Magic vs. Miracles: New Grass on the Field

Yesterday afternoon found me driving back from a brunch - a cancer research fundraiser in honor of my late brother. In the backseat was the divinely serendipitous baseball 'care package' that had arrived just before the anniversary of my grandfather's death earlier this month: a pair of signed, 'Isaiah 40:31 batting gloves, a Christ-testifying baseball card and several other items.

I had brought it along to show my mother on the drive over. On the way back, my six-year-old niece picked it up. At that very moment (and I mean that quite literally - as if my niece had switched the station herself), the song on the radio changed to... 'Centerfield' by John Fogerty.

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today!
We're born again, there's new grass on the field.
A-roundin' third, and headed for home, it's a brown-eyed handsome man;
Anyone can understand the way I feel.

My brother had deep brown eyes. He was, by all accounts, a handsome man. He was born again, shortly before he 'headed home' last October. He loved watching baseball with his daughter (my niece) in his lap.

I pointed out the lyrics to my mom. She 'got it' immediately. My niece did too (she's frighteningly perceptive for not-quite six and a half). She giggled. "You mean these gloves are magic?", she asked, picking them up again, looking half-expectantly at the radio.

"No honey, they're not magic," I replied. "Miracles aren't magic. They may seem magical to us, but that's not the right word. Miracles are not something we make happen. God gives us miracles as gifts. God and your daddy just wanted to remind us that they're still with us."

I hope that anyone can understand the way I feel: utterly jubilant and grateful at the regular reminders that there not only is grass on the other side, but that it is green and lush and new.

End of an Era: Catholic Charities in Boston

I'm sometimes asked about the intersection between the two inspirations for my political-spiritual journey these last ten years: Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' and my acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In many ways they are strange bedfellows - very strange bedfellows. The former urges us to be suspicious if not spiteful of faith, while the latter urges us to look beyond the wheels of commerce for truth. I have no doubt which one holds the trump card, and it's not the brilliant but dead chain smoker from Los Angeles by way of Russia.

Beyond the obvious (both were useful in bringing down Communism), another commonality comes to mind this morning as I peruse the front page of the Boston Globe and that is this:

There comes a point, after one has been pushed and pushed and pushed steadily away from a set of principles that ought to remain fixed... pushed by evolving popular sentiment, social convention and government mandate... where one is pushed to a point of being forced to say, "enough!" and simply withdraw from the field. There comes a point when one's only option in order to avoid being co-opted into supporting the opposite of what one stands for and giving power to one's enemies is to cease offering one's talents and services. And so it is with Catholic Charities in Boston at the end of this month:

When abortion was legalized in 1973, Catholic Charities of Boston saw the number of babies put up for adoption plummet, and its caseload fell from about 500 to 50 children a year. The agency changed its focus to finding homes for older foster children.

In the following decade, when society grew more accepting of single parenthood, Catholic Charities became more tolerant as well and placed some needy children in families headed by one parent.

For more than 100 years, the sprawling social service agency adapted to many social shifts, determined to maintain its adoption program at the core of its spiritual mission. Since its founding in 1903, it has placed tens of thousands of children in homes, more than any other agency in the state.

But on Friday, the adoption agency will shut down, for the first time encountering a painful conflict between cultural change and Catholic doctrine that it could not resolve. Caught between the church's opposition to gays adopting children and state law that gives gays the legal right to become parents, the agency could not navigate a way forward.

"The overwhelming majority of the time we reconciled the differences between our roots in the Catholic Church and our mission to serve the larger society," said the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities of Boston. "But this time, it was irreconcilable."

Despite its many decades serving a diverse population, including people of varying faiths, the adoption agency's ending reflects its beginnings, highlighting its role as a staunch defender of Catholicism.

Not unexpectedly, the article subtly paints the church as the one committing a grievious wrong by not just kinda, y'know, getting along, going along... being "progressive" and acknowledging that, hey man, things are different in the 21st century. Which in terms of human nature and the constancy of God, they are not. Not in the least.

