Souter To Resign

A prediction. This will be the first of three Obama Supreme Court nominations.

Pots and Pans and the Virgin Mary

Scratch that comment in my last post about Americans been practical.

CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) - The hottest thing on the griddle at the Las Palmas restaurant these days isn't the food—it's the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that a cook says she saw on the griddle.

Restaurant manager Brenda Martinez says more than 100 people have flocked to the small town of Calexico on the California-Mexico border to gaze at the likeness of the Virgin Mary since it was discovered as the griddle was being cleaned.

Among the awe-struck was a group of masked Mexican wrestlers who arrived Thursday for an exhibition at a nearby swap meet.

One, known as Mr. Tempest, says: "This is amazing. It's a true miracle."

Since the discovery, the griddle has been taken out of service and placed in a shrine in a storage room

Are They That Bad?

That was the question I asked my boy as we watched the Cubs batter the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, 11 to three. They really are, he said. And that was the thought that occurred to me as I took in Wednesday's politics. Republican Arlen Specter's decision to become a Democrat now makes the Democratic Congress veto proof. It's a nice present for Obama's on his 100 day victory lap.

While I'm ideologically tilted to the Democratic Party, I don't see one party rule as good this nation removing as it does the accountability a vibrant minority party should provide. However, the Republican Party has by its own choice ceased to become relevant. They are a midway sideshow, a mildly crazed Greek chorus of hooters and naysayers, a walking abortion of talking heads and flat taxers, an ever narrowing slice of humanity. It's great fun to watch, but it isn't good for our country.






Here is a gentle suggestion-- not a bum steer-- to Republicans from someone who used to be a Reagan Republican but who is now a Democrat.

Build trust.

The kind of rhetoric you see in that video and on right wing cable doesn't develop credability.

Americans, as a people, are fair minded and practical, and it's a mistake-- a politically losing proposition-- to assume that they are simple minded and ideological. Americans can hold strong pro-life opinions, for example, but they will vote for a pro-life candidate if they think that the candidate will represent them reasonably. The Republican brand has tarnished not because the brand was bad but because the people who represented that brand were stupid or evil. The messenger is the message, and the Republican party needs better messengers. If they don't find better messengers, the elephant party will become the dinosaur party.

Interstellar Love is a Winding Road

Parallelostory from impactist on Vimeo.

Cheney's Truth Commission

Former vice president Richard Cheney wants the government to declassify information that supports his claim that torture produced results favorable to the national interest. "Ye shall know the truth", says John 8:32, "and the truth shall make you free." But in Cheney's case, I wouldn't bet on it. The release of ostensible answers have a way of opening the door for yet more questions and possibly indictments.

I hope Cheney's request is granted.

The Pandemic of 2009

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

T.S. Eliot


Breaking news suggests signs of a possible pandemic of swine flu. With the relentless news of wars and rumors of wars, could it be that mankind will succumb to an invisible terror-- a malignant microscobe? Maybe. But the data needs to become more robust before anyone can come to any kind of conclusion. I recall during the Gerald Ford years in 1975 and 1976, there was mounting hysteria to vaccinate everyone because of a small outbreak of swine flu. In reaction to the vaccine, about 500 people developed Guillain-Barre syndrome and more than 25 people died. I was never vaccinated, but the memory of my grandfather who died during the 1918 pandemic weighed on me.

Here is a paragraph from my geneology of that time.

At just this time, the United States was about to be hit by the greatest natural disaster in its history. In a ten month period, this catastrophe would claim the lives of more than a half million people in this country and up to fifty million lives worldwide. In India alone, twelve million people would perish. Incubated in the trenches of Verdun and Flanders, the so-called Spanish Flu attacked with staggering virulence. Schools, churches, and factories were decimated. In South Dakota, the influenza would infect a member of an Indian tribe. Tribal members would chant around the body through the night. Within a few days, everyone in the tribe would be dead. The virus attacked the strongest, and most people that died were between the ages of 21 and 29. By the fall of 1918, the death rate in major cities was up by 1000 percent and coffins were stacked on sidewalks. But, with the first frost of winter, the flu finally subsided, leaving behind empty homes and playgrounds and a ghostly lullaby:

I once had a bird named Enza,
I opened the window and in flew Enza.

Mum and Pup and Me

Christopher Buckley, the son of the conservative writer and thinker William F. Buckley, writes an elegaic portrait of the final days of his parents. Here are some excerpts.

The nurse buzzed me into the Critical Care Unit. The chic and stunning Mrs. William F. Buckley — the society columnists used to call her that — lay on her bed, shrunken, open-eyed, unseeing, a thick plastic respirator tube protruding from her mouth, making a loud, rhythmic bellows noise as it pumped and withdrew air from her lungs. I’d driven eight hours through a storm to get here and knew pretty much what to expect, but I lost it and began to sob. The nurse kindly left.

I drew up a chair and held what I could of her hand, which was cold and bony and edematous with fluid. The nurse returned shortly and said that Dr. D’Amico was on the phone. Joe D’Amico was her orthopedist, a kindly, attentive and warm man. The week before, he amputated three dry-gangrenous, mummified toes on her left foot. She stubbed them the previous November and, having fallen and broken so many bones in her body over the years, she, in the fashion of Victorian ladies, took to her bed to die. Sixty-five years of smoking cigarettes, with attendant problems of circulation, had taken their toll. A few days before, an operation to install a stent — to forestall additional amputations — went wrong, and a mortal infection set in.

Joe came on the line. He said how sorry he was, that she was a wonderful lady. He said: “What you’re seeing there isn’t her. She’s already in heaven.”

Joe and I had never discussed religion. I doubt, for that matter, that he and she had ever discussed it. I don’t think I ever once heard Mum utter a religious or spiritual sentiment, a considerable feat considering that she was married for 57 years to one of the most prominent Catholics in the country. But she rigorously observed the proprieties. When Pup taped an episode of “Firing Line” in the Sistine Chapel with Princess Grace, Malcolm Muggeridge, Charlton Heston and David Niven, Mum was included in the post-taping audience with Pope John Paul II. There’s a photo of the occasion: she has on more black lace than a Goya duchess. The total effect is that of Mary Magdalene dressed by Bill Blass.

I stammered out my thanks to Joe for everything he’d done for her. He asked, “Do you want to leave the respirator in or let nature take its course?” I said, “Let’s remove the respirator.”

I’d brought with me a pocket copy of the book of Ecclesiastes. A line in “Moby-Dick” lodged in my mind long ago: “The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.” I grabbed it off my bookshelf on the way here, figuring that a little fine-hammered steel would probably be a good thing to have on this trip. I’m no longer a believer, but I haven’t quite reached the point of reading aloud from Christopher Hitchens’s “God Is Not Great” at deathbeds of loved ones.

Soon after, a doctor came in to remove the respirator. It was quiet and peaceful in the room, just pings and blips from the monitor. I stroked her hair and said, the words coming out of nowhere, surprising me, “I forgive you.”

Pup and I had engaged in our own Hundred Years’ War over the matter of faith. Our Sturmiest und Drangiest times were over religion. Pup had the most delicious, reliable, wicked, vibrant sense of humor of anyone I knew, yet his inner Savonarola was released at the merest hint of (to use his term) impiety. Finally exhausted, I adopted — whether hypocritically or cowardly or wisely — a Potemkin stance of being back in the fold. My agnosticism, once defiant, had gone underground. I no longer had the desire to nail my theses to his church door. By now I knew we didn’t have much time left, and I didn’t want to spend it locking theological horns, making him heartsick with my intransigence.

I think about them every day. Orphanhood proceeds, tanned — as Leon Wieseltier hoped —and otherwise. It comes in waves. One moment you’re doing fine, living your life, even perhaps feeling some sort of primal sense of liberation — I can stay out as late as I want, and I don’t have to make my bed! Then in the next instant, boom, there it is. It has various ways of presenting, as doctors say of disease.

Sometimes it comes in the form of a black hole inside you, sucking the rest of you into it; at other times it is a sense of disconnection, as if you had been holding your mother’s hand in a crowd and suddenly she let go.

