A Few Of My Favorite Things

Justice Thomas OKs Strip Searches

Said Clarence Thomas in his dissent: "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments. Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

But wiser heads prevailed.

It's a strange conservative who consistently sides with the state in distinction to the individual.

Here is a more complementary analysis of his approach to jurisprudence, and i cannot but admire the courage of his convictions.

"At first Thomas was dismissed as a clone of Justice Antonin Scalia. But today even liberal analysts of the court concede that he has set his own course. His opinions show an original and consistent approach to the law, and their distinctive prose — disciplined and graceful, but not flashy — indicates they are not the products of his law clerks but of the justice himself.

"Two themes that run through his years on the court are illustrated by two of his opinions announced in the last full week of the court’s term last month. One of them was a dissent from the court’s 8-1 decision on the Voting Rights Act, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder. The other was his opinion for the court in a 5-4 decision on maritime law, Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend.

"The first theme is that, as in Northwest Austin, Thomas has been willing to stand alone, or nearly alone, even against his natural allies. Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion, with concurrences by seven other justices, raised serious doubts about the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires Justice Department approval for changes in election laws in states that had low voter turnout in elections from 1964 to 1972. Thomas zeroed in on the issue the court sidestepped and argued that the law was unconstitutional. This was consistent with his view back in 1994 that almost all Voting Rights Act cases had been wrongly decided — and with his general willingness to overturn previous high court decisions he regards as wrong.

"But it’s not fair to charge, as some critics have, that Thomas ignores past discrimination against blacks. His dissent paints a vivid picture of white Southerners’ “concerted acts of violence, terror and subterfuge to keep minorities from voting” from the 1870s to the 1960s, and endorses the court’s upholding the original provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
At the same time, he has objected to racial preferences in government contracting because they “stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority,” and in a 1995 case, he wrote, “It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.”

"In the Atlantic Sounding case, he agreed with the four justices generally labeled liberal that an injured seaman may sue for punitive damages for “failure to pay maintenance and cure” — an admiralty law term. Thomas had similarly agreed with the liberals on the meaning of the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines. As in that earlier case, Thomas’ opinion went far back in history, citing English and American cases decided in 1676 and 1784 and interpreting the Jones Act of 1920.

"Thomas’ willingness to write lonely opinions and to be guided by history has sometimes helped to change the law. For example, his 1997 concurring opinion setting out recent legal scholarship on the Second Amendment right to bear arms laid the groundwork for the court’s 2008 decision overturning the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. In setting his own course in case after case, Thomas has also done more than his detractors understand to change the course of the law."

Burglars Love Facebook

Social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and group e-mails can tip burglers when you are on vacation. Use discretion in telling your audience when you will be away from your home. Sometimes, a whisper in a wind-- a friend tells a friend who is not your friend-- can cost you.

Thinking About Michael

Andrew Sullivan

"There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life.

"But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell.

"I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.
I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours' and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out."

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina

I asked my boy, a high-school freshmen, in the wake of Mark Sanford's field trip to Argentina if Governor Sanford was a Republican or a Democrat. Without a moment of hesitation, he said Republican. Spitzer, Edwards, and of course Clinton had their sexual misconduct, but the Republicans seem time and again to be the ones with the fidelity to their vows issue. Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig, David Vitter and John Ensign are but only a few of the Republicans who not only castigated others for their sins of the flesh but have sometimes orchestrated their political assasination.

Karma will also get you in the end.

So why is it that Republicans tend to be the sex vandals and wife cheaters?

Maybe Republicans are sexually wayward . . .

1. Because they marry young, and, as they years go by, their regrets lead them into other arms.

2. Because they don't know any better.

3. Because they stoke up on a haze of Viagara and alcohol.

4. Because they don't care what they do, so long as they believe the right things.

5. Because they are bored with the silliness and sameness of their sad existence.

6. Because their stpford Republican trophy wives drive them bats.

7. Because their slacker Republican kids aren't worth the trouble.

8. Because their church likes tales of redemption-- the more sordid the better.

9. Because they don't care how life is conceived, only that it is conceived.

10. Because they usually can get away with it.

Two Pop Icons Are Gone

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009



Farrah Fawcett: 1947-2009

The Smithsonian Writes A Letter

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC
20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull."

We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.

However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it's modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it.

Without going into too much detail, let us say that: A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on. B. Clams don't have teeth. It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it's normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.

To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino."

Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum.

