Humanity in Katrina's Wake

It's nice to see an editorial like this from our Thai friends.

Thailand, both its government and people, should provide whatever assistance it can to aid the Americans. We still remember when the US government dispatched dozens of aeroplanes and thousands of soldiers, to help tsunami victims in Thailand and other Asian countries. Furthermore, Washington has pledged $950 million out of the estimated US$12 billion promised by all Western donors. The rest of the world that has benefited from American generosity should show solidarity with Americans who are now picking up the pieces. Regardless of what other peoples think of the US government and its foreign policies, most of the world owes it to themselves to reciprocate goodwill to the American people.

Unfortunately, this other site is a joke. In a fair world, it wouldn't be.

Kofi Annan's hastily called meeting of UN members has produced a unanimous decision to send massive aid to the United States for the reconstruction of New Orleans. Iran jumped onboard very quickly. Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated emphatically that, "the generosity of the Americans after our two recent earthquakes must be returned. We were only waiting for an American disaster anyway to return the money, and this is of the scale that we believe is just and right. America, through my good friend President Bush, sent us millions of American dollars after our earthquakes. Bam has already been rebuilt by American dollars. Iran will rebuild New Orleans."

UPDATE I: Michelle Malkin has a good roundup of the international response so far.

UPDATE II: I'd like to think that the fictional account isn't so far off after all, though the commitments here are well... a bit on the symbolic side... and not really so revolutionary as they may seem:

Venezuela, a target of frequent criticism by the Bush administration, offered humanitarian aid and fuel. Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp. pledged a $1 million donation for hurricane aid. The United Nations informed U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton it was prepared to support the relief effort "in any way possible."

B-llS--t! Citgo is an American company. They may be funneling the donation through Venezuela for obscure political purposes, but last I checked, they were based in Houston and had a great big lighted billboard in Kenmore Square in Boston. As for the UN: I'll believe it when I see it. Aren't they the professionals at "the sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Speaking of Mississippi... and tragic plays.)

Hurricanes, Terrorism and Bias

This started as an update to my last post, but got bigger than the original. Other news outlets have of course picked up on the Katrina is due to global warming is due to ugly Americans with SUVs who must atone for their secular sins theme. Except that the greater frequency of storms is only true in the North Atlantic, and only over the last few years, as this article in Time points out:

More-frequent hurricanes are part of most global warming models, and as mean temperatures rise worldwide, it’s hard not to make a connection between the two. But hurricane-scale storms occur all over the world, and in some places—including the North Indian ocean and the region near Australia—the number has actually fallen. Even in the U.S., the period from 1991 to 1994 was a time of record hurricane quietude, with the dramatic exception of Andrew. Just why some areas of the world get hit harder than others at different times is impossible to say. [emphasis added]

When analyzing global warming 'news', if its happening to the continental U.S., (and especially if it impacts people in the publishing industry in New York City, e.g., a heat wave), then it's really big news. If it's about a lack of storms in the remote Pacific, it's not news. The Time article then veers onto ground that's more speculative if ominous, citing a study out of MIT:

...hurricane wind speeds have increased about 50% in the past 50 years. And since warm oceans are such a critical ingredient in hurricane formation, anything that gets the water warming more could get the storms growing worse. Global warming, in theory at least, would be more than sufficient to do that. While the people of New Orleans may not see another hurricane for years, the next one they do see could make even Katrina look mild. [emphasis added]

Note three things in that last paragraph: 1) the 'wiggle' language in italics, 2) failure to cite a concrete link that goes beyond theory, (you know they'd cite it if it existed), and 3) shameless, speculative editorializing in the last sentence, (the one most people are likely to read and remember). Instead, try this hypothetical paragraph for a reality check:

...terrorist incidents have increased about 50% in the past 10 years. And since Islamofascist dictators and demagogues are such a critical ingredient in terrorist cell formation, anything that gives the jihadists aide and comfort could see terrorist atrocities growing worse. Islamofascist dictators and demagogoes, in theory at least, would be more than sufficient to do that. While the people of New York may not see another terrorist strike like 9-11 for years, the next one they do see could make even 9-11 look mild.

Hmm... I haven't seen that one recently in the MSM.

Casualties of Terror: Stampede & Poison

Any reason we should not attribute these deaths to the Islamofascists?

About 650 people - many of them women and children - were killed in a stampede Wednesday when panic engulfed a Shiite religious procession after rumors spread that a suicide bomber occupied the bridge they were crossing.

The goal of the terrorists is to spread... terror. The immediate, verified presence of explosives is immaterial. What has gone on before at their hand is quite sufficient to their evil purposes. Even more disturbing is the appearance of a new and long-feared tactic: poison.

Poison has been found in at least fifty bodies, hurried into a Baghdad hospital after stampede on a bridge in the capital killed at least 635 Iraqi Shi'ites, CNN reported, citing sources from the Baghdad hospital.

The source gives me pause, but the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) is also running with it:

Tensions were running high more than two hours earlier after a mortar and rocket attack killed at least seven people and injured at least 40 near the Imam Mousa al-Kadim shrine in the city's heavily Shiite Kazamiyah district. U.S. Apache helicopters fired on the attackers, a U.S. statement said. At least six people died after drinking poisoned juice and food they received around the mosque, D. Muhannad Jawad of the Yarmouk hospital said. [emphasis added]

Hurricane Intensity is Part of Regular Cycle

Following up my post from earlier this week, the NYT carries this piece today:

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught "is very much natural," said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season... In an article this month in the journal Nature, Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that global warming might have already had some effect. The total power dissipated by tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and North Pacific increased 70 to 80 percent in the last 30 years, he wrote. But even that seemingly large jump is not what has been pushing the hurricanes of the last two years, Dr. Emanuel said, adding, "What we see in the Atlantic is mostly the natural swing." [emphasis added]

Wait a minute... the Times printed this? Maybe there's hope after all.

Amtrak - Rand Was Right

Great little editorial in today's WSJ ('The Little Engine That Couldn't' - subscription required) by Joseph Vranich, former president of the High Speed Rail Association and author of "End of the Line".

...[the] independent inspector-general... found Amtrak could save $1.2 billion in operating and capital spending over five years by eliminating costly sleeping cars and modifying food and beverage service... food for passengers is necessary but should be provided without federal subsidies... The GAO found that for every dollar Amtrak earns on food-and-bev, it spends $2. That's just the tip of the iceberg: Don't forget that Amtrak designed faulty Acela Express trains, is virtually bankrupt, and is lightly used in most of the U.S. as 50% of passengers ride on just 10% of the system. Unfortunately, Congress may soon approve another Amtrak bailout with the House willing to appropriate $1.2 billion and the Senate $1.45 billion for next year. Doing so will cave in to the rhetoric of contrived panic offered by [Amtrak President David] Gunn, who has said that without more funding, he'd have no choice but to "cease operations nationwide." We hear this whenever Amtrak subsidies have been threatened... Amtrak's waste of $27 billion in subsidies thus far calls for ruthless remedies... Let's discontinue market-irrelevant routes and open remaining lines to competitive bidding... true Amtrak reform is a delusion. It cannot turn itself around any more than its trains can.

So many parallels... For those who've read Atlas Shrugged and taken Amtrak regularly the connections are frighteningly obvious.

Far Left Meets Far Right

Funny, I didn't see this on CNN:

An anguished Cindy Sheehan calls Bush "the world's biggest terrorist." And she goes on to blame Israel for the death of her son ("Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel"). Her antiwar venom could easily come right out of the mouth of a more calculating David Duke. Perhaps that's why he lauded her anti-Semitism: "Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media."

Victor Davis Hanson rocks. As usual. Read the whole thing. HT: The Jawa Report

Random thought: does the world still imagine that there was a substantive difference between Hitler's abominably evil actions from the far-right and those of Stalin and Mao from the far-left?

Gaza Chaos

Carl, over at No Oil for Pacifists (love the blog name), posts this devastating day-by-day chronology of the aftermath of the Gaza pullout, concluding: "How many more clues, and killings, before anti-Israel zealots see the real Palestine: contempt, chaos and chutzpa."

Two thoughts:

1) Hell is chaos. It is self-perpetuating even as its flames are fanned by evil 'leaders'.

2) Whatever the history of real or perceived 'oppression', we do the Palestinian people (or any group for that matter), no favors by holding them to a lower standard. The implicit message seems to be: Yeah, I know that encouraging children to use pipe bombs is wrong, but how can we possibly judge their desperation? Such twisted rationalizations betray the utmost contempt for the object of supposed empathy. As any parent knows (or ought to), excusing behavior that from anyone else would be seen for what it is, (uncivilized) only encourages more of it.

Science & Spirituality - New Book

The precision of my Amazon alerts seems to be getting better and better. A pre-release e-mail just came in for "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality", by the Dalai Lama. As a big fan of Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics", (circa 1975), I'm intrigued. Anyone seen any good reviews?

Coffee is Good For You

Pinch me. I must be dreaming.

Coffee might soon be considered a health drink following a study showing it is a surprisingly rich source of anti-cancer agents... "Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close," said Professor Vinson, whose study [funded by the American Cocoa Research Institute] was described at the weekend to the American Chemical Society in Washington.

Funny thing is, my brother was always the big coffee drinker, and still is. He started in his mid teens. It was always a 'thing' with us - me the health nut holding off. Now he's battling for his life. I didn't pick up the habit 'til I was 23, at which point he gave me a lot of grief for my (now forgotten) health concerns about it. Starbucks' stock was down 0.42% today. Hmm...

Hitchens Calls it Straight on Iraq

British ex-pat Christopher Hitchens characterizes himself as "of the left". For many years the left accepted that characterization. And in an unchanging, Harry Truman meets JFK meets Daniel Patrick Moynihan sense, he's entitled to wear that label proudly. It's everyone else that's moved.

This piece by Hitchens in the September 5-12 issue of the Weekly Standard, (the venue itself speaks volumes), is a must read for its intelligence, balance, depth and (if it's possible) sarcastic humor on the war in Iraq - a nice antidote to fifty channels of Cindy Sheehan on cable. He dispenses her in a line.

For anyone with eyes to see, there was only one other state that combined the latent and the blatant definitions of both "rogue" and "failed." This state--Saddam's ruined and tortured and collapsing Iraq--had also met all the conditions under which a country may be deemed to have sacrificed its own legal sovereignty. To recapitulate: It had invaded its neighbors, committed genocide on its own soil, harbored and nurtured international thugs and killers, and flouted every provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United Nations, in this crisis, faced with regular insult to its own resolutions and its own character, had managed to set up a system of sanctions-based mutual corruption. In May 2003, had things gone on as they had been going, Saddam Hussein would have been due to fill Iraq's slot as chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Meanwhile, every species of gangster from the hero of the Achille Lauro hijacking to Abu Musab al Zarqawi was finding hospitality under Saddam's crumbling roof.

One might have thought, therefore, that Bush and Blair's decision to put an end at last to this intolerable state of affairs would be hailed, not just as a belated vindication of long-ignored U.N. resolutions but as some corrective to the decade of shame and inaction that had just passed in Bosnia and Rwanda. But such is not the case. An apparent consensus exists, among millions of people in Europe and America, that the whole operation for the demilitarization of Iraq, and the salvage of its traumatized society, was at best a false pretense and at worst an unprovoked aggression. How can this possibly be?

