Monday, November 27, 2017

Circling the psychic drain



“The chief. He’s the general and the chief,” Trump said during the White House event, referring to his chief of staff John Kelly. “I said, how good were these code talkers? He said, sir, you have no idea. You have no idea how great they were, what they have done for this country and the strength and the bravery and the love for the country.”

“So that was the ultimate statement from General Kelly, the importance,” Trump continued. “And I just want to thank you because you’re very, very special people. You were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago, they call her Pocahontas. But you know what I like you.”


“This was supposed to be an event to honor heroes, people who put it all on the line for our country, and people who, because of their incredible, work saved the lives of countless Americans and our allies,” she said. “It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur.”
And then, going back to "fake news," that tweet is the most recent one of a long, long weekend:

Yes, that was only two days ago.  And again today:

And really, it isn't even like the press is uniformly interested in making you look bad:
“President Trump? Ali [Velshi] and I [Stephanie Ruhle] cover business and the economy, especially as it relates to politics every single day,” she explained. “So where are these companies coming back specifically and not just pledges,  Foxconn may be coming.”

“[Republican congressman] Jim Renacci said this the other day, from Ohio, the president’s bringing all these jobs back. What are you talking about?” Ali Velshi excitedly interjected. “What jobs? Just tell me where they are. We’ll go, we’ve got reporters, we’ll find out what these are. We don’t know about these.”

“Please sir,” host Ruhle said, addressing the president. “We’re not being biased here. We would love to cover these and cover wins of this administration for the people in this country, specifically those forgotten Americans who are desperate for those jobs.”

I think Trump is losing it.  Indeed, despite what he says about the tax bill:

All signs point to it being in serious trouble:

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told reporters in a Capitol Hill press conference that he’s skeptical the promised economic growth will fill that hole, and refused to say how he will vote on the tax bill itself.
“What if we don’t get 0.4 percent growth? Is there any backstop?” he asked. “I’m not opposed to tax reform, but we need to do it right.”

Lankford also suggested that conservatives who have long railed about the size of the federal deficit are acting hypocritically by backing the deep tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts.

“We can’t ignore the debt and deficit issues,” he said. “As conservatives, we’ve said for a long time that to get ahead of the deficit we have to control our spending and have a growing, healthy economy. Well, if we use all of the tax reductions to just offset, we’ll never get on top of it.”

Funny I haven't heard of OK's other Senator before, but he doesn't sound comfortable with this legislation at all; and he isn't the only one:

Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran shared similar fears in town hall meetings and local interviews over the Thanksgiving break.

“We don’t want to increase the debt and deficit as a result of tax cuts,” he told a crowd in Clay Center on Saturday. “I’m also cognizant of what people saw happen in Kansas.”

Republicans can only lose two votes from their caucus and still pass the tax bill. With deeply conservative lawmakers like Moran and Lankford wobbling, in addition to more moderate members like Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), the upcoming Senate vote is likely to be a nail-biter for GOP leaders desperate to avoid closing out the year with no major legislative accomplishments.
Sen. Moran doesn't want to wish Kansas on the country; and what does Jeff Flake care about his political future?  Dare we expect a Christmas miracle?  And if the GOP can't deliver on a tax bill, what do its major donors do?  And what do they do about Trump, except isolate him further?  And I haven't even gotten to Mueller.






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All Accusations Must Lead to Punishment


So, here's the problem:

In an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday, Pelosi declared a “zero-tolerance” policy on sexual harassment. Then she stood by Michigan Rep. John Conyers — a powerful Democrat who, it was recently reported, quietly settled a wrongful dismissal case in 2015 when a woman on his staff said she was fired for refusing his repeated sexual advances. Conyers maintains his innocence.

Pelosi could have rattled off a set of meaningless prepared sentences to fill air and buy her party time to figure out what to do. She did telegraph repeatedly in the interview that she expected Conyers to “do the right thing.” Shortly after the interview aired, Conyers announced he would step down from his powerful position as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee — a decision that would be very difficult if not impossible to reverse. Losing such a key position is a bad sign for anyone who hopes Conyers will survive in the House.

Pelosi has, in the past, worked to push out members involved in inappropriate behavior. But in public, on a popular Sunday show, she ran through a list of excuses for Conyers that are the very reasons women are afraid to come forward and report sexual harassment in the first place.

This argument is prefaced with a personal anecdote:

I was very young when I told my boss that a colleague had showed me a video of himself in his underwear at my desk, how he called my cellphone late at night drunk, and how he turned up at my front door one night. When he asked me to meet his parents, I told her, enough is enough.

My boss groaned. That’s bad, she agreed. Then she told me how to handle it: “You can’t just reject him like a normal man,” she warned. “Just stop by his house for one round of drinks with the parents.”

It was a punch to the gut. The woman I saw as a role model, an advocate, and, frankly, a feminist encouraged me to accommodate him, instead of telling him to back off. My colleague’s behavior was an annoyance. My boss’s behavior was a betrayal.

Or it was a lesson that the world is not arranged to protect you, and sometimes you have to stand up for yourself by yourself?  I've had my share of bad bosses and while I've never been sexually harassed, nor do I condone such behavior, I quickly learned the universe was not organized to give me the justice I desired.  Did Nancy Pelosi betray "millions of women" because she didn't demand John Conyers' resign from Congress over a settled allegation of sexual harassment by a former staffer, especially in the light of Conyers' staffers who all say he's been a gentleman to them?  Are all those women dupes of the system, betrayers of the sisterhood, traitors to the accuser who must be believed even though we don't know what the accusations actually are, or who made them?

Frankly, if this is the argument being put forth post-Trump and post-Weinstein, the whole situation is going to devolve quickly into a stew of allegations and accusations that don't produce justice, just backlash.  The arguments are rapidly becoming not about correction and solution, but about purity and punishment.

That direction lies madness and failure.
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The Commodification of Persons Continues Apace


I am reading (Simone Weil's) essays as a part of my Lenten reading...She says that we "...must experience every day, both in the spirit and the flesh, the pains and humiliations of poverty...and further we must do something which is harder than enduring in poverty, we must renounce all compensations: in our contacts with the people around us we must sincerely practice the humility of a naturalized citizen in the country which has received us."

I keep reminding the young people who come to work with us that they are not naturalized citizens...They are not really poor. We are always foreigners to the poor. So we have to make up for it by "renouncing all compensations..."
Dorothy Day, from The Dorothy Day Book, p. 11.

Susan Sarandon on why Hillary Clinton still should not be President:

“Well, I knew that New York was going to go [for Hillary]. It was probably the easiest place to vote for Stein. Bringing attention to working-class issues is not a luxury. People are really hurting; that’s how this guy got in. What we should be discussing is not the election, but how we got to the point where Trump was the answer.”

Susan Sarandon understands "working-class issues" as well as Donald Trump does.  And still being locked into the "economic anxiety" arguments for Trump voters is not a sign of political astuteness, either.

