"Blue Slips" Rule R.I.P.

Over the years I have had to listen to a good many frustrated Southern peers complain that this is a rePUBlick, NOT a deMOCKrucy. This charming old canard is usually the one trotted out when people down heah are getting something crammed down ouwah throwt by some meddling outside agitator who just happens to be representing the overwhelming mass of clear thinking on the part of the rest of the country.

The most famous example of this complaint, of course, is that of civil rights legislation and its offspring...public accommodations, school desegregation, "transitional" neighborhoods and "white flight," affirmative action, etc. Hard on the heels of racial issues we have watched helplessly as women and members of alien religious groups were able to get legal protection from discrimination. (We can handle the snake handlers and holy rollers okay, but those Jews and Catholics are another story, don't you know.)

But throughout all this modern history Southerners have been able to seek refuge in a few parliamentary shenanigans in Washington to assuage their bruised traditions, making the medicine go down a little better by the oldest of games in political representation: playing politics. You can read it any way you want, but after all the fluff is blown off, playing politics amounts to -- adjusting Lincoln's famous line -- fooling most of the people most of the time.

Why else do all those military bases spread their tax dollars on the local economies of the South? It is no accident that Southern senators for decades were able to trade off principles for pork as the solid South, as it was called, successfully retained its agrarian power and played it powerfully well in return for a goodly share of the national wealth. We may sometimes have been, as they say "suckin' hind tit," but at least we had a teat to suck.

This is too much fun and I am getting distracted, but my point is that in the South we know something about how federalism works, how a minority is able to have protection from a tyranny of the majority, and how comity can succeed where confrontation is often counterproductive to progress. I guess that is why the filibuster issue resonnates with me. I have spent my adult life within Southern society as one of the minority within this larger minority. I know what it is like to get snarky remarks like "you really like those people, don't you?" as I consciously and systematically advanced my own affirmative action program as a manager of a labor-intensive business. Before it was over I was pleased to have fashioned my own version of a UN at the business I left behind. It was, and continues to be nearly three years later, a model of cultural and racial blending, with people from half a dozen countries and cultures all working together in a town that was once called "redneck" in a national magazine.

Getting to the topic at hand, it should be noted for the record that the filibuster has not been the only tool that a minority has had in Washington to keep a determined majority at bay. I knew there were others, but like personal hygeine and cosmetic surgery, these are not the kinds of things one talks about openly. Like Godwin's Law, mentioned below, talking about it is self-defeating.

The blue-slip system was in place before this, but that little trick of gentlemanly prestidigitation was quietly poisoned in just the last few years. Kevin Drum explains how it worked.

Originally, after Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 1994 elections and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch assumed control of the Judiciary Committee, the rule regarding judicial nominees was this: If a single senator from a nominee's home state objected to (or "blue-slipped") a nomination, it was dead. This rule made it easy for Republicans to obstruct Clinton's nominees.

But in 2001, when a Republican became president, Hatch suddenly reversed course and decided that it should take objections from both home-state senators to block a nominee. That made it harder for Democrats to obstruct George W. Bush's nominees.

In early 2003 Hatch went even further: Senatorial objections were merely advisory, he said. Even if both senators objected to a nomination, it could still go to the floor for a vote.

Finally, a few weeks later, yet another barrier was torn down: Hatch did away with "Rule IV," which states that at least one member of the minority has to agree in order to end discussion about a nomination and move it out of committee.

Here endeth the reading. Well, that reading anyway. Here is another one.

Forget about the Republican vs Democrat part. That's not my point. The main point is what is happening to the process. Drip, drip, drip...a little at a time we seem to be moving, in fact away from the Republic toward a Democracy. On the face of it, that is a good thing. But the simple truth is that ordinary people do not, and have never in history, participated in a democracy in any meaningful way, other than in very local and limited assemblies. The Greeks, to whom we owe the notion, only permitted a select population to participate, seeing no contradiction between their political ideals and owning slaves, let alone the status of women whose right to vote has still not been obtained in parts of the world to this day.

Political ideals are as smooth and aesthetically pleasing as the marble of a Greek statue. But like the statue, they do not breathe or bleed. As in the business world blood does not show on a balance sheet, neither does it show on the pages of leather-bound books in lawyer's bookcases.

Tip today to Josh Marshall, whose vigilance never seems to end.

Feed and care of a Volunteer Army

While most Parent Teacher Student Association meetings might center on finding funding for better math books or the best way to chaperon a school dance, a recent meeting here at Garfield High School grappled with something much larger - the war in Iraq.

The school is perhaps one of the first in the nation to debate and vote against military recruiting on high school campuses - a topic already simmering at the college level. In fact, the Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether the federal government can withhold funds from colleges that bar military recruiters.

High schools are struggling with a similar issue as the No Child Left Behind Act requires that schools receiving federal funding must release the names of its students to recruiters. Some feel that's an invasion of privacy prompted by a war effort that has largely divided the American public. Others say barring recruiters is an infringement of free speech - and a snub to the military, particularly in a time of war.

Garfield High School took a decisive step last week with a vote of 25 to 5 to adopt a resolution that says "public schools are not a place for military recruiters."

All this comes as recruiters struggle to meet enlistment goals.

