Please move immediately to a place of safety.

This is not a drill

Or a pipe.

Why I don't like to quote scripture

I bet we can weaponize this thing!

in an argument, or in any non-liturgical or non-scholarly context.

After House GOP leaders capitulated to conservative demands, Cramer on Thursday joined 216 other House Republicans in narrowly passing legislation to cut food stamp spending by nearly $40 billion over 10 years. A constituent, Kevin R Tengesdal, took to Cramer's Facebook page to express his apparent displeasure by quoting some Biblical passages:



Cramer subsequently responded by citing a different passage from the Bible, one more favorable to his position on federally funded nutrition assistance.

"2 Thessalonians 3:10 English Standard Version (ESV) 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat," he wrote.

Because that's not what it's for.

The first quote is accurate so far as it goes, but it doesn't necessarily apply to governments (whether it should or not is another question.)   To put the second quote in context:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

It doesn't have any application here, either.  Paul is writing to his followers, to people in the church in Thessalonika who may well, like the Galatians and the Corinthians, think its all about free time and party like it's 1999, 'cause Jesus is comin'!  What he says doesn't apply to society, either; nor to government.  It's not even a text on social justice, which the parable from Matthew certainly is.

It is right for government to care for its people.  It should certainly do that at least as much as it cares for contractors, both military and otherwise.  But this is why I don't use scriptures in an argument, or to prove a point unrelated to scriptural studies or doctrinal issues:  it isn't what scripture is for.  Shouting scripture at each other does nothing for either side, and it persuades third parties only that scripture is about shaming and rule making and power plays.

And we really don't need any more of that than we have already.

What's orthopraxis got to do with it?

Editor's Note:  This is NOT Rick.  Nor is he even in this picture. Nice orthopraxis, though.

Rick speaks, we listen:

The problem with all these discussions about Christianity and slavery is that they focus too narrowly. The evil is the unjust and arbitrary authority of one person over another, something that exists in different forms and degrees of severity in slavery, and serfdom, and employment.

We have not yet learned how to live in society without such arbitrary grants. Even in a democracy (such as it is) we have the exercise of power, much of it arbitrary. Our system of "free labor" means that most people can have their lives shattered by an arbitrary firing--with certain exceptions, the prevailing "employment at will" doctrine allows anyone to be fired for any reason, or no reason.

By and large, it is perfectly true, Christianity has not been a religion emphasizing social and economic reform. The early Christians did not call for the abolition of slavery; but they did call for a re-evaluation of human relationships within existing institutions. Jesus teaches a new model of lordship, the lord is the servant of all. Paul does not urge Philemon to free his slaves, but to treat that as children of God, on the same level as himself.

In Roman law a slave was not a civil person. Christianity taught that the slave was indeed a person, and must be treated as one, even in the context of the relation of slavery. And as that treatment came to be seen as more and more incompatible with the harsher aspects of slavery, it was transformed.

We see serfdom as something oppressive and applaud its abolition. But in the context of a collapsed Roman empire it was a practical social organization, and, unlike slavery, was based on mutual obligations, service for protection.

Slavery is a form. Paul calls himself the "doulos" of Christ. We translate as "servant." We can translate as "slave." Neither is quite right in modern English.

In the law our name for the field of employment law is still "master and servant." We continue to modify it, to make it more humane, adding protections against certain kinds of insidious discriminations, encouraging labor unions, regulating hours. It is a Christian impulse to humanize what is a more humane institution than slavery, but which is still a source of arbitrary power.

Much the same story can be told about political authority. Christians did not denounce monarchy per se, but sought to teach the king his duties as a fellow Christian under the common fatherhood of God. Democracy in the ancient world was synonymous with the arbitrary caprice of the mob. We've learned to do it a little better, with separation of powers, and devolution of power to more local authorities, and limits on time and place, and the Church therefore promotes democracy as a political form. But it still is largely arbitrary, and, yes, our country, I would say, is still very much more a plutocracy than a democracy.

One of the interesting things about the 13th amendment is that it doesn't abolish slavery. It allows it as punishment. And I understand that, today, there are more African Americans incarcerated in this country than there were slaves at the beginning of the Civil War. So we have far to go.

Random thoughts, I know. Maybe I can get them organized at one point.

I want to point out things like "free labor" also means I am free to reject your labor, and so free to leave you to starve, or die homeless in the gutter.  Freedom leaves me quite free to not feel the need to be my brother's keeper at all. I want to say the major transformation of slavery, what made it the "peculiar institution" and our "hidden wound," was the addition of the 19th century concept of race to the mix.  Slavery became a matter, not just of commerce, but of subjugation based on an argument of superiority based on skin color and little more.  That was the truly pernicious twist the "New World" added to the practice.

But what I really want to do is to connect that, to this:

What emerges more strongly is not just a “preferential option for the poor” as a requirement to prioritise the treatment of the vulnerable, but the recognition that the poor may have spiritual insights into the Gospel message that others may lack. It takes “blessed are the poor” more literally and does not reduce it to being “poor in spirit” as a mere attitude of mind. Thus it privileges rather than patronises the poor. Wealthy and even middle-class Catholics might find that disturbing, but discomfiting the comfortable is no bad thing. This is clearly the example – renewed on a daily basis – that Francis is setting by his own lifestyle, which the theology itself calls orthopraxis.

The highlighted sentence is the one I want to focus on, because that idea strikes me as both dangerous and essential, both central and marginalizing.  Which, to me, means it contains more than a grain of gospel truth to it.

 My soul extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has shown consideration for the lowly stature of his slave. As a consequence, from now on every generation will congratulate me; the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy will come to generation after generation of those who fear him. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes; he has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. (Luke 1:46-56, SV)

Actually the Beatitudes would be a better starting point, if only because that's what's referenced in the quote just above about "orthopraxis."  But the Magnificat is a clearer statement of what I think a theology that "privileges rather than patronises the poor" means.