It only gets better from there. Much better. Bitingly sharp, A++ material. Read it. Now.

Comic Relief - Party Affiliation Test

Just received this from a friend. Yeah, it's juvenile, but in my current state of mind it's too good not to share. If you're offended, well, tough. It's my blog and I needed a good laugh.

Are you a Democrat, Republican or Southern Republican?

The scenario:

You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, an Islamic Terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you. You are carrying a Glock cal .40, and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do?

Democrat's Answer:

Well, that's not enough information to answer the question!

Does the man look poor! Or oppressed?

Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?

Could we run away?

What does my wife think?

What about the kids?

Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?

What does the law say about this situation?

Does the Glock have appropriate safety built into it?

Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children?

Is it possible he'd be happy with just killing me?

Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?

If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me?

Should I call 9-1-1?

Why is this street so deserted?

We need to raise taxes, have a paint and weed day and make this a happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior.

This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with some friends for few days and try to come to a consensus.

Republican's Answer:

BANG!

Southern Republican's Answer:

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! click... (sounds of reloading). BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! click

Daughter: "Nice grouping, Daddy! Were those the Winchester Silver Tips or Hollow Points?"

Science by Anecdote

It wasn't hard to predict that the Kyoto-as-religion crowd would be all over hurricane Katrina, linking one big storm, (and the cyclical peak of a poorly understood but well-documented multi-decade hurricane cycle) with global warming, (also cyclical and poorly understood), capitalism, SUVs, oil, Bush, America and evil.

('Evil': a term frequently applied to Republicans, but never Baathist torture chambers, suicide bombers, 9-11, Iran or North Korea.)

The script had already been written and replayed ad nauseum. All the wacko left had to do was insert Katrina and read it again to stoke their increasingly shrill but increasingly marginal anti-American hatred and anti-Bush self-righteousness. From inside that world, I'm sure it's all feels very neat and reassuring. Take this for example:

...those among us who are not owned by the fossil fuel industries or worshippers of the Oil Party have been called 'kooks', 'commies', 'tree-huggers', 'alarmists', 'bleeding-heart liberals', even 'traitors', for warning that burning all these fossil fuels might not be the best idea for us in the long term... I'm looking forward to watching and seeing if Americans can pull our collective head out of our ass far enough to see that the problem is not the Strategic Reserves, or the platforms, or even New Orleans. The problem is climate change.

Uh OK. Unless it's not. Assertion and sloppy reasoning do not make good science, much less policy. Climate change is a fact, and has been since the dawn of time. Global warming, (as distinct from climate change), is a theory, for which some evidence definitely does exist - along with the contradictory sort that Michael Chrichton took three years researching and footnoting in great detail.

Taken together, the best we can say about global warming evidence is that it's of the "we have a hunch and we're concerned about the long-term possibilities" variety. That's precisely the kind of evidence the left likes to slam when referring to WMD in Iraq. It may be sufficient to confront a known enemy who has given aide and comfort to those who have attacked you and vowed to do much worse as soon as possible, but it's hardly sufficient to make a case for attempting to re-apportion the entire global economy to look like a commune in Vermont.

Human impacts on global warming are a particular causal theory resting on the first theory. The notion that they can be 'fixed' is a wild assumption teetering atop that precarious double theory. Particular prescriptions for how to fix things, (e.g., Kyoto) are simply political world views balanced precariously atop the whole thing. An un-thinking house of cards. Climate stasis and control are fantasies constructed out of human hubris.

Then there's this post out of Britain, which sounds a lot like Pat Robertson's comments after 9-11 about retribution for America's sins. That one had the MSM doing back handsprings. Where are they now? Joining in:

Tropical storms are constantly being linked with global warming, and the yanks are the biggest polluters on the planet, i think it's great that all these hurricanes attack their country, it's like mother natures revenge.

Nice. Very nice. So much for the moral high ground though. I won't even try to categorize or parse posts like this or this, but they're of the same ilk. Hold your nose - as N.O. residents will need to for the next several months. Finally, the likely loss of resources like this can only add to the wacko-left's wet dream amidst human tragedy. Sigh. Let's pray for New Orleans and save the finger-pointing for after the dead have been buried.
(HT: Angry in the Great White North)

A Miracle - Hallelujah!

I just got back from several days in NYC on business, mixed with some much-needed R&R. After years of stressful living on the road, I've gotten into the contrarian habit of disconnecting when traveling. I get more sleep that way - something I badly needed amidst the recent rollercoaster of my brother's illness.

I am happily awestruck to report that our prayers have been answered!!!!! Late last week we got news that a key test showed no leukemia cells in my brother's spinal fluid or peripheral blood. None. My brother is back at home with his family, full of energy, responding well just two weeks into a four week course of treatment.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Thanks to regular readers for keeping the faith in my virtual absence - praying for and inquiring about him. I've lost track of the number of countries and prayer groups making his case with the Big Guy. It has been tremendously humbling and inspiring to all of us.

To those of you steeped in this kind of thing - for whom prayer is a regular routine - thank you. To those of you who feel kinda funky and self-conscious and doubting about whether God exists, how to pray and/or whether prayer means anything at all, much less whether it works - THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!!

If is your tentative, silent inner steps that bring giddy smiles in heaven - and here.

Sure, the cancer may still be hiding out in other places. Sure, we could call this 'luck'. Sure, he'll need a stem cell transplant, but still...

Ten days ago, the world-class super-experienced oncology docs had been telling us that the chances of this happening - of the cancer retreating like this - were infinitesimally small. Start thinking about hospice, they said. We'll give it one last shot if you want, they said. It's OK if he decides to just go home and die quietly before Labor Day, they said. In my brother's own words: "You were planning my funeral, weren't you?" Uh, well... Yeah. Sorry. Never mind.

It's almost embarassing, my sister-in-law and I have reflected, to report this news so soon after that other news. The fearful weeping seems... surreal. And yet, it was very real. We all heard the same thing from the docs. We saw it in my brother's rapidly deteriorating condition. And now...

Home. Summer. Fresh air. Famliy. A chance. A major miracle. On top of the other miracle. You have stormed heaven for a complete stranger. God has responded with His infinite love and grace. Hallelujah!

Now let's direct a few prayers towards New Orleans. It looks like they're gonna need 'em.

UPDATE: Well, that was short-lived. I spoke with my brother around 4PM and now, four hours later, he's back in the hospital with a high fever - cause unknown. That's not necessarily as ominous as it might sound. Leukemia patients in chemo are prone to opportunistic infections, nearly all of them completely treatable, but man, what a rollercoaster.

Does any of this obviate what I wrote above? Absolutely not. We do not get to set the terms of miracles. We do not get to negotiate longer ones. We do not get bliss and everlasting chocolate ice cream just because. No, other higher priority opportunities to love spring up in the place of the self-centeredness that rushes in as soon as a crisis is over. We are spending precious time with my niece, (once I finish this update, that is.) We are reminded again that life is fragile. We are reminded how precious any weekend at home with family can be, whether one is sick or not. (How many have I squandered, I think...) Treasure each of those moments. Every one is a miracle.

Eye of the Hurricane?

After the hard news last week about my brother, it's been difficult to think of much else. We've been praying for a miracle - as have many of you readers. Thank you sooo much for that! It amuses my brother no end when I tell him that he's become a minor Internet phenomenon, (albeit pseudonymously), through this blog. The stories from other caregivers and especially sibling caregivers have been heart-warming and encouraging, to say the least.

Yesterday, I think we got a down-payment on the miracle we'd been asking for: some lab results showing that recent chemo and radiation have beaten back a key part of the leukemia, achieving a 99.7% (!!) reduction in blast cells in his spinal column and stabilization of his blood chemistry. If anyone had told me this last week, I would either have said "no way", or rushed up and hugged them flat.

So scratch "I think", and "down payment" in that last paragraph. We've had a miracle. No, this may not change the big picture, which remains tenuous. We're trying to keep that in mind and not allow ourselves to get too 'high'. Still, this strong positive movement shows that doctors aren't always right, and that low odds still mean... odds... a shot... some skin in the game. Hope.

My brother is still very tired, as is to be expected, but he's able to take and make jokes: a good sign. Yesterday, despite desperately wanting to take a nap, he instead roused himself to walk several long laps of the hospital corridors holding his daughter's hand. (She is five.) It buoyed both of them - and all of us - tremendously. As I trailed along on that little trek, I had the same thoughts and feelings (but writ large) as when, in last year's Tour de France, Lance hooked a spectator's souvenir musette bag and went down hard: His race is over. Followed almost immediately by: Holy cow!! No it's not!! He's up!! What a rollercoaster.

All of this, plus the stress of holding back waves of emotion that come flooding up around even the smallest things relating to my brother, drove me to go out for a six mile run last night. And I flew. Absolutely flew. I was pushing myself, incurring 'good' physical pain to crowd out the other kind - channelling useless nervous energy into movement. My drug of choice. It felt gooood.

More lab results in the next 36 hours. After that, I'll be largely 'off-grid' for several days, mixing business and pleasure in Manhattan. Blogging will be light to nonexistent. Thanks again for all the prayers. They are working - in small ways and in large. God doesn't make that distinction anyway. Any miracle is simply a pulling back of the thick drapes we've drawn over what is... the one miracle of all creation.

UPDATE: Two utterly miraculous developments this afternoon:

1) My brother was full of energy. He literally rose from his hospital bed, decided he needed to "get out of here", donned mask and gloves and headed for the elevator with my niece, (his daughter) in tow. This is a guy who usually likes to do everything by the book. Today he decided to live his life - however much of it remains. As I left the hospital, he was walking with my niece and cousin along the sidewalk in the cool August evening. The mental snapshot of that bliss will stay with me for a very long time.

2) An hour later the doc came by and was visibly cheered by my brother's response to the latest chemo and radiation, terming it "...a significant reduction" [in the cancer]: the same words that another doc used when referring to "less than 10% chance of..." last week!! Go figure.

I'm delighted to be getting an education from my Catholic sister-in-law on St. Jude and St. Peregrine. Bless them. Thank God. We are giddy here today. However long this lasts, may we remember that life is beautiful. Whatever tomorrow brings, we are strengthened.

John Roberts on Michael Jackson

Advising President Reagan in 1984 against presenting Michael Jackson with an award commending his charitable work against drunk driving, and then later, against making further reference to the singer in another speech, current Supreme Court nominee John Roberts wrote:

"If one wants the youth of America and the world sashaying around in garish sequined costumes, hair dripping with pomade, body shot full of female hormones to prevent voice change, mono-gloved, well, then, I suppose 'Michael,' as he is affectionately known in the trade, is in fact a good example. Quite apart from the problem of appearing to endorse Jackson's androgynous life style, a Presidential award would be perceived as a shallow effort by the President to share in the constant publicity surrounding Jackson... The whole episode would, in my view, be demeaning to the President... Cognoscenti will recognize the allusion to [Billie Jean,] a character in one of Mr. Jackson's popular ballads, a young lass who claims -- falsely, according to the oft-repeated refrain of the singer -- that the singer is the father of her illegitimate child. This may be someone's idea of presidential humor, but it certainly is not mine."