Two paragraphs from the end is this:

...the resolution by Garfield's PTSA is more symbol than policy, for Seattle, like virtually all school districts, requires high schools to give recruiters access to students - or risk losing federal funding under Section 9528 of the act. School districts also are required to notify parents and students that they may "opt out" by signing a letter preventing recruiters from getting their names.

In response to Garfield's resolution, Seattle's district issued a statement reinforcing its policy of allowing recruiters to work on high school campuses, but also said it would increase efforts next fall to make it easier for parents and students to opt out.

LINK: Christian Science Monitor.
Tip to Debbie

Fisking Friedman, other ME observations

Tom Friedman is a very bright man. Flat world, long tail and all that. And until the WTC attack he, Juan Cole and the late Bernard Lewis were about the only writers that a casual American reader would find commenting on the Middle East.
Since then other well-informed sources have been advancing different and not always agreeable viewpoints about events in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Joshua Holland, writing in the Gadflyer, reacts to a couple of Friedman pieces in the NY Times:

Friedman writes: Yet these mass murders - this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims - have not prompted a single protest march anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued by any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers, many of whom, according to a Washington Post report, are coming from Saudi Arabia.

Holland replies: I guess the New York Times doesn't have a search engine. Here's a story about Iraqis protesting against Al Zarqawi at the Jordanian Embassy in Iraq, this one's about an Iraqi demonstration against attacks on infrastructure, here's one about Kuwaitis marching against terror attacks, and you can read here, here and here about influential clerics across the Muslim world loudly and publicly condemning suicide attacks.

* * * *

* * *

Mark Lynch keeps one of the finest blogs on Mid East issues, Abu Ardvaark. Let's just say politely that he is not a big fan of Tom Friedman. His blog is where I found the link above.
His take on the Saddam-in-underwear story seems right to me. I don't know why his very real construction of the whole affair isn't being discussed.

As I understand it, the pictures were leaked by American military sources to friendly (conservative) newspapers - the New York Post and the Sun - as a psychological warfare gambit against the Iraqi insurgency. Saddam's lawyers are suing over what appears to be a breach of international law.

Me, I could care less about Saddam's privacy - kill hundreds of thousands of your own people, I guess you'll just have to live with having a picture of yourself sitting on the toilet published in the newspaper. I'm more concerned about the political backlash, and how that plays out in the Arab media and inside of Iraq. Hopefully I'll have more to report later.

One interesting tidbit, though, and a nice indicator of the current political lines within the Arab media: from what I can tell, al-Jazeera and al-Quds al-Arabi (the two pillars of the non-Saudi, Arab nationalist Arab media) refused to run the photos, while al-Arabiya and al-Sharq al-Awsat (the two pillars of the Saudi, pro-American Arab media) ran it prominently. I didn't see it in today's al-Hayat, but I didn't see that paper yesterday.

I'm not aware of any prominent US journalist, left or right, who makes it a point to discern among the Arab media, unless they are advancing some ulterior argument. I'm sure this blogger will not be invited to any White House parties, but I don't sense he will be at any political conventions either.

Feeling Old

How does this sound?

The opposition party does not oppose. The Bush administration has given Democrats more opportune targets than President Clinton’s sexcapade with Monica Lewinski provided Republicans. But the Democrats are too weak to capitalize on the political opportunities.

The failures of Democrats and Republicans offer chances to libertarians. But libertarians are politically impotent. Their ideology and abstract commitments are perceived as taking precedence over the well-being of their fellow citizens. Libertarians cannot differentiate between the comparative advantage case for free trade and labor arbitrage based on absolute advantage that is destroying the jobs and hopes of Americans.

America is so fractured by diversity, multiculturalism, organized special interest groups and race- and gender-based legal privileges that the concept of the public interest has simply disappeared.

America’s intellectual camps have become boosterish echo chambers that dismiss out of hand any contrary thought. Preaching to the choir while demonizing others is a path to intellectual impotence.

The rule of law has been replaced by the rule of regulators and prosecutors, who interpret the law to suit their careers and agendas, and by the rule of plunder in torts.

Faced with these grave challenges to America’s integrity, the political energies of the American left are focused on gay marriage and abortion; that of the American right on the opposite. Twenty million evangelical Christians, who once focused on saving their souls, now seek an avenue to heaven through war in the Middle East, which they believe will bring on Armageddon and the Rapture.

A once-independent media are now highly concentrated and speak mostly with a single voice in behalf of the interests of advertisers and a new aggressive American nationalism. To save its existence, even National Public Radio feels pressured to partake of the Karl Rove spin.

Democracy struggles under the best of circumstances. When the people are woefully uninformed on almost every subject and totally dependent on spun news, success must rest on outside events and the failure of others.

America’s once-powerful manufacturers are today little more than brand names with sales forces. Some still assemble foreign-made parts, but many simply market products of foreign innovation, design, engineering and manufacture. As more and more of America’s economy is outsourced, America’s engineering and design professions decline, as does the value of a college education. In the 21st century, America has been unable to create jobs in export and import-competitive sectors.

America’s financial pre-eminence is based on the dollar’s role as reserve currency, a role threatened by the dollar’s long downward slide in value as the result of trade and budget deficits.

America’s strong communities and neighborhood schools are gone, destroyed by an ideology that used bussing to break them apart.

Feminism has put great pressure on families by weakening women’s commitments to children and marriages with the new commitment to career and independence.