It is that "privileges"that might disturb us, because surely equality is the purpose of the gospels?  Well, not if the first of all is the last and servant of all.  Jesus rather explicitly establishes a "race to the bottom," something even more radical than telling Philemon to not abuse his runaway slave (Paul's house church and eucharisto are actually even more radical than his letter to Philemon, if only because there the entire "house" (which would include servants as well as children, who were not the admired creatures of our loins that they became after the Victorian era) ate a common meal (imagine that happening, ever, at "Downtown Abbey" and you'll have some idea).  If the poor are actually privileged, then it is a privilege to be poor, and so "Congratulations to you poor!" are certainly in order.

Which is the real radical ("to the root") message of the Gospel.  Does the Church follow that message?  Some would say not since the group of believers Luke described in Acts.  But the church is to be ever reforming and ever reformed, and so turning to orthopraxis is a starting point, not a goal.   To condemn the church for never reaching perfection is like condemning medicine for not curing all the ills flesh is heir to; better to look for the lit candles than simply to curse the darkness.

I would say more, but there isn't time to.  Let Rick's remarks (especially) and whatever else is here be enough.  If I were wise, I would try to make it a focal point; or at least make something out of it.

If I were wise....

Hope is not a plan

Which fly into your home and turn themselves into BLT's!

Once again, coming at this through Charlie Pierce, I have to wonder why the estimable Mr. Pierce doesn't read all the way through what he cites approvingly, and doesn't at least ask the obvious question:  "Does anybody really believe the House GOP is going to finally stop chasing cars if they catch one?"

Our only hope of avoiding this fiasco is to go ahead and have the shutdown, which will allow the public to completely repudiate the GOP before the debt-ceiling comes due. At that point, Boehner will be able to raise the debt ceiling with far less angst, having demonstrated to his colleagues how isolated they are politically.

The argument there is, the Democrats have signalled they will get a CR passed in the House (if Boehner will ignore the "Hastert Rule" and give Dems what they want), but that will set up the House GOP to declare "NO!" to raising the debt ceiling in October, which of course would be a terrible thing.  And the only way to avoid that terrible thing is to give let them catch the car now, and realize they didn't really want the car in the first place.

In other words, the Tea Party will suddenly get reasonable.  They'll give up their 3 year pursuit to end Obamacare because Obamacare will end life as we know it.  They'll give up their demand that Obama admit he's a Muslim born in Kenya who hates whites and wants to turn America into a Socialist hellhole.  And they will also realize Obama won the last election on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, and maybe just because they were all re-elected doesn't mean they get their Wish List, and bi-partisanship will return to the land.

Oh, and fairies, too; for everybody.  Just because we'll all have seen the light.

Why does the White House want to do this?

 The White House seems to think that helping Boehner avoid a shutdown will buy it some good will.

Which, of course, is crazy.  You'll never buy good will with the House GOP until you've proven to them that what they want won't work.  And how do you do that?  By giving them what they want.

Oh, and waiting until 2014, when they get voted out of office.  If Americans remember what happened in 2013; and if the whole thing can be connected to Newt Gingrich throwing a snit fit because he had to exit the rear ramp on Air Force One.

We are talking about people who think guns are just like spoons, and the "grass roots" made Obama buckle on getting even a modest gun control law past a Senate that voted against it (No, don't try to make sense of that).  And these people were just elected or re-elected.  Give them what they want and when it doesn't work, it just proves to them they need more of what they want.

You could smack these people between the eyes with a two by four, and the best you'd get is their attention.  Maybe the better plan is just to get enough Dems and rational Republicans in the House to vote not to destroy either the U.S. Government or the world economy.

How does that sound?

Hungry?

A Modest Proposal

Shorter Randroid:*

The Walton Family didn't get rich by selling cheap crap in their stores.  They got rich by being the Walton Family!

All proper human interactions are win-win; that’s why the parties decide to engage in them. It’s not the Henry Fords and Steve Jobs who exploit people. It’s the Al Capones and Bernie Madoffs. Voluntary trade, without force or fraud, is the exchange of value for value, to mutual benefit. In trade, both parties gain.

Each particular individual in the community who contributed to a man’s rise to wealth was paid at the time–either materially or, as in the case of parents and friends, spiritually. There is no debt to discharge. There is nothing to give back, because there was nothing taken away.

Well, maybe there is–in the other direction. The shoe is on the other foot. It is “the community” that should give back to the wealth-creators. It turns out that the 99% get far more benefit from the 1% than vice-versa. Ayn Rand developed the idea of “the pyramid of ability,” which John Galt sets forth in Atlas Shrugged:

You got your cheap crap from Wal-Mart!  What more do you want?!  And if they don't pay a living wage and don't work you on a full-time schedule so they can get richer, what's that to you?!  Be grateful you have a job at all, and KNEEL before the greatness of the rich! They're at the top of the pyramid YOU built by working for them or buying their crap!  Be grateful they supplied you with crap to buy and acknowledge their superiority!!!!

How are both parties gonna gain if you don't do that?

Of course, Henry Ford priced his cars so ordinary people could afford them, and paid his workers enough they could afford his cars, but still:  HE WAS RICH!  RESPECT HIS WEALTHINESS!!!!  (Not that Mr. Ford thought much of the way most of the Forbes 400 make their money).  And without the 99%, the 1% can't be the 1% at all.  But that's just the privilege of being a member of society.

Besides, Lloyd Blankfein or Mother Teresa:  who has done more for humanity?  Isn't it obvious?  Everybody knows the poors just "eat a bunch of turkey" at Thanksgiving and "run to the mall."  Thanks to Lloyd Blankfein, I'm sure!
 


*Okay, not that much shorter, but hey, it's me.

The Political Education of Ted Cruz

You know that cartoon about the scientists standing at a chalkboard covered in equations with a big blank spot that reads "AND THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS".  Ted Cruz thinks that 's how the Congress works:

“I’m convinced there is a new paradigm in politics — the rise of the grassroots,” Cruz says. He cites Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster on drone policy, and the debates on Syria and gun control, as recent examples of how an “overwhelming” number of phone calls and e-mails from constituents can force the president to buckle.

