In The Soup

I have been following the latest contretemps in the Anglican Communion at a respectful distance, and mostly through Wounded Bird, from whom I take most of this (including the picture of Grandpere's soup!). The issue, of course, is the sudden invitation of Rome to disaffected Anglican congregations and clergy:

Thousands of Anglicans could defect to the Roman Catholic church after the pope today approved a new global institution to receive them.

It will be the first time since the Reformation in the 16th century that entire Protestant communities have reunited with Rome. The first group likely to take advantage of the new rules is the Traditional Anglican Community (TAC), which broke off from the rest of the community in 1991 and claims to have more than 500,000 members worldwide.

Other groups unhappy with developments in the Anglican Communion are also expected to accept the invitation from the Vatican. Traditionalists, including thousands in the Church of England, have long threatened to defect to Rome over issues such as the ordination of women and gay people.

It sounds a lot like the old dream of re-uniting the Christian church, a dream that goes back to the Great Schism between Rome and Greece. That's a topic in itself, of course, but I've been reading about it in reference to church and European history, in R.W. Southern's Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Penguin, 1970). He provides an excellent context for this discussion, especially as we imagine the Church in Medieval Europe as to be power incarnate:

The ecclesiastical organization elaborated between 1050 and 1300 was the most splendid system, both theoretically and practically, that the church has ever known. It was provided with the most formidable array of teeth to be used against offenders, but they could seldom be used effectively against the current of any widespread secular interest. This was the inescapable dilemma. The rules of law could be immensely elaborated, and within the limits imposed by human craft and frailty they could be made effective within the clerical body. But outside this body they were truly effective when they coincided with the general run of secular interests.

Southern notes that even excommunication was not the "death penalty" we all imagine it to be, because once you were thrown out of the church, the church no longer had any control over you, and at least one ruler lived under this "sentence" for three years, before reconciling with the church and returning to the fold. Such a return reflected a compromise on both sides, not necessarily a one-sided capitulation. Excommunication was the church's greatest power, but it never matched the coercive power of the state; and the Church was never able to lead the people to places the people didn't want to go.

In the matter of trade, for instance, canon law in the early twelfth century still spoke of it as an occupation scarcely compatible with Christianity. But as the growing needs of society produced more elaborate forms of commercial organization, the ecclesiastical lawyers began to have other thoughts...and the restrictions that remained were largely ignored or circumvented.

So the situation in the Anglican Communion is neither new, nor unique, and in some parts of the Communion (especially The Episcopal Church) the "ecclesiastical lawyers" have to have other thoughts, if the church is going to remain a church at all.

Politics, too, plays a role in all communal endeavors. It is certainly an issue in any discussion of "reunification."

We have become so accustomed to thinking of Christendom as an ideal body detached from all ties of political loyalty that it is well to be reminded that from the time of Constantine religious unity had stemmed in the first place from political unity. Religious unity could scarcely be thought of apart from political unity, if only because religious unity depended on some ultimate power of coercion. Hence all future medieval plans for the reunification of Christendom are fundamentally plans for political reintegration.

Southern notes that the attempts at reunification between Rome and the Greek church all assumed Roman authority over Greek churches, at least in matters of doctrine. In other words, reunification would only come at the submission of the Greek church to the Latin one. So, today, Anglian priests may find they, too, are required to submit:

"But convert clergy may not find life as good as they had hoped, despite being freed from the terror of meeting woman priests and having to bless civil partners rather than excoriate them, Vatican-style, as “intrinsically disordered”. Despite the modified prayer book they will find their style and even pastoral advice gravely restricted; they may flinch at the uncompromising voice of the Vatican after the gentle bleating of Cantuars.

"Anglicanism was founded on uneasy compromise, and this has, over centuries, made it kindly and even humble: a mixed salad of a faith. Catholicism is older, darker, strong raw meat. It may choke them."

I suppose from the Roman perspective Anglicanism is a "mixed salad of a faith." From my Protestant and congregationalist perspective, it seems quite orderly, indeed. I would hesitate, simply out of respect, to label Catholicism as "darker, strong red meat," but I take the point of the metaphor: "Be careful what you ask for. You might get it."

This certainly fits the tenor of responses from clergy on this issue:

Assimilating a lot of people who perhaps have struggled, and some might even say haven’t made a raging success of living within their own tradition, you’ll get two sorts of “convert”:

1. people who really should try out and perhaps are called by God to be part of the Roman tradition: Hip, hip, hooray!

2. people who aren’t terribly good at living in any tradition on anything but their own terms.

Catholics and Episcopalians, who are nearly Catholic (but perhaps not nearly enough), and Lutherans (to some degree in the same boat), come closest, from what I know of Christianity in America, anyway, to being "discipled" and disciplined about their religious activities. Protestants, on the other hand, tend more strongly toward "baptized heathens" at one extreme, or simply more interested, at the other, on "living in any tradition on...their own terms." Presbyterians have an order that is not entirely orderly; Baptists are congregationalist, with almost nothing binding them to each other at all. The UCC, in which I am ordained, is an awkward mix of Presbyterianism and congregationalism, and as a result tries to make pronouncements the congregations have no connection to, and on the other hand has no control over its congregations whatsoever. It's a very mixed bag, in other words, and there the troubles begin.

Any group of people is going to conduct its affairs according to familiarity and how "they've always done it this way." Submission to the yoke of Jesus, be it light or heavy on the shoulders, is ever the struggle of the Christian believer. One question, of course, is: "Who's yoke is it, anyway?" Various denominations of Christianity attempt to answer that in various ways. As the good Bishop says:

people should serve within the denomination in which they can best be discipled.

But how can they best be discipled? That's the issue; and the answer is, that second set of converts are the very people who don't want to be discipled. The church cannot refuse them (I don't think the church can refuse anyone, but I'm very open-minded about church "membership"); but should the church, in any form, count it a gain to have them?

Seen from a distance, this looks like a distinct "win" for the Roman church, and it is largely being treated that way. But is it entirely doctrinal, and not at all political? That seems dubious, not to mention contrary to history both ancient and modern:

On the eve of another damning report on clerical abuse and cover-up in Ireland, that seems to be Pope Benedict’s tactic. His sudden invitation to Anglican defectors will certainly take the spotlight off a continuing child abuse scandal fed, for decades, by the masculine and intimidating structures of authority in the Catholic hierarchy.

The Archbishop insists this is not about politics (the "existing relations between our two communions"):

It remains to be seen what use will be made of this provision, since it is now up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution; but, in the light of recent discussions with senior officials in the Vatican, I can say that this new possibility is in no sense at all intended to undermine existing relations between our two communions or to be an act of proselytism or aggression. It is described as simply a response to specific enquiries from certain Anglican groups and individuals wishing to find their future within the Roman Catholic Church.

But if this isn't about the relations between the two communions, what is it about?

And that's the view from the top. Seen on the ground, where such things actually take place, the picture may be very different. I've had some experience with this, apart from congregations quite unwilling to be "discipled." When I left my congregation (or they told me to leave, to be more precise), I contacted various denominations which had arranged to take me as an ordained pastor, even though I wasn't ordained in their denomination. A sort of agreement of reciprocity, if you will. It turned out the judicatory bodies were, by and large, quite comfortable with the administrative process; but the local congregations, by and large, were not interested at all. It is one thing to make a pronouncement from "above" about how things will be from now on. It is quite another thing to live out the consequences of that decision, in the parish.

