Catching Up

So, while I am still committed to keeping at arm's length with the news (it's just not good for my emotional health), my news blackout is over now. And to catch up, of course, I go to the Daily Show. I see I haven't missed much.

UMC Judicial Council Rulings

SAN FRANCISCO (UMNS) - The United Methodist Church's supreme court has upheld a bishop's decision that a pastor who changed gender from female to male remains eligible to serve the church.

In combining two separate docket items related to the Rev. Drew Phoenix, pastor at St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore, the Judicial Council stated that it was not ruling on whether changing gender is a chargeable offense or violates minimum standards set by the church's legislative body, the General Conference. Rather, the court said "a clergyperson's standing cannot be terminated without administrative or juridical action having occurred and all fair process being accorded."

"The adjective (in this case, 'transgender') placed in front of the noun 'clergyperson' does not matter," the court states in Decision 1074. "What matters is that clergypersons, once ordained and admitted to membership in full connection, cannot have that standing changed without being accorded fair process."

Because Phoenix is a clergy member in good standing, the ruling means Phoenix will continue to serve his church. But the subject of whether transgender clergy are eligible for appointment is likely to be among issues debated when the church's General Conference convenes next April in Fort Worth, Texas. The United Methodist Church bars practicing homosexuals from being ordained but has nothing in its polity about transgender persons.

In other decisions related to sexuality issues, the council ruled that a Minnesota Annual Conference plan for providing health benefits for domestic partners does not violate the church's Book of Discipline.

The council would not take jurisdiction in challenges to three Northern Illinois Annual Conference resolutions affirming inclusiveness in the church. The council also remanded a case questioning whether Western North Carolina Annual Conference funds were being used to promote homosexuality. It upheld a bishop's decision in the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference that two campus ministry groups receiving conference funds were not part of any network that promotes homosexuality.

Notable absence

The Judicial Council meeting also was notable for the absence of its president, Dr. Jim Holsinger. As President George W. Bush's nominee for U.S. surgeon general, Holsinger said his participation could become an "unnecessary and unproductive distraction" to the court's proceedings.

Holsinger is awaiting confirmation as the country's top doctor as the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee awaits answers to follow-up questions posed to him in August on his views on homosexuality. His nomination has drawn opposition from gay rights groups, among others.

In a statement issued just before the start of the meeting, Holsinger said the "work of the council is too important in the life of The United Methodist Church to have its work distracted. While I remain dedicated to fulfilling the role to which I was elected, I believe this is a time in which my service to the Council can best be demonstrated by my absence."

Sexuality-related cases

During the 2007 executive clergy session of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, a change of name was recorded for Phoenix, from the Rev. Ann Gordon, who was ordained in 1989 and had led the St. John's congregation for five years. Bishop John R. Schol confirmed that, following surgery and hormone therapy, the pastor had changed gender and adopted a new name.

Two requests were made for a bishop's decision of law: one on a technical question about how to categorize the pastor's name change for the conference's Board of Ordained Ministry, and the other on whether a transgender person is eligible for appointment in The United Methodist Church. Schol said there is nothing in the church's polity that prevents a transgender person from serving as a pastor, and that the name change was handled correctly.

All decisions of law made by a bishop are automatically sent to the Judicial Council for review, as required by the Book of Discipline. While combining the two questions into one ruling, the Judicial Council affirmed both of Schol's decisions. A clergyperson in good standing is "required to be continued under appointment," the council ruled. In regard to the name change, the council said all name changes "regardless of the reason … are to be placed in minute question 91."

In the Minnesota domestic partner benefits case, the council ruled the plan did not violate Discipline paragraphs listed in the request for a decision because no United Methodist Church funds were being used to supply the benefits. The plan offers benefits to lay employees of the conference and their families, including domestic partners, and the cost of the health care coverage is borne by the employee.

In the question on whether money from the Western North Carolina Conference budget was being used to promote homosexuality through the North Carolina Council of Churches and by the campus ministry at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the council ruled that it is up to the individual conferences to determine whether money is being used in violation of Paragraph 612.19 of the Book of Discipline, which blocks funds from being spent in such a manner. The decision directs the conference's Council for Finance and Administration to perform its own investigation and report to the council within 60 days.

In the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference decision, the council upheld the bishop's decision that the conference's Council for Finance and Administration had properly investigated two ministries at the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound and determined that they were not affiliated with groups promoting homosexuality.

In the Northern Illinois Annual Conference item, the council said it did not have jurisdiction because the three resolutions were not debated separately but were handled together as part of the consent calendar. All three were related to the inclusiveness of the church and in response to the Judicial Council's earlier Decision 1032, which supported the actions of a pastor who blocked an openly gay man from joining the church.

Other issues

The council ruled that candidates for the church's General Conference and jurisdictional conferences cannot be compelled to disclose their view on controversial issues.

In Decision 1083, the council declared a motion adopted by the Memphis Annual Conference unconstitutional because it directed the annual conference to create a survey for prospective candidates. "Any attempt on the part of an Annual Conference to add to or change the procedures for the election of clergy or lay members to General or Jurisdictional conference is unconstitutional," the council ruled. The decision noted that candidates can choose to ignore or respond to surveys from various caucus groups.

The council also rejected as unconstitutional a new policy from the Memphis Annual Conference titled "Identifying and Strengthening Effective Clergy Leadership." The strongly worded ruling lists seven points in which the policy does not conform with the Book of Discipline, including that the "twelve-month whirlwind process … suggests that the real purpose of the proposal is to weed out ineffective clergy rather than developing the skills and abilities which would enable them to become effective."

In a review of a bishop's decision of law in the Western Pennsylvania Conference on a report titled "Faithful, Effective and Fruitful Clergy: A Working Definition" - and the relation of that report to a proposed discontinuance of a probationary member - the Judicial Council ruled that the questions were hypothetical because the conference did not adopt such a report in final form. The questions related to the effort to discontinue the pastor were moot once the clergy person requests and is granted a voluntary leave of absence, the council said.

