Post hoc, ergo....?

Boehner said:

"Last night I started thinking about this and this morning I woke up and I said my prayers -- as I always do -- and I decided today's the day I'm going to do this. As simple as that."

He also told his caucus "that Pope Francis' visit to Congress the day before was a crystallizing moment."

What can we say, except that Speaker Boehner was listening?

Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

I think we heard from a servant of God yesterday.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled outrage for a bit of history....

I am going to shamelessly lift the prepared text of Pope Francis' address to Congress and reproduce it here, if only because the technology lets me do so.  And because I like the people he chose to represent the American people.

Mr. Vice-President,

Mr. Speaker,

Honorable Members of Congress,

Dear Friends,

I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.

Today I would like not only to address you, but through you the entire people of the United States. Here, together with their representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and — one step at a time — to build a better life for their families. These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society. They generate solidarity by their actions, and they create organizations which offer a helping hand to those most in need.

I would also like to enter into dialogue with the many elderly persons who are a storehouse of wisdom forged by experience, and who seek in many ways, especially through volunteer work, to share their stories and their insights. I know that many of them are retired, but still active; they keep working to build up this land. I also want to dialogue with all those young people who are working to realize their great and noble aspirations, who are not led astray by facile proposals, and who face difficult situations, often as a result of immaturity on the part of many adults. I wish to dialogue with all of you, and I would like to do so through the historical memory of your people.

My visit takes place at a time when men and women of good will are marking the anniversaries of several great Americans. The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations, were able by hard work and self-sacrifice — some at the cost of their lives — to build a better future. They shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people. A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions and conflicts, while always finding the resources to move forward, and to do so with dignity. These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality. In honoring their memory, we are inspired, even amid conflicts, and in the here and now of each day, to draw upon our deepest cultural reserves.

I would like to mention four of these Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the guardian of liberty, who labored tirelessly that “this nation, under God, (might) have a new birth of freedom”. Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.

All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.

Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice. We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today’s many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.

Here I think of the political history of the United States, where democracy is deeply rooted in the mind of the American people. All political activity must serve and promote the good of the human person and be based on respect for his or her dignity. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776). If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.

Here too I think of the march which Martin Luther King led from Selma to Montgomery fifty years ago as part of the campaign to fulfill his “dream” of full civil and political rights for African Americans. That dream continues to inspire us all. I am happy that America continues to be, for many, a land of “dreams.” Dreams which lead to action, to participation, to commitment. Dreams which awaken what is deepest and truest in the life of a people.

In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue their dream of building a future in freedom. We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descended from immigrants. Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present. Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our “neighbors” and everything around us. Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mind-set of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this.

Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12).

This Rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us. The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.

This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.

In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.

How much progress has been made in this area in so many parts of the world! How much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty! I know that you share my conviction that much more still needs to be done, and that in times of crisis and economic hardship a spirit of global solidarity must not be lost. At the same time I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.

It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good” (Laudato Si’, 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to “enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (ibid., 3). “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (ibid., 14).

In Laudato Si’, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to “redirect our steps” (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States — and this Congress — have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a “culture of care” (ibid., 231) and “an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (ibid., 139). “We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology” (ibid., 112); “to devise intelligent ways of… developing and limiting our power” (ibid., 78); and to put technology “at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.

A century ago, at the beginning of the Great War, which Pope Benedict XV termed a “pointless slaughter”, another notable American was born: the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. In his autobiography he wrote: “I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God, and yet hating him; born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers”. Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.

From this perspective of dialogue, I would like to recognize the efforts made in recent months to help overcome historic differences linked to painful episodes of the past. It is my duty to build bridges and to help all men and women, in any way possible, to do the same. When countries which have been at odds resume the path of dialogue — a dialogue which may have been interrupted for the most legitimate of reasons — new opportunities open up for all. This has required, and requires, courage and daring, which is not the same as irresponsibility. A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 222-223).

Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.

Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God.

Four representatives of the American people.

I will end my visit to your country in Philadelphia, where I will take part in the World Meeting of Families. It is my wish that throughout my visit the family should be a recurrent theme. How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement! Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.

In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.

A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.

In these remarks I have sought to present some of the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow, so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.

God bless America!

(The initial response to this speech is going to focus on the vague and glittering generalities that can be found there.  I predict it will take a few days before anyone recognizes this speech is grounded in concrete realities and concrete persons.  We don't tend to do the concrete well; we prefer abstractions.)

You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept.

Two "headlines" on TPM this morning.  First:

Kim Davis: I Can't Resign Because I'll 'Lose My Voice' (VIDEO)

Followed by:

Kim Davis Loses Latest Bid To Stall Gay Marriage In Kentucky

I, for one, am happy for her to keep speaking!*

*I still insist this is what winning looks like.

Same As It Ever Was

Jesus said he did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  He said he came to set son against father, and daughter in law against mother in law (in the days when daughters left home at marriage to live with the in-laws).

He said he came to fulfill the law, and not a stroke of it would be set aside until it was fulfilled.  He told the Syro-Phoenician woman that he couldn't offer food to the dogs until he had fed the children (who were only slightly above the dogs) first.

Jesus said "let the children come to me."  Jesus said he'd come to pronounce liberation to the captive, and sight for the blind.  He welcomed the woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.  He said humankind was not made for the Sabbath, but rather the Sabbath was made for humankind.  He let his disciples eat on the Sabbath by picking food from the trees (work!).  He chased the money-changers from the Temple because they were exploiting the people who came to Temple, not because they were changing money from coins with the image of Caesar on them (idolatry!) to coins acceptable to God (without images of humankind, made in the image of God, whose image cannot be reproduced).

Pope Francis insists he's not a liberal theologian.  He is opposed to liberation theology.  He has not changed Church doctrine on abortion, same-sex marriage, or divorce.

He preaches mercy.  He puts people first.  He washes the feet of women, Muslims.  He condemns capitalism which makes an idol of money, and ranks people below dollars.