While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe Curator,
Antiquities

Blue-Collar/Intellectual Snobbery

Letter to The New York Times Book Review

To the Editor:

As a “knowledge worker” who is all thumbs, I do not feel superior to people who work with their hands. I do not feel inferior to them, either, despite Matthew Crawford’s claim (described in Francis Fukuyama’s review of “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” June 7) that “most forms of real knowledge,” as Fukuyama writes, “come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects.” Rather than replacing intellectual snobbery with blue-collar snobbery, why can’t we recognize that the types of knowledge gained from struggling with material objects and from struggling with abstract arguments are equally “real”?

FELICIA NIMUE ACKERMAN
Providence, R.I.

The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.

Iran: What's Next?

Reuters asks the right questions.

ARE IRANIANS LIKELY TO OBEY KHAMENEI'S ORDERS TO STOP THE DEMONSTRATIONS?

HAS THE REGIME LOST LEGITIMACY AND IF SO CAN IT REGAIN IT?

KHAMENEI'S MESSAGE WAS BACKDOWN OR CRACKDOWN, BUT CAN THEY AFFORD THE REPERCUSSIONS OF A CRACKDOWN?

WILL THESE EVENTS FORCE U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA TO ABANDON HIS POLICY OF ENGAGEMENT WITH IRAN?

DOES KHAMENEI HAVE THE SUPPORT OF SENIOR IRANIAN CLERICS?

My view is as follows. Democracy and civil rights are worthy universal aspirations. But, in the case of Iran, we need to be careful for what we wish. Political instability in this volatile region can have unknown, significant, randomizing implications to the rest of the world. One of those implications can be increased terrorism and world-wide economic dislocation. Furthermore, I'm skeptical as to how truely democratic is the opposition. The US needs to stay out of even symbolic support of any faction in Iran at this time. Iran remains a dangerous country, and political instability is making it more dangerous.

Teach Your Children Well

A great father's day song.

Letter to My Dad June 12

I write to my father at least weekly, who lives in a retirement home in Lancaster, Pennslvania.

Dear Dad,

The calendar reminds me that your 93rd birthday is soon arriving. I dropped a package in the mail, which perhaps you will get sometime next week. Here is my account of your earliest days.

“Births were routine matters that caused little excitement because they happened every two years,” Reyn writes. “Babies were welcome because no expense was involved. New infants came free (F.O.B) with no payment for prenatal care, hospital fees, or doctor’s bills. In our case, Mrs. Steffenson who lived 2 ½ miles north of us acted as midwife and ushered us into the world. The absence of doctors may explain why we were all so healthy.” Dad was born June 22, 1916, in the southwest corner of the first floor of the Millard home. His birth certificate lists his father as Nicholas Wik, age 41 from Sweden, and Emma C. Olson, age 39 from Iowa. Lena Steffenson is listed as the midwife.

A picture taken about 1917 shows Dad with a fluff of hair and his mouth open in amazement. The girls look sweetly mischievous, and the older boys look handsome but bored. In another early picture, Dad with his tousled hair is a twin of our three-year-old Benjamin. Elvera holds younger brother Nick, who looks like a cherubic Santa Claus.

A family committee sometimes picked names for the babies. (“The naming committee is news to me,” Viola writes. “I was told that Mom chose our first names and Dad our second ones. They considered ‘Ella’ for me but went with ‘Viola.’ ”) I once thought dad’s middle name was a salute to Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the Victorian poet buried in Westminster Abbey. But the romance of that name deflated when I found that Dad was called Tennyson because he was the tenth child, just as Viola was given a middle name of Octavia, the “sweetheart of Rome”, because she was the eighth child.”

I note also that father’s day arrives this year one day before your birthday. So happy father’s day as well.

We were at a pot luck yesterday at church mainly to recognize the efforts of the work team that Zach was involved in. He was involved in painting at an institution for the blind. They sent back a thank you letter with an overlay in Braille. He also worked at an animal shelter as well. Zach got a certificate for being a “cutie pie”—perhaps because he is so cheerful.
Nancy interviewed for another job at the high school on Thursday.

The book on COs was finally published, and I’ve mailed that to you. I wrote the following to Dr. Steven Taylor: “I just wanted to let you know that I received your book Acts of Conscience. All I can say is wow! What an impressive volume it is! In fact, I spent much of the evening reading it. It is well-written, thoughtful, and majesterial in its scholarship. I'm passing this along to my father as a birthday present, as he turns 93 this month.