“And on Obamacare, I’ve said, from the start, that if typical Washington rules apply, we can’t win this fight,” he explains. “If the forums in which we make this case consist of the smoke-filled rooms of Washington, the votes aren’t there. The only way this fight will be won is if the American people rise up and hold our elected officials accountable.”

If you were paying close attention; if you went back and re-read that several times, you'll still come up with the same answer:  Ted Cruz has no idea how this legislating stuff works.

If you want to understand the obstacles to "defunding" Obamacare, read Brian Beutler.   But Ted Cruz is clueless.

Didn't Obama just win on Syria?  In a really big way?  And gun control went down in the Senate, not because Obama "buckled."  Did Sen. Paul have anything to do with drone policy?

What planet is Ted Cruz living on?

Yet on the other hand Cruz knows nothing will happen unless the GOP wins the Senate in 2014.  Except even then Obama has the veto pen, and it takes 2/3rds of the Senate, not just a simple majority, to override a veto.

He really isn't very good at this, is he?

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of all that....

I have a feeling even this Lucy is more complex

than the one we're going to talk about.

Did Jefferson have any idea what a burden he was bequeathing to the new country his Declaration of Independence was forming?  Because I do believe the American obsession with happiness is directly related to the most famous phrase in all American history, and the only thing most Americans think the Declaration of Independence said:  America is all about the pursuit of happiness.


Yeah, yeah, life and liberty, too, but you can't pursue happiness without those, so it's kinda like saying eating and breathing and the pursuit of happiness, so we need to get on with being happy!  Case in point:

Wait But Why.*

Which is all about Lucy.  And what is it about Lucy?

Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y.

I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group -- I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.

So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing:

Lucy's kind of unhappy.

And that is the most important thing about Lucy you can possibly know!  Lucy is not entirely happy!  Hey, guys, pursuit of happiness!  So why hasn't Lucy caught it, yet?  What good is the American Dream to Lucy if she isn't happy?  Isn't this like in our national charter, or something?

One thing I have to stop and say:

After graduating from being insufferable hippies, Lucy's parents embarked on their careers. As the '70s, '80s, and '90s rolled along, the world entered a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. Lucy's parents did even better than they expected to. This left them feeling gratified and optimistic.

I remember that period as being the postwar '50's and '60's.  Inflation chewed everyone alive in the '70's, there were major recessions, layoffs, collapses in the '80's, including the savings and loan industry (that one just flat disappeared); a major real estate bust in Texas, Arkansas, and other parts of the country.  The only way inflation was stopped was interest rates the Fed set so high the economy practically came to a standstill.  Reagan was livid, until inflation went away and rates went down and the rich started getting richer while the poor wondered what truck just ran 'em over.  Unprecedented prosperity?  For whom?  Tuition at Texas state universities in the '70's was $4.00 an hour.  You read that correctly; $4.00 a semester hour.  It hasn't been that low since, and it started rising in the '90's (or was it the '80's?  Whenever the de-regulation urge took hold).  If we're gonna talk about recent history, let's get it right.

But let's get back to the "pursuit of happiness," because this is the problem at the root of Lucy's delusion.  And what is Lucy's delusion?

"Sure," Lucy has been taught, "everyone will go and get themselves some fulfilling career, but I am unusually wonderful and as such, my career and life path will stand out amongst the crowd." So on top of the generation as a whole having the bold goal of a flowery career lawn, each individual GYPSY thinks that he or she is destined for something even better --

A shiny unicorn on top of the flowery lawn. 

(I'm leaving out the graphics because I assume you are not Gen Y'ers, and therefore can actually, you know, read words).

So why is this delusional? Because this is what all GYPSYs think, which defies the definition of special:

spe-cial | 'speSHel |
adjective
better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual.

According to this definition, most people are not special -- otherwise "special" wouldn't mean anything.

Even right now, the GYPSYs reading this are thinking, "Good point... but I actually am one of the few special ones" -- and this is the problem.

Well, I suppose it is; but I still think the root problem is that you think it is your divine right as an American citizen to not only pursue happiness, but to have it in handfuls; to be able to store it in grain silos against drought and famine, to have stores of cups of happiness running over where ever you look in your house; to never even have to worry about running low on your stock because, hey, you're an American!  Happiness is your birthright!

Is it?  Is that it?  Are we supposed to be happy?  Is that what we're supposed to be about?

Now here's where the interesting dichotomy comes in:  I don't know anyone who thinks like this. I don't know anyone who truly believes the birthright as an American is to be happy, that the sole purpose and goal of their existence is to obtain happiness and keep it until the day they die; that their life is measured entirely by the content of the happiness it was filled with from cradle to grave.

Of course, I don't know anyone who thinks like Lucy, either.

But we love these vague and glittering generalities, when it comes to public discussions.  Or maybe we don't love 'em at all, which is why most people aren't engaged in these public discussions.  My wife is too busy to pay attention to nonsense like this.  My daughter is too self-aware to take this kind of crap seriously.

And where does that leave me?, you may well ask.

My parents' generation was not the "Greatest Generation."  The boomers didn't come of age in the  greatest economic expansion in our nation's history:  they were born into it.  Why do you think so many Boomers could afford to go to college and protest the Vietnam War?  Because of Reagan, or because the Fed whipped inflation?  By that time the protesting Boomers were already in the workforce raising families of their own, going from hippies to yuppies (am I the only one who remembers yuppies and preppies and inflation and the savings and loan collapse and about 3 major economic reversals in the last three decades of the last century?).  And by that time the rising tide of economic expansion which floated all boats was already receding:  war time spending was draining away (it always boost things when the government buys lots of stuff that industry builds); the power of the unions which built Detroit and made working on the assembly line a good middle class existence was going away; the destruction of Flint, Michigan had begun (Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" came out in 1989, during that "greatest expansion evah!"  Already the rising tide was leaving many boats high and dry as it receded.).  Generation "Y" isn't a bunch of gypsies who think they are entitled to happiness and prosperity without actually doing anything for it.