He is not Christ, but he is doing his best to be Christlike, as he understands that telos.  And it is his spirituality that people are responding to:  not his politics, not his dynamic and unilateral changes in Church law or teaching; not his personality and personal charm, not his charisma.

Or perhaps it is his charisma, his charism, that people are responding to.

He is a person of God; and that is what confounds people, even as it draws people to admire him, to listen to him, to notice him.

Interesting how that happens, and everyone says they hear the voice of God, or just hear thunder.

Something silly this way comes.....

If someone isn't being outraged at who is invited to the White House when Pope Francis I is in the building, there is room for outrage about what brings Kim Davis back to court (because that's how the court system works.  We don't get to reduce Kim Davis to a greasy spot because you don't like her actions.)  And there is still no small amount of yammering outrage about Ahmed and the technicolor dream clock which he didn't really make, he just disassembled and put in a pencil box.

The funniest part about this "meme" is that it depends on so many people saying it in order to be true.  Yes, there is a blogpost that purports to examine a photograph, which examination renders visual evidence that only the writer of that post can see, "proving" this radio is actually a Radio Shack product from the 1980's.  The "proof" includes the allegation that there is an "M" on the circuit board (which, again, apparently only the writer of the blog post can see, since no enlarged picture is provided), and that "M" can only mean (wait for it!):  "Micronta," the name under which the clock was marketed.

And, you see, this is all true because the blog post says so.  Again, the "evidence" here is the blog post, not any "high definition" photographs which the post writer says have been reviewed, but which apparently were unavailable for reproduction.  There are fuzzy enlargements of the picture released by the Irving PD which are labeled by someone with parts supposedly from said Micronta clock, but that "evidence," again, is the arrows and the captions and the words of the blog post writer.

Nothing more.

One wonders what Richard Dawkins makes of the Shroud of Turin, which at least looks, even to the uninitiated, like it bears the figure of a man wearing a crown of thorns and wounds consistent with crucifixion.  Yes, I know the Shroud has been proven to be a medieval fake (I'm not much for relics anyway), but you can look at the Shroud and think:  "Hmmm....that looks like a human being."

Or you can look at the photo of the clock in the pencil box and wonder, as I still do:  "Clock?  So, where's the readout?"  And also look at it and say "Looks like some random bits of electronic parts, to me."  Identifying them as coming from a specific digital clock by a specific manufacturer from a specific decade would, one would think, require a bit more, ahem, "personal" inspection of the item.  After all, I'd never pass judgment on the validity of the Shroud of Turin based on a photograph.

And, interestingly, we still can't figure out how the image got on the cloth.  It's not that hard to imagine Ahmed Mohammed assembling components to make a  clock in a pencil box either from instructions on the internet (I've used DIY videos successfully for everything from remodeling a bathroom to roofing a garage to replacing a tail light), or just figuring it out himself.  Both of which are more plausible than assuming he had to have scoured e-bay for a Micronta clock, torn it apart, and scattered the bits into a pencil box, just because he could (or because he knew it would fit into a pencil box).

Unless you're Richard Dawkins and don't want to give the young brown boy any credit at all.

AND ANOTHER THING:  I want to add that many comments about how Ahmed "didn't build that" claim he put the parts in a briefcase.  You know, the thing executives and lawyers carry around, and that every 14 year old has in his room.

It's a pencil case.  It's 8" wide, according to the blogpost Dawkins cited and everyone else is going from.  In the picture it may look like a briefcase only because there isn't much to compare it to, in terms of size (although the AC plug should be a giveaway).  But that's one of the problems with pictures:  what you see ain't necessarily what's there.

(Besides, even in the '80's, digital clocks weren't so big the components would barely fit into a briefcase.  Reason!  Logic!)

WWJD?

At this one he included women and Muslims

So, the "least of these" doesn't include the gai?

Huckabee was upset over Obama inviting transgender activists and the first openly gay Episcopal bishop to the welcoming ceremony for the pope at the White House. The Vatican criticized the invitations and said that photographs of the pope and these individuals might suggest approval of their decisions, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Can't get to the WSJ original, so I have to rely on TPM.  That said, this response could have come from flacks in Rome, not necessarily from His Holiness currently in Cuba.  Either way, it's an interesting response, especially in light of the Pharisees criticizing Jesus for hanging with whores and tax collectors (in 1st century Palestine, basically male whores).

I rather expect Pope Francis to be less upset than the home office or Pastor Huckabee.  And I really think both of them are so far-off base (Vatican and Huckabee, I mean), that they don't really matter.

"You didn't build that!"

This is how absurd the internet can be.

Apparently there's a whole discussion going on out that about how Ahmed Mohammed didn't "invent" a digital clock because all he did was take apart a 30 year old Radio Shack digital clock and reassemble the components in a pencil box.

And since the 14 year old said "invent," he's guilty of heinous crimes including deluding the Irving police into arresting him and the White House into inviting him to come for a visit.

No, seriously.

I'm a bit baffled by the examination of a photograph from which one can make absolute determinations, and I want to ask if they also checked the kerning.  But whatever:  the kid took components and put them together into a clock.  Were the components assembled and he disassembled a 30 year old clock and made it work again?  Or reassemble it in a pencil box?  Do we have any idea where those components came from?  Can "M" only mean "Micronta"?  (is it even reasonable that that is what it means?)

Inquiring minds want to know.  Or, actually, they don't.*  The author of the dissection insists the point is to focus on our reaction to this story, not to the "hoax clock" itself.  So, of course, Richard Dawkins focusses on the hoax.

Given Dawkins' history of disdaining the non-white countries of the world, maybe not such a smart move for him.

I gotta say:  the internet is a really tiring place.  The trolls can have it; they seem to be the only people here anymore.

ADDING:

Not that this whole discussion is really any different from Frank Gaffney's paranoia:

A picture Gaffney tweeted with the quite reasonable question:  "How is a teacher supposed to know?  A Clock or a Bomb Trigger?"  (Maybe the first clue is:  who plugs in a "bomb trigger"?)

