A troll over at CHRefugee is entertaining us with some proofs that Mars used to be earthlike planet until a meteor changed its orbit, and that people used to have advanced flying technology.
It's all because of the aliens. Naturally.
His argument cites the book of Ezekiel as one example of an ancient encounter with a UFO. UFOlogists love that book because Ezekiel details a vision of a wheel on fire in the sky. Clearly, a UFO sighting. Why? Because they want it to be. A pothead might look at that same passage and say that Ezekiel was smoking dope, just as someone else could look at the book of Revelation and say that St. John the Divine was eating psychadelic mushrooms. Each group is looking at the passage to see support for their own position, without stopping to weigh the passage on its own merits and evaluate the claims it makes about itself. This is the kind of logic that allowed Aristotle (?) to prove that women have fewer teeth than men and some Christian fundamentalists to prove that women have one fewer ribs than men.
That there have been flying machines long since before Jean Picard or the Wright brothers is pretty well documented, even if it's not something the average schmoe is aware of -- but that's a "machine" in the simplest sense of the word; i.e., a hang-glider. I'm aware of one myself from medieval Europem and I think Ray Bradbury wrote a story based on an old Chinese legend about a hangglider a few thousand years ago. The idea of a technologically advanced flying machine is an anachronism that is supported only by raping the text to see things not contained in it.
The UFO interpreation Ezekiel passage, for example, takes a pretty dim and condescending view of the ancients, that they would see something advanced and unfamiliar and automatically try to force it into a superstitious worldview. Come on, really. Are we honestly supposed to think people were so stupid that they couldn't tell an encounter with corporeal entities from one with incorporeal ones?
As for Mars being knocked out of orbit, well, I think what we're missing here is the notion of a cosmic billiards game. Picture it: God says, "Red planet in the corner pocket," and shoots a giant meteor through the solar system. It strikes Mars, knocking it into a highly eccentric orbit before ricocheting off the fifth planet. This planet it shatters, leaving a belt of asteroids, and then swings back and hits Mars again, giving it that second orbital thrust to stabilize the orbit again.
Unfortunately, God misunderstood the nature of a gravity well and failed to sink Mars into any such well but its own.
Game ends, God loses. A fight breaks out in the pool room, and we have a war in the heavens.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
finding a good location
I would think geothermal activity would be something not to get too close to, given the potential for the planet wiping out the colony on short notice if it's having a bad day. And since we're talking about a young planet, geologically speaking, there's bound to be a fair amount of volcanic activity and even tectonic shifting. That's why I figure there's just one Pangaea type of continent.
I agree the minerals and ores would be important, which means of course that we would need some sort of prefab equipment for boring and for processing what we find. Again, such a camp probably should be located a safe distance from the colony because of the nature of the work.
If the materials are readily enough available, I would suggest building a number of habitats, so that ecosystems of savannah, tropical and other life can be established early on. That would be a structural engineering feat, though, since we would need a lot of space to get the ecosystem established properly, something close to a thousand square miles per ecosystem.
And no concrete bases, either. They found at Biosphere 2 that concrete takes decades to cure, and in a closed system it gradually causes the air to go anoxic. Perhaps we would grind the top 10 feet of soil into small rocks and rock dust -- more prefab equipment -- and secure the supports into the rock beneath somehow, then dome the entire enclosure. Probably should do the rock grinding anyway, just so we can start creating alien soil.
And of course that means we'll need compost or some earthly soil to help establish the soil on our alien world, which will be bereft of life. So we'll need to pack a ton of that -- several tons, actually. Maybe a cubic mile? That should allow us to create an inch or two of top soil over a lot of surface area, and two to three inches of top soil in our farming areas.
If concrete becomes necessary for the bases, we'll need a way to correct the oxygen problem, since the plants won't be able to support the ecosystem and cure the concrete at the same time. Maybe we could supply each ecosystem with a mechanical air converter, or with a supply of liquid oxygen that can be released when levels in the air start to get too low.
I think it really would be necessary to do more than wait for the algae to convert the atmosphere for us.
I agree the minerals and ores would be important, which means of course that we would need some sort of prefab equipment for boring and for processing what we find. Again, such a camp probably should be located a safe distance from the colony because of the nature of the work.
If the materials are readily enough available, I would suggest building a number of habitats, so that ecosystems of savannah, tropical and other life can be established early on. That would be a structural engineering feat, though, since we would need a lot of space to get the ecosystem established properly, something close to a thousand square miles per ecosystem.
And no concrete bases, either. They found at Biosphere 2 that concrete takes decades to cure, and in a closed system it gradually causes the air to go anoxic. Perhaps we would grind the top 10 feet of soil into small rocks and rock dust -- more prefab equipment -- and secure the supports into the rock beneath somehow, then dome the entire enclosure. Probably should do the rock grinding anyway, just so we can start creating alien soil.
And of course that means we'll need compost or some earthly soil to help establish the soil on our alien world, which will be bereft of life. So we'll need to pack a ton of that -- several tons, actually. Maybe a cubic mile? That should allow us to create an inch or two of top soil over a lot of surface area, and two to three inches of top soil in our farming areas.
If concrete becomes necessary for the bases, we'll need a way to correct the oxygen problem, since the plants won't be able to support the ecosystem and cure the concrete at the same time. Maybe we could supply each ecosystem with a mechanical air converter, or with a supply of liquid oxygen that can be released when levels in the air start to get too low.
I think it really would be necessary to do more than wait for the algae to convert the atmosphere for us.
colonizing space amid alien life
Would you take part in colonizing another world? It's meant as a serious sci-fi question.
I myself would love to, and probably if it were to come when I was in my early 20s, I would jump at the chance. Now that I'm 33, married and have two children -- and all that that entails -- reality almost certainly would prevent me from leaving, since that would mean uprooting all of us from all our friends, family and loved ones. The separation would be too irrevocable, and I don't think I'd be able to content myself just with lightspeed communication, given the number of years that would pass between communiques.
And since superluminal travel is out of the question, well, like I said, I couldn't see myself doing such a thing at this point in my life, though I would always think wistfully of our distant kin.
My initial thought would be a world where there is no other life, but the question of intelligent life on other worlds is an interesting one.
Someone -- I think it was Beethoven Brucker -- mentioned a story where a Christian missionary tried to bring the gospel to an alien race, who had no understanding of the Christian concept of sin. The evangelism didn't go very well. The aliens were utterly freaked out, and ended up crucifying the missionary, thereby introducing their own fall.
Ray Bradbury has done two stories on the subject. In one, "The Man," he has a crew of astronauts landing on a world where Christ has just been and just departed. I don't remember much else about it. I think it was included in "The October Country." His second one was in "The Martian Chronicles," and showed a missionary trying and utterly failing to interest the Martians in his religion since it was something they had no use for.
Some time ago I toyed with the idea of a story around space travelers encountering intelligent life on other worlds, only to discover that the intelligent life in question is human, having been there since humanity was scattered after the Tower of Babel. Still might be a story worth developing at some time.
In any event, I think the question of bringing sin to other planets is a moot one. I don't think there is life elsewhere, and if we talk about a barren planet, I don't think the planet will suffer much for being awakened by life. If there is life elsewhere, I rather imagine it's fallen too. If not, true, we would bring our own sin to it, but think of what we could learn of grace by mingling with an unfallen people.
I myself would love to, and probably if it were to come when I was in my early 20s, I would jump at the chance. Now that I'm 33, married and have two children -- and all that that entails -- reality almost certainly would prevent me from leaving, since that would mean uprooting all of us from all our friends, family and loved ones. The separation would be too irrevocable, and I don't think I'd be able to content myself just with lightspeed communication, given the number of years that would pass between communiques.
And since superluminal travel is out of the question, well, like I said, I couldn't see myself doing such a thing at this point in my life, though I would always think wistfully of our distant kin.
My initial thought would be a world where there is no other life, but the question of intelligent life on other worlds is an interesting one.
Someone -- I think it was Beethoven Brucker -- mentioned a story where a Christian missionary tried to bring the gospel to an alien race, who had no understanding of the Christian concept of sin. The evangelism didn't go very well. The aliens were utterly freaked out, and ended up crucifying the missionary, thereby introducing their own fall.
Ray Bradbury has done two stories on the subject. In one, "The Man," he has a crew of astronauts landing on a world where Christ has just been and just departed. I don't remember much else about it. I think it was included in "The October Country." His second one was in "The Martian Chronicles," and showed a missionary trying and utterly failing to interest the Martians in his religion since it was something they had no use for.
Some time ago I toyed with the idea of a story around space travelers encountering intelligent life on other worlds, only to discover that the intelligent life in question is human, having been there since humanity was scattered after the Tower of Babel. Still might be a story worth developing at some time.
In any event, I think the question of bringing sin to other planets is a moot one. I don't think there is life elsewhere, and if we talk about a barren planet, I don't think the planet will suffer much for being awakened by life. If there is life elsewhere, I rather imagine it's fallen too. If not, true, we would bring our own sin to it, but think of what we could learn of grace by mingling with an unfallen people.
Saturday, March 27, 2004
oxygenating atmosphere on acheron
The idea of using algae to assist in creating the appropriate atmosphere has occurred to me, but my concern there would be that it will take millions of years to reach the point that the atmosphere is breathable if algae are the only or even primary means of changing the atmosphere. You would need to seed the ocean and other major bodies of water, obviously, but it's going to take forever for them to reproduce enough to make a major difference, especially since a lot of the oxygen they produce is just going to be absorbed by the water anyway. It's only after the water reaches the saturation point with oxygen that it's really going to start entering the atmosphere.
Aquatic plants also would need to be down below the surface far enough to block out the ultraviolet light until an ozone layer had developed. Most likely the initial colonies of marine life will be in something like Sea World, with an eye toward eventually releasing the animals into the wild once the food chain has reached the point that it can support the larger animals. But with an ocean of the size we're talking about, I imagine we're talking about thousands of years without a major concerted effort.