These silly generalizations prompt all kinds of trouble, not least of which is the exclusion of real people living real lives who don't recognize themselves or their parents or their children or their friends in these kinds of descriptions.  Take this, for example:

Paul Harvey, a University of New Hampshire professor and GYPSY expert, has researched this, finding that Gen Y has "unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance toward accepting negative feedback," and "an inflated view of oneself." He says that "a great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations. They often feel entitled to a level of respect and rewards that aren't in line with their actual ability and effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and rewards they are expecting."

Change that reference from "Gen Y" to "Capricorns" or "Virgos," and it would simply be deemed silly.  Certainly it doesn't describe my daughter, a member of "Gen Y" by circumstance of the year of her birth (and the distinction between that and one's "astrological sign" is...?) . On the other hand:

She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y. 

Now, unless the term "yuppie" has stopped meaning "Young Urban Professional" (or persons similarly situated), there's simply no way "a large portion of Gen Y" is part of a "yuppie culture" unless by Gen Y we don't mean "the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s" but rather mean "a tiny economic elite born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s."  Which is a whole different kettle of fish, I'm sure you'll agree.

The critique of generalizations is a sidebar, however;  it is related, not to reality, but to the nature of "national discussions" we tend to have.  It is a generalization to say all Americans are obsessed with the "pursuit of happiness," but being happy is the conversation we all seem to have about ourselves when we talk about our national self.  There again, a lot of people seem to feel left out of the conversation and so they don't participate in it, but we go on being concerned with our national sense of, and perhaps right to, happiness.

Part of the question, of course, is whose happiness is being pursued:

“… in most of the industrialized world (that), whatever the party identity of the government, there was steady, consistent pressure for state policy to favour the interests of the wealthy – those who benefited from the unrestricted operation of the capitalist economy rather than those who needed some protection from it.”

Yuppies, by definition, benefit from the unrestricted operation of the capitalist economy; and if they also are, by definition, the most important cohort of a "generation," well, then, happiness is their birthright.  The rest of us, not being yuppies expecting the world to offer us the life to which we have become accustomed, are just trying to get by.

What's happiness go to do with it?

Happiness, in other words, is a great thing:  but is it the purpose of life?  I want to say that's what Americans think, but that's ludicrous.  I don't know anyone whose happiness rises and falls on their own sense of their...well, happiness.  But that's the idea promoted in arguments like the one above:  that the central obsession of young Americans today (who are mostly yuppies, so that already limits how many "young Americans" we are talking about) is literally the pursuit of happiness.  So how can we now assume some cohort of the American population is that shallow and silly?

I've wondered, over and over, whether or not Americans obsess over happiness more than other nationalities, mostly out of a combination of arguments like this about what generations are like, and over the importance in the American historical identity of that famous phrase of Jefferson's.  I want to say the "pursuit of happiness" is part of a spiritual pursuit, a la Augustine ("Our hearts are unhappy until they are happy in Thee.").  But that's nonsense, too.  I'm not sure nations or cultures can have spiritual pursuits; not, at least, in a manner that actually means anything.  That's thinking along the lines that America is "special" and must be judged by its intentions, not its outcomes.

So whenever we kill civilians with bombs or bullets or just plain old warfare, it's "collateral damage" and shouldn't be held against us because our national heart is in the right place, and we only mean, like the Navy now says, to be "a force for good in the world."  Even if we have to kill lots of people to do it.

So happiness is a fine pursuit for individual existence, but is it the goal of existence?  I suppose it is if you are an adolescent, but most of us grow up eventually and realize happiness is not only not the brass ring, we aren't even on a carousel.  That doesn't mean that, as individuals, we shouldn't have a spiritual pursuit.  But saying we should have one also doesn't mean you have to be religious in order to pursue it (do atheists only pursue the goals of Faustus?  Even without selling your soul you don't believe you have to a Devil you don't believe exists, that's a pretty empty pursuit.).  A spiritual pursuit can be simply asking the question "How should we then live?" and coming up with an answer other than
"Making sure we own the latest electronic gizmo before it hits the market" or even "Knowing more today than I did yesterday."

I've followed the last one pretty faithfully, and I can say from experience that if you make it too much your raison d'etre, you end up pretty much where Faustus did, just without the power to summon Helen of Troy.  You may not end with the risk of damnation, either, but you'll end feeling rather like you are damned anyway.  As for the former, is it really any different than wanting to own the latest anything?

So are we really in the pursuit of Jeffersonian happiness rather than Augustinian fulfillment?  Or is it both, and a little bit of neither. Do our lives and our ambitions for our lives actually lie elsewhere?  If so, where is that?

*yes, it may be I'm taking all this too seriously.  But either this is very bad satire, or it's very bad reasoning; which would still make it very bad satire.

I got yer privilege right here....

Making the world safe for democracy since 1776

Hasn't that horse already left the barn?

Jesus H. Christ on a 4000-euro claimer, I leave the country for a week and Dianne Fking Feinstein gets to redefine my profession?  Hey, Dianne, here's the thing on that First Amendment business. I get to define what you do for a living. And if I decide to define what you do for a living is to be a mewling apologist for the national-security community and a lapdog for the surveillance state, I get to do that, and I get to do it in a newspaper, or video, or on-line, or on a pamphlet stapled to a telephone pole outside your door, if I so choose. You get to sit there, collect your government salary, raise money from plutocrats, and shut...the...hell...up.

First, color me unimpressed that the State is going to define a "profession."  Even in the Great State of Texas, land of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship fer Ever-body!, we license barbers.  Yes, the persons with the sharp scissor who mess with your hair have to be licensed by the state to take money for that, whether they are "stylists" or just cut what comes out from under the bowl.

So simmer down, boy-o, government defines "professions" all over the place.

I myself am a lawyer only because the State of Texas says so, and issued me a license in that regard, a license it can revoke or suspend upon showing of cause.  We treat medical doctors the same way; and barbers, and a host of other licensed "professions."  Texas even "registers" interior designers. (!) So again, simmer down.