Right?


*The point of the "dissection" is supposed to be about our reaction to the device, but the analysis assumes so many facts not in evidence, and so obviously starts with a conclusion it then finds support for, that it's an exercise in futility.  I always assumed Ahmed assembled parts without a blueprint or instructions and figured out how to put a digital clock together from his own knowledge.  If he had the parts, did he know what they were?  How did he know how to assemble them to make them work?  Is it really a Radio Shack item from the '80's?  Did he have it assembled, and took it apart with minimal alteration to put it in a pencil box?

Does it really matter?

Fear of a Brown Planet

I think we're coming closer to an answer to "Why Irving?," and it ain't just because "Texas" or even "Dallas."

"[Irving mayor Beth] Van Duyne’s focus on the city’s growth earned her our recommendation in 2014. But we also urged her to build 'cooperation and unity,'" the editorial read. "She’s failed at that part of the job. An important part of Irving’s population is Muslim, and the city is home to a major mosque."

Now if the majority of those Muslims were Southeast Asian, reflecting the majority of the world's Muslims, would there be the same reaction by the mayor, or the Irving PD?

And really, it ain't limited to Texas. This exchange took place in New Hampshire:

“We have a problem in this country,” a questioner said, “it’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American. We have training camps growing where they want to kill us.”

Trump — who spent much of much of Wednesday night’s debate talking over and interrupting other potential nominees — didn’t even attempt to challenge this interrogator, who did eventually get around to his question: “When can we get rid of them?”

Instead of saying that “they” are American citizens, and as such it would be un-American to “get rid of them,” Trump replied with empty blandishments, saying that “we’re going to be looking at a lot of different things, and a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”

As Charlie Pierce likes to say:  "This is your democracy, America.  Cherish it."*

*By the way, are Pakistanis Asian?  Or Middle Eastern?  And are Egyptians African?  Or just Egyptian?  And why aren't Russians Asian?

It is a puzzlement.

Reality. What a concept!

So, Carly Fiorina "won" the debate last night because she had bigger meaty clackers (or clanging brass ones; maybe that's more appropriate) than any other man on stage:

“What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Suleimani’s name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al- Assad.”

All well and good, except:

The Sixth Fleet is already huge, and it's hard to say why adding to its capabilities would intimidate Putin — after all, America has enough nuclear weapons pointed at Russia to level the country thousands of times over. Her proposal for more military exercises in the Baltics seemed odd in light of the fact that President Obama is already conducting military exercises in the Baltics. And the US already has around 40,000 troops stationed in Germany, so it's hard to say what good "a few thousand" more would do. And pushing on a missile defense system in Poland is a very long-term solution to a very current problem. In total, Fiorina's laundry list of proposals sure sounded like a plan, but on inspection, it's hard to see why any of them would convince Putin to change course.

And, as Rand Paul (!) pointed out at the debate, we were talking to the USSR all through the Cold War, and now we can't talk to Putin?  What sense does that make?

And on that Planned Parenthood video she couldn't have possibly seen, she remains unbowed and unrepentant:

"Analysts who have watched all 12 plus hours say the scene you describe - that harrowing scene you described -- actually isn't in those tapes. Did you misspeak?" he asked.

"No, I didn't misspeak, and I don't know who you're speaking about in terms of watching the tapes, but I have seen those images," Fiorina responded. "I don't know whether you've watched the tapes, George. Most people haven't. Certainly none of the Democrats who are still defending Planned Parenthood have watched those tapes."

Stephanopoulos then referenced a report by Vox's Sarah Kliff, who said that she watched all of the videos released and that she did not see the scene Fiorina described.

"Well, you know, there's a lot of commentary about these tapes being doctored. In fact, that's what the mainstream media keeps talking about, is the tapes and their origin," Fiorina replied. "Rest assured I have seen the images that I talked about last night. Rest assured that human lives are being aborted fully formed in order to harvest body parts."

But no, that video simply does not exist.   Which means we should start calling Ms. Fiorina a liar.

Except in American politics, that's more taboo than calling someone a racist.  Or using the "n-word."  My dears, it simply is. not. done!

By the way, Fiorina boldly told a crowd of supporters that she'd earned every wrinkle on her 60 year old face.  I have searched photos like the above in vain for signs of any wrinkles at all.  Is lying just sort of a natural condition for her?

Speaking of justice

I've had my disagreements with Pastor Dan in the past, but fair is fair, and when he's right, he's right.

Still, this was mostly Sanders’ stump speech garnished with a bit of religious rhetoric. That’s his campaign in a nutshell, to be honest. For better or worse, the man is focused on economic inequality like a six-year-old on sugar. (I’d say like a college student on beer, but you know. Liberty University and all that.) If Twitter is any indication, his fans loved the speech, and everybody else just sort of shrugged. No new ground was broken.

Unlike my esteemed RD colleague Sarah Posner, I thought Sanders took most of the usual advice pols get on religion: talk about toning down partisan divides, talk about commonalities, talk about standing in solidarity. Which is fine, I guess, but it didn’t exactly move the conversation on religion and politics forward. Bit of a missed opportunity there.

A bigger miss was that Sanders didn’t really dig into the religious material the way he could have. He quoted only two passages from scripture: Matthew 7:12 (“Do unto others as you would have them do to you”) and Amos 5:24 (“Let justice roll down like waters”), without dwelling on either one. Sanders might have told the story of Hillel teaching the Golden Rule to show how close Jewish and Christian social teachings are, and build a connection with his audience without getting into a mushy faith autobiography. And while the Amos passage was the hinge into Sanders’ discussion of economic injustice, he didn’t bother to explain the concept of justice, or its rich and complex tradition in Jewish scripture.