In other words, this guy is more Reagan-like than Reagan himself. Some will use this to characterize Roberts as a humorless prude. I say: history has proven him wise. Put him on the bench. HT: Drudge.

Parking 'Karma' - God is a Bostonian

Thinking about life without my brother this week has been too much. That's a selfish thought. I've taken much of that life for granted. We both took it for granted - thinking we would both always simply... be... here... together. Christmas without my brother has been too much to contemplate. Images of last year's activities are running like cheap home movies in my head: Both families crammed into our hot tub in the snow, reading Dickens' Christmas Carol out loud, his radio voice booming under the stars. Yeah, it was silly. I'll miss it. If a miracle happens and we get to do it again, I'll try to remember to cherish it for its very ordinariness.

The past four days have been a special kind of beach-walking time. I pray for strength and get it - not in big chunks, but hour by hour. God seems to know about just-in-time inventory management of spiritual reserves. Right now, were I to be filled up all at once with enough heavenly strength to get through, say, the next week, I'd be liable to explode - a fireball of pride erupting from a fuel tank of excess optimism ignited by my self-centered earthly nature.

I marvel at all the others praying for us, adding hours of strength when we're too weak to pray for it ourselves - filling up our tanks sip by sip... always running on empty but never running out. We are lifted up. 'Small' miracles brush away the petty daily problems that would be too much to add right now. I'll share one.

This miracle is just as silly as the Dickens thing - the kind that the most confirmed atheists love to hear about because it reinforces their belief that religious people are all complete loons, clinging to wishful thinking and seeking to deny reality whenever reality gets to be too much. Yet their belief in the lunacy of such things is a strong belief system itself. Science over all.

Everyone believes in something. It's not that I don't believe what they do. I believe in one thing, and the science of this realm is absolutely part of it - something I studied, something I use in my work, something that would be foolish to deny, something that is keeping my brother alive right now. But science is not its head. Not its master. As one reader reminds us, quoting C.S. Lewis: "Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither." Or, if I may riff on that: "...and you get a mouthful of dirt."

So back to the miracle...

As long-time readers will recall, (crickets chirp... one hand goes up), parking in Boston's super-congested "medical area", (not far from Fenway Park), is a nightmare. The handful of street spaces that exist are filled from 7AM to 7PM. If we're talking something within half a mile of the hospital itself, 7AM to 7AM the next day, (i.e., round the clock) is more accurate. With garage parking well over $20 a day, ($6 for the first 15 minutes), one stumbles across an on-street space about as often as one stumbles across an on-street $20 bill. That has happened to me. Once. In my lifetime. And no, there wasn't anyone on the street to give it back to.

So yesterday, I'm driving into town with my daughter to see my brother. I'm distraught, as if that needed saying. Middle of the day. Worst possible time to get through traffic. Worst possible time for any parking. Sometimes even the usurious garages are full at that hour. We're driving one block from the hospital and... someone starts to pull out of a space right next to us. Having grown up in Boston, my right blinker is on and I'm in reverse before the thought even enters my conscious mind. Yesssss! I needed this. Thank you, God.

The funny part is that during my brother's roughly five months of off-and-on hospitalization - at least fifty trips to see him - this has happened exactly three times. Same block. Same space. Yes, the exact same parking space. The same scenario has transpired: I drive by and someone is driving out at that precise moment. Easily thirty other cars in view would kill for that space too; but the timing is absolutely precise. Today it is for me: a gift - a little miracle. (One that I'd happily trade for the larger kind, but that may not be in the plan.)

Here's the even more amazing thing. Those three occasions when 'my' parking space has opened up have been: 1) the day my brother was hospitalized initially back in March, 2) the day he relapsed in May and they cut his chance of survival by 70%, 3) yesterday. In other words, the times when we've been lowest - when God knew that one more little thing might push us over the edge into self-pity and self-absorption. And He doesn't want that. He's into forging. He knows just when to stop with the fire and plunge the not-quite ready steel into cool water for a moment.

Atheists, do your worst with my rambling story. For my part, I know that God is acting in these small ways as well as the large 'newsworthy' ones, (walking on water, coming back from the dead - all that kind of stuff.) He is keeping us sustained - filling our spiritual fuel tank just enough to go on without giving us more than we can use responsibly.

He's even keeping us amused. A parking space in the medical area. How funny is that? Yes, God is a Bostonian... and a New Yorker, and a Londoner, and a farmer and everything else. He knows our hassles. He knows our pain. He knows it intimately. He knows that sometimes a parking space on the street is the most direct way to take the edge off, when the larger pain cannot be removed because it is there for a reason - teaching us something, molding us into something better, forming us into His image, even as we protest and squirm away and seek to deny and explain. (Here, look at this statistical model - you just got lucky... parking spaces have to open up for somebody.)

Yes, God is there in the small things like unlikely parking spaces - even if I had to feed the meter myself. :)

Haloscan Comment Weirdness

Does anyone know why Haloscan comments (and trackbacks) disappear then reappear? With much more traffic than usual this week, I've had them all disappear last night, all reapear this morning, then disappear again this afternoon on just one post. I have neither the time nor energy to figure it out, but if anyone has any insights, I'd appreciate them. Comments have been one of my lifelines to the amazing prayers of strangers this week.

Being Present

The news from the docs is moving subtly but steadily from "some hope, let's fight", to "start thinking about how you want the fight to end". That's fueled some intensely painful moments, (Why is it that I cry most in my car? Why is it that this song came on just as I started the engine the other day, rendering me a complete mess?)

Yet it's hard to be too sad for too long when my e-mail is pinging away all day with notes and comments and references, (from readers and friends and readers becoming dear friends), to stories like this one, (HT: MaxedOutMama and The Anchoress.) They comfort us by reminding us of two things: 1) ridulously improbable miracles happen all the time, and 2) the 'other side' is a pretty cool place if those miracles don't conform to our selfish terms and desires. (E.g., please make me live to a ripe old age, never have any hassle or pain, and be rich while I'm doing it.)

This firsthand vision, conveyed by M.O.M. is particularly amazing on that second point - a kind of ultra-serene, modern-day Revelation, not unlike the gape-mouthed wonder that Jodie Foster's character experiences in one of my favorite spiritual movies, Contact, when she is given a glimpse outside of time, of the breadth of all creation.

That wonder and comfort came in handy as my sister-in-law came over for dinner. Words were inadequate. One could only be present - all of us with each other - amidst the sobbing. And isn't that enough? Isn't that all that Jesus wanted in the dark night of Gethsemane? To be present with one another - truly present. No cell phones. No television. No to-do lists. No computers. No agendas. No urgency to get more sleep or get to the next meal. Just present - holding each other dear in the darkness of our confinement. Outside time, the way it will be. The way it is.

A Spiritual 'Thinness'

I am stunned by the outpouring of hope and light and love elicited by my rambling Tuesday post. Thank you all. And special thanks to The Anchoress, who directed her cadre of angels my way. I have printed out every comment. My brother has read them with great interest. I've recited a few - through tears - to my sister-in-law who, as you might imagine, is beyond reeling and now flirting with simply 'shattered'.

At times, I've been standing outside myself, observing. Perhaps that's a coping mechanism. I suspect it's more than that. There's something about the slow-motion shock of this that's made me hyper-aware of certain people and situations: the doctor delivering the news in person, the woman at the elevator visiting a friend who's also in 'late stage', an friend I hadn't seen in two years whom I shared lunch with yesterday. There's what my pastor calls a "thinness" to these interactions - my normal inclination to put up a front of small talk, to not take risks and to stay within myself, i.e., my normal defenses, broken by the enormity of the situation. My drapes of my worldly nature pulled back, allowing me to see the Holy Spirit shining in from others and maybe just maybe shining out a little more from me.

I've had interactions where I've been hyper-aware - able to break previously unbreakable ground in relationships - and others where I must sound like I'm on drugs. Hunh? Oh yeah. Right. Sure. Yep. No, What? I didn't follow you. Could you repeat that? Some channels are fuzzy and full of snow. Others are suddenly coming through in spiritual high definition - a kind of HDTV for the soul - mainlining strong impulses that seem to come from somewhere else.

There can be a beauty in that: the highly credentialed doc taking all the time I need, ignoring several pages, putting a hand on my knee, giving me the unlisted cell phone number, listening to my stories, responding to my need for a hug in a way that I don't think they teach in medical school - a hug that says: I'm human too. I've got a family. I can't imagine what you're going through. We're all going to go through this someday. I wish I could do more. Take care of yourself. Give me strength to keep doing my job 'cause it's much harder than I make it look.

The woman waiting at the elevator, so different from me in every way (race, age, dress and economic circumstance), whose glance says: I know.

Then, out loud: Yours is late stage too? I'm sorry. I'm here for a friend.
What's her name? I ask.
Tracy.
I'll pray for her.
[big smile]
That's all we can do. I'll pray for your brother too.

Then we're back to the worldly veneer as the elevator doors open and we go our separate ways amidst the bustle of the ATM machines and the snack bar in the lobby - the pedestrian traffic flowing every which way without any bond at all. Which of these is reality? Which is eternity? Which is heaven? That instant bond of loving-kindness? Or the other? I have no doubt.

Steady Bennie in Europe

As Pope Benedict travels Europe this week - something I'd already know if I'd been paying attention, (which I haven't been) - this editorial in the Wall Street Journal Europe caught my attention. It's by Francis X. Rocca, "an American writer in Rome, Italy" who is "co-author, with Rockwell A. Schnabel, of 'The Next Superpower? The Rise of Europe and Its Challenge to the United States,' to be published this month by Rowman & Littlefield." He writes:

Over the last half century, the original "ethical and religious" goal of European integration has been almost totally eclipsed by the drive to make the EU a global economic force. The same period has witnessed the rise to power of a "radical enlightenment culture," which has virtually excluded religion from European public life, as seen most clearly in the proposed European constitution's lack of any reference to God or Christianity.

This secular values system is fundamentally incompatible with the European project, Benedict argues, since European identity is based on a shared set of ethical norms, above all a belief in the inviolability of human rights, which are ultimately of divine origin. Christianity affirms these rights with the teaching that God created man in his own image and likeness. But take away that premise, and such values are prone to distortion and abuse.

Defenders of abortion, for instance, make their case on grounds of liberty. But for Benedict, the practice bespeaks a belief that "law is founded on force," undermining the "very bases of an authentic democracy founded on justice." Genetic engineering may appear to serve human progress, but in fact it reduces human beings to means of scientific experimentation. Invoking tolerance can become a way of censoring politically incorrect views, including expressions of religious belief.

Such internal contradictions undercut the moral basis of a European polity, Benedict says, for "only if man is sacred and inviolable for man, can we trust each other and live together in peace." [emphasis added]

Call him a Rottweiler all you want, but he's a Rottweiler with a brain. Woof! Checkmate.

Dig deep enough (and one really doesn't have to dig all that far), into the font of the liberal (old meaning), humanistic, democratic values that Western Civilization (and particularly Western Europe) completely take for granted less than two generations after witnessing pure evil, and one inevitably gets to the bedrock of the church. The underpinnings of tolerance - a value the left holds so dear - did not just come out of the air. Nor do they have the meaning that many on the left often ascribe to them: a kind of flip, unthinking "whatever!" attitude married to a worship of completely unmoored individual freedom of 'expression'.