Parents cannot discipline children without risk of government intervention through Child Protective Services. Acceptable standards of behavior decline, and children become sexually promiscuous and partake of alcohol and drugs at earlier and earlier ages.

Shame is a lost concept.

University students are stressed to find a major that cannot be outsourced. Students are discovering that outsourcing and work visas have closed many occupations to them.
America’s borders are not protected against legal and illegal immigration that long ago dispelled any pretense of assimilation. Disparate interests, races and values have overwhelmed the abstract basis of American unity. Patriotism is being destroyed by the government’s indifference to, if not preference for, immigrant invasion. Patriotism’s place is being taken by a dangerous nationalism.

Will the Republican Party’s neo-Jacobin ideology reunite the country in an aggressive nationalism against the world, or will America’s Asian bankers cease to finance the empire of red ink?

Does America still have an edge, or is America in retirement, living off past accomplishments?

I suppose I'm showing my age.
Most of this litany resonates with me.
Problem is, this is one of the guys writing in Chronicles Magazine, along with Pat Buchanan. Remember him? He's the guy that wondered if World War II was worth it.

While we're at it, I need to note for the record Godwin's Law. According to Godwin's Law the mention of Nazis (and by extension, perhaps the entirety of the Second World War) is a signal that whoever mentions the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. There are elegant permutations of this principle at Wikipedia, including Quirk's exception (that it is ineffectual deliberately to mention Godwin's Law) and Van der Leun's corrolary (that the longer the discussion lasts, the more likely that a real Nazi is apt to be involved).

Having broken the rules, violating an otherwise elegant protocol, I have to distance myself from the observations of Mr. Roberts, author of the litany. I must note for the record that Buchanan's extreme rhetoric causes me to shudder.

This most recent rant, though, caught my attention...

George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States.
[...]
Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century. The secret British government memo (dated July 23, 2002, and available here), leaked to the Sunday Times (which printed it on May 1, 2005), reports that Bush wanted “to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. . . . But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. . . . The (United Kingdom) attorney general said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defense, humanitarian intervention or UNSC (U.N. Security Council) authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.”

This memo is the mother of all smoking guns. Why isn’t Bush in the dock?

Has American democracy failed at home?

Snowball. Hell. Pigs. Wings. You know...

Bill Whittle

Okay, so I'm a couple days late.
Bill Whittle's latest essay is up. I haven't read it yet, but I will.
Take a break. Relax. Save it for later. And pass the word.

I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but that's not important. He says it really well. Whittle's essays are like Howard Cosell's reports. Like it or not, you just know when something is true from the heart.

What about Saudi Arabia?

Today's WSJ printed a marvelous piece of prose by a Muslim, the director of the Saudi Institute in Washington.

As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore in any American city, and study its contents in countless American universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia--where I come from--are not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately.
[...]
As Muslims, we have not been as generous as our Christian and Jewish counterparts in respecting others' holy books and religious symbols. Saudi Arabia bans the importation or the display of crosses, Stars of David or any other religious symbols not approved by the Wahhabi establishment. TV programs that show Christian clergymen, crosses or Stars of David are censored.

There is a lot more, but you get the idea. It concludes with this:

The lesson here is simple: If Muslims wish other religions to respect their beliefs and their Holy book, they should lead by example.

Oh, yes.
And here is a very pointed paragraph:

The desecration of religious texts and symbols and intolerance of varying religious viewpoints and beliefs have been issues of some controversy inside Saudi Arabia. Ruled by a Wahhabi theocracy, the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia have made it difficult for Christians, Jews, Hindus and others, as well as dissenting sects of Islam, to visibly coexist inside the kingdom.

Am I the only person in the world who wonders why so many mixed signals from Saudi Arabia are being ignored by policy makers ready to bomb other places into the stone age? Since our Middle East policy is not about oil, so we are told, I am equally confused by our own response -- or lack of response -- to the mixed signals.

This is not some off-the-wall rag reporting here. This is the Wall Street Journal. They have a lot of stuff on culture, art, history and science, you know. Lots of interesting non-financial content to read on the plane. Stuff to make scintillating conversation on the golf course.

It can't be oil. We know that. Of course. Oil has nothing to do with anything. This is about tolerance and religious freedom. An article in the Wall Street Journal is just the ticket to signal how the movement toward freedom and tolerance in Saudi Arabia is reaching avalanche levels.
I know I'm impressed.
Aren't you?
Wow! I'm sure glad we're allies.

Mega-Church article in Harpers, via The Revealer

Sooner or later Jeff Sharlet's two-part examination of the mega-church phenomenon will be read and commented upon throughout the Christian community. Part I, available in the current Harper's Magazine, is also available online at The Revealer, where Sharlet is a principal contributor.

“Church” is insufficient to describe the complex. There is a permanent structure called the Tent, which regularly fills with hundreds or thousands of teens and twentysomethings for New Life’s various youth gatherings. Next to the Tent stands the old sanctuary, a gray box capable of seating 1,500; this juts out into the new sanctuary, capacity 7,500, already too small. At the complex’s western edge is the World Prayer Center, which looks like a great iron wedge driven into the plains. The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life’s founder.

There is a lot to be said for economy of scale, critical mass, social leverage and political influence. But I'm not sure how well the idea relates to faith. Faith connects inversely with threats, uncertainties, doubts and pain. Faith is in some way the opposite of certainty. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The mega-church mission seems to be the replacement of hope with certainty, the realization of seeing instead of squinting to understand the unseen.