In other rulings, the Judicial Council:

• Affirmed a bishop's decision of law that the plan of organization for the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference is constitutional;
• Determined there is no conflict in the voting requirements of Disciplinary Paragraphs 319.2 and 663.6, saying a simple majority vote is all that is required for a conference board of ordained ministry or clergy session in approving the continuance or discontinuance of a local pastor's license. Paragraph 663.6, which requires a three-fourths majority vote, applies only to district committees on ordained ministry. The case stemmed from the West Michigan Annual Conference;
• Ruled that questions of law put to the bishop in the Western Pennsylvania Conference were moot and hypothetical because they concerned a first draft of a report that had not yet been approved by the conference. The case also involved actions taken by the conference on the discontinuance of a probationary member, and the council said that such questions are "moot once the clergy person requests and is granted a voluntary leave of absence";
• Said that a bishop's decision of law in the Iowa Conference regarding a legislative question during the annual conference session was "moot and of no effect because subsequent action deleted the provision that was the subject of the question and decision of law." The final action of the Iowa Annual Conference on a substitute motion was in compliance with the Discipline, the council said;
• Affirmed a bishop's decision of law in the Illinois-Great Rivers Conference that a question was improper because it did not relate to the business of the annual conference;
• Said that the standing rule of the South Carolina Annual Conference - which delegates the nomination of the conference secretary exclusively to the bishop and cabinet without any input of the annual conference - conflicts with Paragraph 603.7 of the Book of Discipline. The court directed the conference to correct the rule;
• Did not affirm a bishop's decision of law in the New England Annual Conference since questions were submitted on which a decision of law could not be rendered;
• Would not take jurisdiction in a question regarding a petition from 11 members of the Committee on Nominations of the 2005 Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference because "the record does not indicate that a duly called meeting of the Committee on Nominations was held to authorize the petition."
• Continued a docket item from the California-Nevada Conference on an involuntary leave of absence question because the minutes were not provided in the materials sent to the council.

The council will meet next during the 2008 General Conference, set for April 23-May 2 in Fort Worth. The Judicial Council meets twice a year and is in session throughout each General Conference to respond to requests for rulings that may come from the floor.

Consolation

I'm reading a work on discernment, using St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises. In it, he writes about times of consolation and times of desolation. One type of consolation, "occurs unexpectedly; it is disproportionate to anything taking place in our prayer; one does not cause consolation through personal effort, nor does one hold onto it in any way' wholly drawn into God because there is no inner clutter between God and ourself. In this experience, we feel ourself more deeply; it is in losing the false sense that we find our true self in God."

One of my deepest experiences of consolation that I remember is the evening that I came out to a small group of friends and received affirmation and support (a very different experience from the time I was outed without permission to some friends). As I was driving home, even as I walking to the car, I felt the deepest sense of calm and peace that I have ever experienced. I felt a warm embrace and incredible love. I felt my false self fly away and my true self emerge as from a cocoon. I felt a weight and tenseness that I have carried in my shoulders my entire life, melt away. It was truly a feeling of deep consolation.

The feeling of consolation lasted through the night and the first half of the next day before it went away. I wish it didn't have to go away, because it felt so good. I feel again the weight and tension in my shoulders that I have always had. But if there were anyone who would yet try to convince me that God wants me to be someone else, I need only recall again this moment of consolation to know.

Matthew Fox's Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox has become my favorite author to read this year. He articulates a creation spirituality that is in contrast to much of the fall/redemption spirituality that currently predominates. For example, he notes these differences:

FALL/REDEMPTION	CREATION SPIRITUALITY
Greek	Hebrew
Spiritual means immaterial	Spiritual means what is life-giving
From Plato via Augustine and Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite	From the Jews via the prophets and Jesus
Soul wars with body (Augustine)	Soul loves the body (Eckhart)
Matter is sinful or at most tolerated	Matter, too, is God-made and holy
Limit pleasure, shun it	Ecstasy is gift of Creator
Private (God and me)	Political (God and us)
Centered around the theological theme of fall and humankind’s need for redemption	Centered on the theological theme of Creation: how it is good, how we say thank you by enjoying and sharing the enjoyment of it
Pride and lust are capital sins to be put to death by morifications	Developing your talents is the Creator’s desire. Any ascetic practices are strictly means, not ends
Negative toward the human person and human history	Affirmative toward the person and human history not in a naïve optimistic sense, but in the sense that humankind has responsibility for creation to the extent that it respects and receives the gifts and beauties of the Creator as sacred
Artists must choose between sacred and secular objects, between spiritual and material	Every experience of beauty is an experience of God and all artistic expression is a sharing in an image and likeness of the Creator
Humankind’s relationship to God is primarily vertical: God is up, humankind below. God as theistic.	Humankind’s relationship to God is horizontal and concentric in its meeting places. God is in all and all is in God. God as panentheistic.

The Feeling Way of Knowing

One of the things that a patriarchal, evangelical modernist theology has done to Christians is make us distrust our feelings. Why? Because otherwise we might not go along with the approved interpretations. Using both brains and hearts, we may come to undesirable conclusions like: people of color are human, women can preach, and gays & lesbians can be healthy members of society. Like peace is better than war, the poor ought to be fed, the homeless housed, the immigrant given space, and the sick healing care. But that's not part of the (patriarchal, capitalist, conquering, shaming, nationalist) orthodox agenda. We are told not to believe our deepest knowing that comes from feeling. We are made to feel ashamed by set ups like "your subjective feelings or God's Word?" By distrusting our feeling way of knowing, we are dehumanized and are led to dehumanize others.

Here is an interesting article from Joan Chittister on the subject:

What Does the World Need?

When poets talk about the human soul, they do not talk about reason; they talk about feeling. The totally human being, they enable us to see, is the one who weeps over evil, revels in goodness, loves outrageously, and carries the pain of the world in healing hands.

Feeling is the mark of saints. It is Vincent de Paul tending the poor on the back streets of France, Mother Teresa with a dying beggar in her arms, Florence Nightingale tending the wounded in the midst of battle, John the apostle resting trustingly on the breast of Jesus, Damian binding the running sores of lepers on the island of Molokai, the soup kitchen people in our own towns giving hours of their lives, week after week, to feed the undernourished. Feeling, we know deep within us, signals the real measure of a soul.

