One of the interesting things about being the token Catholic on a non-Catholic religious organization's staff is the opportunity to observe how pervasive anti-Catholic sentiment really is. And often among people who would consider themselves progressive, ecumenically minded sorts with nary a bigoted bone in their bodies. And yet...
Item: Several days ago a comment in passing led a co-worker (a newish one, who I'm not certain knows I'm Catholic, so I don't think she was trying to be provocative) to complain about schools serving meatless lunches on Fridays in lent. "It's about choice," she averred. Balderdash. 'Round these parts, there is no choice in elementary school lunches--if chicken is today's entree, everyone gets chicken--and middle school and high school cafeterias are a la carte, so there's always choice. Thus the complaint is not that the kids all have to eat mac and cheese on Friday, but rather that an accommodation (and a small one, at that) is being made to Catholic kids. And why should that bother anyone, unless they have at least a subconscious bias against Catholics?
Item: A couple of years ago, an article appeared in the local press about someone who had been taken in by one of these e-mail offers of untold zillions in an African bank, which can only be liberated by the solicitor of the deceased owner of the zillions if he has a "partner" in the U.S. A discussion of that in the office prompted someone to mention that some years previous, a local church of my employers' denomination had lost money in a similar scam; I conversationally mentioned that a local Catholic church had had the same experience. "They can afford it," said one of my playmates dismissively. Actually, they couldn't: they were and are a struggling parish. But even if they could, what a shameful thing to say. The implication was clear: They're not us, so their loss doesn't matter; they're Catholics, so who cares.
Item: A co-worker (who does know I'm Catholic, and who was I think making an effort to be hurtful) mentions a conversation with someone else who has read on "a web site" that Catholics "still" believe you can "earn" your way into Heaven. (Not precisely true, but precision is not something that is prized by bigots.) Causing someone else in that conversation to comment that he "hoped they would have done away with that by now." Golly. Where to begin? First of all, "a web site" is not what we would call a reliable source. Anyone can put anything on a web site. Second, not knowing the name of the web site makes it impossible to verify its contents, or to know whether the contents were being properly relayed by the commenter. Third, why would the commenter "hope" the Catholic Church would do or not do anything? If you're not a Catholic, what do you care what the Catholic Church professes? Finally, the smug implication--we're enlightened, they're benighted--is patently offensive. (Just as I would imagine the holder of such an attitude would be offended by the revelation that in some quarters his insistence on the concept of "grace alone" is not considered enlightened but rather incomplete.)
Item: In reference to the ordination and installation of a new bishop to the local Catholic diocese, one of my co-workers says that, watching the local news and seeing the rows and rows of priests in attendance, she is so proud to be a member of a church that ordains women. Well, okay. She should be proud of her church; everyone should be. Most of the time I am, too. But there again I sense an undercurrent of we're so enlightened and they're not. I certainly get no sense of respect for another church's right to set its own policy and make its own way to what it sees as the will of God. And, again, the subtle anti-Catholic thread is clearly evident: the Roman Catholic Church is far from the only church body that does not ordain women. And yet I hear little bemoaning of the fact that, say, Southern Baptists don't allow women in the pulpit. Why is the Catholic Church singled out? Well, because it's the Catholic Church, silly!
Let's be plain here: If it were left to me, the Catholic Church would have both women priests and married priests. But that's not the point. The point is, do I respect the right of Baptists, Presbyterians, Mormons, Jews, Hindus, etc., etc., to make their own policies? Not do I agree with these policies, but rather whether I have respect for them. If the answer is yes, then I have to acknowledge that "respect," if genuine, means being mature enough to avoid looking down my nose at policies that are different from those of my church or those that I would establish were it up to me. Somebody once said that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable bias in America. I used to think that was largely a dodge to keep the Catholic League in business, but my opinion has been altered these past several years. Sadly, most of the anti-Catholic comments and attitudes I observe are so ingrained that the person in question almost certainly does not recognize them as such. In a way, that's the worst kind of bigotry.
_____________
Postscript: This talk of who and who does not know my religious preference might imply that I keep it secret. I don't. I don't bruit it about all the time, but I don't keep it confidential either. Anyhow, it's more fun (if that's the word I want) to sit back quietly and see what people have to say when they don't realize there's an outsider in their midst.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
What He Said
Time for another batch of collected quotations! As usual, these caught my eye as adjuncts to the wonderful A Word a Day:
Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends. -Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure. -
Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established. -Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. -
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency. -
In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart. -Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)
Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. -Suzanne Necker, author (1739-1794)
Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. -Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923- )
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
I'm proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. -Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories. -Polybius, historian (c. 205-123 BCE)
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered. -Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. -John Keats, poet (1795-1821)
In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. -Lee Iacocca, automobile executive (1924- )
The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief ... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. -Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)
The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. -Peter. B. Medawar, scientist, Nobel laureate (1915-1987)
When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. -C.P. Snow, scientist and writer (1905-1980)
The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth. -Walter Lippmann, journalist (1889-1974)
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Here's Your Sign, redux
I've been rethinking slightly my earlier ponderings on yard sign, following a quip I made to my wife the other night that I should look at the signs in a particular neighbor's yard so I will know whom and what to vote against. There certainly is that angle, but it also occurs to me that there might be a residual effect for lesser-known candidates whose signs are displayed alongside the better-knowns. For instance, there are a couple judicial elections on next month's ballot. Frankly, I haven't heard of any of the people running, including the incumbents. So if I see Judge X's sign in a yard full of signs for candidates and positions that I support, it seems reasonably safe to vote for Judge X. The opposite would also seem reasonable.
But only to a point: There is a fellow in our neighborhood whose social-political stands are the virtual opposite of my own, and yet, based on yard signs, I see that there is one candidate on whom we agree. (I suspect that my neighbor's sign might be there on the basis of the candidate also living in our neighborhood, and I wonder whether the sign will in fact translate into a vote...but we'll never know, will we?) Obviously, I will not be voting in synch with all the other signs in this fellow's yard. So you have to have your wits about you.
In re incumbents: My late friend Jim Carney, who was my unofficial mentor when I was a just-out-of-college magazine editor, had an interesting take. On one occasion in those days, I commented on how, if I got into the voting booth and was looking at odd slots like water commissioner or something and found that none of the candidates' names meant anything to me, I usually voted for the incumbent on the theory that he or she already knew the job and that my ignorance of his or her name meant he or she must not have been involved in any scandals or malfeasance. Jim said he did just the opposite: in that case he would vote against the incumbent, who probably would be re-elected, just so that he or she would now that there was someone out there who didn't like the job he or she was doing, just to keep 'em on their toes.
That struck me as reasonable, and I've employed that tactic ever since.
But only to a point: There is a fellow in our neighborhood whose social-political stands are the virtual opposite of my own, and yet, based on yard signs, I see that there is one candidate on whom we agree. (I suspect that my neighbor's sign might be there on the basis of the candidate also living in our neighborhood, and I wonder whether the sign will in fact translate into a vote...but we'll never know, will we?) Obviously, I will not be voting in synch with all the other signs in this fellow's yard. So you have to have your wits about you.
In re incumbents: My late friend Jim Carney, who was my unofficial mentor when I was a just-out-of-college magazine editor, had an interesting take. On one occasion in those days, I commented on how, if I got into the voting booth and was looking at odd slots like water commissioner or something and found that none of the candidates' names meant anything to me, I usually voted for the incumbent on the theory that he or she already knew the job and that my ignorance of his or her name meant he or she must not have been involved in any scandals or malfeasance. Jim said he did just the opposite: in that case he would vote against the incumbent, who probably would be re-elected, just so that he or she would now that there was someone out there who didn't like the job he or she was doing, just to keep 'em on their toes.