I'm unconvinced, but who am I to argue with a wave of spectacular, unalloyed, in-your-face success. The Brownsville Assembley in Pensacola was as close as I ever got to a big church. It was too big for me, except as a visitor. I was impressed with what they had accomplished, but when I tried to imagine myself as a regular member there, I had a hard time seeing how that would be different from being in a big, well-organized club. That was several years ago and it was miniscule compared with today's big churches. I guess I'm just a small-church guy.

Mega-church enterprises are the result of the combined efforts of a lot of good people to create a haven of safety and support for each other. That part appeals to me, in the same way that I have a high regard for the Amish and Bruderhoff communities. I have read about L'Arche communities which seek to incorporate into a larger community those who are, in the old language of the prayerbook "in mental darkness." In very alien environments the protection of a compound has always been used by organized groups, from missionaries to scientific expeditions to military bases.

As protected populations such groups are not only tolerated, but sometimes encouraged by the larger communities in which they are located. The greater community would rather not be aware of groups like the Branch Dravidians or other cult-like outfits who come and go as much as they like as long as they keep to themselves with their crazy behaviors.

In the case of a mega-church, what's not to like about a place where people can swim, exercise and play safely? Where the welcome mat is always out for anybody that wants to join? Indeed, we all know how dangerous the world can be. How corrupt. How full of crazy people. We know the public schools are a cesspool of immorality, watched over by a cadre of teachers and administrators whose mandate to teach competes with other assignments that have nothing to do with education.

Large numbers of people retreat into private schools, gated communities, and surburban or rural settings where they no longer interact daily with the detrius of modern civilization (if we can call a litany of social ills "civilization"). I suppose I see mega-churches as parallels to gated communities.

That's why I like the notion of small churches. Small churches, especially older ones, are the Kingdom's equivalent to tree bark...not too pretty, not very interesting (certainly not exciting), but totally essential, winter and summer, to the survival of the tree. As much as I appreciate the work of mega-churches, I fear for the safety and survival of the little ones. I remember a convesation I had with the rector of a small church. We were discussing the mega-church phenomenon and he pointed out that mega-churches "regard churches like ours as feeder churches." Small churches, not masses of infidels, are the fields of harvest for the big ones. There are a few big fish in small ponds, but I know good people whose little lives and visions could never withstand the gale forces of a big church. That is a population of Christians that I want to see protected. At this point I don't hear anybody speaking for them.

Business as usual...

Another blog's surfing report had the following paragraph.

The huge fight over judicial nominations is really because now the judiciary has gained (and is constantly gaining even more) power than either the legislative or executive branches of our government. Nothing, but nothing, could have ever been further from the founders' intent. They would look at this situation and rage at such a system as being unfeasible and destined to end in tyranny. We have come a very very long way from where we started, yet the great evils of slavery and bigotry were largely overcome by popular agitation in a system with a more constrained judiciary. We should all pause and reflect on the practicial limits of the ability of reason and reflection of thirteen men to direct and order a society such as ours.

Nothing earth-shaking here. I doubt anyone would argue with the observation. It pinpoints the most glaring problem in US politics. A public debate, coming to a head this week with the Senate debate, indicates that most everyone has been reflecting on the same "problem."

We have not come to this place, however, because of some conspiracy on the part of judges. We are here simply because the other two branches, the two which depend on votes for longevity, have become so adroit at dodging issues and pointing fingers that legislation has by default become the mission of the judiciary. This week's debate is an extension of this dynamic as our two elected branches of government struggle with one another, not to craft legislation but to replace what they term "activist judges" who are activist in ways that they do not like with different "activist judges" apt to be activist in more appropriate ways.
I suppose we can think of the process as legislation by proxy.

Follow that? It reminds me of Bierce's definition of a Conservative as one enamoured of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with new ones.

Thanks to modern techniques of fine-tuning electoral trends, analysing focus groups and producing elegantly-worded positions, candidates running for office are less concerned with job descriptions than image. They have learned to take their main constituents for granted while playing to the center. Voters not only allow but promote this unhealthy trend by treating elections with the same beauty-contest values that drive voting for American Idol.

At the risk of sounding trite, I have to point out that it is the role of lawmakers to make law. It is the role of the executive branch to enforce those laws. And it is the role of the judiciary to interpret those laws.
Remember?
Isn't that what we learned in elementary school?

We witnessed a vivid example of how the legislative and judicial branches approach their respective roles in L'affaire Schiavo. In an embarrassing and inappropriate ad hoc manner they came together for the purpose of intervening in what has been a decades-long process of defining the legal boundaries of family members of persons who cannot, for whatever reason, speak for themselves. This trend has been neither secret nor controversial. In fact, it has been driven, like the abortion debate, by ordinary people facing real everyday struggles. As long as those painful struggles did not rise to the level of a national public debate, those painful struggles have been ignored, for practical purposes, by legislators and presidents alike.

Edelstein on Israel/Palestine

Jonathan Edelstein is back from traveling.
Yesterday's message about the slow process of reconcilliation between Israel and Palestine is hopeful.