Yes, yes, it's easy to beat up on the "liberal Hollywood movie star who is out of touch with middle America," but do they have to make it so easy?

We need Sarandon the way we need Kirsten Powers, formerly of the Clinton Administration, who told NPR this morning that while she's the same age as Monica Lewinsky, Ms. Lewinsky is frozen in amber 25 years later and still too young to make adult decisions for herself "back then" because of the power differential between her and the President she set out to seduce (by her own admission).  Which is a patriarchal attitude, but apparently an acceptable one because she's not a patriarch, or something.  We do tie ourselves into knots insisting everyone else do as we say, not as we do.

ADDING:  It's piling on, but I knew there was more to that Sarandon interview than just concern for the working class:

Sarandon replied: “Not exactly, but I don’t mind that quote. I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother.”

The quote she references is about how Hillary would have us in a war by now.  But it's the comment on fracking that's obtuse.  If fracking has slowed, it's because the price of oil is down, not because Trump has implemented policies to limit it (as if!).  The free market, in other words, is in control.  I'm in touch (so to speak) with the oil business, and business is not good if only because Saudi Arabia hasn't turned off the taps, so exploration and drilling (and so fracking) is still down.

Hillary Clinton would have had no effect on that at all.  (And yeah, with 11,000 troops in Afghanistan, not to mention those aiding the battle against ISIS, we are still "at war").

You know, when the liberal icons are as clueless as Trump.....
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Sunday, November 26, 2017

The Ultimate Outrage Machine

It's the internet; I need a cat picture once in a while.

Ignorance about religion and churches runs rampant on the Internet.  Some of it is even entertaining, like this:

In an effort to update a 31-year-old handbook proscribing [sic] how services should be conducted in terms of language, the national Evangelical Lutheran church in Sweden dropped the terms ["he" and "Lord"]  after the church’s 251-member decision-making body met for eight days.

According to Archbishop Antje Jackelén, the decision was made because, “Theologically, for instance, we know that God is beyond our gender determinations, God is not human.”  She added that the idea had been floated as far back as 1986.

While the change won’t take place until May of 2017 [sic] for the church’s 6.1 million baptized members, it was immediately attacked in the U.S. by non-members who took great offense on behalf of God.
No, that's not funny; this is:

Writing at Right Wing News, Sierra Marlee, who described herself as “not particularly religious,” complained the language change was “ridiculous.”

“I’m not particularly religious, but even I know this is absolutely ridiculous. The Social Justice Warrior culture has just gone way too darn far and now even the churches are starting to succumb to its influence,” she wrote. “If you’re pinching the bridge of your nose right now in a desperate attempt to stave off the impending headache of reading the rest of this article and voluntarily exposing yourself to such idiocy, I’m right there with you.”

Showing off her knowledge of English language prayers she added, “For those who are in the know, The Lord’s Prayer commonly refers to God as ‘Our Father.’ Apparently, Swedish Lutherans are being led away from such language, and are now encouraged to say ‘Our Parent who art in Heaven.’ That being said, it will continue to be called ‘The Lord’s Prayer.'”
The Lord's Prayer has been rendered into English in many forms since the KJV almost everyone thinks of (ditto the 23rd Psalm), and besides, they don't commonly speak English in Sweden, so it won't be changing "Our Father" for them. Not literally, anyway.  But wait, there's more!

Conspiracy-mongering website Infowars had a unique, but not surprising take, with editor Kit Daniels writing, “Of course, there’s no coincidence the Church of Sweden’s shift away from traditional Christianity coincides with the rise of Islam in the Scandinavian country.”

Should we tell him almost all of the mainline American Christian churches made this shift in the 20th century?  Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt:

According to Blunt Force for Truth, God was “castrated” by the feminists.

“As feminism wormed its way across the cultural landscape in the 60’s and 70’s, Boston College professor Mary Daly spoke of her desire to castrate God,” the website asserts. “It looks like her vision has come to fruition in the Church of Sweden, where clergy have now been urged to use gender-neutral language in reference to God, advising them to avoid terms like ‘Lord,’ ‘He,’ and of course ‘Father.'”
I don't suppose it would do, then, to read Julian of Norwich from the late 14th century:

And so in our making, God almighty is our father by nature; and God all wisdom is our mother by nature, along with the love and goodness of the Holy Ghost; and these are all one God, one Lord....
For our whole life falls into three parts.  In the first we exist, in the second we grow and in the third we are completed.  The first is nature, the second is mercy, the third is grace.  As for the first, I saw and understood that the great power of the Trinity is our father, and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, and the great love of the Trinity is our lord; and we have all this by nature and in our essential being.  And furthermore, I saw that as the second Person of is mother of our essential being, so that same well-loved Person has become mother of our sensory being; for God makes us double, as essential and sensory beings.  Our essential part is the higher part, which we have in our Father, God almighty; and the second Person of the Trinity is our mother in nature and our essential creation, in whom we are grounded and rooted, and he is our mother in mercy taking on our sensory being.  And so our Mother, in whom our parts are kept unparted, works in us in various ways; for in our Mother, Christ, we profit and grow, and in mercy he reforms and restores us, and through the power of his Passion and his death and rising again, he unites us to our essential being.  This is how our Mother mercifully acts to all his children who are submissive and obedient to him.

But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that I needed to know, answered with this assurance: 'Sin is befitting, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'

With this bare word 'sin" our Lord brought to my mind the whole extent of all that is not good, and the shameful scorn and the utter humiliation that he bore for us in this life, and his dying, and all the pains and sufferings of his creatures, both in body and spirit--for we are all to some extent brought to nothing and shall be brought to nothing as our master Jesus was, until we are fully purged:  that is to say until our mortal flesh is brought completely to nothing, and all those of our inward feelings which are not truly good.  Have me insight into these things, along with all pains that ever were and ever shall be; and compared with these I realize that Christ's Passion was the greatest pain and went beyond them all.  And all this was shown in a flash, an quickly changed into comfort; for our good Lord did not want the soul to be afraid at this ugly sight.

....And because of the tender love which our Lord feels for all who shall be saved, he supports us willingly and sweetly, meaning this:  'It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'*
I had to include the whole quote because of the language Eliot made so famous at the end, and to better put it in context.  Oddly, this was not considered heretical by the Church at the time or since.

I attended four years of seminary at the end of the 20th century (early to mid '90's, to place it better), and we were taught to use 'inclusive language' then.  I have a translation of the New Testament I acquired at that time, using wholly inclusive language in the rendition into English.  So far as I know all the mainline non-conservative Christian denominations in America use inclusive language in their liturgies now.  This stopped being controversial 20 years ago, easily; at least widely controversial.  And now Sweden is catching up, and tout le internet goes mad.  Well, the crazier right wing section of it, anyway.

