worth and wickedness to prove.

And so, Ulysses gathers together a crew to set sail once more. They reach the very boundary of the inhabited world as they know it, and Ulysses urges his shipmates on that they may have the new experience

Of the uninhabited world behind the sun.
Think of your breed; for brutish ignorance
Your mettle was not made; you were made men,
To follow after knowledge and excellence.

They forge ahead, only to sail into a storm which whirls the ship around three times, then lifts the poop high and plunges the prow down into the water.

And over our heads the hollow seas closed up.

When we remember that Ulysses is in hell, that as a false counselor he has used his great intellect to lead others astray, the point of the passage might seem clear. As a warning to Dante’s readers it depicts, in the words of John Sinclair, “an eternal and insatiable human hunger and quest after knowledge of the world.” The restless desire to know without limit, the will to sail uncharted waters, disastrously overcomes even the deepest loyalties of our finite life: to home, to father, to wife, to son. The passage is, I said, a warning; yet, Sinclair immediately adds: “and as we read it we forget the sin in contemplation of the sinner’s greatness.”

It is evidently one of the puzzles Dante scholars face: that Ulysses’ proud and dignified description of his last voyage, a tale told quite literally by one who is damned, should have been made so enticing and compelling an account of the human need “to follow after knowledge and excellence.” But that, perhaps, is the truth we have to ponder. Our finitude and freedom are not easily reconciled. The goods of life compete with each other, and if we do evil it may be done with great dignity and appeal—done even in the service of some good. The wisdom bioethics seeks is the wisdom to discern right order among such competing goods.

What an idiot

""We have to be pushing our version of the facts because their version of the facts is very unfactual."

- Howard Dean, in a speech yesterday in Vermont.

Spitzer's Study

Robert Spitzer, Chief of Biometrics Research and Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, released a study in 2001 that said that some homosexuals "can and do change" from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

"Like most psychiatrists," he said, "I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change.

MSNBC ran an article in June on how Spitzer's study is one of the most authoritative on the ex-gay subject, and how both sides in the debate try to use it to their advantage.

I'll be looking into this further. But for now, here is the MSNBC article, and here is a release on Spitzer's study by the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.

Ex-gay issue on CNN & The View

The ex-gay issue is getting a lot of attention right now.

Here is the transcript of a debate on CNN Sunday.

And here is a transcript of a discussion on "The View," with a 24-year old ex-gay.

Faith in the Fog

In my last post I linked to a speech about C.S. Lewis. Here is a short essay that offers insight into one of his books in "The Chronicles of Narnia." It was sent to me by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Faith in the Fog
Jill Carattini

Trapped beneath the surface of Narnia, the children of C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair engage in a most frustrating conversation with the witch, the queen of what is called Underland. The children try desperately to describe to the queen the scenes and certainties of Narnia; they speak of the sun and the moon, of the stars—and of Aslan. The witch responds with the cunning deconstructionism of a postmodern wordsmith.

"What is this sun that you all speak of?" she asks. "Do you mean anything by the word? And Aslan, what a pretty name! What does it mean?" Struggling with the weight of what feels like an enchanted fog over their minds (and is), the children try their best to explain. "The sun is like a lamp, only far greater and brighter…" And of Aslan: "He is a lion—the great Lion… a little bit like a huge cat, with a mane." To this the witch counters with the sweetest of laughs, "You see? You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You've seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it's to be called a lion… Look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world… Put away these childish tricks… There is no Narnia, no sky, no sun, no Aslan."(1)

I don't believe it is too bold to say (and neither did Lewis) that life as a Christian sometimes feels something quite like this. Amidst the fog of a world that sees moral confusion and bewilderment and recognizes it as freedom, it can become quite exhausting to find the right words to explain that which we know to be true, only to be told that our words have no meaning. "Truth," "sin," and "God" are matters of utmost consequence all too often being condensed into word games. It has never been more difficult, nor more important, to be able to defend your faith.

But perhaps the Christian life is like this Narnian scene in another way. The less the children struggled to hold on to the reality of Narnia and memories of Aslan's goodness, the more reasonable the queen's explanations seemed to become: "Well, 'tis a pretty make-believe, but to say truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger."

As Christians living within a world that bombards us with reasons not to believe, with reasons to accept half-truths as truth, and sin as mere psychosis, it is an active task to remain thinking, to keep our hearts and minds continually renewed by God's Word. It is necessary to recall his faithfulness in our lives, to hold before us the promises He has made, to daily keep our eyes sensitive to his presence. For God has called us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush aflame with God.
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit 'round and pluck blackberries.

The light of the knowledge of the glory of God, seen in the face of Christ, actively proclaimed in our lives, continually pursued and held before us, pierces through the fog of sin and death and falsehood. It is light that cannot be overcome, and we must look to it. "I am the light of the world," Jesus proclaimed. "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life"(John 8:12). Let us be encouraged even in the fog of life, for the light of Christ cannot be extinguished. All who have eyes to see, let us see.

(1) C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (New York: Collier, 1970), 157.