On the other hand, if we don't define "journalist" in some way, then David Miranda becomes a journalist just by sleeping under the same roof with Glenn Greenwald, and Glenn Greenwald becomes a journalist just because Edward Snowden called him first.

Of course, there's more to this matter than simply defining the term "journalist" for the purposes of the law:

This isn't a law to protect journalists. If it were, that list of loopholes at the end wouldn't be quite so lengthy -- or quite so vague. (You can drive a team of ploughhorses through "information that could stop or prevent crimes such as...") This is a law to protect secrets. This is a law that redefines the exercise of a constitutional right as a privilege "protected" by the government. This is a law that allows the government to define what "the press" is under the First Amendment, and, my god, if that's not the primary consitutional [sic] heresy in that regard, I don't know what is. And I don't care that a judge can "extend" that privilege. That's not a judge's job, either.

To start at the end first: actually, it is. It is a judge's decision whether you have a privilege of any kind, or not. It's called "the rule of law." You could look it up.

And while we're on the subject, nobody has the privilege of withholding information "that could stop or prevent crimes."  If I, as a lawyer (attorney-client privilege), or a pastor (pastor-congregant privilege; not as strong as the former, but informally recognized, anyway), or just an adult, have reason to suspect a child is being abused, I can't withhold that information from the proper authorities.  Indeed, I have a positive obligation to speak up, or face criminal charges myself.

Every privilege, be it the strong protection of attorney-client, or just the general "minding my own business," has its exceptions.  If I stick a card that says "PRESS" in my hatband (and what am I doing wearing a hat?  Do I think I'm Don Draper?), am I suddenly privileged to know everything and withhold whatever I wish to?  Not in this life, boy-o.

And it isn't a law to protect journalists?  The hell you say!

Well, of course it isn't!  It's a law to protect secrets.  What the hell else other purpose does government pass laws for that relate to information, except to protect somebody's secrets?  And the ability to "exercise a constitutional right" is no more unlimited than my right to carry a shotgun wherever the hell I feel like it, or to own a machine gun.   As for the government defining the "press," it's done all the time, usually by the courts.  If anybody gets their hands on any government secrets and publishes them, there's immediately the question of whether or not they are a "journalist" for purposes of any privilege they have to deal in stolen materials.  Ask Daniel Ellsberg; he got prosecuted; the NYT didn't.

We've been 'round this mulberry bush before.  The 1st Amendment is not a "Get out of Jail Free" card for people who call themselves "journalists."  This shield law may be a bad exercise, but it's not because it takes away privileges from journalists, but because it actually gives them one they aren't entitled to.  And the real purpose of that protection is to clearly define it so the Press doesn't get to define it whatever the hell way they want to whenever they feel the pinch of Johnny Law.

If I had Snowden's secrets, there's little question the FBI would haul away my computers, my jump drives, and any other electronic storage device they found laying around the casa.  I'm not a 17 year old blogger, as in Pierce's example, but I'm a blogger.  Why don't I get a privilege?  Lest you think I exaggerate, according to Glenn Greenwald that scenario actually exists: Snowden has allegedly given his trove to many people as a "security measure."  If the FBI found those in the hands of "non-journalists," they'd take them away instanter.

OTOH, we know the New York Times has all that material; they've said publicly they're publishing it in concert with the Guardian.  Have the jack-booted thugs descended on the NYT and confiscated every computer in the building?  Are they likely to?

Get over yourself, journalism-boy.  You're no more the privileged defender of truth, justice, democracy and the American Way than Chuck Todd or Glenn Greenwald are, and even if you were you're no more entitled to special privileges than David Miranda is.

Welcome to the world the rest of us live in.*

*The irony of a "shield law" is that it is meant to put in to the statutes what is only observed in custom.  Custom, however, is entirely unenforceable and is applied only when media outlets (i.e., the people with the megaphones) find their ox being gored and react with righteous indignation.  The DOJ, for example, had every right to peruse the phone records of AP recently.  And while AP was outraged, if the DOJ did that to me, I'd have no privilege of protection at all.  AP has a privilege because they own a megaphone I don't, not because one specifically exists in law.

Of course, a shield law would actually take away that claim to righteous indignation.  That is rather the point in having one.  But I honestly think the majority of the American public doesn't really pay attention to the complaints about "press freedom" the press makes, anyway.  Which is another irony altogether....

Back to those heady days of post-Vatican II

In honor of the new Pope, who recalls the heady days just after Vatican II (the days for which Pope Emeritus Benedict was responsible):

Ecclesia semper reformanda est

Hello!

Again, I'm sure Pope Francis and I would disagree on details (church doctrine still insists on not recognizing gays and lesbians as holy people of God, for example), but I think he is exactly right just the same:

Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic church had grown “obsessed” with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics.

In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the church, saying it should be a “home for all” and not a “small chapel” focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings.

“It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” the pope told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal whose content is routinely approved by the Vatican. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

“We have to find a new balance,” the pope continued, “otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”

I would make the same complaints about my church, the United Church of Christ.  Cleveland (home of the head office, although in this case that's like saying the place the cat herder lives who tries to "lead" the UCC cats), is forever making pronouncements on social justice issues, pronouncements I usually agree with.  But those pronouncement usually have no pastoral ministry sense in them; they do not, in the Pope's felicitous phrase, present "the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel."

I recognize he isn't proclaiming a Catholic church as liberal or Protestant as the UCC.  As he says about the Church teachings on abortion, homosexuality, and contraception:

These teachings are “clear” to him as “a son of the church,” he said, but they have to be taught in a larger context. “The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.” 

And I think that is exactly the point of true evangelism.
  
Or, in the words of my favorite E&R prayer:

Grant that thy Church may be delivered from traditions which have lost their life, from usage which has lost its spirit, from institutions which no longer give life and power to their generation; that the Church may ever shine as a light in the world and be as a city set on a hill.

HEAR OUR PRAYER, O LORD.

It's all about the spirit, the life, and the power of God; which, in this world, is powerlessness, the greatest power of all.

The more things change....

Closest that clown is ever gonna get....