I'm thinking some sort of apparatus would be needed that could be mounted on the continent's rocky surface, or rather embedded in the surface. I'm also imagining that if it's going to make any sort of progress in changing the atmosphere, it's going to move a tremendous volume of air in a very short period, kicking up whirlwinds everywhere, and probably igniting the gases in the current atmosphere as the oxygen is let loose.
Obviously not something our colonists will want to live right next to.
Probably they would be in a dome-covered hometown, maybe five square miles or so, so they can establish a farming ecology until they can open the dome or build other dome-covered habitats. But you're going to need a lot more than five square miles to establish a healthy, self-sustaining ecology.
As to the tigon question, my understanding is that tigons are one of the results of crossing tigers and lions. (The other being a liger.)
But am I correct in thinking that cheetahs, leopards and panthers also are capable of interbreeding with lions and tigers? I remember hearing a while ago that ecologists were distressed to discover that the Florida panther had gone extinct -- not by being hunted to death, but by interbreeding with other great cats so that the Florida panther genome no longer existed.
I remember talking the point with my high school biology teacher. If the basis for calling two animals different species is based solely on their appearance or the differing habitats they prefer, then they're not really separate species. They're just different breeds or populations of the same species, with perhaps different grooming or mating habits or a different social structure, but that's it. It's just sloppy taxonomy to insist on classifying them separately.
Aquatic plants also would need to be down below the surface far enough to block out the ultraviolet light until an ozone layer had developed. Most likely the initial colonies of marine life will be in something like Sea World, with an eye toward eventually releasing the animals into the wild once the food chain has reached the point that it can support the larger animals. But with an ocean of the size we're talking about, I imagine we're talking about thousands of years without a major concerted effort.
I'm thinking some sort of apparatus would be needed that could be mounted on the continent's rocky surface, or rather embedded in the surface. I'm also imagining that if it's going to make any sort of progress in changing the atmosphere, it's going to move a tremendous volume of air in a very short period, kicking up whirlwinds everywhere, and probably igniting the gases in the current atmosphere as the oxygen is let loose.
Obviously not something our colonists will want to live right next to.
Probably they would be in a dome-covered hometown, maybe five square miles or so, so they can establish a farming ecology until they can open the dome or build other dome-covered habitats. But you're going to need a lot more than five square miles to establish a healthy, self-sustaining ecology.
As to the tigon question, my understanding is that tigons are one of the results of crossing tigers and lions. (The other being a liger.)
But am I correct in thinking that cheetahs, leopards and panthers also are capable of interbreeding with lions and tigers? I remember hearing a while ago that ecologists were distressed to discover that the Florida panther had gone extinct -- not by being hunted to death, but by interbreeding with other great cats so that the Florida panther genome no longer existed.
I remember talking the point with my high school biology teacher. If the basis for calling two animals different species is based solely on their appearance or the differing habitats they prefer, then they're not really separate species. They're just different breeds or populations of the same species, with perhaps different grooming or mating habits or a different social structure, but that's it. It's just sloppy taxonomy to insist on classifying them separately.
sci-fi and fantasy
Sci-fi can encourage a materialistic worldview whereas fantasy can encourage a greater awareness of the spiritual world because it's true. Yeah, some sci-fi horror stuff purports to deal with the supernatural, but it does it all through technobabble about other dimensions and superstring theory. In other words, it essentially says, "It can all be explained scientifically." Fantasy says, "There are supernatural worlds out there that we'll never understand by reason alone."
chthulhu sightings
In the Classic Trek episode "What are Little Girls Made Of?" the Enterprise visits a planet with Roc, an android who has been tending the machines for so long even he has forgotten how long.
Roc occasionally makes reference to the Old Ones, all supposedly dead. The design of the sets and costuming also was supposed to resemble some Lovecraft settings. Oh, and Roger Korby -- the antagonist of the episode -- has a plan to replace humanity with machines, basically killing all the humans in the process.
The rather forgettable Lawrence Fishburne sci-fi movie "Event Horizon" also has some obvious Lovecraft influences as well. The ship's hyperdrive -- it employs an artificially created black hole -- opens a portal to a dimension of infinite evil that drives everyone into a suicidal/homicidal madness.
I also recently found another Cthulhu tribute that I'm surprised I never noticed before. It's in Larry Niven's "World of Ptavvs," in which Kzanol is released from billions of years in stasis.
Why does this matter? Well, Kzanol is a thrint, a race of telepathic beings who ruled the galaxy billions of years ago. A race -- or group of races, more likely -- called the tnuctipun eventually found a way to throw off the thrints' telepathic dominion and started a huge war that led to the extinction of the thrintun race. Kzanol missed this entire war because he was in a stasis field at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
During the billions of years he has been asleep, his entire race has gone extinct, taking with it all intelligent life in the galaxy. In the meantime, intelligent life has evolved from the yeast farms the thrintun had seeded on planets such as Earth and the Kzin homeworld.
The humans have discovered Kzanol's stasis field and find a way to open it. His psychic blast drives thousands of people insane. Others suffer tremendous nightmares. And the race begins among Kzanol, the Belters, the Earth and a human telepath who thinks he is Kzanol to recover a psychic amplifier that will allow Kzanol to rule the entire earth telepathically.
He's also a rather ugly creature with one eye, and with tentacles around his mouth. Since humans evolved from the food yeast the thrintun grew on the planet, he finds us quite tasty.
Hmm. A member of a very old race, asleep under the ocean for billions of years, his waking drives men mad and heralds the possible end of human civilization, and he's even got the appearance.
I can't believe I never noticed it before.
Roc occasionally makes reference to the Old Ones, all supposedly dead. The design of the sets and costuming also was supposed to resemble some Lovecraft settings. Oh, and Roger Korby -- the antagonist of the episode -- has a plan to replace humanity with machines, basically killing all the humans in the process.
The rather forgettable Lawrence Fishburne sci-fi movie "Event Horizon" also has some obvious Lovecraft influences as well. The ship's hyperdrive -- it employs an artificially created black hole -- opens a portal to a dimension of infinite evil that drives everyone into a suicidal/homicidal madness.
I also recently found another Cthulhu tribute that I'm surprised I never noticed before. It's in Larry Niven's "World of Ptavvs," in which Kzanol is released from billions of years in stasis.
Why does this matter? Well, Kzanol is a thrint, a race of telepathic beings who ruled the galaxy billions of years ago. A race -- or group of races, more likely -- called the tnuctipun eventually found a way to throw off the thrints' telepathic dominion and started a huge war that led to the extinction of the thrintun race. Kzanol missed this entire war because he was in a stasis field at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
During the billions of years he has been asleep, his entire race has gone extinct, taking with it all intelligent life in the galaxy. In the meantime, intelligent life has evolved from the yeast farms the thrintun had seeded on planets such as Earth and the Kzin homeworld.
The humans have discovered Kzanol's stasis field and find a way to open it. His psychic blast drives thousands of people insane. Others suffer tremendous nightmares. And the race begins among Kzanol, the Belters, the Earth and a human telepath who thinks he is Kzanol to recover a psychic amplifier that will allow Kzanol to rule the entire earth telepathically.
He's also a rather ugly creature with one eye, and with tentacles around his mouth. Since humans evolved from the food yeast the thrintun grew on the planet, he finds us quite tasty.
Hmm. A member of a very old race, asleep under the ocean for billions of years, his waking drives men mad and heralds the possible end of human civilization, and he's even got the appearance.
I can't believe I never noticed it before.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
end the culture war
The best way to end a culture way is to stop shooting bullets.
Members of the media aren't the enemy of the pro-life mission. I'm pro-life, and always have been. I've attended the March for Life a few times, I've attended peaceful demonstrations, and I've written a number of articles and columns that present my pro-life views directly, tacitly or subtly. No one's ever protested that or tried to run me out of the business.
While I've known a few jackasses, most journalists aren't anything like that. We have our blind spots and our shortcomings, and yeah, sometimes we have our own agendas that help determine what stories we report and how we report them. We're human.
Talk to me levelly and fairly, treat me with respect, and chances are I'll be willing to admit to some of my failings, and I'll even try to correct them. A friend of mine did that with my views on the Second Amendment and how I report on firearms. I'm looking for a chance to do a story on guns as a sport, so I can present a side of the story that often gets overlooked because of the deaths that often stem from irresponsible gun owernship.
That sort of skill at dealing with people is something I think many of the most outspoken pro-lifers lack. Yeah, maybe it's not fair that a good many journalists are pro-choice. What can I say? Life stinks. I wish more of my colleagues valued life the way I do. They don't.
There is a pronounced tendency in the church, particularly among Christians who are outspoken politically, to deal with the media with a massive chip on our shoulders. Such attitudes do little to engender understanding or sympathy for any cause. There are groups I've dealt with that shoot themselves in the foot regularly because they view the media with distrust every time, and regularly use the media's forums to reinforce the negative relationship. Self-righteous condescension doesn't win many converts.
The way to get journalists to change their attitude toward abortion and toward pro-lifers isn't to scream about bias and deliberate efforts to discriminate or suppress the truth. If someone does that to me, I shut them out, even if I agree with them on the important issue. I don't have time or patience for vitriol. The message is in the delivery as much as the content.
PETA makes the news as often as it does because their actions are patently ridiculous, and they're usually stunned by the negative reactions they get. In that sense they're like many pro-lifers: as a group that mingles among itself, it just can't understand how anybody can possess the same facts and not leap to the same sense of moral outrage.
Members of the media aren't the enemy of the pro-life mission. I'm pro-life, and always have been. I've attended the March for Life a few times, I've attended peaceful demonstrations, and I've written a number of articles and columns that present my pro-life views directly, tacitly or subtly. No one's ever protested that or tried to run me out of the business.