The summer after Pup died, I got a midnight call with the news that my friend Rust Hills, the editor and writer, had died. Rust was a great admirer of Montaigne. I thumbed through my copy of the “Essays” and found this: “The ceaseless labor of your life is to build the house of death.” It’s probably too downbeat a sentiment by American smiley-face standards to make it onto a refrigerator magnet, but . . . pas mal. You want to be able, when the end comes, to look the Reaper right in the eye and say, “Oh, puh-leeze.” I’m sure that’s how Mum did it. She’d have added, “And what, pray, is that preposterous costume supposed to indicate?”

“Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death,”Hazlitt wrote, “is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern — why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?”

Any English major can quote a good game. Ask me how I feel when my doctor says with a frown, “I’d like to do one more P.S.A. test.”

Recently, I was driving behind a belchy city bus and suddenly found myself thinking, not for the first time, about whether Pup is in heaven. He spent so much of his life on his knees in church, so much of his life doing the right thing by so many people, a thousand acts of generosity. I hesitate to put it this way, but I’m dying of curiosity: how did it turn out, Pup? Were you right, after all? Is there a heaven? Is Mum there with you? Grumbling, almost certainly, about the “inedible food,” and saying, “Bill, you’ve got to speak to that absurd St. Peter creature about getting Christopher in — I mean, it’s all too ridiculous for words.”

Here are three letters in response to that article.

I have long been a fan of both Buckleys — William F. Jr. and Christopher. However, the younger, in writing about the elder, has proved again that a son should think twice before writing publicly about his father. It is always a complicated relationship, and to blame William F. Buckley Jr.’s parental shortcomings — and some of them were simply astonishing — on the “Great Man” syndrome does an injustice to the average guy who works two jobs, pays the bills and still finds time to coach his kid’s Little League team. If only he were “Greater”: he could justifiably skip the ballgames, the hospitalizations and the graduations. And who could blame him? Worse, for those unfortunate kids stuck with paternal miscreants who don’t also happen to be Great Men, is there any convenient way for them to explain their plight? I agree that the elder Buckley was a great man. But I prefer the story of my mother, who never wrote a book or appeared on a television show but raised six happy children. At her funeral, someone described her as “an extraordinary woman who lived a very ordinary life.” She was, in other words, a great mom.

AL LARKIN

Milton, Mass.

I never had the pleasure of knowing William F. Buckley Jr., the private man — only the profound displeasure of knowing his public persona. While I am touched by Christopher Buckley’s grief, we needn’t overlook some less-than-savory facts about his father. W.F.B. began his career vehemently defending the worst excesses of McCarthyism; throughout the civil rights movement, opposed integration and black suffrage; during the Vietnam War, advocated using nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese; supported unconditionally the racist apartheid government of South Africa; cheerled for the genocidal C.I.A.-backed coup against Allende in Chile; and, in the early years of the AIDS pandemic, recommended that H.I.V.-diagnosed patients be forcibly tattooed on their buttocks. Despite the virtues of his intellect and charisma, W.F.B.’s only legacy to us is that mixture of homophobia, greed, racism, hypocrisy and military recklessness that is 21st-century conservatism. And, of course, a first-rate novelist son — Christopher is twice the prose artist his father ever was, for all the elder Buckley’s greater facility.

DAVID A. MURPHY

Providence, R.I.

Christopher Buckley’s remembrances as the only child of his celebrated parents, especially those of the sad last days of his father, cast William Buckley in a warmer light than that in which I had previously viewed him. The son’s generosity of spirit and endless devotion to his father is quite moving, given the often-challenging nature of their relationship. Still, even from a loving son’s perspective, William F. Buckley is portrayed as a relentlessly self-serving and self-centered person. Should that surprise us about the father of modern conservatism?

JOHN MUSGROVE

San Francisco

I Sign The ACLU Petition

I just signed the ACLU's petition calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the illegal torture of detainees in the war on terror.

To restore America's commitment to human rights, we need a thorough criminal investigation.

Watch a short video and join me in demanding accountability:

Investigate Torture

We Have Not Melt Before

Complement of the day,

Although you might be apprehensive about my email as we have not melt before, my name is Mr. Song Lile I work with the Hang Seng Bank.

There is the sum of $19,500,000.00 in my bank Hang Seng Bank", Hong Kong. There were no Beneficiaries stated concerning these fundswhich means no one would ever come forward claim it. That is why I ask that we work together so as to have the sum transferred out of my bankinto your account.

Please endeavor to observe utmost discretion in all matters concerning this issue.

Once the funds have been transferred to your nominated bank account we shall then share in theratio of 70% for me, 30% for you.

Please Answer the Below Question for Reference Purpose.

CAN YOU HANDLE A TRANSACTION ENTITY OF LARGE SUM?

CAN YOU TRAVEL WITHIN A SHORT PERIOD?

WHAT IS YOUR LEVEL OF INVESTMENT?

Should you be interested please send me your,

1, Full names,
2, private phone number,
3, current residential address,

My Contact Number Is: +852-367-86701

Your earliest response to this letter will be appreciated.

Please do not contact back if not interested.

Kind Regards

Mr Song Lile.

C.S. Lewis's Crisis of Faith

Here are comments I made on the C.S. Lewis wikipedia article.

Would it be appropriate to expand on Lewis's crisis of faith towards the end of his life in its impact on his theological thinking? It was more than just the death of Joy but also a debate that he had with G.E.M. Anscombe. While Lewis didn't disavowal his apologetics, not did he publish or preach any more apologetics for the remainder of his life. The article seems suggest that his "trilemma" and "universal morality" ideas were the apotheosis of his thinking on these matters, while the reality may have been more complex. (There is a paragraph of this encounter in the Wikipedia entry on Elizabeth Anscombe.)

On whether we should use Lewis's or Lewis'.

Strunk and White's Elements of Style support the construction Lewis's. The example they use is Charles's friend.

On Becoming A Renaissance Person

A reader asks:

The term ‘Renaissance Man’ suggests a wo/man of many accomplishments. S/he is a person who is not a specialist but a generalist, a person who knows a significant amount about many domains of knowledge rather than knowing more and more about less and less as does the specialist.

Some will whine that today, with all of our knowledge, it is impossible for anyone to become a Renaissance Person. I say non-sense! With the world’s accumulated knowledge at our finger-tips anyone who has practiced the art and science of navigating knowledge can quickly gain an educational acquaintance with any domain of knowledge in a matter of weeks rather than a matter of years as would be required in ancient times.

Is a modern day Renaissance man or woman impossible?

I do not think that is impossible. Today becoming a Bacon or a Thomas is, relatively, a piece of cake.

I reply:

Since I am myself a Renaissance man, I can say that a modern day Renaissance man is not impossible. :) But nor is it a piece of cake. It is a difficult journey and those that make the journey are like Bacon and Thomas exceedingly rare.

A Renaissance person is not merely someone with a command of information at his fingertips. With google and wikipedia, that is true with almost everyone. It is not someone who is merely very smart. Those who wrote torture manuals and planned the holocaust were erudite, but they are not exemplars of the humane tradition of the Renaissance. Nor is it someone who is able in different areas-- someone, for example, who can ride horseback, write poetry, raise children, and manage a corporation. A person can do of of that but lack ethics, empathy, and humanity. I think a lot of it has to do with disposition, humility, and balance-- looking for ways to wisely integrate knowledge in such a way so that it illuminates the human condition in wholesome and meaningful ways.

Another reader's response:

"Since I am myself a Renaissance man, ...................I think a lot of it has to do with ... humility--"

Nice one.

"Those Dear To God Want Nothing"

"Cari Deo nihilo careat." That is supposed to be our Wik family motto. (I expected to see at least one cat on our family crest!) The implication is that the Wik family is dear to God and thus don't want anything. Nice motto, bad theology, and it has nothing to do with my family as my paternal ancestors came from Sweden, not from England. Our family's name was originally Mard (anglicized to Martin), but was changed to Vik in the middle 1800s and then morphed to Wik a generation later. It's all described in here.

Professor Kingsfield

Professor Kingsfield lives.