Apologies for the break from blogging. House projects. Kids' activities. Catching up on sleep. Family visits. Work. Nothing major. Just... life. :)

Fisking Global Warming

This started out as a reply to a commenter on this thread, springboarding off this post. It got too long... so I'm making it into a separate post. Yes, I'm feeding the trolls. :)

Commenter 'E' asks: "do you really feel that global warming is nothing more than a supposition?"

KM: Global warming is a fact. So is global cooling. They have each been going on since the dawn of time. Stuff changes. Deal with it. I have seen both manias in my lifetime and since they are contradictory, I am deeply skeptical about the veracity of either. How far either one is likely to go in (say) the next 100 years is also unknown and unknowable. If you do know the state of the future in 100 years then you either know nothing about forecasting (or computer models) or you are going to be very very rich if you take those convictions to the stock market and stop trolling the blogs. Others who have attempted to make predictions even ten years into the future have been spectacularly wrong however, so I'd urge you to keep a few spare bucks in the matress when your investment in your vision doesn't pay off.

What is knowable is that the magnitude of opinion about any recent global warming trend (if it exists at all) is extremely wide - with estimates ranging from non-existent to massive. There are also good reasons to question the hidden agendas of many of the individuals and institutions offering those estimates. The questioning of the high estimates however, has been scant and often stifled by epithets, ad hominem attacks and efforts to simply marginalize those findings by claiming a consensus that does not exist. What should also be open to debate (though Al Gore would like to shut it down) is whether any trends are natural or man-made.

Commenter 'E': "If there is, and has been this great debate about it, don't you think we ought to be considering our options?"

KM: There has absolutely not been a great debate. If all anyone was doing was considering options, there'd be little argument from me. Instead, what is being discussed (with a straight face) is a massive re-engineering of the entire global economy within a vision that is politically-driven, top-down and antithetical to free market principles, liberty, democracy and science. Oh, and they kill little cute puppies too. (OK, that last bit was a joke.)

There has been a great and ill-informed flocking to a particular point of view and a great effort to deride and exclude from any further debate anyone who disagrees with that orthodoxy. Or to put it more succinctly: "consensus my *a--*".

Commenter 'E': "What's the harm in trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Isn't it a good thing in itself to become oil-independent? Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to worry about storing nuclear waste?"

KM: The harm in trying to reduce carbon dioxide emmissions regardless of whether it's warranted and regardless of whether it will do any good should be obvious on its face. Is there harm in your trying to cut off your foot with a chain saw? Well, yes. But if you're absolutely convinced that it is gangrenous and that you'll die if you don't do it, then you're going to do it anyway. If it's my foot you want to cut off - or you want me to pay for the consequences of your irrational act - then we need to talk.

To put it another way, the harm is that such corrective measures (again, begging the question of corrective of what?) are 1) extremely costly, 2) absolutely useless (admitted even by those scientists who believe in the perils of global warming) and 3) distracting from more pressing priorities (e.g., like preserving Western Civilization).

As for the reference to oil independence, I'm all for temporary economic independence from countries that we'd rather not trade with under their current leadership (e.g., Saudi, Iran) in order to send a signal that we don't like how they're behaving. But recognize independence for what it is: isolationism. That's an impulse has a checkered past, to say the least.

So until we can bring those countries into the sphere of Western Civilization, let's drill in ANWR. Then let's subdue the rest of the Middle East so that they become robust, free, democratic trading partners rather than the murderous, fascist, misogynist kleptocracies we've allowed them to become by having a pansy-a--'d, UN-pandering foreign policy for too many years. Along with that, I have no problem if you want to encourage your friends by argument and personal suasion to ride bikes and drive less. When you force them to change via government (or extra-government) mandate, that's where I start to have an interest in the wisdom, the proof and the unintended consequences and side-effects of your proposed policies.