While I've known a few jackasses, most journalists aren't anything like that. We have our blind spots and our shortcomings, and yeah, sometimes we have our own agendas that help determine what stories we report and how we report them. We're human.
Talk to me levelly and fairly, treat me with respect, and chances are I'll be willing to admit to some of my failings, and I'll even try to correct them. A friend of mine did that with my views on the Second Amendment and how I report on firearms. I'm looking for a chance to do a story on guns as a sport, so I can present a side of the story that often gets overlooked because of the deaths that often stem from irresponsible gun owernship.
That sort of skill at dealing with people is something I think many of the most outspoken pro-lifers lack. Yeah, maybe it's not fair that a good many journalists are pro-choice. What can I say? Life stinks. I wish more of my colleagues valued life the way I do. They don't.
There is a pronounced tendency in the church, particularly among Christians who are outspoken politically, to deal with the media with a massive chip on our shoulders. Such attitudes do little to engender understanding or sympathy for any cause. There are groups I've dealt with that shoot themselves in the foot regularly because they view the media with distrust every time, and regularly use the media's forums to reinforce the negative relationship. Self-righteous condescension doesn't win many converts.
The way to get journalists to change their attitude toward abortion and toward pro-lifers isn't to scream about bias and deliberate efforts to discriminate or suppress the truth. If someone does that to me, I shut them out, even if I agree with them on the important issue. I don't have time or patience for vitriol. The message is in the delivery as much as the content.
PETA makes the news as often as it does because their actions are patently ridiculous, and they're usually stunned by the negative reactions they get. In that sense they're like many pro-lifers: as a group that mingles among itself, it just can't understand how anybody can possess the same facts and not leap to the same sense of moral outrage.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
a shift in the tone
A friend of mine has pointed out that no one he knows from Pittsburgh understands how to ask questions. When we do ask something, the pitch of the last word, instead of being slightly elevated, comes out either flat or as part of a sing-son series of words, so that it sounds as though the Pittsburgher has left a sentence unfinished.
Illustrated with punctuation marks, this means the Pittsburgh native says things like, "Do you want to see the movie." Or "Haven't I seen you before."
Vince went on to make a remark about Pittsburghers' insistence on using the word "pop" to refer to soft drinks. (He also noted that Midwesterners usually pronounce it as "pawp.") At was at this point that Vince suddenly and unexpectedly was ejected from my vehicle.
As I later told him, any true Pittsburgher will defend to the death our use of the word "pop" since that is the correct common noun to use in reference to soft drinks.Friday, March 12, 2004
kerry for aristide
John Kerry says in The New York Daily News that he would have dispatched the armed forces to keep Aristide in power.
It sounds like Kerry is just using this as an excuse to disagree with Bush, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he wants to see Haiti's fledgling democratic government endure. I still disagree with him.
There were more questions about Aristide's election than about Bush's. Whether we believe the Supreme Court gave him the election or think Gore should have won because of popular vote is to some degree irrelevant. He won the general election through the processes our nation has set up, and probably with no more corruption in his camp than was in Gore's. You can't say the same about Ti Tid's election. The reports of fraud were so bad there that many governments refused to recognize him as the legitimate winner and pulled their aid for the nation. The questions surrounding his election were one of the stated reasons for the insurgency.
Committing to keeping Aristide in power would be a costly move in terms of manpower, and probably in lives as well. True, our forces are better equipped and better trained than the Haitian military (although many of them graduated from West Point). But that hasn't exactly helped in Iraq, has it?
By the time the Marines removed Ti Tid from the national palace, the insurgents already had captured most of the nation's big cities. Cap Haitien, Gonaives, Jeremie and so on were all under their control. Aristide had Port-au-Prince, but that's about it. His biggest supporters, the people from the slums of Cite Soleil and Carrefour and other such places, were and are in those places (except where they've been executed), and they've demonstrated a remarkable tenacity and determination to fight, even after his departure. Failing to remove Aristide would have put these two positions in a position where they would have been fighting in close quarters, and would have left our troops in the crossfire.
And to be honest, having encountered some pretty appalling racism in our Marines stationed in Haiti, I can't say I would expect them to handle that situation with a lot of finesse. I can see a lot of unnecessary casualties in Haiti coming from a prolonged occupation of the type that Kerry is describing, with a comeasurate increase in anti-American sentiment.
Besides, with the American military backing his presidency, do you really think Ti Tid would *lose* the next election?
It's a difficult problem no matter how you slice it, but I think Bush did the best thing in this situation.
It sounds like Kerry is just using this as an excuse to disagree with Bush, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he wants to see Haiti's fledgling democratic government endure. I still disagree with him.
There were more questions about Aristide's election than about Bush's. Whether we believe the Supreme Court gave him the election or think Gore should have won because of popular vote is to some degree irrelevant. He won the general election through the processes our nation has set up, and probably with no more corruption in his camp than was in Gore's. You can't say the same about Ti Tid's election. The reports of fraud were so bad there that many governments refused to recognize him as the legitimate winner and pulled their aid for the nation. The questions surrounding his election were one of the stated reasons for the insurgency.
Committing to keeping Aristide in power would be a costly move in terms of manpower, and probably in lives as well. True, our forces are better equipped and better trained than the Haitian military (although many of them graduated from West Point). But that hasn't exactly helped in Iraq, has it?
By the time the Marines removed Ti Tid from the national palace, the insurgents already had captured most of the nation's big cities. Cap Haitien, Gonaives, Jeremie and so on were all under their control. Aristide had Port-au-Prince, but that's about it. His biggest supporters, the people from the slums of Cite Soleil and Carrefour and other such places, were and are in those places (except where they've been executed), and they've demonstrated a remarkable tenacity and determination to fight, even after his departure. Failing to remove Aristide would have put these two positions in a position where they would have been fighting in close quarters, and would have left our troops in the crossfire.
And to be honest, having encountered some pretty appalling racism in our Marines stationed in Haiti, I can't say I would expect them to handle that situation with a lot of finesse. I can see a lot of unnecessary casualties in Haiti coming from a prolonged occupation of the type that Kerry is describing, with a comeasurate increase in anti-American sentiment.
Besides, with the American military backing his presidency, do you really think Ti Tid would *lose* the next election?
It's a difficult problem no matter how you slice it, but I think Bush did the best thing in this situation.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
haiti's unrest
Haiti's having an election.
Aristide's been claiming that he was abducted by the U.S. Marines. I've no idea what to make of that. I wouldn't put it past Bush to tell the troops to go in and get Ti Tid out of Port-au-Prince whether he wants to go or not, but the truth is that Haiti has about zero value to us politically, tradewise or in any other category that really matters to our presidents, Democratic or Republican.
If Bush did order the Marines to remove him, it probably was for chiefly two reasons. One, he didn't want the situation to become all-out civil war with people being massacred in the streets. That sort of intervention would appeal to him on a humanitarian level, and politically, since he probably would (deservedly) get beaten up by the Democrats and media commentators for allowing the situation to reach that point when he could have prevented it. Two, it just doesn't pay to have a situation as messy as Haiti was about to become right on doorstep, geopolitically speaking.
But in the long haul, the Bush administration probably is about as committed to Haiti as other U.S. administrations have been since Haiti won its independence in 1804. Haiti has no oil, nor gold, nor other natural resources that should make it matter to us. Its economy is dreadful, which makes it a lousy prospect for trade, and it's not being ruled by a communist dictator, so we've never had any substantial political interest in the island or human rights abuses there. (Carter was the exception. He was appalled by Duvalier's record, and refused to support his corrupt government with aid money that would just be stolen.)
Haiti has been the bastard stepchild of American politics since the beginning. There was an entire regiment of volunteer Haitians who fought for American independence from Britan, and some of those volunteers went on to fight for their own independence from France. When they won in 1804, we decided it would be a bad idea to recognize Haiti as an independent state because we had slaves of our own, and didn't want to give them any ideas. It wasn't until 1865, after the Civil War and after the Emancipation Proclamation that we recognized Haiti as an independent republic, and even so, we've never really done much for the country.
After Aristide was ousted by the first coup, in 1991, the previous Bush administration slapped the coutnry with a trade embargo that made a difficult life positively hell for the common Haitian. (You think the lack of success with trade sanctions on Iraq is something new? Economic sanctions never dissuade dictators from being tinpot bullies, and they never empower the people to rise up against their better equipped and wealthier rulers.)
Unfortunately, we've never really committed as a nation to helping the Haitian people. Boat people from Cuba are granted asylum automatically. Boat people from Haiti don't even get a hearing; they're repatriated automatically. Great solution. Bush had the military doing this even in the days right before we removed Ti Tid. If that's his brand of compassionate conservatism, I'm glad to be a bleeding heart liberal.
What's going on right now in Haiti is part of the cyclical Haitian way of life. When people have had enough of one government, they overthrow it. When they've decided that someone is keeping them down, they rise up and dechouke that person, whether he was keeping them down or not. I've heard it described this way: In America, if you have something I want, I try to go out and get one of my own. If I'm a criminal, I just steal yours. In Haiti, the more common solution is to destroy yours so that you don't have one either. So they regularly destroy their own infrastructure to keep everyone else from getting ahead. Hotels, homes, bakeries, you name it.
Democracy can't really take root there because democracy assumes certain values, mores, and education that just aren't there yet. Illiteracy estimates range from 60 percent to 80 percent; the nation officially is 10 percent Protestant and 90 percent Catholic, but if you add on "and 100 percent voodoo" you start to get a better sense of the spiritual yoke they're under.
The gospel is what that nation needs, but -- like everywhere else, I suppose -- there's a warped view of what the church is about. If you want to get rich, the answer is to become a minister. In many ways, because of the way missions is done from the United States, the Haitian church has fallen into a real serious enslavement to Mammon. I've talked to pastors who see nothing wrong with leaving their wives and children and going to the United States to serve God here. (And get lots of money, naturally.)