Perez Hilton Is A Little Man

I've tried to avoid to hoo-hah over Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr's behavior at the Miss USA 2009 contest. Part of the reason is because I think Donald Trump, who owns the contest, put Perez Hilton (as he calls himself) up to it, on the theory that any publicity is good publicity. Another reason is that I don't think much of these kind of contests, fixating as they do the most epheremal of qualities-- physical beauty.

There is an old saying that "what Jack says about Jill tells us more about Jack than Jill." Here is the question that Jack asked Jill:

“Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”

Carrie Prejean responded thusly:

“Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. You know what, in my country, in my family, I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you.”

These aren't my opinions, and when the issue made the ballot last year, I voted in favor of wording to support gay marriages. I am also a free speech absolutist, in so far as fringe opinions, including the opinions of social and religious conservatives, need to be protected as a fundamental right. Also, these contests, as silly as they are, do test contestents on personality and poise. Political debates and job interviews always have these kind of questions, and it takes a certain mental agility to turn a difficult question to an answer in your favor without walking from core beliefs. Miss Prejean could have answer that question better.

That said, Hilton's subsequent hissy fit is no victory for gays. Just as right-wing commentators in their outrageousness play to the stereotypes that large number of people have of them, so too did Hilton's comments play to negative stereotypes about gays. He may indeed see himself as on the vanguard of homesexual civil rights, proudly marching under the flag of faggotry. But what he is really doing is inciting homophobia. Editor of The Advocate Corey Scholibo perhaps said it best: "I have to question the character of a man who attacks others on such deeply personal levels, without provocation and for self-benefit, monetary or otherwise."

Saturn

Words don't do these photographs of Saturn justice.

Amazing.

Ceasar's Bust Is On the Shelf

I don't feel so great myself.

Had a nasty touch of food poisoning but I'm still in the land of the living. I saw my life flash before my eyes-- or at least the last several meals.

Insider Secrets for Crusing

Cruise lines can drop the price of their cabins to rock bottom because that’s not how they make their money. Their profits come from cruisers spending money on and off the ship. And that means they’ll do whatever it takes to get passengers in the cabin, and then once they’re onboard, push them to spend, spend, spend.

Nuke It

Hawks love this website.

The Dog Barks

. . . but the caravan moves on.

- Persian proverb.

With God, All Things Are Possible

A reader asks:

In Sunday school today, the question was asked "Can God create a rock that he can not move?" It seems to challenge the idea that all things are possible with God. I think there is an answer if we look at it from God's will. My answer to the question is Yes God can create a rock he can not move if he wanted to. You might answer "then there is something he can not do". My answer is that "he does not want to". If he wanted to create a rock he can not move then he does not want to move it.

My response:

Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to pose an analogous question: Can a cat fly? To answer that question, we must ask: what we mean by cat and fly. Once we do that, we have a probable answer.

What you are basically doing is posing what in Zen would be regarded as a koan-- a counter-rational question and answer. One koan was: "What is Buddha?" The answer: "Three pounds of flax." The most famous koan in Christianity in my view is: "What is God?" and the answer is: "The trinity."

Your question contains assumptions about the nature of God that inform your question but may not have much scriptual foundation, if the foundation to your view of God is Christian scripture.

For example:

1. God is omnipotent.
2. God is a "he".
3. God not merely created but creates.
4. God is a physical force.
5. That the "things" as referenced in Mark 10:27 ("With God. all things are possible") refers to God's omnipotence.

(The context of the passage make no such implication. "Things" refers to the salvation of a rich man. Jesus in fact evokes another koan in verse 25 to make this point: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.")

It seems to me that you are looking at images to resolve paradoxes. These paradoxes cannot be resolved because they transcend definitions and logic.

If your view of God is source other than Christian scripture, then that source will provide you the answer.

Impeach Jay Bybee

Jay Bybee is a caring husband, a devout Christian, and a brilliant jurist. He is also the author of a legal opinion that defended the use of water boarding and similar actions.

According to a memo released last week, these actions do not constitute torture.

1. Attention grasp
2. Walling
3. Facial hold
4. Insult slap
5. Cramped confinement
6. Wall standing
7. Stress positions
8. Sleep deprivation
9. Insects placed in a confinement box
10. Water board

Judge Bybee's 18 page memo concludes: "Based on the foregoing, and based on the facts that you have provided, we conclude that the interrogation procedures that you propose would not violate Section 2340A (of Title 18 of the United States Code's prohibition against torture)."

Here is Jay's impressive resume:

Federal Judicial Service:

Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Nominated by George W. Bush on January 7, 2003, to a seat
vacated by Proctor R. Hug, Jr.; Confirmed by the Senate on March 13,
2003, and received commission on March 21, 2003.

Education:

Brigham Young University, B.A., 1977
Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School, J.D., 1980

Professional Career:

Law clerk, Hon. Donald Russell, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit, 1980-1981
Private practice, Washington, D.C., 1981-1984
Attorney, Office of Legal Policy, U.S. Department of Justice,
1984-1986
Attorney, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 1986-1989
Associate counsel to the president, The White House, 1989-1991
Professor, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State
University, 1991-1998
Professor, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada,
1999-2000
Assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S.
Department of Justice, 2001-2002

Based on this description on a Latter Day Saint's web site, he comes across as likeable and astute, a model jurist.

On the day the U.S. Senate confirmed Jay S. Bybee’s nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest appellate court in the country, this new judge went home to celebrate in his usual unaffected way—by helping his kids with their homework and washing the dishes. This ability to balance priorities in his personal life is a reflection of the balance and perspective that Bybee brings to the law, which leads friends, colleagues and law school students to respect him for his fair-mindedness, scholarship, and decency.

To this influential court comes a husband and father of four, an eagle scout, a returned missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a legal scholar who has been on the fast track since he was a Hinckley scholar at Brigham Young University. Bybee’s distinguished career already spans academic, private, and governmental arenas, and his legal analyses on such topics as the First Amendment, Separation of Powers, and Federalism have appeared in top law reviews and journals throughout the U.S. Generally considered a conservative, he is tenacious in his pursuit of careful and precise legal analysis.





Jay Bybee on the U.S. Capitol steps with his family
left to right: Ryan, Judge Bybee, his wife Dianna, Scott, Alyssa, David

Since he is a Nevada appointee to the Ninth Circuit, he and his wife Dianna Greer Bybee and their four children, Scott (15), David (13), Alyssa (11), and Ryan (9), are in the process of relocating from their home in the Vienna Ward, Oakton Virginia Stake, to their former home in the Sunridge Ward, Henderson, Nevada Anthem Stake. Sister Bybee, the daughter of Harvey and Nada Greer of Fair Oaks, California, is also a graduate of BYU. The couple met at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. at a showing of the film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and were married in the Oakland Temple in 1986. She has worked for a public relations firm in Nevada and recently taught family and consumer sciences at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia.

Bybee attributes much of interest in the law to family influence. His grandfather George Hickman was an attorney and city judge in Albany, California, and his parents, Scott and Joan Bybee instilled in each of their children a respect for the laws of the land. Raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Louisville, Kentucky, Bybee said his parents encouraged academic excellence with family discussions and games. All four siblings, Jay, David, Karen, and Lynn served missions and married spouses who served missions. Bybee served in the Chile, Santiago Mission from 1973-75 and his wife served in the Paraguay, Asuncion Mission from 1980-81.

The Constitution is the bedrock of Bybee’s professional life, and one of the hallmarks of his career has been articulate and thought-provoking constitutional scholarship. He became interested in the Constitution as a child when a teacher taught him that “the people are truly in charge, that this is a government of the people, not a government of the leaders.”

Regarding the law itself, Bybee said he appreciates the role of law in a society which must ask the fundamental question, “How are we going to conduct ourselves?” He explained that there is a system of rules and standards in the law as well as in our personal lives. In his own home, for example, a standard is, “Be nice,” and a rule to encourage that is, “Don’t hit.” He also pointed out that standards are always harder to enforce because it is difficult to define exactly what the standard is. “How do you define honesty,” he asked, “and who is applying the definition?”

