I Shd Read the Local Papers More Often (Poke-em-With-a-Stick-Wednesday)

So, a few days ago I learned through a piece in the freebie local paper, THE KENT REPORTER, that the week before our state's governor, Jay Inslee, put a moratorium on all executions in Washington State. Here's the editorial in favor of the decision:

http://www.kentreporter.com/opinion/246242001.html


My take on this is:  Just like that, the world became a better place.

We're still caught up in a twelve-year war that shd have ended eleven years ago

We're still running a gulag to imprison men for life without trial

We're still doing a lot of things we shdn't. But sometimes, we get things right. And this is one of those times. So, good for Governor Inslee.

For a haunting look at a visual presentation of the last words of some recently executed people, see the following link; be sure to scroll down past the story to see the images:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/death-row-photography_n_4644109.html


--JDR

Channeling Their Inner Nixon

So, here's a story that made my head spin: turns out the NRA (national rifle association) has an enemies' list. Just like the one Richard Nixon had during Watergate. Those on it range from organizations like the AARP and YWCA to individuals like Michael Moore (no surprise there) and Dick Van Dyke. Not to mention some churches, like the Methodists and Episcopals and Evangelical Lutherans and Catholics and the Mennonites.

Seriously, the NRA considers Mennonites a threat?*

Or Peter Bonerz (Jerry the Dentist from the Bob Newhart show)? Pam Dawber (Mindy from Mork and Mindy)? Barry Manilow?

Sean Connery I can see (the man only shoots people in the movies), but Art Garfunkel? Jimmy Carter? Hallmark? Sara Lee?

Weird.

Here's the link.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/02/good_lord_is_this_awesome.php


*clearly, we Presbyterians are doing something wrong if we're not on such a list. Let's hope our omission was just an oversight.


UPDATE, Monday February 11th
--A piece in today's Huffington Post reports that the NRA has pulled the 494-member 'enemies' list' from their website. Here's the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/nra-anti-gun-list-missing_n_2663766.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Listening to Talk Radio (Poke-em-with-a-Stick Wednesday)

So, I actually listen to talk radio on a fairly regular basis -- a little in the morning (until it's forced off the air for six or seven midday hours devoted to the horror that is Jazz) while making breakfast, and a little in the afternoon while driving over to pick up Janice after work. Not every day, but more often than not.

But that's NPR, which is not what most people mean these days when they say "Talk Radio". "Talk Radio" has come to mean politicized shock-jocks, mostly right wing, like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved (the only radio personality I know of who shares a name with a Tolkien character). That's not my cup of tea, but once in a long while I'll get curious and listen off and on to such shows for a few days, then find myself happy to do without it for another year or two.

This morning, it was curiosity over how they were reporting on last night's debates compared to how various progressive websites were covering the story that lured me into listening. I didn't see the debate itself, having opted for a friend's birthday party instead (hi, Stan!), so it was very much listening to the blind men describing the elephant. The progressive sites were relieved and triumphant, thinking their candidate had done well; the radio hosts varied between insulting the moderator with fat jokes and claiming that their guy didn't lose after all (never a good sign).

The most amusing takeaway from all this, for me, was one radio host's inveighing against a NASA program working to develop food for use on the Mars Mission, once we actually have a Mars mission. Another was a commercial on another channel advertising special Survivalist rations (freeze-dried and canned) that wd remain edible for years, come the End Times.  Here, I thought, was a great chance to kill two birds with one stone: dub the Mars food 'Rapture Rations' and surely those same radio hosts would be clamoring for more money to be spent developing them.

For the rest of today, I think it'll be listening to cds and giving the airwaves a rest.

--John R.

Wheaton College and Rachel Maddow

So, had the tv on Monday watching the Rachel Maddow show* and just as I was turning it off as our D&D playtest group was arriving, saw that the next story was something about Wheaton College. That got my curiosity up, and I wondered if it was the same Wheaton College, home of the Wade Collection, wh. I've been visiting once a year or so since about '83, or the Wheaton College in Massachusetts where Michael Drout teaches, or some other Wheaton College altogether.