I don't have much faith in the current situation. Guy Philippe is connected with FRAPH, a group well-known in Haiti for political executions. A paramilitary group, it includes many former military memebers and, not surprisingly, a lot of former Tonton Macoutes. (The Tonton Macoutes took their name from the Haitian bogeyman, and were Duvalier's brute squad.) Not surprisingly, after saying all they wanted was for Aristide to leave, the insurgents now are refusing to disarm. How much do you want to bet Philippe is going to be a bid for power, either directly or covertly, as the new government takes shape?
Yet things go on. After the tense days and weeks before Aristide was removed -- and after the looting, killings and riots after he was removed -- things pretty much went back to normal, from what I'm told by friends who are still there. When you live at the subsistence level, you can't afford to stay inside for days on end. People go out and do their business, stay in at night, and life proceeds as it did before.
If you want, pray for Steve and Ruth Hershey. They're friends of mine who are down there right now, still teaching at Cradle of Life Christian School. They live in school housing with their two children. There's also Laura Busshey, who I never worked with personally but knew through STEM Ministries. She was attacked in her home by looters the day Aristide left. (Ruth, painfully, was on the phone with her at the time.) I don't how badly she was hurt, just that she was attacked. I suspect she might have been raped, but really don't know.
I also have other friends who are back in the States at the moment, named Phil and Lonnie Murphy. Phil was Stateside anyway to attend a missions conference, and Lonnie and their son David were coming to Florida to visit his sister Michelle at college. Their missions board convinced them to stay. Knowing Phil, the board probably had to work hard to do that. He and Lonnie have stayed in Haiti through at least four coups and one U.S. invasion. Both their children were born there, and they themselves probably will be there for another five to 10 years, si Bondie vlé.
Phil and Lonnie run an orphanage in the mountains north of Port-au-Prince. They used to live in downtown Port, but moved the orphanage about eight years ago so they could expand it to the next phase. In addition to raising about 20 Haitian children and teaching them valuable skills like budgeting, the value of hard work, and so on, the Murphys also are engaged in community building. They've been teaching not just the kids but their neighbors some useful agricultural techniques, from simple stuff like composting to more advanced stuff like permaculture. Their goal is to get the orphange to the point that the grown-up kids can take over for them and eventually run the place on their own.
Phil and Lonnie are really neat people. I can honestly say they had a bigger impact on me in Haiti than anyone else. They're the only American missionaries I know who are invited to participate in the lives of their Haitian neighbors, such as baptisms, weddings and funerals. You know, if anyone wants to support them, I offer the Murphys my unqualified endorsement and would be happy to share their support information.
Aristide's been claiming that he was abducted by the U.S. Marines. I've no idea what to make of that. I wouldn't put it past Bush to tell the troops to go in and get Ti Tid out of Port-au-Prince whether he wants to go or not, but the truth is that Haiti has about zero value to us politically, tradewise or in any other category that really matters to our presidents, Democratic or Republican.
If Bush did order the Marines to remove him, it probably was for chiefly two reasons. One, he didn't want the situation to become all-out civil war with people being massacred in the streets. That sort of intervention would appeal to him on a humanitarian level, and politically, since he probably would (deservedly) get beaten up by the Democrats and media commentators for allowing the situation to reach that point when he could have prevented it. Two, it just doesn't pay to have a situation as messy as Haiti was about to become right on doorstep, geopolitically speaking.
But in the long haul, the Bush administration probably is about as committed to Haiti as other U.S. administrations have been since Haiti won its independence in 1804. Haiti has no oil, nor gold, nor other natural resources that should make it matter to us. Its economy is dreadful, which makes it a lousy prospect for trade, and it's not being ruled by a communist dictator, so we've never had any substantial political interest in the island or human rights abuses there. (Carter was the exception. He was appalled by Duvalier's record, and refused to support his corrupt government with aid money that would just be stolen.)
Haiti has been the bastard stepchild of American politics since the beginning. There was an entire regiment of volunteer Haitians who fought for American independence from Britan, and some of those volunteers went on to fight for their own independence from France. When they won in 1804, we decided it would be a bad idea to recognize Haiti as an independent state because we had slaves of our own, and didn't want to give them any ideas. It wasn't until 1865, after the Civil War and after the Emancipation Proclamation that we recognized Haiti as an independent republic, and even so, we've never really done much for the country.
After Aristide was ousted by the first coup, in 1991, the previous Bush administration slapped the coutnry with a trade embargo that made a difficult life positively hell for the common Haitian. (You think the lack of success with trade sanctions on Iraq is something new? Economic sanctions never dissuade dictators from being tinpot bullies, and they never empower the people to rise up against their better equipped and wealthier rulers.)
Unfortunately, we've never really committed as a nation to helping the Haitian people. Boat people from Cuba are granted asylum automatically. Boat people from Haiti don't even get a hearing; they're repatriated automatically. Great solution. Bush had the military doing this even in the days right before we removed Ti Tid. If that's his brand of compassionate conservatism, I'm glad to be a bleeding heart liberal.
What's going on right now in Haiti is part of the cyclical Haitian way of life. When people have had enough of one government, they overthrow it. When they've decided that someone is keeping them down, they rise up and dechouke that person, whether he was keeping them down or not. I've heard it described this way: In America, if you have something I want, I try to go out and get one of my own. If I'm a criminal, I just steal yours. In Haiti, the more common solution is to destroy yours so that you don't have one either. So they regularly destroy their own infrastructure to keep everyone else from getting ahead. Hotels, homes, bakeries, you name it.
Democracy can't really take root there because democracy assumes certain values, mores, and education that just aren't there yet. Illiteracy estimates range from 60 percent to 80 percent; the nation officially is 10 percent Protestant and 90 percent Catholic, but if you add on "and 100 percent voodoo" you start to get a better sense of the spiritual yoke they're under.
The gospel is what that nation needs, but -- like everywhere else, I suppose -- there's a warped view of what the church is about. If you want to get rich, the answer is to become a minister. In many ways, because of the way missions is done from the United States, the Haitian church has fallen into a real serious enslavement to Mammon. I've talked to pastors who see nothing wrong with leaving their wives and children and going to the United States to serve God here. (And get lots of money, naturally.)
I don't have much faith in the current situation. Guy Philippe is connected with FRAPH, a group well-known in Haiti for political executions. A paramilitary group, it includes many former military memebers and, not surprisingly, a lot of former Tonton Macoutes. (The Tonton Macoutes took their name from the Haitian bogeyman, and were Duvalier's brute squad.) Not surprisingly, after saying all they wanted was for Aristide to leave, the insurgents now are refusing to disarm. How much do you want to bet Philippe is going to be a bid for power, either directly or covertly, as the new government takes shape?
Yet things go on. After the tense days and weeks before Aristide was removed -- and after the looting, killings and riots after he was removed -- things pretty much went back to normal, from what I'm told by friends who are still there. When you live at the subsistence level, you can't afford to stay inside for days on end. People go out and do their business, stay in at night, and life proceeds as it did before.
If you want, pray for Steve and Ruth Hershey. They're friends of mine who are down there right now, still teaching at Cradle of Life Christian School. They live in school housing with their two children. There's also Laura Busshey, who I never worked with personally but knew through STEM Ministries. She was attacked in her home by looters the day Aristide left. (Ruth, painfully, was on the phone with her at the time.) I don't how badly she was hurt, just that she was attacked. I suspect she might have been raped, but really don't know.
I also have other friends who are back in the States at the moment, named Phil and Lonnie Murphy. Phil was Stateside anyway to attend a missions conference, and Lonnie and their son David were coming to Florida to visit his sister Michelle at college. Their missions board convinced them to stay. Knowing Phil, the board probably had to work hard to do that. He and Lonnie have stayed in Haiti through at least four coups and one U.S. invasion. Both their children were born there, and they themselves probably will be there for another five to 10 years, si Bondie vlé.
Phil and Lonnie run an orphanage in the mountains north of Port-au-Prince. They used to live in downtown Port, but moved the orphanage about eight years ago so they could expand it to the next phase. In addition to raising about 20 Haitian children and teaching them valuable skills like budgeting, the value of hard work, and so on, the Murphys also are engaged in community building. They've been teaching not just the kids but their neighbors some useful agricultural techniques, from simple stuff like composting to more advanced stuff like permaculture. Their goal is to get the orphange to the point that the grown-up kids can take over for them and eventually run the place on their own.
Phil and Lonnie are really neat people. I can honestly say they had a bigger impact on me in Haiti than anyone else. They're the only American missionaries I know who are invited to participate in the lives of their Haitian neighbors, such as baptisms, weddings and funerals. You know, if anyone wants to support them, I offer the Murphys my unqualified endorsement and would be happy to share their support information.
Saturday, March 06, 2004
mission: acheron
The scenario: You're preparing a ship that will travel at relativistic speeds to another star system with the express purpose of terraforming and colonizing another world. (We'll call it Acheron.) Figure it has lunar mass similar to ours to create a breathably thin atmosphere, gravity that is about 1.1 times Earth's gravity, and a single giant continent, with water covering about 65 percent of the world. Here's the catch: There is no life on this planet, which has a reducing (rather than oxydizing) atmosphere. Going on the old earth model, it's what our planet was two or three billion years ago. The land mass has cooled and solidified from the incessant rain, but the atmosphere at the moment is incapable of supporting terran life.
Obviously, that's your goal.
You have a crew of four dozen colonists, each trained in a scientific discipline that will be helpful to colonization or terraforming, and each possessing other abilities and interests that will allow useful diversions like entertainment. In cryogenic storage, you are taking the embryos of every known animal species1 so you can establish and maintain balanced ecosystems, you are taking seeds from every known plant species,2 as well as representatives of the Earth's other taxanomical kingdoms, as well as various other bits of equipment and machinery you will need.3
What equipment will you take? What sort of timetable do you project for each stage of the project? When will people be able to live on the planet? How do you see the colony developing?