“I was watching a documentary last night on the Tiananmen Square massacre. In reflecting on your point that acts of conscience by the WWII COs had little lasting institutional impact, the same could be said for the Beijing University students who lost their lives in 1989. And yet in both cases the potency of their ideas-- the idea of conscience and the idea of freedom-- continues to have enduring significance.

“Thanks again for your book and your scholarship. It has been my pleasure to have a small part in it.”

He responded:

“I'm delighted to learn that you like the book. I do think the lessons of the book can be generalized to various persons who have committed acts of conscience in the name of benefiting humanity. Thanks again for your help. Please send my regards to your father. ”

Here is an e-mail from Richard and Jean.

“It has been awhile since we've communicated with you re: Grace so thought perhaps an update would be timely. She has continued to improve in the lung area. She is still on oxygen at all times but there is no evidence of pneumonia at this point. On Monday of this week she moved back into the Health Care Center-the same room 204 that she was in before the hospitalization in March. She felt she could not live out her life in a hospital so it was her choice to move. While the care is not quite the same with the staff ratio being almost one on one in the hospital, she is being cared for. She is completely dependent on staff for all her personal needs. Her phone has been reinstated to her old number, so she can be reached at 605-598-4236. Her mail is still being forwarded to Steve's so Janet brings her mail and helps her open and read it. We do appreciate all your cards, letters and prayerful thoughts. She really is an "amazing" Grace. God Bless you all.”

Finally, here is a bit more of your story.

On May 1, 1946, Dad arrived in Shanghai and proceeded by rail to Chengchow, Honan province. He worked with a Mennonite relief organization on several agricultural projects, such as teaching students how to use tractors and raising milk cows. A Mennonite bulletin from 1947 describes Dad as “the fellow that eats and sleeps Chinese. Harold is our agricultural man. When he first arrived, he was assigned to the tractor project. Later, he was put on the agricultural and cotton loans. Now he is working on the heifer project.” Uncle Frank White, an Australian army officer, worked with Dad in China when Dad was serving in the Friends ambulance unit. “Australia had sent some cows as a present to China as the Japs had left nothing,” Frank writes. “One of the cows died and Harold who had a degree in animal husbandry was asked to go out with me to try and determine the cause of death—accident, exotic disease, or sabotage. To our horror and dismay, Chinese butchers had already skinning the cow with the carcass a welter of blood and gore lying on the raw side of the skin with the butchers hastily slicing off chunks of meat and packing it into buckets to sell to an unsuspecting public. To the best of my memory, we were unable to determine the cause of death.”

In 1981, Dad got a letter from James Liu from the Hengyang, Hunan Province, the People’s Republic of China. Lieu worked with Dad in the China Relief Unit, and he and his wife Hazel taught Dad Chinese. “When we saw you for the last time, that was in Shanghai,” Lieu writes. “In 1951, we went back to Hengyang and continued to work in the orphanage. After the liberation, Hazel was asked to work in one of the hospitals and I was asked to teach in one of the high schools. We are not young any more. Hazel is 70 years old and I am 77 years old. We want to live for Jesus during the rest of our lives.”

“In 1946, the United States sent General George C. Marshall to China to reconcile the Nationalists and the Communists,” I write in my book How to Do Business With the People’s Republic of China. “Marshall’s efforts continued until 1947 when he announced abandonment of his mediation. The U.S. State Department ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from China. The civil war became more widespread. Battle raged not only for gaining territories but also for winning allegiance of populations. Within three year, the Communists forced the Kuomintang to set up a truncated regime on Taiwan. In January 1949, the Communists took Beijing without a fight." The Communist takeover of China forced Dad’s evacuation back to Shanghai in 1948. “We received good treatment at the hands of the Communists,” Dad wrote in 1947 from Kaifeng. “There is little doubt in my mind but that far reaching agrarian reforms are in order in China, and that the central government is failing in meeting the needs of the people. Nevertheless, resort to armed revolution and bloodshed as an accepted method in extending an economic or political ideology contrary to the prevailing one is, in my opinion, morally indefensible.” In 1979, Dad wrote that the “takeover was relatively bloodless as the Nationalist forces by then had little heart to resist the onslaught of the Communist armies. The CIM, which was the largest Protestant mission working in China, suffered no casualties as a result of the Communist takeover, though a number of the missionaries were held under house arrest, some like Arthur Miller for a few years.” The Chinese, Dad notes, are “patient, resilient, hard-working people. Many have learned to live with little.”