And then there is the question of where to put all these people, if they want to come with their traditions and liturgies, but can't bring the physical property with them.

So it goes.

Jesus on a Dinosaur!

I promised myself I wouldn't bother with Hitchen's babblings on religion (and I'm not too keen on the argument from Pastor Wilson, but that's another matter), but this passage alone made me say: "Huh?"

We do not know, though we may assume, that our pre-homo sapiens ancestors (the erectus, the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals, with whom we have a traceable kinship as we do with other surviving primates) had deities that they sought to propitiate. Alas, no religion of which we are now aware has ever taken their existence into account, or indeed made any allowance for the tens and probably hundreds of thousands of years of the human story. Instead, we are asked to believe that the essential problem was solved about two-to-three thousand years ago, by various serial appearances of divine intervention and guidance in remote and primitive parts of what is now (at least to Westerners) the Middle East.

I'm not sure what Hitchens means by "religion," there, because Christianity as I was trained in it at a Christian seminary certainly takes into account "the tens and probably hundreds of thousands of years of the human story." I didn't learn in seminary that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and even Moses, were real people representing a frozen point in time, or the first people who actually mattered to humanity. Although their stories did have historical roots in identifiable periods in human history, I was taught to place them in human history. I learned that these were stories which were a part of the human story, and that I could learn them as a pastor and still take account of the stories of Gilgamesh (from Babylon) or even the Mississipians (the mysterious mound builders of Cahokia). Indeed, as a thinking person, as a theologian, I have a responsibility to. But that doesn't fit Hitchens's reductio ad absurdum religious view, so he creates a straw man he can easily topple over.

If the scriptures of Christianity or Judaism or Islam (and I note, again, Hitchens scrupulously avoids naming Judaism as one of the three religions of the Book he trashes at every opportunity. Some religious beliefs are apparently more absurd than others.) don't mention humanity before the Tower of Babylon (save for the stories of Adam and Eve), perhaps the problem is, like the Mississipians, they failed to leave records for us to decipher. But by no means has "religion" collectively conspired to take no notice of what archaeology and anthropology have discovered. Indeed, I learned more about archaeology in seminary, and in books I've read since related to Christianity and its origins, than ever I'd read before. (I won't even touch on the absurd issue of "the essential problem" being solved, as I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. That's pretty much an "insert your prejudice/presumption here" type of statement.)

It isn't religion that is absurd, it is Hitchens's willingness to parade his ignorance so publicly. His ability to form an argument isn't worth much, either.


*image courtesy of Wounded Bird

The Twa Cultures (Redux)

So I wake up with this idea in my head (which is usually where I keep them, or find them), and I mean to write it down but it's morning and there's no time, and now that there's a little time, I can't find it again.

Oh, wait: here it is. And actually it ties in with something I started and never posted, so now the business of connecting the two is going to be another wrinkle in the telling of this tale, but the basic idea is this, and it's not really such a new one: we're all looking for something to belong to, which is one reason atheists are making such a strong bid for a presence of their own; and that may even have to do with the departure of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Time has attenuated our attention to Ms. O'Hair, and certainly her disappearance and death did not lead directly to Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens all hitching their popularity wagons to atheism's rising (?) star, nor did it create sua sponte the website Pharyngula, but there's probably a connection there somewhere. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do human societies. But there's also the interesting issue that, as religion retreats from the public square, some other form of community rushes to take its place. And, almost predictably, that new form casts itself as the anti-religion, as the opposition to something it says shouldn't exist, but which it needs in order to have an existence of its own. After all, if Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher didn't have Christianity to mock, what would they have to write books or make movies about?

So even the active promotion of atheism is not promotion of an ideology, so much as it is promotion of a new community: the community of those who actively reject Christianity. Atheism as it has been put forward by the "New Atheists" is little more than a very deliberate rejection of Christianity (at its broadest the "religions of the Book," though it's unseemly to condemn Judaism (!), and I've yet to hear from prominent atheists in predominately Muslim or Buddhist or Taoist cultures, or of any prolonged attacks on world religions by prominent Western atheists). There are non-believers, of course. Such people simply go about their lives, unconcerned with the effects or non-effects of religion, even when it supposedly prompts terrorists to fly planes into buildings (an action more motivated by politics than religious fervor, but that's another argument). But then there are atheists: people determined not only to not believe very loudly and forcefully, but to make of those who do believe targets for their ire, their mockery, their denigration, even their hatred (Sam Harris put into print his conviction that "Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith," (the emphasis is in the original), and this led him to conclude the only proper response to Islam was its destruction by nuclear force.), or if they are "old atheists," at least to loudly proclaim why believers are so wrong to believe. It's an interesting problem of the "other," of the one who is not you, but to whom you can only relate by seeing them in the mirror of yourself. And it connects to other thoughts I may yet publish here because such atheism is a very public practice, that is, one used to define oneself in the polis, but not necessarily one used to define oneself in private.

I had a good friend and neighbor who was very publicly, but quietly, an atheist. He admired Madalyn Murray O'Hair, which always surprised me because she came off as an obnoxious and hate-filled woman to me, someone whose opinions about my religion meant nothing to me, but whose attitude toward anyone who disagreed with her always bordered on outright disgust. My friend was so calm and tolerant and respectful of others that I could never quite see why he would admire a person so publicly disrespectful of almost everyone. But my friend was also the most Christian person I've ever known. By that, I mean he was kind, generous, charitable, lived simply, gave freely of his time, labor, materials, to any and everyone. He was not judgmental, except in regards to religion, which like any atheist he rejected and condemned (an agnostic is aloof, an atheist is more argumentative). But he helped people who need help, no matter who they were. "God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust alike," Jesus reminded his disciples, but while few of his disciples seem ever to have learned that lesson, my friend applied it to the spiders living in his windows as well as to the people he knew who could use his talents, tools, and labor.

Had he been "perfect," I suppose he'd have been an agnostic. "Perfect," of course, according to my definition. He was happy with who he was, and even when we discussed religion (especially after I decided to sell my house and move away to go to seminary), it was always done respectfully on both sides. I didn't want to evangelize him, and he didn't want to antagonize me. But I still think his atheism was something he used to define himself publicly; to define himself against an ideology he didn't share and didn't accept. My Christianity, I am repeatedly told, is something I should keep private; but it is also a public declaration, if only because part of its practice is to gather with like minded persons for an hour or so once a week, in a public place.

This idea comes back into my head because of a report by Barbara Bradley Hagerty on NPR this morning. Seems there is a "schism" among atheists on precisely how to be atheists. If that isn't the sine qua non of a "community," I don't know what is. One of the "old atheists" even says, in the report, that "we know what [the "new atheists"] are against, but what are they for?" And the answer, per Hagerty, is that they believe in reason and science. Which is an interesting choice of words, but an accurate one. Atheism, at least as publicly and loudly practiced, is just as much of a belief system as the religions they decry. Consider this passage from Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, by R.W. Southern (Penguin, 1970):

It is amazing simple to knock over cherished theories when they no longer satisfy the needs of the time. The thoughts on which royal government had acted for several centuries were blown away like airy nonsense. Almost no one bothered to defend them. The old sacred kingship had no place in the new world of business.

Southern is writing about the collapse of absolute respect for the king as an agent of God on earth. The passage he quotes, dating from the 13th century, begins:

Perhaps there are babblers who with windy eloquence contend that the king is not to be numbered with the laity since he is anointed with priestly oil. But there is a plain reason which mocks this folly....