It's funny how upset they are by something that doesn't affect them at all.  But this occurs as the internet has become the rage machine of choice, so these clowns have to respond to it without knowing they are 20 years behind the times.  I think I will amend the remarks of Chris Milk and dub the internet the "ultimate outrage machine." Seems to be what it's best at.

*This is, by the way, perfectly in keeping with Sophia (Wisdom), which is always personified as female in the Hebrew Scriptures, being an agent of the Creation and so part  of our "essential being."
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O Paradeisbaum, O Paradeisbaum! (Redux)

Just put up one of these and call it good (I've got two of them this year!)

Um, okay.  Maybe there's a reason FoxNews is not shown internationally, after all:

On Sunday’s edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Pete Hegseth noted that the there was a shortage of Christmas trees because fewer had been planted after the economic crisis that occurred at the end of Bush’s second term.

“There is a nationwide Christmas tree shortage,” Hegseth explained. “Apparently, 10 years ago during the financial crisis, during the downturn, there were less trees planted. It takes about 10 years for a tree to be chopped down and put in your living room. Because of that shortage — basic supply and demand tells us that if you have less of it, it’s going to cost you a little bit more. You might be shelling out another 10, 15 bucks.”

“You can’t put a price tag on Christmas,” Boothe chimed in.

Hegseth suggested that the cost of Christmas trees could be averted by going to “middle America” and chopping down a tree, which he said he had done “many, many times.”

The President's favorite FoxNews show, y'all.


Because, ya know "You can't put a price tag on Christmas."  And wandering onto someone's property and chopping down their trees is A-OK in "middle America."
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Saturday, November 25, 2017

Calliope and Euterpe clear their throats in a meaningful way



A-HEM!

In a 2015 TED talk, Chris Milk, founder and CEO of the VR company Within, called virtual reality the “ultimate empathy machine.” (Milk likely borrowed the phrase “empathy machine” from the late Roger Ebert, who had called cinema “the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts.” Television and the novel arguably have greater claims on that title, but that’s a debate for another time.)

These things that pass for knowledge I don't understand.....


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Friday, November 24, 2017

Oh samX tree, Oh samX tree!*

Universal signal of Xmas distress?

To begin with, don't believe what you read on the internet, including this blog post you are reading now.  For example, when did the "upside down Christmas tree" start?

Legend has it that England's St. Boniface was furious when he saw pagans revering an oak tree in 7th-century Germany where he was teaching. He cut it down, but a fir tree sprang up on the same spot. Boniface used the triangular shape of this fir tree as a tool to describe the Holy Trinity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

The pagans who had been converted to Christianity began to revere the fir tree as God's Trinity Tree. By the 12th century, it was being hung upside down from ceilings at Christmastime in Central and Eastern Europe as a symbol of Christianity and God the Son becoming a man because it resembled the shape of Christ being crucified.

No, probably not (how an upside down tree=Holy Trinity is not explained because, you know, symbolism is weird 'n' shit), because the Christmas Tree has nothing to do with pagan celebrations.  If St. Boniface was preaching in Germany in the 7th century, nobody was observing Christmas except as a church mass devoted to the birth of Christ.  They sure weren't wassailing or remembering Saturnalia (in Germany?  900 years after the observance died out in Rome?) or doing anything we associate with Christmas.  Christmas trees didn't enter Christmas observances until Germany in the 16th century, or about 400 years later than the fir trees supposedly being decorated in "Central and Eastern Europe."  And the tree came from the Garden of Eden, not pagan rituals (the Druids were the tree worshippers; they lived in England, not Germany).  It was the Paradeisbaum in German morality plays, and got connected to Christmas because the tradition of observing the feast days of Adam and Eve fell in the time around the observance of Christmas, an observance not settled on until about the 6th century.  And even then, as I say, it was a religious service or feast day on the church calendar; not a season of 12 days of Christmas and the like.

Oh, and "legend has it" is the "some people say" of stories about history with no basis in history at all.

I don't know how long people have been hanging Christmas trees from the ceiling, but I remember it from my childhood as a quirk some people did just to be different.  The trees you can get now are simply inverted artificial trees on a floor-mounted stand.  Kind of a weak cousin, if you ask me, to hanging a live tree upside down from the ceiling and proceeding to decorate it.  If my mother had only kept our aluminum tree from my youth, I'd hang it upside down this year (if I could glue the branches into the pole, that is).  But just as Irving Berlin started the War on Christmas with the help of Bing Crosby in the 1940's ("Holiday Inn," if you don't catch the reference by now), so too people in the '60's were attacking Donald Trump and America by hanging the trees the wrong way up.


Don't we have Roy Moore to worry about?  Or how store clerks greet us this month?

*What?  It was the best I could do!
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Coincidence? Naaah!

The tweet is in response to a complaint about Olivier Vernon kneeling during the anthem at the Giants-Redskins game yesterday.


This is Mr. Vernon.  No wonder Trump is upset that players are "the boss!"*

*Setting aside the fact all players have 1st Amendment rights, and rights protected by federal law, as well as contract, that prevent team owners from punishing players for these actions.  There's a reason Jerry Jones and Bob McNair and others haven't punished any players, and won't.  But who is boss is paramount in Trump's concern.  And, of course, who can be boss, and who can be bossed around.



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Prince Charming should have resigned!


I'm not saying we can't have the discussion, but, um:

"I think it's a specific issue in the Sleeping Beauty story about sexual behavior and consent,” she told the Newcastle Chronicle. “It’s about saying is this still relevant, is it appropriate?”

The 40-year-old also contacted Ben’s school asking for books featuring the story to be banned from the younger children’s classes and curriculum and tweeted about the offending book.

"In today's society, it isn't appropriate,” she added. “My son is only six, he absorbs everything he sees, and it isn't as if I can turn it into a constructive conversation.

"I don't think taking Sleeping Beauty books out of circulation completely would be right. I actually think it would be a great resource for older children, you could have a conversation around it, you could talk about consent, and how the Princess might feel."

“But I'm really concerned about it for younger children, would really welcome a conversation about whether this is suitable material.”
Asking for a book to be banned and asking for a conversation about the books' suitability are actually two different things, but we conflate the two all the time.  The former is excused as necessary to remove evil, the latter essential to appearing reasonable and polite.

We really need to do some more work on this.
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Black Crow

(*Joni Mitchell.  If you don't get that, I can say no more.)