One nice thing I see: very little in the way of transmittable disease. Since all the animals are being shipped as embryos, there will be no cases of avian flu or other such illnesses being passed up the food chain. The human colony also should be free of most extant human illnesses, since colonists presumably would be healthy when they depart. What illnesses do surface would be due more to genetics, nutrition and environmental contaminants, rather than viruses or bacteria. The first generation of animals probably will be somewhat retarded mentally, being as they'll be incubated and will lack the benefits of a placenta or the equivelant in their phylum, but even that will sort itself out in a generation or two.
1 For purposes of simplification and to reduce costs, a species will be considered any two animals that can breed and produce offspring capable of breeding. Therefore, the "dogs" will be a genetic mix of all Earth's interbreedable dog species, including wolves, coyotes, dingoes, jackals and Canis familiaris. Similarly, tigons -- not lions and tigers -- are the great cat represented. (I think other great cats like leopards and cheetahs also may be interbreedable here, but I'm not sure.)* The scientific assumption behind this is that habitat and natural selection are what led to the species divergence here on Earth, and that process will duplicate itself elsewhere. As for pedigree among domesticated animals, don't count on it. The wider the variety genetically, the healthier the herd.
2 Again, some consolidation is likely. I'm not as familiar with the taxonomy of Plantae, but I imagine some of the same geographical biases in species designation have come into play there as well.
3 Machinery obviously will be more advanced than anything we now have at the dawn of the 21st century, but should be theoretically achievable. I'd accept giant machines capable of producing chemical changes in the air to produce oxygen, for example, but not warp drive, transporters or replicators. I'm talking sci-fi here, not science fantasy.
* Does anyone know of any other such combinations? This is actually an interesting point for me, because I think it's relevant for discussions of Noah's ark. If tigers and lions are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring -- as they are -- I would argue that they better are classified as breeds of the same species, rather than as separate species. Keeping that sort of thing in mind, it quickly becomes obvious that the task of getting the animals on the Ark wasn't quite as impossible as some skeptics claim.
Obviously, that's your goal.
You have a crew of four dozen colonists, each trained in a scientific discipline that will be helpful to colonization or terraforming, and each possessing other abilities and interests that will allow useful diversions like entertainment. In cryogenic storage, you are taking the embryos of every known animal species1 so you can establish and maintain balanced ecosystems, you are taking seeds from every known plant species,2 as well as representatives of the Earth's other taxanomical kingdoms, as well as various other bits of equipment and machinery you will need.3
What equipment will you take? What sort of timetable do you project for each stage of the project? When will people be able to live on the planet? How do you see the colony developing?
One nice thing I see: very little in the way of transmittable disease. Since all the animals are being shipped as embryos, there will be no cases of avian flu or other such illnesses being passed up the food chain. The human colony also should be free of most extant human illnesses, since colonists presumably would be healthy when they depart. What illnesses do surface would be due more to genetics, nutrition and environmental contaminants, rather than viruses or bacteria. The first generation of animals probably will be somewhat retarded mentally, being as they'll be incubated and will lack the benefits of a placenta or the equivelant in their phylum, but even that will sort itself out in a generation or two.
1 For purposes of simplification and to reduce costs, a species will be considered any two animals that can breed and produce offspring capable of breeding. Therefore, the "dogs" will be a genetic mix of all Earth's interbreedable dog species, including wolves, coyotes, dingoes, jackals and Canis familiaris. Similarly, tigons -- not lions and tigers -- are the great cat represented. (I think other great cats like leopards and cheetahs also may be interbreedable here, but I'm not sure.)* The scientific assumption behind this is that habitat and natural selection are what led to the species divergence here on Earth, and that process will duplicate itself elsewhere. As for pedigree among domesticated animals, don't count on it. The wider the variety genetically, the healthier the herd.
2 Again, some consolidation is likely. I'm not as familiar with the taxonomy of Plantae, but I imagine some of the same geographical biases in species designation have come into play there as well.
3 Machinery obviously will be more advanced than anything we now have at the dawn of the 21st century, but should be theoretically achievable. I'd accept giant machines capable of producing chemical changes in the air to produce oxygen, for example, but not warp drive, transporters or replicators. I'm talking sci-fi here, not science fantasy.
* Does anyone know of any other such combinations? This is actually an interesting point for me, because I think it's relevant for discussions of Noah's ark. If tigers and lions are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring -- as they are -- I would argue that they better are classified as breeds of the same species, rather than as separate species. Keeping that sort of thing in mind, it quickly becomes obvious that the task of getting the animals on the Ark wasn't quite as impossible as some skeptics claim.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
'the sandman'
Read it, loved it, and I quit too. FIrst thing I remember consciously agreeing with the Morningstar on.
I've had a few friends and colleagues with similar disdain for comic books, but I keep winning them over. I regularly buy my wife the "Strangers in Paradise" trades because she can't get enough of them,and a friend of mine from WCN Newspapers is now well and truly hooked on Sandman. I just lent him "Fables and Recollections" and "The Kindly Ones" to get him on the home stretch. Working at WCN, Brian doesn't have the money to buy them, but he loves a good horror story and figures he probably will buy them later on.
And of course, he was hooked enough that I was able to get him to read "V for Vendetta" and since has started looking up other comics on his own. So I claim him as another convert to appreciating comic books as a latter 20th-century art form.
"A Doll's House," since it's set at a "cereal convention," does suggest some fairly graphic stuff, although most of it is left to the reader's imagination (thereby making it worse). Still, it's important because of what happens with Rose Walker toward the end of the collection; it introduces the majorly significant Lyta Hall and her son, Daniel; it relates the story of Dream's relationship with Nada; it introduces Hob and sets up Shakespeare's indentureship under Dream; and also contains the first appearance of the Corinthian, Fiddler's Green and Matthew. Each of those ends up playing a vital role in later stories.
The dead return in "Seasons of Mist," which includes the story of Edwin Paine and how he continues his education. (At least I think that's his name -- my copy is on loan to another friend.) That volume had some disquieting parts, but nothing that gave me nightmares. Mostly I got a kick out of the idea of Morningstar quitting as the Adversary, and I loved the irony of Duma and Remiel being told by the Voice to take office at hell -- especially when Remiel complained it was unjust and how he would rebel, and then realized there was nowhere else for him to go but into hell if he chose to reject the Presence.
The collections generally stand well independently. They're self-contained and give you enough information to figure out what's going on -- something made necessary by the medium, since "Sandman" originally was published over something like a seven-year period in monthly 30-page installments. I can understand a reluctance to read it -- one of the stories in "The Kindly One" actually gave me nightmares -- but the English degree-holding part of me still has to underscore the significance of the volume for the overall series.
Because it is a single cohesive work, and not merely episodic like many superhero titles, it has a certain cadence that reaches a tremendous climax in "The Kindly Ones" before tapering off into the denoument of "The Wake." Without question, it's the finest comic to come out a mainstream publisher in ages. (It's also deservedly recognized as resurrecting horror comics and breathing new life into the comics medium as a whole.)
From what I heard, Gaiman kept expecting to get canceled each issue because of the content.
I've also discovered a certain odd thrill in discovering the depths of literature and comics that Gaiman plumbed for Sandman. Cain and Abel once were the hosts of two of D.C.'s other, long-canceled horror comics, called "House of Mysteries" and "House of Secrets" respectively. I even owned a copy of an issue of the former, at one point. No idea what's happened to it since then. Prez appeared in a miserably conceived comic about 30 years ago.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
we are the branches
Which branch of Christianity do you belong to?
In terms of views of the Bible or even most major doctrines, I don't think there are substnative differences between the labels evangelical and fundamentalist. I think the difference comes in connotation.
The Associated Press notes that the term "fundamentalist" generally is considered derogatory and should not be applied to an organization or individual unless the organization or individual so referenced uses the term in that way already. My own interpretation of that term is that fundamentalist churches usually are withdrawn from society at large, which it holds in some disdain. Fundamentlist groups also are more likely to be less educated. That's the connotation I take away from the image, anyway.
Evangelicals, however, are more likely to be involved in things like politics as a means of saving the world from itself. There might be a condemnation of society but usually less so of individuals within it. In my experience, evangelical groups often are more educated, generally speaking.
Pentecostals can be of either school, but they are marked by practices such as speaking in tongues and prophecy, and it's also -- generally speaking again -- among Pentecostals that you're more like to find some of the excess that dogged the American Church in the 1980s and 1990s.
All that said of the stereotypes, it's true that you'll find goodhearted people and knuckleheads in every sect of Christianity.
2602.20 in reply to 2602.16
That's certainly the popular depiction of liberation theology in evangelical circles, but that's a pretty extreme view. Working that way, I might well classify evangelicalism as a belief system that holds that Jesus was a hard-working member of the upper-middle class who believed that people should rise or fall on their own merits, hated welfare cheats, and thought the economy would do better if only the wealthy got to keep more of their money.
Yeah, you'll find that Marxists have used liberation theology to hijack the church in some parts of Latin America, just as you'll find that some Republicans have hijacked evangelicalism to muster the votes they need to win. Neither case should be considered a fair representation of the beliefs.
As I understand it, liberation theology teaches that the poor have a special place in God's economy. When Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," he means that: The gospel has a special relevance for the poor, and that they stand to enter it ahead of the wealthy. That's why he says things like "The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor" and "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." That's why Jesus grew up in a working-class home, worked a simple trade, and spent his adult life primarily with the outcasts of society -- because the people society has rejected, have a special value to God.
Salvation remains by grace, through faith, but the epistle of James loses none of its meaning: Remember that he says that faith that produces no works in keeping with righteousness is a sterile, dead faith. And James -- like the prophets in the Tanakh -- has some incredibly stern words for those who make themselves wealthy at the expense of others. "Woe to you who are rich," he writes. "The wages you have denied the workers cry out against you. You have hoarded wealth in the last days." Many evangelicals I've known have been ignorant of those words, or view them as less inspired than Paul's words, "You have been saved by grace, through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast."