That struck me as reasonable, and I've employed that tactic ever since.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Overheard on the Campaign Trail
But I did find myself wondering about the lousy campaign Jesus is running. Why, I didn't even know he was in the race! Less than a month until the election, and I haven’t seen a single billboard, yard sign, or bumper sticker, let alone a TV ad. Plenty of those "ICHTHU" fish things on the backs of people’s cars, of course, but I have always taken those to be a warning of a bad driver behind the wheel (high positive correlation between the fish emblem on the back and a questionable driver up front. Don’t take my word for it: Start paying attention and see if I’m not right) and not a campaign tool.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Odds and Ends. Mostly Odd, Though
Been a hectic couple of weeks, so, although I've been thinking many great thoughts, none of them have been set down here. But here are a few items that came across the radar scope of late. (Thanks to friends Jerry and Ron for making sure of that):
Item: "War plans: Congress OKs $20 mil for victory parties"
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The military's top generals have warned Iraq is on the cusp of a civil war and that U.S. troops must remain in large numbers until at least next spring. But if the winds suddenly blow a different direction, Congress is ready to celebrate with a $20 million victory party. ... [read it all at http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/04/congress.iraq.ap/index.html, 10/4/06]
Good to know that somebody's thinking ahead!
===
Item: "Perversion"
It took the Republicans a little more than a decade to achieve what forty years of Democratic rule accomplished - the institutionalization of corruption. The major difference is that the elephant masqueraded as a reformist, moral revolutionary. Hypocrisy is truly the tribute vice pays to virtue. These guys give Elmer Gantry a bad name.
How can fiscal conservatives continue to endorse Republican rule? How can social conservatives embrace a House leadership that neglected to expel a child predator from their ranks? How can reformists applaud the Abramoff Congress? ... [10/3/06; read it all at http://bullmooseblogger.blogspot.com/2006/10/perversion.html]
Two words: willful and ignorance.
===
Item: "While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover ..."
Just 25 days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this same man spoke to this nation and insisted, “We must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us.”
Mr. Bush, this is a test you have already failed.
If your commitment to “put aside differences and work together” is replaced in the span of just three weeks by claiming your political opponents prefer to wait to see this country attacked again, and by spewing fabrications about what they’ve said, then the questions your critics need to be asking are no longer about your policies.
They are, instead, solemn and even terrible questions, about your fitness to fulfill the responsibilities of your office. [10/6/06; read it all at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15147009/]
Was Keith Olbermann ever a carpenter? He's good at hitting nails on the head.
===
Item: "Lessons from the priest scandal"
What did the House Republican leadership learn from the priest pedophilia scandal? Not much, apparently. Otherwise, Speaker Dennis Hastert et al. would have followed the most basic precepts of public relations: Be honest, be forthcoming, be quick. Otherwise, politicians lose credibility and sink fast. ...[10/2/06; read it all at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/erbeblog/archive/061002/lessons_from_the_priest_scanda_1.htm]
What??! Since when do cover-ups and stonewalling not work??
===
Item: "Republican Plan to Teach Creationism in Public Schools Will Lead to State Income Tax"
The South Dakota Republican Party adopted a resolution at their 2006 state convention endorsing a mandate for teaching creationism in public schools. Current Republican legislators were quoted in the article supporting potential legislation for a statewide mandate. [10/2/06; read it all at http://sddp.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={FD915CBA-5D5D-4D06-A068-24B0C352B22A}&DE={9824FF0A-18D0-46D0-9A63-0D70C61B01C4}]
The South Dakota GOP seems intent on dragging this state back into the eighteenth century at best, and forcing their own warped views of reality onto the rest of us at worst. The "creationism" question was posed to several of us who have been selected for the current "Dakota Comments" panel of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader a couple of weeks ago:
The state Republican Party has approved a resolution that supports teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools. In addition, a couuple of surveys indicate South Dakota biology teachers think that's not a bad idea. Should creationism be taught - in any form - in public schools?
Here's what I replied (it wasn't printed in the paper, but appeared online):
Would the South Dakota Republican Party push a resolution to teach the Civil War in gym class? Of course not: one has nothing to do with the another. So why creationism taught "alongside" evolution in science class? Creationism is not science but rather a literary device to illustrate a religious concept. It has as much business in a science classroom as in a math or woodworking classroom. Biology teachers should understand that.
Where does it belong? If a school district (not a political party) so decides, teach creationism in social studies, history, political science, current-events...and represent it truthfully, as a religious or cultural belief, not "alternative science."
What I didn't have space enough to say is this: Creationism is not "an alternative view." That implies that it's science, that it's another way of looking dispassionately at evidence and reaching a verifiable conclusion. It's like my math teacher telling me that the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared and me saying, "Well, that's what you say but I have an alternate view." In such instances, we would call the "alternate view" by its proper name, viz., wrong!
===
Item: "War plans: Congress OKs $20 mil for victory parties"
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The military's top generals have warned Iraq is on the cusp of a civil war and that U.S. troops must remain in large numbers until at least next spring. But if the winds suddenly blow a different direction, Congress is ready to celebrate with a $20 million victory party. ... [read it all at http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/04/congress.iraq.ap/index.html, 10/4/06]
Good to know that somebody's thinking ahead!
===
Item: "Perversion"
It took the Republicans a little more than a decade to achieve what forty years of Democratic rule accomplished - the institutionalization of corruption. The major difference is that the elephant masqueraded as a reformist, moral revolutionary. Hypocrisy is truly the tribute vice pays to virtue. These guys give Elmer Gantry a bad name.
How can fiscal conservatives continue to endorse Republican rule? How can social conservatives embrace a House leadership that neglected to expel a child predator from their ranks? How can reformists applaud the Abramoff Congress? ... [10/3/06; read it all at http://bullmooseblogger.blogspot.com/2006/10/perversion.html]
Two words: willful and ignorance.
===
Item: "While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover ..."
Just 25 days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this same man spoke to this nation and insisted, “We must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us.”
Mr. Bush, this is a test you have already failed.
If your commitment to “put aside differences and work together” is replaced in the span of just three weeks by claiming your political opponents prefer to wait to see this country attacked again, and by spewing fabrications about what they’ve said, then the questions your critics need to be asking are no longer about your policies.
They are, instead, solemn and even terrible questions, about your fitness to fulfill the responsibilities of your office. [10/6/06; read it all at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15147009/]
Was Keith Olbermann ever a carpenter? He's good at hitting nails on the head.
===
Item: "Lessons from the priest scandal"
What did the House Republican leadership learn from the priest pedophilia scandal? Not much, apparently. Otherwise, Speaker Dennis Hastert et al. would have followed the most basic precepts of public relations: Be honest, be forthcoming, be quick. Otherwise, politicians lose credibility and sink fast. ...[10/2/06; read it all at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/erbeblog/archive/061002/lessons_from_the_priest_scanda_1.htm]
What??! Since when do cover-ups and stonewalling not work??
===
Item: "Republican Plan to Teach Creationism in Public Schools Will Lead to State Income Tax"
The South Dakota Republican Party adopted a resolution at their 2006 state convention endorsing a mandate for teaching creationism in public schools. Current Republican legislators were quoted in the article supporting potential legislation for a statewide mandate. [10/2/06; read it all at http://sddp.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={FD915CBA-5D5D-4D06-A068-24B0C352B22A}&DE={9824FF0A-18D0-46D0-9A63-0D70C61B01C4}]
The South Dakota GOP seems intent on dragging this state back into the eighteenth century at best, and forcing their own warped views of reality onto the rest of us at worst. The "creationism" question was posed to several of us who have been selected for the current "Dakota Comments" panel of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader a couple of weeks ago:
The state Republican Party has approved a resolution that supports teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools. In addition, a couuple of surveys indicate South Dakota biology teachers think that's not a bad idea. Should creationism be taught - in any form - in public schools?
Here's what I replied (it wasn't printed in the paper, but appeared online):
Would the South Dakota Republican Party push a resolution to teach the Civil War in gym class? Of course not: one has nothing to do with the another. So why creationism taught "alongside" evolution in science class? Creationism is not science but rather a literary device to illustrate a religious concept. It has as much business in a science classroom as in a math or woodworking classroom. Biology teachers should understand that.
Where does it belong? If a school district (not a political party) so decides, teach creationism in social studies, history, political science, current-events...and represent it truthfully, as a religious or cultural belief, not "alternative science."