I want to unashamedly steal Pastor Dan's words because I agree with them, and want to expand on them a bit (he mentions he's doing this "Atrios-style," which I'll admit I don't understand.  I was a commenter there when he was a denizen of the Great Orange Satan, but it's been so long since I ventured back to Eschaton I've either forgotten what "style" the place had, or things have changed that much.  Anyway, full disclosure over, on with the news!).  The topic is how Democrats need a "faith outreach...particularly to white and other conservative or moderate religious voters."  The response to that is fairly predictable, but well worth talking about anyway.  Start with the obvious question:

Who is this strategy supposed to reach? Black voters don’t vote on social issues, and white voters who do don’t vote Democratic. Why should Democrats chase a segment of the electorate that’s aging, shrinking, and moving to the right, while ignoring seculars who are younger, growing, and vastly more aligned with party positions? Why should Democrats hedge on positions like abortion or LGBT freedoms that the vast majority of their constituency agree upon in favor of the framing of a tiny minority?
Because, apparently, 30% of the electorate (or GOP voters, or some slice of the U.S. population that may, or may not, be 30% of the actual physical population; it's damned hard to pin that down) now run the country and we all must acknowledge that.  Or at least acknowledge we can't talk to them (well, except for Sarah Silverman, the Trump voter whisperer) because they live in another reality and from there, where the socks go in the dryer and your cat goes when you can't find here (mine goes to talk to Coraline, so maybe in real life all Trump voters have button eyes!  You heard it here first!  It's a needle and thread conspiracy!), they rule the country.  I dunno; somehow "those voters," the ones who vote for a party that is not Democratic (like Alabama voters who will stand by Roy Moore because he has an "R" by his name on the ballot; like most voters in the South, which has been a one-party region since Reconstruction, if not before), will be convinced to vote for Democrats who are not Blue Dogs and who will put Democrats back in power permanently and bring the Millenia (a few decades late, but, hey!) and save us all from ourselves.  Or at least acknowledge they are Trump's base, and that makes them powerful; maybe.  Or something.  It all ultimately comes down to The One who is prophesied to Come and Save Us In Our Darkest Hour.  When actually it all comes down to "if only."  No one ever notes how low voter turnout was in 2016, and "if only" we'd gotten more of those voters to show up, we wouldn't be cringing as the world goes mad across the globe while Trump rages at another black athlete on Presidential Twitter.

Either these are matters of basic liberty or they’re not. How is faith outreach more effective than registering new voters and pushing back on voting restrictions? In what sense did Little Sisters of the Poor have to provide birth control to its nuns?
I mean, yeah.  I have no love for Roy Moore, and would be happy to seem him brought down for being a creep as for being a vicious know-nothing (the former being always more likely than the latter), but must we leap from Roy Moore to declaring Bill Clinton should have resigned and is now a pariah for not having done so?  Michael Tomasky wonders (rightly) why we would want to eat our historical young, and I wonder why the Little Sisters of the Poor matter so much to birth control and Bill Clinton to the image the Democrats want to protect (how many millennial remember Clinton at all?  Some of them weren't born when he left office.).  Is this supposed to appeal to faith-based voters somehow?  Or should we look more skeptically on women who make allegations of sexual harassment, for the sake of a few new voters?

And the list goes on. It seems obvious that Dems should reach out to religious voters, but the more critical that outreach is deemed, the more argle-bargle the reasoning becomes. While faith appeals might help peel off a few members of the Republican base, there’s no evidence that it will lead to a broad Democratic appeal, that it’s any more important than a solid economic platform, a charismatic candidate, or keeping the ferkakte Russians from meddling in American elections.

And by "religious," of course, we mean a certain kind of "religious."  Certainly not the kind identified as supporters of Roy Moore, but close, right?  Not the kind of religious like me, a progressive religious nut with radical ideas about the first being last and the last first, the first of all being last of all and servant of all, the kind who say give Caesar what is Caesar's and God what is God's, and put the "Christ" back in "Christian."  No, not that kind.  Not the kind that preaches tolerance and love and emphasizes the Beatitudes over the Ten Commandments, Isaiah's holy mountain over Daniel's Armageddon, or who sees in the Revelation to John the ultimate vision of hope and redemption instead of the hope of ultimate slaughter and destruction.  We don't mean that kind, either.  I can cite a number of parables about stewardship ("a solid economic platform") that would do more for people than the gospel of prosperity, but I have a feeling the kind of "religious" being sought would prefer the latter over the former.

Ultimately, any attempt at wooing "religious" voters ends up with the world laundering the church (I'm keeping that metaphor!), rather than the church laundering the world.  We tried it the other way for awhile, and we ended up with corrupt popes and greedy monks (just look to Chaucer, hardly a Reformist in the 14th century; but he knew) and all manner of problems.  We still have it today.  Billy Graham was a toady to the powerful, not a challenge.  Don't get me started on Ralph Reed or the Moral Majority.  We cannot launder the world's dirty linens; it will only put us through the wringer, and what comes out is "Christmas" attached only to secular ends and needs, and Easter that is all about new clothes and another occasion for a big meal before summer cookouts and autumn tailgates.  We are not going to save the world, not by trying to use the world.  And we are not going to be better off by trying to get the world, even so small a part of it as a political party in America, to turn their attention to us.  Heck, we are barely us, anyway.  Our work is elsewhere, and not measured in votes or election ballots or bottom lines on ledger sheets.

Pastor Dan would likely say I go too far, now.  I would likely say we still haven't gone far enough.  That's the kind of religious nut I am.  Certainly not the kind sought out by saviors of the Democratic party.  That's okay.  I'm not trying to save anybody.

I'm just going to add to this the Adam Serwer article at the Atlantic, but add it only by reference.  Read it for yourself, it's well worth the effort.  We're still looking for an excuse for Trump's triumph:  Russian hacking, economic anxiety,

Oh, I'll quote Walker Percy, whom Serwer quotes, because Percy is always quotable:

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking David Duke is a unique phenomenon confined to Louisiana rednecks and yahoos. He’s not,” Percy said. “He’s not just appealing to the old Klan constituency, he’s appealing to the white middle class. And don’t think that he or somebody like him won’t appeal to the white middle class of Chicago or Queens.”
I don't know if Percy would describe the fundamental problem as original sin, but I'm convinced culture, whether on a national scale or just the locus of a congregation, is as permanent as genetics.  Texas has been a one-party state since Reconstruction, and a conservative one (more so since the '60's than before; call it a backlash, which is what Serwer is describing though he doesn't seem to realize it).  Yet a minor percentage of Texas residents today are "native Texans."  How is it the culture, political and otherwise, remains virtually unchanged despite the radical change in persons making up (and adopting) that culture?

Now you know what you're looking for.
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Thursday, November 23, 2017

Thanksgiving 2017



It's likely Deuteronomy 26 is not historically accurate, especially as it was written after the Exile in the experience of the loss of Israel and Judea and the experiences by the Chebar (we insisted in seminary that Ezekiel found magic mushrooms there), and probably not everyone's father was a wandering Aramean, especially by that point, but it really doesn't matter, does it?  Unless you make historical accuracy your idol, somehow.  No, it's the poetry that matters:  that's where the truth is.

Deuteronomy 26 probably has nothing to do with the American holiday of Thanksgiving, but as the day is more or less related to the harvest (long since in, as I learned living in farm country in Southern Illinois for 2 years) and is a day of giving thanks, this is still the best thanksgiving I know.  And the best story of how and why to use it.