A little poking around yesterday reveals that yes indeed, it is the Wheaton in Wheaton, Illinois. Here's the clip from Maddow's show that I just missed:

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/48541314#48541314

And here's a somewhat more tempered reporting of the story that offers a little more background into how this came about.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/wheaton-college-birth-control_n_1734919.html

The saddest part comes at the end, where a representative of the group managing the lawsuit suggests the college just drop all health care for everyone who works there. I hope that this doesn't happen. And, if that does come to pass, the group steps forward to provide free health care to all those Wheaton employees.

--JDR

*which we'd gotten out of the habit of when it got too self-indulgent and are recently dipping back into now and again

With a Whimper

So, the Iraqi war winds down at last. Ironically, given that the timetable for withdrawal was negotiated by Bush, who had no intention of honoring the agreement,* and that it forces Obama to keep a campaign promise that he's since repudiated. Turns out they both didn't take into account how much the Iraqis hate being an occupied colonial state run by a puppet government. And so, after killing roughly five percent of the country's population and created the chaos that led about another twenty percent to flee (either to relocate in other areas of Iraq to escape 'ethnic cleaning' or to leave the country entirely for Jordan et al), in the end we settle for the Vietnam option: leave behind massive amounts of armaments,** withdraw to a fortress-embassy, and Go Home.***

About Time.

--JDR

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/obama-iraq_n_1032507.html

--JDR

*kind of like Churchill's promises to free India after WWII

**when we left S. Vietnam, it had the world's third largest airforce, since we gave them most of the military equipment in the field rather than bringing it back home. It didn't do them any good.

***here's hoping there's no secret clause in the agreement we don't know about -- like Nixon's promising the N. Vietnamese war reparations

'Terrorist Olive Oil' (Poke-em-with-a-Stick-Wednesday)

So, last night I stumbled across a strange little story that startled me about how nakedly racist it was.

The whole tale's ins & outs were too complicated to rehearse here, but basically someone noted how Whole Foods is a good source for Halal (=Islamic Kosher) foods and recommended Muslims shop there for Ramadan. Somehow, as with the people opposed to a mosque's being built in New York City last year, this morphed into charges by some zealots that Israeli products were being pulled off the shelf and that Whole Foods was funneling money to jihadists.

It's weirdly comical to think that someone could use a phrase like "terrorist olive oil" (by which they meant some proceeds might go to a school in the Occupied Territories). But it's bizarre and disturbing to learn that they really mean it, both for the naked racism it shows and for the vast degree of departure from reality involved to create pretexts to vent that hatred. George Wallace and Theodore Bilbo wd be proud.

What a World, What a World, What a World.

Here are some links. The first, expressing the anti-Islam position, comes from a woman who was in the news not all that long back for expressing her pleasure that fellow American Lara Logan had been raped.*

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/40514/anti-israel-whole-foods-wishes-you-a-happy-ramadan/

The second is to the quiet, deliberately quaint website for "Canaan Olive Oil", the product that seems to have set off the bugaboo. I'm impressed how many of today's buzzwords they got in: sustainable farming, organic, fair trade, &c., even the wholly appropriate "land of milk and honey".

http://www.canaanfairtrade.com/

I know which of these I think does a better job of presenting its best face to the world.

--John R.

*at one point taunting the rape victim with the memorable phrase "Hope you're enjoying the revolution!". Ugh.

Poke-Em-With-A-Stick-Wednesday (Joseph Wright Takes On Saul of Tarsus)

So, I've finally gotten around to reading THE PARGITERS: THE NOVEL-ESSAY PORTION OF 'THE YEARS', an edition of Woolf's unfinished first-draft attempt at the work that later became her demi-penultimate novel, THE YEARS. I've had a copy since 1986 (when I bought it at People's Bookstore in Milwaukee, on the lower east side), but given that THE YEARS is one of her weaker books I've obviously taken my time in getting around to it, spurred on by my recent reading of two other books on Bloombury or by Bloomsbury figures.