It’s no surprise that Bybee’s interest in the rule of law extends to a study of ancient law, notably in Old Testament times. As the Gospel Doctrine teacher in his ward, he saw parallels in the way people interpreted and applied ancient law to the way many individuals do so today.

“People in the Old Testament were absolutely devoted to the law of Moses and required exact obedience to it,” he explained. “Their main concern was that they not find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and they spent their lives trying to bring themselves and each other into conformity with it. While we should admire their zeal to follow the rule of law, we nevertheless have to recognize that without understanding the spirit or purpose of the law, there aren’t enough rules in the world to make a person be good.”

Bybee believes that society would function better if people demonstrated an attitude of reconciliation rather than revenge. He said some lawyers become entrenched, and instead of finding common ground and shared values between contending parties, such lawyers tend to “litigate to the death.” Bybee has witnessed the effect on those individuals and families who fight over everything and become estranged.

Bybee says he is honored by his new judicial appointment, but feels the tremendous responsibility of his new position. “Talk is cheap,” he says. “There’s a difference between the theoretical discussion of the law and its practice. I take very seriously the fact that I have people’s economic interests, liberty, and very lives in my hands.”

And what kind of judge will he be? Only half in jest, Judge Bybee adds, “I would like my headstone to read, ‘He always tried to do the right thing.’”

Judge Bybee did not do the right thing. He did the wrong thing. Jay did the easy wrong rather than the hard right, by giving specious legal cover for war crimes. This speciousness is most apparent in Bybee's distinctions between pain and suffering, mental suffering and physical suffering, momentary pain and prolonged pain, pain that results in death and pain that does not result in death, and the threat of pain and actual pain. It is frightening word play and people died because of it.

Perhaps Bybee wrote his memo because of his fear that terrorists could decapitate the federal government-- that the United States and its institutions and values were in mortal peril. That fear may have been well grounded but it justifies nothing. The answer to terrorism is not to destroy those very institutions and values that distinguish us from terrorists. This country has encountered and have overcome challenges not less daunting without having to compromise those institutions or values, including the Civil War and World War II.

The best way to understand Bybee is to understand what drove Adolf Eichmann to orchestrate the Final Solution against Jews and other people during World War II. Perhaps, like Eichmann, Bybee was a careerist, willing to abdicate this conscience to advance his career. Eichmann himself said he joined the SS not because he agreed or disagreed with its ethos, but because he needed to build a career.

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, political theorist Hannah Arendt concluded that, aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of an anti-Semitic personality or of any psychological damage to his character. She called him the embodiment of the Banality of Evil, as he appeared to display neither guilt nor hatred. Stanley Milgram interpreted Arendt's work as stating that even the most ordinary of people can commit horrendous crimes if given certain incentives. He wrote: "I must conclude that Arendt's conception of the banality of evil comes closer to the truth than one might dare imagine."

Bybee shares the banality of evil that Eichmann manifested with his lack remorse and his lack of self-understanding that he was an instrument of the state in the conduct of crimes against humanity, and his self-reinforcing rationalizations.

What seems to elude Bybee in particular is how profoundly unconstitutional he is, using argument and power to circumvent constitutional and democratic principles of accountability and ethics.

The core principle that Bybee seems to uphold is that the ends do justify the means-- that the protection of his family and the nation from terrorists requires the torture of those he believe are terrorists. And why not? In a ticking bomb situation, in which innocent lives are at risk, why not round up, torture, and kill? It is a question that we need not answer because it is a false choice-- between the absence of law and the preservation of our national security.

The way to see this most clearly is to personalize it. Yes, I would feel good lynching Osama bin Laden, the man who brought so much pain and death to our country, just as I would feel good at hurting anyone who hurt my family. But legal process is just as much a protection for me as it is for bin Laden and anyone else, as some day that process could be turned against me. It is this lack of process that opens the way up to witch hunts and far worse.

Bybee perverts judicial conservatism and the law of the land by making law nothing more or less than a mutable instrument of state power.

Jay Bybee loves his wife Dianna and his children Scott, Ryan, Alyssa, and David. But history tells us that liberty is a fragile flower that can be crushed by personality and expedience. What if the wheel of democracy should someday turn to totalitarianism and Bybee is brought before a Stalanoid kangaroo court? What if he is asked to prove that he is not and never has been a member of al Qaeda? But his persecutors are sure that he is a sleeper and his protests only increase their doubts until their doubts becomes the most compelling fact of his guilt. Would it now be acceptable to introduce to Jay walling and water boarding until he confesses to that which he is not? In Orwell's 1984, Winston has a primal fear of rats, and it was a rat cage of starving rats that turned Winston into a true believer. Everyone has their tipping point, their point of vulnerability, and Stalin, ever the cynic, once said "that if you deliver to me a prisoner, he will be claming that he is the King of England by morning." Perhaps in Bybee's case, it might be the water boarding of Dianna Bybee and their winsome children or their liquidation. For if the ends justify the means, the deaths of Dianna, Ryan, Scott, Alyssa, and David are merely justifiable means to a state-sanctioned end.

Instead of the principle that the ends justify the means, the alternative principle was best stated by 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end." So, instead of using the name Zubaydah, the operative in question that is sprinkled throughout the memo, let us as a thought experiment now use the name Jay Bybee or Dianna Bybee or Ryan Bybee or Scott Bybee or Alyssa Bybee instead.

Bybee's memo not only fails this test but sweeps away the last 700 hundred years of western jurisprudence. And for this he was nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court?

It is not enough that Bybee thought that he was a patriot and that he thought that he was doing the right thing. The same can be said of every war criminal and of every serial killer almost without exception. Whatever his motivatation, the effect was to undermine respect for the constitution and to provide legal cover for crimes against humanity. By so doing, he did not protect our country and uphold our constitution as was his oath. To the contrary, he provided a recruitment tool for yet more terrorists that exposed our country to yet more peril while eroding all meaning for the constitutional premise of judicial due process.

For these reasons, I agree with Yale professor Bruce Ackerman that Bybee should be impeached. That said, I doubt that he will be impeached, and perhaps it is sufficient that we simply lift the rock and expose the depravity that was the Bush justice policy.

The Golden Swan Formation

I haven't day traded in more than fifteen years. But, for five years, I was an aggressive trader. I was on the phone sometimes several times a day with Olde Discount and charting and wielding my Quotrek. The approach I took was technical analysis, the theory that stock prices and volume best predicts future prices as all information that exists is contained within those metrics, and trend analysis, the theory that buy and sell trends persist-- until they don't.

After observing the market, I noticed one re-occuring money-making pattern, which I call the Golden Swan. Here is an example of the last six month's stock prices of J.P. Morgan.






Janaury through March formed the back of the swan-- a gentle curve reflecting negative sentiment. In early April, the neck grew on good volume. Prices then broke above the swan's back into virgin territory (at least in the perspective of the last three months)-- a positive sign of recovery for J.P. Morgan.

Two caveats. As enthusiasm mounts, there will be price gaps. Prices jump above the close of a prior day, sometimes by dollars. These gaps almost always get filled, and these are buying opportunities to load up on a sound stock. Also, if you look at the one, two, and five year trend, there is a lot of upstream resistence-- bearish investors waiting to unload JP Morgan at higher levels. However, the overall trend in my view is strongly positive. And you can take that to the bank.

Mad Hatter's Day

Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea?
Alice: Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.
March Hare: Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.
Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing.

From what I can tell, the national tea party was weak Earl Gray indeed. The crowd at Boston's tea party was 7,000, equal to 46 percent of Boston's population. The crowd at Boston's teabagger's confederation of fools was 500, equal to 0.08 percent of Boston. Some estimates put the count at 100 plus fifty onlookers-- or 20 sign waving folks and five onlookers after the Fox reporters left. This movement isn't going anywhere. They were your usual collection of kooks and clowns, flat taxers and flat earthers-- a conservative mirror of the Grant Park yippie parties of 1968.

I must admit I'm not totally getting this Alice in Wonderland tea soaked gala. Did suddenly Republicans finally decide that deficits did matter? Did those same Republicans believe that the big banks should fail? It's actually none of that, and Jesse Taylor nails the reason.