Not exactly Thomas Jefferson, but far more critical of kings than we might assume, if we know only the popular history of the "Dark Ages." As Southern points out in setting up that quote and his conclusion:

If often happens at critical moments in history that ideas which have long held the field almost unchallenged are suddenly discovered, not to be wrong, but to be useless; then almost everyone can see they are absurd.

Now some clever atheist might snap that up and apply it to religion. But it immediately made me think of Thomas Kuhn, and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a work in the philosophy of science which still makes "true believers" in science uncomfortable, as they struggle to point out that Kuhn does not mean what he plainly says, because science, after all, as religion once claimed to, deals with "absolute truth," or at least a truth as absolute as we can know it. And therefore science stands apart from both human culture and human limitations, and gives us that window on immutable reality that once only the medieval church in Europe promised to open.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Little wonder the "old atheists" in that report refer to the "new atheists" as "fundamentalist atheists." It is one thing to thinks science as a method of reasoning, another to think if it has having independent value, and another thing again to set up shrines in its name, and worship at them. But this doesn't answer why atheists feel the need to identify as atheists, other than the very human need to belong to a community, to something larger than themselves (a need we all feel. There was another story on the same program about college students suffering from "mental illness" (I use the term advisedly), who seemed rather interested in establishing their bona fides are members of a community which should be appreciated by the larger community of which they were, and were not, a part.). I'd like to think this answered that question, that Christianity presented a valid threat to the prevailing culture:

Ancient Roman civilization, says Gibbon, was bound to reject Christianity just because Rome was tolerant. This culture, with its great diversity of customs and religions, could exist only if reverence and assent were granted to the many confused traditions and ceremonies of its constituent nations....But Christ and Christians threatened the unity of the culture...with their radical monotheism, a faith in the one God that was very different from the pagan universalism which sought to unify many deities and many cults under one earthly or heavenly framework....Divinity, it seems must not only hedge kings but also other symbols of political power, and monotheism deprives them of their sacred aura. The Christ who will not worship Satan to gain the world's kingdoms is followed by Christians who will worship only Christ in unity with the Lord whom he serves. And this is intolerable to all defenders of society who are content that many gods should be worshipped if only Democracy or America or Germany or the Empire receives its due, religious homage. The antagonism of modern, tolerant culture to Christ is of course often disguised because it does not call its religious practices religious...and also because it regards what it calls religious as one of the many interests which can be placed alongside economics, art, science, politics, and techniques. Hence the injunction it voices to Christian monotheism appears in such injunctions only as that religion should be kept out of politics and business, or that Christian faith must learn to get along with other religions. What is often meant is that not only the claims of Christ and God should be banished from the spheres where other gods, called values, reign. The implied charge against Christian faith is like the ancient one: it imperils society by its attack on its religious life; it deprives social institutions of their cultic, sacred character; by its refusal to condone the pious superstitions of tolerant polytheism it threatens social unity. The charge lies not only against Christian organizations which use coercive means against what they define as false religions, but against the faith itself.

H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row 1975), pp. 7-9

But such an answer/problem would presume a greater commitment to radical monotheism (although that theme joins the religions of the Book together), since presumably the problem now is that Christianity is the culture, and so doesn't threaten it at all. Still, it's not hard to read Niebuhr's words about the "cultic, sacred character" or social institutions, and not apply it to the fervid defense of science and "reason" employed by Dawkins and Hitchens, et al. And that's the real issue: there are profound cultural issues here. But neither the "new atheists" nor the "old atheists" seem equipped to deal with them, so intent are they in establishing either ideological purity, or simply in attacking religion as they (poorly) understand it. And it's that position I don't understand: the position that only exists because it has something to be opposed to. It puts the atheists in the position the dog chasing the car: what do they get if they achieve their goal? In the world imagined by John Lennon's song, would they have to invent religion in order to continue to have a raison d'etre? And what's rational about that?

Give the King your justice, O God!

And reporters a sense of professional responsibility. Not really my turf, but compare this AP article, found in the Chicago Tribune (i.e., about as far north from Texas as the lower 48 can go):

Gov. Rick Perry, seeking to defuse an election-season controversy over the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, described Willingham on Wednesday as a "monster" and "bad man" whose conviction in the deaths of his three daughters was sustained "every step of the way" by the courts.

...

Perry lectured reporters for being preoccupied with "all these sideshows" instead of looking at the facts that led to Willingham's conviction. He challenged journalists to "go back and look at the record here because this is a bad man."

Perry described Willingham as "a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so that she wouldn't have those kids."

with this article from the Corsicana Daily Sun:

“Willingham was a monster. He was a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so that he wouldn’t have those kids. Person after person has stood up and testified to facts of this case that quite frankly you all aren’t covering,” Perry said.

...

At trial, Willingham’s wife, Stacy, testified for him during the punishment phase, denying he ever hurt her. Acquaintances, however, said she told them he’d beaten her several times, even while she was pregnant.

Apparently Gov. Perry has a very loose concept of what "testimony in court" actually means.

I skimmed a few of the articles at Google, but didn't find one that mentioned this bit of information. What this amounts to, both in court and out of court, is gossip, not evidence. And where Perry gets the idea he was beating her because she wouldn't have an abortion, is never explained. (And as I read it again, it doesn't even make sense: Willingham "beat his wife into an abortion" so she wouldn't have the three girls he allegedly murdered by fire? Huh?) The Governor has refused to release the evidence he reviewed in this case, but now he's using whatever he saw to defend his decision. Perhaps this is what he's thinking about:

Though only the babysitter had appeared as a witness for the defense during the main trial, several family members, including Stacy, testified during the penalty phase, asking the jury to spare Willingham’s life. When Stacy was on the stand, Jackson grilled her about the “significance” of Willingham’s “very large tattoo of a skull, encircled by some kind of a serpent.”

“It’s just a tattoo,” Stacy responded.

“He just likes skulls and snakes. Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. He just had—he got a tattoo on him.”

The prosecution cited such evidence in asserting that Willingham fit the profile of a sociopath, and brought forth two medical experts to confirm the theory. Neither had met Willingham. One of them was Tim Gregory, a psychologist with a master’s degree in marriage and family issues, who had previously gone goose hunting with Jackson, and had not published any research in the field of sociopathic behavior. His practice was devoted to family counselling.

At one point, Jackson showed Gregory Exhibit No. 60—a photograph of an Iron Maiden poster that had hung in Willingham’s house—and asked the psychologist to interpret it. “This one is a picture of a skull, with a fist being punched through the skull,” Gregory said; the image displayed “violence” and “death.” Gregory looked at photographs of other music posters owned by Willingham. “There’s a hooded skull, with wings and a hatchet,” Gregory continued. “And all of these are in fire, depicting—it reminds me of something like Hell. And there’s a picture—a Led Zeppelin picture of a falling angel. . . . I see there’s an association many times with cultive-type of activities. A focus on death, dying. Many times individuals that have a lot of this type of art have interest in satanic-type activities.”

