The Sword of Enlightenment

the cure for social ills

2009-10-02T21:13:00.008-05:00

As a lead-in, I really like how today's "Quote of the Day" over there on the left sidebar fits so nicely with the topic of my post...

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend. - Plautus

So, I'm finally getting around to rereading Keller's great book Ministries of Mercy (which I have mentioned before here and here) as part of my own prep plan for my upcoming overseas trip* with my church team. As usual, here it is, one week before I fly out, and I'm finally hitting hard some of the reading and general prep I should have been going full speed at months ago. What else is new? My ability to organize and discipline myself is just awesome. Good thing God will be the one really making things happen and not me.

Anyway, in the introduction I came across this excellent passage that sums up the problem with the approaches to poverty from the logical positions of the Left and the Right and the only real, lasting solution to this aspect of a fallen world:

While accomplishing that task [of confronting social problems], Francis Schaeffer said, Christians may be at times, "cobelligerents" with the Left or the Right, but never allies. "If there is social injustice, say there is social injustice. If we need order, say we need order....But do not align yourself as though you are in either of these camps: You are an ally of neither. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is different from either--totally different."

The ideology of the Left believes big government and social reform will solve social ills, while the Right believes big business and economic growth will do it. The Left expects a citizen to be held legally accountable for the use of his wealth, but totally autonomous in other areas, such as sexual morality. The Right expects a citizen to be held legally accountable in areas of personal morality, but totally autonomous in the area of personal wealth. The North American "idol"--radical individualism--lies beneath both ideologies. A Christian sees either "solution" as fundamentally humanistic and simplistic.

...Neither a simple redistribution of wealth nor simple economic growth and prosperity can mend broken families; nor can they turn low-skilled mothers into engineers or technicians.

Only the ministry of the church of Jesus Christ, and the millions of "mini-churches" (Christian homes) throughout the country can attack the roots of social problems. Only the church can minister to the whole person. Only the gospel understands that sin has ruined us both individually and socially. We cannot be viewed individualistically (as the capitalists do) or collectivistically (as the Communists do) but as related to God. Only Christians, armed with the Word and Spirit, planning and working to spread the kingdom and righteousness of Christ, can transform a nation as well as a neighborhood as well as a broken heart.

Not much one can add to that. The dichotomy of Left and Right thinking with regard to legalism is profound I think. Though people don't often express their views in such stark terms, he pins down the logical conclusion of a lot of what we hear today from both sides. And he rightly points out that neither side is fully on the mark but is simply pursuing its own goals and by happenstance borrowing some truth from the gospel.

Another good point here is the emphasis on relationships. People are led to change by other people, and that requires intimate relationships. All the money, programs, and good intentions in the world can only work to the extent that they enable people to form close bonds with each other and become involved in one another's lives. And that is one of the core tenets of Christianity--people forming close bonds with one another and sharing truth with one another. The progression or regression of social ills in our society in the years ahead will be directly tied not only to how well the church as a whole engages the culture as a whole but also how well individual Christians engage other individuals around them who are in need.

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* I'll have the privilege of joining a team to go overseas and assist with mercy ministry and outreach in support of an HIV/AIDS program for two weeks starting next Saturday. Although I've gotten a little better at it over the years, the whole relating to people thing still isn't really my cup of tea, and so the trip will be challenging in many ways. But I've no doubt it'll be a great trip and a learning experience for sure. Any prayers for our team would be much appreciated!

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qotd

2009-09-14T17:34:00.003-05:00

Mined this one from the Boston Globe online comments a few days back, gotta love it...

The market has created in a year what government housing policy has tried and failed at for decades: affordable housing for the masses.

I still wouldn't say housing is all that affordable these days, but the bit about government intervention sure is on the spot. In fact, through all these mortgage bailouts and bank rescues and other such ways of using our money to pander to idiots who lost theirs, the government is actually trying to prevent housing from becoming affordable nowadays. As usual, leave it to the government to screw something up even worse than we could have expected. Real champions of common sense and responsibility, them.

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tribute to tyree

2009-09-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

In keeping with the video embed theme, here's another worth watching. Most of us have already seen this one live and in replays a few times but it just never gets old. Tyree got cut this past weekend so a tribute of sorts seems appropriate right about now. Forget that he had been a mediocre receiver up to that point in his career and had caught only four balls all year. That one put him solidly in the history books. Every football fan alive in early 2008 knows his name.

Without a doubt that's one of the best plays in the history of football, not just for the catch but because Manning had to somehow stay on his feet in the same play. I figure that one will be my generation's version of the Immaculate Reception, that play that will be talked about in every "best plays" conversation for the rest of my life and will never need any explanation to anyone who saw it.

Simply incredible.

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pat condell on islam in the netherlands

2009-09-06T21:07:00.007-05:00

Just found this Pat Condell video over at Jihad Watch (linked in this excellent article about hate crimes legislation), which also has a few quotes from his take. Condell is a British stand-up comedian, but on this bit he's showing a lot less humor and a lot more smarts than I'd expect from any comedian. So listen and be enlightened...

Although I disagree with it, I do like his conclusion. I wish I could share his optimism that Europeans and the rest of the West as we know it will eventually rise up and resist this tide of political correctness and appeasement that threatens to relegate Western-style cultures of "enlightened liberal values," in Mr. Condell's words, to the annals of history. But alas, my confidence in the masses is far lower than that. I don't see people waking up in any significant numbers until it's too late to save their own nations from the destruction that will have already been sown.

Some money quotes:

"If I talked about Muslims the way their holy book talks about me, I'd be arrested for hate speech."

"Nobody should be compelled to respect an ideology that doesn't respect them."

"Stupidity in action is always pretty funny."

"The truth is sometimes offensive. There's no doubt about that. But that doesn't make it any less true."

"You can't change people's hearts by force."

"Nobody should be compelled to respect an ideology that doesn't respect them."

Okay, so I repeated one. That was intentional because we need to read it twice, and keep reading it until we grasp its truth. That sums up a lot of the problems in our culture today, this commonality of people demanding rights and privileges that they aren't willing to confer equally upon those being demanded of. And as usual, the problem is due at least in part to an overconcentration of power in too few hands at the top. As Condell says, it seems none of the majority who view Islam with an ounce of suspicion are currently in power in Europe.

But why should we expect any different? If it weren't cowering to Islam and PC tripe then it'd be something else--extortion of massive amounts of money from small sectors of the population, criminalization of petty offenses, comical overreaction to complex issues in the name of "doing something," and on and on. I'm telling you, big government always, always fails. Always. That's one of the great takeaways here: if people had more power to determine their own ways and interactions within the Netherlands, Islam would be nowhere near the threat it is now.

May the Netherlands see the errors of its ways and stave off a march backwards in human rights, but if not then may other nations learn from its unfortunate example of how not to confront a threat to liberty.

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the erosion of property rights, nantucket style

2009-09-05T10:39:00.003-05:00

Not much that happens 'round these parts can really get me worked up anymore. This whole state is a laughingstock when it comes to just about all civic and political issues. Is there any "progressive" or "populist" idea Hackachusetts is not battling California to lead the charge on? Anything from subsidized health care to handouts to identity politics to rapidly increasing taxes to other ideas we haven't even heard about yet, it's there. Accountability and restraint at the top is a completely foreign concept up here, in which there is very little hope of people ever caring to even challenge much less change the status quo of ever-oppressive government--after all, the masses here would have overwhelmingly voted that pompous hypocrite Teddy K back to the Senate for another 300 years if given the opportunity. A real inspiration for hope, that.

Anyway, now that the obligatory rant is out of the way, on to something from the "rich people quibbling with other rich people" files that is actually so absurdly wrong and against the ideal of freedom that it caught my attention even in Hackachusetts. As this article details, apparently the concept of "private property" doesn't apply if that property deeded to you happens to be a beach on Nantucket.

Some waterfront property owners on Nantucket don't want vehicles on their front yard (i.e. beach) and so have succeeded in getting them prohibited. Fair enough, right? Your property, your rights, your responsibility to protect and preserve, your call. In the same way that someone living near a stadium wouldn't want a fan driving up and parking on their front lawn to go to a football game, or a rural property owner wouldn't want ATVs crawling through his woods and fields, or a riverfront property owner wouldn't want unannounced crowds paddling in with all their junk and camping on his land (or driving across his land to get there either, come to think of it), these folks don't want cars driving up and parking--or worse--right smack in the middle of their beach. I fail to see a problem with the logic here; this seems cut and dry to me.

Well, enter the sensibilities of throngs of beachgoers. Unhappy that their cars and trucks and SUVs are no longer welcome on property that isn't theirs, the masses have resorted to an all-too-familiar approach: cry to the government--via eminent domain in this case--to strong-arm those you disagree with into submitting to your concept of "fair." Never mind that the vacationer types still have reasonable access* to the beach and can still bring all of their beach party necessities, even pets, with them. No cars doesn't mean no people or no access, after all. They can still swim, picnic, bury themselves in sand, and do all those other fun summer things that come with being at a beach. They just can't drive right up on the sand to avoid walking more than 10 feet to get there. If you ask me, the property owners are being plenty reasonable in still allowing more or less open use of their property. And they're being reasonable in expecting that those using it respect and preserve it as well.

Moreover, the property owners are even accepting some risk and giving some ground (no pun intended) here. More people means more crowds, more noise, more trash, more disturbance of the natural environment, etc. These owners can't limit who treads on their sand so they just have to accept the disrespectful folks with the decent ones. But it's not hard to understand their desire to limit the wild parties vehicles help to enable, or the damage to the beach by the vehicle's mere crossing of it, or the leftover debris from a bonfire party, or the other things that a few drivers would no doubt bring with them. Go landowners!

Now forget about the property rights angle for a sec. A lot can be said here about the nature and shiftlessness of people who would drive right up to their beach spot. Come on, people, is it too much to ask that if you want to get to a beach then you take off your shoes, get off your arse, and walk a little? If you want to get to your favorite fishing hole, how about just parking and walking with your pole and box to where you want to be? You know, people were fishing and sunbathing and swimming and picnicing and frolicking about all along the beach well before the advent of the automobile. Do you bums think they got there by just flying or teleporting in? No, they walked. Heck, I bet they even carried stuff with their hands and arms too! They did have to get off their horses every now and then, you know. Those poor souls! The lazy, spoiled nature of some people is just pitiful.** Three cheers for that celebrated aspect of American culture.

So, not only are people lazy and unwilling to put themselves through some minimal physical exertion to get to their reward, but they also think it's just swell for the government to step in and enforce what they would get busted for doing on their own. I don't know which is worse, the masses that clamor for such bullying and theft of rights or the public officials that go along with it. The stupidity of the government is merely a reflection of the stupidity of those electing and supporting it.

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* Even this kind of access would bother me were I a homeowner there. I don't know the ins and outs but I get the impression that people basically can't be prohibited from hanging out on your beach. So in what way can a homeowner even attempt to control the crowds on his beach? I guess that's something you have to understand going in if you buy a house there. But that in itself is a problem I'll certainly never have to deal with, so I'm more concerned with the repercussions it could have in the world of us common folk.

** It's worth noting that it takes an especially large excess of laziness for someone as lazy as me to be able to poke fun at it. I'm not some marathoner or anything. But heck, even I'm willing to get up and walk for a little every now and then, especially on vacation. The more I think about their sloth the more these spoiled beachgoer types really make me sick.

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qotd

2009-09-03T19:50:00.001-05:00

From John Adams, with my emphasis added:

Democracy...while it lasts, is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

And the U.S. won't be the first. The enemies and freedom-haters abroad aren't the ones we should be concerned about. It's those within our own borders who will be this country's undoing.

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wise beyond his years

2009-09-01T21:05:00.004-05:00

With all the immaturity already in the NBA and the huge money being thrown around at kids barely out of high school, some youngsters are still able to realize that sometimes becoming a multimillionaire superstar as a teenager isn't the best way to transition into adulthood. Enter Ricky Rubio, the point guard phenom in Spain who turned down a lucrative offer from the Timberwolves and all the glitz and glory with it to remain in his homeland for a couple more years.

This strikes me as a win for all sides: former team DKV Joventut gets mega cash out of the deal, new team FC Barcelona brings in a star who's sure to attract lots of fans and attention to the club for the next two years, Minnesota still gets a shot at him in the near future and can still watch him and build a relationship in the meantime, and Rubio gets to spend two years in his home country honing his skills on and off the court. Very wise move by the kid, if you ask me.

What 18-year-old, especially these days, is ready to take off to a foreign country and be showered with millions of dollars and become a focal point of the national sports media? I understand the demand from fans and franchise alike for a quick ROI and all, but I'm still a little surprised the T-wolves tried so hard to make a deal happen. Sure, it might work, but you're relying on that kid keeping his head together despite all that madness and hype that surrounds a draft pick of his stature. And that doesn't even account for the other upheaval he'd be going through or just the typical challenges of becoming an adult. Seems a risky proposition to me; if I were the Wolves I'd have wanted him to spend a year or two in a D-league somewhere anyway, just to make the adjustment slower and prove to the franchise he was ready for the responsibility of being a big-time player. After all, if you've got a high draft pick and a lot of team planning invested into a young player, you want to do everything you can to make sure that player develops well and becomes a boon to your team--even if it takes a few years.

I suspect the player and the team will both be better off for it in the long run. It's a shame more young guys don't show the same kind of patience.

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i love logan

2009-08-09T18:29:00.003-05:00

I predicted this the moment I bought my tickets. I'm sitting in Detroit waiting to board my flight to Boston Logan and--surprise!--it's freakin' delayed. Shocker. That makes me 4-for-4 on my last four encounters with Logan. Outgoing delayed flight that resulted in me missing happy hour with former co-workers, check. Two-hour incoming delay on the return flight that resulted in me getting home at about 1:30 am, check. Outgoing delay that cost me a connection and resulted in a couple of lost hours on this weekend's short trip, check. Ongoing delay getting out of here back to Boston in advance of another hectic week of long hours at work before yet another flight out, check.

At least I'm flying out of Providence next weekend. Logan sucks. As with many other things, the capital of Hackachusetts is leading the way in poor service when it comes to airports. Go Massport!

Avoid that airport if at all possible, folks. You'll be better off for it.

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as if i needed more demotivation

2009-07-28T20:04:00.005-05:00

I'm not one to hang around kids much anyway. Not that I dislike children or whatever, it's just that they seem to require tons of emotion and silliness to really relate to, and I don't have an abundance of either. So it's not like I was previously lining up to do nursery duty on Sunday mornings or whatever. But anyway, here's another reason to not spend too much time with kids. Sad...very sad. And as a single guy, I have to figure that the older I get, the "creepier" I'll get in the eyes of lots of folks, and I could even be an easy target for a life-destroying charge of harassment or abuse or whatever. Awesome...I just love living in a matriarchy.

The fact that our society still exists after all these decades of crap, not to mention its detrimental influence on other societies around the world, kinda makes me question God's justice sometimes. Ah well, we will all have the privilege of answering for our actions eventually.

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white mountains

2009-07-05T20:22:00.004-05:00

Finally got around to uploading some pics from last weekend's hiking trip along a portion of the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. (For those who care and/or know the area, we stayed at some AMC huts between Franconia and Crawford Notches.) Good stuff...even if the weather did suck pretty much the whole time. Hiking in mud and across slick rocks is tougher than hiking across dirt and dry rock. And it's even more arduous with a large pack on your back that never wants to behave as you expect it to when you're on all fours crossing boulders, trying to balance your way across streams and mud pits (of which there were plenty), struggling up large rocks with little or no footholds, or simply trying to avoid getting yourself maimed or killed. But it was well worth the effort and workout, even for a guy like me who realized he's not as young and in shape as he once was. The views were great (when the fog lifted enough to allow views, at least), the company was cool, and I succeeded in getting out of the rut for a few days and doing some outdoors stuff. Need to do more of that for sure.

Next up: the entire AT, whenever I next find myself with several months off. I'm almost hoping I get laid off this coming winter in time to plan for a spring-summer trek. Almost.

On to some pics...

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reminder of the times

2009-06-20T12:57:00.003-05:00

Form last week's issue of The Week:

47% of Americans rate President Obama's Choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court as "excellent" or "good." 20% consider the choice "fair," while 13% view the nomination as "poor." (Gallup)

Given the masses we're working with, let's assume the other 20% were too stupid to understand the question. So well over half of people even intelligent enough to respond think Sotomayor is a good choice. Do I even need to add anything more?

We are getting the government we deserve.

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the church's future strength in america?

2009-06-18T21:38:00.004-05:00

Just finished commenting on a thread over at Novaseeker's (see previous post for link) and figured I'd post it in slightly expanded form here too. An anonymous commenter over there made some interesting remarks...

...[T]he blue-state white birthrate is far below replacement.

What you are going to get are red-state Jesus-freak women who do indeed breed at replacement levels. The GenX and GenY women simply aren't making enough babies to clone themselves in 30 years time. Only about 70 of them will be "here" out of the 100 that you see now, easily outnumbered by Hispanic, Black, and Muslim cultural adherents.

White Jesus freaks, who are building an insular culture, will still be here then. In a way, SWPL-ism is a huge generational scam/fraud practiced on its own adherents. People with a birthrate of 1.6 children per female pretty much half their youth in what...70 years? We are in about years 15-20 of this trend now. We probably have maybe 15-20 more years for it to turn around before the demographic momentum damns these people (SWPLS-and-secular whites) to political irrelevance...

I live near two large churches. The parking lot is full of kids. If anything, I'd guess those folks have about 2.5 kids per family, and they provide all sorts of "social stuff" to keep the kids there from what I've been told... These folks will still be around electorally...but these Power Grlzzzz will not be around in 40 years.

As Sailer has noted again and again, who controls the future is who shows up for it.

Good observations, but he misses the mark significantly as a result of his unfounded assumption that all of those children born into "Jesus Freak" households will grow up to be strong Christians themselves. History doesn't support this, nor do current societal trends. I don't see Christians becoming a more influential voting bloc through the demographic suicide of other ideologies; instead, its influence will also wan over time due to its "spiritual birth rate" being well below replacement from generation to generation. I hope he's right and Christianity makes a resurgence, and it's certainly never impossible, but I can't say I'm expecting it either.

Just look at recent decades as an example. Children attending church used to be a most common thing in America. And look how well that has held up to the feminist onslaught over the years. I don't see the coming generations of churchgoers, who will have been raised in ever-weakening churches and an ever-desensitizing culture, holding onto that faith in droves. Christianity will continue its decline in the U.S. I think, for at least the short term and for the worse for the country. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see how.

For one, most of these children attend public schools. Not all, and there are many who don't, but most do. So they're getting all the indoctrination they need to rebel against whatever mores their parents try to instill. And this goes many times more so for those who attend mainstream universities. It's a well-known statistic within church circles that more than half of churched kids who attend college turn their backs on their faith by the time they graduate--regardless of public, private, or home/group schooling. And folks like me, who only started attending post-childhood, are rare, and I'd say exceedingly rare if my own anecdotal evidence mirrors my generation's trend.

In light of that, I think it's fair to speculate that as a generation moves from youth to young adulthood to middle age, its overall percentage of traditional religious belief (i.e. not trendy or modern but handed down from previous generations) declines significantly. Many people drop those beliefs and much fewer take them up.* In recent times the churches in our society have not done a great job of providing foundations for lasting faith in young people, due in no small part to the steeping of the young (not to mention their parents) in secular thinking.

Also, more government presence and oversight in society will result in less devotion to religion as a source of morals and truth about the world, if history is any indicator. (Not only does the 20th-century U.S. come to mind but also Rome under Julian the Apostate; we in the States are merely stealing pages from his book.) While I suppose this might not be the case if we end up with an Islamic theocracy or variant thereof when the smoke clears, that would of course bring issues of its own and the resulting power structure would not at all resemble what we have today. So, does anyone really see government presence in and control of daily life abating or even slowing anytime soon? At the current pace that won't happen until we have anarchy, and even that "freedom" will only last until some strong-man or group can establish dominance at the controls.

Those are a couple of starting points; there are more. So let it suffice to say that I don't think we can look at the number of children being raised in churchgoing families as a prelude to what our culture will be shaped by. After all, had that held in the recent past then we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

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* This may not be true as people move past middle age into their elder years, but that would be beyond the time frame we're talking about wrt today's generation of children. And I can't imagine it being significant enough to offset the lack of said beliefs among the younger crowd anyway.

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qotd

2009-06-18T21:30:00.003-05:00

Just mined this gem from the comment thread at a good Novaseeker post about some fembot's wailing about how her divorce "just happened" and whatnot, apparently through little or no fault of her own...you know the story. Another one of those. Anyway, on to the good stuff, courtesy of Whiskey:

We are indeed looking at the end of marriage. Talk about reforming divorce, custody, alimony is a fantasy. There is not enough political willpower, demographic strength, or anything approaching organizational effectiveness to do this. To create that, every politician must be afraid of losing his/her seat and gravy train in order to vote for that program of reform. Against a hostile media dominated by women.

Not going to happen.

...

We just have to adjust. To a culture of single motherhood, zero fatherly investment in kids, pump and dump, the usual violent matriarchal societies.

Them be prophetic words there. We can all see it coming, it's just a matter of time--for the societal effects to set in, I mean. The demeaning of marriage has already been accomplished enough for society to suffer; whether or not marriage itself weathers the coming storm as anything more than a loose business partnership remains to be seen.