I'd prefer that Hamas didn't exist, but it does, and in practical terms, Israel doesn't have the capacity to eliminate it or prevent it from being influential. Given those facts, the realistic thing for the Israeli government to do is to talk to Hamas, and put Hamas in a position where it has to moderate its positions. Talking to Hamas officials as members of government - but only as members of government - seems like a way to do this; Hamas will have to join the PA government in order to have a say in national affairs, and it will have to acknowledge the two-state solution in order to join the government. The elections may, ironically, be the first step in defanging Hamas even as it makes political gains.

Most people I know could not explain the difference between the PLO and the PA, even though they read and hear the terms used all the time. The media tosses around terms like Hamas, Hizbollah, Baath, PLO and Insurgent as though readers know exactly what those terms mean. Most readers, unfortunately, skim over such terms and regard them as a string of synonyms. We haven't progressed too far from the day when a critical mass of our population spoke of a Yellow Peril as carelessly as they might talk about the hurricane season.

The face of peace is not a pretty sight. The face of peace is covered with blood and scar tissue. As it peeks out from the ruins of a conflict, the face of peace is not a kissable visage. People turn away in disgust because they don't want to look at the twisted and broken image they see. After all, it felt so good to be at war. So right. So satisfying. This peace thing is hard to endure.

I hate to say it but the death of Arafat was the beginning of peace.
Somebody has to worry about taking away the garbage and stewarding everyday affairs of running the country. This is the hard lesson that Hamas seems to be learning.

Why blog?

Why, indeed?
In August I will have been blogging for a year. As the time nears I think about whether I want to continue. If so, do I want to continue slogging away with Blogger or upgrade to a better (read paid) host?
More basic is the fundamental question: Why am I blogging at all?
Bene Diction points to a well-done article that asks Catholic bloggers why they blog.

...help Catholics to laugh a little when it seems that the world and Church is collapsing around them...a way that I can share with others my own experience of exploring the world...To blog is to first think that you have something worth saying. In my case I fall back on G.K. Chesterton when he said "if something's worth doing, it's worth doing badly." ...because it allows me to put my ideas out there, without having to submit them to the commercial structures imposed by conventional publishing....a way to continue my post-graduation education.

Catholic blogs are, as a rule, articulate and well-written. Does this have anything to do with the Sacrament of Reconcilliation? To go to confession, you have to clarify your thinking enough to use words, even if you're a basket case. As a child of mainstream Protestant roots I know about lugging around a boatload of unspeakable guilt, coupled with no established way to have a dialogue with anybody but peers.

Interesting read, with a string of links. I saw only one passing reference to Sept 11. We tend to forget, but that was THE formative moment for blogs. In the aftermath of that tragedy blogging exploded for two reasons. First, for the thousands of people who lived and worked in New York, whether or not they were at risk to be WTC victims, blogging was a way of telling the world that they were not killed. Second, at a deeper level, that signal event so deeply touched America that an upswelling of emotion was ripe for expression. Blogging was the right thing at the right time to help amiliorate that emotional pain, that angst.
After September 11, stopping blogging would be like trying to stop the birth of a baby. It was gonna happen. That, and a lot more.
I have been lately referring to my job as "my post-911" job.

Real Live Preacher

TV preachers fascinate me to no end. They have so much emotional energy. It’s tiring just watching them.

I wonder if they pay high interest on their emotional debt, like I do. The body is a loan shark. You will pay premium rates to pull that kind of intensity at the time and place of your choosing. You will pay or lose a pound of flesh. This is something I know about.

Of course, if they’re faking, they’ve made other arrangements. There are black market bargains to be had. Dark covenants can be cut, but let us not speak of such things.

LINK

Gordon Atkinson is Real Live Preacher, the guy that rubbed Joe Carter's fur the wrong way.
I keep up with what he's doing simply because I'm interested in every stripe of the Body. Been reading RLP for several years now, from the anonymous blogmaster who eventually got "outed" to his little Texas congregation, to the emerging published author. I expect he will be able to pay the rent by writing, if he isn't already, instead of working as a web designer.
The comment threads affirm his ministry. Just today, in response to this piece in Wittenberg Door, someone said:

The Door is part of the reason I have not given up on Christ. I've been through all the fundamentalist baptist, evangelical-ghetto, charismania, calvinism stuff and have finally given up. I'm attending a Lutheran seminary now. The theology of the cross -I'm living with paradoxes and mysteries that I cannot explain. I've learned to not take myself seriously Love your website!!

He has written tons of stories, but these are not really fiction. The names are changed, as they say, to protect the innocent, but the heart of each story has a kernel of spiritual truth that can nourish the soul. One of my favorites is about when his little girl quit wearing bifocal lenses and the effect it had on him, her Daddy. I relate to that one because of my own experience rearing girls. From time to time I catch from one of them a gesture, an echo of a giggle, a phrase...something that flashes me back to a special moment forever locked in my memory as a precious and irretrievable time.

I've blogged about him before.
Count me as one of Gordon Atkinson's fans.

Yet another quiz: What is your "world view"?

From Bene Diction, the World View Quiz.
My profile was remarkably like his, incidentally.

Don't like that quiz? Then make one of your own at the Quiz Farm.

Roomba Nanny

This post I just love...

We have a Roomba Discovery, which we love. It does an amazingly good job of cleaning the children's playroom, but perhaps not in exactly the way its inventors at iRobot intended.
Although it's fine at sucking up dirt, finding its way around the room and returning to its charging station, its real achievement is in not only getting the children to clean up their toys first but also tiring them out before bed.