No. Tolerance and liberalism in their old form meant exactly what the Pope lays out here: respect for every human being as a child of God. That notion cuts right as well as left - forcing some pretty tough questions. But it has a track record and a strong foundation. [And yes, before anyone comments, part of that track record is troubling, but let's not waste time talking about the Crusades again, OK?]

The building that once stood on that foundation may be decaying, but ripping out the foundation is another matter. Pope Bennie looks like he's going to shut down the jack-hammers and try to re-pour some much needed moral concrete.

A Punch to the Gut - My Brother's Cancer

This is going to be pretty raw and rambling. I don't know how it will turn out. I just need to write. Feel free to tune to a happier channel if you'd like. You've been warned.

An hour ago I spoke with my brother. He had just spoken with his doctor. The test results are back. His leukemia is back - for the third time. He's been given a 5% chance to live. There. I got it out.

[long pause... breathe... cry... note to self: don't re-read what you've written... too hard]

If it had been anyone else, the doctor said - anyone but my brother, who watched Lance Armstrong dominate his seventh Tour de France this year, absorbing his fighting mojo - the doctor would have recommended hospice care. Hospice. Shit. Next year he turns forty. Instead, they're going to throw the pharmacy at him - radiation, chemo, the works. One last ditch try to work a medical miracle. That all starts this afternoon.

It's one thing to read about other people going to hospice. It's one thing to have seen my 70+ year-old uncle go to hospice. It's quite another to be facing the strong possibility that my only brother may be going there. Soon. My little brother. Shit.

Christmas, we are told, is highly unlikely. Even Halloween seems a stretch. Hope is still there. I know that docs don't know everything; that miracles happen; that prayer is powerful. And yet. Single digits.

He sounds fine now and that's the kicker. The whole conversation seems so normal - except for its content and its implications - my brain working overtime. The e-mails are already pouring in. In the space of five minutes, over a sandwich, (my daughter reminding me to eat), I made about 200 people just as sad as I am. The most common word people use: Surreal. This cannot be happening.

And yet... my brother is still at the other end of the phone. I'll be going to see him in an hour or two. He's still... him. But this thing is hanging over him - drawing closer, laying claim. Dread. My sister in law, potentially a young widow. A casual friend recently lost his young wife, and even at that distance I wept daily - for a month. My niece starts kindergarten in a few weeks. Attending her school plays, sports events, music lessons, first date, college... none of it, maybe. My parents... that's too hard to touch. Too much there. I can't even think about it... cannot put myself in their shoes. The pain is absolutely blinding.

And yet. Miracles. Daily miracles. God quietly making His presence known. When my brother checked into the hospital yesterday, I noted the passage of the day on Biblegateway, from Romans 2:14-15:

"If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."

And he knows that.

A story. A true one: Last week, my brother met, as he has several times, with the priest of the parish he attends. (My sister-in-law is Catholic. They are raising their daughter Catholic. My brother is, well... a believer... a seeker trusting in Christ. And let's leave it at that. That's good enough.) My brother asked the priest an age-old question: what is this prayer thing? what am I supposed to do? how do I pray? The priest replied: prayer is like catching a butterfly; do not struggle and run after it; be still and it will land on you. Nice metaphor, he thought. Beautiful.

Priest leaves. Ten minutes pass. My brother sits quietly. My sister-in-law comes home with my niece who runs in the door ahead of her. Without saying a word, my niece runs to her toy chest, opens it and pulls out... a stuffed butterfly... and sets it gently in my brother's lap. "Daddy", she says, "I want you to have this because I love you very much."

He was in awe. I was in awe when I heard it, (amidst the giggles of delight that my brother had seen the wonder and power and grace in that little scene.) And really, we all should be in awe.

Those are the loving arms. That is God in action. When we most need it, He shows Himself immediately, unambiguously, and in the most deeply personal way. And with God watching over us with such abounding love, who am I to question why he may need my brother with him for other things - why this searing pain of impending loss is not forging us into creatures better able to glorify Him? I cannot. I will not. I can only go on, trying my best to abide His will.

UPDATE I: A Spiritual 'Thinness'
UPDATE II: Being Present
UPDATE III: Parking 'Karma' - God is a Bostonian
UPDATE IV: A Miracle: Hallelujah!
UPDATE V: Catching Up

MA May Require Mental Health Screenings for Soldiers

I'm all for providing exceptional support services, (institutional, political and personal), to our men and women in uniform. We owe them at least as much for doing hard duty to protect our freedoms.

Making those "services" mandatory however, as my home state is considering doing smacks of totalitarianism, especially when what's being imposed is mental health screening. (Hat tip: Drudge.)

This poor soul, (part of the springboard for the proposed law) clearly could have used the help, but it's also his right to refuse it. (The tone of the article is typical sickening Boston Globe fare - dripping far-left santimoniousness while artfully perpetuating the stereotype of our military as ruthless baby killers and psychos.) The implication of the proposed Massachusetts law is that anyone in uniform who's served in a war zone ought to be profiled. Where are these same brilliant policy-makers when the profiling being considered is for terrorists? Who's a greater danger? One person who has a domestic incident with his wife and went off? Or wave after wave of organized suicide bombers on subway trains and airplanes?

This strikes me as analogous to the old joke about the drunk looking for his car keys who finds it easier to look where the light is, not where he dropped them. Hey, it's easy to identify folks in uniform, and occasionally they have PTSD when they get home, so lets force them all to talk to a shrink. It's a lot harder to find terrorists and get them to do the same thing.

Profiling - An Expert's Argument

Much-needed weekend away running trails in Vermont. Note to self: ignore the way left-of-left politics and remember to move there someday.

Technical readers may be familiar with author, speaker and general all-around security guru Bruce Schneier. I heard him speak locally back in the winter and can attest to the fact that he is extremely knowledgeable and articulate, in addition to being 'plugged-in' to the practical realities of both physical and cyber-security in a terrorist age. Thus, I note this post on profiling in his monthly newsletter Crypto-Gram. (Profiling is a topic I've addressed recently here and here.) Quoting from his own book, 'Beyond Fear', he writes:

Good security has people in charge. People are resilient. People can improvise. People can be creative. People can develop on-the-spot solutions. People can detect attackers who cheat, and can attempt to maintain security despite the cheating. People can detect passive failures and attempt to recover. People are the strongest point in a security process. When a security system succeeds in the face of a new or coordinated or devastating attack, it's usually due to the efforts of people.

He goes on to describe how the 'Millenium Bomber' Ahmed Ressam was apprehended in December, 1999 as being attributable to human intuition, aka a 'hinky' feeling. Schneier continues:

There's a dirty word for what [customs agent Diana] Dean did that chilly afternoon in December, and it's profiling. Everyone does it all the time. People profile based on someone's dress, mannerisms, tone of voice... and yes, also on their race and ethnicity. When you see someone running toward you on the street with a bloody ax, you don't know for sure that he's a crazed ax murderer. Perhaps he's a butcher who's actually running after the person next to you to give her the change she forgot. But you're going to make a guess one way or another. That guess is an example of profiling...

Then Schneier makes one of his most important comments on this subject with this...

One of the ways profiling becomes institutionalized is through computerization... The computer can profile based only on simple, easy-to-assign characteristics: age, race, credit history, job history, et cetera. Computers don't get hinky feelings. Computers also can't adapt the way people can.

That would have led me to believe that he was heading down the 'high police discretion' track, which he does for awhile:

...if the attackers are of a single race or ethnicity, profiling is more likely to work (although the ethics are still questionable). It makes real security sense for El Al to spend more time investigating young Arab males than it does for them to investigate Israeli families.

Schneier is right to bring up ethics here, but what's conspicuously absent is an equal concern with the ethics of allowing people to die in preventable terrorist incidents. And despite the common sense of the one-line El Al example, (hello! It's called Islamofascism for a reason!), he veers back to the only semi-sensical conclusion that well, young Arab males are just part of the problem so let's not get too focused on them because - he implies - then they'll start posing as Swedish priests and Chinese schoolgirls.

What goes unaddressed is this question: If it works so well for El Al, why, in an interconnected world, are United or Delta - or for that matter, the New York City subway system - so terribly different? And if we were to argue that those institutions are different, (i.e., worthy of less or different scrutiny than El Al for some reason), then isn't that also making dangerously blanket assumptions about the ethnic make-up and terrorist intentions of local populations? And if that's true, wouldn't it argue for profiling more in certain sections of Brooklyn than say, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? At which point we're into some non-sensical arguments about the mobility of terrorists that contradict earlier assertions about opportunism that do make plenty of sense. No easy answers. Yes, it's about the people. Back to human judgment and police discretion which Schneier seems loathe to support directly.

To further back up politically correct assertions at the outer edge of his theoretical expertise, he cites a half dozen or so counter-examples from a speech by U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta, "the first Cabinet member to switch directly from a Democratic to a Republican Cabinet". (Hmm... never knew that.) That's fine and good and thoughtful insofar as it goes. Yet the number of recent examples of young males, (almost exclusively Islamic, and at least heavily Arab), doing nasty deeds is certainly high enough that - to use his own metaphor - we'd be forgiven for wondering less and acting more when we see the proverbial butcher running down the street at us with a bloody meat cleaver. That may be based on fear, but some fear is good - based on an instinct for self-preservation. Despite these political objections, Schneier is expert enough and thoughtful enough to be well worth reading.

Weekend Away

Off the grid this weekend... no postings... check back on Monday.

The ACLU Allies Itself With Mohamed Atta

Great piece by Dorothy Rabinowitz in today's Wall Street Journal - thankfully featured on the free OpinionJournal site. Boiled to its essence, she speaks for the common sense notion that we are at war and that it is a core role, (and to die-hard libertarians the only legitimate role) of a government to protect its citizens from attack and lawlessness.