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sports vs. common sense

2009-06-16T21:02:00.005-05:00

As a lead-in, let me briefly recount the situation at my alma mater in the years during and surrounding my attendance--and I don't figure much has changed--with regard to funding of athletics. The engineering department could barely get funding to keep its programs reasonably modern, the campus was hurting for more and better dorms, parking and commuting were terrible due to hilariously poor planning and infrastructure, and on and on. Yet the athletic department had more money than it knew what to do with. Football stadium expansion? New baseball stadium? New track stadium? New practice facilities? Coaches' salaries that make inflation look flat? Sure! And all because the program had boosters lined up that forked over hefty sums of cash to help fund such exploits. In other words, the athletic department was not balancing its budget on its own via ticket/merchandise sales or whatever; were that the case then there would be no complaint. But it was getting huge infusions of cash from rich alumni and folks in the state--who were choosing sports over the future viability of the school as an educational institution with every dollar they donated.

Well, seems we weren't as unlike Los Angeles as we might have thought back in the day in flyover country. Now I have nothing against the idea of a victory parade to celebrate a championship, but...people are forking over big money in "donations" for a sports parade? Really? That's the best "cause" they can come up with to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to? The article even talks about all the troubles the city of Los Angeles is having--unemployment is at 12.5%, the school district is underwater big time, homes are being foreclosed on, etc., etc. Even if those causes aren't at the top of one's list, surely they're ahead of enabling a basketball championship party, right? Call me cynical, but something just doesn't seem right about that whole picture.

Some priceless quotes from Mayor Villaraigosa:

"We're going to come together as a city at a time when we need to come together. The reason why so many people from the private sector came forward is because they know this town deserves to revel in itself for a day. We need it."

"At a time in the city when the unemployment rate is at 12.5 percent, when 21,000 people have lost their homes due to foreclosure, it's important for us to celebrate this great day. It's a victory for us, for the fans."

"If I declared a day off, I'd get beat up for that. People are going to take off whether I declare a day off or not. Some will say they were sick, others will take vacations. Still others don't have a job and will be there."

Okay, I gotta give him humor points for the last one. But the first two? They "need" it? It's "important" to celebrate "this great day" by throwing loads of money at it? I would say the guy must have Hollywood screenwriters doing his prep work for him, but I'm not sure they could even come up with stuff that fun to read.

And you can really see that 60s-era liberal feel-good-ism in full force there: "Huh? Never mind that there's some major change and upheaval going on that we need to plan for and ride out. Never mind that there are front-and-center problems that demand whatever effort and resources we can come up with. What we really need is to just all come together and celebrate and just feel good about ourselves for a while. 'Cause nothing beats reality like a quick emotional high. Yeah, that's the ticket!"

And, as usual here, a political twist: apparently the government's failure to prioritize has trickled down to its citizens. If that's the case then here's a PSA to Californy folks: All hope has officially been lost. Get out. And if you're in the greater L.A. area tomorrow then arm yourself or hide someplace safe, because we all know that when large crowds of excited people gather on L.A. streets the result usually isn't pleasant and wonderful. (Unrelated aside: I'm shocked that Barack rebuffed Cali's first swipe at bailout cash, but I'm sure we haven't even heard the end of the beginning of the begging yet. I mean, they haven't even played up the "for the children" angle yet.)

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thoughts on voxiversity iii, session 1

2009-06-14T20:31:00.003-05:00

Just took my first Voxiversity quiz on Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. (I didn't know about VI until it was already rolling and was too lazy to jump into VII in time to keep up, so VIII is my first.) Given that Vox is off the high end of the intellectual scale, I figured the quiz would be a killer, at a minimum all fill-in-the-blank. In other words, something that would kick the collective *** of students such as myself who aren't great at reading comprehension to begin with and didn't spend a lot of time studying up for this one.

Well, I was wrong. It was more like something out of college, a simple 10-question quiz to verify that one actually did read the assigned material. So I'm a bit surprised he didn't ratchet up the difficulty more...or maybe that's coming with later sections since this only covered the intro to the book. Time will tell.

As for the book itself, it's shaping up to be a good read so far. (For anyone curious as to the subject matter of the book, EW provided a lengthy review several months back.) Goldberg appears to be going beyond the typical noise level in political books, in which authors just pick a flaw of the other side and start blasting away and citing contemporary examples here and there. He's reaching back into history and providing a common thread for understanding both contemporary liberalism and its predecessors. I'm looking forward to getting into it more.

And from what I can tell, it's meticulously researched, as the large amount of footnotes attests to. Goldberg isn't just shooting from the hip or taking huge logical leaps where convenient to make his view of events come into focus. He did his homework.

But I can already agree with the Wapiti's review on one thing: his frequent breaks in the action to emphasize that he's not, in fact, haphazardly throwing the "fascist" or "Nazi" or "anti-Semite" or whatever labels around among his ideological opponents are getting a little tedious. That he's taking care to choose his terms accurately and precisely should be obvious to anyone reading the book. The types who would take undue offense to his writing and fire slanderous accusations back in response are the types that do not operate from a basis of logic and reason in the first place. So there's no point in trying to hold their hand throughout by giving them reminders based on argument. Jonah is working on a thinking level and that's not going to trickle down to someone reading and responding on a feeling level. So I hope he just gives that crap up after the Introduction, but I'm afraid he's not going to.

Some money quotes:

Today's liberal fascism eschews talk of Christianity for the most part, except to roll back its influence wherever it can (although a right-wing version often called compassionate conservativism has made inroads in the Republican Party).

Excellent. I was really hoping Goldberg wasn't going to weaken his case substantially by focusing only on the "left" while giving the "right" a pass on the errors of big government. But it looks like he's going to dole out truth to causes or figures regardless of their political stripes. The credibility of the book when up a bit when I read that statement.

...[I]t's worth recalling that the success of Nazism in Weimar Germany partially stemmed from the unwillingness of decent men to take it seriously.

Amen! Freedom-loving Americans take note. The erosion of liberty has been happening here for decades (since the Wilson regime, if Goldberg is to be believed, and methinks he ought to be) and it's about time more people started taking it seriously.

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tracking the hacks

2009-06-09T20:06:00.009-05:00

It's not easy trying to keep up with all the various types of hacks crowded around the public trough. It seems like every time we look, another species has spawned and is fighting for its share of the gummint slop. The feeding frenzy is just too furious to follow, especially here in Massachusetts, or Taxachusetts, or Hackachusetts, or whatever your name of choice is for this California of the East.

But thankfully, Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr has provided an indispensable field guide to the hackerama that is leeching the government to its death and crowding out any species that might be beneficial to the welfare of the nation. This piece is both amusing and informative, and a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand just a few of the hackasaurus species roaming the lands of America.

His opening salvo says it all:

Tracking the not-so-elusive hackasaurus greedicus of Massachusetts is a lot like exploring the vast Amazon rain forests or the Marianas Trench - new species are constantly being discovered. The difference is that in the Massachusetts hackerama, no species of hack ever goes extinct.

Ain't that the truth...no species of hack ever goes extinct. Nowhere is that more true than in the deep, dark jungles of Hackachusetts.

Howie has done his homework here, covering everything from hack-ademics to double-dipper hacks to green hacks to lobbyist hacks. Each is provided with its biological classification as well as a brief description of its identifying characteristics and behavior. However, I am a little disappointed that he left out one of the most prolific and dangerous types of hack. He included some of its breeds, such as Globe hacks and MBTA hacks, but he didn't identify the species itself. So I'll take the liberty of adding it to the list...

Union hacks

hackasaurus noworkus

This numerous species is known more for its voracious appetite that has brought about declines in industries that were once pillars of strength for the U.S., as well as its ongoing devouring of other previously healthy sectors of the economy. But despite the success of some breeds in bringing down private enterprises, many other breeds of this insatiable hack are always found close to a source of government spending. These hacks forage in packs, using their strength in numbers to overpower the good intentions of government functions. Often responsible for channeling significant amounts of taxpayer largesse to themselves and their members and servants, no efficient program is safe when they draw near. In times of duress, the older, more powerful hacks of this species have been known to display utter disregard and even cannibalistic tendencies toward their younger, less experienced cohorts. (The recent behavior of the Globe hacks is an example.) Despite their differing traits and habitats, one thing is certain: when these hacks take over the show, the credits are soon to follow.

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another dr. paul!

2009-06-06T14:23:00.004-05:00

It's not often that good news comes out of the political arena. Heck, by modern standards, anything only moderately terrible or less could be considered "good." Such is the insane society we live in, where people would sooner sell off every personal freedom they can think of in exchange for a short bit of false contentment than actually take responsibility for themselves and the problems around them. And in doing so they think they have power to control and restrain the supposed bad behaviors of others, when in effect they're only furthering the controlling and restraining of us all by something beyond our control--and without a care for our best interests or freedom. When that collective sloth and shiftlessness reaches the level of politics, the mob rule we see today is the result. No rules, no accountability, no idea what blunder will (not) surprise us next.

But at least there are a few out there who don't succumb to the ruse that we should all play the same game and only pretend to be "different" or "opponents" just enough to keep the illusion going. One of those, of course, is Ron Paul. And another is Dr. Rand Paul, who takes after his father in opposing the juggernaut of stupidity that infects all of politics nowadays. The guy did lots of work on Ron's behalf during this past atrocity of an election cycle, and he even stood in for his father and debated Phil Gramm in a televised debate during Ron's unsuccessful campaign for Senate in Texas. Them be solid credentials if you ask me.

And now the great part: Rand Paul may run for Senate in Kentucky! There aren't a lot of possible scenarios out there that would make me prouder to claim residency in Kentucky than being represented at the federal level by a Dr. Paul. Here's hoping and praying that his first foray into electoral politics is a successful one!

What are his chances? Who knows. Kentucky would seem to be a reliably conservative state by national standards, and we have two Republican senators now (though McConnell has a moderate streak in him). However, we also have a Democratic governor who I don't know much about but whose election nonetheless disturbs me. So I really don't know what to make of Dr. Paul's chances, but I dearly hope they're good enough to at least make a splash and, as a minimum, serve as another wake-up call to anyone paying the tiniest amount of attention to the trend toward bigger, more expensive, more oppressive government that's gone unabated for too long.

A drawback here is, Dr. Paul has stated he won't run if Sen. Bunning pursues reelection. That's honorable and respectful of him, but I'd much rather see him in there than even Bunning. So as much as I've supported Bunning and cheered him on over the past several months, I hope he decides to call it quits. He's been solid recently, but he's simply no Rand Paul.

Rand Paul 2010, baby!

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qotd

2009-06-01T22:46:00.002-05:00

From Vox's assessment of public education:

If you truly don't grasp that the public school system is an idiot factory, staffed by predatory, propaganda-infusing idiots, you probably aren't capable of reaching the logical conclusion about your own place on the intellectual totem pole. Which is fine, I see absolutely no need to spell it out for you and wish you all the joy of the summer re-runs.

Nobody can lay down the truth quite like Mr. Day.

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another reason to like jon kyl

2009-05-24T20:51:00.003-05:00

I mentioned many moons ago on this very blog that Jon Kyl has my respect. And he still does--add this threat to the list of evidence that Kyl is worthy of more respect than are most pols. Sure, maybe it's an empty threat given that the Repubs are pretty weak right about now, but what's not to love about a senator, instead of playing nice and dancing around the issue until forced to make a call, coming right out and staking out his ground before the nominee is even named? The man is a much-needed source of reason in a party and legislature otherwise laughably short on the stuff.

Back in the day I wrote Kyl a letter to thank him for singlehandedly representing millions of people who, at the time, had no other voice in the Senate to count on. Perhaps a similar letter is in order this week.

Now, if only that other Arizona senator would come to his senses...

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random fire

2009-05-14T21:10:00.007-05:00

Just got back from eating a good dinner and watching the Celtics and Magic do battle in Game 6. During the evening a few observations came to mind. I rarely watch the NBA so the below may not hold true for every game, but they sure did tonight.

* Dwight Howard is the new Shaq. That guy couldn't sink back-to-back free throws if the rim were the size of a swimming pool. There's no telling how many points the Magic lose every game because of this. Must be a thing with Orlando big men.

* Neither Dwight Howard nor Paul Pierce could hit a pair of clutch free throws to save his life. Howard was missing from the line all night, and both Howard and Pierce missed 2-of-2 for the tie or lead in the final minutes. Um, guys, it's the NBA playoffs. Perhaps nailing just one potentially game-saving free throw could be in order?

* Brian Scalabrine, a.k.a. "The Whitest White Guy in the NBA" or "I'm only getting minutes because KG is injured," blocked a Dwight Howard shot. Seriously, I'm not making this up. I saw it happen.

* Speaking of which, if teams can barely hang with Boston now, what's it gonna be like when Garnett comes back? The Celts should just roll through the rest of the playoffs if they can get that guy back in time.

* Hedo Turkoglu is the new Vlade Divac. He's somehow effective, but boy does he look hilariously clumsy with the ball in his hands. I can't understand how that guy can intimidate anyone off the dribble. Every time he made a move to the paint he had the whole Vlade-dribble thing going, like he's in slo-mo and yet for some reason nobody bothers to steal the ball or get in his way (I guess they're too dumbstruck at the display of anti-stealth they're witnessing), and sure enough he'd get close to the rim and brick it off the bottom or it'd go soaring high off the board or something. If he steps inside the 3-point line he becomes harmless.

* The above only makes it all the more bizarre that down the stretch, Pierce bought a Hedo fake toward the basket hook, line, and sinker, leaving Turkoglu wide open to make what might have been the biggest 3 of the game or even the series (increased the lead from 3 to 6 if I remember right, with maybe 90 seconds to go). I think he even backed into a screen. As it transpired I swear I could hear Doc Rivers screaming, "Paul, that's HEDO TURKOGLU!! The klutz can't hit anything within 12 feet of the basket and he sure isn't gonna blow by you. NOOOOO!!!" Paul Pierce, you're an idiot.

Finally, I've gotta beat a dead horse some more. What is the deal with women, comiserating, and barstools? I'm well on my way to the conclusion that every PUA on the planet must either be missing a brain or be bored beyond belief. I'm a giant 0-for-2 on bar company over the past week, as this time a couple of me-centric neighbors wouldn't shut up about the minutia of all things unimportant for the entire freakin' two hours I was watching my basketball game. Bleep! Next time I just stab my eardrums with pencils before I leave the house.

Are there men-only bars out there? And if so, how does one go about finding such locales? It's not like they're highly advertised if they exist. I know I'm being too broadbrushed here, but...I mean, really. Some of the "bar night" clientele are folks I'd just rather not spend time with. Remove the annoying chatterboxes and the poseurs they bring in, and the bar becomes a man cave with good company, good refreshments, and good sports. Come on, ain't that what bars are supposed to be for anyway? Or maybe I've just gotta throw in the towel on this whole "associate with people by eating out with strangers" thing. It's twisting my view of humanity for sure.

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qotd: redefining life

2009-05-11T19:49:00.002-05:00

Finally getting around to reading Ron Paul's The Revolution: A Manifesto. Yeah, I know, a year late for the whole campaign buzz thing, but it's still plenty relevant. And it's interesting to see how some predictions of his (massive bailouts, for example) have already come to pass. It's also full of great quotes and insights that I could sit here and post all day long, but this one in particular really struck me:

Whether it is war or abortion, we conceal the reality of violent acts through linguistic contrivances meant to devalue human lives we find inconvenient. Dead civilians become "collateral damage," are ignored altogether, or are rationalized away on the Leninist grounds that to make an omelet you have to break some eggs... People ask an expectant mother how her baby is doing. They do not ask how her fetus is doing, or her blob of tissue, or her parasite. But that is what her baby becomes as soon as the child is declared to be unwanted. In both cases, we try to make human life into something less than human, simply according to our will.

Sad indeed. Murder by any other name is still murder.

On a related note, methinks the health of societies can be judged in large part by how they treat their weakest, such as the oldest and youngest. This says a lot about how they view life and its purpose. When we kill unborn children so they don't interrupt our own plans and cast off our elders into nursing homes when some of their simple needs start encroaching upon our own lives, we as a society are not long for this world. And rightfully so.

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two sides to every coin

2009-05-08T20:13:00.006-05:00

Lately I've been kinda wondering about this whole bachelor track a bit. That's not to say I've decided against it, of course, but despite what I read from others sometimes, bachelorhood is not without some significant challenges. In particular, loneliness and lack of church involvement have been front-and-center obstacles lately. The older I get, the less people like me there are--duh, right? But it does make quality hang-out time that much harder to come by. My closest friends, and the crew I'd stir up if I could, are all back where I lived until a year ago, and any homies here that might have become good friends in past years are now married and thus in a different place in life.

And the church seems to be predominantly married folks or couples on that path, even at my (not-so-old-yet) age, so as a single guy who's not coupled I'm kinda on an island when it comes to church. I see that becoming more the case as I advance in years too. I've recently tried to learn about stuff going on and get involved and serve where there's access, but I often feel like "that guy"--you know, the one who's awkwardly there but not really in the mix of things. I sometimes wonder how this phenomenon bodes for my future church involvement and attendance, not to mention my future well-being and spiritual growth, but that's a discussion for another day.

Anyway, why do I bring this up now? Because, well, there are two sides to every coin. Sometimes what's needed for each of us is a reminder of just how good we really do have it in many ways, a reminder of just how tough it is to put a price on things we take for granted. For me, things like peace and tranquility in life come to mind. On that note, every now and then a close encounter serves to provide me with anecdotal evidence that reminds me of why I haven't bothered to take many forays into the dating scene up to this point in life.

Take tonight, for example. I just got home from my Friday night dinner outing. (I try to eat a good sit-down meal at the end of the work week just to make sure I get out and interact with people outside of church at least that much every weekend.) Usually this entails hitting the bar at a casual restaurant and catching some sports action over my only full-size, fresh-cooked dinner and couple of beers of the week, as was the case tonight. Well, bars being what they are, you never know who you're gonna end up sitting next to. And tonight it happened to be what seemed to be a newly dating couple. [Cue suspense music]

I was preoccupied with my (quite good) Samuel Adams "Boston Red" brew and the Celtics-Magic game, just taking in some of the goodness of life, when the woman near me and the bartender started going on about past men in their lives. Before I know it the two have a full-fledged pity party going and I'm stuck within earshot. Awesome, the peacefulness of my outing has been smashed against the rocks of fembot whinery.

It's worth noting here that my fork and knife had, unfortunately, been taken away with my finished plate and I noticed no other sharp objects close at hand; otherwise I might have been able to self-inflict enough hearing loss to end the torment and still be able to enjoy my beer and basketball. I also considered knocking myself unconscious against the beer taps in front of me, but this would have prevented me from watching the game or finishing the one I'd just bought. So as it was, I wasn't about to walk away from an mostly-full glass so I just had to gut it out.

Anyway, the bartender goes on about how she just broke up with her boyfriend and how there "aren't many good men out there"* or some crap, and talks about how her boyfriend is trying so hard to make things work out but is being pathetic, and other soap-opera BS I won't torture myself to recount. The guest joined in the slamfest, despite her date/boyfriend sitting roughly 9-12 inches away. This bashing carried on for what seemed like half an eternity but was probably only a few minutes most.

Now mind you, the dude was triangulated here, sitting right there having to listen to it all, maybe even having to show signs of not being comatose. Now as a man, how does one respond in such a case? Speak up against such a mockery of decency and respect, no doubt incurring untold wrath and fury for such audacity? Just sit there and play along, all the while filing the info away for future consideration? Bolt out of the chair at a full sprint for the door, touching the floor maybe twice en route? Seems to me that he was just stuck between a very sharp rock and a couple of wickedly annoying women, with no simple way out. Hopefully the dude has his head on his shoulders enough to really think hard on whether or not all that resemblance to a man-hating, feminazi drama factory can really outweigh whatever is on the plus side of the balance.

As for me, the best I could do was simply smile to myself as I watched some basketball and pondered what I might do with my own time and money this weekend.

So finally the saga ended, they went back to doing whatever, and I cashed out shortly thereafter. Now I probably should have at least asked the bartender for her ex's phone number so I could give him a heads up on what he's NOT missing, but once again I couldn't figure out how any good would come from such an encounter with said creature so I decided to resist and just stick to my usual routine of observing and keeping my mouth shut.

And now? I'm sitting here blogging, hanging out, looking through my bike trails guide to figure out which one to ride tomorrow, wishing I hadn't eaten so much, and generally just chillin'. Perhaps not a perfect scenario, no, as having a (respectful) date or good friend to chat with would be preferable right about now. But I do also know that my current circumstances are a whole lot better than what a lot of bros are going through. A funny thing about us humans is that we always just assume the grass is greener on the other side of whatever fence we're staring at. Well, sometimes it takes a close encounter to remind us it ain't always greener...

____________________

* At this point the first thing that came to my mind was "No, they're out there, and they're wise enough to stay clear of girls like YOU!!" However, failing to see how this could bring about anything except a quick few seconds of amusement at someone else's expense, and also failing to rationalize how such a response could glorify God, I held my tongue. That was one of those times I'm actually glad I tend to be shy and quiet, because me actually straight-up saying what I think would have been a bad thing.

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some miss usa humor

2009-05-04T21:49:00.003-05:00

Well, sort of. Go read this and you'll see what I mean...

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government's newest matter of pressing importance

2009-05-01T17:54:00.007-05:00

So we've got huge economic and tax problems in this country. Illegal immigration has gone on unchecked for who knows how many years now. There are terrorists abroad (and at home too) trying to kill us and seize our ships. Human-rights abuses abound on over half the globe and even here in the States. Every year more and more countries are running right by us in the race to educate the next generation. Our country faces an impending energy shortage and nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

If you're into much-ado-about-nothing hoopla that the media likes to whip up every so often, there's this swine flu coming onto the scene to worry about. If you're an environut with a weak grasp of science and history, there's "climate change" to address. If you're a libertarian, there's...well, pretty much everything the fedgov does these days.