As to your reference to reduced carbon emissions being consistent with the elimination of nuclear energy and waste, I don't know what you're smoking but I'd like to have some of it. Check the numbers and get back to me. The only thing I can imagine is that you're proposing a return to a pre-industrial society. How, I don't know, but I can't imagine it being easy, quick or voluntary. A quick perusal of Dickens, or a stroll through longevity and infant mortality statistics for pre-industrial societies may change your mind.

[This one's an innocuous-looking doozy.]
Commenter 'E': "Sure, everything can be taken too far, but in my opinion, car traffic has gone too far, both among ordinary citizens and among city planners. Car choice is good, car dependance [sic] is bad. Where I live [Sweden], the authorities say that if car commuters would just use other transport once a week, all the car queues would vanish! Many of my friends could easily replace their car journeys by bike and/or public transport, and they themselves would be richer and healthier for it. If we had a better system of express busses, more people could make use of public transport."

KM: Gosh! The authorities say it must be true... isn't that a conservative position? Here in America, even conservatives remain skeptical of authority. It's in our blood. It's proven useful in preventing some authorities from setting the world ablaze and killing millions based on unproven theories of how things should be. But I digress.

Thank you for sharing your opinion, 'E'. I agree that sitting in traffic isn't any fun. I agree that choice is good. In fact, people make choices every day... unless government bureaucrats take those choices away under threat of violence (legal, economic or physical). Some people choose to sit in traffic because they're going to get to their destination faster and with greater comfort and at lower cost despite it. If that were not true, they would choose another mode of transportation or scale back their travel plans - as some do.

That is why we have traffic reports that enable people to make choices. That is why gas is sold for money (that people can choose to spend on it or something else) rather than rationed by the government. That is why some of the most vibrant cities on the planet were not planned at all and why some of the deadest and most depressingly wasteful urban environments I know of were created by socialist government bureaucrats who thought they knew better.

I would hope you would agree that individual choices should be respected - that principle being the font of liberal democracy: i.e., liberty and respecting the will of the people. Yes, people could replace some car journeys with journeys by bike or public transport. Some do.

The crux of the matter is this: what measures would you take to force those who do not make the same choices you do... to do so anyway against their will?

An Inconvenient Truth... About Al Gore and His Cronies

A regular reader tipped me off to this column on global warming myths by Tom Harris in the Canada Free Press. What the piece does nicely is to carefully deconstruct the notion (frequently offered with a dismissive wave of the hand by global warming Kool-Aid drinkers) that there is "scientific consensus" on global warming's causes, its future, on human activity as the primary culprits for it, on its impacts (if any) and on our ability to do anything about them... if those impacts were not ones we'd be better off adapting to rather than fighting. (Each of those pieces of the argument is critical. Those on the other side frequently prefer to lump them together.)

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field... [emphasis added]

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."

In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars [more like trillions - Ed.], if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request.

That article led us to this commentary ('Inconvenient Expertise') by Jonathan Spalink over at the Acton Institute's blog (also well worth reading). And that, in turn, led us to this graph on the Stanford University website (see below, right: a plot of solar activity ('Solpleterioders') versus global temperature ('Temperatur'). (Anyone read Norwegian?)

Given the number of misleading graphs trotted out by the Al Gore Hollywood-as-science fan club in support of a left-wing world-government-friendly global warming agenda, I'm not proposing that this one close the case for the other side.

What it should do however, is to raise pointed questions... about other pointed questions... that some would like to exclude from the scientific (and I emphasize scientific) exploration of this fantastically complex and fundamentally non-definitive topic. For example: isn't it possible that the sun heating up would explain a lot more about global warming than any of the second- and third-order processes being proposed? Can we at least discuss it without being labeled as 'fringe' or 'in the pocket of big oil' or (as some commenters on the Acton Institute site put it), 'trolls' and 'partisans'? Best of all, a commenter refused to engage on the issues the article raised because it was "not a credible source". And what is? The New York Times? Name-calling is hardly new to science, but it does little to advance it. It all makes for a rather circular argument - one that remains focused only on the argument, rather than digging into the facts and issues.