The other medical expert was James P. Grigson, a forensic psychiatrist. He testified so often for the prosecution in capital-punishment cases that he had become known as Dr. Death. (A Texas appellate judge once wrote that when Grigson appeared on the stand the defendant might as well “commence writing out his last will and testament.”) Grigson suggested that Willingham was an “extremely severe sociopath,” and that “no pill” or treatment could help him. Grigson had previously used nearly the same words in helping to secure a death sentence against Randall Dale Adams, who had been convicted of murdering a police officer, in 1977. After Adams, who had no prior criminal record, spent a dozen years on death row—and once came within seventy-two hours of being executed—new evidence emerged that absolved him, and he was released. In 1995, three years after Willingham’s trial, Grigson was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for violating ethics. The association stated that Grigson had repeatedly arrived at a “psychiatric diagnosis without first having examined the individuals in question, and for indicating, while testifying in court as an expert witness, that he could predict with 100-per-cent certainty that the individuals would engage in future violent acts.”

I haven't reviewed the trial transcripts, but I find no indication in the "New Yorker" article that multiple persons testfied, from their personal knowledge or from hearsay (which is what the Governor is citing) that Willingham was a "monster." In fact, the "New Yorker" article concludes: "Aside from the scientific evidence of arson, the case against Willingham did not stand up to scrutiny." The article provides a factual basis for its conclusion. Maybe Gov. Perry would like to share some of that secret information on which he bases his conclusion?

On the other hand, is it really so difficult for a news report to point out the Governor is relying on extra-judicial evidence, or maybe even just plain old gossip? If the local Corsicana paper can do it, why can't the AP?

R.I.P. William Wayne Justice

William Wayne Justice died Tuesday, in Austin. I didn't know he was living in Austin, but it seems fitting that he live his last years in the "most liberal" city in Texas, since he spent most of his judicial career in Tyler, one of the most conservative.

Aside from owning a chair once owned by Judge Justice (and bought through a third party; I never even met the man), he is one of the people who had a profound impact on my life. Of course, he had a profound impact on the lives of everyone living in Tyler, Texas in 1970. That was the year Judge Justice brought Brown v. Board of Education to my town. 16 years late, but it finally got there.

I wasn't even born when that decision was handed down in 1954, but I was entering high school when Judge Justice used it to close down the "black" schools in Tyler, and force the "whites" in town to accept their brothers and sisters in schools that could finally no longer be "separate but equal." The changeover wasn't quite as ugly as police dogs being set on civil rights marchers, or police moving in with billy clubs and fire hoses, but it came close. The hatred and animosity in the town were palpable for years, and much of it was directed at Judge Justice, for fearlessly upholding the law, and ignoring the Southern traditions that were too important to too many people with the power to enforce them.

Even as I write this, the article I linked to is being updated, so it may say more when you read it than I allude to as I publish this. However, this comment, to those of us who remember Tyler and how Judge Justice changed it, speaks volumes:

U.S. Magistrate Judith Guthrie of Tyler, a longtime friend, told the Tyler Morning Telegraph that Justice was "a very courageous judge and a great man."

His whole life as a judge was devoted to doing what the law required, according to Guthrie.

Almost 40 years later, we still have to insist he did what he had to do. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

The story was told once that, after his ruling desegregating the schools, a member of one of the local clubs (I forget which one) told the manager that Wayne Justice was never to be allowed membership in the club. The manager had to tell the member that Judge Justice had been a member of the club for years. This, more than anything, captures his story. He wasn't a firebrand who seemed out of place even in Tyler. Like LBJ, he seemed like an ordinary Texan. But like the best "ordinary Texans," he was extraordinary. His legacy includes reforming the Texas prison system, which he oversaw for years as the judge who had to be sure his rulings on what was, and was not, constitutional in the Texas penal system, were carried out. He did a great deal to change Texas for the better. I know little or nothing about his personal story: whether he ever retired, why he was living in Austin when he died, etc. But I know how he affected my personal story, and the stories of all my friends who were in schools in Tyler in 1970 and after.

As Hamlet said of his father, we won't see his like again. And that is truly a pity. May God's mercy be with him, and with his family.

I will incline mine ear to a parable

The Guardian

Rightwing critics of controversial film-maker Michael Moore call him many things: a socialist, a hypocrite, unpatriotic – and they even make unkind remarks about his weight.

But, with his new anti-capitalist film showing on US movie screens last week, Moore has unveiled an unexpected trump card against conservatives who so vociferously attack him: Christianity. Moore is a practising Catholic and has put religion at the core of Capitalism: A Love Story. Alongside the political arguments about inequality, Wall Street corruption and the failures of George W Bush, Moore argues that capitalism is also fundamentally unchristian.

....

But many argue that the astonishment at Moore's gospel radicalism is misplaced. Though recent US political history seems to have been dominated by the rise of evangelical conservatism and its powerful grip on the Republican party, there is a parallel tradition of leftwing priests in America, especially with Catholics. "Catholics have always had a strong tradition in labour and union issues in America. There is not much in laissez-faire capitalism that is actually backed up by Catholic teaching," said Professor David O'Brien, a faith and culture expert at the University of Dayton, Ohio.

Cardinal James Gibbons was a famous advocate of union rights in the early 20th century. Daniel and Philip Berrigan were brothers and radical priests who opposed the Vietnam war. The black civil rights movement was led by clergy, most famously by Dr Martin Luther King.

Certainly the Rev Peter Dougherty appears to be in that tradition. Dougherty, who conducted the marriage service for Moore's sister, has known the Moore family for a long time and was happy to appear in the documentary. He lives in Michigan and has seen the devastation of local industry and unemployment that often seems to provide the motivation for Moore.

Dougherty told the Observer he had no qualms about launching a religious attack on capitalism. "There have always been people who questioned basing a society on greed. That is what capitalism is. It is based on the greed motive, a radical evil. Moore's use of religious arguments in Capitalism: A Love Story also taps into wider issues happening at the fiery place where US politics and Christianity meet. Though the past few decades appear to have been dominated by religious arguments over abortion and other social issues, those culture wars seem to have died down a little.

Psalm 49

1Hear this, all ye people;

give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world:
2 both low and high,

rich and poor, together.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom;

and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
4 I will incline mine ear to a parable:

I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,

when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
6 They that trust in their wealth,

and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
7 none of them can by any means redeem his brother,

nor give to God a ransom for him:
8 (for the redemption of their soul is precious,

and it ceaseth for ever:)
9 that he should still live for ever,

and not see corruption.
10 For he seeth that wise men die,

likewise the fool and the brutish person perish,
and leave their wealth to others.
11 Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever,

and their dwelling places to all generations;
they call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man being in honor abideth not:

he is like the beasts that perish.
13 This their way is their folly:

yet their posterity approve their sayings.
Selah.
14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave;

death shall feed on them;
and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning;
and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave:

for he shall receive me.
Selah.
16 Be not thou afraid when one is made rich,

when the glory of his house is increased;
17 for when he dieth he shall carry nothing away:

his glory shall not descend after him.
18 Though while he lived he blessed his soul,

(and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself,)
19 he shall go to the generation of his fathers;

they shall never see light.
20 Man that is in honor, and understandeth not,

is like the beasts that perish.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009

AS for the controversy of the choice, my reading is that this is the Committee's way of recognizing the historic event of Mr. Obama's election. That, in itself, is a significant step toward peace.

And yes, it's inappropriate in such a context; but really, how can I resist?



Later:

as for reactions, you can have this:

"The upside is the European community is embracing this president and saying we like the direction that he is taking this country in and it's drastically different," suggested Mika Brzezinski. She was quickly shot down.