What I didn't have space enough to say is this: Creationism is not "an alternative view." That implies that it's science, that it's another way of looking dispassionately at evidence and reaching a verifiable conclusion. It's like my math teacher telling me that the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared and me saying, "Well, that's what you say but I have an alternate view." In such instances, we would call the "alternate view" by its proper name, viz., wrong!
===
Friday, September 15, 2006
Here's Your Sign
Yesterday a friend e-mailed me about an upcoming yard-sign distribution for Rep. Stephanie Herseth, which was something of a coincidence inasmuch as (as I told him) I had been musing on the subject of political yard signs, bumper stickers, and the like whist gazing upon a Jack Billion sign near my son's school.
The gist of my musing was twofold.
First, I wondered, and still wonder, if they do any good. Or anything at all. I would really hate to think that there are folks out there who are so ill-informed and ill-formed that they would go into a voting booth and cast their ballots based on the number of yard signs, bumper stickers, lapel pins, or Styrofoam skimmer hats they saw with Candidate X's name. Once upon a time people might have been more influenced by noting that some Prominent Citizen had a sign supporting a given candidate or issue; I suspect very few feel that way anymore. My conclusion, then, is that probably almost no votes are gained directly, though a few curious souls might note having seen a number of signs and be inclined to learn more about the candidate or issue they promote--name recognition, in other words.
Likewise, I would hate to think that there are people so shallow and mean that, perceiving a greater number of bumper stickers for Candidate Y than Candidate X, go in and vote for X out of some kind of perverse orneriness. Or who don't vote at all, on the theory that since they don't see many Styrofoam skimmers with "their" candidate's name on it the game must be lost and why bother voting at all. (Although that's pretty much the theory behind not publishing national voting results until after the last precincts in the country have closed.)
Second, I reflected on the relative lack of such signs in my current domicile, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, yard signs were de rigueur--everyone had 'em every political season, tons of 'em...every front yard, every vacant lot, every roadway right-of-way, every utility pole. What's more, people had at least one in the yard for every candidate and every issue they supported. All up and down the street...and the next street over...and every street all over town--literally thousands of yard signs, great and small, horizontal and vertical, red and blue being the predominant colors, but plenty of green and yellow and even orange to go around. It was like crops of signs sprouting up in people's yards.
I imagine there were local printing shops that, like retail stores at Christmastime, literally survived only because of the political season.
It was really quite amazing...and yet it wasn't, because it was the norm for the first ten or twelve years of my life. It was only after moving here in childhood--at a time when there were virtually no such signs in use in Sioux Falls--that it occurred to me that that was perhaps not the norm across the country. That suspicion was buttressed when I returned to Omaha for college in the mid-seventies and heard one of my political science professors, who was not originally from the region, declaim that he had never known of a town that went in for political signs the way Omaha did.
And does: I was back there a few years ago during an election season, and noted as in childhood the scores upon scores of signs as far as the eye could see, urging me to vote for this candidate that I had never heard of (and obviously could not vote for if I wanted) or against some proposition that, apparently, the locals knew all about, since they were cryptic messages along the lines of NO ON 162! Okay. Good to know.
'Round these parts, although there are far more signs than in my childhood (whatever "far more" of "zero" would be), no print shops are staying alive on the basis of creating yard signs for candidates or Concerned Citizens. Today, a few people up and down the block will post a sign, or maybe--if they're exceptionally bold and the sort of people who probably routinely stay up past eleven--two in their yard, sort of decoratively positioned back from the sidewalk where they're visible but won't, you know, attract too much attention But that's about it.
I will be interested to see if the yard-sign trend, such as it is, continues. As indicated in my musings above, I really do wonder about the signs' usefulness. And yet, if everybody is erecting yard signs, as they do in Omaha, what candidate could afford not to play the game as well, even if they really do no good?
The signs, I mean, not the candidates. Although...
The gist of my musing was twofold.
First, I wondered, and still wonder, if they do any good. Or anything at all. I would really hate to think that there are folks out there who are so ill-informed and ill-formed that they would go into a voting booth and cast their ballots based on the number of yard signs, bumper stickers, lapel pins, or Styrofoam skimmer hats they saw with Candidate X's name. Once upon a time people might have been more influenced by noting that some Prominent Citizen had a sign supporting a given candidate or issue; I suspect very few feel that way anymore. My conclusion, then, is that probably almost no votes are gained directly, though a few curious souls might note having seen a number of signs and be inclined to learn more about the candidate or issue they promote--name recognition, in other words.
Likewise, I would hate to think that there are people so shallow and mean that, perceiving a greater number of bumper stickers for Candidate Y than Candidate X, go in and vote for X out of some kind of perverse orneriness. Or who don't vote at all, on the theory that since they don't see many Styrofoam skimmers with "their" candidate's name on it the game must be lost and why bother voting at all. (Although that's pretty much the theory behind not publishing national voting results until after the last precincts in the country have closed.)
Second, I reflected on the relative lack of such signs in my current domicile, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, yard signs were de rigueur--everyone had 'em every political season, tons of 'em...every front yard, every vacant lot, every roadway right-of-way, every utility pole. What's more, people had at least one in the yard for every candidate and every issue they supported. All up and down the street...and the next street over...and every street all over town--literally thousands of yard signs, great and small, horizontal and vertical, red and blue being the predominant colors, but plenty of green and yellow and even orange to go around. It was like crops of signs sprouting up in people's yards.
I imagine there were local printing shops that, like retail stores at Christmastime, literally survived only because of the political season.
It was really quite amazing...and yet it wasn't, because it was the norm for the first ten or twelve years of my life. It was only after moving here in childhood--at a time when there were virtually no such signs in use in Sioux Falls--that it occurred to me that that was perhaps not the norm across the country. That suspicion was buttressed when I returned to Omaha for college in the mid-seventies and heard one of my political science professors, who was not originally from the region, declaim that he had never known of a town that went in for political signs the way Omaha did.
And does: I was back there a few years ago during an election season, and noted as in childhood the scores upon scores of signs as far as the eye could see, urging me to vote for this candidate that I had never heard of (and obviously could not vote for if I wanted) or against some proposition that, apparently, the locals knew all about, since they were cryptic messages along the lines of NO ON 162! Okay. Good to know.
'Round these parts, although there are far more signs than in my childhood (whatever "far more" of "zero" would be), no print shops are staying alive on the basis of creating yard signs for candidates or Concerned Citizens. Today, a few people up and down the block will post a sign, or maybe--if they're exceptionally bold and the sort of people who probably routinely stay up past eleven--two in their yard, sort of decoratively positioned back from the sidewalk where they're visible but won't, you know, attract too much attention But that's about it.
I will be interested to see if the yard-sign trend, such as it is, continues. As indicated in my musings above, I really do wonder about the signs' usefulness. And yet, if everybody is erecting yard signs, as they do in Omaha, what candidate could afford not to play the game as well, even if they really do no good?
The signs, I mean, not the candidates. Although...
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Results?
Suddenly the city is fairly festooned with billboards that would persuade me to re-elect Mike Rounds as Governor of South Dakota. (As if, having not voted for him the first time, when he was a lesser-known quantity, I would vote for him now that he has displayed his true colors.) My favorite shows Mr. Rounds looking all grim and resolute and square-jawed and everything, with the message, "Rounds. Results."
"That would be like if you were in business or if you were farming and you would say 'Hey, I'm going to empty my budget every year, spend it all. I'll start every year with zero dollars.' That's absolutely ridiculous."
Monday, September 11, 2006
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Curiouser and Curiouser
This appeared Friday in "Eat the Press" in The Huffington Post, but I only got to it today:
Bush Announces Sept. 11th Primetime Address, Asks ABC To Interrupt "Path Of 9/11"
Bush Announces Sept. 11th Primetime Address, Asks ABC To Interrupt "Path Of 9/11"
Posted Friday September 8, 2006 at 10:45 PM
Yet another wrinkle was thrown into the factually-challenged ABC "Path Of 9/11" drama today: President Bush is planning a prime-time address from the Oval Office on Monday to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 — and has asked the networks for time to broadcast his remarks. If all goes according to controversially-scheduled plan, ABC will be entering the final hour of the five-hour, two-part, commercial-free miniseries, which has been hotly debated over the past few days when it was revealed that elements of the film were fabricated, improvised, and not remotely grounded in proven fact.