That the ACLU, the wacko left and the equally wacko libertarian fringe seem to think, (in an absolutist, idealistic sense) that the greater enemy is the government itself and that that same government is exaggerating the threat of domestic terrorism is... wacko. I.e., tell that to the 9-11 widows. Should we be vigilant about undue government power grabs? Yes, of course. Should we pretend it's September 10th, 2001, (or March 10th, 2004, or July 6th, 2005 and on and on and on as if we really need more reminders)? If the evidence isn't there already, one or two or ten more attacks are not going to convince anyone who isn't convinced already. Ms. Rabinowitz writes:

...in the matter of the subway searches and the lawsuit against New York City and its police commissioner, all the sides to the conflict and what they stand for are perfectly clear to most people. Matters must have seemed even clearer to those who followed the news of the NYCLU's press conference a few days ago, at which the agency announced the legal action and introduced five plaintiffs who had signed on. Among them was a lawyer, quoted above, a traveler so apprehensive about being searched that he took alternative routes: Even so he remained, according to the claim, extremely anxious at the sight of police in the subways. A sad case, doubtless. One also wildly at odds with the reactions of most subway travelers, who tend to feel good at the sight of police officers in the subways -- the more of them the better, preferably in close proximity... Taking affront at government security measures in wartime is, of course, a choice available only to a free people, as is the right to cavil ceaselessly about the alleged erosion of our liberties, the dark night of oppression settling on us daily, as the NYCLU has so conspicuously done these last years -- though not without echoing choruses from its parent organization, the ACLU, and various crank outposts of the libertarian movement. [emphasis added]

Last night I attended a book group meeting to discuss Malcolm Gladwell's 'Blink'. One of the issues I brought up was how the capability to 'blink' a situation, (i.e., to assess it instantly and accurately without necessarily being able to articulate why), is inherently individual. Organizations don't 'blink'. People do. And to the extent that people with 'blink' skills in a some area are part of a larger organization, their inability to explain a powerful hunch pits them as losers against more 'rational' explanations - even if those explanations are dead wrong. All of which instantly sensitized me to this in Ms. Rabinowitz' editorial:

In an exceptionally powerful series airing on the National Geographic Channel on Aug. 21 and 22, titled "Inside 9/11," an airline ticket-taker recalls being stunned by the strange look on the face of customer Mohamed Atta -- particularly the unsettling fury the man exuded. Still, he could not bring himself to raise any alarm: Indeed, when he heard later that the plane Atta was on had been one of those that crashed in the terror attacks, the agent felt terrible. Terrible because he had been suspicious of the passenger and thought he could be a terrorist and now the poor man was dead. It was a while before the ticket agent grasped that the man he suspected was, in fact, hijacker-in-chief and pilot of the plane. [emphasis added]

The quandary is this: Some 'blink' hunches are simply misguided, outdated stereotypes and prejudices, (a point Mr. Gladwell hammers home in his book), that deserve to be pushed out of public consciousness. Many others are not. In fact, they are incredibly valuable. (Think about what might have happened had the aforementioned airline counter agent said something.)

The ACLU and the rest of the anti-sense crowd, (they're against much much more than just profiling), would not only exclude 'blink', hunches and professional intuition from consideration but even carefully vetted institutional 'intuition' that allows organizations (like the police) to do the job we hired them to do. And in that, we have lobotomized ourselves - just as we face a clever and determined enemy. How stupid is that?

Omnidirectional Outrage

Busy day. Please forgive the brief post. Several things got my blood boiling this morning:

Anchoress has a long righteous post on the Able-Danger-Berger affair. Don't know what it is? You should. It could be the next Watergate - this time on steroids.

Sigmund, Carl & Alfred presents a thoughtful (as always) argument for why we're winning the propaganda war on terror, including a link to this unapologetic post at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Warning: equivalent to two cups of strong espresso and a heavy metal guitar riff at full volume. Rockin'! (This blog cannot be responsible for any feelings of outrage that that post may induce in our left-leaning readers.)

Meanwhile, Kerfuffles (love the name!) has this take-down of a Boston Globe editorial defining who's a real Christian and who's fit (and not) to serve in government. Didn't we have this debate back in 1960 when John Kennedy was running for President? Wasn't the left on the other side back then?

Animals as Combatants

The Allies once thought about it but never did anything - sticking instead with humane uses for animals, who by definition are innocent in any human conflict. (See 'The Dog Whisperer' for more on that theme - currently one of my family's favorite shows.) The Islamofascists however, are plunging on ahead - another bad day for the moral equivalence crowd and yet another proof that technology, (in this case, dogs) is without a moral component. People are required for that.

Iraqi police cite the recent use of dogs rigged with explosive devices in Latifiya, just south of Baghdad, in Baqubah in central Iraq and in and around the northern city of Kirkuk. Some Iraqis are horrified by the ethics of dragging the animal world into a human conflict. "How can they use these lovely pets for criminal and murderous acts?" asked Rasha Khairir, 25, an employee of a Baghdad stock brokerage. "A poor dog can't refuse what they are doing with him because he can't think and decide." Despite a common prejudice in the Muslim world against dogs, which are considered unclean, even the most virulent clerical opponents of the U.S. presence in Iraq have decried the use of canines as proxies in the war.

Hat tip: Drudge

War-Making, Technology and Morality

Rather than create a new post, I added extensively to this one from last night. Check it out.

Boycott the Stones

Hey, I didn't have tickets anyway.

The Moral Neutrality of Technology

I woke up way too early to blog cogently on this now. Fortunately Thomas Sowell makes it easy:

Morality is about what you do to people, not the technology you use. The guilt-mongers have twisted the facts of history beyond recognition in order to say that it was unnecessary to drop those atomic bombs. Japan was going to lose the war anyway, they say. What they don't say is -- at what price in American lives? Or even in Japanese lives? Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?

UPDATE I: OK, awake now (Wednesday). Sleep good. Coffee good. :)

One reason I was motivated to continue this story past the weekend (the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima) was a comment and e-mail exchange I'd been having with the proprietor of this well meaning but misguided quasi-pacifist blog. Call me naive for trying to find common ground with the dyed-in-the-wool left, but I'd rather be accused of hope and eternal optimism than increasing the breadth of the already yawning divide. That's a game I'll happily play so long as the discussion is civil - a rare thing these days.

The core of my argument (before I'd ever read the Sowell piece), was this:

If you had been Harry Truman - responsible for the lives of millions, (including Japanese, btw) - and knowing what was known then, not what is known now, what would you have done? Concrete answer with specifics about short and long term scenarios/consequences, please. Point being: In the world of idealism and responsibility for oneself alone, it is OK to throw away one's life. In fact, it can be admirable and change the world, (see Jesus, MLK, Gandhi, etc..)

Sacrificing the lives of millions of others (e.g., due to a prolonging of brutal Japanese subjugation of adjacent peoples and/or an extended bloody battle for the Pacific), is something else entirely. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not decisions in isoloation: about killing or not killing. They were about a hard choice in a real world to stop the violence abruptly versus letting it go on. If you had that power in your hands and could stop the violence immediately, would you do so? That is what cops do and we agree that they are useful, right?

That other blog's proprietor replied to my challenge as follows (excerpted for clarity):

What we did was tell the world that sometimes there is a time that it OK, according to the US, to destroy a whole city. That nuclear weapons are an acceptable choice for warring. We helped usher in the Cold War that has cost the world trillions of dollars that could have been used for peaceful purposes, not to mention countless lives. What are the longterm affects of such actions? What have been the consequences of justice perverted and justice delayed? Put another way, if we prepare for war and nuclear destruction, that is likely what we'll get. If we prepare for justice, it may or may not be coming, but that is our best hope of coming close.

Nice thought but weak logic - utterly ignorant of history, economics and human nature. The rest of the comment thread provides some great responses. I'll leave off there. Check it out if you're interested. The whole site is quite civil (the proprietor is an honest Christian), but the ideas are up in the clouds in terms of practicality: Daily Kos on Prozac and Valium... if that's possible.

As Thomas P.M. Barnett has noted in his excellent book, "The Pentagon's New Map", the U.S. is currently the world's Leviathan (to borrow a phrase from Hobbes). Like it or not, and regardless of how we got there, that is our current position. And it gives us a unique and massive responsibility in the world. For without Leviathan (my Hobbes is a little rusty so please correct me if I mess this up), life is indeed "nasty, brutish and short". Most people quoting Hobbes forget that first part - about Leviathan. About cops. About power for the purposes of good. About us.

Net/net: choosing not to act, (the gist of the pacifist position) is an act. And it has consequences for others not party to that choice. I.e., innocents. To believe that those consequences will be benign (again, the pacifist position as I understand it), is simply ignorant - of history, human nature and a thousand other things. Ignorant. And willfully so. And I don't like willful ignorance. Call me unenlightened. That's not a "Bush thing" or a conservative 'thing' or a neocon 'thing'. It was a Teddy Roosevelt thing and an FDR thing and a Truman thing and a (John) Kennedy thing and a Reagan thing (among others). I.e., Democrats and Republicans before the wacko left commandeered one party.

UPDATE II: It also occurred to me in the middle of the night that Thomas Sowell's argument about morality and technology doesn't go far enough. He's right that technology and morality are separate, but it's also worth pointing out that investment in weapons technology can be in direct pursuit of morality. I.e., tightly linked the positive sense. Before anyone starts hitting the comment button and telling me to go re-read Orwell, ponder this question: What nation has ever spent money, time, effort and lives working to ensure that its military technologies, strategies and rules of engagement were more precise in minimizing overall casualties (both sides), selecting combatants and avoiding civilians? One nation. Us. And a few allies here and there. (I dont' want to start a verbal war with you Brits and Aussies out there! You get the gist, I hope - leadership in military technology and tactics and rules of engagement. I'd welcome other stories in this vein in that they reinforce the main point. Such an approach to war is rare.)

We're not perfect, but the mere fact that we're pursuing that goal in a concerted fashion - of minimizing impact on innocents while not letting the bad guys have the run of the place - is a radical departure from the sweep of human history. For thousands of years, each new weapons technology and set of strategies for using it, (that part's especially important to keep in mind, btw), was more lethal and indiscriminate than the last. Think about it. This is just the Cliff's Notes version of ideas and historical facts that Victor Davis Hanson has explored in depth.

Lying in the Service of... What?

This is reprehensible. This is beyond the pale.

Guns, Germs and Hype

When it first came out, I read Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs and Steel and found it fascinating. His deceptively simple theory, (now deep into popular consciousness): world domination by European peoples can be explained almost exclusively by primal advantages they enjoyed in geography, agriculture-friendly proto-crops and a wide selection of useful domesticable animals. I still find the theory tantalizing, even as it strains credulity to think of it as the sole explanation for the arc of Western Civilization. Victor Davis Hanson offered one of the most scholarly, detailed take-downs of Diamond in this piece last spring: required reading for any Diamond fan who really wants to understand this stuff.

Thus it was with a divided but still open mind that I sat down last weekend with my wife to watch the three-part series of the same name featuring Jared Diamond himself on the National Geographic channel. The summary:

Part I: not bad, but a bit repetitive and self-promotional.
Part II: more of the same, but with major holes in logic starting to show through.
Part III: what the $%^*...?!

Throughout the series, but especially in the third segment, Diamond is portrayed to an almost comic degree as a deeply thoughtful globe-trotting investigator-who-cares... really cares. (Can we get the tear cam in a little tighter? Can we try that take again, please?) One staged scene - on a train running north from Cape Town to Zambia, (but not Congo - too dangerous) - is repeated at least a dozen times. We see Diamond as the sole passenger in a tricked-out luxury train car, pulled by one of the most pollution-belching locomotives I've ever seen outside of a spaghetti Western. He takes off his glasses. He puts on his glasses. He spreads the map. He folds the map. Repeat pattern under different lighting conditions. The visual language is clear: this man is studious - his purpose serious. Listen to him. The odd-looking Amish beard... well... I'll leave matters of taste and personal grooming to others.

Where part three runs completely off the proverbial rails however, is in attempting to apply Diamond's still-plausible theory of civilization's deepest roots, (e.g., 10,000 BC to perhaps 2,000 BC) to the plight of modern Africa. Nearly half the episode is devoted in one form or another to the genuine scourge of malaria - a heart-rending killer of children, one of whom, (it is implied) dies right in front of Diamond as the camera rolls. That's fine insofar as it goes, but it completely misses other contexts that make Diamond's theory look quaint or utterly irrelevant.