Dad was accepted into the China Inland Mission in February 1949, three months before China fell to the Communists. “We were happy to have an interview with you at our headquarter staff meeting yesterday, and after further prayer, we are prepared to accept your application and receive you as a member of the China Inland Mission”, writes Bishop Frank Houghton, the general director. You can sense Dad’s exaltation and excitement as he anticipates his adventure, in a letter written from Shanghai to Aunt Viola and Uncle Henry in February, 1949. “Greetings over the way and brace yourself for some news relative to my application to the China Inland Mission. Read—here it is … They have accepted me!” Dad ends the letter noting that “relations with my best girl are looking good. I’m now looking for the Lord to send her out to China.” In March 1951, Dad left China and three months later went to Malaya, which was then a British colony.

In October 1948, Mom went to China under the China Inland Mission, later renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. In 1949, Mom wrote that “I was walking to school alone and the hot morning sun was shining brightly. As I was nearing the market place, the familiar sound of a battle plane made my ears prick up. Immediately, there were loud reports of defensive ack-ack fire. In no time the street cleared. I saw a woman quickly dart across the street to collect her children who were unconcernedly continuing their game of marbles. On other occasions, I have watched the bombs dropping. They would come down with a thundering noise above the roar of the engines, thick volumes of dark smoke marking the spot where they had fallen.” Mom saw “two large excavations where thirteen graves had been dislodged and large trees cut down” and also saw a plane crash. Mom supervised hospital wards and was also in charge of training Chinese girls. Mom and Dad met in a language school in Shanghai. They learned Mandarin and then later the Hakka dialect used by the Southern Chinese. On July 20th 1951, Dad was engaged to Mom.

My parent’s letters, now fragile and yellowing after fifty years, evokes a romance conducted with a literary flair that has today all but vanished. “Leisurely, our boat cuts her way through the calm blue seas so that traveling becomes a delight,” Mom wrote on June 23, 1951. “The scenery yesterday was a particular joy as we skirted by the islands at a very close distance. Much could be seen of the islanders in their huts surrounded by the coconut plantations while on the hill slopes farming seems to be the order of the day.

“Yesterday morning, my waking thoughts were of you and this continued throughout the whole day as I remembered your birthday. To say that I have missed you is putting it mildly. The Lord has been good to us in allowing us to have three weeks crammed full of happiness."

“Darling, you know that I would account it a small thing to circumvent the globe if that seemed necessary,” Dad wrote shortly afterwards. “I trust that God will be directing you clearly in respect to the timing of your coming to this land.

Darling, I think that you will love living here in this land. I am really beginning to fall in love with the place. So do come soon my love to share the wonders of this land with me. It’s God’s mission field for us, and my heart is really not hankering after another.”

“This is truly the happiest of all days for me,” Mom wrote from Australia on July 20, 1951. “The Lord has been good in making it clear that you are His choice so that I need not hesitate longer in answering your question. How I would love to be with you at this moment while I whisper clearly in your ear “Yes.” Harold, darling, I do belong to you and you belong to me because of Him.

“As long as I live, I will have a testimony to give concerning the Lord’s guidance as He began to unite our hearts. I cannot help but love you and now long for the day when we will share each other in a more perfect way.

“Even while I write this letter, I am wearing the ring (precious to us both) which will continue to remind me that you are not very far away, at least in thoughts.”

We hope you continue to be well and remain in our fondest thoughts and prayers.

Much Love.

State Secrets

The CIA's rendition and torture program is not a "state secret." It's a national disgrace.

We must not protect torturers and their enablers from accountability for their actions. And we must not let the government hide behind the overly-broad use of state secrets.

Ask your representative to co-sponsor the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009 and limit the claim of "state secrets" to specific evidence.

Lettermen and Palin

It may be my age, but I don't entirely get Lettermen, with humor that is more sophomoric and ironic than knee-slapping and funny. And Lettermen, unlike Leno and O'Brian and in an earlier era Carson, would not be the kind of person I would want at my BBQ. Nor would I want the right-wing, swarmy Dennis Miller either, who reminds me of the kind of creep who hangs out at adult stores or children's playgrounds. That said, I don't understand the sudden conversion to political correctness from the right with talk of boycotts and firings. So long as the advertisers get their numbers, neither Miller nor Lettermen are going anywhere. I've never seen such touching sensitivity from FoxNation on feminist or class issues. So here is my small suggestion to all those folks who are in a lather about either Lettermen or Imus, either Miller or O'Brian exercising their First Amendment rights:

TURN THE CHANNEL!