Read the whole article here.
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In an otherwise fine article about The Path to 9/11 controversy at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website, "Fudged facts put 'Path to 9/11' on a slippery slope," Melanie McFarland makes an all-too-common mistake. See if you can spot it. She writes,
Some groups, including members of Congress, also requested the show be pulled from broadcast altogether. Wrong move. No political body in a free society has the right to pressure any network into censoring entertainment, even one with factual misrepresentations. What made-for-TV, ripped-from-the-headlines drama doesn't?
Did you spot the all-too-common mistake? It's this: Not understanding the concept of "censorship." Too many people too often cry censorship at the drop of the proverbial hat. To my knowledge, no one is proposing censoring ABC Television. I know I'm not. I'm asking them not to air fiction as if it is fact; I'm asking them to voluntarily do the right thing, the responsible thing, and restrain themselves from airing this smear job. That's not censorship: censorship would be the government moving to stop them from broadcasting this right-wing propaganda. Something the current government is unlikely to do.
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Back to The Huffington Post (and having nothing to do with ABC Television): this item by John Kerry, with a link to the text of a speech by him in which he details "the five biggest things that need to happen to get the war on terror right." In case you're interested, Kerry says they are:
- Redeploy out of Iraq.
- Recommit to Afghanistan.
- Reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
- Restore our moral authority.
- Reform Homeland Defense.
Interestingly, not a single one of those seems to be on the Bush administration's to-do list.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
The Path to Conservative Hypocrisy
This is from Anthony Wade's excellent article, "The Height of Hubris for the Corporate Media and the GOP, Abusing the Collective Sadness and Pain of America," at OpEd News:
The ABC Corporation has decided to air a two-night docudrama, entitled "The Path to 911." For the uninformed, ABC is owned by Disney, who also refused to run Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 because it was critical of Bush, costing their stockholders over 200 million dollars. They claimed at the time that they did not want to appear partisan, even though at the same time, ABC was carrying Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on nearly all of their national radio stations. That hypocrisy aside, it is time to officially bury the right-wingnut fantasy talking point that the media has a liberal bias. This docudrama, officially confirms what we have all known for some time. The increased deregulation under George W. Bush has created a corporate media machine, wielded by the GOP when they wish to deceive the American people. This 911 docu-farce is the quintessential example of that.
Read the whole article at OpEd News.
Frankly, I had forgotten about the Fahrenheit 911 business. Guess "not wanting to appear partisan" refers only to one party...
Meanwhile, this little snippet from Slate, in Dana Milbank's Zeigeist Checklist: What Washington Is Talking About, caught my attention:
ABC Overlooks P's and Q's
KSFY-TV update: Still no reply to my e-mail to them of 9/7/06. I am shocked--shocked, I say--at their inattentiveness! And yet I remain optimistic...tee hee.
The ABC Corporation has decided to air a two-night docudrama, entitled "The Path to 911." For the uninformed, ABC is owned by Disney, who also refused to run Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 because it was critical of Bush, costing their stockholders over 200 million dollars. They claimed at the time that they did not want to appear partisan, even though at the same time, ABC was carrying Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on nearly all of their national radio stations. That hypocrisy aside, it is time to officially bury the right-wingnut fantasy talking point that the media has a liberal bias. This docudrama, officially confirms what we have all known for some time. The increased deregulation under George W. Bush has created a corporate media machine, wielded by the GOP when they wish to deceive the American people. This 911 docu-farce is the quintessential example of that.
Read the whole article at OpEd News.
Frankly, I had forgotten about the Fahrenheit 911 business. Guess "not wanting to appear partisan" refers only to one party...
Meanwhile, this little snippet from Slate, in Dana Milbank's Zeigeist Checklist: What Washington Is Talking About, caught my attention:
ABC Overlooks P's and Q's
Homeland Security. Katie Couric is panned in her debut as CBS News anchor, but this is quickly overshadowed by ABC flub. Part of the 9/11-plus-five hubbub, the network's miniseries The Path to 9/11makes changes after Clinton officials protest fabrications. The biggest howler: Blaming the Washington Post for exposing monitoring of Osama Bin Laden's phone; it was the Washington Times.
Dig the last sentence: The Path to 9/11, written by the unabashed conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh, originally faulted the Washington Post (biased liberal newspaper: bad) for exposing the monitoring of bin Laden's telephone, when it fact it was the Washington Times (morally upright conservative newspaper: good). Oooooops. Now, cross-reference this against the statement released on Thursday by ABC Television, in which it claims that it is "irresponsible" to criticize their little bit of fiction-posing-as-fact until after the poison has been released into America's living rooms--and yet, if not for that pre-deployment criticism, the lie about the Washington Post--and, from what Clinton-era folks are saying, who knows how many others--would have been broadcast.
Once again, any "irresponsibility" in this matter lies squarely on the shoulders of ABC Television, the Walt Disney Corporation, and every ABC affiliate that airs the program.
I hate to play "everybody knows," but I think it safe to say that if an avowed liberal writer created a "fictionalized" screenplay in which the Clinton administration (white hats for everybody!) worked tirelessly to pre-empt bin Laden only to see its inept, corrupt successor (black hats: boo, hiss!) bungle everything, there is not a television network in the United States that would touch it. Why, then, is "The Path to 9/11" considered acceptable?
Can you spell "hypocrisy"?
____________________
Dig the last sentence: The Path to 9/11, written by the unabashed conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh, originally faulted the Washington Post (biased liberal newspaper: bad) for exposing the monitoring of bin Laden's telephone, when it fact it was the Washington Times (morally upright conservative newspaper: good). Oooooops. Now, cross-reference this against the statement released on Thursday by ABC Television, in which it claims that it is "irresponsible" to criticize their little bit of fiction-posing-as-fact until after the poison has been released into America's living rooms--and yet, if not for that pre-deployment criticism, the lie about the Washington Post--and, from what Clinton-era folks are saying, who knows how many others--would have been broadcast.
Once again, any "irresponsibility" in this matter lies squarely on the shoulders of ABC Television, the Walt Disney Corporation, and every ABC affiliate that airs the program.
I hate to play "everybody knows," but I think it safe to say that if an avowed liberal writer created a "fictionalized" screenplay in which the Clinton administration (white hats for everybody!) worked tirelessly to pre-empt bin Laden only to see its inept, corrupt successor (black hats: boo, hiss!) bungle everything, there is not a television network in the United States that would touch it. Why, then, is "The Path to 9/11" considered acceptable?
Can you spell "hypocrisy"?
____________________
KSFY-TV update: Still no reply to my e-mail to them of 9/7/06. I am shocked--shocked, I say--at their inattentiveness! And yet I remain optimistic...tee hee.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Pot, Meet Kettle.
The following excerpt from an ABC Television statement issued yesterday in re "The Path to 9/11" and its concomitant controversy is interesting:
"'No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible,' the network said in a statement Thursday." (As reported today in The Washington Post)
Hmm. "Irresponsible." That's a funny word to use under the circumstances: You take a historical event, involving real people. But you "dramatize" it--that is, you make up parts of it, by all accounts to make one group of people look bad and another look good...something we lay people might call "distortion." And then when people object to these smear-job tactics, you tell them 'theyre being irresponsible?! Amazing.
Meanwhile, an update on my report from yesterday on my e-mail to my local ABC station: So far, no reply. Stay tuned, as they say.
"'No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible,' the network said in a statement Thursday." (As reported today in The Washington Post)
Hmm. "Irresponsible." That's a funny word to use under the circumstances: You take a historical event, involving real people. But you "dramatize" it--that is, you make up parts of it, by all accounts to make one group of people look bad and another look good...something we lay people might call "distortion." And then when people object to these smear-job tactics, you tell them 'theyre being irresponsible?! Amazing.