The only problem with this:

the blog is right in its long-held belief that an elected judiciary is the second-worst idea in American politics behind the balanced-budget amendment

is this:

Wallace B. Jefferson, the chief justice since 2004 and a relative moderate by Texas standards, stepped down earlier this year, which gave Governor Rick Perry a chance to fill the vacancy.

Perry appointed Nathan Hecht, the subject of Toomey's article in the New Yorker, which in turn is the reason Mr. Pierce wrote his blog post.   If we didn't elect our judges, governors like Perry would appoint 'em.  And I wouldn't trust the Lege as far as I could throw it to impeach judges appointed for life (the only way to get around people like Perry being in office for 12 years and having the run of the place), or resisting impeaching judges they just didn't like.

I don't know what the solution is, to be honest.  But the Supreme Court has been radically conservative since before Nathan Hecht was an Associate Justice, and when Rick Perry was still Agriculture Commissioner.

My only comfort is that it won't do a thing for Perry's GOP Presidential nominee chances.  He doesn't have any.

The love that dare not speak its name

Do I look crazy to you?

The question about the Navy Yard shootings has already settled on:  "How did this man keep his security clearance?"


The logical root question, "How in a civilized country did this man so easily get his hands on this weapon and fifty rounds to load it?":

is the question we dare not ask.  Because the only acceptable the question is:  why didn't the Navy make him take his crazy somewhere else?  Or at least make him start shooting at the gate?

Because everyone has a Constitutional right to one of those.  They just don't have a Constitutional right to use it as they see fit.

Isn't Constitutional law comforting?

First thing we do is make all the journalists redundant....

Pretty much.

During a segment on "Morning Joe," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. [MSNBC host Chuck] Todd said that Republicans "have successfully messaged against it" but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that's President Barack Obama's job.

"But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it," Todd told Rendell. "They don't repeat the other stuff because they haven't even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it."

Because the only skill a journalist needs is to be able to repeat verbatim what some public figure just said.  And the only knowledge a journalist needs, is to know what public figure says anything worth repeating.

After all:

 A poll Tuesday showed that support for the law among Republicans was higher when called by the Affordable Care Act, its official title, rather than "Obamacare," a term used derisively by Republicans that has gained widespread usage.

Which is entirely a product of  (say it with me now):  REPETITION!

In an age of so many different recording devices and cameras, tell me again why we need "journalists" at all?

The 2nd Amendment is the Only Protection We Have!

NOT an assault rifle!  So don't you call it that!  Uh-UH!

So, it was just an accident:

In late August, WKBT reported that Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies were called to a home in the Town of Alma, where the 4-year-old girl had been struck in the side of the head with a shotgun blast.

How did such a frightening thing happen?

According to the Jackson Country Chronicle, authorities in Jackson said this week that 48-year-old father Fred B. Maphis had told his son to say that the shotgun had accidentally gone off when he dropped it.

Boys will be boys, and guns will be "going off," so all okay, right?  Not really:

But the son later admitted that the father instructed him to lie because he had pointed the gun at the girl and pulled the trigger. 

And why did he point the gun at his sister?

The boy told authorities that his sister had asked him to aim the shotgun at her, but he had made the mistake of putting it too close to her ear.

And because it's always reasonable to leave a shotgun where a 6 year old can get to it, especially where he can point it at his 4 year old sister.

A sheriff’s office complaint said that the mother told investigators that the boy had been training with firearms since the age of 3. She said that he had his own .22 caliber rifle, but he was only allowed to shoot with adult supervision. The father insisted that he had just forgotten to unload and secure the shotgun.

Oops.  Apparently that three years of training didn't include any basics of gun safety.  Like the rule I, a non gun owner all my life, learned the first time I picked up a friend's gun:

NEVER POINT A GUN AT ANYONE!  EVER!!!!

And now the father is facing charges for leaving the loaded gun available, and for telling his 6 year old to lie about it.  Justice!  Amirite?  So the 2nd Amendment remains safe and sacrosanct.  And at least the 6 year old didn't play video games, which is the real problem in America:

“Are more people susceptible to playing video games?” Hasselbeck wondered. “Is there a link between a certain age group or [demographic] in 20- to 34-year-old men, perhaps, that are playing these video games and their violent actions?”

“What about frequency testing?” she added. “How often has this game been played? I’m not one to get in there and say, monitor everything, but if this, indeed, is a strong link, right, to mass killings then why aren’t we looking at frequency of purchases per person? And also, how often they’re playing and maybe they time out after a certain hour.”

Had the guy who shot up the Navy Yard not played video games, he might not have entered the Navy Yard with a shotgun, donchaknow?  Of course, more recent evidence that the guy called police in Rhode Island recently to complain to the police that people were microwaving messages into his brain which clearly had nothing to do with his mental state on that fateful Monday morning.  No, it was the video games.

It has to be video games because we can't blame television or movies because people like Elizabeth Hasselbeck grew up with violence on TV and in the movies, and she's not crazy!  Of course, TV and movies used to get blamed for violence in real life, but we don't do that anymore, we know better.  Video games are the problem.  Blame anything but the fact this man walked into gun store and passed a background check so it's okay that he bought a shotgun, but not okay that he used it that way but hey, price of freedom, amirite? Are we gonna limit access to shotguns just because somebody is gonna buy one to shoot as many people as he can, or leave it loaded so a 6 year old can point it at his 4 year old sister?

Besides, the gun is never the problem.  Ever.  After that rule, what other rule matters?

So what we need to do is regulate who gets video games and how often people can play them because those things are DANGEROUS!  Oh, and make sure everyone, no matter how young or mentally deranged, has easy access to shotguns, which are NOT DANGEROUS because they are protected by the Constitution.

Unlike adults and 4 year olds, who are on their own.

On the other other hand....