Uighur Terrorists in Bermuda?

Says a reader:

These uighurs are terrorists and nothing more. What other possible reason could they have for being in Afghanistan during US operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Tourism? Picnicing?

Me:

Can you please make an effort to research the facts before your spout off? There is such a thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Further, and this concept may be totally new to you, there is such a thing as a presumption of innocence and due process.

Here are the facts.

http://m.npr.org/news.jsp?key=516195&rc=in&p=0

"The four were among a group of Uighurs -- members of a Turkic ethnic group from China's Xinjiang province -- who fled China in the summer of 2001, claiming religious persecution. They slipped across the border into Afghanistan. Later, they crossed into Pakistan, where they were swept up by Pakistani security services. They were eventually jailed in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.The Uighurs were later declared innocent of terrorism, and the U.S. has been trying to place them somewhere ever since. Returning them to China would probably mean torture."

Lifetime Spending Rules

1. You don't need to buy to enjoy.

2. The best things in life are free.

3. There are always killer deals when things aren't free.

Politicians and Sexual Misconduct

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) has acknowledged an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer in a statement released by his office. "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions," said Ensign.

What is it with politicans and sexual misconduct? I don't think political affiliation has anything to do with that. Rather, I think it is the result of a toxic mix of isolation, arrogance, the need to be adored, and the need to control.

Postscript. I must of struck a nerve. I posted that on a political website, and within a day, there were more than 70 responses.

Iran and North Korea

Iran

The elections are an epochal moment in Middle Eastern history, and something I'll be following closely.

North Korea

The nuclear weaponization tests and threats? All non-events-- kabuki theatre orchestrated from Beijing. If there was a genuine threat to South Korea and Japan, and if war should break out, a million refugees would head for China.

The Bagpiper Pays His Respects

As a bagpiper, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery in the remote countryside and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there. As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost and being a typical man, did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the crew who were eating lunch but the hearse was nowhere in sight. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness and stepped to the side of the open grave where I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long but this was the proper thing to do.. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I played out my heart and soul. As I played the workers began to weep. I played and I played like I'd never played before, from Going Home and The Lord is My Shepherd to Flowers of the Forest . I closed the lengthy session with Amazing Grace and walked to my car. As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another:

"Sweet Jeezuz, Mary'n Joseph, I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty-some years."

Deontological Ethics

Says a reader:

All humans are selfish by nature, and those who attempt to deny themselves for others, cannot succeed in their attempt, unless it ends in their own demise. Not even these people are selfless though, because they are attempting to be moral--according to the morality of altruism-- because they want to do what is right, and they want to do so for some selfish reason, even if it is to be free themselves from the shame that they are supposedly immoral.

Because of this, a man cannot be truly selfless (while remaining in existence at least). I am not the best person to explain this rational belief (I say rational, because many associate belief with faith, and it is not a belief based off of faith, but based off of reason), so in answer to name and question of the original topic, I will refer you to the philosopher, Ayn Rand, who's philosophy I "believe."

I respond:

I understand normative ethics to be the study of what makes an action right or wrong. Thus, the motivation behind that action-- selflessness or selfishness-- is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the behavior-- not the thought that animates that behavior-- is ethical. Also, any such action must be rational, so long as it is predicated with thought, or, to use a philosophical expression, an a priori. That principle might be "does it pay" (pragmatism) or "the greatest good for the greatest number" (utiliterianism) or "do your duty for the Dear Leader" (the leadership principle). So long as actions coherently derives from such principles, such an action would be both ethical and rational by definition. Is it possible to construct a meta-ethics that transcends such deductions? I find the deontological ethics of Kant the most persuasive, as it attempts to cast actions as inherently good or bad, based on a realistic picture of humans as autonomous, freedom-seeking, and intentional.

A reader responds:

This is it. You are there. It doesn't really matter what you like or don't like. Kantian ethics just treats morality as brutally and cold-hearted as reality treats the law of gravity. It doesn't matter if it is Mother Teresa or Charles Manson that is dying from falling off a cliff. Physics speaks the truth about the matter, either way. So, too, it doesn't matter if it is Mother Teresa or Charles Manson that is evil, ethics tells us the truth, either way. Reason holds no particular sentiment in favor of Mother Teresa or Charles Manson. It doesn't matter how much "it pays." It doesn't matter how many "people benefit from it." Your FEELINGS do not matter. YOU do not matter.