The prayers are from the E&R Hymnal.  It is still my devotion to keep that unknown and/or neglected portion of liturgies alive in whatever way I can.

May your Thanksgiving be a blessed one.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
26:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it,

26:2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.

26:3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us."

26:4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God,

26:5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

26:6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,

26:7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

26:8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders;

26:9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

26:10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God.

26:11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

Psalm 100
100:1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.

100:2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing.

100:3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.

100:5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

PRAISE AND HARVEST

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, from whom cometh every good and pefect gift, we call to remembrance thy loving-kindness and the tender mercies which have been ever of old, and with grateful hearts we would lift up to thee the voice of our thanksgiving,

For all the gifts which thou hast bestowed upon us; for the life thou hast given us, and the world in which we live,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the work we are enabled to do, and the truth we are permitted to learn; for whatever of good there has been in our past lives, and for all the hopes and aspirations which lead us on toward better things,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the order and constancy of nature; for the beauty and bounty of the world; for day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest; for the varied gifts of loveliness and use which every season brings,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the comforts and gladness of life; for our homes and all our home-blessings; for our friends and all pure pleasure; for the love, sympathy, and good will of men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the blessings of civilization, wise government and legislation; for education, and all the privileges we enjoy through literature, science, and art; for the help and counsel of those who are wiser and better than ourselves,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all true knowledge of thee and the world in which we live, and the life of truth and righteousness and divine communion to which thou hast called us; for prophets and apostles, and all earnest seekers after truth; for all lovers and helpers of mankind, and all godly and gifted men and women,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the gift of thy Son Jesus Christ, and all the helps and hopes which are ours as his disciples; for the presence and inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, for all the ministries of thy truth and grace,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For communion with thee, the Father of our spirits; for the light and peace that are gained through trust and obedience, and the darkness and disquietude which befall us when we disobey thy laws and follow our lower desires and selfish passions,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the desire and power to help others; for every opportunity of serving our generation according to thy will, and manifesting the grace of Christ to men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the discipline of life; for the tasks and trials by which we are trained to patience, self-knowledge and self-conquest, and brought into closer sympathy with our suffering brethren; for troubles which have lifted us nearer to thee and drawn us into deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the sacred and tender ties which bind us to the unseen world; for the faith which dispels the shadows of earth, and fills the saddest and the last moments of life with the light of an immortal hope.
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

God of all grace and love, we have praised thee with our lips; grant that we may praise thee also in consecrated and faithful lives. And may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.
AMEN.

THANKSGIVING

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, we call to remembrance they loving-kindness and they tender mercies which have ever been od old, and with grateful hearts we would lift up to the the voice of our thanksgiving.

For all the gifts which thou has bestowed upon us; for the life that thou hast given us, and the world in which we life,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the work we are enabled to do, and the truth we are permitted to learn; for whatever of good there has been in our past lives, and for all the hopes and aspirations which lead us on to better things,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the order and constancy of nature; for the beauty and bounty of the world; for day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest; for the varied gifts of loveliness and use which every season brings,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the comforts and gladness of life; for our homes and all our home-blessings; for our friends and all pure pleasure; for the love, sympathy, and good will of men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the blessings of civilization, wise government and legislation; for education, and all the privileges we enjoy through literature, science, and art; for the help and counsel oj those who are wiser and better than ourselves,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all true knowledge of thee and the world in which we live, and the life of truth and righteousness and divine communion to which thou hast called us; for prophets and apostles, and all earnest seekers after truth; for all lovers and helpers of mankind, and all godly and gifted men and women,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the gift of thy Son Jesus Christ, and all the helps and hopes which are ours as his disciples; for the presence and inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, for all the ministries of thy truth and grace,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For communion with thee, the Father of our spirits; for the light and peace that are gained through trust and obedience, and the darkness and disquietude which befall us when we disobey thy laws and follow our lower desires and selfish passions,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the desire and power to help others; for every opportunity of serving our generation according to thy will, and manifesting the face of Christ to men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the discipline of life; for the tasks and trials by which we are ained to patience, self-knowledge and self-conquest, and brought into closer sympathy with our suffering brethren; for troubles which have lifted us nearer to thee and drawn us into deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the sacred and tender ties which bind us to the unseen world; for the faith which dispels the shadows of earth, and fills the saddest and the last moments of life with the light of an immortal hope,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

God all all grace and love, we have praised thee with our lips; grant that we may praise thee with also in consecrated and faithful lives. And may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

AMEN.
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Tuesday, November 21, 2017

It's a wonder tall trees ain't layin' down....

Sorry, no picture.posting from my ☎(!), just trying to get this out of the nest.


I have to pick this up because it's a defense of the humanities, albeit a transactional one, since the purpose of studying the humanities is not merely to be able to distinguish the bullshit of Donald Trump or Roy Moore from truth:

Realistically, many if not most visitors to the museum won’t have a strong background in biblical history, theology, or related fields, making it difficult to discern where history ends and ideology begins. If they don’t already know, for example, that there is little historical evidence for the Egyptian exile, they may be convinced by the museum’s convenient placement of accurate historical information about ancient Egypt alongside the biblical account of Moses. They might come away thinking that the museum proves that Moses’s exodus happened just like it’s written in the Bible.

If they do so, it is because they have been failed — not just by the Museum of the Bible — but by educational institutions that have not equipped them with the tools with which to assess it. In the public imagination, the humanities have been so routinely undervalued. We have a vague cultural respect for “hard” science, for “STEM subjects,” but not for the humanities, which teach us to ask crucial questions like, Who is making this assertion? Who made this item? Why? or even, Why did someone decide to group all the objects in this museum exhibition together? These questions all fundamentally boil down to one bigger question: How can I tell when something someone is telling me is bullshit?

Without these questions, you end up with a population without the tools to process information about the intersection of faith, religion, history, identity, culture, and practice. You end up with people throughout the political and faith spectrums who, when it comes to anything to do with even the cultural or historical aspects religion, cannot tell valid questions and facts and historical truths from, well, bullshit.

I don't disagree that the humanities are valuable; all of my studies have been in the field known as "humanities."  But the simplest response to the Exodus story is to point out there is no "Red Sea" in Egypt today, and no evidence there ever was one.  There was an argument once, that what was meant was a "Reed Sea," but that entire argument turns too much on the Hebrew (or Greek, in the Septuagint) providing words as similar in those tongues as "Reed" and "Red" are in English.  And Exodus wasn't translated into English until the 16th century, so that doesn't make any sense at all.  Back to beginnings, then:  there is no "Red Sea" in the desert landscape of Egypt and there never was, else Egyptians would have built by it rather than along the Nile.  It doesn't take the careful study of the humanities and learning how to tell valid questions and fact from bullshit, to understand that.