Meanwhile, an update on my report from yesterday on my e-mail to my local ABC station: So far, no reply. Stay tuned, as they say.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Yet Another Waste of Time
A few minutes ago I sent the following time-waster off to my local ABC Television affiliate, KSFY:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing in regard to the upcoming ABC Television miniseries "The Path to 9/11." Having heard and read a great deal about the production, including the fact that it was written by an avowed right-wing screenwriter and previewed only to right-wing columnists and commentators; as well as the fact that several Clinton Administration officials who served as advisors to the producers, and President Clinton himself, have complained about inaccuracies and outright falsehoods in the production, I can conclude only that, in its current form. it is a blatant right-wing smear campaign, one which attempts to place the blame for 9/11 at the Democratic Party's doorstep while glossing over the Bush White House's missteps and fabrications.
It is my hope that KSFY is interested enough in fairness and honesty to pre-empt the local broadcast of this slanderous fiction-disguised-as-fact, in the event that ABC/Disney lack the integrity to either re-edit the movie to remove its partisan biases or cancel it outright.
Thank you.
William J Reynolds
Sioux Falls
Here is my official prediction: I will receive back a canned statement to the effect that this is an ABC production and not a locally created smear, KSFY believes that a variety of viewpoints should be heard, and blah blah blah. There might also be a line in there about waiting for the slander to be perpetrated before objecting to it, and blah blah blah again. There will under no circumstances be any display of genuine integrity or intestinal fortitude. You read it here first.
Of course I signed a couple of form-letter style petitions to Robert Iger, the president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company--one at Act for Change, one at the Democratic Party website--but I imagine those to be time-wasters as well. For one thing, I have no reason to expect that the kahunas at Disney/ABC give a rip what anyone thinks, and especially anyone who isn't a fatcat GOPer. For another, I have to think all these "gang petition" ventures fairly scream Ignore Me!! when they get to wherever they're going. But I sign 'em anyhow. Sometimes the lost causes are the only ones worth getting involved in.
There are a couple of ironies (as usual, for me) associated with the "Path to 9/11" brouhaha. File them under "Conservative Hypocrisy":
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing in regard to the upcoming ABC Television miniseries "The Path to 9/11." Having heard and read a great deal about the production, including the fact that it was written by an avowed right-wing screenwriter and previewed only to right-wing columnists and commentators; as well as the fact that several Clinton Administration officials who served as advisors to the producers, and President Clinton himself, have complained about inaccuracies and outright falsehoods in the production, I can conclude only that, in its current form. it is a blatant right-wing smear campaign, one which attempts to place the blame for 9/11 at the Democratic Party's doorstep while glossing over the Bush White House's missteps and fabrications.
It is my hope that KSFY is interested enough in fairness and honesty to pre-empt the local broadcast of this slanderous fiction-disguised-as-fact, in the event that ABC/Disney lack the integrity to either re-edit the movie to remove its partisan biases or cancel it outright.
Thank you.
William J Reynolds
Sioux Falls
Here is my official prediction: I will receive back a canned statement to the effect that this is an ABC production and not a locally created smear, KSFY believes that a variety of viewpoints should be heard, and blah blah blah. There might also be a line in there about waiting for the slander to be perpetrated before objecting to it, and blah blah blah again. There will under no circumstances be any display of genuine integrity or intestinal fortitude. You read it here first.
Of course I signed a couple of form-letter style petitions to Robert Iger, the president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company--one at Act for Change, one at the Democratic Party website--but I imagine those to be time-wasters as well. For one thing, I have no reason to expect that the kahunas at Disney/ABC give a rip what anyone thinks, and especially anyone who isn't a fatcat GOPer. For another, I have to think all these "gang petition" ventures fairly scream Ignore Me!! when they get to wherever they're going. But I sign 'em anyhow. Sometimes the lost causes are the only ones worth getting involved in.
There are a couple of ironies (as usual, for me) associated with the "Path to 9/11" brouhaha. File them under "Conservative Hypocrisy":
- Conservatives like to pretend there's a "liberal bias" to the mainstream media. It's been demonstrated repeatedly that this is a fiction, but conservatives like to think they're always being picked on. How, then, to explain this obvious smear against the Clinton Administration and the Democratic Party? How, then, to explain CBS's pulling of their proposed miniseries "The Reagans" a couple of years ago when the right wing objected to "distortions" of their icon's image? If the media were controlled by the left, I wouldn't be wasting time writing letters to uninterested TV shills.
- As an outgrowth of the above, conservatives like to pretend that they are all about achieving "balance" in the media. Why, Fox News even has the guts to call itself "Fair and Balanced," by which of course they mean unfair and slanted. Obviously, "balance" is the last thing they want; what they want is to lay the blame for 9/11, civil war in Iraq, the high price of gasoline, and the gum they stepped in on the way to work this morning on Democrats in general and Clinton (on whom they have this bizarre fixation) in particular. At the same time, they want to rewrite history and current events to make the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue appear blameless, infallible, and completely without fault.
- Conservatives like to pretend they're such fabulous Christians, but I'm pretty sure there's something against "bearing false witness" in the Ten Commandments (you know, the ones they want displayed in courtrooms). Obviously that doesn't apply to smearing people of different political parties and social opinions. One does find oneself wondering about all those rubber bracelets: What indeed would Jesus do?
- "Don't condemn before you see it" is another swell bit of hypocrisy. See above re "The Reagans." See also right-wingers' apoplectic reaction to "Death of a President": none of them seem willing to wait till its US release before passing condemnation.
Monday, September 04, 2006
He Said, She Said
More quotations!
As usual, the majority of these come from the wonderful A Word a Day...with one or two from here and there, just for fun.
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Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy. -E.H. Chapin
It is a sad fact that 50 percent of marriages in this country end in divorce. But hey, the other half end in death. You could be one of the lucky ones! - Richard Jeni
Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what is going on. -Man in Belfast
I am desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
Dave Edison
USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population. David Letterman
What would I do if I had only six months left to live? I'd type faster.Isaac Asimov
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Samuel Johnson
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid and stable business. John Steinbeck
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)
I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. -Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -Andrew Tannenbaum, computer science professor (1944- )
The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. -Archibald MacLeish, poet and librarian (1892-1982)
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth. -Sophocles, (495-405 BCE)
Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. -James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)
From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. It it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
News is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity. -Bill Moyers, journalist (1934- )
We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead. -Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1972- )
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. -Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951)
The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)
I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. -Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)
Testing can show the presence of errors, but not their absence. -Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (1930-2002)
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
The unconscious mind is decidedly simple, unaffected, straight-forward and honest. It hasn't got all of this facade, this veneer of what we call adult culture. It's rather simple, rather childish. It is direct and free. -Milton H. Erikson, psychiatrist (1901-1980)
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. -Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1892-1973)
There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world. -Nikolai Berdyaev, philosopher (1874-1948)
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. -Gore Vidal, writer (1925- )
I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. -Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. -Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -Dwight David Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)
Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? -Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)
A king can stand people fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. -Roger Ebert, film-critic (1942- )
An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart. -Robert M. Sapolsky, neuroscientist and author (1957- )
Literature is the language of society, as speech is the language of man. -Louis de Bonald, philosopher and politician (1754-1840)
It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake. -Janos Arany, poet (1817-1882)
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
I don't hate my enemies. After all, I made 'em. -Red Skelton, comedian (1913-1997)
Words are things; and a small drop of ink / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. -Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905-1983)
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)
I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain. -H.L.F. von Helmholtz, physiologist and physicist (1821-1894)
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. -Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. -Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. -Irwin S. Cobb, author and journalist (1876-1944)
If you want to work on your art, work on your life. -Anton Chekhov, short-story writer and dramatist (1860-1904)
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. -Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (1935- )
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. -J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. -Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)
The power to command frequently causes failure to think. -Barbara Tuchman, author and historian (1912-1989)
For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. -Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (1944- )
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once. -Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. -Don Marquis, humorist and poet (1878-1937)
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. -John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.--John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)
A quiet conscience sleeps in thunder. -English proverb
Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. -Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)
Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion. -Samuel James Ervin Jr., lawyer, judge, and senator (1896-1985)
You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
Learning is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily. -Chinese Proverb
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)
Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -Flannery O'Connor, writer (1925-1964)
In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)
The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. -Naguib Mahfouz, writer (1911- )
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
A sneer is the weapon of the weak. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. -Dave Barry, author and columnist (1947- )
They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
As usual, the majority of these come from the wonderful A Word a Day...with one or two from here and there, just for fun.