It's not just about money, although that's one indicator of inequity that's easy to latch onto. Jesus in his Parable of the Sheep and the Goats runs through a whole laundry list of things we're to do, and at the end of it, he consigns to everlasting fire and torment a group of people who ask with puzzlement, "Lord, when did we ever see you in need and not minister to you?" These aren't non-Christians being sent away; they're people who believed they were following.
In "The Grapes of Wrath," Steinbeck observed that the church often tells the poor just to sit back and fold your hands, because you'll be eating ice cream off gold plates in heaven. Phooey to that, I say. John the Baptist says, "If you have two cloaks, give one to the man who has none." Jesus told people to set aside their prejudices and care for the wounded, even if the wounded man was an individual who would just as soon throw stones at you as give you the time of day.
To me, that's what liberation theology is about. It's about recognizing that Christ is in the need, and responding to him. It's about meeting the needs of others, and it's open making real and physical connections with other people. It's about correcting social inequities and problems by helping the people caught in them.
That's liberating, and that's good theology.
- Roman Catholic
- Orthodox
- Coptic
- Mainline Protestant
- Evangelical
- Pentecostal
- Fundamentalist
- Liberation theology
- Other
- I'm not a Christian
In terms of views of the Bible or even most major doctrines, I don't think there are substnative differences between the labels evangelical and fundamentalist. I think the difference comes in connotation.
The Associated Press notes that the term "fundamentalist" generally is considered derogatory and should not be applied to an organization or individual unless the organization or individual so referenced uses the term in that way already. My own interpretation of that term is that fundamentalist churches usually are withdrawn from society at large, which it holds in some disdain. Fundamentlist groups also are more likely to be less educated. That's the connotation I take away from the image, anyway.
Evangelicals, however, are more likely to be involved in things like politics as a means of saving the world from itself. There might be a condemnation of society but usually less so of individuals within it. In my experience, evangelical groups often are more educated, generally speaking.
Pentecostals can be of either school, but they are marked by practices such as speaking in tongues and prophecy, and it's also -- generally speaking again -- among Pentecostals that you're more like to find some of the excess that dogged the American Church in the 1980s and 1990s.
All that said of the stereotypes, it's true that you'll find goodhearted people and knuckleheads in every sect of Christianity.
2602.20 in reply to 2602.16
That's certainly the popular depiction of liberation theology in evangelical circles, but that's a pretty extreme view. Working that way, I might well classify evangelicalism as a belief system that holds that Jesus was a hard-working member of the upper-middle class who believed that people should rise or fall on their own merits, hated welfare cheats, and thought the economy would do better if only the wealthy got to keep more of their money.
Yeah, you'll find that Marxists have used liberation theology to hijack the church in some parts of Latin America, just as you'll find that some Republicans have hijacked evangelicalism to muster the votes they need to win. Neither case should be considered a fair representation of the beliefs.
As I understand it, liberation theology teaches that the poor have a special place in God's economy. When Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," he means that: The gospel has a special relevance for the poor, and that they stand to enter it ahead of the wealthy. That's why he says things like "The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor" and "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." That's why Jesus grew up in a working-class home, worked a simple trade, and spent his adult life primarily with the outcasts of society -- because the people society has rejected, have a special value to God.
Salvation remains by grace, through faith, but the epistle of James loses none of its meaning: Remember that he says that faith that produces no works in keeping with righteousness is a sterile, dead faith. And James -- like the prophets in the Tanakh -- has some incredibly stern words for those who make themselves wealthy at the expense of others. "Woe to you who are rich," he writes. "The wages you have denied the workers cry out against you. You have hoarded wealth in the last days." Many evangelicals I've known have been ignorant of those words, or view them as less inspired than Paul's words, "You have been saved by grace, through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast."
It's not just about money, although that's one indicator of inequity that's easy to latch onto. Jesus in his Parable of the Sheep and the Goats runs through a whole laundry list of things we're to do, and at the end of it, he consigns to everlasting fire and torment a group of people who ask with puzzlement, "Lord, when did we ever see you in need and not minister to you?" These aren't non-Christians being sent away; they're people who believed they were following.
In "The Grapes of Wrath," Steinbeck observed that the church often tells the poor just to sit back and fold your hands, because you'll be eating ice cream off gold plates in heaven. Phooey to that, I say. John the Baptist says, "If you have two cloaks, give one to the man who has none." Jesus told people to set aside their prejudices and care for the wounded, even if the wounded man was an individual who would just as soon throw stones at you as give you the time of day.
To me, that's what liberation theology is about. It's about recognizing that Christ is in the need, and responding to him. It's about meeting the needs of others, and it's open making real and physical connections with other people. It's about correcting social inequities and problems by helping the people caught in them.
That's liberating, and that's good theology.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
assemblies of god
I belonged to the Assemblies of God for about seven years after I became a Christian.
My biggest problem with the AoG is one that I think someone else already has mentioned, and one that I think is endemic in evangelical circles, not just in Pentecostal ones: self-righteousness. It's fairly customary in evangelicaldom to hear about how sinful the world is, and to castigate the world for failing to be godly, all the while telling other believers how much Jesus loves them.
I think that's a pretty backward approach, personally. The message we have is supposed to be life to a dying world, but we usually reserve our words of hope for other Christians, when the prophets usually had their harshest words for those who claimed to be following God. Back when Lawrence came out of the closet in Lynn Johnston's "For Better or for Worse," our pastor wrote a scathing letter to the editor of The Ashton Express-Times blating it for pushing sexual immorality. At the same time, there was a general feeling of sympathy for Jim Bakker, that he had been judged too harshly. (Swaggart didn't come up much, but I did know a few people who still regarded his teaching quite highly.)
Growing out of that is an increasing withdrawal from the world into safe little enclaves of Christianity. The AoG churches I was involved with operated Christian schools to keep the kids safe from the evils of public schools -- parents were generally discouraged from sending their kids to a public school or secular college, if not overtly than certainly by the attitudes regularly expressed toward such institutions -- and frequently they also provide all sorts of other approved alternatives to secular society. AoG runs its own version of the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts -- Royal Rangers and Missionettes -- and so on.
And of course, you have all the other weird stuff popular in the Christian subculture: our own music and radio stations, our own TV shows and movies, our own T-shirts and books, and our own language, filled with words we all bandy about without really understanding. And of course there was the tendency to overlay spiritual values onto political ones. I can't recall a single negative thing being said about Bush Senior, or a single positive thing about Clinton. Pretty ridiculous.
The AoG is widely known for the emphasis it places on ecstatic experiences, particularly speaking in tongues. I really don't want to get into a major discussion on glossolalia, but I do think some of the negative reputation is well deserved. I remember one guest preacher actually *pushing* me backward so I would be "slain in the Spirit." If he were to do that today, I probably would have made more of an issue of it; as it was, I just got back up and told somebody else later what the idjit had done.
I heard a number of messages delivered in tongues while I was at the AoG. Virtually all of them were the sort of "prophetic utterance" you can find from a street-corner wingnut on any given day, a roiling mishmash of thoughts and personal convictions, delivered in a confusing ramble of King James and contemporary English, and invariably irrelevant to anything the church was going through at the time, except in the most generic way.
The emphasis on tongues and ecstatic experience took the place of solid understanding of Scripture. I was amazed at what people who have been Christians for years didn't know. Sylvia, one grandmotherly woman who attended the church the same time as me, once explained that she recently had hurt her back when she had been "slain in the Spirit," and had been told by the pastor (!) not to tell anyone about it, since that could be a stumbling block. After all, if God is behind it, no one should be hurt, right?
So anyway, Sylvia wanted to know if it said in the Bible that you shouldn't be hurt when you fall over under the Spirit's anointing. As you're probably aware, the Bible never says that you're supposed to fall over in the first place, whether the Spirit is moving or if it's just Benny Hinn waving his coat around.
That's probably the greatest flaw with Pentecostalism, actually, whether in the AoG or in the Nazarenes or some other denomination. Allowing experience to be its own validation, rather than measuring it against the revelation of Scripture, severs us from any objective standard for Truth, and allows us to be taken in by hucksters like Hinn, to be wowed by millionaires like Pat Robertson, to fall for the razzle-dazzle of prosperity gospels and to think we actually can make this a better nation through legislation and power-brokering.
That probably contributed to the distrust of intellectualism I encountered in the church, although I think this was mostly a product of the area. (The two AoG churches I was most involved with were located in predominantly blue collar areas.) This actually ended up being the last straw behind my decision to leave the church and start attending an evangelical free church with Niki, whom I was engaged to at the time.
Shirley Webber, the pastor's wife, had been teaching a series on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Much of it was marked by an enthusiastic endorsement of all sorts of behavior that clearly the Holy Spirit had to be behind. (One was a guy who supposedly ran around his church on the *backs of pews*. The proof that this was Spirit-driven? If it weren't, he would have fallen off.)
I have a lot of questions about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and how the gifts appear to manifest in Pentecostal and charismatic churches these days. Shirley finally told me that God had told her I needed to stop questioning and just have faith.
I finished out my commitment in children's church, and left.
Actual mileage is going to vary from one AoG church to another. Still, to be fair, I should point out that there was much that is good about the Assemblies of God. For starters, they have a cool name -- much better than "Presbyterian" or "Lutheran," to pick two other churches I've belonged to in my time. :-)
Secondly, the worship truly was phenomenal at Ashton Assembly of God. Mike Poppa, who pastored the church for its first 14 years, was a man who was well grounded in Scripture and who was determined to present the gospel in a way that would be accessible to today's culture. The worship I participated in there was some of the best I have ever known. Because the church was more spontaneous than many other churches, I'd say there also was a greater openness to being led by the Spirit than in churches dead set on following the strict order of things.