Without feeling, living becomes one long, bland journey to nowhere that tastes of nothing. Take feeling away and we take away life. Feeling warns of our excesses and alerts us to possibilities. It attaches us and opens us and warns us of danger. Because of our feelings we are able to persevere through hard times and find our way to good times. Feelings lead us to the people who love us through life and satisfy our souls when nothing else about a situation can sustain us at all. Feelings, devoid of thought, made only of mist, become the inner lights that lead us out of harm’s way and home to our better selves. Feeling leads us to love the God we cannot see and to see the God around us whom we have yet to come to love. To talk about the spiritual life without feeling, to talk about any life at all without feeling, turns the soul to dust and reduces spirituality to the most sterile of initiatives. And yet we do.

In situations that require insight, wisdom, and concern to resolve them as well as hard, cold information, feelings bring an invaluable dimension. Feelings are the other kind of intelligence, the alternate kind of knowing, the humane kind of reasoning.

What the world needs may well be less detached intellectualism and more thinking hearts, less law and more compassion. Reason that is not informed by emotion is a dry and sterile thing. It comes up with answers too flawed to be humane, too disjunctive to be moral. Reason can be a very dishonorable approach to the task of being human. The kind of thinking that invented slavery trivialized feeling. The kind of thinking that trivialized feeling invented slavery. The world that developed nuclear bombs and made defense impossible, made fun of the peace movement for eroding national defenses. With the subjective obscured, objectivity too easily becomes hardheartedness. As Alice in Wonderland noted, in such a world “down is up and up is down.”

Feeling welcomes us to the human race, where, in the end, the fullness of humanity is all any of us will have to show for being spiritual.

How God works in the world.

Part of my problem with the previous 10 points on political theology is that while I like the phrase about working for a world that asymptotically approaches the kingdom of God, the sentence seems to carry some bit of distance, some bit of “God is out there somewhere while we/the church do some work over here until God decides it’s a good time to come back?”

In reply, I have a quote from James Fowler, whom I've been reading for Souljourners. Here is quotes Peter Hodgson's God in History:

“My thesis is that God is efficaciously present in the world, not as an individual agent performing observable acts, nor as a uniform inspiration or lure, nor as an abstract ideal, nor in the metaphorical role of companion or friend. Rather, God is present in specific shapes or patterns of praxis that have a configuring, transformative power within historical process, moving the process in a determinate direction that of the creative unification of multiplicities of elements into newe wholese, into creative syntheses that build human solidarity, enhance freedom, break systemic oppression, heal the injured and broken, and care for the natural. A shape or gestalt is not as impersonal and generalized as an influence or a presence, since it connotes something dynamic, specific and structuring, but it avoids potentially misleading personifications of God’s action. What God “does” in history is not simply to “be there” as God, or to “call us forward,” or to assume a personal “role,” but to “shape”—to shape a multifaceted transfigurative praxis. God does this by giving, disclosing, in some sense being, the normative shape, the paradigm of such a praxis. This is what I mean by the divine gestalt.”

Commenting on this quote, Fowler writes, “[Hodgson] is suggesting that behind the events that represent breakthroughs in the history of people and nations, a discerning observer can detect long lines of convergent providence. Whether we are speaking of the civil rights movement in the United States or of the final breakthrough to putting the scourge of apartheid behind the unifying people of South Africa, there are lines of faithfulness, not always visibly connected, that converge to make breakthroughs possible. Even the visible, human leaders of these movements have themselves been influenced and nurtured by communities of faithful people whose names the world will never know.”

10 propositions on political theology

Something a friend sent me. Some I agree with, and some I don't.

Ten propositions on political theology

by Kim Fabricius

1. The doctrine of the ascension is the basis of all political theology – and why there can be no such thing as apolitical theology. The church cannot be a cultus privatus because Jesus of Nazareth, “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” reigns and his edict is public truth. Remove Christ from the forum and it does not remain empty: nature abhors a vacuum; idols love one and soon fill it.

2. God is political. Cut the political bits out of the Bible – as Jim Wallis and some friends once did – and you’re left with “a Bible full of holes.” God is political – and God takes sides. In the Old Testament, Yahweh’s exodus and covenant “bias / preferential option for the poor” is now a well-worn phrase – but an undeniable fact. And the New Testament – Luke in particular – doesn’t drop the ball: the Magnificat and the Jubilee Manifesto suggest the game plan.

3. In my view it is legitimate to speak of an “epistemological privilege” of the excluded and oppressed. Bonhoeffer, writing in prison, was avant la lettre of liberation theology: “We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.” Here is the “more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.”

4. With a shrug of their shoulders, conservatives love to quote the text, “You always have the poor with you” (Mark 14:7), as if poverty were an order of creation (cf. “the rich man in his castle, / the poor man at his gate”), and there is nothing we can – or should – do about it. But Jesus was not being cynical, or even realistic, about the inevitability of an excluded underclass, rather he was reminding his disciples where they will be found if they are faithful – among the poor and oppressed.

5. The point is not that the poor and oppressed have a monopoly on virtue, let alone that they are an elect group, rather it is simply that they are the ones who get screwed – and God doesn’t like people getting screwed. So God sends his servant Moses, his spokesmen the prophets, and finally his Son Jesus, their Big Brother, to take care of the bullies, though he fights with his mouth not his fists. Not, of course, that God loves the oppressor any less than he loves the oppressed; indeed his rescue mission is to liberate them both, the latter from their humiliation and suffering, and the former from their pride and violence.

6. Nor does any political theologian who is not a straw man hold the Marxist delusion that utopia can be built. Karl Barth, responding to an ordinand who had heard him lecture, wrote: “Many thanks for your kind letter. But … now you manage to put down on paper again all that nonsense about the kingdom of God that we must build. Dear N.N., in so doing you do not contradict merely one ‘insight’ but the whole message of the whole Bible. If you persist in this idea I can only advise you to take up any other career than that of pastor.” The antidote to political pelagianism is a critical eschatology. Barth himself, of course, was no quietist. “A silent community,” he said, “merely observing the events of its time, would not be a Christian community.”

7. Still, calling governments to account and repentance, the critical component, and praying and working for a community of shalom and an economy of grace, the positive component, are essential elements of the political vocation of the church. Strategically Christians should work for a world that asymptotically approaches the kingdom of God. Tactically Christians should form ad hoc alliances with all people of good will in pursuit of a more just society. Indeed, as Bonhoeffer discovered, we may well find more saints among the pagans than the pious. Jesus said, “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40). We should not fear dirty hands but bloody hands.