The most interesting thing about THE YEARS, from my point of view, has always been that one of the characters in it was inspired by Joseph Wright, Tolkien's tutor; Woolf had been deeply impressed by Wright's biography (written by Mary Wright) and his enlightened attitude towards women (which might in turn have explained Tolkien's support of women's higher education, which many of his generation at best tolerated and more often disparaged). In fact, in the course of my researches I found a letter Woolf had written to Mrs. Wright unknown to the editors of her Collected Letters (after I drew it to their attention they did get it added in, but I forget whether in the trade paperback reprinting or a supplement -- it's a long time ago now).

What startled me this time was coming across a quote attributed to Wright in the editor's introduction to this volume (p. xii). It so happens that I own the two-volume biography of Joseph Wright (although I confess I haven't read it yet; in this case I've only had the book since 2005, so I shd get to it one of these years), so I looked it up. It's a good thing I did, since the editor in fact compressed the quote, leaving out half a sentence without any indication of having done so. Here's the quote as it appears in Wright's book:

"St. Paul and the likes of him have much to answer for, and it is ever my most pious wish that they will reap their due reward. It is due to them, and them alone, that woman has been such a downtrodden creature in the past. It is only the present generation of women that is beginning to realize the abject state of woman in the past. Not so very long ago -- it still exists in many old-fashioned families -- a woman was regarded as a poor weak and feeble-minded creature who had no right to think for herself, but must leave all that to her husband, however silly and stupid he might be. Nay, things were even worse, for a woman was not generally allowed to chose her own husband, that was practically settled for her by her parents or guardian. I am thankful that all this is passing away. Apart from every other consideration, it is much better for the whole human race . . ." *

This is, of course, overstating the case -- Roman law and Mediterranean/Mid-East culture were both pretty misogynistic all on their own -- but he's right in that Paul of Tarsus put a theological imprimatur on misogyny that lasted for centuries (in fact, in some circles it's not over yet).

And did JRRT absorb this lesson from his mentor, along with his encyclopedic knowledge of out-of-the-way words and thirst to learn all he cd about their origin, or dogged determination to see a lengthy project through until its final triumphant completion and publication? Impossible to say, but it is interesting to note that for an author as old-fashion and traditionalist as Tolkien is generally held to be, there's a marked lack of emphasis on 'Obey'. Might be interesting to go back and re-read "The Mariner's Wife" from that perspective.

--John R.

current reading: THE PARGITERS by Virginia Woolf

*letter of Joseph Wright to his fiancee, Mary Wright; Sept. 5th 1896. Boldface emphasis mine; italic emphasis his. THE LIFE OF JOSPEH WRIGHT, by Elizabeth Mary Wright. (London: Oxford Univ. Pr, 1932). Volume I, page 315. My copy of this book bears a worn sticker in the shape of a green shield that I take to read "[B]oots/[Boo]klov[er']s/[L]ibrary"

The War on Drugs

This just in: we lost 'the War on Drugs'

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/global_commission_of_former_officials_says_war_on.php?ref=fpb

I expect this news flash to be followed soon by another to the effect that President Nixon's other big initiative, the war in Vietnam, isn't going all that well either.*

--JDR

*I mean, when even a Prohibitionist like me gives up on it, you know its days are numbered.

Xians Against Christ (Poke-em-with-a-Stick-Wednesday)

So, I was talking with my friend Steve (hi Stan!) today, and he mentioned an interesting piece he'd linked to on his Facebook page. Since I'm not on Facebook, he forwarded the link to me, and I found the accompanying piece fascinating.

Basically, a massively detailed Pew Center poll on religious affiliations and political views has provided the data that leads the author to conclude that the group most opposed to Christ's teachings are White, Evangelicals Xians.

Blessed are the peacemakers? They've the most pro-war.

Take care of the less fortunate? They've the most opposed to the safety net and poverty-relief programs.

Avoid violence? They've the strongest supporters of gun ownership.

Render unto Caesar? They've the most anti-tax.

--and so forth.