::::::::
Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy. -E.H. Chapin
It is a sad fact that 50 percent of marriages in this country end in divorce. But hey, the other half end in death. You could be one of the lucky ones! - Richard Jeni
Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what is going on. -Man in Belfast
I am desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
Dave Edison
USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population. David Letterman
What would I do if I had only six months left to live? I'd type faster.Isaac Asimov
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Samuel Johnson
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid and stable business. John Steinbeck
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)
I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. -Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -Andrew Tannenbaum, computer science professor (1944- )
The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. -Archibald MacLeish, poet and librarian (1892-1982)
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth. -Sophocles, (495-405 BCE)
Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. -James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)
From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. It it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
News is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity. -Bill Moyers, journalist (1934- )
We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead. -Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1972- )
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. -Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951)
The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)
I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. -Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)
Testing can show the presence of errors, but not their absence. -Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (1930-2002)
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
The unconscious mind is decidedly simple, unaffected, straight-forward and honest. It hasn't got all of this facade, this veneer of what we call adult culture. It's rather simple, rather childish. It is direct and free. -Milton H. Erikson, psychiatrist (1901-1980)
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. -Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1892-1973)
There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world. -Nikolai Berdyaev, philosopher (1874-1948)
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. -Gore Vidal, writer (1925- )
I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. -Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. -Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -Dwight David Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)
Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? -Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)
A king can stand people fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. -Roger Ebert, film-critic (1942- )
An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart. -Robert M. Sapolsky, neuroscientist and author (1957- )
Literature is the language of society, as speech is the language of man. -Louis de Bonald, philosopher and politician (1754-1840)
It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake. -Janos Arany, poet (1817-1882)
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
I don't hate my enemies. After all, I made 'em. -Red Skelton, comedian (1913-1997)
Words are things; and a small drop of ink / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. -Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905-1983)
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)
I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain. -H.L.F. von Helmholtz, physiologist and physicist (1821-1894)
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. -Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. -Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. -Irwin S. Cobb, author and journalist (1876-1944)
If you want to work on your art, work on your life. -Anton Chekhov, short-story writer and dramatist (1860-1904)
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. -Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (1935- )
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. -J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. -Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)
The power to command frequently causes failure to think. -Barbara Tuchman, author and historian (1912-1989)
For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. -Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (1944- )
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once. -Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. -Don Marquis, humorist and poet (1878-1937)
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. -John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.--John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)
A quiet conscience sleeps in thunder. -English proverb
Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. -Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)
Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion. -Samuel James Ervin Jr., lawyer, judge, and senator (1896-1985)
You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
Learning is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily. -Chinese Proverb
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)
Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -Flannery O'Connor, writer (1925-1964)
In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)
The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. -Naguib Mahfouz, writer (1911- )
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
A sneer is the weapon of the weak. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. -Dave Barry, author and columnist (1947- )
They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Stickers
I'm not fond of sticking things on my car, but if I were I might go with one or more of these.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Culture of Death, part 2
Having some time to kill--no pun intended--before rousing a child for the first day of school, I drafted the following epistle to the governor of South Dakota in re some comments he had made in yesterday's edition of the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader:
Dear Governor Rounds,
A portion of your interview with the Argus Leader, as published in yesterday's edition, surprised me greatly:
"Q: And the church has taken a position against the death penalty?
"A: I don't think that's quite correct. ... The death penalty is there for a reason in order that under selective and unique circumstances and based on individual review, it may be something in limited circumstances that is appropriate, when an individual does great damage to society. The church recognizes the responsibility of government leaders to carry out the law of the land."
Surely you must know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has waged a 25-year campaign to eliminate the death penalty. I would encourage you to visit the Conference's web site, http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/deathpenalty/index.shtml, which includes much helpful information about not only the Church's teachings on the subject but also why the death penalty is an ineffective and evil punishment.
I would refer you also to the comments made in a 1999 homily by Pope John Paul II in St. Louis, Missouri:
"The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."
Undoubtedly, the Church does recognize "the responsibility of government leaders to carry out the law of the land," as you say. However, the law of the land empowers you to commute a death sentence. To sentence Elijah Page, or any other death-row inmate, to life in prison without parole provides the good (removing him as a threat to society) without compounding the evil (meeting violence with more violence).
As you may know from my previous communications with you, in which I encouraged you to veto HB 1215, I am a pro-choice Catholic. But I am also pro-life (the two are not mutually exclusive). As such, I strongly and respectfully encourage you to reject what has been termed the culture of death, and show that, contrary to our recent image, the state of South Dakota is home to compassionate and merciful people.
Sincerely,
William J Reynolds
Of course, the odds of my well-reasoned (and, you must admit, oh-so-polite) missive actually changing the man's mind are about the same as were the odds of my previous message to him, urging him to not sign our now-infamous abortion bill into law, viz., nil. Which are precisely the same chances of my voting for him in the future. To be fair, I haven't voted for him in the past, so he's not really losing anything. Except some of my respect.
Elsewhere in the same interview excerpted above, Rounds makes the tired old argument, in "defense" of his being pro-life when it comes to fetuses but not when it comes to actual breathing human beings, that somehow the life of the living is worth less than the life of the unborn:
"Q: You have consistently said that you oppose abortion, and you signed House Bill 1215 that would ban most abortions. Is it consistent to be pro-life on abortion and also to favor the death penalty?
"A: There's a real difference between an innocent human being and someone who has been convicted in a court of law of murdering another human being and may do it again."
Yikes. Where to begin? Well, first off, were the governor to commute Elijah Page's sentence (Page being the death-row inmate on whom the current furor is centered) to life in prison without parole, that would pretty much take care of the "he may do it again" argument. I suppose there is a chance that he might murder one of his fellow inmates, but it seems the prison system could take steps to protect against that, if it is indeed a real threat.
That leaves us, then, with the "innocent human being" angle. This is not something that the governor invented; indeed, I have heard Catholic priests make the same unsettling argument in opposition to abortion. The problem for me is this: Which of us gets to decide whose life is worth more? And by what criteria? Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that a convicted murderer's life is worth less than an "innocent human being." What about a convicted car thief? A convicted check forger? What if we are weighing the life of the car thief against that of the check forger? Whose life is "worth" more. And how much more?
Setting aside for the moment the idea of original sin, which I think the Catholic Church still holds and which calls the whole notion of an "innocent human being" into some question in the first place, the very idea that we would, as a society, head into the rocky terrain of "whose life is worth more" is quite reprehensible and morally indefensible. Is the life of an incurably ill person on life support "worth less"? If so, why are we as a society (and, quite vocally, the Catholic Church) opposed to euthanasia? Simply because of the long-held belief that life, all life, has worth.
I have been informed more than once that I "can't be pro-life and pro-choice." Of course, that's just silly--the mere fact that I am both proves that I can be both--but I maintain that one cannot logically profess to being pro-life as well as pro-death penalty. If life is life, then simple honesty requires such an individual to identify himself not as pro-life but anti-abortion.
There is, obviously, a difference.
Dear Governor Rounds,
A portion of your interview with the Argus Leader, as published in yesterday's edition, surprised me greatly:
"Q: And the church has taken a position against the death penalty?
"A: I don't think that's quite correct. ... The death penalty is there for a reason in order that under selective and unique circumstances and based on individual review, it may be something in limited circumstances that is appropriate, when an individual does great damage to society. The church recognizes the responsibility of government leaders to carry out the law of the land."