And the list goes on. You get the idea...regardless of your political bent, there's no lack of crises to freak out over, right? And with the government not pretending to be shackled by the likes of the Constitution or moral responsibility or any other such restraint, there's no shortage of issues it could tamper with and try to "fix."

So what is on all-powerful Congress' agenda these days? The evils of college football's BCS system. No kidding. Apparently they're just plum out of stuff to do over there on the Potomac.

Now there are so many ways one could question this. For starters, one could go with, "Is that really a more pressing issue than, say, anything else at all on your plate? Really?" Or, "Are you sure you have the authority to tell the NCAA how it must choose its national champion?" Or perhaps, "Being the government, what makes you think you're remotely capable of solving the problem or at least not making it worse?" Or maybe, "Oh, excellent, so now the government is the final arbiter of fairness in yet another small piece of society?" Or even, "So you bunch of lawyers and businessmen know how to run a sports league better than the sports guys currently running it, huh?" Or, "Wait, before I bother to care, could someone please explain to me how this affects or benefits the workings of business, schools, society, or something else I already care about?" Or simply, "WTF?"

Any one of these is a legitimate question for which the government utterly lacks a legitimate answer. But that's okay, they don't have to actually answer for anything they do these days. It's that same old "act first, ask questions later, and blame the other guys for anything that goes wrong" we're getting too used to seeing.

Anyway, seems the suits in Washington want a playoff instead of the current bowl system. As for the issue itself, I do see a lot of logic in that. I myself would much rather see the NCAA let its teams battle it out on the field rather than subject the championship to the opinions of a bunch of writers--which is basically what the BCS has been watered down to these days. It was once a great idea, one that would rank teams impartially based on a wide set of computer-generated rankings and human polls, so that regardless of the outcome, at least nobody could cry and scream bias or ignorance of lesser teams or whatever. Okay, so it needed a little tweaking, but I still think it was a grand idea in the beginning. Trouble is, they tweaked pretty much all the impartiality out and now we're back to mostly human judgment with a bunch of impartial rankings counting for some small amount. I'd personally rather see an even playing field that isn't dependent on the wisdom of a bunch of biased reporters.

But anyhow, I digress. The government is threatening to take on, and I figure will soon take on, the responsibility of not only figuring out the best way to run college football's postseason but also forcing the NCAA to implement whatever solution it devises. Uh, yeah, that'll fix the problem right up. As if the whole mess wasn't controversial enough already, now we've got the feds involved. Swell! Maybe, just maybe, they'll impart the kind of wisdom and success they've imparted on every other once-private realm they've taken a role in.

Awesome job, guys. That makes me so glad I went out and voted in the last election. It's great to know my government has the most critical needs of its citizens front and center.

Or actually, as I like to say, it's a good thing the government is spending such time on these lesser matters, because that's time they aren't spending screwing up something of greater importance. So...maybe we should all rejoice?

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an ode to camping

2009-04-13T18:58:00.002-05:00

My friend Aaron just sent this in one of his always-funny "Greetings from New York" emails. Apparently he's a poet too. Quite a work of genius, if you ask me.

-----

An Ode to Camping

Oh camping, why do I like thee?
It seems every insect is out to get me.
Whether tick, or a fly or a mosquito or two,
They bite and they munch, and don't care what I do.

Oh camping, why do I like thee?
When just recently, I got attacked by a tree.
Slowly it fell on top of my head,
It hurt quite a bit, but at least I'm not dead.

Oh camping, why do I like thee?
You'd think a campfire would make me care free.
Instead I just cough, and get smoke in my eyes,
And wish I was warmer, or cooler, or inside.

Oh camping, why do I like thee?
When my sleep is unpleasant as unpleasant can be.
I am cold and I'm damp, and can't stay on my pad,
And the pee in my bladder is making me mad.

Oh camping, why do I like thee?
Why is it to you that I constantly flee?
No bills, no distractions, no annoying people you say?
Now I understand, well, perhaps I will stay.

-----

Now is that great or is it great!? Aaron, I wish I had a fraction of your poetry skillz...

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music and smarts (or lack thereof)

2009-04-10T22:49:00.008-05:00

Don't remember how I stumbled across it, but I discovered an attention-grabbing blog post* a while back. It highlights an interesting take on how music preferences match up with SAT scores. The guy who put the data together doesn't claim it's some sort of rigorous scientific study, of course, but it is cool nonetheless. He has a chart for books too, though I didn't look at it much. That's a future blog post I suspect.

As for me, most of the musical preferences on his scores chart that I identified with were pretty much right in the middle. But "Rock," "Classic Rock," and "Country" (closest thing to bluegrass) were all on the bottom half, which doesn't bode well for me insofar as it correlates to intellect. So I guess I'm just kinda boring like that when it comes to music. I don't like that cult-following type music (Sufjan, Radiohead, etc.) and I don't like hip-hop/rap/R&B either, so I guess that knocks out a lot of the bands that deviate off the mean the most.

A few things did jump out at me though...

- Beethoven is way out on the high end, while "Classical" is on the lower end. Weird. So if you're gonna listen to classical music to up your smarts then make sure it's Beethoven.

- What the bleep is Billy Joel doing so far out on the right?? That stuff kills brain cells as fast as anything out there, I'm sure of it! I mean, don't you just feel dumber after hearing a Billy Joel song? Come on, I know I'm not the only one. And come to think of it, how's he listed in the top 133 Facebook music preferences? Are there that many Billy Joel fans who know how to use computers?

- Out of his 133 entries, I counted 10 bands that I'd label as "Christian"--and there may be more, given that I've never heard of a few of those on the chart and I don't listen to the CCM-type stuff enough to know the "hot" bands. I'm a little surprised the number is that high though. I would have been surprised to see half that many, given that the other bands are all quite popular. But maybe those CCM bands are too and I'm just totally out of the loop.

____________________

* Ironically, the blog is co-authored by one of my pastors. How cool is that!? But don't hold that against him or his blog; he is very good and knowledgeable. He can't be held responsible for a few bad apples in the bunch, you know...

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some due respect for settlers

2009-04-05T13:28:00.008-05:00

Settlers of Catan, that is. Having once upon a time been an avid Dungeons & Dragons player--AD&D 2nd Edition, for those familiar with it--and a card-game addict as well, I can relate to the "high end" of the board game world when it comes to strategy and depth. I never did transition into an obsession with computer games, but I'd say I'm still somewhat of a board-game and strategy-game geek. And since I don't consider D&D technically a board game, Settlers is hands-down the best board game I've ever played.* Getting out the Settlers box with old friends was a highlight of past return trips to my old stomping grounds. It's often tempting to seek out gamers up here to see if there aren any good groups around, but casual and fun gamers (as opposed to the overcompetitive, intense, freaky, arrogant, and/or otherwise unpleasant types) are just hard to find, if my experience at local gaming cons and CCG tournaments back in the day was any indication.

A couple of the author's points didn't register with me though. For one, even though Settlers isn't supposed to be as competitive and adversarial in nature as other board games, a lot of our games ended acrimoniously (i.e. someone getting backstabbed, "gang-ups" against the leader toward the end, etc.) such that a follow-up game wasn't in order until folks wound down and relaxed a bit. Also, I can't think of a single time I've ever completed a game of Settlers in under an hour. But the verdict is that we always went back for more. And were we all to gather up again to return to our roots then I'm sure Settlers would be the default game of choice to start off with, even ahead of D&D.

One quote from the article is absolutely true, though:

"[Monopoly] is the Microsoft of our world," Solko says. "If I could wave a magic wand and replace all the copies of Monopoly out there with Settlers, I truly think the world would be a better place."

Indeed!

____________________

* Upon further review, that's actually a close call with Robo Rally, another classic that I can't wait to play whenever I'm around like-minded folks. Can't think of a time I've ever not been entertained when playing RR. But I still have to hand it to Settlers in a nail-biter.

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an anticlimatic end

2009-04-05T13:21:00.004-05:00

Well, Michigan State and North Carolina will face off for the NCAA championship tomorrow. Yay. Never liked either of 'em. This is in the same "what a crappy ending to an exciting postseason" category as the Giants vs. Patriots stupid bowl: The joy of watching one team crash and burn in the championship game could only be equaled by the agony of watching the other team win it all. Although the joy of seeing Belicheat and the Pats lose was more than satisfying enough to make up for the Giants bringing it home, I'm not sure that would be the case this time around. I don't know if I can handle watching either of those overexposed teams celebrating...so I'm just not gonna watch.

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a simple question

2009-04-04T22:17:00.002-05:00

Can anyone out there name a single industry in which a union presence hasn't ultimately proven detrimental?

I'm not talking about short-term benefits here, I'm talking actually strengthening the industry. Unions do bring about temporary, and artificially bloated, gains for their members, but in the end they end up strangling the life out of the company or industry. The rob their own future members (or would-be members, as the case may be) for the benefit of those of the present.

I can't think of any company or industry for which this has not already been the case or is not becoming the case as union benefits and demands become untenable. Can anyone else?

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the sports world's next great rivalry

2009-03-31T23:13:00.001-05:00

So Calipari is headed to Kentucky. I never liked the Wildcats much anyway, as they were the Hogs' chief adversaries for SEC dominance back in the day, but that gives me a little more reason to cheer against them. But, this is a grand move in the eyes of any fan who likes a little extracurricular drama and off-season action mixed in with his sports. The Calipari vs. Pitino saga should very shortly be rekindled.

Recall that Calipari coached at UMass for a number of years. During his tenure he had a longstanding rivalry with what is now his new team, and then-coach Rick Pitino, who now coaches at in-state arch-rival Louisville. Seriously, could that plot line get any better? Two guys with such a colorful history and who clearly share little love for one another* being right next to each other in the same freakin' state, fighting for the same recruits, facing each other annually in what could become the basketball version of Michigan vs. Ohio State, with the opportunity to ruin the other's season in a single game? I'll go as far as to say that was a factor in UK bringing in Calipari, right there with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really piss off a former coach who shunned your program and landed at the in-state rival.

Let's just say I can't wait for that rivalry to heat up. I will be sorely disappointed if that one doesn't produce some awesome fireworks in coming years.

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* Observe this quote from the article: "when the Kentucky job came open last week and the Calipari rumors began to sizzle, Pitino publicly promoted two other candidates, Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford and Arkansas coach John Pelphrey." Okay, they're both former Kentucky guys, but...memo to Rick Pitino: Pelphrey just went 2-14 in SEC play this year. He's not a bad coach but he's probably not a scorching hot or even a lukewarm candidate for any big job right now either, much less the biggest stage in NCAA basketball. I mean, he didn't even bother trying to make his efforts appear genuine and not based on dislike for his rival.

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anderson to stay at mizzou

2009-03-31T22:43:00.004-05:00

I'm a little surprised Anderson didn't jump at the chance to get back into the SEC, especially since his nemesis Calipari jumped to Kentucky, but it seems that Mizzou is a good fit. I can kinda remember Mizzou being okay back in the 90s under Norm Stewart, but calling them a "once-storied program" as the article does might be giving a little too much credit. I don't know about decades way back there, but in recent history they have never been a national powerhouse. But under Anderson they just might be on their way.

Also, he left a lot of money out there in turning down the Georgia job, and there certainly would have been other offers too--and there will likely be more in the future. But good for him for showing some loyalty in an era when there's not much to be found in the college coaching ranks. Gotta love a guy for that.

Finally, here's a quote that brought a smile to my face:

In the tournament's third round, Missouri defeated favored Memphis 102-91. The triple-digit scoring total marked a record for points allowed by a college team coached by John Calipari, whom Anderson previously competed against in Conference USA while at Alabama-Birmingham.

And Calipari has been around for a while. Before racking up a few too many losses in the NBA and returning to the college ranks at Memphis, he coached at UMass for almost a decade. More on that in a bit...

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how fembots ought to be treated

2009-03-29T14:19:00.005-05:00

...and everyone else we know, for that matter. But for me it's particularly applicable to those lovely feminazis, my favorite group to despise. Given some of my recent disappointment with the MRM (or MRA or whatever) and how so many are inclined to respond to hate with more hate, this seems appropriate--as much for my own benefit as anyone else's. My pastor referenced this passage in last week's sermon and it recently came up again this week in my reading plan, so I'll take that as a much-needed hint that I ought to pay more attention to it.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.
- Romans 12:14-21

Emphasis added by me, of course. That ought to dictate how we treat even those who spew hate at us. There's more to be said here from my own perspective perhaps, but for now I won't take the emphasis away from Paul. His words ARE more important, after all.

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stat of the game

2009-03-28T20:32:00.004-05:00

FREE THROWS
Nova 22/23
Pitt 21/29

FINAL SCORE
Nova 78
Pitt 76

Any questions?

It's amazing how often this scenario repeats itself. (For example, see: Memphis, championship game, 2008.) Were I a coach, every guy on my team would spend at least an hour a day at the free throw line.

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some agonizing ncaa trivia

2009-03-27T21:44:00.002-05:00

...for Hogs fans at least. And it just got a little worse when Mike Anderson's Mizzou Tigers routed higher-seeded Memphis in the regional semis, putting up triple digits in the process. Hey Memphis, didn't you used to be touted for your good defense? So much for that. At least there's a silver lining to this in seeing John Calipari lose. In my book that's right up there with seeing Duke get upset again. That's saying a lot.

Anyway, recall that Mike Anderson was Nolan Richardson's protege back in the glory days of Arkansas basketball and even played under Richardson at Tulsa. Recall also that he was the Hogs' interim coach for a few games after Nolan was canned in 2002 and interviewed for the job after the season. Well, in the aftermath of that not-so-pretty parting of ways, Anderson was apparently thought of as "too close" to the whole saga and was passed over,* despite being the assistant head coach, knowing the "40 Minutes of Hell" style of basketball the Hogs had become famous for, and having been groomed to be a head coach by one who was, for a long time, one of the better coaches in college basketball.

So Alabama-Birmingham didn't waste much time in nabbing Anderson, and the decision paid off quickly. At UAB he made the tournament three times in his four years and eliminated then-#1 Kentucky from the tourney in '04. Inevitably a major-conference school was going to come calling, which Missouri did in '06 when they needed someone to clean up the scraps from the Quinn Snyder experiment. (Serves 'em right for hiring a Duke guy.) Three years later, Anderson is steamrolling his way into the Elite Eight and maybe beyond, and using that fast-tempo game to get there. And Arkansas is coming off of a 2-14 year in the SEC and has been dormant on the national scene for about a decade.

Had Anderson been hired at Arkansas, he could be in his seventh year now. Just imagine what the program could be. Tack on another "OOPS!!" to the long and colorful list of personnel blunders by the Razorbacks' athletic department. Keep up the great work, you frackin' idiots.

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* In fairness, Stan Heath seemed like a solid pick at the time. But Anderson no doubt suffered a bit because of his close ties to the coach who had fallen out of favor.

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morley on success

2009-03-24T20:29:00.011-05:00

That "Quote of the Day" thing over there on the left had a pretty good one today:

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
- Christopher Morley

Regardless of how we choose to spend our life, the important thing is that we have (and continue to have) the freedom to invest our talents and efforts as we choose, whether that be for God, self, nature, or what have you. Of course, with freedom comes responsibility - we must invest wisely.

This parallels with another quote I posted a few days ago about pursuing empty dreams. Methinks it's important to make decisions with that long-term goal in mind of not enslaving oneself to foolish desires. How much would it suck to sit in the rocking chair of old age and look back on life with regret, realizing we were enslaved to something beyond our control because we put ourselves in that position, or were able yet unwilling to get ourselves out of it?

I'll part on a lighter note, with another Morley quote that the MGTOW crowd should find favor with:

A man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life.

Wow. That's, um, putting it bluntly. But I like its implication that one should never let feelings and emotion get in the way of standing on principle. I mean, if we are too careful not to anger people (and, in this day and age, especially women), then where might we expect to find ourselves? Well, look around at our society. There's your answer.

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"we're from the government and we're here to help"

2009-03-22T18:43:00.008-05:00

That Ronald Reagan might not have been all of the savior a lot of folks make him out to be, but he sure had some much-needed common sense and a good wit to go with it. And he was right when he said those are the nine scariest words in the English language. And on that note, let's take an uplifting and encouraging look at some of the feds' latest actions, as noted in the article from the previous post.

First off, check out this naive quote:

White House Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christina Romer defended the stimulus package and financial rescue plan. "I have every expectation, as do private forecasters, that we will bottom out this year and actually be growing again by the end of the year," she said.

Okay, let's all remember that quote a year from now. Of course, my prediction is that she'll be proved dead wrong. There were plenty of forecasters saying we'd be out of this rut in the first quarter of this year, then it was this summer, and now the green light has been pushed back to the end of this year. See a trend?

And this one comes to mind:

...the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported on Friday the president's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade — more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency.

But wait, haven't folks of many political stripes generally agreed that the ballooning of deficits by Dubya and the Repub-controlled Congress was a bad thing? Then why are we doing the same thing again and hailing it as a "path to recovery"? I mean, either deficit spending is a good idea or it isn't. If it's part of what got us here, continuing the problem isn't gonna get us out. If it's not part of what got us here, then quit haranguing Dubya for running up the debt. Oh, it's okay to spend it domestically but not on foreign wars? Then the complaint is not with the deficts themselves but on how the money was spent. Come on, people, before we point fingers let's at least figure out what to get mad and indignant about.

And now on to one of the usual suspects:

Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the powerful banking committee, supported the legislation but said Washington should consider more steps, including suing AIG to recoup the money. The government has an 80 percent equity stake in the financial giant, a position Frank said should be used "to assert our rights."

Figures. Typical Barney Frank--use the hammer of the government to impose his will upon whatever group he happens to be at odds with that day. Is there any better litmus test in D.C.? I can't think of one. The "if Barney supports it then I oppose it" rule is quite a reliable one when it comes to any House bill.

Speaking of which, I can't help but remark on the crew of leaders who will supposedly guide us through this morass into better times not too far ahead. I mean, look at the champions we have: Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Geithner. Maybe they have some great intellect and foresight hidden somewhere in there that we haven't seen yet, but so far, has any one of them done anything since this all started that has inspired confidence in their leadership? They've been in reactionary mode from the outset and that's not a mark of a sound, planned approach. Seems to me that they don't have a grasp on what forces are at work and don't know what to expect, and so they feel obligated to come up with another fix every time they're caught off-guard. Granted, they can't be expected to be in complete command of such chaos given that too many things are out of their control, but if they can't figure out what's happening before it happens then they need to just chart a course to keep us taxpayers out of harm's way as much as possible and stick with it, and accept that some things simply can't be controlled and will only be made worse by poorly targeted intervention.

And yet this is the team that perhaps holds great sway over the future of the country. We are so screwed.

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latest scapegoat: aig

2009-03-22T17:34:00.006-05:00

Once again it seems folks have found a convenient target to blame in the latest round of the financial mess. This time it's AIG and its bonus recipients. And once again, the government is jumping in to impose its will (i.e. the will of the pitchfork mob that it's catering to nowadays). The plan: alter existing contracts and agreements by decreeing that AIG employees cannot receive bonuses, regardless of what pre-existing structures are guiding the distributions and despite having failed to insert a check against this sort of thing back when the taxpayer money was thrown to AIG in the first place. Typical politics at work, fellas. Washington wants to fix its own screw-up by screwing things up more.

Thankfully, there seem to be some lawmakers that haven't yet lost all sense, as not everyone is on board with the (latest) downright scary plan to ratchet up tax rates on a targeted group of individuals. Even some Democrats are coming out against such lunacy. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? If there are a lot of Dems opposing a tax hike, that alone speaks volumes.

Look at it this way. Suppose you're an AIG employee, maybe even an exec, who did your best all year long. Part of your overall compensation package includes bonuses depending on how your division, group, sales unit, or whatever in the company did. In fact, chances are that a significant part of your overall compensation is tied to this, such that your base salary is well below the norm and only "catches up" after bonuses are handed out--much the same as a waitress adds her tips to her wages at the end of the day. You performed your job well and your group met expectations. So according to company policy, not to mention the terms by which you have been employed for the past year, you're due a bonus for your efforts.

Now suppose that several idiots at the top didn't do such a great job and exposed your company to far too much risk, and inevitably that got your company in a lot of trouble as soon as the breakneck pace of the economy finally slowed down. Were you responsible for the problem? Probably not. Did you do your job well despite the failings of others? Yes. But, according to the government's logic, their failings should cost you part of your compensation, regardless of what the terms of your employment were before the government got involved. Dunno about you, but to me that sounds like one heck of a raw deal.

I'll throw in a personal example too. My former employer relied heavily on this method. Salaries for engineers were considerably below market value but (in theory anyway) were made up for by end-of-year bonuses* contingent on division performance and company earnings. And these bonuses were significant, usually double-digit percentages of one's salary. Needless to say, that's a lot of money just kinda "hanging out there" all year long; in the end it made salaries at least comparable for the position and region, and without them salaries would have been laughable relative to other employers and the brass would have had a tough time attracting new employees. (The bonus was a big sales pitch the company liked to use in recruiting.) Of that bonus, a large chunk was tied to goals and targets defined at the beginning of the year. Under such conditions, the company could do very poorly but the division and site could still do well and get a solid reward as a result.

So, again using the government's logic, if the fools calling the shots had made some bad moves and put the company in a bad way such that it received a bailout of some sort, we should have given up what was effectively a double-digit percentage of our salaries because it happened to come in the form of a one-time bonus instead of regular pay? No freakin' way. It shouldn't be hard to see how that would unfairly punish many who had no responsibility for the calamity and were simply working within the terms of the company's compensation structure.