A keen orator like Pres. Obama would have taken the opportunity to explore the theology being invoked. For all that his faith talk gets dismissed as phony pandering, Obama is conversant enough with Christian thought that he can creatively reinterpret it, as he did at Rev. Pinckney’s funeral in South Carolina. It’s enough—more than enough—to convince his listeners that he gets it, that he understands them and their religious concerns in more than a superficial way.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to Bernie Sanders (neither have I paid a lot of attention to Hillary Clinton). I was ready to be impressed with Sanders going to Liberty U., but Pastor Dan captures the reason why I haven't heard much about it except that he went there.  And it would have been more interesting if Sen. Sanders had tried to delve into scripture for lessons rather than cliches, or had trotted out (as Pastor Dan suggests) what is almost a cliche, a statistic about the number of times "justice" appear in the Holy Bible (simple reference to a concordance would yield the answer).

No, the Senator is not a religious candidate; but he did go to Liberty University, not only a hotbed of rabid conservatism, but a Bible college (in essence).  He could have done a bit more to speak their language, even if he doesn't speak their conclusions.

But mostly I agree with Pastor Dan about the implicit criticism he raises against Sen. Sanders:  the concept of justice, v. the concept of social justice or economic justice or "Black Lives Matter" justice.  That's a very risky abstraction to raise in a political campaign; the ultimate issue of justice, v. some specific and more narrow (and somehow more abstract and obtuse) concept of a type of justice.  But it is no more risky, really, than raising the idea that fundamental to our problems is economic justice.  If we're going to discuss fundamentals in public discourse and public policy, let's get down to the bedrock.  If justice is to roll down like waters, what do we expect that to look like?

It would take a deft hand, and I'm not sure there's a politician who could pull it off (perhaps President Obama, now; since we are not as fixated on his being a potentially angry black man as we were when Jeremiah Wright was the outrage du jour) .  But the discussion of justice itself might start to convince listeners that a politician gets it, that she or he understands the audience and their deep concerns in more than a superficial way.

Of course, then you might upset all the atheists.....

You can't be too careful, or too paranoid

Don't know what it is, so it must be dangerous!

And since I've touched this, I'm not going to let go of it quickly:

At a press conference this morning, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said charges won't be filed against Ahmed Mohamed, the MacArthur High School freshman arrested Monday after bringing what school officials and police described as a "hoax bomb" on campus.

Boyd said the device -- confiscated by an English teacher despite the teen's insistence that it was a clock -- was "certainly suspicious in nature.

"The student showed the device to a teacher, who was concerned that it was possibly the infrastructure for a bomb," Boyd said.

School officers questioned Ahmed about the device and why he'd brought it to school. Boyd said Ahmed was then handcuffed "for his safety and for the safety of the officers" and taken to a juvenile detention center. He was later released to his parents, Boyd said.

"The follow-up investigation revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment, and there's no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm," Boyd said.

During the news conference, Boyd touted the "outstanding relationship" he's had with the Muslim community in Irving. He said he talked to members of the Muslim community this morning and plans to meet with Ahmed's father later today.

Asked if the teen's religious beliefs factored into his arrest, Boyd said the reaction "would have been the same" under any circumstances.

And if you believe that last statement, I have some coastal land in Louisiana you'll want to buy.  Hurry, 'cause it's going fast!

Then there's the condescending "outstanding relationship" with the community-in-question argument.  I thought I'd quit hearing that when it was applied to blacks in the '70's.  And while the kid was only armed with a clock, he was handcuffed for his safety and the safety of others?

Seriously?

Besides, what made it suspicious?  The fact that no one could tell what it was?  Or that the kids' name was "Ahmed"?  What made it look dangerous had nothing to do with who was showing it to you?

Really?

So about that land in Louisiana.....

ADDING:  the world is shaming Irving and the school.  Whether they notice or not, Ahmed is redeemed.  And I don' t hesitate to say the teachers, the principal, the school district, the Irving police, and the Irving mayor, should be ashamed of themselves.  Not that I'm expecting them to be.....

Ignorance is Strength

"Yup.  That's who I thought it was."

The irony is so sharp and so close to the throat you dare not move for fear of the suicide:

The outlook of mechanically-minded students of color could not have been helped by the fact that yesterday, police in Texas arrested a ninth-grader for making a clock and bringing it to school. The kid had loved robotics club in middle school and was hoping to join something similar in high school, so he brought his creation to show to his engineering teacher. But he had to carry it around for the rest of the day. When it beeped in English class, that teacher confiscated it. Then she called the cops.

On one level, this story fits inside an appalling pattern of police arresting children as young as five for offenses such as throwing paper planes in class, playing tag, and having overdue library fines. But if, on a broader plane, childhood itself is now a walking potential crime, research studies have thoroughly documented the fact that the preschool-to-prison pipeline disproportionately targets children of color.

The story of the clock-making kid gets worse, for his name is not Johnny Smith, but Ahmed Mohamed, and he is Muslim. Authorities at Irving MacArthur High School thought his device was a bomb. The subtext is clear: if the boy is a Muslim, he must be a terrorist.

[The police] were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’”

Ahmed said. “I told them no, I was trying to make a clock.”

 “He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me.’”

Ahmed was led out of school in handcuffs and given a three-day suspension. The Dallas Morning News reports that “police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.” The police confirm that a clock is what Mohamed claimed to have built, but according to police spokesman James MacLellan, the boy “was unable to give a ‘broader explanation’ as to what it would be used for.”

Uh, egg timer? Metronome? “It’s a clock” is insufficiently clear?

So here's what we have:  ignorant racist police pick on the brown kid because of his name (did they even ask him his religion?  Did they have to?) and it's the brown kid's fault.  By the way, how bad was it?

They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”

As Salon notes, the case of the "bomb" is rather like the case of Dr. Xi, arrested by the Justice Department for selling secrets to the Chinese, because, well, he's Chinese!  Except they had to drop the charges because the only evidence they had was that Dr. Xi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is Chinese.

The real trouble starts when authorities with ample power to throw you in jail happily flaunt their own ignorance.