Thirdly, the devotion of many in the Assemblies of God is considerable. Although I think it's fair to say the church is withdrawn from society, I think the AoG churches I attended had a pretty good turnout for Sunday and Wednesday evening services. It wasn't just a one-hour-a-week thing. People took seriously the scriptural admonition to pray, and I knew several people who took the charge to evangelize seriously as well, and went out on the streets every week. I don't personally go for that style myself, but I do recognize its legitimacy among those who are so called and so gifted.
Fourthly, the things I'm talking about were overall trends, not indicators of every person in the church. I knew other church members who objected to the emphasis on tongues and had tough questions about the legitimacy of the way tongues was practiced as a gift; Pastor Mike Poppa was a phenomenal preacher who knew the Scriptures better than many preachers I've heard elsewhere; and while there were some nincompoops who believed in the standard bogeymen and toed the line, there were others who had no problem with believers who were trying to figure it out, no matter which way they ended up going.
I showed up at my old church about 18 months ago, out of the blue, after being gone for five years. I showed up with a full beard and a ponytail, having had neither when I left. I also had a black child with me in a lily-white church. I got not one cold shoulder, and everyone who figured out who I was was thrilled to see me again. Not a word of criticism about my appearance or anything else.
Lastly, many of the problems I encountered there are problems found throughout evangelicaldom. Good luck findng a church that is free of such ills. When you do, you will ruin it by gracing it with your presence, as I surely have done to some I have attended.
My biggest problem with the AoG is one that I think someone else already has mentioned, and one that I think is endemic in evangelical circles, not just in Pentecostal ones: self-righteousness. It's fairly customary in evangelicaldom to hear about how sinful the world is, and to castigate the world for failing to be godly, all the while telling other believers how much Jesus loves them.
I think that's a pretty backward approach, personally. The message we have is supposed to be life to a dying world, but we usually reserve our words of hope for other Christians, when the prophets usually had their harshest words for those who claimed to be following God. Back when Lawrence came out of the closet in Lynn Johnston's "For Better or for Worse," our pastor wrote a scathing letter to the editor of The Ashton Express-Times blating it for pushing sexual immorality. At the same time, there was a general feeling of sympathy for Jim Bakker, that he had been judged too harshly. (Swaggart didn't come up much, but I did know a few people who still regarded his teaching quite highly.)
Growing out of that is an increasing withdrawal from the world into safe little enclaves of Christianity. The AoG churches I was involved with operated Christian schools to keep the kids safe from the evils of public schools -- parents were generally discouraged from sending their kids to a public school or secular college, if not overtly than certainly by the attitudes regularly expressed toward such institutions -- and frequently they also provide all sorts of other approved alternatives to secular society. AoG runs its own version of the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts -- Royal Rangers and Missionettes -- and so on.
And of course, you have all the other weird stuff popular in the Christian subculture: our own music and radio stations, our own TV shows and movies, our own T-shirts and books, and our own language, filled with words we all bandy about without really understanding. And of course there was the tendency to overlay spiritual values onto political ones. I can't recall a single negative thing being said about Bush Senior, or a single positive thing about Clinton. Pretty ridiculous.
The AoG is widely known for the emphasis it places on ecstatic experiences, particularly speaking in tongues. I really don't want to get into a major discussion on glossolalia, but I do think some of the negative reputation is well deserved. I remember one guest preacher actually *pushing* me backward so I would be "slain in the Spirit." If he were to do that today, I probably would have made more of an issue of it; as it was, I just got back up and told somebody else later what the idjit had done.
I heard a number of messages delivered in tongues while I was at the AoG. Virtually all of them were the sort of "prophetic utterance" you can find from a street-corner wingnut on any given day, a roiling mishmash of thoughts and personal convictions, delivered in a confusing ramble of King James and contemporary English, and invariably irrelevant to anything the church was going through at the time, except in the most generic way.
The emphasis on tongues and ecstatic experience took the place of solid understanding of Scripture. I was amazed at what people who have been Christians for years didn't know. Sylvia, one grandmotherly woman who attended the church the same time as me, once explained that she recently had hurt her back when she had been "slain in the Spirit," and had been told by the pastor (!) not to tell anyone about it, since that could be a stumbling block. After all, if God is behind it, no one should be hurt, right?
So anyway, Sylvia wanted to know if it said in the Bible that you shouldn't be hurt when you fall over under the Spirit's anointing. As you're probably aware, the Bible never says that you're supposed to fall over in the first place, whether the Spirit is moving or if it's just Benny Hinn waving his coat around.
That's probably the greatest flaw with Pentecostalism, actually, whether in the AoG or in the Nazarenes or some other denomination. Allowing experience to be its own validation, rather than measuring it against the revelation of Scripture, severs us from any objective standard for Truth, and allows us to be taken in by hucksters like Hinn, to be wowed by millionaires like Pat Robertson, to fall for the razzle-dazzle of prosperity gospels and to think we actually can make this a better nation through legislation and power-brokering.
That probably contributed to the distrust of intellectualism I encountered in the church, although I think this was mostly a product of the area. (The two AoG churches I was most involved with were located in predominantly blue collar areas.) This actually ended up being the last straw behind my decision to leave the church and start attending an evangelical free church with Niki, whom I was engaged to at the time.
Shirley Webber, the pastor's wife, had been teaching a series on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Much of it was marked by an enthusiastic endorsement of all sorts of behavior that clearly the Holy Spirit had to be behind. (One was a guy who supposedly ran around his church on the *backs of pews*. The proof that this was Spirit-driven? If it weren't, he would have fallen off.)
I have a lot of questions about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and how the gifts appear to manifest in Pentecostal and charismatic churches these days. Shirley finally told me that God had told her I needed to stop questioning and just have faith.
I finished out my commitment in children's church, and left.
Actual mileage is going to vary from one AoG church to another. Still, to be fair, I should point out that there was much that is good about the Assemblies of God. For starters, they have a cool name -- much better than "Presbyterian" or "Lutheran," to pick two other churches I've belonged to in my time. :-)
Secondly, the worship truly was phenomenal at Ashton Assembly of God. Mike Poppa, who pastored the church for its first 14 years, was a man who was well grounded in Scripture and who was determined to present the gospel in a way that would be accessible to today's culture. The worship I participated in there was some of the best I have ever known. Because the church was more spontaneous than many other churches, I'd say there also was a greater openness to being led by the Spirit than in churches dead set on following the strict order of things.
Thirdly, the devotion of many in the Assemblies of God is considerable. Although I think it's fair to say the church is withdrawn from society, I think the AoG churches I attended had a pretty good turnout for Sunday and Wednesday evening services. It wasn't just a one-hour-a-week thing. People took seriously the scriptural admonition to pray, and I knew several people who took the charge to evangelize seriously as well, and went out on the streets every week. I don't personally go for that style myself, but I do recognize its legitimacy among those who are so called and so gifted.
Fourthly, the things I'm talking about were overall trends, not indicators of every person in the church. I knew other church members who objected to the emphasis on tongues and had tough questions about the legitimacy of the way tongues was practiced as a gift; Pastor Mike Poppa was a phenomenal preacher who knew the Scriptures better than many preachers I've heard elsewhere; and while there were some nincompoops who believed in the standard bogeymen and toed the line, there were others who had no problem with believers who were trying to figure it out, no matter which way they ended up going.
I showed up at my old church about 18 months ago, out of the blue, after being gone for five years. I showed up with a full beard and a ponytail, having had neither when I left. I also had a black child with me in a lily-white church. I got not one cold shoulder, and everyone who figured out who I was was thrilled to see me again. Not a word of criticism about my appearance or anything else.
Lastly, many of the problems I encountered there are problems found throughout evangelicaldom. Good luck findng a church that is free of such ills. When you do, you will ruin it by gracing it with your presence, as I surely have done to some I have attended.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
perfection
Our ideas of perfection are really pretty bland. We imagine a heaven that is rather like Nirvana, where we understand everything, and there's nothing to do except sit around and bask in the radiance of God and his wholeness. There's nothing to do, no conflict and nothing else that we find imperfect or frustrating down here.
That's nonsense, of course. Adam and Eve had work to do in the Garden of Eden, and had different levels of understanding and different perspectives on things. I imagine that it'll be much the same in heaven as in Eden. We won't always see eye to eye, but we'll be able to work through our disagreements without getting angry with one another, judging or committing a sin in our disagreement. We'll be able to look at God's judgments and understand them in all their terrible mercy and justice, and be able to rejoice in them all, even the ones that now make us blanche.
And we'll be able to look at art, our own or someone else's, and recognize the beauty and value of each, and also recognize that some art is better than other art. There's no shame or sin in that; it's simply recognizing that God has gifted each of us in different ways, and acknowledging the gift for what it is. To borrow from C.S. Lewis, it'll be when an architect can look at his building, and realize it is quite possibly the finest structure ever made, and yet take no more pride or delight in it than if somebody else had made it.
That's nonsense, of course. Adam and Eve had work to do in the Garden of Eden, and had different levels of understanding and different perspectives on things. I imagine that it'll be much the same in heaven as in Eden. We won't always see eye to eye, but we'll be able to work through our disagreements without getting angry with one another, judging or committing a sin in our disagreement. We'll be able to look at God's judgments and understand them in all their terrible mercy and justice, and be able to rejoice in them all, even the ones that now make us blanche.
And we'll be able to look at art, our own or someone else's, and recognize the beauty and value of each, and also recognize that some art is better than other art. There's no shame or sin in that; it's simply recognizing that God has gifted each of us in different ways, and acknowledging the gift for what it is. To borrow from C.S. Lewis, it'll be when an architect can look at his building, and realize it is quite possibly the finest structure ever made, and yet take no more pride or delight in it than if somebody else had made it.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
my job officially sucks
So here I am at work, and I've had enough of this ####ing #### to choke a camel to death. It's 3:35 a.m. and I only stopped myself from going completely postal earlier tonight (this morning?) by taking some time off to worship and to decompress before I complete the last stretch.