8. The flipside of an apolitical church is a sacralised state. This is “the Constantinian trap” (Lesslie Newbigin). And a sacralised state easily becomes a demonic state. The cross is draped with the flag, and discipleship is absorbed into citizenship. The German Christians are the paradigm nationalist idolaters; history repeats itself in the farce of the Religious Right. “Never was anything in this world loved too much,” wrote Thomas Traherne, “but many things have been loved in a false way, and all in too short a measure.” The true love of ecumenism trumps the sentimental love of patriotism.

9. The church’s political witness ends in the public square, but it begins around a table. At worship the church bows neither to Caesar, nor to Mammon or Mars, but to the crucified and risen One. At worship the Spirit begins to straighten our disordered desires, as we hear an alternative narrative to manifest destiny, and learn an alternative praxis to Realpolitik. Yet worship can be a bolthole rather than a sign of reconciliation and resistance. “Where the body is not properly discerned, Paul reminds the Corinthians, consumption of the Eucharist can make you sick or kill you (1 Cor. 11:30). This might explain the condition of some of our churches” (William T. Cavanaugh).

10. The Apocalypse of John is “a visionary theological and poetic representation of the spiritual environment within which the church perennially finds itself living and struggling” (Richard B. Hays). It is a samizdat text of protest to the pretensions of power, a warning against complacency, and a call to discernment in reading the signs of the times. The powerful inevitably twist it into a self-serving mandate for accumulation and aggression; only those who long for justice and peace see that the hermeneutical key is the slaughtered Lamb who gently roars. Here is the text for a political theology that begins to re-imagine and re-shape the world in anticipation of the parousia of Christ.

Post-9/11 Postscript
In Apocalypse Now: Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror (2005), Duncan Forrester proposes an interesting juxtaposition: on the one hand, the statement of support for the Kaiser published by a group of ninety-three leading German intellectuals, including theologians, on the day the First World War broke out; on the other hand, the public “Letter from America: What We Are Fighting For” in support of President Bush’s “war on terror,” signed by sixty prominent American intellectuals, including theologians, five months after 9/11. Both letters are so theologically thin, however, that they amount to pom-pom propaganda for imperial states. The first letter awoke Karl Barth from his Schleiermacherian slumbers, the second letter aroused Stanley Hauerwas and Paul Griffiths to a polemical response. But by and large the people of Germany and the US sleepwalked into slaughter. Moral: When political theology is faithful, expect it to be critical and subversive; when it is unfaithful, expect it to be ideological and fatal.

Give us, O Lord

Give us, O Lord,
A steadfast heart,
Which no unworthy thought can drag downwards:
An unconquered heart,
Which no tribulation can wear out;
An upright heart,
Which no unworthy purpose can tempt aside.
Give us, O Lord,
Understanding to know you,
Diligence to seek you,
Wisdom to find you,
And a faithfulness
That may embrace you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
--St. Thomas Aquinas

July 10, 1941 in Jedwabne

Sixty years ago, on July 10, 1941, half the polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half. Of 1,600 Jews, about a dozen survived. Why did the murderers do it? Prof. Jan Gross of New York University may not fully realize that he has found the answer.

IT IS IN HIS astonishing little book (173 pages of text) just published by Princeton University Press. The title, "Neighbors," is an ice dagger to the heart, but only after the book has been read. The word "neighbor" connotes moral sympathy ("neighborly") as well as physical proximity. But not on July 10, 1941, in Jedwabne.

Gross says, "This is a rather typical book about the Holocaust" because it does not offer "closure"—"I could not say to myself when I got to the last page, ‘Well, I understand now'." Perhaps he is flinching from the awful answer his book supplies. On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, which was occupying the part of Poland containing Jedwabne. On June 23 a small detachment of Germans entered the town. There were almost immediately some isolated atrocities by Poles against Jews—one man stoned to death with bricks, another knifed and his eyes and tongue cut out. German policy encouraged pogroms by local populations, and there were some ghastly ones near Jedwabne. One of the first questions asked of the Germans occupying the town was, Is it permitted to kill the Jews?

After the carnival of killing, the Germans reportedly thought the Poles "had gone overboard" and said to them, "Was eight hours not enough for you to do with the Jews as you please?" But the murderers were not socially marginal people. At a town meeting—democracy, really—Jedwabne's leaders met with the Germans. Gross quotes a witness: "When the Germans proposed to leave one Jewish family from each profession, local carpenter Bronislaw Szlezinski, who was present, answered: We have enough of our own craftsmen, we have to destroy all the Jews, none should stay alive. Mayor Karolak and everybody else agreed with his words."

The mayor coordinated the killing, but otherwise, Gross says, "people were free to improvise." Peasants from nearby villages got word of the planned pogrom and came to town as to a fair. A Pole recalls that "the Jewish population became a toy in the hands of the Poles." The Holocaust has been called a manifestation of modernity because of its industrialization of murder. But in Jedwabne hooks and wooden clubs were used. A head was hacked off and kicked around. To escape the killers, women fled to a pond and drowned their babies, then themselves. But most were burned alive in a barn while the town was searched for the surviving sick and children. A witness: "As for the little children, they roped a few together by their legs and carried them on their backs, then put them on pitchforks and threw them onto smoldering coals."

Gross estimates that half the town's men participated, and because the killings were concentrated in a space no larger than a sports stadium, everyone "in possession of a sense of sight, smell, or hearing either participated in or witnessed the tormented deaths." A murderer in uniform can resemble a cog in a machine, but the last faces seen by Jedwabne's Jews were the familiar faces of neighbors. It was, Gross says, "mass murder in a double sense—on account of both the number of victims and the number of perpetrators."

The Germans' involvement was confined to photographing events and, in one instance, offering the sort of advice professionals offer amateurs. A witness recalls that when Poles with thick clubs were battering six Jews, a watching German said, "Do not kill at once. Slowly, let them suffer."

In 1996 Daniel Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" argued that German society was saturated by an "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that produced a high degree of voluntary participation in genocide. His premise—that Hitler merely unleashed a cultural latency and fulfilled the sick logic of German history—reduces Hitler's role to that of mere catalyst. Goldhagen did stress the powerful role of Third Reich propaganda. But, then, what of the Poles of Jedwabne, who were not Germans and who did their uncoerced murdering after just two weeks of German occupation, before being conditioned by propaganda?