Once again, as I alluded to a few posts ago, a big issue in play here is the government's willingness to arbitrarily rework the terms of existing contracts to suit its own whims and placate the masses who need someone to blame. This is an incredibly stupid method of governing in any situation, and most especially one for which a turnaround will require stability and consistency in the oversight of financial markets. (On a side note, for all the talk we hear of needing more and better regulation of the economy, I'm sure not seeing much of it. Taxpayer money is being thrown about haphazardly and laws are being changed to suit whatever happens to be the favored approach of the hour.) I don't see how the action of altering employment agreements without the consent of those involved contributes anything but more chaos to an already chaotic situation. If the powers that be wanted to do more short-term and long-term good, they'd leave that AIG bonus money alone and either put more stringent conditions on corporate welfare gimmies in the future, or, preferably, they'd just resign from the bailout game altogether.

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* In what can only be called an internal P.R. disaster, a few company execs actually went on record boasting about this great business practice in an industry trade journal. Needless to say, news of the admissions spread like wildfire at my workplace and served as an "aha!" that we were being paid low base salaries despite being told otherwise. Let's just say folks weren't exactly overjoyed at hearing it. The company retracted the quote as fast as they could and the link to the article disappeared from the intranet page, but the damage was already done. My point is, I know for a fact that compensation is done this way because I've seen it firsthand and I've seen higher-ups admit it and even proclaim its greatness.

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relief vs. transformation in africa

2009-03-16T19:50:00.002-05:00

In doing research for my Peru vacation this spring* and stumbling across the blog of a former missionary to Peru, I discovered an excellent article written a couple of years ago about how to really help Africa. Great stuff, and quite an indictment of how we in the West tend to view and try to solve not only poverty in other nations but in our own.

Somehow, despite overwhelming proof to the contrary just in the past few decades here at home, we Americans have subscribed to the theory that if you throw enough money and "aid" at a problem** it will eventually just go away. Not only is this blatantly false, it actually results in a vicious cycle of dependency and, ultimately, more damage being done to the recipients of such gestures. Thankfully, many Africans realize this and are asking foreigners to stop their sending. A quote in the article sums it up well:

"Africa won't be "saved" by aid, but by the ingenuity and determination of its own people."

You know what they say about teaching a man to fish. The same applies to Africa. Continuing to send aid without building the infrastructure and internal wealth that would eventually allow Africans to cease their dependency on outside aid will only compound the problem and discourage the natives from developing their own solutions. And so the cycle is prolonged. Again, a quote from the article:

"Their message of hope is one that seems to deny Africans a role as agents of their own transformation. We can save Darfur. We can save Africans from disease. We can even save Africans from themselves. Africa can be saved if we just try hard enough."

Another subject the article really sheds some light on is how other nations view Africa and the impact their efforts have had. In particular, China is actually doing great work:

"While Americans are pestering their leaders to Save Darfur–an unlikely prospect absent full-scale military intervention–the Chinese are busy building roads and hydroelectric power dams. China believes Africa is a huge economic opportunity and deals with Africa like a business partner. The Chinese see Africans the way many would like to see themselves."

That last sentence captures it well. Instead of simply throwing resources and money from afar, the Chinese are helping Africa build itself up. No wonder we often hear about close relationships between China and African countries that the Western world often seems to think are more in need of a U.N. peacekeeping force than of ground-floor investment in a better future. Where we see victims, the Chinese see potential allies and traders. I think the Chinese, if not totally right on this one, are a heck of a lot closer to the mark than us Westerners are. Who knows what the motives are, but the results are hard to argue with.

What I like most, though, is the idea of relief vs. transformation that the article brings out. I kinda remember this idea--at least enough to borrow from it for the title of this post--from Tim Keller's book Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, perhaps the best book on missions and mercy ministry I've read (other than THE Book, but you know what I mean). I can't do it justice here, but he expands on this whole idea of when relief is needed and when it actually does more harm than good. Still, I'll throw in some of what I remember and hopefully not stray too far off-course in the process.

In general, relief can only bring a people back to where they were before. So it works great for filling the gap of short-term needs, especially after a disaster. It works well for war-torn areas (post-WWII Germany and Japan), it alleviates suffering due to famines (Ireland, as Bono himself mentioned), it gets people back on their feet after natural disasters (hurricanes, floods), and so on. But what it doesn't do well is create infrastructure where none previously existed. It doesn't transform societies. And because of that, relief in the wrong situations will beget nothing more than continued dependency on relief.

It's in those situations that real investment is needed--time, labor, infrastructure, the sorts of things that are harder to give--to meet deeper needs than just a temporal lack of necessities. Sure, relief may be needed, but it shouldn't be given apart from a thrust at the roots of the problem. If the roots aren't temporal but are instead inherent in the societal system itself, then effort needs to be focused on changing the system. Without that effort, whether from outsiders or from within, the society simply isn't going to move beyond the causes of its own problems. And unless that happens, lasting change and decreasing dependency will remain out of reach.

I'll close with the last bit of the article:

"Here's a radical idea: if we really want to help, why not ask Africans, not their governments, how they perceive the challenges before them, the dreams they have for the future, and the resources they think they need to realize them?

Instead, we let a well-intentioned Irish rock star, a Jewish-American economist, and their Hollywood cohort become the voice and face of Africa.

And in the process, the story of the other Africa, the Africa that is dynamic, creative, and wants to work as a partner and the leader of its own future, is being drowned out by the clarion cry of the anti-poverty glitterati–and our own appetites for gripping, salacious headlines of war, poverty, and grief."

All of it is worth reading, so don't deprive yourself of such great material. Go read the rest! And I've been known to plug Keller's book before and I'll do it again. I suggest adding it to the reading list if you haven't yet read it. It's had quite an impact on how I view the world (but don't hold that against it!), as evidenced by its title and ideas finding their way into blog posts every so often. Trust me, you won't regret it.

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* On a side note, said vacation is, unfortunately, on the fritz big-time. For the second time in three years, my travel partner seems to have backed out--and it's getting very late to try to throw together some last-minute arrangements. Who knows, maybe God just doesn't want me down there or something. Or, I may be able to get down to the Cusco area later this summer on a construction trip with Wycliffe, and if so I'd hope to do the Machu Picchu thing afterward. But that remains to be seen, and when it comes to missions I'm actually not a huge fan of short-term construction trips anyway because they run the risk of depriving the natives of opportunities to do the work and invest in their own culture (for a much lower cost I might add). Ah, the joy of cobbling together last-minute excursions. Seems I don't travel any other way.

** I use "problem" here to mean something that offends the sensibilities of a particular group and so, in the eyes of the offended, needs to be fixed--usually by being brought into alignment with the offended group's way of life.

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quote of the day

2009-03-15T17:16:00.004-05:00

From the bulletin for this morning's church service, with my emphasis added:

"If someday we sit in the rocking chair of our old age and look back on life with regret, with a sense of having wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain, it will be because we never stopped long enough to assess or direction or because we chose to give ourselves to empty dreams. -- Stacy Rinehart

Hello? Western world? Anyone home?

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how long can this continue?

2009-03-13T00:10:00.004-05:00

So here it is after 1 am, and I'm waiting for the UConn-Syracuse game to end so I can finally get some sleep. And the game just...won't...end. It's in the SIXTH overtime now! I've never before heard of a basketball game going more than three extras. This is insane...I mean, these guys have to wear down eventually, right? What, do they just keep pulling fans in from the stands or something? What the bleep?

Syracuse seems to have mercifully decided to put a stop to this chaos and send the Huskies packing. 'Bout time. I should have been asleep an hour ago. But I'm sure I'll be able to read up on it tomorrow. This one will be talked about for a long time.

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where the real men live

2009-03-07T13:44:00.004-05:00

According to this report, Cincinnati is one of the elites when it comes to manly U.S. cities, weighing in at #4 out of 50. That's what I'm talkin' about! However, one must question the metrics a little, because arguably the worst offender of freedom and greatest incubator of sissyist socialism, Boston, almost made it out of the bottom quartile (#38). How is this possible? Obviously the authors haven't spent time in Boston or didn't QC their survey work.

And, here's the real shocker--shocker!--of the day: The bottom of the list is dominated by coastal cities, with Chicago being the only one in the bottom 10 that isn't in an ocean state. (Perhaps Chicago got the penalty it deserves for having produced such a terribly unmanly President.) And all of California's five representatives fell in the bottom 10. Wow, who saw that coming?

HT: Dr. Helen

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comment of the day

2009-03-06T23:19:00.005-05:00

Been a wild several days out there in blog-land. Somehow, somewhere back there, a whole fury of debate erupted over feminism and how to deal with it. And, in typically naive fashion, I attempted to put some of the fire out and instead ended up dumping several gallons of gasoline on the flames I think. Maybe I'll write a post about that sometime. But not now. More pressing matters are at hand, as you're about to see...

Over yonder at this thread, MarkyMark crafted one of the best summations I can remember reading about how men--especially young men--approach feminism, and indirectly, women in general, these days. So for your reading pleasure, I present MarkyMark in top form:

You asked why men need to act under the assumption that women are automatically bad. I'll give you an analogy from riding a motorcycle that I think will clear this up for you...

When I'm out there riding, I act under the assumption that EACH & EVERY CAR DRIVER IS TRYING HIS BEST TO KILL ME! I act under the assumption that, until I know otherwise, that the cager is my enemy, and that this enemy is trying to destroy me, the motorcyclist. After all, all cars look alike from a distance; they don't do anything to distinguish themselves, do they? Intellectually, I know that this is not true; intellectually, I know that not all cagers are trying to kill me. However, until I know differently, I have to operate under that assumption. Having said that, there are a couple of important caveats that must be considered now...

Number one is simple physics; no matter how small a car is, it still has MORE MASS than the biggest bike out there. Even one of those diminutive Smart Cars is bigger than the biggest bike, say a Honda Goldwing. Furthermore, a car has protection in the form of a body, windows, and doors; a bike has none of that, save perhaps a front windshield. To put it another way, the biggest bike will lose in a collision with even the smallest car. So, simple physics dictates that I assume, as a motorcyclist, that every car is out to get me, because being wrong can be deadly.

Now, the second caveat to consider is this: between my time in the saddle and my time as a former, professional driver, I've seen all SORTS of insanity out there on the roads; it's as if cagers' stupidity and foolishness know no limits. For example, a couple of years ago, I was riding my motorcycle down I-287 when some cell phone yapping bitch in her Range Rover cut me off, missing my front wheel by only a few feet! Now, are all drivers like this? No, but considering the immense cost I'll pay for being wrong, I'll assume that all cagers are dopes until I can discern otherwise.

In short, when a cager first enters my field of view, I automatically assume that they're my enemy, and that they're trying to kill me. Upon further observation, if their conduct gives me reason to, I won't necessarily KEEP them in the 'enemy' category, but until I'm sure, I have to assume that they are. IOW, until they distinguish themselves, they remain in the 'enemy' category. Again, the laws of physics put me at a distinct disadvantage, due to smaller mass and no protection. If I'm wrong and some idiot cager hits me, best case scenario has be going off to the hospital with serious injuries; I can't afford to guess wrong, so until I know otherwise, I'll assume that all drivers are out to get me.

Now, what does this have to do with anything? Well, until I know otherwise, I assume that a woman will hate, fear, suspect, and disrespect me for being a man. I'll assume that, because of her hatred & fear, she too will be out to get me. Furthermore, because the laws and government are on her side, just as in the saddle, I'm operating a a distinct disadvantage WRT women. All it takes is one woman to point the finger in my direction, and I am destroyed-end of story. Oh, and it only takes ONE woman to do this...

Ergo, until I know otherwise, I assume that a woman is out to destroy me, because she hates me as a man. If she's college educated, then that is doubly true. After all, she's had at least four more years of feminist indoctrination, time in which her fears and hatred of men have been stoked to an even higher intensity. Add to that the collective SILENCE of women when it comes to man bashing, unjust divorce laws, and so on, what are we to assume, other than the fact that she agrees & supports these things?

Let me give you a great example... Lorena 'Slice & Dice' Bobbitt. When women across America CHEERED this, what, as a man, was I supposed to think?! When we didn't see other women crying out against this, what were we supposed to think? I'll tell you what we thought: that women hate us; they do not care about us as human beings; and that they indeed do not view us as such! From where I sat as a man back in the early 1990s when this happened, I found it, and still find it, hard to view women as anything other than the enemy. Sorry, but that's how it is.

You asked why men feel the need to categorize all women as skanks. Well, the ones who are not skanks do not do enough to DISTINGUISH THEMSELVES from those who are skanks. Just like when I'm in the saddle riding my motorcycle, until I see tangible evidence to the contrary, I'm assuming that a woman is a skank; that she's a feminist; that she hates me as a man; and that she'll try to destroy me because of that. To view women in any other way is to court disaster, because IT ONLY TAKES ONE to point the finger, an wreck my life-only one! It doesn't matter if every other woman out there is good; if I run into the evil one at the wrong time, then I'm toast. The only prudent course of action is to assume that all women are indeed 'like that'.

You want men to judge you as an individual, ma'am? Then ACT like it! Don't go along with every single trend like most other women do; don't be a herd creature like your typical woman! Do something to distinguish yourself in a good way, and guys just might be inclined to cut you some slack; they just might be inclined to judge you as an individual. Until I see that from a woman, I have to assume the worst, simply because being wrong is so costly for me as a man. I hope that THIS answers your question...

Wow. To add anything to that would be to take away from the beauty of it. Perhaps he comes off as a bit jaded or pessimistic about the whole bit. Not ALL women are so bad. Women aren't THE enemy. But as the comment effectively demonstrates, that doesn't make his take incompatible with a well-grounded worldview.

No American guy who regularly interacts with the society he's in needs to be told that's the reality we presently have to work with. The world around us is a very dangerous place in regards to dealings with the opposite sex, and this demands a defensive approach to many areas of interaction with society at large. Like it or not, I'm just calling it as it is. Many men have found this out first-hand at the hands of the "justice" system or false accusations and I don't intend to join their number.

Now that doesn't mean we should hate and scorn all women* or even most, or even any for that matter. For Christians, a basic understanding of the faith should get us that far. We are commanded--for our own good--to see others around us as God sees them, not as we might otherwise see them. In other words, all people are deserving of basic love and respect since we're all created in God's image. So should I hate women, men, both's, none's, or otherwise? Of course not.** But do I still view women with some amount of suspicion until proven otherwise and guard my moves accordingly? Absolutely! And I'd even argue that this isn't entirely by choice; men have been taught during their time spent in society to automatically take such an approach, to the extent that caution is practically instinctual for many of us. And this is more or less a prerequisite for not getting burned in some nasty way and even having your life altered for the worse because of it. Hey, you deal with reality as it is, right?

I'll even add that there are surely a considerable number of really good women out there, the types who abhor what society has become and speak out ardently against it, to the point of engaging others in defense of the truth--as opposed to just paying lip service to the opposition sometimes but otherwise going right along with societal trends. Examples are out there; we've all known them and probably know some today. But they aren't exactly common. To borrow from something I recently put in a thread comment, we humans will always stereotype the world into something more easily comprehended and much more easily dealt with and acted upon. In this case, that stereotype protects men while not actually being as far off from reality itself as we'd like.

I had more to say here, but once again my short memory and shorter attention span are haunting me. Oh well, as I said, the Markster's comments stand on their own anyway.

So, is all this good? No. Particularly pleasant for anyone in society? No. The preferred MO? No. Reality? YES. And reality, not perception or blind hope, is what ought to dictate how we act. Don't like it? Then do something to change it!

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* If you take me to perhaps be the sort of fellow who returns hate with hate when dealing with folks, go read some of the threads in that chain of links and then wander back. Hopefully you'll think differently...or if not, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

** It's worth adding here that the vast majority of bloggers I read tend to appreciate femininity and wish it were displayed more in society, so I'm not trying to insinuate that there's some huge groundswell of fem-hate being perpetuated by bloggers themselves that I'm aware of. As for commenters? Well...enough to cause alarm for anyone who hopes our society somehow pulls through and recovers from its current malaise.

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the huckster in primetime

2009-03-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

Just found out via some Fox News spam that none other than my former governor (who I can claim to have shaken the hand of and had a short face-to-face conversation with at a summer program way back in the day) has his own TV show. Quite curious...but unfortunately, he's got a little too much mainstream Republicrat in him to be a great new media voice I think. I certainly hope not and I actually do like some of his ideas, but my guess he's just another blowhard during his time in the spotlight each week. Perhaps he's also trying to build up some popularity in anticipation of an upcoming retry at the highest office. If so, this can only mean that he's burying any conservative credentials he has and instead tacking hard to the standard neocon position of "big gummint ain't bad as long as we're in control." But I do want to see his show once or twice in hopes that I'm not right yet again about a politician...

this strikes me as a disaster...

2009-03-05T20:04:00.011-05:00

In other words, I'm about to discuss some recent action of some government in the U.S. Buried in this article about housing woes (yeah, that still qualifies as "news" for some outlets), which I read at lunch today and was reminded of over at Recon's Black Ops, is the following frightening prelude to yet further unleashing of the already out-of-control court system:

To give debt-burdened homeowners a little more muscle to negotiate with their lenders, the House on Thursday was expected to pass legislation to give bankruptcy courts the power to reduce mortgage payments.

The legislation would give bankruptcy judges — who now can modify loans for cars and student loans but not for primary residences — new power to cut the interest rate and principle on a home mortgage.

As you might guess, I'm not a fan of that sort of bullbleep in any form. But this new concoction* is an even more terrible idea than most government "reforms." Couldn't they just contain it to only interest rates? I mean, that's where we keep hearing about how people were taken advantage of and all, simply because they didn't bother to first understand the biggest purchase of their life before signing on the line. But now we're implying that they were somehow misled on the sticker price? What!? They somehow deserve to have the house for much less now, even though they knowingly and willingly agreed to the price up front? Heck, why even have people sign mortgages then? They're no better than a handshake agreement when it comes to the eyes of the judge. Scary, kids...very scary.

And that's exactly what's going on here. By giving a judge power to alter the principle on a mortgage, you're giving the judge power to change all terms--including, effectively, the purchase price itself--on the mortgage. If that happens, the idiot who signed on to terms he couldn't keep isn't gonna be the only one losing lots of money. The bank will have already paid off the seller and will be in the position of needing that money to make its balance sheet work. And now those bankers have that much less of a guarantee that they'll ever actually see that money? What effect might we expect this to have on the banks?

On to the "let's make banks lend again!" mantra we hear so often nowadays. With these new rules, you're telling the bank that no matter what terms they agree to up front, they have no assurance those terms will actually reflect the deal they're making. But wait, don't we want to unfreeze credit by making banks more willing to lend? Well, if you're a banker, what is that new blast of cold water going to cause you to do? For one, you'll make damn sure that whoever you actually do take the risk of entering into a mortgage "contract" (and I use the term loosely) with is as sure a bet as possible. The bar must be raised for all would-be borrowers, because if that fool somehow ends up in bankruptcy court then you're even more screwed than you would have been before this ingenious new law.

And that is supposed to make banks more eager to lend money? Wow. Only the dumbest of the dumb could expect or even hope for such an unrealistic outcome. What else would we expect from politicians?

And what kind of effect should we expect this to have on markets in general? Well, a basic axiom of economics is that an economy works best when there are hard and fast rules to work by.** Any system in which the rules can be changed or rewritten too easily is going to stifled for want of brave souls willing to stray too deep into the dark unknown of tomorrow's new rules. On the other hand, a system with reliable rules that engender order and accountability will encourage boldness and the growth and progress that comes with it. After all, who is gonna risk much without knowing what the heck the rules will be down the road or which ones will change? What sense does that make?

So while you certainly don't want to eliminate risk itself, you want to eliminate anything that stands between the risk-taker and the rewards or consequences of his own risk. How exactly is a rule allowing more contracts to be altered de facto by a third party supposed to engender a stable, predictable playing field on which to do business? This is insanity.

Look, folks, the root of this here economic problem is greed, pure and simple. Greed on all sides--nonthinking entitlement cases who bought more house than they could afford, banks who saw an opportunity to capitalize on the stupidity of others, investors who sought to ride the roller coaster just long enough to add to the misery of others, folks like me who contributed our fair share to the consumerism that drove the craze, and on and on. Nobody is really innocent here, and now it's time for us all to get our due for the greater mistakes of a few.*** So if you want to fix the problem, go at the root of the problem, not just the presently visible effect of it. If you go after the effects and not the cause, you'll fail to move toward any solution and will only create more havoc in the process.

____________________

* The concoction referred to appears to be the hilariously-named "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act" introduced by John Conyers, a new addition to my list of Washington's Most Dangerous People. Thankfully, at least my guy, Geoff Davis, voted against the atrocity. The man has proven to be a reliable voice of anti-communism in recent months.

** I'm reminded here of the words of a former co-worker who had emigrated from Hungary during its Communist days. According to him, the big draw of the U.S. among him and his contemporaries was a system built on freedom, justice, and immutability, in which one was free to do his own thing and reap what he sowed. He could work and actually earn his own money and be free to do with it what he pleased. If he bought a car or a house, it was his, and as long as he played by the rules then no government or other body could suddenly issue an edict to the contrary. What concepts! And how great they must have been to people who had spent their lives in a country with no semblance of such order or freedom. Alas, the good old days...

*** As in, the economy is worse off and we're all affected by it. I'm not at all talking about some "socialist-lite" plan to "protect" said few by bailing them out with taxpayer money and thus moving the bulk of the burden from the few to the many. Socialism sucks, every time, all the time.

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a different take on fireproof

2009-03-04T22:22:00.011-05:00

So I've heard a lot of great stuff about that "Christian movie"* Fireproof. Just hearing so much gushing over it from so many contemporary Christians gives me a little bit of pause. I know it's a story of a marriage that gets rescued from the brink of divorce, or something to that effect. I'm under the impression it's a bit of a family-friendly chick flick. Perhaps that's not all bad (and perhaps it is), but let's just say it's not my cup of tea. In other words, without having seen it I'll speculate that I'd probably rather eat glass for two hours then watch that fluff.