Here's the piece itself. I remember having seen the poll at the time, but I've since lost the link. In any case, I was more interested at the time in its detailed breakdown of denominations and their relative sizes, and so missed the correlations the author's now pointing out.

--JDR

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/why-evangelicals-hate-jes_b_830237.html?view=print

An Offer, Rescinded

So, yesterday I had the surprising experience of reading something intriguing and unexpected in Marquette's alumni magazine -- alumni magazines usually being as mild and uncontroversial a format as may be imagined. This time, the outgoing president's lead editorial included two strangely allusive paragraphs referring to recent events I'd heard nothing about till then:

"At the end of this academic year I made one of the most difficult decisions of my 14 years as president in rescinding a job offer made to a candidate for dean of the . . . College of Arts and Sciences. I came to this decision only after considerable reflection on a range of factors but most particularly on aspects of the candidate's writings as they pertained to Marquette's mission and identity. You may have heard various leaders talk about how lonely it can be at the moment of a particularly critical and tough decision. For me it was actually in being alone and in drawing upon my faith and training as a Jesuit and a theologian that I was able to strip away outside voices and interests and discern my own obligations as president of this institution and the community that I love and to act accordingly -- and, I continue to believe, correctly.

"However, the decision provoked great concern among some members of the university community -- some of which stunned me, particularly accusations of bias because of sexual orientation, and all of which saddened me, because it revealed shortcomings in our own internal processes and created divisiveness on campus. But from this incident, I also learned a great deal, including our need to deepen our own understanding of how our university is both Catholic and catholic, both of the Church and inclusive, open to ideas and opinions and welcoming to all people, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or social class. During my tenure . . . we have established a well-documented record of working for diversity and inclusivity among our students and staff and have fiercely defended academic freedom against those outside of the university who question it . . . "

--Fr. Rbt A. Wild, S.J.;

MARQUETTE Magazine (Summer 2010 issue), pages 3-4

(emphasis mine)

Curious what all this was about, since Fr. Wild tried hard to avoid actually saying anything about what he was talking about, I did a quick online search and learned that what seems to have happened back in May is roughly along these lines. The Search Committee for the new dean had picked a woman for the job who happens to be lesbian. The university first offered her the job and then suddenly withdrew the offer, apparently after the local Archbishop got involved (though his weighing in against her is hard to document). The stated reason was not her sexual orientation, they said (that sort of discrimination wd open them to all kind of lawsuits), but that fact that she had written in favor of gay marriage.

So, it's sad to see Marquette's attempt to enter the twenty-first century result in them sliding all the way back into the nineteenth instead, but not that surprising. I thought the most telling part was not that Marquette wd, in a sudden spasm, revert to arch-orthodoxy (that was the pattern at least once a year all the time I was there). Nor that Fr. Wild wd be shocked that some might accuse him of bias, simply because he'd just committed a discriminatory act. No, it was his conclusion that all this teaches him there's something wrong with their search committee. If only they'd made sure nobody who wasn't the proper sort of person holding the proper sort of opinions got the nod, he'd have been spared firing someone for holding an unOrthodox opinion before she even started to work for him.

All in all, I think the erstwhile-dean is lucky to have been fired before she even started, rather than the first time she said or wrote anything that didn't agree in full with the current administration in Rome.

--JDR

current audiobook: GENESIS (Jacob & Joseph)

current reading: YSABEL by G. G. Kay

God Smites Jesus Statue

So, the news yesterday out of Ohio about lightning striking a sixty-foot-tall statue of Jesus and burning it to a cinder in minutes is a good example of an event that invites any number of interpretations.* The event itself is fairly straightforward, but the story depends upon what we bring to it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/15/king-of-kings-ohio-jesus_n_612360.html

Possible Interpretations:

theological explanation #1: family squabble. Jehovah smites statue of Jesus with a bolt from the blue. Jesus refrains from miraculously restoring it. Holy Ghost stays out of it.

theological explanation #2: Jesus never really thought it was a good likeness anyway, takes out the statue himself.

non-theological explanation: high structures tend to attract lightning.

atheists' explanation: this is the result of random causation, an event without meaning in a meaningless universe.

smug atheists' explanation: this is the result of random causation that gives them a good excuse to smirk at anyone who thinks otherwise.

the Lovecraft explanation: a meaningless event in a universe without meaning that's out to get us!

all-purpose explanation: The Lord moves in Mysterious Ways.

and finally, from Janice, theological explanation #3: what part of 'no graven images' do you people not understand?