Christopher Browning, author of "Ordinary Men," a study of middle-aged German conscripts who became consenting participants in mass-murder police battalions in Poland, argued that cruelties inflicted by the Khmer Rouge against fellow Cambodians and by Chinese against Chinese during Mao's Cultural Revolution cannot be explained by Goldhagen's model—centuries of conditioning by a single idea. Neither can Jedwabne be explained by Easter sermons characterizing Jews as God-killers, or by medieval myths about ritual murders of children by Jews, or by lust for plunder.

Gross's book accords with Browning's admonition that explanation must involve "those universal aspects of human nature that transcend the cognition and culture of ordinary Germans." Or ordinary Poles. At bottom, the explanation is not in this or that national history but in humanity as it quickly becomes when severed from social restraints.

Gross quotes, but does not sufficiently dwell on, philosopher Eric Voegelin's thoughts about "the simple man, who is a decent man as long as the society as a whole is in order, but who then goes wild, without knowing what he is doing, when disorder arises somewhere and the society is no longer holding together." Political philosophies that celebrate atomistic individualism need to be re-read in the light cast by the crematoria of Auschwitz.

The Holocaust, writes Gross, is "a foundational event of modern sensibility, forever afterward to be an essential consideration in reflections about the human condition." So, again: Why in Jedwabne did neighbors murder their neighbors? Because it was permitted. Because they could.

by George F. Will

© 2001 Newsweek, Inc.

on prayer

"Prayer is primarily attentiveness to God's disclosure to us and the heart's response to that disclosure. In much prayer the attention we pay to God's disclosure is our response. If, for example, in prayer we are made aware that God loves us as we are, even in our mediocrity, our best response is to savor that, to allow it to sink in, rather than to start to make resolutions and promises to God, which might be a subtle way of changing the subject to what we can do. We are loving God, trusting God and uniting ourselves to God precisely by appreciating, savoring, absorbing, realizing and allowing ourselves to be impregnated with that disclosure of grace. Our contemplative awareness and taking in of God's touch and word is just the "answer" God is hoping for. This answer will gradually get spelled out, not so much by many words in the prayer time, but in the actions and growth that our acceptance of God's disclosure will make possible."
-- Martin L. Smith, The Word is Very Near You

Yesterday...

Yesterday Dean and I had our monthly evening Vespers. The theme, since Halloween is coming up (the eve of All Saints Day), was commemorating the saints. We invited our participants to bring a photo of a departed loved one to put on the altar, and our service revolved around that.

Dean slaved all afternoon to get everything ready. He made the entire dinner -- benghetti (ask him), salad, rolls, and cherry-blueberry pie. He also went out and got a great table decoration and worked hard to clean the kitchen.

I, on the other hand, was not feeling well at all, and other than preparing the liturgy, wasn't very much help. I took some Tylenol and went to bed very early (about 9pm). I slept okay, better than last night at least.

Our morning routine

Dean sent this to me. It is disturbingly close to our morning routine every day.

A Moral Dilemma - the Death Penalty

This particular dilemma is only relevant if you are actually against the death penalty. Here goes:

The federal government is preparing to execute a convicted inmate on death row by firing squad. However, it cannot find any volunteers willing to perform the execution. So Congress passes a law such that 10 people are chosen at random, each are given a rifle to perform the execution, but only 1 rifle has a bullet in it, the others have blanks. You are selected at random. All 10 of you will fire your weapon, and none of you will know who actually fired the killing shot.

Do you participate or do you refuse?
If you refuse, you will be guilty of another law, and will go to jail for 10 years.
Do you participate or do you refuse?
If you refuse, you AND all your family: parents, siblings, spouse and children, will go to jail for 10 years.
Do you participate or do you refuse?

news moratorium

It's time for another news moratorium for my sanity. Starting now, for the next 7 days, I won't be reading, watching, or listening to any news. I hope to spend more time in prayer than I have been, and the current news is one of my obstacles to doing that.

On Perfection

People pursue perfection, and I suppose that's a thing that humans have a duty to do, in a way. But there's a tendency now to misunderstand this obligation to pursue perfection as a right to be perfect, to have perfection given to you. And so people enter into their relationships with one another and with their places with the idea that they have a right to expect those places and those people and those connections to be perfect, and then when imperfection appears, as it inevitably does, they feel that they have a right to be offended, and they don't see the arrogance and the condescension in that.
--Wendell Berry

Founding Fathers

There is a pervasive belief, fueled by the conservative right, that the Founding Fathers were evangelical fundamentalist Christians. They weren't. Most were Deists. Most did retain membership in a church primarily for social/political purposes to prevent scandal.

Huckabee made this statement yesterday, that the signers of the Declaration of Independence "were brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen."

Not true. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, only 1 was a clergyman, John Witherspoon.

Of the Founding Fathers whose names we would most recognize:

• Washington was one of the least religious of the Founding Fathers and kept his beliefs the most private. It has been documented that when Washington went to church as an adult, he did not receive communion, but left the church.
• Jefferson didn't believe in the Trinity, including the divinity of Jesus.
• Franklin was a Deist
• John Adams did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, creeds, or divinity of Jesus, but did find the ethics of the New Testament to be a useful guide.
• Madison was a Deist who believed strongly in the separation of church and state
  

The point, of course, is not that being a politician and Christian is bad, but to get over our nationalistic mythology that mistakes faith and loyalty in government (and its leaders) as faith and loyalty to God and is holding the minds and hearts of people captive.

An instructive book is The Faiths of the Founding Fathers written last year by David Holmes.



Jefferson: "It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests."
Jefferson: "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
Jefferson about Washington: "Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself."
John Adams: "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."
Bishop White: "Dear Sir: In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that Gen. Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant."

Souljourner's Christian Maturity and Morality

This weekend's Souljourner's was good, but a bit disorienting. The books we had to read in preparation were about stages of faith, shame, postmodern spirituality and the process of change in romantic love. But none of those things were what we talked about!