There is ONE cold-hearted REALITY that is he sum-total of the TRUTH of morality. It is cold, and it is hard, and if you cannot handle it, then go off and study anthropology. There is plenty in the world that will never ask you to confront this. Do something else.

Another reader weighs in.

Regarding selflessness, Adler points out here: http://radicalacademy.com/adleraristotleethics2.htm that Aristotle showed in his ethics that to live a truly good life we must desire the right things for the right reasons and that a person who is truly self serving, that is, doing what is best for himself, will do what is good for all men when he serves himself. So like others have said, selfish or selfless, doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t matter because it becomes two sides of the same coin for the truly ethical man (woman).

And yet another:

The function of morality is to submit an individual will to the communal will.
It's methodology is simple and grounded upon simple dualistic, survival tactics. Good/Bad are conscious determinations of what is good for me and what is bad for me, based no empirical factors. The social and cultural trick is to redefine self so as to harness this dualistic determination to social convention. Buddhism and Christianity use similar methods, as does humanism and a variety of other social and cultural dogmas. They are methods used by armies across the globe.
First stress the mind to the point of impressionability. Then break down its sense of identity, by slandering, insulting, degrading and shaming etc....a Nihilistic process. Once this is done you have before you a tabula rasa awaiting as new identity. In most cases the mind is trained to identify with a whole - a nation, a culture, a religion, a god, an ideal. At this point the mind cannot think of good without thinknig of what the system deems is good for it, even if this entails its own sacrifice or its own demise. You've just created an automaton.

You raise some interesting points, but I disagree with your premises and conclusions. Is morality merely a matter of socially-conditioned response, or is it something more? What at the ground justifies good or right action? Is it just a matter of responding to teachers, priests, and parents brainwashing us over our lifetime into believing that "four legs good, two legs bad"?

During the 1960s, the Episcopalian priest Joseph Fletcher developed the theory of situational ethics, that placed morality within the context of a particular situation rather than under an absolute rule. Other people would say that situational ethics is an oxymoron, as ethics must be based on something more persistent and transcendent than personal feelings. I’m suspicious of moral relativists with their fluid sense of right and wrong, that so often opens the door to having no morals, claiming as they do that . . .

It all depends on how you’re raised

It all depends on what is praised

What’s right today is wrong tomorrow

Joy in France is England’s sorrow

It all depends on point of viewAustralia or Timbuktu

In Rome do as Romans do

If taste just happen to agree

Then you have morality

When there are conflicting trends

It all depends, it all depends

Shakespeare’s Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” gives the Kantian proof that moral universality resides in our human commonality: “If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you poison me, do I not die?" It is this shared physicality and emotionality that is my reply in the negative to the question: how can you have moral law without a lawgiver? That the human condition in every land and clime is made up of people that are essentially the same mix of people you find everywhere suggests to me that there might be a universality of moral values, once we strip away the layers of culture. But culture, history, and genetics make such a revelation almost impossible, but not impossible. When the facts came to light, all of humanity was appalled at the genocides inflicted on three separate continents—German Europe in the 1940s, Cambodian Asia in the 1970s, and Rwandan Africa in the 1990s.

But I’m equally suspicious of moral absolutists. Frankly, they scare me, not because of their beliefs, which they are free to hold, but because of the consequences of their beliefs, which are sometimes both immoral and illegal. A parent forgoes a blood transfusion for her ailing child as a demonstration of fidelity to God’s word, and the consequences are crocodile tears over a tiny coffin. There are some Christians, for example, if given the choice to deny Jesus or have their kids killed by terrorists, they would choose the latter with a clear conscience. But this is a false choice as I’ve been deprived of my ability to freely choose. Morality cannot exist in the absence of freedom, or, to put it another way, morality cannot be compelled as that would turn the us-- agent of morality-- into an automata governed by unaccountable forces. Thus, the situation itself is immoral. Any kind of response could only be immoral. So, since lying or not lying under the circumstances are both immoral, I would naturally lie in this case to save my children. The moral absolutists would insist that lying violates the Ten Commandments. Perhaps they would remember how Ananias and Sapphira were struck down in Acts 5 for lying to the Holy Spirit. Despite whatever rationalizations can be made not to lie, this is an example where the more moral course of action would be to lie to save a life. The immoral course of action is to elevate their conscience over the life of another person. This isn’t “trusting God”. They are just trusting their own weakly-rationalized understanding of what God requires in situations like this.