The fact that AIDS is a huge killer on the continent and involves a heavier cultural and behavioral component than the omnipresent malaria and smallpox germs behind Diaomond's original theory complicates matters just a bit. AIDS is mentioned only once, without exploration or follow-up. Kleptocratic governments, wasted trillions in Western aid money, civil wars, Communist influence throughout the latter half of the 20th century, and a failure to adopt established norms of free market democratic society never come up. It's the guns. And the germs. And the steel. Buy the book. Buy two copies. Buy it now. Over and over again.

We get it, Jared.

Oh, and colonialism. Colonialism bad. White man bad. (Cue tape of gun-toting modern Boers, then cut to fictionalized recreation of 19th century Gattling gun mowing down proud, "highly civilized" Zulus in droves. Repeat sequence. Repeat sequence again. Get it? White man baaaaad.) One lone young 'expert' is allowed to briefly eclipse Diamond's video omnipresence to testify to the existence of a grand, proud thriving sub-Saharan African civilization over the past two millennia. Which is great for the self-esteem of those who think Kwanza is a real holiday and that all slave-owners were white and that Margaret Mead had it right when she concluded that all cultures are well... OK and there's no way to measure one's success against the other... except for those pesky railroads and space shuttles and computer networks and medicines. Oh. Those.

The deference to political correctness and deliberate ignorance of vast realms of thinking on this modern quandary all get to be too much for even Diamond to hold together at the very end. We finally see a shot of the Panang towers in Malaysia as the narrator asks rhetorically why those similarly malaria-ridden, isolated, colonialized portions of the world, (also the seat of 'proud' ancient civilizations) have risen literally to the sky while others in similar geographies have floundered. Guns? Nope. Same colonialism. Same bad white men. Germs? Nope. Same tropical diseases, more or less. Steel? Yep. Must be the steel. And the carbon fiber. And the titanium.

Anything except culture.

"The Theology of Global Warming"

This commentary piece by James Schlesinger in today's Wall Street Journal is too good to miss. If you don't have a subscription, get one - or find a newsstand and pick up today's copy. The piece addresses a topic that I've talked about before (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here): the instantiation of environmentalism (and global warming specifically) as a kind of secular religion against which no fact-based heresy will be tolerated lest it erode the blind, unreasoning faith of true believers. Simply calling it a religion begins to explain much about how the 'debate' is conducted and how the word "science" is at risk of becoming merely a sound that people make with their mouths - signifying nothing.

Mr. Schlesinger is no right-wing madman. Not only did he serve in the Carter administration (as the first Secretary of Energy, starting in 1977), but he initiated the DOE's Carbon Dioxide Effects and Assessment Program. Maybe someone worth listening to?

In referring to the theology of global warming, one is not focusing on evidence of the earth's warming in recent decades, particularly in the Arctic, but rather on the widespread insistence that such warming is primarily a consequence of man's activities -- and that, if only we collectively had the will, we could alter our behavior and stop the warming of the planet.

It was Michael Crichton who pointed out in his Commonwealth Club lecture some years ago that environmentalism had become the religion of Western elites. Indeed it has. Most notably, the burning of fossil fuels (a concomitant of economic growth and rising living standards) is the secular counterpart of man's Original Sin. If only we would repent and sin no more, mankind's actions could end the threat of further global warming. By implication, the cost, which is never fully examined, is bearable. So far the evidence is not convincing. It is notable that 13 of the 15 older members of the European Union have failed to achieve their quotas under the Kyoto accord -- despite the relatively slow growth of the European economies...

The issue of climate change urgently needs to be brought down from the level of theology to what we actually know. It is, of course, quite likely that the greenhouse effect has to some extent contributed to global warming -- but we simply do not know to what extent. The insistence that global warming is primarily the consequence of human activity leaves scant room for variation in solar intensity or cyclical phenomena generally.

Over the ages, climate has varied. Generally speaking, the Northern Hemisphere has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 17th century. Most of the global warming observed in the 20th century occurred between 1900 and 1940, when the release of greenhouse gasses was far less than later in the century. Between 1940 and 1975, temperatures fell -- and scientists feared a lengthy period of global cooling. The reported rise in temperatures in recent decades has come rather suddenly -- probably too suddenly given the relatively slow rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

We must always bear in mind that the earth's atmosphere remains a highly complex thermodynamic machine. Given its complexities, we need to be modest in asserting what we know. Knowledge is more than speculation...

Much has been made of the assertion, repeated regularly in the media, that "the science is settled," based upon a supposed "scientific consensus." Yet, some years ago in the "Oregon Petition" between 17,000 and 18,000 signatories, almost all scientists, made manifest that the science was not settled, declaring:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

...science is not a matter of consensus, as the histories of Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, Einstein and others will attest. Science depends not on speculation but on conclusions verified through experiment. Verification is more than computer simulations -- whose conclusions mirror the assumptions built in the model. Irrespective of the repeated assertions regarding a "scientific consensus," there is neither a consensus nor is consensus science. [emphasis added]

I've barely skimmed the surface of a piece that's required reading for anyone who wants to weigh in on this topic, (i.e., pretty much everyone.)

UPDATE I: Welcome Anchoress, Atlas Shrugs and Sigmund, Carl & Alfred readers! While you're here, check out the archives. It's an eclectic mix - from the personal to the geopolitical. Have fun and comment away, (politely, of course.) And yes, Kobayashi Maru is a silly pseudonym. If you lived where I do, you'd understand. :)

UPDATE II: The Anchoress found a great link to James Glassman over at Tech Central Station, and his essay: "Way, Way Beyond Kyoto":

...the United States announced in Vientiane, Laos, last week that it was joining five other nations - China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia -- in a new pact that offers a refreshing and effective alternative route to tackling the problem of climate change... Many professional environmentalists, for whom Kyoto is a matter of religious fervor, are disarmed and dismayed. "There's really nothing new here," said Jeff Fielder, an analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York.

No Jeff, not for you there probably isn't. Franchise broken. New game. Kewl. Anchoress' original post on this from August 3rd is here: "Hate him all you want, President Bush has vision, he is uninterested in theorizing and gabbing about a problem and is keen to actually DO something."

UPDATE III: Running for the Right has a great homemade chart correlating sunspot activity with temperatures in the Northern hemisphere over a 30-year period. It may not represent anything in particular, (correlations like this are notoriously easy to find between wholly unrelated subjects such as rabbit populations and sunspots), but it raises the question of how similar charts purporting to 'prove' global warming's inexorable man-made rush to destruction are equally open to question.

UPDATE IV: Finally doing the back research I should have done yesterday, I discover this bit from John Hinderaker over at Powerline from July 28th, writing about the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile... What distinguishes this plan from the Kyoto protocol is that it will actually lead to a major reduction in carbon emissions! This substitution of practical impact for well-crafted verbiage stunned and infuriated European observers. I doubt that the pact will make any difference to the earth's climate, which will be determined, as always, by variations in the energy emitted by the sun. But when the real cause of a phenomenon is inaccessible, it makes people feel better to tinker with something that they can control. Unlike Kyoto, this agreement won't devastate the U.S. economy, and, also unlike Kyoto, the agreement will reduce carbon emissions in the countries where they are now rising most rapidly, India and China. Brilliant. [emphasis added]

That reminds me of this oldie-but-goodie from Bob Geldof, speaking in July, 2003 about combating AIDS in Africa:

"Clinton talked the talk and did diddly squat, whereas Bush doesn't talk but does deliver," said Mr. Geldof, an Irish musician and activist who in 1985 staged the world's largest rock concert to combat starvation in Africa. "You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical, in a positive sense, in the approach to Africa since Kennedy," he said. [emphasis added]

UPDATE V: I also like this comment from Carlo Stagnaro over at Commons Blog, an excellent source on free market environmentalism that I've just added to my blogroll.

I was quite disappointed, then, when I first saw a comment from Friends of Earth's Tony Juniper: "this is another attempt to undermine Kyoto and a message to the developing world to buy US technology and not to worry about targets and timetables." In fact there is no need to undermine Kyoto, as the Protocol is - in a way - self-undermining. Its most vocal supporter, the European Union, will fail in meeting the targets as the European Environmental Agency openly tells... Apparently some climate fundamentalists, as well as some political actors... value their opposition to the White House more than a move that might well help to reduce future emissions. [emphasis added]

Profiling Terrorists - In the Larger Sense

I've been disappointed at how much of the debate over profiling to catch terrorists, (including here, I'll admit), has narrowed down to 'race vs. not race'. One side says that all checks must be entirely random, (by definition a scandalous waste of resources.) The other side says it's about young, Middle Eastern men and that's it. (Never mind the morality: try implementing that policy effectively in certain areas around say, Detroit or Los Angeles, not to mention London or New York.)

I'm therefore heartened by this story in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), on how U.S. shopping malls have begun learning from the Israelis, who've never had a suicide bomb detonate inside a shopping malls despite 100+ known attempts. (One was detonated just outside a checkpoint, however the four non-bomber deaths and 90 injuries that resulted were far far less than if the bomber had managed to get inside.)

Enter Arik Arad, who served as Israel's head of shopping-center security, a government post, from 1993 to 2003. Mr. Arad spoke to the shopping-center group in his official capacity in late 2002 and later was brought in as a consultant. His message to mall owners: Forget about the hand-held metal detectors, the machine guns and the explosives-sniffing dogs. Instead, he said, adopt Israel's "software" approach to shopping-mall security by learning the terrorist modus operandi. "It's not about guns, it's about training," Mr. Arad says. Mall-security companies immediately began integrating the Israeli techniques into their training programs. Many security experts say the effort has placed the U.S. mall-security industry far ahead of its counterparts in other sectors, such as mass transit and the protection of many public buildings... "We began to move away from the idea of what does a suicide bomber look like to how does he act," says Mr. Lusher. The beauty of the method, he adds, is that you are profiling behavior instead of people... Among the things [security company IPC International Corp.] learned from its studies of the Israeli approach was to teach employees to use all their senses when looking out for bombers, not just their sight. Often suicide bombers will anoint themselves with perfume, fragrant soap or rosewater in preparation for what they believe will be their martyrdom -- which leaves a flowery tell-tale scent. Once suspicious behavior has been identified, the Israelis act quickly, but not violently. The key to stopping or pre-empting an attack, they've found, is simply to walk up, look the suspect in the eye and ask: "Can I help you?" The Israelis call it "soft contact" and find that it's often enough to force a bomber to abandon his plan or make him detonate early, away from his target. Of course, the method does carry risks. Several Israeli security guards have died in foiling mall attacks by suicide bombers, Mr. Arad says. But their efforts have doubtless saved hundreds of lives. [emphasis added]

The Darwinian evolution to which this approach has been exposed, (not to mention its track record of objective success) clearly lends it credibility. I suspect that under the surface lies some degree of tacit ethnic and age profiling that keeps security guards from spending limited observation time on the behavior, (as London's Transport Police Chief Constable Ian Johnston put it), of: "little old white ladies." Regardless, it's working. I'm glad we're listening to the Israelis on this one rather than re-inventing the proverbial wheel.

Peter Jennings: 1938-2005

As much as we here in the blogosphere often rail against "the MSM", I will remember one pillar of that establishment - Peter Jennings - as a human being of great integrity and warmth: surely the most grounded of the "big three" over the last two decades. Please keep his family in your prayers.