Tea Partiers are hoping that if they mimic the energy of anti-war protests and the savvy of Obama’s new media operation, that at some point an actual movement will spawn. Getting together a bunch of pissed off middle-aged white people with no clue about how the tax system works in public areas will generate a coherent agenda designed to combat the stimulus; if it gets enough media coverage, they will DOMINATE THE AGENDA.

It’s like taping a horn to a horse and waiting for it to alight on a magic cloud of stardust and pixies.

Is Metaphysics Possible?

A reader asks:

I have always been haunted by the question:is Metaphysics possible?Does the quest of "true meaning" of the reality makes sense?Is there anything to discover beyond the world of senses (phenomena) and how much credibility our statements will have?Maybe we should leave all that is still unknown to other scientists to discover.And if we want more ,why not just attribute all metaphysical properties to God?Or should we, as Wittgenstein suggests, limit ourselves in "showing" the "supernatural",performing vague statements that will never be tested empirically.If Metaphysics is dead,isn't that a sign that philosophy itself will be the next victim?

I reply:

It has been said that philosophers bake no bread-- that metaphysics is otherwordly and inpractical. However, it is nevertheless a metaphysical question that it is worthwhile to break bread, i.e. to live. Does the quest for true meaning make sense? Yes, if the meaning is in the quest and not on the truth. It is integral to our humanity to be metaphysical.

A Wolf Likes Pork in 2D

Bill in Portland Evokes A Chuckle

Judge me on the content of my character, not the underwear on my head.

He Is Risen!

Happy Easter!

16 Years And What Do You Get?

It was our 16th anniversary on Friday. We went on a dinner date and saw the comedy I Love You, Man. Very funny, very vulgar-- not for everyone-- but we liked it.

How to Handle Piracy

I have nothing specifically to offer on how to deal with the piracy drama that's unfolding near the Horn of Africa. But I can extrapolate some general principles from my experience in eradicating a rat's nest in my back yard.

We have a row of citris trees in our backyard, and roof rats love to eat oranges and also nibble telephone lines. While smaller than the Norwegian rat that you see in urban areas, roof rats can be as big as a cat. They are smart, fertile, and destructive. Astonishingly, they can climb up vertical walls.

I saw a large rat on my wood pile. A week later, I saw a half dozen baby rats skulking around my backyard.

So how did I get rid of the rats?

I got rid of them by observing them and then by entrapping them in a way that was in alignment with their nature. They are fast creatures, but their speed is their folly as they will rush thoughtlessly into a glue trap. I killed three rats that way.

They are curious, with an insatiable need to forage for food, but like dark, enclosed areas. So I dropped biscuit-like decoagulants into the wood pile, and a day later there were two dead rats on the lawn. Flies buzzed around the wood pile, telling me that there must be more dead rats under the wood. Finally, I tried to remove the conditions that fostered rats, such as fruit on the ground and fresh water.

It seems to me that the use of these principles-- entrapping them by playing to the enemy's strength and also removing the preconditions for creating enemies in the first place-- can be applied generally anywhere, including to piracy. What is needed, therefore, is an understanding of how pirates behave and then an understanding of the conditions that give rise to piracy in the first place. It is also important to give thought to the enemy's nexus-- how they interact and interface with the environment-- in the rat's case by embedding themselves into a wood pile surrounded by fruit trees. I think if the piracy problem is framed in this light, the solution to piracy will reveal itself.

Does God Exist?

A debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dr. William Lane Craig.

Whither Journalism?

Who is enrolling in journalism school right now?

Forbes has reported today that enrollment is soaring, even though nearly one-sixth of newspaper jobs have evaporated since 2001, and those left pay an average of $40,000 a year— just slightly more than journalism school will cost you. I know people do crazy things in a recession, but taking out a student loan for a degree that won’t give an edge in a wheezing industry actually makes getting an MBA look smart.

Social journalism is the future.

Conover, a reporter turned blogger, offers a number of observations about the next decade of journalism. He talks about the continued demise of newspapers: the metro dailies in major cities, not the “web/print nationals” (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal), or local papers serving communities of up to 30,000 readers. His assertion that the Semantic Web and open-source technologies will drive revenue from sources other than advertising and paid subscriptions anticipates data-mining and machine-readable news feeds, and he even mentions the trend of newspapers opening up their APIs, correctly pointing out this won’t mean much unless developers and end-users are given more freedom.

A silver lining for the journalism industry is that the most successful online news sites are old bricks, mortar, and pulp brands, as you can see from technorati's attention index

Hallelujah, I'm A Bum

Hallelujah, Amen

A Home for Our Family's History

I've had a deep interest in researching my family's history going back decades, perhaps coming from my love for history as well as my need to better understand myself and my parents. But, as I enter into my mid 50s, I feel it is important to find a home for what I've accumulated.

I once discovered a cache of photo albums and letters some one had thrown into the trash. Perhaps it was a relationship that had gone awry. But, whatever the case, the disposal of pictures of celebrations and babies and vacations amid the garbage and destined for oblivion made me sad. I have the same emotion when I see similar pictures or artifects randomly displayed at certain restaurants. Their goal is to strike a certain je ne sais quoi of generational nostalgia. But what I sense as I break bread are the eyes of random unknown dead people. It's an unfortunate truth that not too many people have the desire to preserve or even know their own history, and I know that's the case with my own children. And so that why I've found museum archives for what I've accumulated.

Documents relating to my parents work abroad resides at the Billy Graham Center in Illinois. My father's stand as a conscientious objector during World War II are at Goshen College in Indiana. And the remainder of my father's family's history will reside at the South Dakota Historical Society. I was in discussions with the Smithsonian Institute, but upon reflection I think the archives in South Dakota are the appropriate permanent home.

My interest in researching our family's hsitory is done out of gratitude for my heritage, my relatives, and most particularly my parents. "There were no statues erected for members of my family," write George Lang in his autobiography. "These words, carved out of admiration, affection, and sorrow should serve as such."

Here is my e-mail thread for finding a place for my historical papers.

******************

Hello,

I had written to you earlier a few years ago about the possibility of donating family geneological information, including period diaries,letters, and photographs, to The Smithsonian, most likely The AmericanHistory Museum's research archives.Initial interest was expressed by members of your staff, but we lost contact, which I would like to now renew.

Here is a partial overview of my family's history.

http://mymallandnews.bizland.com/MS16.pdf
http://mymallandnews.bizland.com/WIKPHOTOA.pdf
http://mymallandnews.bizland.com/WIKPHOTOB.pdf

Here is a link to all geneological information on my site.

http://mymallandnews.bizland.com/WIK.HTM

As you can see, it is an important and unique reflection of a significant part of the American experience.

Let me know if you have any interest in accepting such a donation.

Cordially.

-----------------------------------

Your inquiry of 18 March 2009 concerning a potential donation has beenreceived in the Smithsonian's Public Inquiry Mail Service office for a response.

The Smithsonian Institution does not generally collect primary materialsof a genealogical nature. A better repository for your family diaries,letters, and photographs might be a library or historical society in acity or county that is significant in your family history.

The Institution's Archives Center of the National Museum of AmericanHistory (NMAH) preserves and provides access to documentary evidence ofAmerica's past. The Archives Center collections are wide ranging;however they are particularly rich in the areas of advertising, Americanmusic, and technology. Please contact the Archives Center directly at archivescenter@si.edu todiscuss the material you wish to donate and its possible relevance tothe NMAH collecting efforts. Information about the Archives Center canbe found at http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/b-1.htm.

If you have not already done so, we encourage you to contact the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library about donating a copyof your book on Wik family history. The DAR Library -http://www.dar.org/library/about.cfm - houses an excellent collection of genealogical resources, including many published and unpublished family histories.

Thank you for your interest in the Smithsonian Institution.

----------------------------------

To the extent possible, I would like your Archives to be a permanent home for all key primary written matter. There would be no restrictions on this donation.

Would you be interested?