I disagree that morality is merely a submission of the individual will to the communal will, as history and current events tells us that the communal will from lynchings to the holocaust can be immoral. Nor is morality merely subjectivism, as in "I feel it is wrong to consume food that once had faces." It isn't a response to fear, as in "if you steal, you will go to hell." It is rather a feedback between individual intellect, conscience, and courage and the situation and context, rooting responses in what is sometimes absolutely true and good and leaving open for dialogue a civilized, patient, difficult, dialectical approach to respolving the grey areas, such as, for example, the administration of the commencement and conduct of war and the death penalty, the lifeboat scenerio, and start of life and end of life debates.

Whimsical Theories of the Afterlife

"One (possibility) is that we are, in fact, immense beings tasked with the physically demanding job of maintaining and upholding the cosmos. However, God entitles us to a vacation from time to time, and this we take as tiny, insignificant human beings, born into a resort called Earth. While here, we enjoy parochial pleasures, interesting ourselves in very small matters like watching movies, falling in love and so on. At the end of our lives, we return to work, terribly disappointed to be leaving our tiny earthly bodies.

"Strange enough? Well, here’s another possibility. “There are three deaths,” Eagleman writes. “The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.” In this scheme, when we die, we go to a cosmic waiting room where we mark time until our name is never again mentioned. The famous are trapped here, of course, for a very long time; they wish for obscurity, but it may take an eternity to arrive.

"How about another afterlife, in which God is a microbe whose real concern is the battles and triumphs of other microbes? Our problem here is that we are simply too big. Our fate is irrelevant to the real show, which is the one in which microbes participate."

(Alexander McCall Smith's book review in the New York Times of David Angleman's Forty Tales From the Afterlife.)

Wingnuttery Rising

A prediction.

Connect the dots. The abortion provider murder. The holocaust museum shooting. Angry pro-life, pro-gun, anti-immigrationists are on the march.

So expect more of the same.

"I Always Lie"

I am pondering the verse from Titus 1:12 and wondering if I can turn it into a truth table. "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons."

From the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament we have,

PSA 116:10 I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted:
PSA 116:11 I said in my haste, all men are liars.

If this true, then it was a lie making all men true. Liars can be true, but not lies.

Every proposition is a sentence, but every sentence is not a proposition.

A proposition is a judgement expressed in words; and a judgement is a direct comparison between two concepts.

The material form of the copula is an accident of language, and a matter of indifference to logic. 'The kettle boils' is as logical a form of expression as 'The kettle is boiling.' For it must beremembered that the word 'is' here is a mere sign of agreement betweenthe two terms, and conveys no notion of actual existence. We may use it indeed with equal propriety to express non-existence, as when we say 'An idol is nothing.' (George Stock, Oxford)

Chinese Executions

How countries execute their citizens is always disturbing. But, with the death penalty for more than 60 crimes, the People's Republic of China takes execution to another level.

Here is a step by step.

1. They allow especially women prisoners to look pretty before they are executed.

2. The criminal has a rice bowl before execution.

3. The criminal has a final walk of shame

4. The criminal is killed with a hollow bullet to the head, and then bill the family for the cost of the bullet.

5. The prisoner's arms are shackled behind them and they are made to kneel down before receiving a single bullet fired at close range into the back of the head or neck by a soldier or policeman or by a bullet fired into the heart from behind using an automatic rifle.

6. The state may then harvests body parts, such as kidneys, hearts, and corneas.

Obama's Egyptian Speech

A reader says:

"As an Israeli, Obama's speach in Egypt and comparing the holocaust with the Palestinian suffering is really tasteless and back stabbing."

I reply:

Instead of riling up everyone with your false characterization of Obama's Egyptian speech, why not take the time to read Obama's speech?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09/

Obama states:

"America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied."

Now these are the two paragraphs that I believe you are referring to.

"Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

"On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own."

It takes a warped reading to suggest that Obama is saying that Palestinian suffering is the moral equivalent of the holocaust. No where do he suggest that. Rather, he states the indisputable facts-- the fact of the holocaust and Israel's right to exist and the fact of the Palestinian diaspora and their yearning for statehood. The denial of either set of historical facts is dishonest. Given the realization of those two sets of facts, is there common ground? The essence of Obama's speech is that there is indeed.

The Foreign Guy

. . . who is chill.

That what my boys tell me their friends call me. I suppose that's a good thing.