UPDATE: This obit at the Christian Science Monitor is interesting:

ABC World News Tonight reflected the qualities of the man himself: calm, curious, cosmopolitan... The longtime face of ABC News was also a pioneer in broadcast coverage of religion. "He was absolutely instrumental" in getting mainstream media to cover issues of religion and spirituality, says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "It was a testament to his own interest in the subject, and the balance and sobriety he brought to the question." At one time, ABC News had the only full-time network correspondent devoted to religion, reportedly at Jennings' insistence. And he led a documentary team which produced the highly rated 2000 special "The Search for Jesus."

I pray that Mr. Jennings has now successfully completed that quest.

Religious Oppression in China

This is absolutely sickening on three counts: 1) for the fact that it is happening at all, 2) that so many think that Christians are no longer persecuted in our modern age, and 3) that the mainstream media is complicit in ignoring point #1 thus perpetuating point #2.

On Wednesday, officials interrupted Father Lin Daixian, 40, priest of the Diocese of Fuzhow — in southeast province of Fujian — and some 50 faithful, as they were praying for a parishioner suffering from cancer... the police "savagely beat the parishioners who tried in vain to prevent Father Lin’s arrest,... suffer[ing] severe injuries, including broken bones and teeth, [and] brain injuries..."

An American Housewife has the full story, (and many other good ones). Check her out - and keep her in your prayers. She lost her husband suddenly in June.

Lying in Service of Vanity

Does this development strike anyone as being right up there with botox in terms of Dorian Gray vanity and utter moral vacuousness? I.e., sacrificing trust on the altar of health and youth?

A team led by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California found it could persuade people to avoid fattening foods by implanting unpleasant childhood memories about the food - even though the event never happened. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team said it successfully turned people off strawberry ice cream. In earlier studies it did the same with pickles and hard-boiled eggs - in each case, by manipulating the subjects into believing the foods made them sick when they were children.

Deliberately implanting memories also "raises profound ethical questions," says Stephen Behnke, director of the ethics office of the American Psychological Association. "Say, for example, we could change a person's belief about their entire childhood. Would doing so be ethical?" Loftus is most famous for her position on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Based on her work, she has suggested that most of these memories were probably false.

...the scientists have so far failed to implant false beliefs about two common food items, chocolate chip cookies and potato chips... Loftus thinks this problem might be solved if attempts to implant memories were ramped up further using additional feedback and drills. [emphasis added]

"How would the child feel later on once you told them how you had manipulated them into eating their vegetables?" [said Gregory Stock, director of UCLA's program on medicine, technology and society]. "If you're going that far, why not use Photoshop to doctor their childhood photos to show them having problematic experiences with junk food?" For that matter, he adds, "it would be much simpler to give kids the offending food - a McDonald's burger, a pizza, whatever - and put a little something on it that makes them harmlessly sick. Then you would really affect their eating."

Loftus concludes with this weak defense:

"People cringe at the idea that anyone would suggest they lie to their children but they do it all the time when they tell them Santa Claus exists and so does the Tooth Fairy."

Nice try, but it hardly justifies wholesale institutionalized brainwashing of kids in search of a more svelte physique without working for it. Try good old discipline. Mommy doesn't have to stop at McDonalds and allow the TV to stay on 24/7. Daddy doesn't have to say "yes" whenever junior asks for candy instead of dinner.

Trust me. I've been there. Resisting persistent kids is hard, but its baked into the job description of a parent. Systematic lying to one's kids may solve some problems in the short term, but it's disastrous once they get older - yet one more step down the slippery slope of eroding trust within families and society. This is right up there with Jim Carey's 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' - a good flick, but a horrifying hypothetical future.

UPDATE: It struck me late last night that what's so reprehensible about lying to one's child about his or her younger days. It is breaking the parent's sacred duty to represent that pre-memory time with the utmost faithfulness. Lying about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are entirely different in that they are creating positive "third-party" images. Misrepresenting a child's own history is much more explosive in the same way that adopted children can feel betrayed when a hidden truth about their origins comes out later in life.

Iraq by the Numbers

There's nothing like numbers to cut through a lot of verbal sturm and drang. I can't say I like all of the trends, but the graphs provide a solid factual basis from which to resume the mudslinging. Opinionated Bastard has the charts and some analysis based on the latest Brookings Institution data. Hat tip: The Anchoress.

Dealing - In Funny Ways

Thanks to all those who have weighed in with prayers and e-mails (and e-mail prayers) concerning my brother. He is endlessly amused (and buoyed up) by the notion that almost-complete strangers are thinking of him.

After receiving the news yesterday, I desperately needed to go inward. Some people need to be with others in such times. I seem to need a balance. Thus I retreated to my cool basement and hopped on my stationary bike trainer (a regular thing for me year-round).

Without really planning it this way, I found myself pedaling furiously to Joe Satriani's Crystal Planet on the CD player and Blackhawk Down on the television. It took some work to get the sound from each to the proper synergistic level, (loud). Once I did however, the experience was surreal: brilliantly aggressive, rapid-fire guitar work melded in with a desperate all-night firefight by Marines in Mogadishu and my pedaling cadence lining up with both. The overall effect was strangely cathartic and re-centering. I don't claim any special meaning from the experience other than a feeling of relief that the Clinton-era tail-between-our-legs foreign policy is a thing of the past.

Just thought I'd share.

August 5th Ironies - NoKo and Nukes

Most observances of Hiroshima take place on the morning of August 6th - the date the bomb fell in Japan. In the U.S., it was still August 5th - today. Thus, a flurry of articles and editorials this morning are discussing the meaning of nuclear arms policy on the 60th anniversary, alongside the utterly predictable news, (is that an oxymoron?) that six-party talks with North Korea are at an impasse.

My apologies that most of the links and references in this post are from the subscription-only Wall Street Journal. Under times of stress, I tend to retreat to quality and this is one of those. My on-line WSJ subscription would be a great value at triple the price. Despite a widespread perception that the WSJ is a "business paper", it is much more than that - recently voted second in the world behind the Times of London, (sorry, I've lost the reference), and consistent in its ability to attract world-class op-ed writers from across the political spectrum and the international community. For those who think that it's somehow right-leaning compared to a 'centrist' New York Times, some major recalibration is in order; as in: return to the surface of our planet. :)

First, the big yawn:

Kim Kye Gwan, Pyongyang's chief envoy to the talks, said: "We want the right to peaceful nuclear activities. All the countries in the world have this right." Washington has insisted that North Korea dismantle all its nuclear programs, civil and military, saying it would be too easy to use civilian atomic-energy activities as a cover for maintaining the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

From what I know of the NPT, (not much, but I've read those who know much more), NoKo's point is narrowly, technically correct, but utterly without context. (Satan tends to talk that way - has anyone noticed?) The process for proving peaceful use is well established and NoKo isn't even close to meeting it, much less being a signatory of the NPT or even sorta-kinda maybe in compliance with the IAEA.

While we're at it, let me take a swipe at the moral equivalence crowd who like to use this date to jump on a soapbox and oh-so-reverently ask: "Who are we to tell other nations not to have nukes after we actually used them on real live human beings?" Good question. And just to level-set, I'm not claiming that we're eligible for sainthood as a nation. In making tough choices, we're trying to pick up slack in a world where effective moral leadership by nations is remarkably scarce, and internationally utterly absent. (Don't bother filling the comments section with counter-examples - Churchill, Gandhi, etc. I know they exist.) So, getting back to the point, I like to reply with a question:

"If you were Harry Truman, knowing what was known at the time, not knowing what was not known at the time, responsible for the lives of millions, and responsible to the world (including but hardly limited to the Japanese, btw) for the full consequences of your actions, what would you have done? And more importantly, how would your non-Trumanic policy have played out?"

I've been open for years to a truly thoughtful reply. The second question is the harder one in that it is asking for counter-factual history, which can get messy. All that said, I haven't heard a decent answer yet. The question usually elicits some utterly naive response, taking no account of the real-world scenarios playing out in 1945 but full forward account of forty years of received Nuclear Freeze 'wisdom' that was shown to be folly when we won the Cold War under Reagan. Another WSJ piece today puts it well:

Nuclear weapons are often said to pose a unique threat to humanity, and in the wrong hands they do. But when President Truman gave the go-ahead to deploy Fat Man and Little Boy, what those big bombs chiefly represented was salvation: salvation for... all the GIs; salvation for the tens of thousands of Allied POWs the Japanese intended to execute in the event of an invasion; salvation for the grotesquely used Korean "comfort women"; salvation for millions of Asians enslaved by the Japanese. Not least, and despite the terrible irony, the bombings were salvation for Japan, since they prompted Emperor Hirohito to intervene with his bitterly divided government to end the war, thus laying the groundwork for America's beneficent occupation and the country's subsequent prosperity. To understand the roots of modern Japan's pacifist mentality, so at variance with its old warrior culture, one need only visit Hiroshima's peace park. The same can be said about nuclear weapons in other contexts. America's nuclear arsenal helped thwart Soviet expansionism and provided the umbrella under which Western Europe and the Asian rim countries became -- and remained -- free throughout the Cold War. For embattled Israel, nuclear weapons have not only helped guarantee its existence, they have paradoxically provided it with the margin of strength it needs to contemplate territorial concessions unimaginable for other states its size... the notion that the nuclear genie can be willed out of existence through the efforts of right-thinking people is as absurd as it is wrongheaded. Just as guns and knives will be with us forever, so too will the bomb. We need bunker busters because North Korea and Iran are using underground facilities to build weapons that threaten us, and we must be able credibly to threaten in return. We need to have nuclear tests because the reliability of our principal warhead, the W-76, has been seriously called into question, and China must not be enticed to compete with us as a nuclear power. In neither case does the U.S. set a "bad example." Rather, it demonstrates the same capacity for moral self-confidence that carried America through World War II and must now carry us through the war on terror... Looking back after 60 years, who cannot be grateful that it was Truman who had the bomb, and not Hitler or Tojo or Stalin? And looking forward, who can seriously doubt the need for might always to remain in the hands of right? That is the enduring lesson of Hiroshima, and it is one we ignore at our peril.

And finally, Fred Ilke, undersecretary of defense for policy in the Reagan administration writes, in a spectacularly cogent and well-informed WSJ op-ed piece:

Based on careful deliberations, [President Eisenhower] decided in December 1953 to launch the Atoms for Peace Program at the U.N. His address received more praise - at home and abroad - than any other presidential speech. The purpose of Atoms for Peace was to enlist international support against weapons proliferation by donating or selling nuclear technology labeled "peaceful." Spurred by this American multilateralism, a shopping mall opened, making U.S., Soviet, Canadian, French, British, and other reactors available for "peaceful" research and electric power. This "peaceful" technology was sold or donated to Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Vietnam, the Congo, Laos, India, Pakistan, etc. No other U.S. policy, no commercial initiative, no theft of technology has done more to accelerate and expand the global spread of nuclear bombs... Today, the Bush administration is being pressured to purchase a halt in North Korea's nuclear bomb-making. Members of Congress and editorialists urge the president to "engage" North Korea with generous economic and political gifts. Such "engagement" could award us with the fifth (or would it be the seventh?) arms agreement that North Korea violates. And it would tell other rogue nations that they ought to try the same blackmail. [empasis added]

...we have become habituated to - indeed, utterly dependent on - a world order predicated on the non-use of nuclear weapons. This order might end abruptly. It would be a unique revolution in military affairs if the most powerful weapons in the arsenals of many nations were never used. Yet this uniqueness has become the norm on which trade, economic growth, international relations, as well as the domestic functioning of democratic governments now depend... The paroxysm after 9/11 would be a hiccup compared with the reaction the morning after one or more nuclear bombs caused massive devastation... A global dispersion of the most cataclysmic means for destruction would have no parallel in history. Even the fall of the Roman Empire did not empower ruthless rebels or pseudo-religious cults to extirpate law and order in every corner of the realm.