This works with three magic phrases:
1. "Roomba's coming out tonight. Clean up your toys or Roomba will eat them!"
2. "If you can clean them up fast you can stay up to watch Roomba!"
3. "Here goes Roomba. Don't let him touch you!"

The uttering of these three sentences results in the perfect end to an evening. The kids scurry around and pick up every last toy (it's the tiniest Lego pieces that get eaten the fastest), then race around the room jumping over Roomba as it drives from wall to wall, randomly changing direction just often enough to make the game fun. (We've told them that if Roomba runs into them it will think that they're a wall and not clean there, which may or may not be true.) Then, after 15 minutes of this, they're bored and ready for bed.

I love the thought that our children are growing up used to having domestic robots in the house. Robots for them are slightly dim but friendly vacuum cleaners, not fearsome weapons or fantasy toys. "Robot love me," declares the two-year-old.

If you're a kid, Chris Anderson's house has to be one of the best places in the world to grow up. It seems like fun to me and I just read about it.
Remember him?
He's the Long Tail guy.

Doc Searls on IQ, Redux

One of my many IQ scores, by the way, was 103. That was in the 8th grade. It should have meant nothing. Instead it meant that the school wanted me to go to a "technical" high school to learn a "manual trade." And that my parents had to hunt down a private school. Every one of those schools administered an Otis IQ test. Because I got all the answers right on the test, the Cartaret School (long since deceased) wanted me desperately. Because I choked terribly on the same test, another school (Mount Hermon) told my parents that I was borderline retarded and at the very least I needed to go back a grade. (In fact, I had a crush on a girl who was headed to Northfield, Mount Hermon's sister school, and that was all I could think about during the test.) According to this table, my best SAT scores (nearly the worst in the now-deceased school that did take me, by the way), translate to an Otis IQ score of 119.

Meaningless, of course. But highly consequential, as it tends to turn out.

Which is why IQ sucks.

LINK

Toward the end of the post, he reflects on the long tail and blogrolls.
As usual, there are a ton of links to read, but that's why we have the internet, isn't it. So much better than footnotes and endnotes.
Several people perceive the Long Tail as a kind of palliative to keep small-time bloggers on the hook. One comment said that blogging was a pyramid scheme. Cute.
I see the thinking, but when people with money pay attention, like book and record vendors, there is probably more at work than a conspiracy.
Blogrolls are interesting.
As I drill into new places I find myself occasionally scanning the blogrolls. Some of them look endless, with links to places I never heard of. Thanks to the linitations of the language and the economics of domain registration, permutations of goofy and stretched words are getting more bizarre as time goes on. I think at some point the monkeys at the keyboards will run out of recognizable combinations of alphabets and switch to numbers.
Until I graduate to a better host, my blogroll will be short and neglected. It takes too much time and trouble to mess with the template to add or delete. But even if it was only a click away, I think my blogroll would not be lengthy.
I read everything, but I don't feel the need to advertise everything. All I have to do is look at the out of control string of "favorites" to see how scattered out I can get. It's like that collection of scribbled notes on the dresser that archive my brain-props over the last month or two. When I get around to it I look at one more time before I drop them into the trash.

Trivia: What is the lifespan of orange roughy?

This is under the category of Obscure Stuff You Learn by Blogging.

Until today, I thought of orange roughy as yet another expensive seafood dish, like tilapia or flounder, remarkable more for price per pound than anything else. Fresh seafoods (or for those of us miles inland, fresh-frozen), well-prepared (meaning very lightly seasoned and not cooked too long) and eaten right away after cooking, are one of life's luxuries.
Now that I find that orange roughy might be over a hundred years old, I don't think I enjoy that high-end offering as well as I used to.

Found around the world, including the North Atlantic, where they were first discovered in 1889. Present in large numbers in specific locations around New Zealand between 800-1500 metres depth....Slow-growing, long-lived fish, thought to live up to 150 years...Most fish caught are 30-40 cm long and weigh between 0.9-1.9 kg. Maximum size is 50 cm and 3.6 kg. Diet: Mainly prawns, fish and squid. Breeding: Fish do not begin to breed until they are 25-30 years old.

LINK

Jay Gordon is part of the lunatic fringe making up the Arianna menagerie. Refreshing.

More on Korea

So many stories, so little time.
I want to blog about everything I read as I surf, but there isn’t time.
This piece keeps drumming in my head…

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At Lee's command, the factory's 2,000 employees donned headbands labeled Quality First and assembled in a courtyard. There they found their entire inventory piled in a heap - cell phones, fax machines, nearly $50 million worth of equipment. A banner before them read Quality Is My Pride. Beneath it sat Lee and his board of directors. Ten workers took the products one by one, smashed them with hammers, and threw them into a bonfire. Before it was over, employees were weeping.

Ritual purification at the command of a heroic leader is an ancient and powerful tradition in this part of the world. With a few superficial changes, this whole scene could have played in a Zhang Yimou costume epic. Certainly it had the desired effect: After Lee's visit to Gumi, shoddiness was not an option. Ki-tae Lee, then the Gumi factory manager and now head of Samsung's mobile telecom division, personally tests new models by hurling them against a wall or dropping them from a second-story window. Once he even ran over a handset with his car. It still worked.