Regards.
----------------------------------

The South Dakota State Historical Society would be pleased to consider the donation of your family history. You may send it to me at the address below.

Marvene RiisArchivist/Special Collections Librarian
South Dakota State Historical Society Archives
900 Governors DrivePierre, SD
57501605-773-4233
http://www.sdhistory.org/arc/archives.htm

----------------------------------

I recall our correspondence from some time ago and your kind proposal for a donation. I'll discuss this with our acquisitions coordinator,Craig Orr, but my recollection was that he felt the Archives Center wasnot the most appropriate repository for your family papers. We'll get back to you on this.
----------------------------------

Thanks for your note.

I have since received interest from the South Dakota State Historical Society for my family's history.

I appreciate the work you are doing in preserving our nation's history.

Best wishes.

----------------------------------

Thanks very much for informing us. Feel free to contact us again if that doesn't work out, and we can reconsider.

Sincerely,

David Haberstich
Associate Curator of Photography,
Archives Center
National Museum ofAmerican History Smithsonian Institution
----------------------------------

This is Matthew Reitzel, manuscript archivist with the SD State Archives.
Marvene Riis has forwarded the Wik family history to me.
It will probably be some time before I completely process the collection and have accession paperwork sent to you.

Thanks again for the donation,

Matthew T. Reitzel
Manuscript Archivist
South Dakota State Historical Society - State Archives
900 Governors Dr.
Pierre, SD 57501
(605) 773-3615
Matthew.Reitzel@state.sd.us

Visit the South Dakota State Archives at www.sdhistory.org/arc/archives.htm

I Hate Facebook

OK, I don't really hate Facebook, but I needed a good title for my post. My boy likes Facebook to the point where I call it Crackbook, because it is so addictive.

It a way to instant message your transient feelings and impressions in real time to your hundred dearest friends. The gallery of photos is nice, but Facebook itself has all the substance of a soap bubble. When it comes to communciation, I'm old school (except for my blog), preferring Palmer Method handwritten letters or telephone calls-- anything that gets me beyond the character limitation of twittering, kindling, and friending. I rarely carry a cellphone-- I don't want to be on some elses' string -- and I've had a Blackberry or iPod.

But I can see he attraction of Facebook and why it has exploded in growth. It's a way for people to reach and connect wth other people, and by so doing feel alive. It's bit like Lauren Becall gaily singing "I feel rotten but covered in roses. . . Partly Jane Fonda and partly Jane Austin . . . but I'm alive!"

A Blog From Outer Space

Here is a reason why robots will never replace humans in exploring deep space. We are fortunate that Sandra Magnus is not just an astronaut but as poet as well.

I am going to try to paint a picture in words of what I saw. Close your eyes and imagine yourself here on ISS with me looking out of the docking compartment window. You are positioned so the Earth is passing by below and you can see the horizon as well with the night sky behind it. Here is what you see:

It is completely night. There are thunderstorms across Africa and lightening is everywhere; bright flashes are going cloud to cloud illuminating the clouds as it arcs from one to the other. It is a private fireworks show. The storm is large and very spread out and at any moment you see 4 or 5 flashes occurring at one time, each one only lasting a moment. The colors range from something orange-ish to blue-white. Some are more like balls of light while others have that characteristic streak shape that you can observe on Earth. It goes on for several minutes. Occasionally a city goes by with lights shining brightly against the backdrop of flashing pulses of light. The cities come in all shapes, sizes and colors and light patterns. Some cities have clouds over them and all that can be seen is a haze of light.

For the cities with clear skies, street patterns are apparent - outlined by streetlights. Some cities have very bright orange lights that stand out as beacons. The thunderstorms have finally passed by but still the Earth remains illuminated as the ISS continues to fly over densely populated areas. Population centers are easy to see at night; there are cities all around. Coastlines go by and you can tell because of the outline in city lights.

The night sky, the heavens, though is what really catches the eye. Even though the Earth's horizon is dark, light provided by the clouds and the city lights reflecting off of the clouds provide enough illumination to discern the difference between the Earth and space. The night sky is inky black against the night horizon of the Earth. In the night sky, though, sparkle uncounted points of light, some white, some red, some orange, all of different sizes. They are everywhere. The Milky Way is clearly evident. It rises up from behind the Earth like a glowing white path leading off into the distance, inviting you to follow. The stars surrounded the Earth and wrap around her horizon - a blanket of light illustrating that we are not alone. You are swimming in a sea of beautiful lights that can only be seen in the dark.

As you gaze at the multitude of points glittering in the night, it is hard to imagine that each one is a world or worlds or stars like our sun. They are so remote and seem so tiny. The vastness of space is truly evident as you watch the Earth turn slowly beneath. It is awe inspiring and overwhelming all at once and, oh, so beautiful! The illumination on the Earth changes depending on whether the Station flies over a city or not, but the inky dark curtain of the night sky remains and the twinkling stars do not change. There are so many. Every now and then it is possible to see a satellite in the distance; a blinking red light moving faster than an airplane and in a higher orbit. They pass by quickly.

You stay at the window spell-bound as you pass by in the night. For that is what the ISS is doing - it is passing through the night, unaffected and untouched, merely observing the play of darkness across the planet. As the terminator approaches the Station catches the sun's rays first. That is how you know that you approach the dawn. The solar arrays start to glow faintly red, then orange, then bright white as they capture the first light of the sun coming up over the horizon. It is still dark below, even darker, and the night sky, with its twinkling diamonds, disappears as the brightness of the sun reflecting off of the arrays completely erases any other views. Thus, right before dawn there is total black and as you look out the window it is as if neither the Earth nor the heavens are there.

You just exist, floating in an endless sea of black with one bright light, the sun, illuminating the way. Nothing beyond the light exists. It only lasts a moment, though, as the sun rises higher over the nearing horizon. The Earth starts to pick up some of the rays at last and reappears out of the darkness awash in a faint gray color. Drawing closer you can notice that any high clouds in the atmosphere glow orange or red as they too find the morning sun. It is possible to see the terminator as you cross it. The grey of dawn gives way to the bright blues and whites of day that are so distinctive of our water planet. Looking back in the direction from whence you came, the darkness of night is still noticeable. Only looking forward does the day shine clearly. Soon the night is gone as the Space Station continues on its never-ending trek across the planet. The heavens are now just a dark velvety curtain against the brilliant colors of Earth. No stars are visible. They are there, though, waiting for the night which will come in another 45 minutes or so, to show themselves again.

Hamster in A Wok

North Korea Launches Rocket

(CNN) North Korea has launched a long-range rocket, U.S. and South Korean officials confirmed to CNN on Sunday.

The payload of the rocket remains unclear. North Korea has said the rocket was to carry a satellite into space, but the United States, South Korea and other nations fear it could be a missile with a warhead attached.

A senior Obama administration official in Washington confirmed that the rocked did clear Japan.

The rocket was launched at about 11:30 a.m. Sunday (10:30 p.m. ET Saturday).

Here are some of my observations going back to October, 2006.

North Korea Plans Atomic Test

Biden to North Korea: We Will Annihilate You

North Korea Tests Atomic Bomb

What the US Should Do About North Korea

Inviting Kim to Disneyland

Bad Multitasking

REDDING, Calif. (AP) - A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her cell phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles.

Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced Friday by a judge in Redding, Calif.

Investigators said Deborah Matis-Engle was speeding and text messaging when she slammed into the vehicles stopped at a construction zone in August 2007.

Shasta County prosecutor Stephanie Bridgett said the 49-year-old woman had paid several bills by cell phone in the moments before the crash.

She was in the middle of one of those transactions when she struck a vehicle that burst into flames, killing 46-year-old Petra Winn.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Stotter said he will appeal.

Matis-Engle is frog-walked to prison.

The Resurgance of Atheism

Bill O'Reilly asked the question last night: why the surge in atheism? As a statement of fact, I'm not sure he is right. But let's say he is. O'Reilly's explanation is that it has to do with liberals' efforts to discredit Christianity to advance a pro gay, pro abortion agenda.

But it seems to me that self-described Christians have done such a good job of discrediting their own faith, that they need no help from homosexual abortionists.