--JDR

current books: WISDOM'S DAUGHTER [1923] by Rider Haggard, & CHARLES WMS: ALCHEMY & INTEGRATION by Gavin Ashenden [2008]

*and mind you, this was only one of three weird news stories on the same day, narrowly beating out the NAACP getting all hot and bothered about a Hallmark Card's mention of black holes ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-langevine-leiby/political-correctness-run_b_612588.html ) and scientists starting an official study to try to figure out why Ozzy Osbourne's still alive ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/15/ozzy-osbournes-blood-to-b_n_612758.html ).

.

Poke-em-with-a-Stick Wednesday: Seattle Boycotts Arizona

So, it's official: the City of Seattle is now boycotting the state of Arizona in protest over their new Juan Crow laws. You can find the news story, which includes a link to the text of the official resolution adopted by the City Council, here:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politicsnorthwest/2011886559_arizona_boycott_wont_affect_bi.html?syndication=rss

Interestingly enough, while you wdn't think Arizona (in the midst of all its turmoil) wd pay any attention to a symbolic gesture like this, it turns out they're well aware of how this is playing out across the nation; here's an Arizona news story reporting the news about the Seattle boycott.

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2010/05/17/daily34.html

And yes, the irony that Seattle wd make a specific exemption to keep 'big brother' cameras, run by an Arizona firm, operating here is, well, ironic.

--JDR

current reading: "Liquid Music" (in MIDDLE EARTH MINSTREL) and "C. S. Lewis's 'The Meteorite' and the Importance of Context" (in the newest issue of MYTHLORE).

The Weirdest Story I Read Today

So, just to prove that terrorists are people too, comes the story that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are collecting spare rations to send to victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/gitmo-haiti-donations-pil_n_521006.html

Amazing. Simply amazing as a tribute to the human spirit.

And if you consider that a fair number, probably the majority, of these are people were arrested or kidnapped, then held and tortured for the better part of a decade, for things they didn't do, it's even more impressive.

--JDR

A Rebuke from 1772

So, last week I finished reading TALES BEFORE NARNIA [2008], a v. interesting collection put together by Doug Anderson as a sort of companion book to his TALES BEFORE TOLKIEN [2003]. It's a very good collection which makes readily available some fine hard-to-find pieces such as Tolkien's "The Dragon's Visit" [1937] (the original, superior version) and Kenneth Grahame's FIRST WHISPER OF WIND IN THE WILLOWS* [1944]. Also here are some real discoveries, such as a chapter from Roger Lancelyn Green's never-before-published THE WOOD THAT TIME FORGOT, which Lewis and Green both agreed had been a major inspiration for Narnia; or C. F. Hall's "The Man Who Lived Backwards", the story Lewis acknowledged in his Preface to THE GREAT DIVORCE [1946] as having been the source for one of his ideas in that book. Since Lewis could not remember the author or title of that story, Anderson's re-discovery of the tale in question is a real coup. And what's more, now that we have the story itself we can see its influence on THE DARK TOWER as well. I also found the final story, by Wm Lindsay Gresham (Joy Davidman's first husband, the father of Douglas and David), surprisingly moving -- Gresham is so often presented as a sort of walk-on villain in accounts of CSL's life that the fact he was a talented writer often gets overlooked.