Cancer Returns... Again

I just received word from my brother that tests yesterday showed high levels of cancer cells in his bone marrow. It is an odd sensation - receiving this news again. We were just one day away from the start of his stem cell (aka, bone marrow) transplant process. It is now off. $%^&*t.

He had begun experiencing mild symptoms that in the past had indicated leukemia's return. Sadly, these tests confirm them. Needless to say, we are all in shock. Again. He has been home for a month, feeling good, recovering his strength and generally re-emerging as... himself: the brother I have known and loved in ways I never imagined until this crisis. Now this demon returns.

Miraculously, he has pulled himself into what I'd characterize as a "Lance state of mind": determined as he has never been to fight this thing and fight it hard. He and his wife are going out to dinner at a fancy restaurant tonight - as they'd been planning to do for a week. If he goes down, he will go down swinging, and that's heartening to see. He is feeling fairly good for now and will even be able to stay home for another two weeks receiving outpatient treatment. That contrast - the robust brother I know, out in his yard, with his family, feeling fine - is the strangest thing, knowing what lurks inside him, and what it may do to him. Tomorrow is another day. We will enjoy it to the fullest. Prayers appreciated as always.

NY Times on Air America Scandal: [crickets]

As always, Michelle Malkin has an excellent summary, rich with links. Those who regard the New York Times as their paper of record will be excused for not having the faintest idea that hyper-liberal Air America is tainted with a major alleged scandal. Not that the 'alleged' part ever stopped them when the subject was Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. Michelle writes:

New York Times ombudsman Byron Calame (public@nytimes.com) is "closely watching" the Air America story and how it is handled by the paper... Fortunately, plenty of others are covering the story while the Times twiddles its thumbs... Last month, the Times's executive editor, Bill Keller, trumpeted the newspaper's new committment to "to stretch beyond our predominantly urban, culturally liberal orientation, to cover the full range of our national conversation." We're waiting...

I'm still trying to juxtapose this against an acquaintance who last week remarked to me that he thought the NY Times was "getting way too conservative" and "completely kow-towing to the Bush adminstration". In which universe is that?

North Korea - Still Repressive; Still Devious

I wrote extensively about North Korea back in March on the heels of reading Brad Martin's excellent book about the place, ('In the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader'). I've written less since then not because anything has changed, but because it would be monotonous (if true) to keep repeating that Kim Jong-il is about as close to pure evil as it is possible to get without actually having a pointy tail and ears and smelling of sulphur. Six-party talks are more sham than substance. The only real headline is that there has not been a nuclear exchange.

Thus I note two worthwhile pieces about North Korea - one eyewitness; one opinion. That's also a good order in which to read them, lest the opinion part seem shrill.

Lee, a North Korean businesswoman from Hoeryong, North Hamkyong Province, said she had to come to China because she could not buy rice for herself and two sons much less pay for their schooling. Theoretically, North Korea has full employment since everyone must have a job. Lee was a garment factory worker and still is on its payroll. But she has not been paid since 1994, when the factory stopped operating due to the lack of raw materials. To make matters worse, distribution of food also stopped. Many people went to cities to become peddlers. Under regulations, however, workers must still report to work every day even though there is no work to do. Those who became peddlers paid the factory 5,000 Won for doing their own business without reporting to work... The central government still allocates production quotas to factories. "This is nothing but a pretext to collect tax money," Lee said. "Of the money collected from the factory workers doing business, the factory manager and the party official get their portion and send the rest to the government," she said. "If you think the payment to the factory is the only tax we pay, you are wrong," she said. "We pay another 5,000 Won for the peddler's stand we use at the marketplace. And then there are taxes we pay to our village authorities. Whenever there is a special national project planned, they collect money from us." The biggest irony for the "great socialist society" is that people have to pay for textbooks and teachers' salaries, Lee said. Teachers have long been unpaid by the state and cannot leave the school because they have to teach the children. So the school collects money from the students to pay the teachers. [emphasis added]

Sounds like a veritable workers' paradise: your employer goes bust and lays you off but still have to report to work - for more than a decade. The state pays for all of your needs (food, schooling, medical care, etc.)... except when they don't, which is all the time. Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute, writing for Intellectual Conservative opines:

A wide consensus -- from the New York Times to the White House -- is firmly backing the re-launched "diplomatic" negotiations aimed at enticing North Korea to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. For these talks to succeed, a Times editorial insists, America and its allies should offer the North a package of "strong positive inducements" including "guarantees against United States attack, a clear path to American diplomatic recognition and generous aid." Before the talks began Washington provided a foretaste of the rewards Pyongyang can expect by promising it 50,000 tons of food aid. But isn't this exactly what the United States has tried in the past? The pattern is clear: the North threatens us, we respond with negotiations, gifts and concessions, and it reemerges with even greater belligerence.

Without economic aid, technical assistance and protracted negotiations affording it time, it is unlikely that the North -- continually on the brink of economic collapse -- could have survived, let alone built the fourth-largest army in the world. The North is believed to have sold long-range ballistic missiles to Iran, Yemen, Pakistan and Syria; soon it may be selling nuclear-bomb material to terrorists.

What made this cycle of appeasement possible -- and why do our political and intellectual leaders insist that further "diplomacy" will work? Because they cling to the fiction that North Korea shares the basic goal of prosperity and peace. This fantasy underlies the notion that the right mix of economic aid and military concessions can dissuade North Korea from its nuclear ambition. It evades the fact that the North is a militant dictatorship that acquires and maintains its power by force, looting the wealth of its enslaved citizens and threatening to do the same to its neighbors. the facts of North Korea's character and goals, like all facts, are impervious to anyone's wishful thinking. Years of rewarding a petty dictatorship for its belligerent actions did not disarm it, but helped it become a significant threat to America. [emphasis added]

Jury Duty

For some reason, I've never served on a jury. I was called once a dozen years ago but the entire panel was dismissed for the day and I was home for lunch. Tomorrow, (only my second call in 20+ years) may be the same. I'm hoping not. I'd actually like to serve. Yeah, it would be a massive pain to be on a trial right now with my brother going back into the hospital on Friday, and work going full bore, but those things will take care of themselves for a few days. With my heightened political sensibilities, and my work helping groups reach decisions, it could be a lot of fun.

Of course in the Peoples' Republic of Cambridge, (the most liberal zip code east of San Francisco), mentioning what I really think politically is exactly what's likely to disqualify me as a 'peer' of the accused. The defense is going to kill me if we ever get to voire dire. I'm bringing a long book just in case.

UPDATE: I had a quiet morning hanging out with my fellow citizens and catching up on my reading... but my panel never even reached the courtroom for jury selection. I did feel a sense of civic 'fullness' just by being there however. I can't describe it as pride or patriotism, but rather a sense of being part of a social process with deep historical roots and cross-societal connections one seldom experiences anywhere else.

The Liberal/Progressive Establishment

Liberal Establishment. Progressive Establishment. Think about those phrases for a moment. In academia, media, entertainment, and large swaths of public service - not to mention state and local government in many of the most populous states in this country - the phrase "liberal establishment" is not ironic in the least. It is simply descriptive. (Those who, like an older acquaintance who worried to me the other day that "the New York Times is way way too conservative" can stop right here. Trust me: we will not have a meeting of minds in this post. :)

Liberals are not victims, even as their philosophy often depends on portraying themselves as such. NYGirl has a tremendous little essay today about how shrill and strange the left's claim to outsider status really is when one stops to ponder the positions of power they now enjoy. No, they aren't in the White House at the moment, (shudder...), but they've got an awful lot of other important societal territory under an exceptionally determined grip. Excerpt:

...young people are supposed to be more liberal than their elders: conservative is old, liberal is progressive & revolutionary. However, this stereotype is faltering in the face of the growing evidence that it is indeed liberals who are the moldy old establishment, while the conservatives are the few & the brave constantly ducking attacks from the powers that be... It was conservatism that gave the women of Afghanistan the opportunity to attend school, vote & run for office. It was conservatism that gave the people of Iraq the opportunity to vote for the first time in their lives. It was conservatism that drove the Syrian occupiers out of Lebanon. Had we taken the path of liberalism, all of these people would still be under the yoke of tyranny. Conservatism is the way of the future, as it the ideology of global justice & rationalism, rather than the blind pacifism which has tolerated the enormous suffering of billions across the earth.

And if liberal/progressive really means institutionalized authoritarianism (as she argues elsewhere in the post), or to use a Virginia Postrel phrase, 'stasism', isn't that simply... Reactionary? Knee-jerk? Un-thinking? Mindlessly defensive of personal privilege and power? Last time I checked, those were regarded as bad things in both liberal and conservative philosophy.

Yet younger readers, (and I use that phrase liberally - pardon the pun), will be excused for a feeling of disorientation. They are excused for asking: Isn't the establishment in those highly influential, gate-keeping roles for civilization itself simply that way? Haven't they always been liberal and 'progressive' and jealous of any challenge to their high-minded say-so? Well... no. It has been almost exactly forty years, plus or minus - roughly the span of my lifetime - since this massive sea change began - innocently enough.

It is not my purpose here to catalog or parse all of the positives that liberalism brought us in its infancy, but there were enough that I can understand why my parents were happy to be so, and be shocked that am not. Civil rights achieved under the leadership and religiously-inspired philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King immediately springs to mind. I'd be happy to stand alongside any 'progressive' who wanted to return to those roots and honestly discuss King's 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech, without reference to Jesse Jackson's contemporary and grossly perverted government-entitlement "look at meeee" spin on it.

Much of the rest of liberal philosophy as it accelerated through the 1960's seemed like a good idea at the time, but has been taken way way too far. It's been stripped of its context as if 'progress' in one direction must be continued ad infinitum just because, running roughshod over all opponents and defining them as reactionary, even if the old path clearly runs off a sheer cliff and into the sea. But I digress.

The best illustration I can think of at the moment is a movie. Just about everyone my age and younger who watches the original 'National Lampoon's Animal House', (and merely citing that as an example is dating me as the hyper-late no-mans-land 'boomer' that I am), would be excused for wondering why by current standards, the Faber College administrators seem so conservative, why ROTC was accepted so easily on campus, and why shattering so many behavioral and sexual taboos was seen as so unusual.

By 1978 of course, (the year Animal House came out), the breaking of so many societal taboos seemed anything but outrageous. What seemed outrageous were the taboos themselves. By the standards of nearly any modern day music video, even those transgressions now seem quaint. 1978 seems like a long time ago. 1962, (the year in which Animal House was set), seems like a different planet.

Conservatism is not about turning back the clock. It's about rummaging through the trash heap of progressive policy innovation to find the clock the liberal establishment threw out... along with the silverware, the Bible and several of the children.