This job is just too much for too little. I'm gone from home two whole days out of the week, with the result that Natasha is unduly stressed-out on those days, and she handles it generally worse than I do, which is rough on the girls.
I can't stay here. I just can't. But, thanks to years of living hand-to-mouth, we don't have a cushion to handle a period of unemployment longer than 12 hours, and we certainly don't have any insurance if I quit this job. I need to quit anyway, which I cannot do unless I can find that safety net.
The PR sideline has not taken off yet, since I haven't had time to finish the web site and finish my promotional material for the different groups I'm trying to appeal to. The only contract I have so far is the barter for art lessons, which -- nice at is -- will not pay the bills.
If I had a church, I'd be calling the pastor to see if the church can offer us any support while we take a step out, particularly support I can work for. We have no church, though, nor any real network I can fall back upon. I'm thinking of calling the pastor of the church we've been attending for the last two months, although if the truth is to be told, I'm not wild about it by any stretch of the imagination. Pillar of Fire is an island church, where they inadvertantly -- at least I assume it's inadvertant -- foster a Christian subculture that is largely removed from and uninvolved with the world at large.
I wouldn't mind returning to the missions field, but my impression right now is that we're where we're supposed to be. I don't know how much of that is wisdom, how much of it is contentment and how much of it is the world finding its place in me, but there you have it.
Natasha and I have discussed relocating at various points, but we've always ended up settling on staying in Iowa. It must be that masochistic streak.
I'm at the breaking point, and something has to give.
This job is just too much for too little. I'm gone from home two whole days out of the week, with the result that Natasha is unduly stressed-out on those days, and she handles it generally worse than I do, which is rough on the girls.
I can't stay here. I just can't. But, thanks to years of living hand-to-mouth, we don't have a cushion to handle a period of unemployment longer than 12 hours, and we certainly don't have any insurance if I quit this job. I need to quit anyway, which I cannot do unless I can find that safety net.
The PR sideline has not taken off yet, since I haven't had time to finish the web site and finish my promotional material for the different groups I'm trying to appeal to. The only contract I have so far is the barter for art lessons, which -- nice at is -- will not pay the bills.
If I had a church, I'd be calling the pastor to see if the church can offer us any support while we take a step out, particularly support I can work for. We have no church, though, nor any real network I can fall back upon. I'm thinking of calling the pastor of the church we've been attending for the last two months, although if the truth is to be told, I'm not wild about it by any stretch of the imagination. Pillar of Fire is an island church, where they inadvertantly -- at least I assume it's inadvertant -- foster a Christian subculture that is largely removed from and uninvolved with the world at large.
I wouldn't mind returning to the missions field, but my impression right now is that we're where we're supposed to be. I don't know how much of that is wisdom, how much of it is contentment and how much of it is the world finding its place in me, but there you have it.
Natasha and I have discussed relocating at various points, but we've always ended up settling on staying in Iowa. It must be that masochistic streak.
I'm at the breaking point, and something has to give.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
'exceptions' to the first amendment
First go read this article from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Now ask yourself which is worse, that the Bush administration is keeping protesters out of sight, out of earshot and out of mind, or that it's prosecuting people who exercise their free speech rights on public property anyway?
This isn't a partisan thing. This practice stank when Clinton did it too. People are being arrested for protesing on public property, not private property; and it's the side that disagrees with the president that's being pushed away. I suppose people who are opposed to a policy are more likely to be outspoken than those who support it, perhaps even violently so, but this still strikes me as a bastardly way to get rid of unwanted criticism and to make everything into a nice photo opp.
A friend of mine had these observations to make on how President Bush is handling public criticism of his actions by voters, as compared to how other political figures have handled similar situations. I thought his comments were interesting:
The Bush administration in recent weeks has been slapped hard by the federal courts for its unlawful and extended detainment of noncitizens under the Patriot Act, and also ordered a hold on an EPA measure that would have relaxed our environmental standards conected to power plants tremendously. Beyond that, we're seeing a pretty lax attitude toward trade that is spelling disaster to longstanding American manufacturing industries.
I'm not impressed.
I give Bush credit for doing a tough job in the wake of 9-11, but the stands his administration has taken on civil liberties, the environment, trade and free speech really have me hoping the Democratic Party can present a candidate who I can get behind in November. It's been slim pickings ever since I became a registered voter in '88.
Now ask yourself which is worse, that the Bush administration is keeping protesters out of sight, out of earshot and out of mind, or that it's prosecuting people who exercise their free speech rights on public property anyway?
This isn't a partisan thing. This practice stank when Clinton did it too. People are being arrested for protesing on public property, not private property; and it's the side that disagrees with the president that's being pushed away. I suppose people who are opposed to a policy are more likely to be outspoken than those who support it, perhaps even violently so, but this still strikes me as a bastardly way to get rid of unwanted criticism and to make everything into a nice photo opp.
A friend of mine had these observations to make on how President Bush is handling public criticism of his actions by voters, as compared to how other political figures have handled similar situations. I thought his comments were interesting:
"I think I had read somewhere that Hu Jintao (the Chinese guy) actually was much more highly commended during his speeches abroad than Bush attending the same events, because he was accessible while Bush was not.
"Bush took a big PR hit for stunts like this. Public opinion was much more favorable towards the Chinese gov (famous for repressing individual rights) instead of the American gov (supposed to be supporting open discourse and interest in the little guy).
"Personality analyses by folks on the inside suggest that Bush looks amiable and laid back /open in his demeanor (making him seem likeable during campaign time, for example), but internally is pretty closed-minded and even a bit tyrannical. In other words, he can portray himself as flexible and amiable, even while he is not very open to change in his opinions."That fits what I've read of Bush, and it certainly fits some of his more foolish remarks during the presidential campaign. In 2000 there was one satirical campaign web site, the name of which I can't recall at this time, that outlined a faux platform in which Bush supported early release for drug offenders who had "learned their lesson" as he had, Later, when Bush heard about the satirical site and asked about his support for such early release, he complained that the site had poked fun at him, saying, "There ought to limits to freedom."(The site for its part lauded his boldness in addressing the issue of Americans having too much liberty.)
The Bush administration in recent weeks has been slapped hard by the federal courts for its unlawful and extended detainment of noncitizens under the Patriot Act, and also ordered a hold on an EPA measure that would have relaxed our environmental standards conected to power plants tremendously. Beyond that, we're seeing a pretty lax attitude toward trade that is spelling disaster to longstanding American manufacturing industries.
I'm not impressed.
I give Bush credit for doing a tough job in the wake of 9-11, but the stands his administration has taken on civil liberties, the environment, trade and free speech really have me hoping the Democratic Party can present a candidate who I can get behind in November. It's been slim pickings ever since I became a registered voter in '88.
Sunday, January 04, 2004
health care
Check out this story on Common Dreams.
I'm kind of curious to hear people's thoughts on this subject. We have insurance through my employer, but it's not exactly great. It would cost me about $80 to get a prescription filled for the topical ointment I need to treat my psoriasis. Not surprisingly, my psoriasis has gone untreated for some time, even though it covers probably about 25 percent of my back at this point. I have insurance, but I can't afford to use it.
Having a child, incidentally, would cost us about $3,000 before the insurance kicks in. Nice, huh?
I don't think I would favor national health care, on the simple grounds that it likely would make health care a total nightmare. But I have to admit, the direction we're going now doesn't seem much better.
I'm kind of curious to hear people's thoughts on this subject. We have insurance through my employer, but it's not exactly great. It would cost me about $80 to get a prescription filled for the topical ointment I need to treat my psoriasis. Not surprisingly, my psoriasis has gone untreated for some time, even though it covers probably about 25 percent of my back at this point. I have insurance, but I can't afford to use it.
Having a child, incidentally, would cost us about $3,000 before the insurance kicks in. Nice, huh?
I don't think I would favor national health care, on the simple grounds that it likely would make health care a total nightmare. But I have to admit, the direction we're going now doesn't seem much better.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
My child, the folk musician
I was singing some folk songs today while I was making lunch this afternoon, in the presence of Evangeline. As I fumbled around, trying to remember if there is a third verse to Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind," she generated her own lyrics:
How many octopuses can fit in a room
Before they fall through the floor?
Could it be one, or maybe two?
I think it's probably four.
I think from here on that will be my favorite verse.
How many octopuses can fit in a room
Before they fall through the floor?
Could it be one, or maybe two?
I think it's probably four.
I think from here on that will be my favorite verse.
dora tangent
We don't actually own any of the tapes, but we rented a few from Blockbuster back in the summer, including the one with Swiper the Fox and the mantra necessary to stop him: "Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no-o-o swiping!" Well, after about five exciting iterations of that, I convinced Evangeline that we needed variations.
The most enduring one has been Chomper the Crocodile, where one of us chases the other snapping our arms together like a giant crocodile mouth, all the while saying "Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!" Of course, you stop Chomper by saying, "Chomper, no chomping! Chomper, no chomping! Chomper, no-o-o chomping!"
Mindless, I suppose, but it's fun coming up with new variations every time one of us engages in a repetitive behavior like sneezing, or eating or whatever.
(Naturally, being a 4-year-old, her favorite version is something like "Poopy, no pooping!")
The most enduring one has been Chomper the Crocodile, where one of us chases the other snapping our arms together like a giant crocodile mouth, all the while saying "Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!" Of course, you stop Chomper by saying, "Chomper, no chomping! Chomper, no chomping! Chomper, no-o-o chomping!"
Mindless, I suppose, but it's fun coming up with new variations every time one of us engages in a repetitive behavior like sneezing, or eating or whatever.
(Naturally, being a 4-year-old, her favorite version is something like "Poopy, no pooping!")
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