"The upside is the Nobel Prize committee that has had suspect selections in the past has just befuddled a lot of people across the world," said host Joe Scarborough.

"I predict right now that he will find a way to basically turn it down," Time's Mark Halperin added . "I think he is going to say, I share this with the world or whatever. I don't think he'll embrace this. Because there is no upside."

"The damage is done," Brzezinski responded.

NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd concurred that the prize posed problems for Obama. "You're right, will he go to Stockholm to pick it up? What does he do with the money? You get a million dollars. You get over a million dollars for winning this." (The prize is actually given in Oslo. There is a banquet in Stockholm.) But Todd was confident that Obama would survive the crisis. "Mark's probably right," he said. "He'll figure out some way of accepting this in another form, not on his own behalf."

"The damage is done"? Wha....?

Or this:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize 1984, said Obama's award shows great things are expected from him in the coming years.

"In a way, it's an award coming near the beginning of the first term of office of a relatively young president that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all," he said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."

He said the prize is a "wonderful recognition of Obama's effort to reach out to the Arab world after years of hostility.

Another former Nobel winner, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

"In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself," ElBaradei said. "He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts. He has reached out across divides and made clear that he sees the world as one human family, regardless of religion, race or ethnicity."

The difference seems to be people who think the award is about them, and people who think the award is about the human family. Hope, v. the status quo being upset. Two conditions that some people think appear alike.

But why is that?

In the Desert of the Fathers

Howard Zinn likes to tell audiences that governments lie. This is, for him, an important lesson, one citizens need to learn. There is another lesson, though. A lesson exemplified in the life of Max Cleland, as I realized this morning listening to NPR. You have to listen to this story to get the full impact. The summary won't do it justice. Because the lesson here is a deep and painful and profoundly troubling one.

Max Cleland is as well known now for the campaign Saxby Chambliss ran against him (unnamed in the audio story). If you listen to the story, you hear the incredulity, the bewilderment, almost the accusation, in Renee Montagne's questions: "How did they do that?" (Paint him as "unpatriotic.") "How did it stick?" (A man with five deferments made a triple-amputee Vietnam war hero the villain)." It's almost like it's Cleland's fault that the lies were believed. It's almost like he did something, or, just as bad, failed to do something, and the fault is his, not Karl Rove's or Saxby Chambliss's (she never names any of Cleland's political opponents from that race), nor even the voter's fault.

It is clear that the loss in 2002 destroyed Mr. Cleland's world, and in that there is a warning about where you put your treasure. But how did they make it stick? How did they "do that"? They lied. And people believe lies.

There's the awful lesson. Not that governments lie, or politicians lie, or even that political operatives and political campaigns are run on lies. It's not that people lie. It's that people believe lies. They believe lies, and sometimes there is nothing you can do about that.

The popular view, of course, is that people individually are smart, and people collectively are stupid. "A person is smart," Tommy Lee Jones tells Will Smith in Men in Black. "People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." It's sort of how we balance Jefferson and Madison, and say our democracy works: because people individually can be trusted, but collectively, they can be a little scary. But the truth is simpler and darker than that. People are not smart, and a person is not smart. They are dumb, panicky, and dangerous, collectively or individually. And they believe lies. They accept them. They swallow them hook, line, and sinker, and do so personally, not as some kind of vaguely collective Id. They do it themselves, for themselves, by themselves. They do it because they want to. They do it because it benefits them. They do it because lies are so much easier to take in than the truth. They do it because people lie. Not governments, not groups, not corporations, not congregations, not assemblies, not agencies, not councils: people. They are the only ones who can lie, and the only ones who can believe the lies. No one believes because everyone else does, or because everyone lies or accepts the lie: they believe for themselves first, and as part of a group later. It's the inescapable conclusion of Sartre's existentialism, of the idea that we are individuals first, and members of a group second. We are the ones who accept the lies: us, individually, personally. We accept the lies, and then a group accepts the lie, and then a city, a county, a state, a nation. If those things collectively are dumb, panicky, and dangerous, it is because we individually are dumb, panicky, and dangerous. And it doesn't take much at all to make us believe any damned fool thing someone wants us to believe.

Why do I bring this up? Partly from experience; I've gone through the kind of shattering loss Max Cleland went through. Our experiences differed in many ways, but fundamentally they were the same. Picking up the pieces is damned hard, and making sense out of a world where you were sure people would understand if you explained yourself to them, that at least they would be reasonable, is also damned hard. The alternative seems to be cynicism, the belief that people are no damned good, that they are panicky beasts best manipulated like cattle, rather than treated like persons. If you think Barack Obama presents the positive counter-example that proves such cynicism bitter and crabbed and narrow, consider just how many people continue to castigate Barack Obama for being too bi-partisan. These same people are astounded at his attitude, even though he wrote a best-selling book about his political philosophy which, my wife says (she read his book, I haven't) he is following to the letter. Yet we are still astounded. We prefer our own lies to the truth of what he has told us, and despite being a best-seller, apparently no one in America (at least among bloggers and the chattering classes) has read it.

So it goes. People believe lies. Especially the lies they live by.

But partly I bring it up because I read this at Fr. Jake's place, and it provokes a response in me.

In the previous post that wandered around the issue of "authority," I spoke about "networks," which is but one shift in the way humans are perceiving reality today. I now want to add two more shifts that I think the Church must recognize, if we are to effectively continue our mission. These three shifts are:

1. Networks - relationships are formed through complex webs of networks, often formed around leisure activities, family and friendships. Geography often plays a minor role. Network societies can both connect and fragment, as well as include and exclude.

2. Mobility - as the "local" gives way to the "global" perspective, new options regarding where we put down roots have opened up. In some cases, the concept of "roots" (home) has been completely redefined, with "place" being given a lower priority. This can provide more freedom and opportunity, but also undermines long term commitments. It is also cause for some tensions between those who have the means to be more mobile, and those who feel "stuck" in a particular place.

3. Consumer societies - previous generations found their identity in what they produced, but we now find our identity in what we consume. The core value of society has moved from ‘progress’ to ‘choice.’ We are moving towards a “personalized scale" in which ”it must fit me exactly” is an essential value. Among other things, this will affect the way people evaluate truth claims. “Truth” will be treated as a commodity. Consumer societies provide more choices, while also reinforcing the illusion of individualism.

I'd first say that "networks" as a perception of reality is no more than a metaphor, the way "processor" is now the metaphor of choice for what the human brain is. In medieval times, the brain was a gear case of watch parts. Now it's likened to semi-conductors, mostly by people who have no real idea how a computer works, but like the metaphor of "hardware" (the brain cells) and "software" (the ideas in the brain, or perhaps even "consciousness."). And I'm not sure there's anything new or insightful in "networks." I think I can still learn as much about human society, in other words, from reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or watching Shakespeare's plays, or perusing Dicken's novels. Even Beowulf and the lesser known "Exile of the Sons of Uisliu" tells me a great deal about how people get along. "Network" would just be a buzzword I could apply to any of those pictures of human society. I'm not sure it's even a new lens.

But that's a familiar gripe, coming from me; and I'm not interested in griping with Fr. Jake. I am intrigued, however, by his assertion that "previous societies" (how previous, and where the line of demarcation is drawn, is a bit vague) formed their identities around what they produced, not what they consumed. It's a bit idyllic, that notion; raising images of happy shepherds watching sheep safely graze in pastoral landscapes, while French herders produced unique forms of cheese and wine and British writers created plays and poetry and novels, and German composers produced music while Italian artists wrote operas and sculpted statues, none of it with any eye it would be used, just that they would take pride in their production of such things. Which is all bosh, of course, when it's put that way.