We talked a little bit about phases of transition when we go through any kind of significant physical, mental, emotional or spiritual change or life disruption, which was part of the book we read:
1) Ending - including disengagement from the old way of thinking, disidentification with a loss of a part of self-definition, disenchantment with the person I thought I was, and disorientation which includes attendant feelings of confusion, etc.
2) Neutral zone -- the "dark night of the soul", the feeling of dislocation and desolution, often accompanied by the apparent absence of God
3) New Beginnings - reentry, reintegration, reorientation to a new stage or place and protecting the fragile new beginnings against the power of old patterns.


A big part of what we talked about what Morality and Change, which was not in any of the materials we prepared for. In brief:

The Psychology of Evil : how moral disengagement happens
1) Diffusion of responsibility -- it's somebody else's fault, everybody was doing it, someone else started it, group-think
2) Obedience without question -- blind acceptance of socialization, propaganda and education, I was ordered to do it, I did what was expected of me
3) Deindividuation -- soldiers wear uniforms, victims like at Abu Ghraib are hooded, Jews are forced to wear a yellow star of david
4) Dehumanization -- human beings are unrecognizably human, referred to and treated as animals, very common to be forced to be naked.

Criteria for Moral Exemplars:
1) A sustained commitment to moral principles
2) a consistent tendency to act in according with these principlese
3) a willingness to affirm rather than deny or misrepresent one's own acts
4) a willingness to risk personal well-being for the sake of one's moral principles
5) a talent for inspiring others to moral action
6) a sense of humility rather than grandiosity or egotism
7) a dedication and reseponsiveness to the needs of others

10-steps for resisting unwanted influences
1. I admit when I make a mistake
2. I am mindful
3. I am responsible
4. I am me, the best I can be
5. I expect just authority, but rebel against unjust authority
6. I want group acceptance, but value my independence.
7. I will be more frame-vigilant (i.e. aware of how ads, movies, interviews, sound bites, "debates" are framed to lead toward a particular view/behavior)
8. I will balance my time perspective
9. I will not sacrifice personal or civic freedoms for the illusion of security
10. I can oppose unjust systems

Romney wins values voters straw poll

This is a real surprise to me. In the last Values Voters poll, Romney was the ONLY candidate to get ZERO (0) votes. That suggested to me that evangelical Christians would never vote for Romney. But in the latest Values Voters poll, Romney is in first place, beating out the previous winner, Mike Huckabee (who is the only ordained southern baptist minister in the crowd). Giuliani placed 8th, followed by McCain in LAST place.

Suddenly the republican waters are a bit muddier than I thought they were. Ron Paul & Tom Tancredo got more votes that Giuliani or McCain? What's going on?

Candidate Name ... Percentage
1. Mitt Romney ... 27.62 %
2. Mike Huckabee ... 27.10 %
3. Ron Paul ... 14.98%
4. Fred Thompson ... 9.77 %
5. Sam Brownback ... 5.14 %
6. Duncan Hunter ... 2.42 %
7. Tom Tancredo ... 2.30 %
8. Rudy Giuliani ... 1.85 %
9. John McCain ... 1.40 %

Update: The Values Voters poll is sponsored by AFA and chaired by Don Wildmon of AFA. But neither the AFA website nor the Values Voters website mentions the poll or its results. I wonder what that's about.

Update 2: This is a bit confusing, but I guess there are actually TWO Values Voters organizations. The one who sponsored THIS poll was from FRC (Family Research Council) led by Tony Perkins. Frankly, I can't keep them straight.

Souljourner's

Trying to get ready for Souljourner's this weekend. I finished one book, wrote two papers, finished preparing Saturday's morning prayer, but still need to pack and read an entire second book in about half a day. Yipes.

Dodd comes through again

Dodd comes through again by openly putting a hold on a bad FISA bill. Good for him!! He's got guts to do this openly because he could face retribution.

Colbert for President

If he were running in KS, I would throw away my vote in a heartbeat.

Romney trying to get evangelical vote?

Josh Marshall at TPM writes about Romney trying to steal the evangelical vote from Giuliani, and thinks he may succeed. He's wrong. He forgot that Romney was the ONLY candidate to get ZERO votes from the recent Values Voters debate. That seals it. For evangelicals, voting for a mormon is like voting for the devil, much worse than voting for an abortion rights candidate.

P.S. Just in case it isn't obvious, I should point out that I think that sucks, and that I'm not an evangelical.

Giuliani on the campaign trail

" Giuliani's spending was elevated at least in part because he traveled in style. He often stayed in luxury hotels, spending $2,010 at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, $4,034 at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., and $5,370 at the Fairmont in San Francisco. He also spent more than $565,000 reimbursing various corporate supporters for private jet travel and an additional $800,000 on charter jet travel.

"We have said, at the end of the day, looking at the total that we have, it shows we're running a very efficient and effective campaign and are very mindful of the donations that we receive," said Maria Comella, a Giuliani spokeswoman."

Yah, and if you believe that, I have some prime beach property to sell you in Kansas. If the other candidates are like this, it pretty much puts the kaibosh on my desire to donate.

Clever puppy!

Ginger brought each of her toys, one by one, from the family room, into my office, and laid them out in a neat little row, then bugged me to see her handiwork. It's so cute!

Cheney's Law

I'll be watching...

Weekend

This weekend has mostly been full of working on Souljourner's. I had a paper to write and a book to read, and a prayer service to prepare. Next meeting is next weekend, so this weekend was the last chance I had to get all my work done.

Dean and I still managed to take a couple of hours off to go see a movie. We saw Mr. Woodcock, the movie with Billy Bob Thornton and Seann William Scott. I thought it was pretty good, but there was really only one scene that was so funny that it made my side hurt.

It was a scene in which Billy Bob is strapped to a gurney being pushed by Seann down Main St. during a parade so that Billy Bob could make up with his fiancee and Seann's mother. The gurney hits a big pothole and the whole thing flips up and over, with Billy Bob strapped to it, so that he ends up getting face planted into the road.

The Relevant Church

I am weary of all the attempts of the contemporary Christian church to be "relevant." You see, the theory goes, people don't go to church because it isn't "relevant" any more.

So they come up with all kinds of gimmicks to try to make church more relevant. The latest one I read today is a church that has services at a night club, and combining hip hop and other pop music, tries to draw "relevant" messages for the Christian life.

The more tame versions of this method are ubiquitous: sermons series like "4 tips for a healthy marriage," "3 ways to improve your finances," "Dealing with difficult people." Blech! No wonder people aren't going to church. (By the way, I have sometimes wondered if the reason why preachers like to preach this way is because human psychology and accounting is more easy and straightforward than actually seeking and wrestling God and coming out the other side like Jacob and his limp, with something to live and to proclaim.)