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This happened in 1995.
It happened in a small factory town in South Korea.
The source of the story is Wired Magazine, via the Marmot.
Put it together with other observations of Korea and see what you get.

This is only one of many stories that the average American on the street would look at, blink, roll his eyes and keep walking.

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ALSO...

According to relevant authorities, North Korea has built military-related underground facilities in 8,200 places. North Korea is also moving major facilities beneath the earth, having moved about 180 major munitions factories underground in the late 1990s. There are even air bases where runways penetrate whole mountains. North Korea is evaluated at being among the world’s best at constructing underground facilities. [...]

North Korea spends a lot on building and maintaining underground facilities. Its underground munitions factories, the building of which began full-scale in the 1970s, suffer from serious problems due to the country’s antiquated power grid. This is related to the fact that the power grid losses about 30 percent of the North’s real annual electricity consumption of roughly 12 billion kWh (Unification Ministry figure). Intelligence officials figure there have also been a string of large-scale disasters involving explosives at the underground munitions plants, where the environment is poor due to dampness and other factors.

LINK

Am I the only one who thinks that behind the scenes there could be serious reservations about the reunification of North and South Korea? Real serious reservations.

What would happen if the technology and wealth of the South combined with the gritty, powerfully focused military intensity of the North? Just asking.

Update

In a lengthy post referring to a couple of Time articles, the Marmot comments:

South Koreans — particularly those in the Seoul area — have been living with the prospect of a very bad death for more than any people should, and given the numerous incidents and crises that have plagued the peninsula since the end of the Korean War, many may simply be desensitized to the threat. That is to say, North Korea has become a part of everyday life, and while nukes may represent a new twist in the equation for the U.S., for Koreans, many of whom are going to die regardless of the nature of the ordinance, North Korean nukes don’t really change things other than possibly make a U.S. attack on North Korea more likely.

More telling is this from the comment thread:

Many young Koreans I’ve talked to are not merely unperturbed by the Northern nukes; instead, they positively want the North to make them and keep them. The logic of this position seems that they see both the waning of the U.S. influence in East Asia and the re-unification of the peninsula as inevitable, and the possession of nuclear weapons as both a badge of national prestige as well as a weighty geopolitical chip against China/Japan when those scenarios materialize. Obviously, from this perspective the Northern nukes are considered to be somehow “ours” for South Koreans, and the possibility of its use v. the South most improbable–a fine by-product of DJ/Roh governments’ indoctrination.

My remark above about "what would happen if the technology and wealth of the South combined with the gritty, powerfully focused military intensity of the North" is not an entirely obtuse piece of fanciful thinking on my part. At least one other person using a Korean name profile advanced the same notion...

The power of words: RLP, Evangelical Outpost

[If I keep breaking rules this blog ain't ever gonna get off the ground.
One of the rules is (probably) don't change the subject so often.
People who like one topic will not likely be attracted to another, especially if you go from jokes to multi-media to politics to dismal comments about obscure observations on Korean history...
I guess that's one of the benefits, too. Mostly I'm writing for myself, so if I like it I know at least one person is paying attention. ]

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Real Live Preacher is on my list of places to visit. There hasn't been much action there lately because Gordon got caught up in book publishing and getting to be a regular contributor to a magazine. But before that he had one of the most effective and compelling ministries of anyone in the clergy: his on-line weblog.

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For a long time he kept his blog separate from everyone else in his life. The people in his church had no idea he was doing it, but judging from the comment threads he was reaching a lot more souls with his blog than he ever did in a church by the side of the road. His writing style is as scratchy as a hair shirt, but his heart is good as gold. I can't describe in a post or two the dynamic of his evangelism, but I am certain that it is every bit as important to the Kingdom as anybody else's.

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A few days ago Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost finally got around to mentioning RLP in his blog. I was reading RLP almost from the start, but only became aware of Evangelical Outpost in the last year. The names of the two blogs tell as much as I can write about their respective missions. And I always make it a point to check the comments to see who is reading and what the effect of the writing is on readers. My impression of RLP is that he has a small but dedicated following of caring people with good hearts, many of whom can relate to his stories because something he said has touched them in a way that lets them know, somehow, that God knows who they are and He loves them anyway. Comments left at Evangelical Outpost are smart, informed and clean as a whistle. But the environment is too polished, too pious, too well-informed to make a new Christian feel comfortable, unless he has been cut from exactly the right cloth.

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It is possible for a city dweller to be comfortable in the country, but it is likely that a country dweller is not going to be comfortable in the city. Typically, the city person in the country has the option of returning to the city. The country boy in the city, on the other hand, can't go back as easily. How can you keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree? That's why Crocodile Dundee is such an entertaining film. That's the appeal behind country music. And that's why, I think, the crowd at Evangelical Outpost is not comfortable with Real Live Preacher. it reminds them of a part of themselves that they thought had been left behind. (If they ever had it at all. Some people never cussed growing up. Just like they never peed outside or anything else that polite people just don't do. In some ways these are the ones who can be more tolerant than the ones who gave up bad behavior.)

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For a study in motes and beams, I recommend two posts and their respective comment threads, one from Evangelical Outpost and the other from Real Live Preacher, both written within the past week, and both with enough comments to be interesting. I enjoy reading them both. I have as much respect for one as the other. Paul's image of body parts describing the church is appropriate. I will let others debate about what parts of anatomy are at work here.