And that sentence is when the penny dropped:  how is this any different from the professed atheism of people like Lawrence Krause?  The most fervent of the New Atheists are Islamophobic (a term they disdain, especially when it is linked to racism, because it's not about race because it's never about race).  Yet the idea that a brown kid with a "Middle Eastern" name is likely a terrorist is of a piece with atheist diatribes.  (The further irony is that the majority of the world's Muslims are Asians; yet no one automatically assumes Dr. Xi is a Muslim or, if  so that he's a terrorist.  Wrong "race," donchaknow?  But it's not about race.....)

And it's hard to find a New Atheist who knows anything about Islam or Christianity or religion in general, because they are so proud of their ignorance.

But tell me again what kind of paradise it would be if they were in charge.

Still making monkeys outta....

So I wander over to Religion Dispatches, where I find this:

  WHY SCIENTISTS SHOULD BE AGNOSTIC: 

OR, WHY LAWRENCE KRAUSS IS STILL A WINDBAG

Which was kind of interesting, and led me to this:

NEW ATHEISM PRODUCES ANOTHER CURIOUSLY UNCURIOUS

 SCIENCE V. RELIGION BOOK

Which in turn led me to this review which ends with this sentence:

 Read ''Summer for the Gods'' for that well-told story. For the trial of the century, rent the movie.

And made me consider that law professors don't know that much about history.  And even about the power of powerlessness, about the real value of humility and self-awareness and, while those things don't spring exclusively from religion, they are more emphasized in religion than in atheism, New Atheism, or agnosticism.

It also reminded me that I'm getting really tired of reading the pontifications of people who are proudly ignorant of the subject they denounce, and left wondering what that says about the state of our public discourse and even our national discussion of public policy.  And how what we don't need is an opposing voice shouting down opponents, but an advocate for self-examination.

Yeah, like that'll happen!

Panem et circenses

First, all these new stories about Kim Davis are taking their cues from Ms. Davis and her lawyers:

Kim Davis Says She Won't Authorize Licenses For Gay Couples Issued By Deputies

Spoiler alert:  she doesn't have to:  "The governor, the attorney general and the county attorney have said the licenses are valid. Only Davis and her attorneys claim otherwise."

“Back at square one”: Defiant Kim Davis returned to work Monday and declared that she will continue not to do her job

Basically the same article, without the notation that the licenses are deemed valid by all authorities except Ms. Davis' lawyers, who have lost every legal argument they have advanced.  No surprise, it's Salon; outrage is their marketing strategy.

Kim Davis' Lawyers To File New Lawsuit Against Kentucky Governor

TPM tends to be less lurid, but the comments are full of outrage, which is kinda surprising.  This new lawsuit sounds like something already raised before the federal court (and dismissed out of hand), so the legal team is still batting 1.000 in their attempt to never make a legal argument worth the paper it's printed on.

ThinkProgres is the only headline to get it right: It’s Over: Kim Davis Allows Deputies To Continue Issuing Marriage Licenses.  It is also less sanguine about the validity of the marriage licenses, but that's really a matter for Kentucky lawyers, so let's leave it to them.

What's interesting now is the outrage these headlines produce.  There shouldn't be a controversy here:  Kim Davis is running her mouth, but she's lost every battle she's engaged.  Same-sex couples in Rowan County, Kentucky are getting married with licenses issued by her office.  The plaintiffs got what they asked for.  The Court has her office under review to the point she's knuckled under rather than go back to jail.  Still, commentary runs heavily in favor of putting Ms. Davis back in jail permanently, if not longer, mostly on the grounds that she "deserves" it or needs to "learn a lesson" or just because she is very annoying to some people.  None of these, of course, are grounds for criminal contempt and it is likely, had the judge kept her in jail longer, the 6th Cir. would have ordered her release, giving her lawyers at least one win.

Besides, the ACLU attorneys who brought this suit argued for fines, not jail time.  Apparently they just aren't bloodthirsty enough for the attendees in the internet Coliseum.

It's a bit odd, all this screaming and yelling (virtually) over a woman who has lost every legal argument she's put forward, and has now cratered to the demands of the judge (even as her lawyers vowed defiance last week).  And especially a woman almost no on on the internet knows personally, or is likely to encounter in their daily lives.  She's bitching and moaning about the marriage certificates leaving her office, but she's not stopping them  Her case gives no solace to the handful (literally, you can count them on one hand) of clerks and judges across the country who have vowed to defy Obergefell.  The fact is, what's keeping this story alive (if you can call it that) is the outrage of certain small corners of the internet.  It's as if these petty ideologues were gladiators in some death spectacle, and nothing will do but that their opponents are obliterated from the face of the earth.

Salon, as I say, specializes in this.  In a related article this morning there was this demand:

The most reasonable Christians I know are not the voice of American Christianity. Those who love and promote a more nuanced version of the faith have a duty to get their house in order. Liberal Christians have been either ineffective or unwilling to tame the excesses in their pews.

So we are reasonable, but we aren't silencing the crazy Christians who aren't even in our pews (I've never attended a church that produced a Kim Davis), and somehow because we both call ourselves "Christians" I'm responsible for enforcing the copyright on that term, and denying it to Kim Davis?

Does this make sense to anybody else?

It's the usual internet blather and outrage, but it's beginning to sound like the Coliseum scenes in "Gladiator."  I'm not so sure Donald Trump is the only one appealing to the fears and bruised ideologies of the disaffected white American male.

As Stanley Fish puts it (whose legal analysis of the case frankly leaves a great deal to be desired; it reads like a legal analysis written by an English professor):

Some posters castigate Davis for being self-righteous; but if there were a self-righteousness competition, Davis's critics would win it hands down.

I think that particular disorder is more widespread and less generational than is generally acknowledged; on the intertoobs, at least.

"For self-examination!"

Scout is a "Tenther."

That's the real takeaway from Watchman:  Jean Louise objects to Brown v. Board of Education because she think it runs roughshod over the 10th Amendment.  It makes the novel something of a time capsule, a perfectly preserved relic of a time before Dr. King's letter and his dream transformed us all into thinking justice demanded the elimination of racism in American law.