All that aside, I was struck by a passage in one of the antecedents to THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS that held far too much resonance to today. The book in question, INFERNAL CONFERENCES; OR, DIALOGUES OF DEVILS [1772] is by Rev. John Macgowan, a hellfire Baptist preacher. In a long diatribe attacking the Inquisition, Macgowan has one of his devils extravagantly praise the Inquisition's work:

"One holy inquisitor goes beyond an hundred of our fraternity in the art of cruelty, which you know is the first of the learned sciences . . . Such wonderful inventions of torturing, one would have thought, could never have been contrived. What ingenuity does the rack display! How excellently formed for exquisite torture! What an apt resemblance of the infernal furnace is the dry-pan! A contrivance worthy the most skilful among the Beezebubian artists. But their watery torment, the gag and pitcher, is what raises them most in my esteem. Almost every blockhead hath some notion of a hell fire but it is peculiar to the skill of an holy inquisitor to contrive a hell of water. In this, Fastosus, we must all knock under to them, for indeed they are our betters. And, to enhance their merit, their torments are inflicted upon the unhappy wretches, who fall into their hands, under a shew of the greatest sanctity towards God, and pity to the unhappy victim of their cruelty. And so very strictly do they and their assisting familiars observe the rules of inviolable secrecy, that the world can never know the hundredth part of their villainy."


That's right. The worst thing the fervid imagination of a hell-fire and damnation preacher two hundred years ago could come up with to accuse the Inquisition of was WATERBOARDING. Worse than The Rack. Worse than being slowly roasted to death in an iron box.

And made all the worst by being done by holier-than-thou torturers who are careful to keep their misdeeds secret.

Sounds all too familiar.

--John R.







*Charles Williams fans will also be glad to find his only short story reprinted here, so far as I know for the first time since Boyer & Zahorski's VISIONS OF WONDER [1981].

And Then There Were Nuns (Poke-Em-With-A-Stick-Wednesday)

So, last week I saw a piece about the Nun Crisis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/us/02nuns.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

This is something I'd been vaguely aware about for a while, but not seen any numbers on before. Basically, people are asking 'where have all the nuns gone?' As this piece points out, at the end of Second Vatican, when the population of the U.S. was about two hundred million people, there were something like 180,000 nuns in this country. Today, when there are more than three hundred million in the US (with many of the new immigrants having come from mostly-Catholic countries), there are less than 60,000 nuns left.

Nor is the crisis limited to the U.S.: according to a BBC article from a few years ago, the worldwide nun population declined by a quarter during just John Paul II's reign -- again, at a time when the number of Catholics overall went up. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7227629.stm]

And things are made still worse by the aging nun population: most of the remaining American Catholic nuns are elderly. One piece I checked said there were more nuns past the age of ninety than there were under the age of thirty; another that the average age was over seventy and less than six thousand were under fifty. Recruitment has almost ceased for many communities, and the remaining nuns are struggling economically, with many of them now government-supported.*


Now Pope Benedict has dispatched an Apostolic Visitation -- the equivalent of a Papal Legate -- to investigate the crisis and report back. And meanwhile the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith** seems to have launched its own investigation. Initial signs suggest that the goal is to reign in those who embraced Second Vatican's call to go out into the world and help change it*** rather than remain cloistered but doctrinally pure.

What I think we're seeing here is the beginning of an attempt at renewal. When an organization, whether the Republican Party or Catholic nuns, start to lose members at an unsustainable rate, there are two schools of thought about how to solve the problem. One is to broaden the group's appeal by modernizing its ideas to attract those who had been put off by some aspect of the group's earlier incarnation. The other is to pull back to a faithful core of true believers in hopes their fervor will re-ignite the group so it can grow and thrive again. This will be a story I'm hoping to keep my eye on. Although only a bystander -- my denomination hasn't had nuns or monks in four and a half centuries, and I've only known two nuns**** -- I'd be sorry to see a tradition that goes back to the early Dark Ages fade away.

I guess we'll see.

--John R.



*[convents typically aren't supported by Church funds but by the wages earned by sisters from their jobs, usually as nurses or teachers. Janice has taken many a SSI claim from nuns.]

**[nobody expects the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith!]

***[the inspiration for a v. bad Mary Tyler Moore/Elvis Presley movie, 'Change of Habit']
****[one a fellow grad student at Marquette, the other a downstairs neighbor during the one period when I lived in The Core.]