I still think that if church does what it has always been meant to do -- to connect people with God, to help them experience the Divine in all things -- it is relevant. God is infinitely mysterious and worth getting to know and following. Jesus, whoever you think he is, is mysterious and worth getting to know and following. But we have forgotten what that means and what that looks like, and hardly anybody recognizes the Jesus of the Bible any more (hint: he doesn't look like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, or Don Wildmon!).

It is no secret that America is one of the most Christianized nations in the world, and according to one survey, 1 out of 3 Americans claim to read the Bible regularly, but far fewer have any idea what's actually in it. So what happens? They get manipulated by the Bible thumpers. Instead of following God they live in fear of God's wrath, imagining that God is some nebulous judgmental thing up in the sky watching and waiting to strike them down or at least someone they don't like. Worse, in certain circles clergy claiming to be God's representative pronounce the most hateful tripe in the pulpit and then in their offices, commit the worst atrocities. No wonder people think it's irrelevant. It's crap.

And sadly, when people realize it's crap, they stop believing, live cynically, mocking all religious experience, never realizing that they have never genuinely experienced God in the first place.

Sometimes I think the average church tries to do too much. The church gets involved in politics, social justice, personal ethics, membership drives, cub scouts, mission trips, socials and ever-present fundraising bake sales, often not doing anything well and in the end marginalizing the central purpose -- to unite people with the mysterious presence of the Loving God (which is not to say that God cannot be experienced in the very things I just mentioned).

I have no answers. Sadly, this is just a rather scattered gripe. What I know is that there is so much MORE that faith in the Divine has to offer than most people have ever imagined. I know that I have barely entered the depths of the Divine Love.

Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize

Good for Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He's been able to do so much in terms of awareness and advocacy in so little time, that it's amazing. And for all the people who are still knocking him down (along with the Nobel committee now), sometimes I'd like to put them on a melting iceberg in the arctic next to a polar bear and see the how all the bad science turns out.

Over the Hedge

Torture Fatigue

Jimmy Carter has it right:

Bush defended the techniques used, saying, "This government does not torture people."
Carter replied, "That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored -- certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated. But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them."

Jersey Figs

I thought this was cute. From Barbara Crafton:

JERSEY FIGS

I didn't sneak outside just now, not exactly -- I just didn't tell Q where I was going. This is the behavior of an addict, I know, as is the numerical rounding down I do when I tell him how many fresh figs I have had. Oh, I've already had a couple, I'll say airily, when he asks me if I'd like one. Which means four. Or it could mean five -- "a couple" just doesn't mean to us what it means to other people.

Like most addicts, I view my weakness as forced upon me. How can I not pluck and eat a fig -- or three -- right off our own fig tree, when I have to walk right by it on my way back with the garbage can? Is it not a miracle straight from God that Q has managed to grow a fig in New Jersey, for heaven's sake, and does it not say right in the Bible, right there in Isaiah 36:16, that everyone shall eat figs from his own fig tree? It does.

And are we not supposed to have between five and nine servings of fruits or vegetables a day? We are. And does this guideline not come from our own government? It does. So is it not my patriotic duty to eat figs from our tree? It most certainly is.

And does not Weight Watchers itself say that fresh fruit is a core food, which means you can eat as much of it as you want? Well, they say "as much as you need to be satisfied," but isn't that basically the same thing? No? Well, to us it is.

My old boss used to say that, if he were CEO of a company, his sales force would be composed exclusively of addicts. If he'd been a CEO instead of a priest, he'd have made billions, because he was right: we can argue anything.

My addiction will pass. The fig season is short -- just a few weeks in the early fall, and then they will be gone for another year. Soon it will be time to wrap up the trees for the winter -- yes, I did say "trees:" our Mama Fig has now had two babies, not counting the one that ran away from home with a passing bird and sprang up under a rosebush. What riches -- I can see why the Bible praises the fig tree, why its wonderful fruit symbolizes the good life in scripture. It is sweet, juicy, soft, round, pink inside. There is nothing about it that isn't gorgeous.

Praise be! For figs in the garden, for the birds who steal them and then poop somewhere else and then there is a new little tree! For the sun that ripens new ones every day, in the last days before the cold of winter! For Q, who dared to think that he could grow one! Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord!


The Almost-Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm Copyright © 2001-2007 Barbara Crafton - all rights reserved

Kansas Bridges, are they safe?

A few months ago, I mentioned that I had written to our congressmen about our Kansas bridges, about how 21% of them were "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete." Dennis Moore is the only person who followed up my letter by writing to KDOT. Today, I got a lengthy letter from Deb Miller, Secretary of Transportation. Here are some excerpts,

"The terms don't indicate that a bridge is likely to collapse or is unsafe for travel. The terms mean that the bridges are aging and require monitoring, repair, maintenance, and possibly repair or replacement in the future."

"A structurally deficient bridge may have one or a combination of obsolete design standards, structural deterioration [!!], or inadequate waterway capacity below it [!!]. These bridges typically require significant maintenance repair to remain in service and will need eventual rehabiliation or replacement to address deficiencies."

"A functionally obsolete bridge is one that no longer meets today's design criteria. In many cases, these bridges are narrower than we would build them today."

"If our inspectors think a bridge is unsafe, it is closed--that very day. Like Mr. Castillo, our families travel on these bridges too."

There was more in the letter, but that's the substance. Of more importance, KDOT has now posted on their website a list--one of the things in my letter that I specifically asked for--of all the bridges that are structurally deficient or obsolete.

That list can be found here:

http://www.ksdot.org/KsBridges/KsBridges.asp

That web page did not exist when I wrote my letter in August. In Douglas County, here is the list of bridges with their safety ratings:

Bridge # Feature Crossed SD/FO Rating
0023-B0001 Mud Creek SD 58
0023-B0003 Access KTA to SB 59 SD 32.4
0023-B0004 NB Access to KTA 59 SD 32.3
0023-B0011 Middle Frk Tauy CR DRG FO 32
0023-B0012 Middle Fork Tauy Creek FO 49
0023-B0014 East Fork Tauy Creek SD 11.5
0023-B0015 West Fork Tauy Creek FO 58.8
0023-B0017 Wakarusa River DrainageSD 21
0023-B0022 US59 HWY FO 51.8
0023-B0081 Kansas River, ATSFRR FO 76.6
0023-B0082 Kansas River, ATSFRR FO 76.6
0023-B0095 Local Road FO 96

SD means Structurally Deficient. FO means Functionally Obsolete. I think I'd definitely avoid Tauy Creek for a while. There is a map on the KDOT website (in a PDF file), but it isn't very easy to use.