As I said, maybe it's not all bad. I don't know. I don't figure I'll find out firsthand though. But if you have a similar level of enthusiasm about said movie yet want to be able to fit in with the church couples, then fear not! There are plenty of reviews out there so you can keep up with your churchgoing friends and not feel like an outcast for having chosen to instead spend your afternoon hammering nails with your forehead. Plus, as this review lays out in detail, there could very well be a message behind the message.

Now having not seen the movie, I can't vouch for the accuracy of what she says. But I have an inkling that her assessment is closer to the truth than any of us would like. Perhaps Coffee Catholic is a bit more perceptive to the underlying views that make up the movie than a lot of folks out there.

I suspect Fireproof didn't quite escape the clutches of feminism that have ensnared much of evangelicalism. Should that surprise us? Sure, about as much as January snow in Boston.

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* Is it me or is it hard not to wince upon seeing/hearing such a label? The track record of churchian products speaks for itself. In fairness, though, recent "Christian" movies haven't been too bad. I thought The Passion of the Christ was quite good and certainly unique, and I've heard reliably good things about The End of the Spear and Facing the Giants.
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news flash: possible importance of fathers acknowledged

2009-02-22T21:52:00.007-05:00

Hard to believe in this day and age, I know. But it's true! A potential change in the law shows that Kentucky lawmakers have at least more sense than a lot of their counterparts at the state and federal levels. Granted, that's not saying anything at all these days, but hey, at least a government could actually be getting something right for a change. If the bill passes, then more fathers could actually get to know and be involved in the lives of their children. What a novel concept! And one that seems just a few years overdue given the sad, sad state of our society (which I've addressed recently here). Unfortunately such an obviously needed legal change didn't even pass the committee vote the first time, so it's too early to suddenly declare that the state legislature as a whole is of sufficient intelligence to understand that a biological father's rights actually matter.

Of course, lest I get too excited about being a resident of said state, one could be quick to point out that the law is completely screwed up in its current form--and they'd be right. But a step in the right direction, however small, is more than I've come to expect out of pretty much any jurisdiction these days. So this counts as another item on the list of reasons to be glad my house is in Kentucky and not some wildly twisted state like, ahem, other states I've been spending time in recently.

HT: Glenn Sacks
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"this is generational theft"

2009-02-21T01:23:00.006-05:00

So says the Arizona Republic concerning...guess. Bernard Chapin has a good rundown of the massive damage the federal government has just dealt to the citizens trapped within its domain. As he says, nothing in life is free. Not even a handout from the feds.

Quoth Mr. Chapin: "Is our country done? Probably." Probably?
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another consequence of being rich

2009-02-20T19:38:00.006-05:00

...the more obvious one being the privilege of paying for not only your own needs but those of others lazier than yourself, of course, thanks to the wealth redistribution program that is the U.S. government. And not only must one pay taxes, but nowadays our friendly government deems that mere guilt by association should carry real consequences as well. For instance, it sure sucks to be Johnny Damon and Xavier Nady these days. Seems that they'll get the opportunity to live like they're dirt poor (minus the government handouts) for a few days. I guess I should be glad I don't have so much money that I'm at risk of getting all my assets frozen because some of it is sitting in the wrong place. There's something to be said for actually knowing where your money is.

As for Damon and Nady, I'd feel sorry for them if they didn't play for the Yankees.
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the wisdom of gamaliel

2009-02-17T22:04:00.000-05:00

Been listening to Acts during the work commute recently* and keep coming across one of those passages that just hits home. I know there are lots of more popular and well-known verses that hit on that aspect of God's power working through our methods and such, but I am struck by Gamaliel's words in 5:35-39 every time I hear them. The guy had uncommon wisdom. Observe Acts 5:33-40, which takes place during one of the many times the apostles were dragged before some or other council for spreading the gospel, and just after Peter had worn out his welcome in the councilors' presence.

When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, "Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!" So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. [emphasis added]

That central theme still holds true as much now as it did then. I'm a big believer in the idea that truth will eventually be known by all, no matter how much it is suppressed or avoided at the present. So why worry when people scoff at you, slander you, try to embarrass you, or otherwise attempt to make your life less pleasant by employing less-than-honorable tactics? If they're right then you're simply getting your due, regardless of how the messenger delivers it. But if they're wrong, then they're opposing truth, and in doing so they're opposing God. They'll get their reward in full; whether or not we're able to give it or be there to see them receive it is of no consequence.

Especially these days (in politics but elsewhere too), I often hear mumbles and gripes to the effect that folks actually hope this or that action or group or cause or whathaveyou fails. Not hoping for their own success, I mean, but more hoping that the other side falls flat. I suspect this is more for their own self-interest than their desire to really see people either helped somehow or thrown into misery, and so once again, the desire to be seen as having been "right all along" trumps the desire to actually be righteous and work for good. But I can't help but wonder, why the wasted effort hoping for failure on the part of others? Just strive for what's right and leave it at that.

Gamaliel understood this I think. If a plan ultimately goes against the laws of the world (i.e. God's law) then it will ultimately fail; it's just a matter of how delayed and how spectacular the failure will be. But if a plan is based in truth and carried out in accordance with that truth, then it will ultimately succeed. This will always hold, regardless of who among us is on what side and who makes the most noise, or even which side appears for a moment to be "right" or victorious. In the end it makes no difference. Truth will find its way through anything. And so we ought to stick to our principles and do our best to be on the side of truth at all times, and not simply be supporting or opposing something for the sake of self-interest.

I guess the point is, a lot of this posturing we see around us is so frackin' pointless. What, are people going to fool God and the rest of the world both? Fat chance. Let them carry on and sow their own harvest. Life has a funny way of rewarding behavior in kind, you know. Methinks we're better off letting truth run its course then getting worked up about slights against us, recognition not credited to us, arrogance around us, etc. Such reactions just get in the way of living life the way it ought to be lived.

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* I've found that listening to Scripture is a good way to pass the time if traffic gets tough, and it's not so much "wasted" time then. (It hasn't yet helped much with my disposition toward road rage, but hopefully that'll come with time.) Unfortunately, my attention span being what it is--that is to say, nonexistent--I'm not able to glean a lot by just listening to something without reading it or writing it as well. But I figure if I listen to the same few chapters a few times during the week, I'll come away with more than I started with at least.

bluegrass festival

2009-02-15T21:02:00.007-05:00

Been at the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival all weekend, so I guess a short rundown of sorts is in order. Now I'd never been to one of these here bluegrass festivals before, so I didn't know exactly what to expect. I like bluegrass but I don't actually listen to it much or follow it, so this whole thing was a first for me. I was quite surprised at how good this one was though. It also had a lot of big-time bands, which I didn't expect for a New England bluegrass show. Then again, why would anyone really expect to see a bluegrass show in New England of all places to begin with? So I guess that alone would have been surprising enough.

There was a lot going on, but I spent almost all of my time at the main stage watching the bands--about 2.5 days worth of all bluegrass music, all the time. (Literally, the informal picking starts in the hotel Thursday night and runs all day and all night for the festival, and I'm sure there are some stragglers still there now, so if one was staying in the hotel he could hear bluegrass picking at any hour day or night.) Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! I suppose an unfortunate side is that I didn't take any steps to move from being an aspiring mandolin player to an actual mandolin player, despite having owned a mandolin for a few years now. But my goal now is to finally dedicate enough time to it to return next year knowing enough to at least attempt to play some stuff and maybe even join a picking circle or something...or just stick to watching others. So I'll have to keep my report to the bands. So if you don't care about bluegrass, now's a great time to stop reading. Actually, if that's the case, why'd you wander over in the first place? Anyway...

If instrumental bluegrass is your thing, do whatever you have to do to see Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper if they ever do a show within several hundred miles or so of where you live. They're that good. These guys blew me away and are easily the best bluegrass band I've ever heard. They're the two-time defending IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year, and it's not hard to see why. The CD I bought is actually a slight letdown since I saw them in concert first--they include a lot more solos and instrumentals live. But I'm sure I'll get a chance to see this band again sometime, hopefully soon.

The Dry Branch Fire Squad put on a couple of great performances as well. They're more "normal" bluegrass, for lack of a better way to put it. You know, what a casual listener like myself might go to a bluegrass show figuring to hear. Their show is great though, with plenty of humor and storytelling mixed in. They were the most entertaining band of the bunch, if not the most hard-hitting.

Others that were good enough to get me to buy a CD were the Steep Canyon Rangers and NewFound Road. The Rangers are more contemporary I'd say, relative newcomers to mainstream bluegrass but quickly making a name for themselves. NewFound Road has been around for a few years but has recently started adding in some secular stuff to their previously all-gospel set. I like them a lot and they definitely have a strong Christian bent. Another great one that I would have bought a CD for had I not run out of cash is Dailey & Vincent. They're arguably the premier band playing these days in the bluegrass genre, having recently taken home a slew of honors at the IBMA Awards. They're another gospel-focused group, and they even did some evangelism at the show. (That took some guts to do, given they were in the greater Boston area. Shows they aren't afraid to alienate a few fans.) They're a fun concert too, with some humor thrown in.

One funny thing about this festival, and I suspect all such bluegrass festivals, is that since the bands play a lot of older, common tunes in addition to their own stuff, you end up hearing some of the same songs more than once. I know I heard "Rovin' Gambler" at least three times. I've memorized the story of the song now and I only heard it for the first time two days ago! There was one about a ship captain or something that kept coming up, but I didn't remember it as well. It's cool though, because no two bands do the same tune exactly the same--different instrumentals, varying harmony vocals, whatever.

Overall, it was a great weekend and well worth the effort and headache (read: driving on the MassPike) it took to get there each of the three days. Most of the bands were great and I'm not doing them justice by not mentioning them here. One excuse is I felt groggy and out of it all day today--I may be coming down with a cold--so I just couldn't enjoy the music as much. I didn't buy any CDs today, but the bands were good and I figure I'll end up with a few more CDs from some or all of them at some point. A few of the bands were more old country than bluegrass really--not that that's bad, but I don't like it as much and wasn't as excited to hear them. But my focus needs to be on learning mandolin, or guitar or some kind of instrument at least, so next year it'll be that much better for me.

our culture in 20 words

2009-02-09T21:54:00.005-05:00

Check out this piece of artistic and creative genius:

That's freakin' awesome! But what's not freakin' awesome is the fact that she's just a sample of typical American me-me-me culture. Get the story behind the poster here.

another fembot encounters reality

2009-02-08T20:56:00.007-05:00

...and, as is usually the case when a twisted ideology slams head-on into the real world of consequences, trade-offs, and the like, the result ain't pretty. MarkyMark has the dish, and adds in a bit of biting commentary as well. A pointed question of his stood out to me and calls for some rambling on my part.

If you women were going to be men, why couldn't you have at least been GENTLEMEN?

Good point. No, excellent point. But I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Feminazis view men as worthless creatures, slightly less intelligent than Neanderthals and about as reliable as partners. They seem to be capable of seeing only our worst behavior, and magnified at that. So when they try to emulate men and prove themselves "equal," they end up being the equal of the man that exists only in their heads, the one who has no self-control, compassion, honesty, or any other decent qualities. And so they end up becoming something worse than 99.7% of the men I've ever met. No wonder men avoid them and other women disdain them.

Way to go, ladies. Grrrl power. But be careful what you strive for, because you just might achieve it.

I do feel sorry for women who were sold a bag of rocks during their younger years and are figuring out too late that they got duped big-time in the game of life. An entire generation or more has been caught in the crossfire, so to speak, having been led to believe the have-it-all, do-it-all life is possible, only to find out along the way that they were taught bullbleep all along. There is no "top of the ladder." The dream is unattainable because it doesn't actually exist. (This applies to much more than just feminism, too.)

Ah well, guess what grrrls, you have the honor of living with your choices just the same as the rest of us. Yeah, that's one of those nuances of reality that feminist dogma doesn't seem to get the word out on. But don't worry, no ideology can cheat you out of that experience. All of us have made poor moves along the way and have to deal with the fallout of having an other-than-ideal life as a result. Welcome to humanity. So suck it up, and take it like the man you've trained yourself to be for so long.

As cold as it may be, even as a Christian I must admit that I get some amount of satisfaction out of watching people, especially feminazis, reap the due consequences of their own choices and actions. Not that that's right or healthy, but it does reaffirm my faith that there really is some justice in the world. I can't say I'm immune to consequences myself, but that's part of my point. None of us are. So perhaps a little foresight is in order in life, instead of relying on temporal feelings or trendy worldviews (that folks will laugh at years later) or social engineering or a false expectation of permanence or anything else to somehow pull a fast one for us in the game of life. Ain't gonna happen.

qotd: reagan's view of government

2009-02-08T18:13:00.003-05:00

Sayeth Ronald Reagan, on the role of government:

If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

Such a reminder is not at all necessary in these times, but there you go anyway. Thanks to Chapin's Inferno for that one.

liberalism as a disease

2009-02-02T22:52:00.003-05:00

That's a great way to think of it. Vox hits this one dead on, filling in the blanks that Victor Davis Hanson left alone. The comments are great, too, and someone beat me to the obvious of pointing out that New England, and Taxachusetts more than any other N.E. state probably, is exporting carriers to the southern regions in droves. Methinks the only way to escape slowly wasting away among the swarming parasites is to bolt to far-off shores.

news flash: another athlete stumbles

2009-02-01T18:07:00.005-05:00

Just read that Michael Phelps got caught smoking pot in a photo that somehow made its way from a University of South Carolina house party to one of the many, many British tabloids. Recall that a few years ago, shortly after the 2004 Athens Olympics, he was busted for DUI in his home state. It's fair to say the guy has a bad habit of doing stupid things shortly after winning lots of gold medals.

Now I'm not saying Phelps is a bad guy or anything. In fact, I still have a lot of respect for him. He certainly seems like an upstanding athlete, and a refreshingly humble one given all the success he's had at such a young age. No doubt it would be quite hard to deal with all that glory and the attention and worship that comes with it for anyone, much less a guy who's no older than a lot of folks just graduating from college and entering the real world.

But his behavior does imply one of two things: either he's not who we are led to believe he is (and who I think he is), or he's prone to very poor and embarrassing lapses in judgment. He is held up as a role model and yet is compiling a not-so-sparse record of dumb behavior. I'm beginning to think the guy falls in the Michael Vick category of guys in over their head lifestyle-wise and in need of some support to avoid ruining the life that's ahead of them. Somebody has to make sure he doesn't flush down all he's worked for up until now, and I don't think he's up to the task by himself. So far he's been the biggest threat to his own success.

This all points to a disturbing trend in society, too. Why do we continue to idolize people we know are only human, only to be crushed, disappointed, angered, etc., when they inevitably crack and show some imperfections? Doesn't it occur to folks that such idolatry focused on mere mortals is part of the reason they end up failing us expectations-wise? Not to mention the hope for the rest of us that such worship doesn't provide.

Oh well, I guess it's been obvious for a long time now that people too often care more about being entertained and poring over the details of someone else's shortcomings than they do in focusing on how they themselves could be better stewards of society. Such is contemporary Western culture...

Anyway, gotta go, Stupid Bowl's finally on. GO CARDS!!!!!

profound statement of the week

2009-01-22T22:51:00.003-05:00

From Mr. Wapiti:

The impact of college on family formation and permanence can not be overstated.

Read more here. Those few words capture a lot of problems around us. The astronomical cost of college these days, and its tendency to linger in one's financial straits long after it's over, all but destroys the once-common practice of getting married and starting a traditional family (by that, I mean multiple kids and a stay-at-home mom) at a young age. Should the resultant declining birth rates and moral vacuum surprise anyone? Nope. And a much-needed popping of the college bubble won't fix any of those bigger problems.

hey, we ain't as bad off as some

2009-01-22T22:40:00.002-05:00

Check this out. Did somebody say inflation? That doesn't even begin to capture it. Holy freaking crap. That's...that's...some weird hybrid of hilarious and tragic.

But I suppose there's another way to see this: as our economy tanks over the next year or few, just remember that no matter how bad it is, it can always get worse. A lot worse.

larry fitzgerald is unreal

2009-01-19T21:25:00.003-05:00

When I heard Larry Fitzgerald's name mentioned earlier this season by plenty of talking heads as probably the best receiver in the NFL, I didn't take it too seriously. Not that I'd seen him play a lot, I just hadn't heard very much about him since he was drafted and I didn't figure he could come to quietly dominate the game so quickly. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that the guy was just coming out of college, right? I'm sure he's good, and he puts up numbers, but...that good that fast?

Yup. Those of you who watched the Cardinals game yesterday already know that. For those who didn't see the game, think Randy Moss on his good days. Fitzgerald is that good. He reminds me of Moss during his playoff run with the Vikings,* when Cunningham could just loft a ball in his direction and Moss would come down with it almost every time. That's the last time I've been that consistently awed by a receiver over the span of a few games. Doesn't matter how much traffic is around him, how off-target the ball is, how much he has to reach or correct for it, or whatever else. If Warner throws it anywhere near him, it's his. The best a defense can hope for is that he doesn't keep going after the catch. Heck, at this point I'm convinced the guy could telekinetically bring a ball into his hands from 20 feet over his head if he wanted to.

Unreal, I say. And a lot of fun to watch. He's just one of the reasons I'll be rooting for the Cardinals in this year's stupid bowl.

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* For the record, nobody will ever convince me there has ever been a better receiving duo in football than Moss and Carter with the '98 Vikes. Carter was past his prime but still one of the best, and Moss was as good that year as he's ever been since. It's a terrible shame that team choked in the playoffs.

single parents and crime

2009-01-17T00:12:00.007-05:00

We all knew the correlation between crime and single-parent families was strong, but Bernard Chapin quotes from Ann Coulter's new book "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America" a summary of just how strong the correlation is. The chapter from which the following quote is taken has 138 end notes, so although I don't have the sources for these facts I can safely assume they're legit. For the proof I guess we'll just have to get the book ourselves. But until then, here's a tidbit courtesy of "Chapin's Inferno":

"We have single mothers because more than a million women choose to have children out of wedlock every year in America, and they do not wed or give up their babies for adoption. By their own choices, they consign their children to second-class status. Of all single mothers in America, only 6.5% are widows; 37.8% are divorced and 41.3% gave birth out of wedlock. Controlling for socioeconomic status, race, and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. By 1996, 70% of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60% of rapists come from single-parent homes. 70% of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced. A 1990 study showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared."

That last sentence is particularly telling. For those who think crime is a racial thing, it's not. It's a parenting thing. So how is it possible to begin to solve the crime problem in society without first addressing this lack of responsibility that causes it? And how is it possible to address the lack of responsibility without addressing the core beliefs and worldviews (or lack thereof) that lead to such behavior?

great piece on anti-male churchianity

2009-01-10T00:45:00.006-05:00

MarkyMark alerted me to a great blog out there, Faith and Society, that I'll probably be spending considerable time at in the near future. It's defunct now and has been for some time, but the writing is still available to be partaken of. In particular, this essay is one of the best I've read in a long time. It addresses a topic I happen to care a lot about, that being the waning influence of Christianity in society and how much that correlates with the increasing feminization (and its accompanying overreactions, pop psychology, etc.) of the modern American church as a whole. Anyone out there wondering why there's a supposed dearth in Christian men marrying, or even attending church for that matter? (I'm not totally convinced that's the case but I won't get into that here, maybe later.) That article would be a good starting point for understanding some of the reasons.

The guy also seems to have a great command of Scripture, at least well enough to support his arguments with plenty of verses. I'm not sure I agree with some of his points though--he seems to overcorrect, if you will, on some things, as if trying to counterbalance the opposing argument. I haven't looked up his verses though, so I can't yet say how much I agree with his exegesis. I intend to repost his essay in its entirety here later and add my comments throughout, but that won't happen tonight. But it's a great and interesting read, regardless of how much one happens to agree with his positions or the sometimes in-your-face way he lays them out.

As an intro of sorts, the author of the aforementioned gem quotes Elisabeth Eliot, a contemporary Evangelical author (and one I've actually heard of, so she must be at least somewhat prominent). His entire essay isn't a response to this quote in particular, but her words do capture what I think is a popular sentiment in a lot of churches these days:

“Everywhere my husband and I go we meet lovely Christian women, beautifully dressed, deeply spiritual, thoroughly feminine–and single. They long for marriage and children. But what is it with the men? Are they blind to feminine pulchritude, deaf to God’s call, numb to natural desire? . . . Where are the holy men of God willing to shoulder the full responsibility of manhood, to take the risks and make the sacrifices of courting and winning a wife, marrying her and fathering children in obedience to the command to be fruitful? While the Church has been blessed by men willing to remain single for the sake of the Kingdom (and I do not regard lightly such men who are seriously called), isn’t it obvious that God calls most men to marriage? By not marrying, those whom He calls are disobeying Him, and thus are denying the women He meant for them to marry the privileges of being wife and mother.”

Huh!? What a bunch of bullbleep that is! For one, that is not at all my experience in churches I've been to lately. I don't know if I'm just in some alternate reality that these authors and pontificators don't coexist in or what, but I don't know where they get that impression that there are just droves of women in churches waiting to get married to the first kinda-decent* dude that shows interest. I'll go as far as to say that the supposedly marriage-ready women (by age and stereotype, anyway) I've been around have been far more narcissistic and me-centered than their male counterparts. Young and single? Yes. Desiring marriage? Well, maybe in a few cases. Ready for marriage and seemingly solid wife material? Um...out of deference to people I would still consider friends, let me not answer that one directly. But you get the idea.