But we have been failed by educational institutions that haven't equipped us with the tools with which to assess the Bible, or anything else.  Except who runs those institutions?  The people; the citizenry.  Few and far between are the secular universities that are truly private; the majority in this country, and some of the wealthiest (UT-Austin, hem-hem) are public.  Schools are largely public, too; the curricula set by professionals overseen and answerable to public officials elected by the public to do just that.  You want people to have the tools for assessment of things not measured by scales and meters?  Make the schools focus on something that isn't STEM, or think they have by adding an "A" to that acronym (what still predominates, is still in the majority?).  And by the way:  good luck with that.

Thinking is hard.  I'm more convinced by that every day.  I read the work of scientists who wander from their STEM fields into the humanities, and think because they are good at science they are good at anything (I still remember the lawyer who took a year off to be the general contractor on his home improvement project.  His fellow lawyers laughed behind his back, recognizing the hubris of someone who, expert in one field, thought he was expert in all.  I used to think that was a hubris peculiar to lawyers, whose work puts them in touch with so many fields of modern society.  Now I know it's just the hubris of education, usually a non-humanitarian education.  Outside of eleemosynary institutions, nothing teaches humility like the rigorous studies of art, philosophy, literature, and history.  You want to know how much you don't know, spend your time in those fields.).  Those wandering scientists think their knowledge is complete, is leading them to a grand unified theory that is only a few puzzle pieces away from being complete.  They know nothing of Godel or Wittgenstein, who look upon their efforts and chuckle and probably would echo Wonder Woman's words after the battle in "Justice League:"  "Children.  I work with children."  She means it kindly and bemusedly; I mean it seriously.  And it isn't hubris that leads me to observe it.

Thinking is hard, and it is not widely supported as a general activity.  Universities became cradles of humanistic thought because they were originally supported by churches, were in fact outgrowths of church efforts at what became known as scholarship.  But rigorous critical thinking is a challenge to the status quo; as long as the church sanctioned it, such practices were the church's problem.  Just to jump to the present day, who are critics of academia talking about when they complain that colleges are hotbeds of "politically correct" thought and dangerous and radical ideas?  The Chemistry Department?  Engineering?  Anything remotely related to STEM?  If you can't figure it out, maybe you need a background in humanities more than you thought you did; except then you'd be exposing yourself to all those "dangerous ideas," and we can't have that, can we?

ADDING:  the discussion turned into a discourse on the Museum of the Bible which is the topic of the article I took the quote from.  William Saletan has been there, and where before I might never have been interested to visit it, now I am.  It sounds like it might be worth the time spent in it.
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Monday, November 20, 2017

This is where I came in


It really is all about the eye of the beholder

NPR this morning interviewed Sherrod Brown about the GOP tax plan because Orrin Hatch pitched a hissy fit (I don't know how else to characterize it) about the Democrat being so mean about the soak-the-middle-class-spare-the-rich tax "reform" being considered.  And then Steve Inskeep had to ask about the allegations against Al Franken.  Which is kind of interesting because apparently that lie is still circling the globe while the truth is getting its boots on:


Was there any tongue in that kiss?  Inquiring minds want to know.


Did this leave Ms. Tweeden traumatized and shaken?
And is Steve Inskeep going to report on this?
The problem with accepting every story that comes out as "true" is the problem of Russian trolls on the internet.  When John Podesta's e-mails were stolen and then released, it was reported that a common KGB tactic was to include manufactured information with the true, the better to sway opinions (and do I think only the KGB knows that trick?  No, I do not.).  But the idea that some of those Podesta e-mails, and which ones?, were false was ignored in the outrage (which runs the internet to this day) they produced.  So while we are busy "believing the women" because to not do so is rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, as well as "victimizes them again," we're feeding the trolls.

I have no doubt sexual assault is a traumatizing experience, and sexual harassment can have long term consequences.  But that doesn't mean every man is a predator and every woman is as fragile as rice paper; or that human beings never tells lies, unless it's to deny an accusation against them.  As I write, the breaking news is another woman accusing Sen. Franken of inappropriate contact, when he grabbed her butt while her husband took a picture of them at the Minnesota State Fair.  It "felt gross," she reports; but it didn't leave her traumatized, apparently.*  I suppose we're going to hear a lot of these stories, although so far this is only two for Sen. Franken, and neither amounts to being banned from the mall in Alabama, or bragging about grabbing women because they can't stop you, you're a celebrity (and those are not the worst accusations made against Moore and Trump).  Let me put it this way:  what Al Franken allegedly did in grabbing that woman's ass while her husband took a picture is not a violation of Minnesota criminal statutes.  What Roy Moore did by making a 14 year old touch his penis in his underwear, IS a violation of Alabama criminal statutes.  This isn't a question of prosecution, but one of measure.  Do we, as Symone Sanders insists, treat Al Franken like Roy Moore?  That strikes me as a rather blunt kind of justice, even if it is only the political question of who belongs in the Senate.  If Roy Moore is elected and is kicked out of the Senate by vote of the Senate, then the same fate should await Al Franken; and how many other Senators?  Now we're into punitive justice, where an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone blind and toothless.  Maybe that's not the desired goal, but where else do we end up if we insist all who are deemed guilty  must be equally punished?

I mean, we're spinning out of control, here.  As I've said before, hysteria is not so dramatic nor so rare as we think it is.  Howard Fineman and Jonathan Alter have both defended Franken on Twitter:

“I've watched ‪@ alfranken unfairly bracketed w/ accused serial sexual predators,” Fineman tweetd. “He & I've been family friends for decades. As a comic, he could be crude. He went too far (& apologized). BUT: he's NOT predatory, adores his wife & family & is a lifelong champion of women's rights.”

“I completely agree,” Alter posted, “and would add that all of us make dumb mistakes. But they shouldn’t be conflated with those of child molesters, perverts and rapists.”
Are we to see no difference between grabbing someone's butt (yes, "gross") and sexual predation?

At some point there's a certain witch-hunt hysteria here, and a desire to make any story into something as serious as any other story.  The problem is, that doesn't always work.  If people are gonna vote for Roy Moore, they're gonna vote for Roy Moore.  If the GOP pays a political price in the future, then that's the way the price is extracted.  If Al Franken fails to be re-elected, that's the way the price is extracted against him.  If we're going to start decapitating everyone based on some new standard of purity which cannot be violated, we're going to end up with no one in office.

Except, as I've also said before, Mike Pence.  Is that really the best outcome?

*"Felt gross" is probably close enough for a civil tort claim of assault, which is defined as 'offensive contact' (if I remember my 2nd Restatement of Torts, and I'm not sure I do.  Funny I ever let go of that; then again, probably not.).  But the damages are, as the law also says, de minimus, or not worth anything.  And one is entitled to wonder if it happened, and if it did, well, yeah....

Because it doesn't deserve a new post:  AND NOW CHARLIE ROSE admits, yeah, he did the gross things he's accused of (wandering around naked in front of women, shoving his hands down a woman's pants, etc.) and he's sorry sorry sorry and he's learned from it and...