Surely you must know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has waged a 25-year campaign to eliminate the death penalty. I would encourage you to visit the Conference's web site, http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/deathpenalty/index.shtml, which includes much helpful information about not only the Church's teachings on the subject but also why the death penalty is an ineffective and evil punishment.
I would refer you also to the comments made in a 1999 homily by Pope John Paul II in St. Louis, Missouri:
"The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."
Undoubtedly, the Church does recognize "the responsibility of government leaders to carry out the law of the land," as you say. However, the law of the land empowers you to commute a death sentence. To sentence Elijah Page, or any other death-row inmate, to life in prison without parole provides the good (removing him as a threat to society) without compounding the evil (meeting violence with more violence).
As you may know from my previous communications with you, in which I encouraged you to veto HB 1215, I am a pro-choice Catholic. But I am also pro-life (the two are not mutually exclusive). As such, I strongly and respectfully encourage you to reject what has been termed the culture of death, and show that, contrary to our recent image, the state of South Dakota is home to compassionate and merciful people.
Sincerely,
William J Reynolds
Of course, the odds of my well-reasoned (and, you must admit, oh-so-polite) missive actually changing the man's mind are about the same as were the odds of my previous message to him, urging him to not sign our now-infamous abortion bill into law, viz., nil. Which are precisely the same chances of my voting for him in the future. To be fair, I haven't voted for him in the past, so he's not really losing anything. Except some of my respect.
Elsewhere in the same interview excerpted above, Rounds makes the tired old argument, in "defense" of his being pro-life when it comes to fetuses but not when it comes to actual breathing human beings, that somehow the life of the living is worth less than the life of the unborn:
"Q: You have consistently said that you oppose abortion, and you signed House Bill 1215 that would ban most abortions. Is it consistent to be pro-life on abortion and also to favor the death penalty?
"A: There's a real difference between an innocent human being and someone who has been convicted in a court of law of murdering another human being and may do it again."
Yikes. Where to begin? Well, first off, were the governor to commute Elijah Page's sentence (Page being the death-row inmate on whom the current furor is centered) to life in prison without parole, that would pretty much take care of the "he may do it again" argument. I suppose there is a chance that he might murder one of his fellow inmates, but it seems the prison system could take steps to protect against that, if it is indeed a real threat.
That leaves us, then, with the "innocent human being" angle. This is not something that the governor invented; indeed, I have heard Catholic priests make the same unsettling argument in opposition to abortion. The problem for me is this: Which of us gets to decide whose life is worth more? And by what criteria? Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that a convicted murderer's life is worth less than an "innocent human being." What about a convicted car thief? A convicted check forger? What if we are weighing the life of the car thief against that of the check forger? Whose life is "worth" more. And how much more?
Setting aside for the moment the idea of original sin, which I think the Catholic Church still holds and which calls the whole notion of an "innocent human being" into some question in the first place, the very idea that we would, as a society, head into the rocky terrain of "whose life is worth more" is quite reprehensible and morally indefensible. Is the life of an incurably ill person on life support "worth less"? If so, why are we as a society (and, quite vocally, the Catholic Church) opposed to euthanasia? Simply because of the long-held belief that life, all life, has worth.
I have been informed more than once that I "can't be pro-life and pro-choice." Of course, that's just silly--the mere fact that I am both proves that I can be both--but I maintain that one cannot logically profess to being pro-life as well as pro-death penalty. If life is life, then simple honesty requires such an individual to identify himself not as pro-life but anti-abortion.
There is, obviously, a difference.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Culture of Death
When he signed South Dakota's heartlessly draconian take-no-prisoners abortion bill into law earlier this year, Governor Mike Rounds seemed to be positioning himself as "pro-life." Some folks, with more than a little schmeer of bigotry, hinted that his actions were to be expected since, after all, he is a Catholic. But now, with South Dakota's first execution in more than half a century in the offing, the governor appears to be distancing himself from any hint of pro-life-ness--and incidentally from the teachings of his church.
The governor's reasons for not blocking the execution of death-row inmate Elijah Page are at best peculiar. "Gov. Mike Rounds could stop it by ordering a delay or by changing the sentence to something less severe," writes the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader. "But he believes in capital punishment and calls Page's deed a crime of extreme cruelty. 'At this point, I don't have any plans to intervene,' Rounds said."
No one argues that Page is innocent (not even Page), or that he shouldn't be punished. Hell, I'd say most of us agree that life in prison without parole is probably too good for the murder scum. But for the governor--and plenty of other folks, too--to be so firmly committed to "protecting" life on the one hand and so willing (perhaps eager?) to extinguish it on the other is, well, peculiar.
And so much for the governor acting at the behest of his (and my) church: The Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly come out in opposition to capital punishment as well as abortion...but it has not escaped my attention that the more rightist elements of the church, while extraordinarily pious and obedient in following church teachings when it comes to the unborn, manage to become deaf when it comes to folks who are already with us.
Curiously, the fact that Page has put a stop to his appeals process and evidently wishes the execution to go forward seems to count a lot for the governor and other supporters of the death penalty. Why his wishes enter into it at all is beyond me. If he indicated a desire to not be put to death, would the state honor that wish? If he tried to commit suicide in his cell, would not the state move to stop him or, failing that, preserve his life? Why, if his desire to die is all-important?
In the end, I find myself again facing the strange inconsistencies of the right-wing mentality. If one is really and truly "pro-life," then one must be as adamantly opposed to the death penalty as he is to abortion. There is no way around it: life is life, life is sacred, and only God gets to decide when to end life. Otherwise one is merely anti-abortion.
That's fine, but then have the honesty to say so.
The governor's reasons for not blocking the execution of death-row inmate Elijah Page are at best peculiar. "Gov. Mike Rounds could stop it by ordering a delay or by changing the sentence to something less severe," writes the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader. "But he believes in capital punishment and calls Page's deed a crime of extreme cruelty. 'At this point, I don't have any plans to intervene,' Rounds said."
No one argues that Page is innocent (not even Page), or that he shouldn't be punished. Hell, I'd say most of us agree that life in prison without parole is probably too good for the murder scum. But for the governor--and plenty of other folks, too--to be so firmly committed to "protecting" life on the one hand and so willing (perhaps eager?) to extinguish it on the other is, well, peculiar.
And so much for the governor acting at the behest of his (and my) church: The Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly come out in opposition to capital punishment as well as abortion...but it has not escaped my attention that the more rightist elements of the church, while extraordinarily pious and obedient in following church teachings when it comes to the unborn, manage to become deaf when it comes to folks who are already with us.
Curiously, the fact that Page has put a stop to his appeals process and evidently wishes the execution to go forward seems to count a lot for the governor and other supporters of the death penalty. Why his wishes enter into it at all is beyond me. If he indicated a desire to not be put to death, would the state honor that wish? If he tried to commit suicide in his cell, would not the state move to stop him or, failing that, preserve his life? Why, if his desire to die is all-important?
In the end, I find myself again facing the strange inconsistencies of the right-wing mentality. If one is really and truly "pro-life," then one must be as adamantly opposed to the death penalty as he is to abortion. There is no way around it: life is life, life is sacred, and only God gets to decide when to end life. Otherwise one is merely anti-abortion.
That's fine, but then have the honesty to say so.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
"Truth Is Stranger," or "A Stranger to Truth"?
Funny. When I ask acquaintances why they associate themselves with the Republican Party, a frequent "reason" is that they consider Republicans more "moral" than Democrats. Evidently they've never heard of Newt Gingrich, or Karl Rove, or Tom Delay, or Lee Breard.
What, you've never heard of Lee Breard either? Not to worry: probably only a few had until this past week. Breard is the campaign manager for Bruce Whalen, the GOP nominee for South Dakota's sole seat in the US House of Representatives. Whalen is running (uphill) against incumbent Representative Stephanie Herseth, of whom I'm written before.
All well and good. Except that last week Breard seems to have put his foot in it big time. Now it looks to me like he's got both feet in it. And is sunk in about up to his waist.
Here's how I understand the sequence of events.