It's telling that the only voice for the blacks is that of Calpurnia, and all she does is treat Jean Louise like the white woman with white privileges that blind her to her racism, a racism Jean Louise displays by rejecting the sight of Atticus sitting in a White Citizens Council meeting, but also by insisting that blacks should wait for change to come, not go out and meet it and bring it to town with them.

For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

That argument isn't made until years later than the events in Watchman.  It is an argument unimaginable to Scout.  It is, tacitly. the argument of Calpurnia when she spurns Scout.  But even if Calpurnia could put it into words, Scout would not recognize the meaning.

Some things do take time, even if people and events can't wait.

Narratively, this is a weaker novel than Mockinbird.  Lee has a point to make in this first book, and she does it through dialogue.  It reminds me of one of Shaw's wordier plays, more intent on diatribe than on drama.  The middle section of the story, when Jean Louise wrestles with the reality of racism in Maycomb and in her family, is powerful:  it's a gut-punch to Jean Louise and to the reader.  But the resolution comes, not from drama or action, but conversation.  The last portion of the novel is one long justification, first by Atticus' brother (not a figure at all in Mockingbird) and then by Atticus.  It is satisfying neither emotionally, intellectually, nor dramatically, because in the end Scout's racism is justified in the old way:  she's not a racist, she just doesn't want her daughter to marry one.  Calpurnia's change of heart, crucial as it is to the story, is blamed not on Southern racism, but on the NAACP.

The only phrase missing from the book is "outside agitators."

But that's what makes it such an effective time capsule.  It isn't someone of my generation (born at the time Watchman is set) trying to recapture the spirit of a time lived through but not really in; it is a photograph of that period.  It is an attempt by a first novelist to capture the contradictions and what seemed like radical change of the era.  Jean Louise is distanced from her father by time as much as by geography (returning to Maycomb from New York leaves her physically displaced throughout the novel), but her arguments about state's rights and NAACP lawyers "coming down here" were already outdated by the late '60's, when Dr. King's letter (and the efforts of thousands) began to be an influence.  It's a very wrong book, in other words, and a failed piece of drama (show, don't tell, is always the first rule of fiction), but it's a good book with a compelling narrative that the author herself never quite reconciled, at least not in this story; and it points out that we probably read more into Mockingbird than we ought to.

But that should lead us to self-examination, and that is always a better purpose for fiction; even partially failed fiction can be redeemed, if we use it to reconsider ourselves.

Just keeping up

Think Progress has an excellent (finally!) explanation of the legal issues involved in the Kim Davis farce.  Notably, many of the issues her lawyers have tried to litigate before the press were litigated before the judge:

During Davis’ contempt hearing last week, Liberty Counsel Senior Attorney Jonathan Christman told the court, “The governor can change that form, make it a state form with no personal authority, no Kim Davis name on it, available in a Rowan County Clerk’s office, and this case would be over.”

U.S. District Judge David Bunning humored this claim, asking Palmer Vance, an attorney representing Beshear, “Is this something where he can just change the form by executive order?”

“No, Your Honor,” Vance replied, “because the requirements for the composition of marriage licenses is dictated by statute, and the governor cannot change the statute.”

Christman countered with a point that many Davis supporters have made: Beshear did direct Kentucky’s Department for Libraries and Archives to produce a new marriage license form after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling. The change removed gender-specific language so that the form could be used for same-sex couples. Bunning asked the governor’s attorney to respond.

Vance explained, “Judge, the form was changed in response to a final decision of the United States Supreme Court that did change marriage in the sense that same-sex marriage was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and so the form was modified to reflect compliance of the decision of the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court disturbed no other portion of Kentucky’s marriage laws, so the governor does not have the ability to change those himself because they are in the statute.”

But even if the form is changed, Davis is expected to raise an objection:

As Liberty Counsel’s Staver said in his interview with David Brody, “The problem is that the licenses have her name on them and/or they have her official title as the Clerk of the Court of Rowan County, so whether it’s ‘Kim Davis’ or it’s ‘The Clerk of the Court,’ it’s like saying — whether it’s the ‘President of the United States’ or ‘President Obama’ or ‘Governor So-and-so’ or a particular governor’s name, it’s the same person.

“So to issue a license under her name and authority, as Kim Davis as the Clerk of Rowan County, is something that she can’t do, because it authorizes a license for marriage that is contrary to God’s design for marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”

Poppycock, of course, but 'round and round that goes.  The legal battle here is not to free Kim Davis, but to block the implementation of Obergefell.  And what of the authority of the deputy clerks?  Back to the courthouse:

This question similarly came up during the contempt hearing as Bunning was considering requiring the deputies to issue licenses. Can deputies issue valid marriage licenses without Davis’ presence or approval? William Ellis Sharp, an ACLU attorney representing the same-sex couples who filed the complaint against Davis, explained to the court that it made little sense that she could actually prevent deputies from performing their duty.

“We don’t think her authority extends that far,” Sharp explained, “insofar as the office, apart from Kim Davis, exists to perform certain public functions. Kim Davis does not have to personally touch every marriage license. She employs people for the purpose of carrying out the duties of that office. To the extent Kim Davis has an erroneous instruction of her ability to block them from doing that, that, nonetheless, does not mean that they cannot perform those functions.”

Unless, of course, she fires any clerk who crosses here.  And that may well raise a question of Kentucky civil service law.  I rather doubt government employees are employed at the whim of their elected bosses, but I suppose we'll find out, huh?  At a minimum, it'll land Ms. Davis back before the federal judge.

And her counsel have now filed another appeal, claiming lack of jurisdiction for the court to rule in favor of parties not plaintiffs in the suit.  Yeah, their legal case is that ridiculous.