The Roman Empire collapsed because production could not keep up with consumption. It spread because consumption demanded ever newer sources of production to feed the need of Rome. All roads led to Rome for a reason, after all. And the few who consumed rested heavily on the many who produced for their consumption. There is a reason there were so many poor in Palestine for Jesus to walk among, and it wasn't because of poor middle management or a lack of entrepeneurial spirit. No, those aren't the traits Fr. Jake mentions, but they lie behind an assumption that human life fundamentally changed in the Industrial Revolution (which is the technological break-point where production could finally increase to the point that more people could consume than were needed to produce, a fact created by the use of non-animal forms of energy, and which set us on the road to our current global-warming/energy depleting dilemma.). Human society didn't really change with the advent of the factory; only the tempo did. The song remained the same.

The British Empire, like the Roman, drew resources from around the globe to England. The American Empire (such as it is), and the European (again, such as it is), or what we call the "First World," rests heavily on the resources of the "Third World," in a pattern of consumption and exploitation unchanged since the time of Solomon (to choose a Biblical figure). What is different is the scale of the consumption, not the fact of it. All we have done in America is convince ourselves we are deserving of this grace, but that attitude is as American as apple pie. When Sarah Palin says God put the national resources of Alaska in Alaska so Americans could exploit them, she's not saying anything that would have sounded out of place in an 18th century New England Puritan pulpit, long before the Industrial Revolution hit these shores. Same as it ever was, in other words.

As for this:

2. Mobility - as the "local" gives way to the "global" perspective, new options regarding where we put down roots have opened up. In some cases, the concept of "roots" (home) has been completely redefined, with "place" being given a lower priority. This can provide more freedom and opportunity, but also undermines long term commitments. It is also cause for some tensions between those who have the means to be more mobile, and those who feel "stuck" in a particular place.

It's a vague and glittering generality that in no way comports with my experience of the world. I've seen people try to enter a community and bring to it a "global" perspective, or at least a perspective that they think is broader than the "parochial" perspective of that community. They are ejected like a watermelon seed between pinched fingers. I have yet to see anyone who has completely given up on "place" as a source of identity, or "roots" as something "completely redefined," except the elites who can afford to jet around the country or around the world, and who truly think the nation or the world is their playground. I'm not being condescending to say that, I'm trying to describe the same attitude toward "the locals" that led Pontius Pilate to build the walls of his governor's palace so high his gaurds could easily peer into the outer courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem, the better to keep an eye on "the locals" there. Pilate's attitude toward the "place" and "roots" of the people of Palestine was so disdainful that he was finally removed from his position because of his cruelty to them. Jesus of Nazareth was neither the first nor the last person Pilate crucified unjustly.

"Place" is given a lower priority only by people who can afford "Place." Those who can't, who have to make do where they are, find "place" to sometimes be the only thing in their lives that matters. It is true that mobility seems to have obliterated "place," but T. S. Eliot said as much almost 100 years ago:

And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour
Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.
Nor does the family even move about together
But every son would have his motor cycle,
And daughters ride away on casual pillions.

And yet I have found profound parochialism in Eliot's home town of St. Louis, as well as in the suburbs of Chicago, and even the environs of Houston, Texas (what is parochialism if not a profound sense of place?). I find even the placeless places such as Houston, give people a sense of "roots" and "place" that is not reflected in the writers of books who assure me that, en masse, people no longer care about place. To which I respond: no one lives a life en masse. They all live lives individually, sometimes lives, as Thoreau said over 150 years ago, of "quiet desperation." And place very much plays a role in such desperation. (The placeless place of Plano, Texas, briefly held the dubious honor of being the second highest teen suicide rate in the nation. The root cause was the lack of "place" and "roots" that life in Plano required.) There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.

Indeed, in Houston, Texas, there is a neighborhood known for its gay community, and it's no accident a very gay-friendly UCC church out of Dallas has established a new church in Houston, in that neighborhood. "Place" and "roots" have a lower priority? If they do, it is because they are disdained by the machine. If they do, it means we have lost something valuable and potent which we must regain, rather than accept this change as part of some "natural order."

Why do I link together Fr. Jake's post with my own reaction to Max Cleland's interview? Because both rely on an aversion to the particularity of individuals, and with the seeming homogeneity of groups. Groups don't live in communities, or networks, or places, or vote: individuals do. But it is very hard to speak of individual motivations and make a coherent picture, and very easy to speak of mass responses and "trends" and "megatrends" (the term is long dead, but the idea is still with us). Consider how easy it is to read and misread the lessons of mass data about large groups: it all depends on what data you are looking at:

Tickle issues a clear call to acknowledge the inevitability of change, discern the church's new shape and participate responsibly in the transformation. Although Tickle's particular focus excludes the dynamic forces of Asian, African and Central/South American Christianity, this is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the face and future of Christianity.

That's from the Amazon page Fr. Jake links to for Phyllis Tickle's book The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Put simply, as any scholar will tell you, what you find depends very much on what you go looking for. I don't much like the Christianity emerging in Nigeria, especially as it has played out on the global stage in The Anglican Communion; but that, too, is part of "The Great Emergence," and analysts of change in Christianity would ignore it at their peril. Indeed, the battle in the Anglican Communion would seem to indicate a battle of ideas in Christianity that is just beginning, and that will not soon end with cooperation and agreement and acceptance of how Christianity should change, and why, or even whether what results is Christianity at all.

It's still the same old story; and all is vanity, and striving after emptiness. But it's also still a case of do, or die. The fundamental things apply. But which things are fundamental; and how, and to whom, do we apply them?

Aye, there's the rub.

The Lost Sentience

I think Adam Gopnik is right:

And that may be the secret of [Dan] Brown’s appeal: his books are as sweet-tempered as they are secret-minded. Langdon exposes horrible conspiracies, but it turns out that, with the exception of a few homicidal hotheads, who have maybe let the thing run away with them, decent, well-intended guys run even the weirdest cabals. Brown’s repeated point is not that we are mired in ancient conspiracies but that ancient conspiracies anticipate modern opinions. What is “coded” in “The Da Vinci Code” is that the ancient Christians were modern feminists; Jesus was a loving husband who deferred to the wisdom of his wife, Mary Magdalene, the Hillary Clinton of Galilee. When we come to the end of this new book, we discover that what the Masons were really practicing was a neat kind of cognitive science. The old codes of the pyramid are merely the newest discoveries of psychology, a thought that turns the text once again toward italics: “ ‘The Bible, like many ancient texts, is a detailed exposition of the most sophisticated machine ever created. . . the human mind.’ She sighed.”

And that's precisely why I don't like Dan Brown's work and, not coincidentally, basically gave up on science fiction, especially "hard" science fiction, which I gave up early on. Life is far more interesting and complicated without me at the center of the universe, and we are not contemporary geniuses who see farther and understand better than any of our ancestors possibly could have. In the face of our ignorance our only response should be humility and open minds, waiting to be educated. Modern science may have more facts at its disposal than Aristotle ever dreamed of, but how many scientists alive today have Aristotle's reasoning power, even with computers to help them sequence DNA codings? Who is Socrates, Plato, Aquinas, Augustine, today? Whither Dun Scotus or St. Anselm? Who has the insight of Buddha, the compassion of Jesus of Nazareth, the wisdom of Maimonides? And frankly, what they knew is not what we are sure we know, and perhaps they were right, and we are wrong.