As for the shaming-esque, "it's all your fault" crap, what else is new? Any man who has been to church, say, a few times in the past several years, has probably heard similar tripe. Maybe it wasn't mean-spirited or direct like the lovely Mrs. Eliot's quip, but it's there. The assumption seems to be that men, by and large, and especially young, churched men (the declining few that there are), have the intelligence of apes and have to be goaded, shamed, prodded, or otherwise manipulated by society into fitting the mold others have made for them. Whatever. Wake up folks, it's not happening. And the entire church is suffering for it. And methinks the entire church will continue to suffer from the dearth of strong male leadership until something changes for the better.

"winning a wife..." Now could the issue here possibly, perhaps, just maybe, be that more men than one might suspect don't see it in terms of "winning" a wife in today's culture? This choice of words implies that a prospective wife is someone to be desired, to be "won," a reward for one's efforts. For a good, humble, Christian woman, this is certainly true and I can't imagine why any man would dispute the claim. Sure, they're out there, and any man would be crazy to not pursue a woman of those bonafide credentials. But, for a semi-churched, feminism-stained woman who's basically pursuing the same goals in the same way a man would go after them, this is...well, let's just say it's not the case. Is that necessarily fair to women who grew up under such influences? Nope, not at all. But it's reality and we deal with reality as it is, not as we think it ought to be or how we wish it to be. That being the case, many men are going to conclude that the total compromise required is a bum deal in most cases and, justifiably so, simply not put forth the effort to pursue such women. Who can blame them (us)?

"By not marrying, those whom He calls are disobeying Him, and thus are denying the women He meant for them to marry the privileges of being wife and mother." Wow. As the author points out, that's no small claim. She's invoking the Bible, the Kingdom, and God Himself in full support of her argument. She's effectively claiming to have knowledge of God's plan for others, to the point that she even says others must be rejecting His plan for themselves if they disagree with her. So she is in God's camp and therefore anyone who disagrees must not only be opposing her but also opposing God and even thwarting His plan. If you're going to claim the God of the universe is on your side in full force, especially in such strong terms, then you'd better be right. A bold statement indeed.

My comments above are merely a tiny chip off the iceberg compared to what the author puts forth in his much longer discussion. Rather than go into further detail here, I'll let you just go to the source and be enlightened by someone with far better theological command and writing skills than mine. Agree or disagree, I trust you won't be disappointed with the thought-provoking points he brings up. Enjoy!

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* The standards such dudes would be evaluated by deserve a discussion of their own. But have no fear, the essay addresses that topic at length.

poll of the day

2009-01-05T19:19:00.005-05:00

Which group of people sets the standard for mob stupidity?

(A) The population of Gaza, for electing Hamas to represent them
(B) The population of Minnesota, for (apparently) electing Al Franken to represent them
(C) Too close to call
(D) Other

I have to go with C...too many solid arguments on both sides for me to choose just one.

michael vick: not very smart

2009-01-04T20:56:00.002-05:00

I'll preface this by saying I do feel sorry for Vick in a way. He was handed a lifestyle and expectations he didn't know how to handle, so it's no surprise he mishandled it. But it would be unrealistic to expect anyone who came from the background and home life he did to be able to suddenly show a lot of maturity that he hadn't been brought up into to that point. His is an example of the need for better parenting, mentoring, and the like in society--the type that comes only from the trappings of a God-centered worldview. But still, even some such tragic things are too funny in the way they happen. And so it is with a certain incident from a few years back...

As long as I'm on the topic of poor decisions by persons associated with the NFL, a summary of a very funny SNL skit that I saw earlier today (while trying to divert my attention from the impending Vikings loss) seems in order. It was presumably taped a few years ago, right after Michael Vick had gotten in trouble for marijuana possession at the airport. (I believe this was the infamous "Ron Mexico" incident, but I don't remember for sure. I wouldn't put it past Vick to have been in the news more times than I can remember off-hand.) The "Weekend Update" anchors pointed out several reasons why this display of stupidity by Vick was hilarious--to the limited extent that sports players getting in trouble for breaking laws can really be hilarious, I mean--and a few of them stuck with me.

For one, Vick had $117 million left on his contract at the time, not to mention lots of endorsement deals. So, Mike, you're going to risk all that fortune to smuggle a few ounces of pot through airport security? Come on. I'm not a druggie, but that's what, a few hundred dollars of contraband at most? Whatever it is, I bet it's considerably less than $117M. People much poorer than you are on the ball enough to trash the stuff before going through security and just replacing it once at their destination. And we all know it's not like you don't have plenty of contacts back at home who could hook you up with a supplier in a hurry. Not very smart, Mike.

Also, what airport was Vick flying out of and trying to smuggle drugs into? Miami. Now if there's any airport in the country, or maybe even the world, that is going to be on super high alert for drugs of any kind and be more than prepared to sniff the stuff out, what airport might one suspect? Miami. Did you really expect to pull that one off, Mike? Come on, you're in freakin' Miami for crying out loud. That trick probably doesn't work in Boise, much less an airport that expects and prepares for much more sophisticated attempts to move contraband. Again, Mike, not very smart.

And I hadn't heard this one before, but how did Mr. Vick try to smuggle it? At the bottom of a water bottle with water in it. This being shortly after the whole "oh no, terrorists could mix chemicals on planes" flap the TSA foisted upon us that resulted in the 3-1-1 rule or whatever it is. (For the record, up until the recent bailout craze that could be argued to be the single stupidest, worthless, most pathetic attempt at "protection of the people" of the Bush era, but that's another topic.) So the security clones were on high alert for any liquids passing through. As one of the anchors put it, Vick might as well have stuffed it down the barrel of a gun. There was zero chance that water bottle was going to make it onto the plane unmolested. Yet again, not very smart.

It should come as no surprise that a guy like Vick was bound to get caught up in a bigger mess sooner or later. The sad thing is, were he a bit more on the ball, maybe he could have avoided all that. The guy had plenty of talent and just needed some guidance as to how to not ruin a good thing. Note to professional athletes, celebrities, and the like: if you don't possess sufficient common sense to avoid destroying your own career and life, just hire someone to do your thinking for you.

more playoffs

2009-01-04T19:49:00.004-05:00

Wow, I'm awesome. It's a really good thing I'm not much of a gambler when it comes to sports. Only Baltimore's domination of Miami saved me from misfiring on all four of my picks for this weekend's games. I guess that, among other reasons, is why I'm not a coach in the NFL.

The Minnesota-Philly game was particularly depressing. In the other games, at least the opposing team seemed to belong, to be good enough to deserve the win. Arizona proved they belong in the playoffs, and I thought they controlled the game more than the score shows. The Chargers looked impressive all night save for a couple of bad turnovers in the Colts' end zone, and it would have been tough to see those miscues cost them the game. Baltimore's defense did what I expected it to do, and their offense wasn't bad either. But Philly didn't look so great as much as Minnesota looked hopeless. Neither team really had any business winning that one, But the Vikings did more to lose it.

I can see why Vikings fans hate their team so much now. They're just a frustrating team to watch. For as good as their running game is on both sides, their passing offense and defense are pathetic. I can't remember the last time I watched a pass defense so bad, especially in the playoffs. I mean, when Philly faced second down, I was actually hoping they'd get close enough to the marker to try to run it on the next play, because it was obvious to me that if they threw the ball they'd pretty much be guaranteed a first down. Seriously. The Vikings' pass D was that bad. They did well against the run the whole game, but their secondary let Philly keep drives going. Their rush wasn't even too bad and forced a fumble, but pass rush doesn't help much when the QB can just throw to a wide open receiver at will.

On offense, we knew they'd run well and they did. But they couldn't get a semi-consistent passing game going to save their season. It's easy to blame Jackson, but I didn't think he did so bad by himself. After all, it's tough to do much as a QB when you spend half the time on your back. He did have a rough game though. How can the Vikes' O-line be that good at blocking for the run and that bad at pass protection? I don't get it. But their inability to sustain drives and put up points, especially in crunch time, is a terrible thing to watch.

I can't sign off on this one without mentioning coaching. In the past I've been prone to cut Childress some slack, unlike a lot of others whose stuff I read, figuring he can't be as mindless as people make him out to be if his team is 10-6 and has some good strengths. But not this time. He made two atrocious mistakes that could have cost him the game.

First, on the opening drive, Philly failed to convert a third down from the Minnesota 26 (or so). But the Eagles were flagged for holding on the play, which if accepted would have backed them up 10 yards and given them 3rd and 19 at the 36. But Childress, much to the consternation of the sportscasters and I'm sure every Vikings fan watching, declined it! So what results? Of course, none other than one of the best kickers in recent NFL history, David Akers, trots out and kicks a 43-yard field goal like it's a chip shot.

So, Brad, what the heck are you thinking on that one? Do you have so little confidence in your defense that you're afraid they'll give up 20+ yards on a single play, a third down no less? Did you figure the chances of Akers missing a 43-yarder were better than the chances of McNabb & Co. failing to convert a 19-yard third down? Come on, it's not like everyone in the bleeping stadium didn't know the Eagles needed some big yards. Why not back them up and see if your defense holds? Maybe they get some of that yardage back, or maybe the freakishly pull off a first down pickup, but if not then at least you make Akers work from a little further away. Heck, maybe Philly punts from that far back. The worst part is, later in the game, this field goal was the difference between Minnesota needing one score or two scores, which effectively eliminated them from the game by forcing them to rely on passing to move down the field quickly. All in all, that move is inexplicable. Brad Childress, you're an idiot.

But that's not all. Boneheaded Childress Move #2: With less than two minutes left in the first half, and with the Vikes down 16-14 and backed up deep in their own territory after a punt, Childress faces a decision. He can either take some shots downfield and try to get into field goal range, a long shot at best given how his passing offense has been so far, or just call three ground plays and run out the clock, and hope to regroup at halftime and come out swinging in the third quarter. So he calls a do-nothing run on first down and doesn't use his last timeout, an obvious indication that he intends to call it a half...right? But on second down, Jackson throws a bad short pass in the flat, far from the sideline, which bounces off the receiver's outstretched arms and falls harmlessly behind the line of scrimmage. This burns a down and stops the clock--great thinking, Brad! As expected, Philly uses its last timeout after Minnesota rushes again on third down. Minnesota punts and the Eagles almost get into field goal range, the disaster being averted only by a great open-field tackle to keep Westbrook in bounds (in Minnesota territory) so the clock runs out.

Now, what in the world was the goal of that second down short pass?? Did Childress think the guy would break it and dash 75 yards for a score? Was he supposed to get out of bounds after picking up a few yards while eating precious time off the clock, thus accomplishing nothing of purpose? If he was just supposed to stay in bounds with it, then a run does the same thing and averts both a clock stoppage and a potential interception. (Jackson had already thrown a TD pass to Asante Samuel earlier, this being the Eagles' lone touchdown at the time.) Keep in mind also that this year's Vikings punt coverage unit tied the league record for futility by giving up four return touchdowns, and DeSean Jackson had already run one back 62 yards earlier in the game to set up a field goal. So it should be obvious, even more so than in any regular game, that a punt should be avoided at all costs here. And yet Childress runs a play that basically guarantees the Vikes will punt it back to Philly and give them good enough field position to try for a last-second field goal. Unbelievable.

So, any way you slice it the Vikings game was a tough one for me to watch. I'm even dumber than Childress was during his shining moments in the game for picking that one-dimensional team to carry the NFC banner in the stupid bowl. Oh well...as it is, Pittsburgh would appear at this point to have a clear shot to Tampa. I don't think any of the three remaining AFC teams are on their level, not even Tennessee. Maybe San Diego...but the Steelers will have homefield advantage against them next week and that will be huge. In the NFC, who knows. I don't think any team there is dominant. If I had to pick I guess I'd go with the Giants...but I'll be pulling for Arizona to turn some heads.

nfl playoff predictions

2009-01-03T10:53:00.002-05:00

Have been thinking about this for a day or two now. The games start this afternoon so I'd better hurry up and list my predictions so folks know which teams NOT to bet on. So, without further ado...

NFC...I like Minnesota to advance but I will say that Philly was a tough draw in the opener. They beat the Giants a few weeks back and they routed the Cowgirls last week, so they’re for real. Were it in Philly it’d be a different story, but I have to take the Vikes in the dome; I think they’ll pull it together and do what they do best—-keep it simple and pound the ball.

Arizona just hasn't impressed me all season and the Falcons have come on strong, so I like Atlanta by a lot in that one. Arizona played in the weakest division in football and still only managed 9-7. They’re the closest thing to a bye week of any team playing this weekend. Their offense can light up the field though, so hopefully they’ll keep it interesting and maybe even pull off the upset.

Overall? Call me crazy, but I have to take the Vikes. They've been sketchy of late, but I like their style. It’s been said that great teams can run and stop the run. And that’s what the Vikes do. They could be in trouble if they get too far behind and have to start throwing to catch up, or if their passing game can’t keep defenses at least semi-honest, but they’re good enough up front on both sides of the ball and with Peterson doing the carrying that they can rely solely on playing smash-mouth football and go far (a la the Ravens several years back and the ’06 Bears). Despite the previous weeks’ performances, I think they have the elements of a real contender. Minnesota is wildly inconsistent but plenty capable of putting together a tough two-game road stretch to out the Panthers and then the Giants. The younger Manning could give the Vikings’ secondary fits if he’s on, but I don’t expect that. It could also be a blizzard in NYC when they play, which would favor Minnesota big time.

AFC...this one seems to me to be a little easier to guess at simply because one team has been so great the second half of the season. Balto-Miami will be a big one. I think Baltimore is just a tougher and better team, and the Ravens can win in Miami. But then they’ll have to face the Titans and that will be their undoing. Tennessee is overrated and has been very suspect toward the end of the season, but they're good enough to survive the Ravens.

The Colts are much too strong for even a resurgent SD I think. And I just read that LT an Gates are not 100%. Unlike others, I don't see this one being very close. Indy took a while to get going early in the season but has returned to the old form we're used to seeing. I also think the Chargers will stumble a bit after the emotional high they've been on for the past three weeks.

If Balto wins then Indy plays in Pittsburgh next week. That will be the AFC championship, as either of those teams can beat Tennessee or Baltimore. And I’m taking the Colts—-they’re old but they still have enough left to go on a tear through the second half of the season and the postseason. They’re as good as any team in the league right now and they’re flying below the radar, which helps them.

Stupid Bowl...as weird as it is, I foresee a Colts-Vikings stupid bowl, with Manning & Co. scorching the Vikes’ suspect pass D and forcing the purple men into pass mode early, thus turning it into a rather one-sided and uninteresting game. Indy 38, Minn 14. But if my picks hold up as well as my projections for the playoffs first round, then most of the above is crap anyway.

another churchill quote

2009-01-02T22:27:00.002-05:00

Just picked up another excellent quote from none other than Winston Churchill:

Lady Astor to Winston Churchill: "If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee."

Churchill's Reply: "If I were married to you, I'd drink it."

Is that gut-splitting stuff or what!? Winston Churchill was THE MAN when it comes to great responses to stupid comments. I'm now convinced beyond any doubt that if I could eat dinner and sit down for a chat with one world leader from any time in history, that leader would be Churchill. What I wouldn't pay to have half his wit...

observations on punctuality

2008-12-21T12:51:00.003-05:00

Was just now trying to figure out how I screwed up my link to another blog in my previous post and got to looking through my archives and happened across this one. I wrote it almost a year ago but for some reason never published it. Blogger probably crapped out when I tried and I just gave up, wouldn't surprise me. But the sentiment still holds true. I'm still amazed at the rampant tardiness that seems to be a constant at every organized event these days.

For example, just this morning in church, when the service actually started (i.e. the prelude music finished) the room felt a bit empty, as if there was nobody near me. This is unusual, as the service probably gets 100+ each week. So I took a quick glance around, and I counted eight. Eight people. There were more musicians up front, plus the two pastors, than there were congregants in the seats. Wow, I thought, this winter weather must be making a LOT of people wait until the later service. Well, each time there was a break in the service, more folks trickled in, and before long there were probably 50 in there.

Now you can guess what I'm thinking. It's not like the service started at a different time than it starts at every week, so why was the vast majority of the congregation not even close to being on time? I know I really shouldn't throw rocks, and I'm not at all perfect on the whole punctuality thing, but...come on, people!! It's like folks just completely don't care about showing the basic respect to be on time anymore. Crazy...

Anyway, the original from last winter is below...
__________

More and more over the past year or so, I've focused a bit of effort on trying to be on time to things, with moderate results. I've always been a little annoyed with my own inability (and also that of others) to be responsible enough to show up on time. I strongly believe one's punctuality is a reflection of one's respect for others* and willingness to commit and be held accountable for not just schedules but anything. And, well, having long ago graduated from college and having had ample time to learn how to do this whole adult thing, I figured I'd best try to become more diligent and unlazy in at least one small area of my life.

I'm actually on time to most things now, at least those that have a defined start time--which (thankfully) doesn't include work. I used to be one of the consistent latebirds, always wandering in at least a few minutes past when I had intended to show up. But now, heck, I even get to church early most of the time now--when I bother to go these days, that is--and that's something that has rarely happened over the years. And I'm often one of the first to arrive at things like small groups and dinners and the like, such that it feels a bit awkward being there when it's only the host and/or one or two people, as if I'm walking in way too early or something. Needless to say, being on time has made some habits I see stand out more than before, like how often people are late to so much stuff.

It's actually quite annoying to show up to something on time and have to wait around for others to wander in the door late before anything can get started. This isn't some third-world culture, folks, where people are used to just doing their own thing at their own pace and seem to cross paths with one another almost as if by sheer coincidence. This is the U.S. and we understand the importance of schedules and timeliness here--or should. So many things require a set schedule and an ability to meet that schedule that it's surprising to me how prevalent this problem is. Is it too much to ask of someone to make enough of an effort to arrive and be prepared on time or at least pretty close?

Yet it never ceases to amaze me how many people are always late to everything they go to. Seriously, there are people I can think of that I can't remember having ever been on time even once to anything I've been to, and we've done no small amount of stuff together. Okay, nobody's perfect and sometimes things happen that prevent us from showing up on time. At any scheduled thing there will be someone who doesn't get there on time for whatever good or bad reason. But every time? Come on! And I'm not getting nitpicky over a minute or two here, as if they're within some margin of error and their clocks are just set differently or whatever. I'm talking 10+ minutes, sometimes 20-30 or so.

Really, the more I see this the more I'm convinced it's just inexcusable. There is no reason at all a self-sufficient adult shouldn't be able to notice this consistency in his or her life and correct it. We're not talking about some kind of chronic illness or something here, right? We're just talking about adjusting one's schedule or approach to things such that the problem doesn't recur every time one goes somewhere or does something. If even I can make progress on that front then it can't be that hard.

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* One of my favorite quotes is something I read on Boundless.org way back in my UIUC days and have managed to (loosely) remember all these years, something like, "The willingness to discipline oneself for the benefit of others is the essence of maturity." What a great summation of how we ought to live, and one that's especially applicable in this context.

worldviews on display

2008-12-20T23:59:00.001-05:00

I recently read an exchange between two folks, and found it interesting enough to link to. MarkyMark is a blogger that I've taken up reading quite often, as he has good stuff to say, writes well enough to reflect some intelligence, and comes at things from a more-or-less balanced perspective. (And when he may be biased, I usually agree with him so I don't mind!) And he seems capable of honest introspection, which is more than can be said of a lot of people these days. The comments and ensuing follow-up conversations to his posts are pretty good too, though of course I can't say I agee with all of the commenters.

He recently reposted a response he'd written to a commenter's critique of his earlier post. So read Mark's original post first, and Christopher's comment to it, then read Mark's response to Chris. (See links below.) I found this to be a very interesting display of how different, and at times, opposing, worldviews confront the same problem--that being the lack of respect and maturity too often seen in western women (a fact that can only go unchallenged by anyone with two or more brain cells and who lives in a western society, by the way) and the "system" that results from such behavior.

In my opinion, both men have shown via previous posts, comments, etc., that they're the intelligent and rational types worth at least paying attention to. Both men are middle-aged and in similar stations in life. Both are articulate and capable of expressing their opinions coherently, which is another thing that can't be said of too many contemporaries. Both have some knowledge of what's in the Bible, even if they agree with it to differing degrees. And both have recognized and are addressing the same issue. But one comes at it from a Christian worldview--although he says he's "backslidden" he clearly has at least the trappings of a Christian worldview--while the other approaches it from what he'd probably say is a deist worldview and thus one that requires no real accountability (to a higher power) on his part. This shows the difference that worldview makes in how we view things. Same problem, two dramatically different responses.

Enjoy!

Lest We Become What We Despise... (original post, with follow-up comments)

Response to comment on original post

first snowstorm

2008-12-20T21:56:00.002-05:00

...was a letdown of sorts. It was a good snow by previous standards but nothing to get super excited about. For lunch I walked several blocks up to an Italian place in the North End for a meatball sub (with about three meals worth of meatballs on it, haven't touched food for the rest of the day and am still not hungry--good stuff) and was actually a little disappointed with how underwhelming the storm was. There was maybe 6-8" out there, and there was some snow coming down, but overall it wasn't the kind of New England pounding I was braced for. I cancelled my car service appointment this morning when I woke up and saw snow still falling and slushy roads, but after the walk I think I might as well have ventured out on wheels too.

Maybe I'll take my camera to church tomorrow and get some pics on the way back. But, overall, not too weak but definitely not up to all the hype either.

ben franklin quote

2008-12-14T00:43:00.003-05:00

Just picked up a good quote by Ben Franklin from the Dr. Helen comment boards:

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"

Now tell me that doesn't accurately sum up the mob rule we see in this country and where we're headed.

first snow of the season

2008-12-07T15:18:00.005-05:00

Took this pic earlier today from my living room...