As they say, I report, you decide.

Real Live Preacher...
People send me email regularly, asking how a preacher can use such language.
USE LANGUAGE? USE IT? USE WORDS?
I don't know what to do with a question like that.
Sometimes I try to explain.
Sometimes I say, “I don’t know.”
Sometimes I say, “Why don’t you leave me the hell alone.”

Evangelical Outpost...
This mix of fideism and heroic existentialism probably appeals to the same immature crowd that appreciates a preacher who cusses. (“Dude, he doesn't know if God exists and he says F___ a lot. He’s my kind of Christian.”) Personally, I find such dumbing-down morally repugnant. When did Jesus say that we should leave our brains at the church door? Did I misunderstand that part about loving God with the whole mind? RLP's view of faith certainly seems peculiar.

By their fruits...

Don't neglect the comment threads.

That's where the rubber meets the road...

Korea perspectives

This is important. The Marmot's Hole is the preeminent blog about Korea in English.
I hope someone in the State Department is paying attention because most Americans don't have a clue.

A poll by the Munhwa Ilbo and KSOI revealed that the South Korean public was strongly opposed to unilateral U.S. military action against North Korea. How opposed, you might ask? When asked what the South Korean government should do if the U.S. bombed the North without Seoul’s approval, only 31.2 percent said the South should stand with the U.S., while 47.6 percent said Seoul should take the North’s side. Even among conservative Grand National Party supporters, only 38.6 percent responded that Seoul should take the U.S. side, while 41.1 percent said Seoul should stand with Pyongyang. Support for the North was higher in all regional, age and class groups.

This is consistent with a survey given on February 13, when 56 percent of respondents said the solution to the nuclear issue was for the “U.S. to guarantee North Korea’s system (regime).” 74 percent said “North Korea needed to be persuaded” to give up its nukes, while only 23 percent said North Korea needed to be pressured.

LINK

I said it before and I say it again:
Koreans do not think in terms of two countries. That notion is a tragic and misleading construct deriving from the unfinished business of the Korean conflict.

When Columbus discovered the New World the capital of Korea was already many centuries old. Events of the last century are but a small part of Korean national history. The word nationalism as used in the West is not adequate to describe the unity of the Korean people. When the day comes that DPRK and ROK become one there will be a power on the Asian landscape that will parallel both Japan and China.

WMD Found

This caught my eye because I was born in Richmond, Kentucky.

RICHMOND, Ky. - Vapor from the deadly nerve agent sarin leaked from a stockpile of old rockets at the Blue Grass Army Depot, but officials said it posed no danger to the public.
The sarin vapor did not escape the sealed container, or 'igloo,' where the weapons are kept. Officials were filtering the air inside the igloo Tuesday before trying to enter the structure to secure the leaky rocket.
Workers discovered the leak when they tested the air inside the igloo, said Richard Sloan, public affairs officer for Blue Grass Chemical Activity, the Army unit charged with monitoring and securing chemical weapons.
The igloo, which contains about 2,500 rockets, is monitored daily because rockets there have leaked in the past, Sloan said."

My family moved away from Kentucky when I was a kid, but the roots are still there. I've been thinking lately about how well Kentucky has managed to reconcile vice and virtue, politically, economically and socially.
Think about it. When you hear the state mentioned, the first three associations are horses, whiskey and tobacco. We used to joke about "fast women and beautiful horses." But I can tell you from personal experience that none of these vices did much to damage the integrity of faith and family values. I don't know exactly why that is. All I can tell you is that the people who earn their living making whiskey, raising tobacco or taking care of horses don't see those enterprises as vices. They are the way the rent is paid, just like working in famously dangerous, dirty, polluting coal mines. Or quietly stewarding the nation's dirty little defense secrets.

I guess that's part of the reason for my own political detachment. You can't live without faith and you can't live without a roof over your head. When your livelihood and your faith collide, all you can do is embrace both and hope for God's grace. That's why farmers who produce narcotics from Mexico to Afghanistan to Columbia to who-knows-where are not, for the most part, addicted to the substances they bring to market.

Vices are a luxury. Whether gambling or smoking or drinking the best whiskey, you gotta have money to do it right. Rarely do those who service those vices allow themselves to indulge.

Credit where credit is due: I got this link from South Knox Bubba who is on my Bloglines aggregator. Local blogs are a repository of information that is "under the radar" for most other places. I keep an eye on Knoxville thinking that something in the water might be contributing to the breathtaking and ongoing success of Instapundit. So far, no clues, but SKB makes for a great read.

Anyhow, he had another interesting link that illustrates how the servicing-vice/paying-the-rent connection works. The Oak Ridge facility has quietly been taking care of the nation's nuklar business for decades now, but apparently not without some environmental risks. Lots of folks around there also pay the rent by servicing this enterprise. Here's another interesting piece...
Don't miss the comments.
And don't be fooled by all that good ole boy talk. There's no flies on them.

Update, November 2006
The original links no longer work, so I put another link into the first one that provides the same information.
The Oak Ridge reference from South Knox Bubba is probably out there somewhere, but I didn't take time to look it up. The reader can get the idea anyway. Pretty much the same old story. This link is about the same topic but without the Good Old Boy talk.

Multimedia: Do your best for a better world

Yeah, I like little multimedia stuff.

Here's another one via 3Quarks.