Perhaps. It is a point worthy of consideration. It is a place, even in a "godless" age, even in an age which has "abandoned religion" (no, it hasn't; but the same minority which thought we were all dancing to disco in the '70's, had all turned on, tuned in, and dropped out in the '60's, or were all headbanging to punk rock in the '80's, have now convinced themselves are are all "godless" in the 21st century), even in this age where we complain of the results of our technology even as we look to it to save us from ourselves ("O machine! O machine!"), it is a starting point for humility.

And humility is always a saving grace; but a damned hard practice.

"You cannot serve two masters...."

Looking at this:

IT turns out the other half — or at least the tiny slice who live at the top of the wealth pyramid — are not sleeping any better than the rest of America.

At a closed-door meeting of advisers to family offices — which serve families who typically are worth more than $500 million — I learned that the super-rich are just as concerned about the future as everyone else.

Even though the stock market has rebounded from its March 9 low, the family office advisers said many of their wealthiest clients were bracing for more bad news and wondering how it would affect their family unity.

“They are now looking at financial planning and things middle-class families live by,” Kathryn McCarthy, a leading adviser to wealthy families, including the Rockefellers, said at the gathering this week convened by Bessemer Trust

...

Before you start laughing up your sleeve, be advised that this is not a good thing. When the super-rich get cold feet, the rest of America gets swine flu. They are, after all, the people who might finance new companies that create jobs, make big investments to support existing companies and spread their wealth throughout the economy.

Made me think about this:

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)

Might I especially recommend that last line as an alternative to the weltanschaaung of the article, as expressed in that last quoted paragraph?

One Man, One Riot

We'll see how long this lasts:

In a first for Texas, a judge ruled Thursday that two men married in another state can divorce here and that the state's ban on gay marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.

Both a voter-approved state constitutional amendment and the Texas Family Code prohibit same-sex marriages or civil unions.

Although the case is far from settled, and the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage is a long way from being thrown out, Dallas state District Judge Tena Callahan's ruling says the state prohibition of same-sex marriage violates the federal constitutional right to equal protection.

It's certainly going to earn Judge Callahan the coveted "Willie Wayne Justice Award." (Judge Justice, a Federal Judge, always referred to as "Willie Wayne" by his detractors, was the judge who forced the integration of schools in Texas. He lived in my hometown of Tyler, and was, shall we say, less than popular in the '70's when he finally brought "Brown v. Board of Education" to my hometown (14 years after it was handed down by the Warren Court). He was also instrumental in changing the way Texas runs its prison system. Full disclosure: while I've never met Judge Justice, I did own a chair he once owned. It was a damned nice little chair, too.)

We in Texas will just have to wait to see what kind of flap this ruling creates. Unlike the other news from Texas, which will probably disturb almost no one inside the state:

Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday defended his removal of three commissioners looking into whether the state used bad science to execute an innocent man, suggesting too much was being made of his move.

On Wednesday, Perry decided to replace three members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, including its chairman, just two days before it conducted a hearing to examine the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. The new chairman canceled the meeting.

"What's happening is that we're following the normal protocol of the state. Those individuals' terms were up, so we replaced them," Perry said.

But others who have followed the Willingham case accused the governor of working to delay and derail the commission's investigation.

There's no real question, at least among sentient beings, what Perry is up to here. The case is the one highlighted in The New Yorker recently. There is little question, based on the article, that Mr. Willingham was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, and that the forensic evidence used against him was a complete misreading of the physical facts of the fire. (Read the article, if you haven't already. It's worth it.) As the article points out:

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has said that the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.”

Which is pretty much what we have with the execution of Mr. Willingham. And Rick Perry knows that. And the problem? If that becomes an inescapable conclusion based on a Texas government agency's report, Rick Perry is suddenly stuck having to accept that the death penalty failed. And in Texas, it is better to execute 100 innocent men than for a politician, especially a conservative Republican politician, to admit fatal flaws in the application of the death penalty. This is a state, after all, where the governor can do no more than issue a 30 day stay of an execution. But he is held accountable for his political opinion about executions, and that had better be a positive stance. Perry proves this with his opinion of the evidence that there was no crime:

Perry recently discounted the findings of a myriad of scientists, who in three separate reviews concluded that Willingham fire investigators relied on old, discredited indicators of arson – "wives' tales," as some called it. They said the fire might have been caused by a faulty space heater or bad wiring.

In an interview last month with The Dallas Morning News, Perry said, "I'm familiar with the latter-day supposed experts on the arson side of it," and made quotation marks with his fingers to underscore his skepticism. He said the records he reviewed before allowing the execution showed "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children."

Those "myriad findings" include a 51-page report to the Forensic Sciences Commission, concluding there was no evidence of arson in the Willingham case, the same conclusion "Tne New Yorker" article came to. And what's going to happen now?

"If you've got a whole new investigation going forward, it makes a lot more sense to put the new people in now and let them start the full process rather than having people in for a short period of time and then replace them," Perry said.

Which should push the matter beyond the next elections, and hopefully bury the issue. And that's obvious even to Paul Burka, a conservative political pundit who never quite gave up on George W. Bush:

Let’s call this what it is: a cover-up. The new chairman, Williamson County district attorney John Bradley, is a political ally of Perry’s (see below) who famously tough on crime. It would be a conversion of mythic proportions if he were to agree with the investigators’ criticism. He now controls when the commission will meet, and you can bet that the report will not be heard or discussed in a public forum before the March 2 primary.

As Burnt Orange Report notes, this is not going down well, even in Texas. Whether the voting public cares more about justice than about executions, though, remains to be seen. And I'm not sure "The New Yorker" has a wide enough distribution in the state yet for many people to even know who Mr. Willingham was. Why am I not sanguine? Well, here's Kay Bailey Hutchison's statement on the case:

"Why you wouldn't at least have the hearing that the former member suggested, to find out what the facts are, when a man has been executed and now the facts are in dispute - just like DNA has given more tools to determine the facts," she said. "I am strongly for the death penalty, but always with the absolute assurance that you have the ability to be sure - with the technology that we have - that a person is guilty.

Gonna be hard to twist that into a rallying cry that Rick Perry is a corrupt politician who puts his political needs ahead of the needs of a justice system. Besides, Willingham was a criminal, and he's dead, right?

Where are the Texas Rangers when you need them?

Michaelmas

Thou Michael the victorious,
I make my circuit under thy shield,
Thou Michael of the white steed,
And of the bright brilliant blades,
Conqueror of the dragon,
Be thou at my back,
Thou ranger of the heavens,
Thou warrior of the King of all,
O Michael the victorious,
My pride and my guide,
O Michael the victorious,
The glory of mine eye.

I make my circuit
In the fellowship of my saint,
On the machair, on the meadow,
On the cold heathery hill;
Though I should travel ocean
And the hard globe of the world
No harm can ever befall me
‘Neath the shelter of thy shield;
O Michael the victorious,
Jewel of my heart,
O Michael the victorious,
God’s shepherd thou art.

Be the sacred Three of Glory
Aye at peace with me,
With my horses, with my cattle,
With my wooly sheep in flocks,
With the crops growing in the field
Or ripening in the sheaf,
On the machair, on the moor,
In cole, in heap, or stack,
Every thing on high or low,
Every furnishing and flock,
Belong to the holy Triune of glory
And to Michael the victorious.