For some reason, Breard was on Wikipedia looking up Herseth. Don't know why. You'd think that, as campaign manager for Herseth's opponent, he'd already have done his homework. But there you have it. Anyway, some fun-loving scamp had gone into Wikipedia and, ahem, edited the Herseth biography to claim that she had recently converted to pro-lifism having turned up pregnant, and is now engaged to be married to her chief of staff.
I know what you're thinking: Anyone with a clue would know that's a hoax. But the world is full of the clueless. And rapscallions. Lee Breard, upon seeing this bogus bio, does what any member of the "moral" party would do: he starts sending it around to reporters. Later he will claim that he did so to verify the item. Obviously contacting Herseth's office never occurred to him. Even better, his quest for the truth included a comment in his e-mail to the effect that if the claim were true it would be quite a change for a "home-wrecker" such as he claimed Herseth to be. (This based on nasty rumors circulating for some time that Herseth was involved with a married former congressman from Texas. Never mind that she and the gentleman met some time after his divorce was finalized. Details like the truth matter little to the "moral" folk in the GOP.)
The Rapid City (SD) Journal, however, seems to have a more solid acquaintance with the truth, and broke the whole tawdry story last Friday.
Now things get weird. I know, I know: Weirder, then.
First Breard tries out the I-was-only-trying-to-help balderdash, insisting that his spreading scurrilous gossip was in fact his way of getting to the truth. Riiiight.
Then when it's suggested that Whalen owes Herseth an apology, the "explanation" comes that Whalen himself--the candidate, remember?--knew nothing about Breard's actions, so there's no reason to apologize. Now think about that: the candidate doesn't know what his campaign manager is doing. So the candidate hides behind his impenetrable Cloak of Ignorance. Which tends to speak volumes about how he'd serve in the United States Congress. The campaign manager, meanwhile, doesn't have the decency to say, "Well, yes, obviously I was wrong and I'm sorry." Since the words "I was wrong" and "I'm sorry" are also alien to those "moral" GOPers.
Keep in mind that we don't know who was behind the alteration of the Wikipedia bio in the first place. One hates to be suspicious (not really, but it seems polite to say so), but in light of the general seaminess of the whole Breard affair...
I'm sure that the fact that a poll conducted last week shows Herseth with a 60-26 lead over Whalen (14 percent undecided) had nothing at all to do with these shenanigans.
But getting back to my acquaintances who insist they align with the GOP because of its greater "moral" credence: I don't know what to make of them. These are not bad people, not evildoers or ne'er-do-wells. They consider themselves good, decent folks, and most people would agree with them. But what does it say about people who can continue to turn a blind eye and deaf ear toward years and years of lies, lawbreaking, dirty tricks, and other assorted malfeasances and continue to believe that "their" party somehow possesses the moral high ground? And how long can a "good" person continue to ignore the evil going on around him before he loses the right to consider himself "good?"
At the very least, must there not come some point at which you acknowledge that "your" party or "your" candidate stumbled? Doesn't simple decency require that we hold ourselves and our fellows to the same standards, if not higher ones, than we hold "the other guys?" Is not that the basic measure of "morality," the foundation on which it rests? I voted for Bill Clinton twice, and would again if given the chance...but there's no way on the planet I could or can see Monicagate as anything but a horrible moral lapse. No question about it. He was wrong. There--was that so difficult to say?
Why, then, do so many GOPers find it so impossible to admit that "their guy" might be wrong about something? Are their egos really so fragile that the idea that someone they voted for might not be infallible sends them into a thumb-sucking fetal fugue?
We can take some comfort in the fact that it appears virtually impossible for Whalen to win the upcoming congressional election, and that whatever it was that his campaign manager thought he was doing (without the candidate's knowledge, I guess), the effect seems to have been to make the entire campaign a joke and its "manager" a clown at best and a sleaze at worst. But it's not really much comfort.
What, you've never heard of Lee Breard either? Not to worry: probably only a few had until this past week. Breard is the campaign manager for Bruce Whalen, the GOP nominee for South Dakota's sole seat in the US House of Representatives. Whalen is running (uphill) against incumbent Representative Stephanie Herseth, of whom I'm written before.
All well and good. Except that last week Breard seems to have put his foot in it big time. Now it looks to me like he's got both feet in it. And is sunk in about up to his waist.
Here's how I understand the sequence of events.
For some reason, Breard was on Wikipedia looking up Herseth. Don't know why. You'd think that, as campaign manager for Herseth's opponent, he'd already have done his homework. But there you have it. Anyway, some fun-loving scamp had gone into Wikipedia and, ahem, edited the Herseth biography to claim that she had recently converted to pro-lifism having turned up pregnant, and is now engaged to be married to her chief of staff.
I know what you're thinking: Anyone with a clue would know that's a hoax. But the world is full of the clueless. And rapscallions. Lee Breard, upon seeing this bogus bio, does what any member of the "moral" party would do: he starts sending it around to reporters. Later he will claim that he did so to verify the item. Obviously contacting Herseth's office never occurred to him. Even better, his quest for the truth included a comment in his e-mail to the effect that if the claim were true it would be quite a change for a "home-wrecker" such as he claimed Herseth to be. (This based on nasty rumors circulating for some time that Herseth was involved with a married former congressman from Texas. Never mind that she and the gentleman met some time after his divorce was finalized. Details like the truth matter little to the "moral" folk in the GOP.)
The Rapid City (SD) Journal, however, seems to have a more solid acquaintance with the truth, and broke the whole tawdry story last Friday.
Now things get weird. I know, I know: Weirder, then.
First Breard tries out the I-was-only-trying-to-help balderdash, insisting that his spreading scurrilous gossip was in fact his way of getting to the truth. Riiiight.
Then when it's suggested that Whalen owes Herseth an apology, the "explanation" comes that Whalen himself--the candidate, remember?--knew nothing about Breard's actions, so there's no reason to apologize. Now think about that: the candidate doesn't know what his campaign manager is doing. So the candidate hides behind his impenetrable Cloak of Ignorance. Which tends to speak volumes about how he'd serve in the United States Congress. The campaign manager, meanwhile, doesn't have the decency to say, "Well, yes, obviously I was wrong and I'm sorry." Since the words "I was wrong" and "I'm sorry" are also alien to those "moral" GOPers.
Keep in mind that we don't know who was behind the alteration of the Wikipedia bio in the first place. One hates to be suspicious (not really, but it seems polite to say so), but in light of the general seaminess of the whole Breard affair...
I'm sure that the fact that a poll conducted last week shows Herseth with a 60-26 lead over Whalen (14 percent undecided) had nothing at all to do with these shenanigans.
But getting back to my acquaintances who insist they align with the GOP because of its greater "moral" credence: I don't know what to make of them. These are not bad people, not evildoers or ne'er-do-wells. They consider themselves good, decent folks, and most people would agree with them. But what does it say about people who can continue to turn a blind eye and deaf ear toward years and years of lies, lawbreaking, dirty tricks, and other assorted malfeasances and continue to believe that "their" party somehow possesses the moral high ground? And how long can a "good" person continue to ignore the evil going on around him before he loses the right to consider himself "good?"
At the very least, must there not come some point at which you acknowledge that "your" party or "your" candidate stumbled? Doesn't simple decency require that we hold ourselves and our fellows to the same standards, if not higher ones, than we hold "the other guys?" Is not that the basic measure of "morality," the foundation on which it rests? I voted for Bill Clinton twice, and would again if given the chance...but there's no way on the planet I could or can see Monicagate as anything but a horrible moral lapse. No question about it. He was wrong. There--was that so difficult to say?
Why, then, do so many GOPers find it so impossible to admit that "their guy" might be wrong about something? Are their egos really so fragile that the idea that someone they voted for might not be infallible sends them into a thumb-sucking fetal fugue?
We can take some comfort in the fact that it appears virtually impossible for Whalen to win the upcoming congressional election, and that whatever it was that his campaign manager thought he was doing (without the candidate's knowledge, I guess), the effect seems to have been to make the entire campaign a joke and its "manager" a clown at best and a sleaze at worst. But it's not really much comfort.
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