You know what?  I'm out.  Al Franken is accused of being an ass-grabber by one woman, makes a childish photo with another (without, apparently, touching her) and he's as bad as these guys?  Al Franken was a jerk, once or twice:  maybe.  Louis C.K. and Roy Moore and Charlie Rose, et al. are sick people.  Two of those three have at least admitted it (as has Franken, at least in apologizing); one refuses to.  Differences of kind, not just of degree.
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What's in a word?



I'm actually sympathetic to this argument.  I'll go further:  I agree with this priest.

“I am simply asking that space be preserved for believers for whom Christmas has nothing to do with Santa and reindeer," he said. “My religious experience of true Christmas, like so many others, is very deep and real – like the air I breathe. But non-believers deserve and need their celebration too, it’s an essential human dynamic and we all need that in the toughness of life.”

“I’m just trying to rescue the reality of Christmas for believers by giving up ‘Christmas’ and replacing it with another word,” he added, noting that if Christians don't take action,  “secularization and modern life will continue to launder the church."
It's an interesting inverse from some 400 years ago, when Puritans who came to this country denounced "Christmas" in no small part because the word derived from "Christ mass," referring to the Catholic observance of the birth of Christ with a special mass.  It was the reference to the mass the Puritans objected to, as they objected to anything having to do with the Church of Rome.  They didn't win that round (obviously) and now we have a President who speaks of "Two Corinthians" as a book in the Bible and asks church pastors if they are Christians, because he knows he's supposed to be one, and he doesn't want to be talking about the wrong religion with the wrong people.  And he insists we will all say "Merry Christmas!," as if his word was a royal edict we ignore upon pain of death.  Yeah, that's fixing the"problem"!

That he doesn't understand that "pastor" is a Christian term is the smallest part of the problem.  But if the Church cedes "Christmas" to the secular world, what word will replace it?  And will the Churches that close on Christmas Sunday (when Dec. 25 falls on a Sunday, as it does about every seven years or so) re-open because that day is no longer "Christmas"?

The priest is right:  we (we Christians) have lost both the words "Christmas" and "Easter," although the origins of Easter are unknown and it's a word we could easily give up for Pasch, which I've always liked better. We've lost the words, I mean, and we might as well let them go and quit fighting over "Merry Christmas" and keeping "Christ" in "Christmas" (it was Christians who invented "Xmas," knowing their Greek better than we do today).  We aren't going to launder the world; the world is only and ever going to launder us.  Same as it ever was, and one of the reasons for Luther's theses 500 years ago.

Now, what do we do without them?  It could be liberating.  Sometimes giving something up is not a loss, it's releasing a burden.  If we don't have to fight about how people use the word "Christmas," if we no longer care what they do with it because it has nothing to do with our religious observances, wouldn't that be a good thing?
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Sunday, November 19, 2017

Well South of Pathetic

It started here:

Followed by:

And then this:
American citizenship only matters if you make proper obeisance to the King.

Alongside that, Trump withdrew an idea that never should have been put forward:
And now he's basking in the glow of the congratulations for not doing what he never should have done, making sure he retweets flattery to his ego:

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Friday, November 17, 2017

So how do you stop a good guy with a gun?


Guns shoot bullets:

Elder members of First United Methodist Church in Tellico Plains were meeting Thursday afternoon to eat a Thanksgiving dinner when the mass shooting came up, and one of them asked if anyone brought their gun to church, reported WATE-TV.

Police said a man in his 80s pulled out a .380 caliber Ruger handgun and boasted, “I carry my handgun everywhere.

The man removed the magazine, cleared the chamber and showed the weapon to some other men, then put the magazine back in, evidently loaded a round into the chamber and returned the gun to his holster, police said.

Someone else walked up and asked to see the gun, police said, and the man took out the weapon again.

He pulled it back out and said, ‘With this loaded indicator, I can tell that it’s not loaded,'” according to Police Chief Russ Parks.

He then pulled the trigger, apparently forgetting he had put a round in the chamber.

The gun was lying on its side on a table, and the bullet sliced the man’s palm and entered the left side of his wife’s abdomen and exited the right.

Both of them were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

It's what they do.

This won't go down as a "mass shooting," since only two people were shot. It should go down as a "shooting in a church," but it probably won't reach that list, either.  I don't know the law in Tennessee, but as a church member I wouldn't be all that comfortable with other members "packing heat" so cavalierly.   Whether the church can block that is a matter of law and church decision.  No doubt this guy thought he was a conscientious and careful gun owner, but this is why the NRA used to be against carrying guns in places where you didn't intent to shoot something (hunting, IOW) and always carried the gun unloaded until you intended to shoot something.  One other rule:  always treat a gun as loaded.  Always.  Because guns shoot bullets, and bullets can hit people.  The NRA used to be all about gun safety, and the proper enjoyment of firearms (i.e., again, in hunting).

Guns shoot bullets.  Guns and bullets follow the laws of physics, not the will of the wielder.  This man never intended to shoot himself or his wife; but he did.  All in the name of self-defense.  The only good outcome here, is that no one else was shot.  But that's not much good, because two people were; two people who shouldn't have been.  And who would he have shot in an assault like the one in Sutherland Springs?  Probably not the "bad guy."  In the excitement, he might even forget to chamber a round.  Wouldn't that be ironic?

In our minds, we are the heroes of our own action movie; in reality, not so much.  Movie heroes, after all, never shoot their wives by accident.
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Thursday, November 16, 2017

Blame it on ergot poisoning?

Hysteria is less dramatic and more common than we think it is.

I understand a world where allegations of sexual harassment and assault (defined here as "offensive contact," that being the legal standard) are not dismissed out of hand.  I don't understand this:

Franken has issued a second statement responding to Tweeden’s allegations. His follow-up is significantly more remorseful, though it still seems to dispute Tweeden’s memory of the unwanted kiss. Franken also now recognizes that there’s “no excuse” for the groping photo and admits that his hypocrisy makes him “feel ashamed.” He has called for a Senate ethics investigation into his own behavior—which indicates that he has no intention of resigning quickly. Instead, he appears to be attempting to rehabilitate his reputation by expressing penance and desire to grow.

Because, says Mark Joseph Stern, Sen. Al Franken must resign.  Immediately.

Huh?

And apparently he really shouldn't disagree with the allegations made against him, but just withdraw from public life and live in shame and repentance to the end of his days.  Or something.

This is where I was afraid this was going to to.  Not the Franken incident, but the entire trajectory of revelation and punishment.  Because it always becomes about the punishment; which, in the end, defeats the purpose of the revelation.  Why change, when you can just purge?

Besides, this doesn't matter, right?

The woman who accused Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) of sexual misconduct said Thursday she accepts his apology.

"The apology, sure I accept it, yes. People make mistakes and of course he knew he made a mistake," Leeann Tweeden said. "So yes I do accept that apology. There's no reason why I shouldn't accept his apology."