B0003 and B0004 are both on the interchange between Iowa & 6th St. near Turnpike.
B0011, B0012, B0014, B0015 are all on Hwy 56 west of Baldwin
B0017 I can't find on the map
B0022 is on Iowa near KU.
B0081 and B0082 are the bridges on 6th street & Mass cross the river to North Lawrence
B0095 is either on K-10 or near K-10 going over the Baldwin creek northwest of Lawrence

Anyway, I'm glad to know what's on the list, and a bit frightened that some of the bridges on the list are ones I know I use.

Still, Where is the outrage?

On what planet are we living on when a "moral democracy" like the U.S. gets away with torture on the grounds that it's a state secret? Why do we sound more and more like a Libya or Russian KGB in the 80s than the U.S.?

From the New York Times:
A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case.

The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on the grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets.


And I ask again, where is the outrage?

P.S. If I were a Democratic candidate for President, I would be saying this until I'm blue in the face:
"Vote for me because in my administration torture, secret CIA prisons and pretenses at nation building will be over. Period."

Idiocy

Yah, I know I'm not a parent, but really, there is absolutely nothing about this story that works for me:

Teaching Kids about Sex and Drugs
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/10/09/sex_drugs/index.html?source=newsletter

Where is the outrage?

When Dean and I went to D.C., we visited the U.S. Holocaust Museum, which has left a lasting impression on me. The museum's creation was championed by Elie Wiesel. When we got back, I read Night, Elie Wiesel's autobiographical story about his experiences at Auschwitz (he is shown in this picture on the second bunk, 7th from the left). He lived in Hungary, and his family, like most people, failed to listen to or believe any of the warnings. At the age of 15, as a young teen studying the Jewish mysticism of Kabbalah, the Germans took over his hometown and herded all the Jews onto cattle cars. His mother and youngest sister were killed in the gas chambers within minutes of their arrival. His father survived nearly to the end of the war, finally succumbing, after a long winter forced march that broke his health, to dysentery. Wiesel's most powerful words in this book are these:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night at camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes.
Never shall I forget these things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself.
Never.

As our country is distracted by a nonsensical war, we stand virtually impotent as atrocities like Darfur and Myanmar/Burma continue before our very eyes.

I wonder, how can we act when secret torture memos, written by our own federal government, convict us of our sin? How can we possibly rid evil and injustice in the world when we brazenly create it ourselves and call it national security?

And still, I wonder, where is the outrage?

Is the weekend over already?

It's been a busy weekend. Saturday Dean went with Teri, Ellen and Kacy to Eudorafest and Nebraska Furniture Mart. I stayed home and with Westie's help, put chicken wire on the fence to close the gaps that Ginger could crawl under.

Sunday we had church, Dean did laundry, I worked on Souljourners, and we both took turns keeping a sharp eye on Ginger. It's been a long time since I've needed to keep such constant vigilance.

I Know What Scandal You Committed Last Summer...

How many conservative "Christian" scandals have we had this year? Truly, I've lost count.

Richard Roberts [son of Oral Roberts] is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_re_us/oral_roberts_scandal

P.S. If you're counting, here are the ones I can remember:

Larry Craig
David Vitter
Randy Tobias (AIDS Czar caught in prostitute with Vitter)
Joey DiFatta (New Orleans Rep who dropped from campaign after soliciting in a bathroom twice)
Bob Allen (FL Rep. who solicited in a public bathroom and said he was afraid of angry blacks)
Glen Murphy (Young Republicans guy)
Mark Foley
televangelists Juanita Bryant and Bishop Weeks
P.P.S. It's been pointed out to me that perhaps not all of these would self-identify as conservative Christian. That may be true. In which case these are not Christian conservative hypocrite scandals, just conservative hypocrite scandals.

SCHIP

If you haven't called, written, or emailed your senator and congressperson to override Bush's veto of SCHIP, you should.

And that's all I gotta say about that.

But John Stewart has more to say:

The Animals

They do not live in the world,
Are not in time and space,
From birth to death hurled
No word do they have, not one
To plan a foot upon,
Were never in any place.

For by words the world was called
Out of the empty air,
With words was shaped and walled--
Line and circle and square,
Mud and emerald,--
Snatched from deceiving death
By the articulate breath.

But these have never trod
Twice the familiar track,
Never never turned back
Into the memoried day;
All is new and near
In the unchanging Here
Of the fifth great day of god,
That shall remain the same,
Never shall pass away.

On the sixth day we came.

-- Edwin Muir [1887-1959]

It's been a puppy week!

Thursday was a tough day to watch the puppy. It seemed like I was watching Ginger like a hawk, yet it didn't keep her from peeing twice right in front of me, or pooping upstairs less than 5 minutes after we had come inside from a potty break in which she would not go.

On Thursday Ginger and Chi Chi really interacted together for the first time, running back and forth and carrying on in the backyard during their play timese.

Today was much better. She still managed to poop upstairs once (I swear she can poop faster than I can climb the stairs after her!), but no peeing in the house! Yea! Progress!

Other than that, it's just been a lot of trying to catch up on work. Lots of things broke at work today. I'll be working some more tomorrow to clean up some of the mess. Also tomorrow, Westie will be coming over to help put chicken wire up on our back yard fence where the gaps are big enough for Ginger to crawl under.

Flag pins

Somebody shoot me.
short version: if you don't wear a flag pin, you're a traitor.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710050012?f=h_latest

No seriously, shoot me!
Short version: the jerks who give Dems a hard time on flag pins don't wear them either.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/whats-on-a-lapel/


Update 2: Dobbs is the lunatic here
Short version: Dobbs thinks Obama is a traitorous pussy because everyone knows that flag pins speak louder than words and actions.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/09/dobbs.Oct10/index.html