But speaking of legal cases, a bit of perspective.  Brown v. Board was handed down in 1954.  When Harper Lee wrote Go Tell A Watchman, she used that decision as the backdrop for her novel.  The year is unclear, but it is sometime after Brown and before Faubus.  And there's no indication Brown was being implemented in Alabama at the time, certainly not in her fictional Maycomb.  It was 25 years before Brown was fully implemented across the country, and at some point it was rolled back, at least as far as forced busing went.  The impetus of Brown ended with a whimper, and today almost no one notices that the landmark decision everyone praises, is buried beneath our neglect.  Does anyone speak of correcting our schools by making them less racially divided?  Has that solution ever even been broached in all the discussion of New Orleans public schools 10 years after Katrina?  It is, like the Lost Cause, gone with the wind.

Even Loving v. Virginia wasn't the law of the land until 1970, 3 years after it came down from a unanimous court.   And the interesting part is, anti-miscegenation laws were not limited to the south, or to African-Americans:

All but nine of the fifty states outlawed interracial marriage at some time in their history. These laws were not limited to the South—they existed at different historical moments in states ranging from Massachusetts to California, and they variously outlawed marriages between whites and those defined as black, Asian and American Indian. What they had in common was a shared intent in protecting the status of whites and communicating the subordinate position of nonwhite groups.

Loving was ignored in Alabama until 1970, when the Nixon Administration finally got the state to cry "Uncle!" in federal district court.

Yes, it's frustrating for a few people in Rowan County, and I understand there are two other county clerks in Kentucky who are Kim Davis-wannabes, as well as one in Texas.  In the Texas case, however, no same-sex couple has yet stepped forward in that rural county to make the clerk a martyr. Still, given the complete lack of support for their position at the state level (with the exception of Texas, briefly), the country is moving much faster to accept same-sex marriage than ever it moved to accept integrated schools or interracial marriage.

Hmmmmm........

Is it a sin to keep a wound hidden?

For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.
Isaiah 21:6

I'm a little over halfway through Harper Lee's "new" book, and I think I understand what all the fuss was about.

The "fuss", of course, was the fact that Atticus is, in the 1950's, a racist; something he adamantly was not in the 1930's.  This raised great concerns, even as this novel was tacitly denounced as not being the equal of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Well, of course; what could be?  Mockingbird is an evocative, lyrical presentation of a time; Maycomb, Alabama is practically Mayberry, North Carolina.  The novel is rich with characters and evocations, woven together by chronology more than narrative necessity (what does Atticus shooting the dog really have to do with Atticus defending a black man on a false criminal charge?  What does Jem breaking his arm have to do with anything?).  But we don't care about the tissue-paper of the plot, so captivated are we by the narrative woven out of these events related only by their occurring in within the same time frame, one after the other.

That powerful narrative voice, that story-teller's way of focusing on character without losing track of the fact in a story things must happen, is still present in Go Set a Watchman.  If anything, this earlier novel that was set aside for Mockingbird proves the more famous book was no fluke:  Harper Lee is a fine and worthy story teller.   The big difference between the two books, and the reason the second passed from public consciousness so rapidly, so as not to disturb our love of the first, is simple.  Mockingbird showed us racism as a problem of the "other."  It's situated in the townsfolk of Maycomb, in the faceless jury that convicts Tom Robinson, the mob that lynches him, the people who respect Atticus but don't respect the legal process.

In Watchman, it turns out the racists are us.

The shock of this novel is not that Atticus is a racist.  It is that we have been racists all along, and we haven't recognized it, and we don't want to recognize it.  If the narrative structure of Mockingbird is the year Jem broke his arm, Watchman has a narrower ambit:  it's the vacation Jean Louise takes from New York to return to Maycomb. As in Mockingbird, the narrator is in no hurry to get to a point:  this isn't a thriller, or a plot-driven potboiler.  Like a good Southern story or a well-told Southern joke, the set up is worth the ending, the characters as important as the point of the tale.  The conflict in Mockingbird forces Scout to grow up a bit, but come to grips with the world around her that isn't all the simple world of childhood.  It culminates in the assault on Jem and Scout, and the rescue by Boo Radley, but it is, ironically, more "a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel," as the first editor of Watchman reportedly said of that novel.

Watchman is actually more tightly constructed than Mockingbird.  It takes place in a shorter time frame, and it presents Jean Louise, as a young adult, returning to Maycomb and filling in the spaces between visits with people she doesn't really know or have much in common with, with memories from her childhood.  Dill makes and appearance, as does Jem, although in this novel Jem is already dead of a heart attack, a family inheritance from his mother, we learn.  It is these memories in the first half of the book that probably persuaded Lee's editor to encourage her to write a novel set in Jean Louise's childhood; but there's no indication here that this material would evoke the masterpiece that is Mockingbird.  The memories in Watchman are set pieces that describe a more tranquil world, but still one where Scout the tomboy embarrasses Atticus (in ways she never does in Mockingbird) and has trouble accepting that she is female (one of the longest pieces is the 9 months Scout spends convinced she is pregnant because a young boy, in gratitude for helping her with his school work, impulsively kisses her on the lips)..  These anecdotes go to Jean Louise's character, and set us up for the gut punch she experiences when she sees her beloved father at a White Citizen's council meeting in that iconic courtroom, sitting in the balcony as she does in Mockingbird.

It is the famous novel that echoes in this one, not because Lee planned it that way, but because Mockingbird got to us first.  But Mockingbird also did Lee's subject in Watchman an injustice, and that points to an explanation of why the timeline of the latter was abandoned for the earlier time of the former.  The famous trial is mentioned in Watchman, but the outcome is far different.  Atticus takes the case to prevent an injustice, and he does.  He wins the case, rather than loses it.  The loss in Mockingbird is more realistic to the setting and dramatically necessary, as it confirms for us that Atticus is a good man surrounded by the darkness of racism; and he's an even better man because he fights against the evil, even as he hasn't the strength or power to defeat it.  When the blacks stand in honor of Atticus walking from the courtroom, we all stand with them:  he never had a chance, but he fought the good fight anyway.