The snowflakes aren't very visible in that but they're huge. I like snow though. The walk to and from church this morning through the streets was awesome, with the snow coming down heavy and that hazy look and all. Give me winter stuff over a beach any day. Of course, the snow really isn't sticking right now, so who knows if I'll still say that when there's a few feet of the stuff out there. There is a such thing as too much of a good thing.

For now, the snow has stopped and there's none on the sidewalks outside. Crap...the wait continues...

the profound insight of barack

2008-12-07T15:06:00.004-05:00

So Mr. Obama thinks our economy "is going to get worse before it gets better"...okay, thanks for the news flash there, Barack. Good to know he's inhabiting the same planet as the rest of us and has an IQ of at least 12. According to the article, he also "pledged a recovery plan 'equal to the task' and warned lawmakers that the days of pork barrel spending are over." Okay, every politician promises at some point to end pork barrel spending and it hasn't happened yet. So that's nothing but a bunch of smoke (no pun intended)--not that he can do any worse than past presidents have on that one. But I read that last bit as a promise of large-scale government intervention, which is always, ALWAYS a bad thing. We know that implies lots of money, a trillion bucks or more probably...and we all know where the government likes to get money to play with...yup, from those who have money to give. Not that I'm surprised by the peril that seems to lie ahead, but it is a bit of a downer to hear yet another suit outright saying such intervention is a good thing.

On a slightly related note, anyone out there have any great ideas for somehow getting money out of "the U.S. system" (legally) and into a global bank account or something? Or some other account somewhere where it's not subject to the oversight and taxation of a government that has proven over and over it will leave no stone unturned in its search for more cash? If you do then please pass those ideas along. Fast.

nightclubs = worse than death

2008-12-07T13:59:00.002-05:00

One of the things I've enjoyed most about finally having a computer that actually works is being able to check out good blogs again. One of those, of course, is MarkyMark's web hangout. And my first visit in months didn't disappoint. He has a post that links to this fine article about the terrors that are nightclubs. Great stuff.

As anyone who has known me is well aware, I've never gotten into the whole "clubbing" scene. I've never seen it as more than a waste of time, and the rare occasions in which I've found myself in loud, overcrowded bars, in which I'm constantly bumping shoulders with at least three other people and having to scream at someone two feet away to make conversation of any sort, have left me with the distinct impression that nightclubs must be at the bottom of the pit of society when it comes to...well, just about any metric you choose. They bring out the worst in culture. Brooker's take on clubs as "dungeons full of posing idiots" is an apt one methinks. One could argue that, aside from feminism, the club scene is Western society's worst contribution to history. If there's something worse or more debasing to humanity, I hope I never have the extreme misfortune of encountering it.

Anyway, there's a short welcome-back rant about how screwed up the world is. I'd better get off to do something else or I'll be here all day...

something the election might be good for

2008-09-13T23:25:00.003-05:00

Our hero Vox has a great take on the presidential election face-off. Unfortunately, that's what it is: a face-off between two morons, while many better candidates go ignored and millions of thinking people of all political stripes wonder why we even bother with the charade of electing one terrible leader after another. But Vox has stepped in to rescue us from our misery by providing this new way of viewing the election:

Since Americans collectively have negligible interest in anything that might help them avoid their societal plunge off the cliff, I'm primarily looking to see them maximize my entertainment experience.

Good call Vox, me too! That's pretty much the extent of the usefulness of mainstream society these days, so why not at least try to derive some enjoyment from the madness? I just hope my enjoyment doesn't turn to misery when these hordes of clowns finally finish tearing down the foundations of our society, key word there being "our"...

finally, something worth reading about

2008-09-02T23:48:00.004-05:00

Here's desperately needed proof that not all political news is bad. If only the vast majority of voters were not hopeless idiots incapable of thinking outside the media's box. Let us all hope that the Campaign for Liberty really takes flight, while at the same time admitting such would take nothing less than a miracle in this nation of sheep we live in...

is college really worthwhile?

2008-09-02T21:27:00.004-05:00

Awesome comment thread over at Dr. Helen's about higher education and its merits. Just awesome.

Commenter "joe" really hit the nail on the head:

Overall, college is a huge drain on our economy. While there is a trick-down effect, most the direct monies go to people who aren't adding to the GDP.

Holy crap, tell me that isn't right on! That guy be speakin' TRUTH!!

And here's another tidbit:

Part of the problem with college is that it usually happens at age 18. Nobody knows what they heck they're doing at 18, no one knows what kind of adult they'll be, what they really want. And your choice of college and major have huge, seemingly (to many people) irreversible consequences. I know way too many people who got trapped by their choices made not even at 18 but at 17 or 16, that determined the course or their entire life. After you drop 10 years and a couple hundred thousand dollars on becoming a doctor, what do you do if you don't like being a doctor? For many people, it means just being an unhappy doctor. For 40 years. Scary.

I see a lot of people like Larry J who entered college later, as more mature people, and made choices that are better for them in the long run.

Again, right on. That's the most profound thing you'll read all day. Too bad some lessons are only learned the hard way.

Anyway, this topic deserves hours of rambling, but I'll cut it short for now. But if you do nothing else today, go read a few comments. There are some good ones in there for sure.

warning: housing market about to go under

2008-09-01T22:10:00.002-05:00

How do I know? Because I just jumped in, that's how. Anyone who knows my fortunes when it comes to...well, anything...knows that nothing could be a more ominous sign of an impending housing crunch than yours truly entering the market. My timing is surely legendary by now.

Anyway, just had an offer accepted on this place over there in Bellevue, close to where other Sharpe's have already invaded. As long as the financing and inspection and all go through okay--and I sure don't anticipate any surprises there--then I'll own it in a month. Looks like a steal too, if everything holds up. (I figure I'll keep saying "if" so as not to jinx anything until the deal's final.)

Basically, I set out early on in my quest to locate reasonably priced (i.e. far from where I've resided recently) houses to get three things: uniqueness/character, lot size, and garage/storage space, not necessarily in that order. This one offers the latter two in mammoth quantities, far more so than could normally be expected for the area for sure. It seems to offer the first in the way of a good inside and even some bricks on the outside, but it's hard to tell that sort of thing without having seen it in person. (For those of you trying to keep up, yes, I am attempting to purchase a house I've never visited. But I'm told it's as nice as the pics make it out to be and more.) But the "custom" basement, deck, decent landscaping (shocking that's not shown in the pics), wood floors, and other sweet amenities should really add touch to the place. Not to mention the garage, lot size, lot size, garage, and lot size certainly plus up the uniqueness element too.

I was prepared to need to put in some work on a place (floors, painting, whatever) to bring it up to speed, but this one looks quite boring in that regard in that it doesn't need anything. Maybe I'll invent something to do or tear up a wall or something just to feel like I should mess with it. Coming up with pie-in-the-sky ideas that are barely possible much less feasible is a special skill of mine.

Overall, a good buy, if I do say so myself. Kinda ticks me off that I can't have it out here--would sure be a help with the housing situation and the meeting other peeps dilemma. Now, as long as all the pieces fall into place as they ought to...

worth repeating for the masses

2008-08-25T21:04:00.004-05:00

On society:

"I really don't think society is deteriorating. It's status-quo retardation all around with some rare sparks of brilliance." -- some random commenter I know

Pretty hard to argue with that, when you think about it...

so, so tempting

2008-08-25T20:45:00.003-05:00

As some know, I've been playing with the idea of moving from the boring 'burbs out here into Boston to be closer to church especially and also the other cool stuff that a city offers to a (still kinda) young single dude like me. I'd really like to pull it off, actually, it's just that finding a place that's decent--not too crappy but not too high-class for the likes of me, and okay-sounding roommates--and doesn't have the prohibitive-to-me lease requirement attached has been a challenge. And I'm also finding that few places downtown include parking, which makes sense but hadn't occurred to me before.

Well, just to scare the heck out of anyone who bothers to read this, check out this gem I just found, and then realize that my first thought was that I should check it out. Not only is that place posh, but believe it or not, for Beacon Hill that's actually not bad at all for a furnished place with all bills paid, Beacon Hill being undoubtedly one of the most expensive (and nicest) city locales in the nation to live in. Yeah, that'd take a kinda HUGE bite out of the ol' paycheck every month, but methinks Boston living arrangements don't get much better than that. I mean, on top of Beacon Hill, two blocks from the Common? I can't think of anything comparable in any other downtown I'm familiar with--Georgetown in D.C. or the lake shore in Chicago maybe.

If I thought it had parking (guaranteed it doesn't) then I'd probably look into it. Part of me says that'd be irresponsible as heck, and that part's probably right, yet still, another part of me says why not live the life while I'm able to, at least for a little while. Oh well, for better or for worse, an opportunity missed...

welcoming our own destruction

2008-08-24T22:55:00.002-05:00

The Elusive Wapiti speaks:

[Europeans] are being voluntarily assimilated by a culture that does not value Western civilization, has not had its own enlightenment, and is a modern instantiation of an 8th century bronze age religion. If anything, the ruling leftist elite should be running like hell from this culture, but strangely they have embraced the very thing that will result in their own destruction.

But it's not just Europe. We Americans are experiencing this effect too, not so much from Islamization (that's there too) but from Mexifornication. Our rulers have apparently concluded that our culture is irredeemably racist and should therefore be replaced by another culture that is demonstrably racist and ethnocentrist and doesn't really care all that much about "white" values such as liberty, individual rights, and the rule of law...

He's absolutely right, of course. Sometimes I wonder why I post this stuff though. It's as if our society is already too far gone for anyone to bother trying to save, as the Wapiti alludes to. Trouble is, it's not just that the leftards won't do anything, it's that nobody seems to want to do anything. The same crap keeps happening unabated. I mean, look at our rulers. And to add insult to injury, whoever our next president is will have a very real chance of being even worse than the current one.

Those foreign shores just keep looking better with every article I read. It would be nice to at least feel like people are unspoiled enough to care about their own future enough to stand up for it. Such a place MUST exist in the world somewhere...I know it...

fred on the rat race

2008-08-23T23:30:00.003-05:00

Here I was, just about to pack it in for the night, and I come across this awesome new Fred column that touches on a topic of interest that I've rambled about before (here and here, for example) and will now ramble about once more. Fred adds a lot of insight that I hadn't delved into. It seems that the pace in our society precludes us even being able to desire some of the finer things in life, much less having time to enjoy them. Here's the basic gist of what Sir Fred has to say:

In all things technological the United States is magnificent, the Athens of solid-state physics. Yet the great orchestras die unlistened to, we have no Shakespeare or Dante nor notion why we might want them, and religious expression grows mute, or crabbed and hostile. Why?

I think the answer is that our surroundings determine not just what we think, but what we can think. We live in cities urban but not urbane, among screaming sirens, in air grayed by exhaust and wracked by the blattings of buses. The complaint is not invalid for being trite. I cannot imagine a Whitman composing in a shopping mall.

The rush and complexity of everything take their toll. As a people we might well be called The Unrelaxed. And, therefore, the Uncontemplative.

(...)

The Milnes and Donnes and Marlowes don’t exist because they can’t, and we don’t want them because we can’t want them.

The emphasis is added, of course. He really hits on something there. It's not that we just don't have time to appreciate things. We are, due to the pace of our lives and the state of our minds, unable to appreciate things. We only know what is right in front of us or whatever comparatively miniscule task or topic is at the forefront of our thoughts at any time, and this prevents us from focusing on the bigger things beyond that. But I'm reiterating myself here so I'll leave it at that for now.

Fred has a way of describing people that applies to our society: "Scientists take things apart but, except for the greats, do not notice the whole." Methinks that is profound. In this context, America has become a nation of scientists. We understand great details about small things but are woefully ignorant of greater concepts. Worse, we often don't realize our ignorance. And still worse, even when we realize it we don't care. We understand the intricacies of life at a molecular level, but we don't why it exists or how it started and we don't care to know. We know how sound waves work and how to manipulate them in seemingly endless ways, but we can't understand or appreciate some of the most challenging and greatest compositions of all time. (Or worse yet, bands like System of a Down and Radiohead come along and create cacophonous dins of noise, and the masses call it "music" and lap it up! God help us all.)

I can't help but think about modern Christianity here. People often decry the decreasing influence of the faith over the years in the West and carry on at great length about how the trend ought to be slowed and reversed. I agree that its reversal would do wonders for the health of society. But how should we approach this issue?

I'm not sure it's possible for such a reversal--a revival, if you will, as it's been understood historically--can happen (at least not by human efforts, but you get the idea) without a "slowing down" of society. For one to seek and know spiritual things in any depth, one must first "know the questions," as Fred puts it. That's not just being aware that such questions can be asked, but knowing their significance and implications. For one to even begin to grasp the greater ideas of spirituality--things like origin, destiny, and so on--one must be able to contemplate such things. Such contemplation requires a relaxed state of mind that is free from the burdens of everyday life as we know it, the "tyranny of the urgent," time to just ponder things and take in the world without any specific purpose in mind. This sort of mindset requires being able to put aside other thoughts and just be "at peace," for lack of a better way to put it. (I sincerely apologize for the hippie-esque bent here, but I'm failing to come up with a better way to put it.) It's like the tenets of Christianity--to understand salvation one must first understand sin.* To understand Christianity one must first know the questions.

The trouble is, society prevents us from doing that. The pace of society does not lend itself to pondering things of depth. Moreover, our minds, having been conditioned by society for so long, are not (often) capable of that. Something that used to come naturally during times of rest or even throughout the day now takes great effort to "achieve," and I wonder if just the necessity of the effort makes it impossible.

So while many continue to bemoan the shrinking influence of such big-picture things in our lives, perhaps they ought to focus not on the results but the causes. Rather than continually repackage Christianity into forms that fit the cultural norm, maybe we should ask why such repackaging is necessary. What would happen if, instead of trying to change Christianity to fit society, people tried to change society? And that not just on a surface level of "vote for this" or "boycott that," but on a fundamental level of what drives us to think we can or should do what we do.

To paraphrase my closing line from a previous and favorite post of mine, in our society we are fortunate to have a lot of things, but do they make up for what we don't have?

-----
* I don't mean fully understand sin, but enough to appreciate its magnitude and consequences on more than a worldly scale.

qotd

2008-08-21T22:17:00.003-05:00

Great clip from a comment thread at Dr. Helen's:

The American Republic will endure until the politicians realize that the people can be bribed with their own money.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville

Yup, add him to the prophet list. He was 150 or so years ahead on that one, too...impressive. I think a corollary ought to be added, to the effect of, "...until the people become incapable of putting the common good above their own self-interest."

what!?

2008-08-02T23:24:00.003-05:00

Anyone who thinks the American legal system is remotely close to fair or reliable when it comes to punishing women for their actions, you just ran out of ammo. Read it and weep, folks. And let this be another exhibit of why marriage to an American is...well, a risk, to put it in the nicest terms I can dream up right now.

more where that came from

2008-08-02T23:16:00.003-05:00

Today is a bad day for the church (note the little "c") in my blog posts. What can I say, I'm just reading a lot of stuff that brings to mind how the church is failing in its role as cornerstone of society. And here's more, taken from this excellent post by a blogger who's about to get added to the blogroll.

Unfortunately, in the West today, we are harvesting the rotten fruit of this grave misinterpretation of Scripture. Dads weep bitterly at the loss of their children before dying at a premature age. Moms groan under the burden of both providing and keeping the home. Children wonder why everyone is so unhappy and reject both marriage and the Church. And those concerned about liberty grow increasingly alarmed at the scope and size of the government Hydra that grows more and more heads when the atomistic family disintegrates.

Tell me that's not a dead-on description of what we see in the West today. And the culprit may just be the church itself, in ways you might not suspect.

singles and the church

2008-08-02T18:26:00.007-05:00

Some good discussion here about being single in the church and some of the issues faced, though it doesn't add a whole lot to the discussion that I and other singles I've known aren't already aware of. But it does remind me that I really, really ought to write one of those tediously long posts about it sometime. I can relate firsthand to a lot of the experiences and frustrations shared by commenters.

I think someone summed it up well with the "singles are invisible" comment. We're there physically and involved in church activities and all, but oftentimes that's about where the connection to "the body" ends. The emotional and spiritual ties--i.e. the more meaningful ones--just aren't very deep. The modern church, at least the prevailing examples I've seen of it, really doesn't know what to do with singles, especially this burgeoning, never-seen-before demographic of older Christian singles, and especially since many of them aren't all-out intent on getting married. Compounding the problem is the fact that a lot of singles don't know too well how to integrate with a church, or at least (especially?) a church culture, that seems (to them) to be designed and run for married folks. Not that either side is at fault necessarily, it's just one of those weird things where there's a gap between people at different stations in life and nobody knows how to bridge it. But, for better or for worse, it does have huge implications for the future of the church and its ability to both care for its own and reach out to those outside its ranks, especially in our society. And by extension, it has huge implications for the future of the society as a whole.

Anyway, further discussion is for another time. I'm hungry for a decent, good-size meal--and me being a single guy with minimal cooking skills, that obviously means I need to leave the house to forage for some good eats...

what did we expect?

2008-08-02T12:32:00.004-05:00

Great Vox post here. As the title says, what else would we expect from atheists? Should we be the least bit surprised at their apathy? They're plenty willing to scream and whine and cry and generally throw a fit about what others are doing, but actually giving money to support such ranting and purposeful offending? Well now, that requires such fuzzy things as convictions and a desire to do well in the world for folks other than oneself, sensibilities atheists have not shown themselves to possess large quantities of these days.

Also, how on the mark is the following bit from the comment thread?

AIDS is already preventable, simply by an exercise of choice. The liberal do-gooders of the world just don't like the IMPLICATIONS of that fact, so instead they want to erase the consequence of that choice. And they want the world to spend billions, trillions even, on efforts to do such. It's about removal of consequences, more than about saving lives.

If saving lives were really the prime objective, logic suggests a much better possibility of success by funding missionaries to go to AIDS-heavy parts of the world and convert people to Christianity. That is a proven method, and doesn't even require giant donations to GlaxoSmithKline, which has no proven method.

But of course that just wouldn't do. Why, we can't have those poor people become Christians, and maybe learn to live together without tribal genocides, dictators, voodoo medicine, and bad agriculture. It simply isn't ... uh... politically savory.

What an excellent take. Whether or not one is a Christian, facts are facts. By far the most progress in stopping the spread of AIDS in Africa has been made via abstinence-only education and that mostly (if not entirely) at the hands of Christians. So to restate what the guy says in different words, if it were truly the saving of lives that were of primary concern, we would put or prejudices aside and wholly support missionary efforts in the area that already have a proven track record in not only stopping the spread of AIDS but in combating other societal ills as well. The fact that we (as a nation/culture) don't suggests that there is a higher priority in our minds than saving lives of people in far off lands. Ultimately, we want to feel good, free, and empowered, far more than we actually want to exercise the humility necessary to do the best thing for others. Yay, go Western culture...

cubs update

2008-07-29T21:04:00.003-05:00

And now on to pressing matters of life and death...The Cubs are looking slightly less solid than they did a month or so ago, no longer possessing the best record in the league (thanks to the Angels, who just upgraded by adding a power bat no less) and leading the pesky Brewers by only two games. But at least they're wasting the Brew Crew 6-0 in the seventh as I type and they are still tops record-wise in the NL anyway.

Speaking of, it's long overdue for someone to remind the Brewers that small-market teams are supposed to pull a Baltimore and fade quickly after spring is over. But I must admit, as much as I like the Cubs, it's hard to root against Milwaukee. Who doesn't like to see unknown teams come from nowhere and shake up the big clubs? (They did go out and grab Sabathia, though, so they're not exactly a quiet "other" team.) A Brewers-Rays series would be cool. But a Cubs-Rays series would be a dream, as not only would that fulfill the "perfect Series" requirements for both a small-market team and a team named the Cubs being involved, but I could easily hook up boarding arrangements near both cities to get in on the once-in-a-lifetime action.

Anyway, I suppose it's a good thing I've been getting in a little more overtime recently, because those Wrigley World Series tix aren't gonna come cheap!

africa follow-up

2008-07-28T20:47:00.004-05:00

On a topic related to that of the recent South Africa post, Vox shares his thoughts concerning the troubles of Ethiopia:

Leave Africa to the Africans. It's their problem, so let them sort it out. What is more racist than to insist that an entire continent of human beings are totally incapable of addressing their own problems?

I really like how he brings in the racism trump card with such force against those who always try to claim it as their own. I'm not sure I agree with him entirely though. He's right on as far as government aid is concerned, but I hope and suspect Vox would agree there is a place for missionary activity and other charitable efforts that aim to change the culture from the ground up and not just throw money and "regime change" at surface issues. But that's another topic.

Again, the point of leaving people capable of governing themselves alone to govern themselves is a good one to take away. Either they're capable of self-rule and that right ought to be respected by those of other continents, or they're not capable of it and we need to quit pretending they are by supporting puppet governments or assuming the next strong-arm leader will be better than the last one. Come to think of it, maybe the perpetual influx of Western money and resources into the hands of those who use it only to continue the madness is part of the problem. Methinks Western leaders have been inexcusably slow in learning how governments unlike their own really operate--or at least how they don't operate.

if only there were more like her

2008-07-27T15:05:00.005-05:00

Shockingly, I find myself in agreement with feminazis on something, though I'm convinced it's just a freak accident of two opposite worldviews coincidentally overlapping on the same bit of truth rather than evidence that said belief systems are other than opposite. It seems that some women would be very capable of at least setting a good example in society's highest leadership roles for others of their sex--though I concede one will much sooner find solid supporting evidence in history than in contemporary times. Consider, for example, the following:

I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were women to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings, and would surely perish without male protection.