She said it's up to Congress to decide if it wants to have an ethics investigation into Franken's behavior, adding that she isn’t calling for Franken to step down, unless more women come forward.

“People make mistakes. I’m not calling for him to step down. That’s not my place to say that,” Tweeden said. 

Punishment is the only way to be sure.  That, or dust off and nuke the whole thing from space.  Two conditions that, in these circumstances, often appear alike.

ADDING:  Because it's an argument worth reading, that this is where everything is headed, I'm afraid:

Writing with almost creepy prescience at Crooked.com this week, Brian Beutler warned against the coming Breitbart-style weaponization of the “Believe Women” movement. “Unfolding against the backdrop of the post-Weinstein revolution, the Moore scandal exposes the conservative propaganda machine in the ugliest and most discrediting possible fashion,” Beutler writes. “But these cultural changes are all but destined to collide with one another in the opposite direction, in a way that exploits both the beneficence of the ‘believe women’ campaign, and the even-handedness of the mainstream media. It is a collision we as a political culture are not equipped to handle, the consequences of which are almost too awful to contemplate.”

That’s why Weinstein fallout could go up in smoke in a second. Because enough people believe that women are all liars, that one liar will fuck it up for all of us.

This Roy Moore Old Testament-Original Sin-Women Are Liars mindset is the worldview that needs to change in order for women to truly have access to the same opportunities that men have. But its opposite—the notion that women must be believed without any evidence whatsoever—will lead the worst among us to exploit the proof loophole and wreak as much damage as they can before their lies are discovered and skewered. At that point, the loophole irreversibly closes. And if that happens, we’re stuck in Roy Moore’s world, where men are the arbiters of morality and if women aren’t lying, they must have been asking for it.

I remember the '60's:  the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement.  Two of those three have not only lost momentum, but been severely reversed.  I remember a science fiction story about the future military, where sergeants sought to motivate soldiers with kindness, and everyone was smoking pot because it was perfectly acceptable.  That was the future imagined at the end of the '60's into the early '70's.  It's completely unimaginable now.  And civil rights?  Would we need Black Lives Matter if that hadn't stalled and gone into reverse.  All the possibilities snapped back into impossibilities the minute we stopped pushing.  Looking back I sometimes think it was a waking collective dream, an illusion, that nothing really happened and nothing was really offered.  This resurgence of feminism, of at least taking women seriously, could snap back, too.  Read the argument at the link; it contains a cautionary tale of another allegation made against Sen. Franken.  And Trump is already tweeting about his situation; the ploughshares are being beaten into swords as we speak.

Be careful what you ask for.
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Texas Independence



The news will still tell you (I just looked at Google) that the driver of this truck is wanted by the Sheriff of Fort Bend County.  Well, Fort Bend County adjoins Harris County, so this story is in the news around here, and I can tell you (without links, so trust me) that the driver of the truck has been identified, and "he" is a "she."  She says she's been stopped numerous times by law enforcement for her sign, but there's nothing illegal about it, and they have to let her go on her way.  Personally, I'm surprised her truck hasn't been vandalized.

A Con Law professor on a local NPR show at noon today noted this kind of thing is protected speech, and has been since at least the '70's.

And besides, the Sheriff who posted this on Facebook has since removed it.  Seems he got more feedback than he wanted, and got a few lessons in Constitutional law, to boot.

Just waiting now for Trump to tweet about it.....
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For the Non-Lawyers among you


Check the kerning!

Going to the opposite end of the spectrum from Sen. Franken's insistence that the women alleging harassment and assault need to be listened to, we turn again to Roy Moore and his Not Ready for Prime Time Lawyers who continue to insist Beverly Nelson is a liar and a forger and not to be trusted, especially when it comes to her high school yearbook.

The claim is that Ms. Nelson copied Judge Moore's signature from a court order where she had "contact" with Judge Moore.  Once upon a time I practiced law in Travis County, Texas.  Travis County had then what's called an "open docket."  The District Court judges weren't assigned cases, they conducted hearings and trials as they were available.  This meant your case might get a hearing before several different judges before being tried by a judge who had never heard a word of argument about the case.

It sounds like they had much the same docket in Etowah County, Alabama.  Three court orders were entered in Ms. Nelson's divorce proceedings in 1999; two signed by W.D Russell, and one signed by Roy Moore.  It is possible this case was Judge Russell's, and Judge Moore signed the final order simply because Judge Russell was not available.  Or there was an open docket, and any judge available signed off on the order (which may have followed a brief hearing among lawyers and Judge Moore, but more likely was an agreed order submitted to the clerk for signature, no court time needed).  Either way, there's nothing here to indicate the parties had "contact" with either judge.

It isn't unusual at all for clients not to have 'contact' with a judge before trial.  Orders for continuances and other pre-trial matters (or setting the case for trial) are routinely signed by judges in chambers.  Indeed, I never saw a judge sign an order in open court.  If you needed a judge's signature you submitted the order to the clerk, who returned it to you later, "you" here being the lawyer.  Clients seldom attend hearings where they don't need to give evidence.  The three orders presented in the Think Progress article are classic orders that lawyers see, and clients never do.  None of those three orders would require the presence of a client (well, a continuance might, under some circumstances; but not usually).  And signing an order of dismissal means simply submitting the order to the clerk, and the clerk's office then gets one of the judges to sign it, since on an open docket one judge's signature is as good as another's. 

Roy Moore's lawyers have tried to play on everyone's ignorance of these simple facts, claiming that Beverly Nelson copied Judge Moore's signature from the one order in her first divorce action to copy it into her yearbook, a rather elaborate scheme that either means she wrote the whole note when she was 16, because she includes the name of the restaurant where she worked at the time, and then decades later went back to the court records to get a copy of Moore's signature from her divorce case;  or she remembered back to that age, imagined she'd met Moore there, and gave that story credence with her elaborate "fake" note, and this one court order she probably didn't have a copy of (I never gave my clients copies of court filings).  Could she have remembered, 18 years later, that Moore signed a document that suspended her first divorce action?  Maybe, but the odds that she ever knew it are slim and none.  I barely remember the judges I appeared before; I know my clients have no idea who signed what order, and wouldn't be able to research their file at the clerk's office to find a signature.

Considering the elaboration it takes to establish that this note in a yearbook is forged, it offends good sense to accept it as even possible, much less probable.  And I wonder about this excuse that Moore's assistant stamped his orders and put her initials there.  That's not a practice I've ever seen or been aware of, and it's notable Judge Russell didn't indicate any similar practice on the two orders he signed.

In the end none of this really means anything except these people are not ready for primetime.  Moore's lawyers seem much more concerned about this story than any of the other allegations.  That intensity is much more interesting than any of their feeble attempts to turn it back.  And in light of Sen. Franken's statement that the women coming forward "deserve to be heard and believed", it highlights the moral paucity of a man seeking public office who would allow such a defense of his actions to be made.
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