Not Stephen Fry (mostly)

TC gives me the words I was referring to earlier:

But on the other hand we must remember the point that was made that the church is very loose on moral evils because although they try to accuse people like me who believe in empiricism and the enlightenment of somehow what they call moral relativism as if it's some appalling sin whereas what it actually means is thought  they, they, for example, thought that slavery was perfectly fine absolutely OK and then they didn't.   What's the point of the Catholic Church if they say,  Oh, well we couldn't know any better because nobody else did. [Said with that kind of dramatic outrage that only a Brit anti-Catholic with a posh education and acting experience can ] Then what are you for!

As TC has pointed out, empiricism and the enlightenment didn't exactly lead to the rapid abolition of slavery because reason is always more ethical than religion, or something.  Indeed, reason made slavery, well, reasonable:

 Many of America’s revered colleges and universities—from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC—were soaked in the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and played a key role in white conquest. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them.

Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind, revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics.

I don't know this history, but I do know most of the impetus for the abolitionist movement in America came from the churches or from individual Christians.  I'm not aware of any significant contribution from the colleges and universities.

I haven't read the book yet, either, but I don't think it's too early to say:  "Oops."  Or maybe:  "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

Oh, that you would rend this keyboard

Sorry, I think I left my keys over there. Won't be a minute...

and make me step away from it!

Something I  read over the weekend has prompted me to examine again the issue of the "proof of God's existence."  I can't find it now but the concept is a perennial chestnut, so here goes:

The Gospel According to John, Chapter 12:

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
 
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.Father, glorify your name!”
 

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, This voice was for your benefit, not mine.

Isaiah 64:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
    and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
    and cause the nations to quake before you!
³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
    you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
⁴ Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
Exodus 19:

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the cloud descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.

Exodus 20:

When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

So, moving from bottom to top, when people accepted the existence of God, they really wanted God to keep God's distance, and they knew God's presence as theophany (thunder and lightning).  Or they wished God would produce some thunder and lightning because, you know, prove it to them non-believers!  Or they heard the thunder, and weren't sure what it was, even though it was solely for their benefit.


And things are so much different now?


If God's existence were established as firmly as the keyboard my fingers are dancing over...oh, wait, that's the wrong use of the concept.  Category error, sorry.  Let me start again.


If God's existence were established as firmly as my own existence...oh, wait, I can't do that, either.  If I don't exist, the proof is pointless.  If I do exist, the proof is not evident.  I can prove my identity:  that I am the person named on my driver's license (if it isn't a fake), that I'm the person named on the diplomas and certificates and licenses on my wall (if they aren't fakes), but I could be Don Draper or Dick Whitman and still exist; except you might say you don't really know who I am.   But could I prove my existence?  I don't know how to do that.

It is generally a difficult matter to want to demonstrate that something exists--worse still, for the brave souls who venture to do it, the difficulty is of such a kind that fame by no means awaits those who are preoccupied with it. The whole process of demonstration continually becomes something entirely different, becomes an expanded concluding development of what I conclude from having presupposed that the object of investigation exists. Therefore in the world of thought, I never reason in conclusion to existence, but I reason in conclusion from existence. For example, I do not demonstrate that a stone exists but that something which exists is a stone. The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists but that the accused, who indeed does exist, is a criminal. Whether one wants to call existence an accessorium or the eternal prius, it can never be demonstrated.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, back to Johannes Climacus again, but how do you get away from him when this is the topic for discussion?  The real question is:  if I am going to prove the existence of a person, I first have to identify what existence is.  If I cannot reason from conclusion to existence (that, by the way, is the form of argument Socrates used to establish the existence of the soul; if you reject that, what form is available to prove your own existence?), but must reason from existence to conclusion, then I have to presuppose existence, or do without it altogether.

Either way, I end up unable to prove anything about existence.  At most, we wind up here:

 If, however, I interpret the expression "to demonstrate the existence of the god" to mean that I want to demonstrate that the unknown, which exists, is the god, than I do not express myself very felicitously, for then I demonstrate nothing, least of all an existence, but I develop the definiteness of a concept.

My existence is not a concept merely, but a reality.  How do I prove it, however?  I am known; or at least knowable.  As Climacus points out, God is the unknown (to the philosopher; to the non-believer); to demonstrate anything about that is to develop the definiteness of a concept.  But concepts can never be definite; if there's anything in human history that has been established, it is that.

So what does this business of the "proof of God's existence" have to do with anything?  If God's existence could be established beyond doubt or question (a fictional occurrence, I grant you), we would still face the situation of John 12, where some hear the voice of an angel, some hear thunder, and no one realizes, as the narrator says, that it is the voice of God.  God speaks to Moses but the people of Israel hear thunder and see a cloud shot through with lightning.  Isaiah wants God to make a demonstration that will convince people even in a day when we think everyone was convinced, and yet God declines to do so.

The entire question is a rubbish argument, a 19th century holdover still resting on the idea that without God humanity cannot be moral or even behave itself, and the God required for that is the Cosmic Thunderer who will smite the unbeliever and the immoral actor, even though the God of the Hebrew Scriptures never smote one unbeliever or one immoral actor, even among the Israelis at the time of the Exile.  This is why atheists get so worked up about moral systems that don't require a deity to make the systems moral; they are still fighting the 19th century fight while everyone has moved on into the 21st century.  Does God exist?  It isn't even a serious question.  Does it matter, is the only legitimate answer.  If God did exist, would you live your life any differently?

Depends on the nature of this God you think exists, doesn't it?  If you think God could only exist as Cosmic Punisher waiting to smack you down for failing to mind your moral "p's" and "q's", then I'd say no, God does not exist.  Not that God.  Does a God exist who wants only to save you from hellfire and damnation?  No, I'd say that God does not exist, either. Does God exist who wants to be in relationship with you, because truth is a relationship?  Yes, I think that God does exist.  Doesn't say much about the nature of God, but it's a beginning, and it's an improvement on those other concepts.  There are several Gods of human conception; well, they all are, aren't they?  What else could the conception of God be, except human?  If God was wholly of inhuman conception, we couldn't begin to conceive God at all; so that limitation is hardly the silver bullet that slays the werewolf so many atheists think it must be.  But there are several Gods of human conception, and I suppose we could argue over which exist, and which don't.