On Fox each evening, for example, blond haired harridans, all of them wearing golden crosses, unload their random bile. The political influence of the Bush administration is receding, but it will take much more time for non-Christians to separate the moral stench of actions from leaders within the Bush administration from the ideals and values of Christianity. Conservative Republican leaders are still doing their part to keep the skunkiness as fresh as ever, as we see in doings of the Palin family crime wave. The tempest in the tea pot about Obama giving an address on the Notre Dame campus is an example of the hypocrisy of the right, with the claim made that opposition to abortion is the fundamental tenet of Catholicism. I'm sure that would be news to the church fathers as well as the current pontiff.

Perhaps the rise of atheism is a wake up call to those who are Christians as to what really is going on in their own congregations.

The Prism of Ideology

Says a reader:

Webster says a prism is “a medium that distorts, slants, or colors whatever is viewed through it”.

It appears to me that Marx was the first great thinker to have coined the word “ideology”. Ideology is a distinctive form of reasoning about the individual and about the individual in society. Ideology is a systematically biased mode of thinking. Ideologies vary extensively in so far as the idioms used, the extent of bias, the degree of sophistication, the manner in which bias permeates various aspects of theory, and so on.

While ideologies vary widely in certain aspects all ideologies share some common characteristics. An identifiable logical structure is shared by all. This structure includes: 1) a moral dimension, 2) it is biased toward a specific group and is biased against those out side this group, 3) an ideology cannot not directly defend it self because it rests on assumptions that have never been critically examined or even formulated, and 4) Marx believes these assumptions to be “nothing more than the intellectual ‘transcripts’ of the conditions of existence of the social group whose point of view it reflects”.

"Like viewing the world through a prism, the ideologue experiences the world in a distorted manner. “What a man does not transcend in reality, he cannot effectively transcend in thought either. The limits of his existence are the limits of his thoughts. His basic assumptions are therefore ultimately nothing but his conditions of existence ‘reproduced’ in thought.”

Quotes from Marx’s Theory of Ideology, Bhikhu Parekh

My response:

Marx is correct in so far as he is attaching a world view ("ology") to an idea ("ide-"), and that can blind us to other possibly more correct or important ideas. Better metaphors are "looking at life through rose-colored glasses" or "wearing blinders". But prisms do not distort but refract. The angle of light refraction depends on its wavelength. White light is split up into the spectrum. The spectral composition of ight can be measured by spectrometers. But there is nothing distorting about either the white light or its analysis into its spectrum of red, yellow, green, and purple. To the contrary, prismatic thinking suggests analytical and honest thinking-- an effort to accurately reflect reality by decomposing it accurately. There is nothing intrisically dishonest or harmful about animating your life with an overaching ideology, for example, the "ideology of truth" or "the ideology of safety". Nor does an ideology necesserily need a moral component or need to be directed against another group.

I don't know who this Webster is but my dictionary gives a definition closer to Philip's and even Pesla's. And this is one case where I would definitely differ with Marx. First, from my perspective we all have ideologies. Its just that some people don't like to think that because they like to think they are biased free and objective. To use the prism metaphor, I would actually say that the prism in this case can break an ideological system into its constituent parts. The ideology, in fact, produces the white light by blending the seemingly disparate parts into an artificial whole. Of course the problem with a lot of this is that the metaphor falls apart in some ways. Should the light be the blended white or broken down into the constituent parts. In fact the metaphor here could well be that the ideology of Newton was to indeed break it down into parts for study and analysis. The ideology of reductionism. However, in many ways, as I have argued elsewhere, it is the blended white light, not the constituent parts, that may actually provide the better illumination.

Another post.

Prisms distort. Curved prisms distort. Straight sided prisms distort. See Jenkins and White, for example. The ordinary physics experiment simply doesn't show that distortion.

Well, I suppose you are coming down to the meaning of words. If by distortion you mean dispersal, I agree. I also agree that on a case specific basis, there may be distortions in the prism itself. But the refracting of light per se is not a distortion of that light.

To invoke another metaphor, it is akin to a bunch of blind people with hands on different parts of the elephant, each stating dogmatically that "this tail/tusk/ear is an elephant." Or, if I can invoke yet one more metaphor, it is akin to a frog on a lilly pad, the frog saying that this lily pad and no other is the lilypad of all truth.

But knowledge is as you suggested undifferentiated to some degree, and the challenge is to analyze to understand but to recombine again to get meaning. Endless discussions over mind/body or science/religion or religion/state are a consequence of our inability to rise above allowing ourself to be as it were immersed in one color of the spectrum.

The Fifth Nail

This blog by Joseph E, Duncan III, convicted and sentenced to death for killing seven children, takes depravity to a new level. It's a rare insight into the mind of a psychopath.

Duncan describes the name of his blog, thusly: "According to myth gypsies crafted five nails for Christ's execution not four. The fifth nail was meant to pierce his heart, but the gypsies hid the fifth nail from the roman soldiers. In some stories the gypsies were punished by God for prolonging Christ’s suffering, and in others they were rewarded for attempting to protect him. The fifth nail is said to have been a real religious artifact with miraculous powers. Its existence today is somewhat questionable, unless you consider the metaphor."

This article tries to make some sense out of Duncan's life of crime.

Man Coughs Up

Thirty year nail.

AZCollege Planning Seminar

I heard a good seminar at our local library last night. There were a lot of take aways. He mentioned that he had one client with a net worth of $7 million dollars who was able to nevertheless collect ample Federal and college aid, because he understood the process. It is a process that penalizes people that cannot navigate tests, forms, and the bureaucracy.

Here is an e-mail that came in yesterday from the person who gave the lecture.

Subject: College makes students cry, twice!

Hello friends,

Did you see the news last night? Had to pass this article on to all of you to show you another example of Colleges & their staff being on OVERLOAD.

They make mistakes, sometimes huge colossal mistakes.

Last year a college in New York made an enormous blunder. They handed out thousands of dollars of financial aid and when the IRS came knocking on their door, the New York University in Buffalo (I won?t mention which one but you can figure it out). Anyway the college had to call back several hundred students who had to give back upwards of $12,000.00 of aid. Ouch!

Now another college in California is in the news because of their slip-up.
UCSD sent an email out to every student who applied with a note that said welcome to UCSD, even to those 29,000 students that received denial letters. This is a heart-wrenching slap in the face. First your child is out, now you are in, no you are really out.

Here is the link http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Youre-Out-Youre-In-No-Youre-Out.html?yhp=1

This is the same in the Financial Aid Office (check out my web blog and type in Buffalo in the search window) and in the Admissions Office (as evidenced in the news article).

They are over-worked & under-manned.

They have Students doing Work-Study assisting in the Admissions & Financial Aid Offices.

Mistakes Do Happen, Consistently.

You must follow-up with them. You must stay on top of them.

Expect mistakes throughout the Process. AZCollegePlanning.com is here to help.

J.D. Wyczalek (why-zall-ick) founder AZ College Consulting, LLC
1-888-237-2087

The seminar motivated me to do some more research.

List of US Colleges and Universities By Endowment

A high ranking endowment engineering school

SAT books we need

FAFSA

Profile

Scholarships

Finally, here is an essay I wrote a few years ago on how to ace the SAT.

Aptitude tests include such tests as the ACT, SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT and others. They, of course, do not measure aptitude, if by aptitude we mean inherent intellectual ability and potential. I deny that there is such a thing as an “IQ”—a relatively constant numeral that represents your “intelligence.” Top grades were for me a grind. I aced Social Studies and English, but I struggled in Physics and Geometry. When I look at myself, it makes me question where the intelligence of someone can be reduced to a number or a couple of numbers, and I suspect there are as many kinds of mental capacity as there are people. I cannot carry a tune, catch a football, do calculus, or give a speech. (An eleventh grade report card shows me with ‘C’s in Geometry and Physics.) To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, in things arithmetical and mechanical, I’m far from the model of a modern Major General! But teachers liked me. I did my homework, enjoyed class discussions, took leadership roles when the opportunities arose, allied myself with brighter kids, and was highly motivated. All of that helped me to succeed in school.

