Pirates!

Interesting commentary on the recent spate of pirate attacks... and our inability, or unwillingness, to do anything about it.

 

"Piracy, of course, is hardly the only form of barbarism at work today: There are the suicide bombers on Israeli buses, the stonings of Iranian women, and so on. But piracy is certainly the most primordial of them, and our collective inability to deal with it says much about how far we've regressed in the pursuit of what is mistakenly thought of as a more humane policy. A society that erases the memory of how it overcame barbarism in the past inevitably loses sight of the meaning of civilization, and the means of sustaining it."

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122757123487054681.html

Good Articles

First, an excellent word on conservatism in a dark hour for the "conservatives."

Confusion About Conservatives, Udo Middleman

http://www.francisschaefferfoundation.com/confusion.html

 

And then a point, counter-point on the sovereignty of God. Or are they all that far apart?

Udo

http://web.archive.org/web/20040622142622/http://www.christiancounterculture.com/40615/islamization.html

Piper

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2006/1776_Dont_Waste_Your_Cancer/

 

 

The CHOICE

There are so many voices out there. Some voices out there are genuine- they really want the public to reconsider the direction, purpose, and leadership of the nation. Election time should be a time of reflection, soul-searching, and ultimately commitment.

Some voices are clearly disengenuous. The mantra of "Vote Now!" is really a mantra of "Vote Now (for X Candidate)!" In the battle of voter turnout, motivations don't matter.

Some voices are plainly naive. As if we weren't dealing with flesh and blood, real problems, and the reality that we'll have a new president, whether democrat and republican, and we'll still be in Iraq -for a long time.

So here's the thing. There are two choices for President- or three, if each veep counts as a half. So as much as I think election time is a perfect opportunity to renew our democratic vigor, in the end, it's still Obama or McCain. Choose.

The Forgotten Holiday

Today was Columbus Day? You wouldn't have known it.
The truth is, I hardly have an appreciation for his accomplishments and determination. That is a factor of the inherited lack of respect in education and in society as a whole that Columbus receives. He has been so thoroughly dissed and dismissed by academia (in the past 30 years) disregard for this new world hero has been thoroughly diffused throughout our society. Is this fair? I don't know.

But history wasn't always so hard on Columbus. A few of the thousands of Columbus memorials around the world are pictured here, including the D.C. memorial (center) for which over 200,000 people showed up for its unveiling under President Taft.
At the far left is the more modern Columbus memorial in Philadelphia. And below, Barcelona's towering memorial.













Google, my recent whipping boy, chose to highlight Paddington Bear's 50th birthday -not a figure to be trifled with for sure - but over Christopher Columbus?

While I Was Sleeping

The Sun carried an article on Monday with the headline "There's a Gold Mine in Environmental Guilt: Carbon-Offset Sales Brisk Despite Financial Crisis." Almost overnight, in the midst of my adolescent slumber, a new god, a new agenda.


They signed a petition that marked out the ground
Saying, "This half is lost, and this half is found.
He's to be tossed, she's to be crowned,
and so on and so forth their future was bound."
The lawyers and statesmen shook hands and agreed
Smiled for the photo and planted a seed
Crammed in some tears, said a quick prayer
Mumbled some lines like, "We'll clean up the air
We'll blow up some stars, and detox the tar!"

He mumbled then burped then jumped in his car
And never again was the beast in their story
They buried the past in all of its glory

Never a whimper, never a notion
They banned all seduction, not even an ocean
Well its castles to ruins and motion to cease
They sliced off his head for the ruin of the beast
(Stephen Delopoulos, 'The Ruin of the Beast')

Meat on Meat

Baltimore Dog Magazine (Fall 2008) features an article entitled "The Raw Truth," chronicling a "new evolution" in dog feeding. Apparently the raw deer meet and chopped bones my girlfriend was feeding to Fido while housesitting is part of a brilliant discovery. Dogs don't just love raw meat, it's better for them. The irony is that our pampered canine children will now be eating the chopped pieces of their own animal species. It appears that dogs are inferior afterall- they're carnivrous. While we content ourselves with soy beef and rabbit food, our domestic beasts are feasting on animal blood. Savages!

Oh Google, My Darling

I was just wondering- for all the fun, interesting, and historical notes Google makes by altering it's logo, why the silence today?

Surely the greatest tragedy of modern American history deserves something.

There are a variety of strange and disturbing notions that I am picking up on, seven years down the road.



1) We, the United States of America, deserved 9-11, so we're actually embarassed by it

2) Bush has become such a villain in American eyes, and since 9-11 is practically his doing, we ignore it

3) What happened on September 11, 2001?



I wonder what sketchy knowledge, if any, my 14 year old students have of the event. Should I bring in pictures?

Good Questions

"Can we critique the issues -- and the man -- without resorting to racial interpretations and recriminations? If McCain wins, can his victory simply be a loss for Democrats -- and not a loss specifically for African-Americans? The answers to those questions will be the measure of whether we've really progressed to the point we claim."

-Kathleen Parker, Chicago Tribune, 6\6\08

Home Sweet Home?

This week, parents of the Texas based Mormon polygamists were cleared to regain custody of their children. I can only feel relieved for the sake of the children, taken from their parents. And my sympathy lies with the family institution, and not Social Services. Reflecting back on my own childhood, I am reminded of the manila folder my parents kept by the doorway and their instructions that we should thrust the file into the hands of any social worker that might come by asking us personal questions. We were homeschooled, and the folder contained a basic set of our rights as a homeschooling family in New Jersey and the number of our lawyers- in this case, the Homeschool Legal Defense Alliance.

At the same time, there is something definitely wrong, twisted, and immoral about this particular Texas cult. While the initial tip may have been a hoax, there is clearly illegal activity going on, not to mention un-godly activity. How could the situation have been handled better?

At some point I heard a murmur of a possible negotiation for the return of the children, based on a commitment from parents to give up certain practices. It's that sort of lanugage that makes me pretty nervous because of how it seems it might easily become something much more intrusive.

As with all moral-governmental intersections, however, there is a dangerous deception that can occur. We much too easily forget that all laws are moral, and are laws are meant to mandate and model social morality.

A Pathetic Discrepancy

I really don't know how to take it in and put it into perspective. If I were to report to you the current death toll in Myanmar I would honestly have to say that it was between 100,000 to 200,000 - a pathetically large discepancy, one to two thousand human lives- as if the word "to" does any justice to the difference.

And now the death toll in China is climbing to 15,000.

I cannot imagine this kind of loss. It doesn't register.