There is no similar tale in Watchman, but when Jean Louise sees Atticus in that courtroom among all the other racists, it turns her world upside down and inside out, and the worst part is she has no one to talk to.  Everyone in Maycomb agrees with Atticus, and those who don't, such as Calpurnia, see Jean Louise no longer as Scout, but as a white woman.  She is isolated on all sides, but not a victim of racism so much as a beneficiary of it, and that is a sin that is very hard to wash out, indeed.  Of whom do you ask forgiveness, and who can grant it to you?  That's the message of Watchman:  not that the racist is the other, the faceless mob, the implacable jury; not that we, too, can be Atticus.  No, the message is that we are Atticus:  we want to protect the status quo from "outsiders," Or we are Jean Louise, beneficiaries of a privilege we took for granted, but one that now, we have to pay for.

It's worth emphasizing that the setting of Watchman is not America under Martin Luther King.  It isn't King in the Birmingham Jail, or LBJ pushing the Civil Rights Act through, or the march on Washington or Bloody Selma or Mississippi Burning.  It's not even yet Orville Faubus standing in the schoolroom door.  All that's really happened in Maycomb is Brown v. Board of Education, an opinion whose implementation would still be resisted by school districts ("why don't they just resign?") as late as the 1980's.  Whenever people are frustrated that Obergefell isn't fully implemented in every county clerk's office in all 50 states by now, I think about that.  Little more than the threat to separate but equal schools has, in Jean Louise's world, spurred whites to form committees in opposition, and blacks to recognize they deserve a better place in America, fairer treatment from their government.  The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, are absolutely unimaginable.  It's not even clear Brown has been implemented in Alabama; just the idea of it is enough to force everyone to stand on the issue.

In Watchman Atticus does take on the defense of another black man accused of manslaughter; but he doesn't do it for the purpose of racial justice.  He does it to keep the NAACP from sending in lawyers, "outsiders," to "disrupt" Maycomb.  We realize, with Jean Louise, that the call of racism is not coming from outside; it's coming from inside the house.

That was a volatile message in 1950's America.  Oddly, it seems to still be that today.  The plot of this novel pivots on that revelation; on the radical change coming to the South, on the fact that Jean Louise literally can't go home again because home isn't home, the people she loved, from Atticus to Calpurnia, are no longer the figures of her childhood (and not just because she is no longer a child).  It is actually a more powerful statement on racism in America than Mockingbird was.  And I hope that isn't the reason, or even just the result that, this novel fades into the shadow of its famous predecessor.  This novel solidifies the talent of Harper Lee as an American novelist; and it makes us face, as adults like Jean Louise, what Wendell Berry labeled our "hidden wound" as Americans.

It is a much more honest examination of racism and race relations in America than Mockingbird; and it deserves to be honored for that.

Go the f**k to sleep

I know I'm supposed to be upset by this ("Lawyers vow Kim Davis will violate court order").

I'm too busy laughing.

All the plaintiffs in the suit who wanted marriage licenses have them.  Hetero couples in Rowan County can now get marriage licenses.  Nothing Kim Davis or her lawyers did bore any fruit.  The ACLU, who represented the plaintiffs, is satisfied.  The deputy clerks are under court order and observation and must report in every two weeks, or face criminal contempt themselves (i.e., jail time).  Kim Davis may try to block the issuance of any more licenses, but she'll just go back to jail, and licenses will continue to issue.  Pretty soon even the people of Rowan County will grow tired of this dog-and-pony show.

She failed, she lost, she was rebuked, she left no mark on the system, she created no legal precedent, she solidified the holding in Obergefell and limited the holding in Hobby Lobby (which is the legal precedent she is relying on for all her statements about her "sincere religious beliefs").  The opposition to her position won everything except her extermination and removal from the face of the earth, or from public office in Rowan County.

And since the former is just childshly insane, and the latter was never really an option, why aren't we dancing in the streets?  Better yet, why don't we just turn out the lights and close the door on our way out.

This party is over.*

In the adult world, this is what "winning" feels like.  It's nothing like the movies or TeeVee, and there are people on the intertoobs still outraged that the judge "caved."

Leave them to their ignorance.  There's no hope for them anyway.  Adults move on.

*And if this doesn't make you laugh, what will?

Cruz did not appear at the press conference with Huckabee, Staver and Davis. But it wasn't for his lack of trying. The New York Times reported that when Cruz "exited the jail a throng of journalists beckoned him toward their microphones, but an aide to Mr. Huckabee blocked the path of Mr. Cruz, who appeared incredulous."

BTW, Cruz is polling 4% in Iowa, 5% in New Hampshire; Huckabee is 3% and 4%.  Anybody really think there's a "Kim Davis bounce"?

Sic Transit Gloria

Alright, let's bring this sordid tale to an end:

The federal judge who threw a renegade Kentucky clerk in jail for contempt of court last week ordered her release on Tuesday.

Criminal contempt, it turns out, is not for the satisfaction of the howler monkeys on the intertoobs.  Now that her office is complying with the court's order, Davis no longer needs to be in jail.  Besides, the plaintiff's have won; they all got their marriage licenses.  And the clerks have to file reports with the court every two weeks, certifying they are still in compliance with the court's order.

So Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee get to appear at the courthouse and....what?  Cheer the fact "the gaiz" won?  Take credit for Ms. Davis being released?  Proclaim her martyrdom of one week in jail a victory for right-thinking Christians everywhere?

She lost.  She lost completely and absolutely.  If the clerks defy the court's order, they, too, could wind up in jail (why do you think the judge called them to the courthouse?  It was to put the fear of the law into 'em.).  Ms. Davis may make some more noise, but all the air has gone out of that balloon.  That party's over:  no martyrdom for you!

Or soup.  No soup, either.  And no, that doesn't make the judge a Nazi.  But Ms. Davis' 15 minutes are now up.*

Who wants a donut?

*This doesn't mean she won't try to cling to the wreckage.  But I don't think somebody understands how jails work.  Quelle surprise.   And she was to have been visited by Cruz and Huckabee; somehow I don't think the timing of this order is coincidental.

Heh.