But I'm far more interested (though you wouldn't know it, would you, from how I go on) in the more important question:  how should we then live?  And the "we" is more and more the important word in that question.  Because truth is a relationship; which means truth involves "we."

It's that point that drives the atheists crazy.  They think they're being left out.  They think the only way in is to knock this relationship down; to establish that is a relationship with an illusion, because only that which is known empirically can be true.

Which is funny, because there's nothing empirical about love, yet we've devoted whole industries to it, reshaped lives because of it, created art works in praise of it; and while no one can establish it empirically, I've yet to meet anyone who is taken seriously for doubting its existence.

At least the 2nd Amendment was not harmed....

So am I the good guy or the bad guy this time?

Word tonight is the shooter at the Navy Yard maybe came into the secured base with a shotgun under his coat (in summer?  In D.C.?  Who writes plots with such obvious holes in them?) and killed armed guards and used their guns to kill 12 more people before dying in a police/guard shootout.

So the "good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun" scenario is still preserved, because we all know in the action movie the good guy is the one left standing, and the guys in the first scenes of the film might as well be wearing red shirts for all the life expectancy they have.  It just doesn't count they they died and were disarmed because the good guys didn't die and killed the bad guy in the end.

Thus making America safe for the 2nd Amendment again.

(Yes, it is revolting to consider the brave officers who died at the hands of this madman mere "collateral damage," but it's clearly the way all our brains work now, or at least the brains of people who give a wet snap about gun control.  The rest of us just shrug and say "I dunno" and ignore the mad rantings of the guy from the NRA, because..."I dunno."

*Shrug*)

Isn't this where I came in?

Peace, love, woodstock, y'all

The funny thing about this is, I heard it in the late '60's and early '70's, when the Peace Sign wasn't yet 20 years old.*

School board chairman Johan van Puten told Dutch newspaper Trouw that a Google search revealed that the peace sign allegedly contains a Nero cross, which was used in Roman times to represent the torture of Christians, and now apparently has Satanist connotations. It also has connotations with Nazism, as the Teach Peace Foundation writes that it was used as the symbol for Hitler's 3rd Panzer Division. 

It's on Google, it must be true!

It is, of course, all nonsense:

 The peace sign was really designed in 1958 by British artist Gerald Holtom for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which was having its first major march in England. Holtom explained that the symbol superimposed the semaphore letters "N" and "D" over each other.

A quick Google of "Nero Cross" brings up a number of dubious assertions regarding the Peace Sign and this supposedly ancient symbol I've never heard of before.  It's true tradition says Paul was crucified upside down, but I know of no tradition that says that inverted cross became associated with Nero.

What does this prove?  Merely that not much has changed with the advent of the internet:  ignorance and lies still move faster than truth, and that ideas are, indeed, bulletproof**; and more often than not, that's the problem with them.

*I had a pair of leather sandals with leather peace signs on the broad straps across them.  This was over 40 years ago.  I spent 30 vivid minutes one night at a friend's house assuring the mother of another friend that my footwear was neither sinful nor was it Satanic and therefore likely to lead me into sin.  Google "Peace Sign" and if Satan isn't mentioned in one of the first hits your strike, you aren't doing it right.

**Ha!  Get it?  

I know the feeling

 Can a blank be considered a ding an sich?

MOSCOW (AP) — An argument in southern Russia over philosopher Immanuel Kant, the author of “Critique of Pure Reason,” devolved into pure mayhem when one debater shot the other.

The state news agency RIA Novosti on Monday cited police in the city of Rostov-on-Don as saying the argument took place in a small store and deteriorated into a fistfight. One participant pulled out a small nonlethal pistol and fired repeatedly.

The victim was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening. The weapon fired plastic bullets or blanks. Neither person was identified.

It was not clear which of Kant’s ideas may have triggered the violence.

Arguing about Kant makes me want to shoot somebody, too.  On the other hand, is a pistol that shoots blanks a gun?  Or only the idea of a gun?

D'ja ever notice....?

Portrait of the Blogger as an Old Man.*

*Not Actual Size

The only thing that bothers me about this headline:

Syria Conflict Indicates Armageddon, Say One Third Of Americans (SURVEY) 

is that someone is going to use it as an excuse to describe all Americans, especially Christians (who else considers Armageddon a reality?) as really, really stupid.

One-third of Americans would be, by the way, about 104 million people.  Do 104 million Americans expect the fall of Damascus to mean Armageddon and the end of time?

No.  It means about 333 people do, from a survey of 1,001 people.

I dare say, if you questioned more than 1001 Americans, you'd find very few who knew Damascus was in Syria, and fewer still who connected the fall of Damascus to the End Times.  As you spread this claim out, in other words, trying to prove it with actual evidence rather than statistical interpretation, it would fade rapidly away.

But it's of a piece with a culture that think TED talks are deeply insightful investigations into topics that aren't simply more conventional wisdom re-hashed, or that Stephen Fry is "basically a huge brain piloting a finely tuned public speaking machine." (I like to imagine Augustine and Aquinas taking Fry behind the woodshed to teach him a thing or two about "reason."  That's something I would pay to watch.)  I find Ted talks are basically blog posts, something along the lines of this one, where a topic is boldly stated and just as boldly never really examined.  All the discussion that can happen in a TED talk happens after the talk is over, and even that is barely skin deep.  There's no real meditation on the issue, no real challenge to the premise, no examination of deeper, underlying issues and assumptions; just racing on to consume the next dollop of CW spooned out in a way guaranteed to get some of the speakers noticed for a moment, and most overlooked because, really, they aren't that interesting.

And in this way "new" formats and technologies prompt "new" insights which aren't even insights, just the same old mush stirred around the bowl by the same old spoon.  Like the idea that fully one-third of the American population is composed of fools who expect Jesus to return when Damascus blows up.

Sure, that makes sense, too.  Put it in a TED talk so I can decide it's actually insightful; but make sure it's bland enough not to disturb me, or better yet, that it convinces me I'm much smarter and wiser than at least 1/3rd of America.  'Cause that'll really sell!