What these tests do measure is your understanding of how to take the test—a meaningless skill in itself but an essential skill for differentiating yourself from others throughout your life. I’ve yet to go on a job interview where someone has quizzed me on the Binomial Theorem or has asked me to do analogies. And in all my years as a computer programmer, I’ve never used mathematics beyond that of what an eighth grader would know. I consider such tests a perversion of our meritocracy and yet another characteristic of our unfair society. It is a doorway that filters out talent. Economic advantage allows wealthier families to take the test prep courses. It is their kids that go on to the elite schools and careers. A child from a slum who has a SAT of 1000 and a child from a prep school with a SAT of 1000 don’t have the same intelligence, and it is the latter who is the dunce.

You're entering a never-never land where you must learn an artificial language, suspend common sense, and never use your knowledge and judgment. The premium is not on answering questions deeply but answering those questions with the answer that ETS wants—which isn’t always the correct or appropriate answer. The most important thing you need to understand is that is possible and likely for you or anyone else to get a top score. The Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey, will deny that there is a system for getting high scores on these tests. Here is a typical nugget of misinformation from ETS about the GMAT, and it will be your loss if this is what you believe: “The GMAT is an aptitude test rather than a test of knowledge. It is not designed to test specific knowledge in business or other specialized subjects. Cramming, therefore, is neither advisable nor recommended.” The mere fact that test prep companies and publishers year after year make millions of dollars from students who want to get high scores is proof that ETS is mistaken. On that basis alone, I would say that cramming is both advised and recommended.

The difference between my SAT and my GRE was 230 points and my MAT score was above the 98th percentile. My intelligence didn’t change. All that changed was that I didn’t took the SAT seriously whereas I did take the GRE and MAT seriously. For a few years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was in Mensa, the so-called high-IQ club. When I was at Manhatten’s Williams Club where the monthly meeting was held, I met F. Lee Bailey, Isaac Asimov, the Australian ambassador and other interesting people. In the five years that I was in the organization, I came to realize two somewhat contradictory things. First, that there is quite a gap from being smart and testing smart, especially after meeting many Mensans who believe in astrology and other such nonsense. Secondly, if you can test smart, door to opportunities will open for you. For example, I met my book agent through Mensa and not a few people met their spouses in Mensa as well.

Perhaps at the end of the day aptitude is nothing more than awareness, will, and effort. This essay will give you the awareness. It is up to you to marshal the will and effort. Whenever I find out that I have to take a test by ETS, my confidence soars, as I know that these tests have a common parentage and test-writing methodology.

Here is what I would do to get a top score on any aptitude test:

Get as many copies of the ETS test that you can get. ETS publishes these. It is important that you get old copies of the ETS test, not tests published by test prep companies, who for copyright reasons must write their own tests.

Survey the geography of the test. Deconstruct the test. What kinds of questions are they asking? What kind of knowledge do they require? Do you understand all the terms that they use? This I especially important in mathematics. For example, consider this question: If the radius of a circle is 33 feet, what is the area of the inscribed hexagon? We cannot begin to solve this problem until we first decode terms used in the question, such as radius, inscribed, and hexagon. What formulas or short-cuts are you expected to know? Take the time to thoroughly master anything that you don’t understand.

Search the internet for braindumps of questions posted by those who have taken the test.

I had a college friend who got into the Harvard MBA program after taking a prep course. However, some people have been disappointed by test prep companies. They can bring someone who was at 50 percent level to the 75 percent level. They are not quite so good at bringing someone at the 75 percent level to the 95 percent level. On the other hand, some people need the structure prep companies provide and appreciate the self-confidence they get from going through such companies. But they can be expensive—sometimes several thousand dollars.

About two months before you take the test, put yourself on a disciplined schedule of taking one full-scale test each week. This will take about three hours to take the test and another hour or so to review the results. Take the first test without consideration to time. Try to logic out every question and note those questions that confound you. For all subsequent tests, put yourself under realistic test conditions—number two pencils, no distractions, candy bars, and an alarm clock. You may find that the first few tests are difficult. But before long, you will find that you are entering what athletes call the zone—a mental state when excellence is effortless.
Keep track of your progress and remember that the good is the enemy of the best. Don’t settle for a mediocre performance. Keep pushing yourself to do better or to understand why you are not doing better.

At the end of each test, evaluate what you did right and what you did wrong. If there are subject areas that need study, spend the week studying that area. Develop a personal strategy for answering different kinds of questions, such as chart or geometry questions. Think out loud if necessary. Ask yourself lots of questions. Don’t jump to conclusions. Break the problem down into sub-problems. Think step by step. Note fine distinctions. Be as mentally flexible as you can. Look out for distracters. Keep track of any new terms used within the problem. Develop a guessing strategy; despite what ETS may say, the evidence is that it pays to guess. Analyze your own thinking. Work systematically. Be meticulous. Answer every question. The approach in solving a question is as follows: decode terms à apply formulas à solve the problem à verify the solution. In the week before the test, summarize everything thing you learned and commit it to memory. Take two more tests under realistic test taking conditions.

Have a good sleep the night before the test and a light breakfast on the day of the test.

Arrive on time. Bring a water bottle and some snacks for energy bursts and everything else you need for the test.
Take the test with utter confidence that you’ll get the highest score possible.

Some college aptitude tests will now include an essay section. This will test a number of qualities that the gatekeepers think are important, such as grammar, creativity, vocabulary, and possibly Palmer Method penmanship.

I’ve never taken an aptitude test that has an essay section, so you will need to pay attention to the instructions. However, I think I can give you some guidelines on how to write a good essay, as this book is nothing but essays. An essay, a sally of the mind, is your effort to express a point of view. But facts and illustrations must buttress your opinion. Make sure you understand the question, and pay particular attention to such words as “explain” or “contrast.” Before you start writing, spend a few minutes organizing your thoughts by writing notes of the margin of test booklet. These can be nothing more than lists of facts or ideas. The construction of the essay should generally follow this format:

I. Strong introduction or opening topic sentence

A. What I’m going to write about
B. How I’m going to describe that

II. Body with illustrations, facts, and anecdotes that support the topic sentence

III. Strong conclusion or closing statement

A. What I just wrote about
B. How the facts, illustrations, and anecdotes have supported the topic sentence

Write carefully and concisely, with nouns and verbs. Avoid generalities or clichés. Try to express a clear point of view. Be careful about presentation. Make sure your pencils are sharp and that you write a neatly and as accurately as possible. If you must erase, be sure that you erase the mistake completely so that your don’t smear the paper. Leave yourself a few minutes so that you can review your essay before time has run out.

A reading comprehension test is a bit like an essay test, except that someone else has written the essay. Read the questions first. Underline the topic sentence, which is usually in the paragraph, and the conclusion, which is usually in the last paragraph. Circle key facts-- names of places or people, numbers, and statistics. Look for assumptions—what the author believes but doesn’t necessarily state—and implications—conclusions that we can infer but the author doesn’t necessarily state. Read slowly and try to comprehend the thrust of the essay before you answer any questions.

A good vocabulary starts with curiosity. If you encounter a word you don’t know, make an effort to find out what it means and then look for opportunities to use it yourself. Words you find in aptitude tests are words you would find in the New York Times or TIME. On occasion, read those publications. Be alert for any new words that you see. Try to figure out what they mean from the context. If you still don’t know what they mean, get out your dictionary and find out for yourself.

Mathematics is a staple of most aptitude tests. To do well on these tests, familiarize yourself with the kinds of questions that will be asked. Take as much algebra and geometry that you can get by tenth grade. The best approach is to master the mathematical principles that will allow you to solve an application of that principle by breaking down the resolution into logical steps.

How can you ace a grammar test? You won’t be asked to parse a sentence. I don’t even know how to parse a sentence, despite my command of English. Rather, you will usually have to identify errors within a sentence. The best preparation for this is to read, so that you can distinguish a well-written sentence from a poorly written sentence. I don’t think knowledge of grammar in itself is as important as having a sensitive ear for words in sentences that just don’t sound right.