Neither in Sorrow Nor in Anger

I posted this in part because it was a reminder that the '60's were different; and in part because I've been listening to my old Judy Collins albums, albums with songs like this:

Tear down the walls, listen to freedom ringing out,
Tear down the walls, can't you hear the church bells singing out,
Give every man the chance to take his brother's hand,
Tear down the walls, tear down the walls.
chorus:
The music's everywhere, when every man is free,
The music's in the air that lights the road to liberty.

And while those lyrics, especially after the '70's when such earnestness turned into selfishness, sound almost childishly naive, something about their earnestness is true. Something about their optimism, their hopefulness, is inspiring. There's also something not at all naive about them, not on an album that includes "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol" (a black service worker beaten to death in a hotel restaurant for inadvertently touching a white man. He was acquitted.) or "Medger Evers Lullaby." Racism may be alive and well in America to this good day, but it is nothing like it was only 45 years ago. Ms. Collins even introduces the songs "Red-Wing Blackbird" and "Coal Tattoo" (as fierce an indictment of corporations and the powerlessness of laborers as was ever put to music) by mentioning with some excited anticipation the President's Committee on Poverty, which will soon (as of the date of the recording) begin "to find out why we have the "invisible poor." There is a sense, in what are now historical documents like this, that America was founded on equality and freedom to pursue happiness, and that liberty comes from the people and their ability to help each other, not from their wallets or the stock market.

My, how times have changed.

Yes, the optimism and naivete of the '60's gave way to the crass hedonism of the '70's, where "free love" became "open marriage" and music became "disco". And it's unfair to blame the '70's alone, as they were merely the transition period to the '80's and Reaganomics and "yuppies" and "dinks" (Double Income No Kids) and the first really heady sense that anyone could get rich in America, and the purpose of America was to make people rich! And, of course, when you are trying to get rich or trying to stay rich, the dominant social moré is no longer "Give every man a chance to take his brother's hand [sic]," but: "Blow you, Jack! I got mine!" The pursuit of happiness goes quickly from being an invitation to the mountain, where you can buy wine without money and food without price, to a zero sum game, where your gain is my loss. And our politics is rapidly descending into this:

The Republican Party's strategy against health-care reform has been something of a kamikaze mission: destroy the bill through a strategy that also destroys the party, at least in the short-term. The hope is that if they win the war, they'll be in better shape come the 2010 midterms. Maybe that'll work. Maybe it won't.

But if it does work, it won't leave them in a better position to govern. What Republicans -- and, when they're out of power, Democrats -- are doing is essentially discrediting the political process. Piece by piece, bill by bill. The argument, essentially, is that politicians are untrustworthy and Congress is corrupt and interest groups are trying to do horrible things to you and problems are not being solved.

All these thing might be true, but they're being said, in this case, by politicians who want to take back Congress and start negotiating with interest groups to solve problems. That's not going to work terribly well, and for obvious reasons. Republicans may think they've found a clever strategy in making it hard for Democrats to govern, but what they're really doing is making it nearly impossible for anyone to govern. American politics is trapped in a cycle of minority obstruction, and though that's good for whomever the minority is at the moment, it's not particularly good for making progress on pressing issues.

The indictment of both parties is true if only because the Democrats have, since 1972, let the Republicans set the terms of the discussion, hold the national reins, lead the march into hell. We no longer question what government should do, only how much good or bad government will do to us. We no longer ask what we can do for each other; we only ask what we will be left, and who will leave us the most for our own.

I'm left thinking of the words of Walker Percy as the only words I have for this. Percy speaks to marriage and family, but it all begins there, as metaphor if not as fact.

What happened to marriage and family that it should have become a travail and a sadness?...God may be good, family and marriage and children and home may be good, grandma and grandpa may act wise, the Thanksgiving table may be groaning with God's goodness and bounty, all the folks healthy and happy, but something is missing...What is missing? Where did it go? I won't have it! I won't have it! Why this sadness here? Don't stand for it! Get up! Leave! Let the boat people sit down! Go live in a cave until you've found the thief who is robbing you. But at least protest! Stop, thief! What is missing? God? Find him!

Ask not what your country can do for you...

This, too, is a fine sentiment for the equinox:

It was on this day in 1961 that Congress passed the Peace Corps Act.

Kennedy first spoke about the idea of a Peace Corps in his final weeks of campaigning for the presidency. At 2 a.m. on October 14, 1960, after a long day of campaigning, the young senator stood on the steps in front of the student union at the University of Michigan. The journalists had gone home, thinking that nothing more would happen that day, but 10,000 students remained, hoping to see and hear Kennedy. He gave a short speech, in which he said:

"I think in many ways it is the most important campaign since 1933, mostly because of the problems which press upon the United States, and the opportunities which will be presented to us in the 1960s. The opportunity must be seized, through the judgment of the President, and the vigor of the executive, and the cooperation of the Congress. Through these I think we can make the greatest possible difference.

"How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete."

Garrison Keillor

It's Raining Down in Texas

So this seemed an appropriate sentiment for the equinox.

On Monday will come the great storm
Which the airy firmament will pour,
We shall be obedient the while,
All who will hearken.

On Tuesday will come the other element,
Heart paining, hard piercing,
Wringing from pure pale cheeks
Blood, like showers of wine.

On Wednesday will blow the wind,
Sweeping bare strath and plain,
Showering gusts of galling grief,
Thunder bursts and rending hills.

On Thursday will pour the shower,
Driving people to blind flight,
Faster than the foliage on the trees,
Like the leaves of Mary’s plant in terror trembling.

On Friday will come the dool cloud of darkness,
The direst dread that ever came over the world,
Leaving multitudes bereft of reason,
Grass and fish beneath the same flagstone.

On Saturday will come the great sea,
Rushing like a mighty river;
All will be at their best
Hastening to a hill of safety.

On Sunday will arise my King,
Full of ire and tribulation,
Listening to the bitter talk of each man,
A red cross on each right shoulder.

--Carmina Gadelica

WWJD?

I read the news today, o boy....

CQ reports that Democrats have now largely abandoned ACORN, with most Dems voting for Republican efforts to deny them funding in the wake of recent scandals. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), for example, voted for the recent Republican amendments to bar ACORN funding, after having opposed them in the past. "I felt it was time to send something of a message that there's concern," said Feingold. "It was specifically not about politics. It was about bad policy."

It's a dangerous comparison, but Jesus of Nazareth was treated as a criminal and crucified for being a rabble rouser and a threat to the Empire (crucifixion being reserved for what we would, today, call "political prisoners"). And most of what he did was work with the poor. There's no record in the Gospels that he ever had contact with anybody more important than a Roman soldier or a Nicodemus, a Jewish priest.

Working for the poor never wins you many friends in the corridors of power.

I have three cats

"All cats die.
Socrates is dead.
Therefore Socrates is a cat."--Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros

I've had 8 cats, five of which are deceased. Perhaps I should name one of the dead ones "Socrates."

"The Winners Are At War"

"With the losers, and the fix is in."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"The prospects for peace are awful."--Kurt Vonngegut, Jr.

You Cannot Get Away

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock, Musician, the Flatlanders

I'm trying to figure out how to work this into my blog header.

It explains a lot.