-- Queen Victoria, 1870

A prophetess, no? Methinks "the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings" is quite an accurate description of the hordes of feminazis roaming the lands of Western civilization and devoting all their energy to destroying the foundations of their own world. What a shame too few folks heeded the Queen's common-sense warning. The world needed a lot more Queen Victoria's back in the day. Were that the case then maybe, just maybe, today's world would be a lot less twisted than it is. The poor woman has certainly been spinning in her grave for many decades now.

today's history 101 lesson: south africa

2008-07-26T18:10:00.008-05:00

As if to elaborate on the pessimism of the previous post, here is an outstanding article a friend recently passed along to me. I would grab a few quotes from it, but the whole thing is that good so you just need to go read it all. Scary stuff, I tell you, and not in the least because some of what the author suspected would happen in the U.S. has already happened since she wrote the piece. Either she's a total quack making a bunch of doomsday predictions and trying to stir up fury, or she's at least partially right on some of that.

I, of course, believe the latter to be the case. The article has tremendous insight and reads like it was written by someone watching a predictable series of events from afar. And as I said, she has already been proven to be a prophet of sorts on many issues. This is very ungood for those who would like to see the States continue to be a beacon of civilization.

I figure it must seem like watching a movie you've seen before--you don't know or remember exactly how every detail will work out until just as it happens, but you know the basic plot line. You are happy to see the characters do things that will work in their favor and wince as they make bad moves, because you know what's coming. Especially important, you know how it ends. Even if some twists catch you by surprise, you know the arc the storyline is on and getting from here to there is only a matter of filling in the intermediate details. I submit that world events parallel history in such fashion more often than we may realize, and that the scenario outlined in the article will eventually be just more supporting evidence.

As I told the guy who sent the link to me, I hope I'm wrong but I suspect it's too late to change the onslaught of stupidity and ignorance that is gaining ground faster than ever in this country. A lot of that has been building for too long and would take at least a generation, likely more, to change. We won't have that kind of time if things continue as they do, and hoping for people to suddenly wake up to what's going on and/or get the courage to stand up and resist it is a sucker bet too.

The topic of South Africa is an interesting one in itself. I don't know much about its recent history, but I remember seeing the headlines and hearing about it constantly back in the day when apartheid was being dismantled and Mandela was getting released from prison and being celebrated as a worldwide hero and all. I always figured things worked out going forward. After all, we just kinda quit hearing anything about it from the "news" peddlers, so it's safe to assume things must have gone okay, right? After all, since when did the news media turn its back on a story wrought with destruction, violence, despair, and all those things that sell so well to the tube-watching public? Oh, right, when events at hand didn't fit their paradigm of how they wish the world to be...gotcha.

I'm suddenly quite curious as to what the real story of South Africa is, as well as that of Mandela, et al. Were things ever really as they were made out to be? What's it really like over there now? Hopefully the article paints a grimmer picture of reality than what it really is, as there are always many sides to the same story, but I wonder how much of what went on and is going on was/is considered "unreportable" by the powers that be and simply not passed along to the masses.

Oh well, in the end it's a good thing to know that God performs miracles and that what we see happening around us is all but irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. We may just need one or two or several to get out of the mess we're in. And if we end up on the low road? As they say, God has a habit of refining his church every now and then...

another fredism

2008-07-26T18:02:00.004-05:00

Nobody these days captures truth in bite-size chunks quite like Fred. Here's a great analogy about America and its economic prowess that isn't quite what it used to be:

The country seems to be in an economic decline and hasn’t figured it out, sort of like a fifty-year–old man who thinks he’s nineteen.

I like that, though I'd like it more if it weren't true. The populace and especially the gummint seems to be humming right along as if things will just magically keep falling into place like they always have for us Americans. Take a look at the world, folks. Or just wait and see...

reminder of the times

2008-07-20T21:32:00.003-05:00

Here's a hard kick in the crotch, courtesy of the Campaign for Liberty:

Congratulations, dear reader. Cost of Government Day was last Wednesday, July 16th. This means that after slaving away for over half the year to pay state, local and federal taxes, you’re finally working for yourself.

This year’s Cost of Government Day fell four days later than last year’s, and sixteen days later than in 2000. Ironically, the biggest increases in government spending took place during the “conservative” administrations of George Bush 41 & 43.

Ain't gummint great?

Actually, I just realized I'm forced to retract my earlier claim that there should be no holidays. We most definitely need a Cost of Government Day if for no other reason than to keep the wildly out-of-control freight train that is the income tax system on people's minds as they observe the holiday coming around later every year. And why shouldn't the ones working to foot the bill for everyone else get a day off after their more than half a year of unpaid labor?

quite a heist for the 'phins

2008-07-20T21:04:00.003-05:00

WHAT!?!? What the heck are the Deadskins thinking? Trading a second-rounder and a sixth-rounder for a 34-year-old dude who skipped an entire mini-camp worth of workouts and is gonna have to play out of position anyway? Okay, so he's put up decent numbers recently, but the guy ain't immortal and everyone knows defensive linemen take heavy abuse. My prediction is he has a respectable but role-player-ish several games until an injury forces him out mid-season.

Off the top of my head I'm not coming up with another NFL move in recent years to match that level of boneheadedness. I mean, this level of insanity and dealing of overpaid has-been's is reserved for the NBA--or so I thought. I guess the Deadskins were that unhappy with their reserve linemen. (In their defense, they did lose two of them to injury on the same day.) Or maybe that's why they're the Deadskins. And maybe that's one reason Bill Parcells is Bill Parcells. Perhaps he can work the front office as well as he did the sidelines back in the day.

bad parenting: not just a u.s. problem

2008-07-20T16:27:00.004-05:00

Read a somewhat disturbing blurb in the recent WEEK issue that also had a few lines that made me laugh. It's worth posting in its entirety:

Ireland is swarming with unfit parents, said Ian O'Doherty in the Dublin Irish Independent. You can't walk down a street in Dublin without hearing some woman screeching at her child to "fooken shut up." Recently I was waiting in line at a shop when the tot behind me told its mother it had to "do me toilet." Rather than take the child to the bathroom and lose her place in line, the woman yelled "hold on to your bleedin' kidneys." My colleague overheard a mother tell her kid that if he didn't quiet down, she would stab him. You may say that rearing children is a private matter, but that doesn't wash in the Ireland of today. These abused kids are surely the "muggers, junkies, and murderers of tomorrow." The state is "negligent in its duty of care toward children when it allows people like these to raise anything more evolved than a chicken." It is indefensible that "you need a license to have a dog or television, yet any drooling halfwit can drop as many kids as they want and the state will pay them for it." As a society, "we need to develop the balls to say enough is enough--having kids is a responsibility, not a right."

Despite his apparent nanny-state leanings, the guy makes a point that applies in this country, too. There are too many idiots out there who, for various reasons, are raising their kids so poorly that the children have little chance of ever knowing how to go about life being anything other than a bum or a criminal. My first response is there must be something that can be done about this, but I wonder if it's too late to fix the problem, at least within a generation or so (and fixing it after that would require the previous generation waking up to its own stupidity, so that would certainly appear to be a sucker bet as well). What kind of law or government intervention can fix it at this point? Any such meddling would be the sort of social engineering that has been wrought with failure throughout history. The government can't be expected to solve a problem it's incapable of solving.

The problem is tied up in the greater issue of the moral decay of society as a whole. And that has been a long time coming. Parenting is the sort of thing that requires a strong sense of personal responsibility and care for others, combined with an acceptance that one's life is not one's own. These character traits among the populace are derived, of course, from a solid moral underpinning of society, not from the newest government fix-it fad. So I don't suppose it should surprise anyone that we who are supposedly highly advanced and "progressive" find ourselves without the necessary means to combat the problem. Thus we keep crying to the government to "do something" on our behalf, while government continues to demonstrate again and again that it is utterly inept at confronting such issues and will only fail no matter how much money or how many policies it throws at them. Oh well, civilizations as well as individuals reap what they sow.

Just for good measure, I'll throw in the Best Quote Ever by Any American Political Figure: "Our constitution is intended to govern a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." That can be said of any political system, really. Without some higher sense of duty (religious or otherwise, but that's a discussion for another time) that promotes altruism and is followed by enough people such that it has the effect of a stabilizer and compass for the society, government just becomes a game of strong-arm tactics and who can tickle the people's ears the most. And, well, look how well that's worked throughout history. The path we're on has been well-traveled for sure. (As a side note, I think that historical bit is covered in some detail in Vox's The Irrational Atheist, which I really need to get around to reading.)

completely unsurprising fact of the day

2008-07-20T16:05:00.004-05:00

Just took the Autism Quotient Test via a link from Vox's. The result? A 33 (out of 50), which puts me in this category:

32-50 very high (Most people with Asperger Syndrome or high functioning autism score about 35)

The "average" range is 11-22, with average scores being 15 for men and 17 for women. So I'm much more anti-social than most people and probably have at least a mild case of AS. Um...duh? Didn't need a test to tell me that.

Also, I think Vox is trying to test his hypothesis that atheists generally score much higher on the autism charts and tend to be more anti-social than theists or the population at large. That should go without saying methinks. After all, the stereotype of scientists being (disproportionately) atheist and some combination of arrogant, weird, and generally unable to interact well or at least pleasantly with other people certainly comes from somewhere, and my experience throughout college tells me that stereotype tends to align with reality quite well. But from looking at the scores in the comments thread, I'd say there are a few of us theists skewing his results considerably. Sorry, Vox.

question for the ages

2008-07-16T17:51:00.002-05:00

Thomas Friedman asks one that's worth asking:

Maybe Asians, Europeans, Latin Americans and Africans don’t like a world of too much American power — “Mr. Big” got a little too big for them. But how would they like a world of too little American power?

Plenty of folks, including me, dislike (and rightly so IMO) this country's spoiled over-indulgence, its squandering of resources in relentless attempts to police the entire globe and magically transform entire cultures overnight, its ever-increasing government nannyism, its people's ignorance of anything not served up by the boob tube, etc., but as Friedman points out, at least the U.S. is still willing to show some courage and stand for something on an international stage. That's worth a lot and is important to remember. And it's more than can be said of most (all?) current, and especially emerging, powers. Like it or not, we may soon find out what a world dominated by governments with even less of a moral compass than that of the U.S. is like. As they say, be careful what you wish for...

sorry, but i see more humor than tragedy here

2008-07-10T20:43:00.003-05:00

I can't say I didn't find this pretty funny. Not to kick them while they're down, but it's times like these when you gotta wonder a little about that Catholic theology. Thankfully the whole world didn't come to a grinding halt when that kid made off with a snack. I definitely don't agree with the vagrant's pathetic cause or how he went about it, and sure it's a little uncouth to derive humor at the misfortunes of innocents, but I must admit laughing as I read that one.

Quotes...

"It is hurtful," said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. "Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family."

Dude...I'm not Catholic or anything, but comparing a loser snatching some bread, blessed or not, to the kidnapping of a family member? Isn't that overplaying this whole thing a little bit?

Gonzalez said intentionally abusing the Eucharist is classified as a mortal sin in the Catholic church, the most severe possible.

Huh? Did somebody say something about idolatry?

and i thought he was one of the good guys

2008-07-10T17:49:00.002-05:00

I always figured Matt Jones was a decent, upstanding guy. He certainly seemed to be when he was with Arkansas, even if he did come off as apathetic at times. And with Jax I never heard any criticism other than his lack of intensity that's haunted him as long as I've known of him.

Well, either I was wrong or things have changed. But seeing his name in the blotter for not a little bit of cocaine does not bode well. Methinks his NFL career is over for the time being; it's not like Jax was all that high on him (sorry, no pun intended) last year and this offseason anyway, so they aren't exactly gonna be eager to cut him some slack. Yet another case of a guy "making it" but refusing to leave the past behind and keep himself out of tight spots.

Hopefully that's not as bad as it looks, but I'm guessing it is. After all, given the Hogs' track record of keeping guys out of trouble, nobody can claim to be totally surprised. I hate to say it but facts and history don't lie...

the vacation of a lifetime?

2008-07-06T17:36:00.003-05:00

One of the reasons I changed jobs was to be able to do a little bit more traveling, perhaps (especially?) even big-time stuff that's pricey but potentially life-changing in a lot of ways. Well, a trip advertised in the WORLD magazine I was reading a few nights ago might just be that kind of thing. The Calvin 500 Commemorative Tour, a celebration of the quincentenary (or 500th anniversary for us commoners) of John Calvin's birth, sure looks like all that and more. A week and a half in some of the most historic and beautiful parts of Europe...with fellow Reformed Christians to hang and chat with...and time to do cool stuff in cool places...and, last but not least, two Calvin conferences and an all-star lineup of speakers. I mean, this thing is a Who's Who of contemporary theologians. Think of it as the Ligonier annual conference but far grander in just about every way.

There is, of course, the expected drawback: it ain't cheap. No, it really, really ain't cheap. As in, $3,669 per person for starters, before flight tickets, upgrades (single room, other hotel, whatever), some meals, spending money, and other stuff that's expensive in those distant realms. In other words, we're talking several thousand dollars here, and that's before the mandatory pre- or post-conference Europe sightseeing that would most certainly have to be part of the package. OUCH? Yeah, I think that price tag would sting for a while.

But still, seriously, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a more awesome combination of history, scenery, fellow travelers, and interesting topics all rolled into one. Two full days in Paris, one in Strasbourg, travel through the Alps in between, and a week in Geneva to take in the local sights while getting fed at two--yes, two--international symposia throughout the week? Oh, and throw in Ferguson, Thomas, Beeke, Duncan, Ryken, and a whole bunch of other dudes I haven't heard of but I'm sure would be awesome to listen to. It might be another 500 years before that sort of opportunity presents itself. And chances are I wouldn't still be around then even if it did.

I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't on the same level as the Cubs in the World Series: an event that would leave no decision to be made, only action to be taken. Expensive or not, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is certainly at hand. I suppose the real question to grapple with might be whether or not I could get over not being there if I don't go...

holidays: who needs 'em?

2008-07-04T19:48:00.004-05:00

I have long thought that most holidays were overhyped and more or less a useless day off. In general, holidays come and go for me, without any special meaning or advance thinking/planning attached save for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and occasionally Easter. In some ways I'd actually prefer to see them given less emphasis, or at least less formal/institutional emphasis. Now there are surely some good reasons for them as well, such as a need for days of remembrance of some sort, especially in this day and age in which the powers that be are constantly trying to forget, reshape, or rewrite the past to suit their silly utopian aims. Also, I'm sure they hold some sentimental or traditional value for folks who always gather with family or otherwise do the same thing year to year on specific holiday weekends. But these aren't things that necessitate mandated days off for so much of the population. I'm convinced life would be better if we didn't have these periodic common days off.

For one, paid holidays on a job aren't much good except for creating a forced vacation day. And for me, not getting paid holidays now means they're only a forced day off and nothing more. In other words, in my world of work they're a detriment in that they force me to work around them in ways that might interfere with other plans. Now I'm not saying that the paid time off that comes with holidays should be eliminated altogether, but rather that it shouldn't be tied to specific days on the calendar.

Think about it. Rather than 15 vacation days and 10 holidays per year (for those lucky enough to actually get 10 holidays, i.e. those working for the gummint), who wouldn't want 25 vacation days instead? If you would rather have the holidays off, assign 10 of your leave days to holidays and call it done. The whole holiday concept strikes me as a holdover from a past era in which hourly workers were forced to work extremely long hours and weeks year-round such that periodic days off were the only way to ensure they got a few extra breaks here and there, but my knowledge of history is insufficient to back up that claim. In any case, I don't see that being the case for a lot of folks today, and where it is an issue there are much better ways to work around it than just assigning everybody the same off days.

This might create some headaches for employers in that they now have more time off scattered throughout the year that they have to plan around instead of having everyone off on common days, but this would be at least partially offset by the added flexibility and savings for holiday pay. For example, many employers have to pay extra for holiday work hours. My former employer had even taken several holidays off of its "official" calendar, such that I had 19 days of vacation per year instead of 15, for the primary purpose of having a more flexible and less expensive operating calendar. I wish they had just done the same with the rest of the holidays on the books. And for others, the idea of losing entire workgroups for an extra day one week brings on another set of problems that must be resolved in advance. Just because people aren't at work doesn't mean the world stops or project demands and requirements get put on hold.

This leads into another strike against the holiday calendar. The main reason I'd rather not have specific holidays off is that it's harder to do anything on those days. Why? Because everyone else wants to do something. Weekends are bad enough as it is. Holiday weekends? Forget it, not worth the hassle and extra cost to attempt much of anything. For some unfounded reason unknown to me, people all want to get out and do their fun stuff on holiday weekends despite the huge added burden of overcrowding and the delays and hassles that come with it. So most holidays on my calendar are basically "dead days" on which it's not worth the trouble to do anything except stay at home or work because dealing with all the special-outing types is just too cumbersome. And I know from discussions at my old workplace that I'm far from the only person with this mindset.

Case in point: here it is, Independence Day evening, and I'm doing...what? Sitting at home pecking at a keyboard. I'd rather be downtown watching some fireworks, listening to music, wandering around, or otherwise occupying myself with entertaining activities, but today is off the list of good days to do stuff on. The drawbacks of the crowds (especially the slow, gawking, oblivious type crowds--grrr) outweigh any benefits to be had by doing something cool. I wouldn't dream of going to Cape Cod or attending special events downtown today or tomorrow just due to the inevitable logistical nightmare it would quickly turn into. Again, most holidays are similar for me, and my only consistent travel day over the past few years has been Thanksgiving, and only then because I wanted to make at least one trip home and figured a weekend with two mandatory vacation days piled up against it was too long to do nothing but not a good candidate to plan anything for due to it being a holiday weekend. In other words, I'd have rather had those days off to spend some other time on a trip home over a non-holiday weekend.

Wouldn't it be so much easier if we all had that paid day off to assign to whatever Friday or Monday we wanted it to be on? Wouldn't this be better for the tourism industry because there would be more people out on off-weekends and crowds would be more balanced? Wouldn't families rather be able to get together on their own schedules instead of trying to beat the crowds at parks, campgrounds, hotels, events, whatever? Sure seems to me that the solution here is obvious: more vacation days and less holidays equals more freedom. And freedom is good.

There's another way holidays cause trouble: a lot of regular places of business or closed. Admittedly that's a selfish reason, but wouldn't more businesses choose to stay open if this were a regular day? Again, it'd bring more flexibility, as discussed above. And if stores want to close anyway due to the day of remembrance then they can do so. But I'm guessing most wouldn't if so many other workplaces weren't closed to begin with.

This one is particularly fresh on my mind because I just went out to grab some grub. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I don't usually pay much attention to holidays, and this includes at times forgetting that the present day is even a holiday--as was the case today. Well, my memory was jogged when I noticed on my way to the mall that there were very few cars parked anywhere. And when I got to the mall, it was closed. I am 99% sure this is the first time in my life I've been to a mall and found the doors locked. Not that I go to malls often enough to be an authority on such matters--they're entirely useless and dreadful except for the food court, which itself is very handy when you're hungry for a dinner other than soup or boxed food but can't decide what to go for--but I was quite shocked to actually discover one closed; until a couple of hours ago I would have sworn those things never closed early on any day of the year. Thankfully, the trusty D'Angelo sub shop that I frequent every weekend was open and willing to help a hungry guy out, so the story had a good ending. But still, there was some unexpected and unplanned-for trouble there that can be attributed to the holiday schedule.

Of course, as I said before, not everybody values the lesser holidays (i.e. those not directly inspired by Christianity, sorry to any trendy types out there but them's the facts) as little as I do. I'm sure for some folks, those days mean family reunions or special outings or parties with friends or what-have-you. In my case, I really didn't grow up with all that so it's never been a big deal. A holiday was a day off of school or a chance to stay up late, then it became a chance to make a quick trip home and/or catch up on sleep--and on rare occasions, studies--during college, then it turned into the equivalent of a forced vacation day, and now it's only a day off without pay. Okay, I remember doing family reunions every now and then back in the day, but those were often as much chaos as enjoyment, with me, being the introvert I always was, seeking solitude or time with one or two folks whenever and wherever I could find it. And those reunions were infrequent anyway. The point is, they were far from a tradition that was kept every year and that I'd feel obligated to keep up with.

This kinda brings up another drawback of getting rid of holidays. For schools, it's almost a necessity for days off to be coordinated among all students. But there's an easy remedy to that for children: homeschool or send kids to private schools which offer more flexibility and resemble more an institution of learning than a day care and indoctrination compound. That's far from the only or most significant advantage of homeschooling or private schooling, but that's another topic for another day. And in college, how many professors actually decreased their courseload to account for holidays? If you had the ones I had, not a lot. More often, it just resulted in more being crammed in during the prior and following weeks to make up for the lost class time. So why not just keep the class schedule normal? If students want a weekend off then they can skip class for a couple of days anyway.

The bottom line is, there are a lot of reasons a holiday-free calendar would be easier for all of us. And it'd probably be more meaningful too, with folks getting to spend those days how they want and thus having more options to actually do what they want. The drawbacks that would come from a lack of common off-days could easily be worked around, so easily that I don't see why they're not already worked around. Who wouldn't benefit from more freedom to choose their days off?

larry's first law

2008-07-03T20:06:00.003-05:00

As stated by--who else--Larry, in a comment at Dr. Helen's:

Larry's First Law: "Laziness is the foundation of efficiency. Give a job to a lazy guy and he'll find the simpliest, fastest, and easiest way to get the job done right the first time. Anything else is extra work."

Words to live by, folks!