Land of the Lost

For our 17th anniversary, we say the comedy-adventure movie Land of the Lost. You need to suspend judgment on its plot line, but it was funny. Not for everyone. I saw a half dozen people elave throughout the movie, but we like it.

And Can It Be

The best gospel song.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

(Charles Wesley)

Hey Jude

"You've found her/Now go and get her." The greatest Beatles song ever.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Jordin Spark's performs my life-long anthem. "At the end of the storm is a golden sky/And the sweet silver song of the lark."

Kitty the Somali

Our pet of the last five years is Kitty, a Somali cat.

The Somali is a breathtaking cat to behold. It bears an uncanny resemblance to a little fox, with its large ears, masked face, full ruff and bushy tail. The Somali’s wild, feral look is what immediately draws fascinated attention.

Somalis are intelligent cats, and while active, they have soft voices and are usually quiet. They communicate with human family members through soft mews and possess a charming trill. They are extroverts and very social. Possessed with a zest for life, they love to play, solicit nuzzles and pats, and thrive on human companionship. Somalis have bursts of energy several times a day, at which time they will take off through the house, jumping into the air. They toss balls and toys in the air, fetch them back and begin the game anew. Tail and back arched, the Somali will run sideways like a monkey, and even hold objects and food the way a monkey does. Adept at opening cupboards and drawers, Somalis sometimes hide inside their secret areas. Many Somalis can manipulate faucets, and they love to play with water.

Beethoven Symphony No. 9

No music is better.

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen
und freudenvollere!

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken.
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

David Carridine's Lonely Death

It is starting to look like the grasshopper's death was due not to suicide but to something kinky that went awry.

BANGKOK (AP) -- The body of American actor David Carradine, best known for the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu," was found in a hotel room closet with a rope tied to his neck and genitals, and his death may have been caused by accidental suffocation, Thai police said Friday.

David was a great actor and it is a sad death. I enjoyed Kung Fu in my high school days, and would try snatching stones from my friends hands.

James Edmund Scripps

About a decade ago in Chicago, I bought a leather-bound Bible published in 1860 with a faceplate with the name James Edmund Scripps.

James Edmund Scripps (March 19, 1835–1906) was an Illinois newspaper publisher

Scripps was born in 1835 in London to James Mogg Scripps and Ellen Mary (Saunders) Scripps. His father was a prominent bookbinder and came to America in 1844 with six motherless children. Scripps grew up on a Rushville, Illinois, farm. Securing employment at the Chicago Tribune in 1857, Scripps moved to Detroit in 1859 and in 1862 became manager of the Detroit Tribune and also became at length part owner and manager of the Detroit Daily Advertiser. When the paper was burned out in 1873, Scripps took his $20,000 insurance money and with it start his own newspaper.

In 1873, Scripps decided to tap the growing class of working men and women by launching a newspaper, The Evening News (later, The Detroit News). Running with an idea new for its time, he filled the paper with inexpensive advertising and instructed his reporters to write "like people talk." His competitors called The News "a cheap rag" and labeled his reporters "pirates," but Detroiters loved it.

With his younger half-brother, E.W., James later had an interest in newspapers located in Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Chicago. After a lengthy European acquisition tour, James aided prominently in founding the Detroit Museum of Art (later, the Detroit Institute of Arts), in 1889 presenting it with a collection of old masters costing $75,000 (in 1889 dollars). Scripps died in 1906.

James's sister and one-time partner, Ellen Browning Scripps, was the founding donor of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography located in La Jolla, California and was the founder of Scripps College, located in Claremont as part of the 5Cs. She was also instrumental in helping younger brother E.W. get started in the newspaper industry, resulting in the E.W. Scripps Company media conglomerate.

Back in Detroit, James’ eldest daughter, Ellen Warren Scripps (1863-1948), married George Gough Booth, who subsequently became the publisher of the Evening News Association and independently founded Michigan’s Booth Newspapers chain (acquired by S.I. Newhouse's Advance Publications in 1976). Together, George and “Nellie” also founded the world-renowned Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Gaze At the Dazzling World of Tomorrow

Damien Defies Gravity

Best watched with the sound on mute.

Google Sent Me Moolah

My Mall & News is one blog that makes a profit. Thanks Google, and keep the clicks coming!

My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?

Our Buggy Moral Code

This would explain why some people who are, for the most part honest hard working employees, would never take $5.00 out of the cash drawer, but would have no problem using a half-hour or more reading personal e-mails, playing minefield on their computer, or doing thier nails.