But wait a minute: Why do I say that global warming is fundamentally non-definitive? Just this: For many if not most popularly visible scientific questions, one can look at data from a bounded past event (e.g., a lab experiment) and work to draw conclusions about it. Similarly, one can look at current - and presumably continuing - phenomena such as gravity, chemical interactions, cell biology and the like and create hypotheses about forces constantly at work in those domains.

What one cannot do for a virtually unbounded problem such as global warming, for which there is (in the global span of geologic time) only skimpy evidence about multi-dimensional causality, is to create predictive models and foist them off on the public as fact. As I've said before: nobody has actually been to the future.

For those still with me, there is then this post to lighten the proceedings. The reference was sent to me with great earnestness as an example of the way the world ought to be if only the granola-eating father-knows-best Birkenstock set ran it their way and too bad if you can't ride a bike or it snows where you live. It's a world in which - don't laugh - Al Gore is a right-wing tool unwilling to speak truth to power and rid the world once and for all of the evil automobile.

Lesson: to look moderate, it's always advisable to keep someone on your flank. One question though: Doesn't it take a lot of electricity to make the tinfoil for those hats?

UPDATE I: More on the sun theory from Al Fin here.

UPDATE II: For new readers, check out this summary post from a few months back on The Theology of Global Warming.

The Religious Left: How Not to Recognize the Good Guys

Two great editorials in yesterday's WSJ delve into the homicidal, vindictive mosh-pit that Palestinian politics has (predictably) become and some perverse reactions to it here. I.e., blame Israel. And capitalism. (Alas, both pieces are available only to paid subscribers.)

The first ('Palestinian Suicide Politics') notes that:

Regarding the increasingly violent Palestinian feud between Hamas and Fatah partisans, it's tempting to recall Henry Kissinger's quip about the Iran-Iraq War: "It's a pity both sides can't lose." The tragedy is that the certain losers will be average Palestinians... Israel's full withdrawal last year from Gaza was supposed to have given the Palestinians an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to govern themselves. What it has shown so far is how little Israel's occupation had to do with the deepest sources of Palestine's grief.

Too many Palestinians have postponed serious consideration of just what sort of state they wish to have, fixating instead on their endless and unreal claims on Israel: full withdrawal to the 1967 armistice lines, the "right of return" for the refugees of 1948 and their descendants, and so on. What is happening now in Ramallah is the result of that kind of political escapism. Until the Palestinians realize that they can't elect a terrorist group without consequence, there will never be any hope for their state, whenever its birth, whatever its borders. [emphasis added]

The second, an op-ed by one Jim Roberts entitled 'Turn Left at the Presbyterian Church' chronicles an obscene but heretofore largely unnoticed push by leaders of that mainline Christian denomination to squarely oppose Israel and support blood-stained terrorist rogues on the Palestinian side.

For those non-Presbyterians (like myself) who might be tempted to regard it as an irrelevant side-show, the power-play by that church's leaders should do at least one thing: decisively burst the longstanding political myth of America being taken over by a one-sided religio-political agenda. Instead, there is and always has been a 'Religious Left' at least as noxiously partisan and power-hungry as the worst accusations ever thrown at the so-called 'Religious Right'. (Something which hardly excuses their occasional excesses, but should put them in their proper perspective.)

At issue is the Presbyterian Church [USA]'s decision in 2004 "to initiate a process of phased, selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel." ...once revered as an icon of socially progressive thinking [PCUSA], is now tainted by perceptions of anti-Semitism and naive support of Islamic terrorists. The Presbyterian bureaucracy seems unwilling to confront difficult problems in Africa and the Middle East that do not fit its hard-line, pro-Palestinian political viewpoint. Interfaith relations with Jewish friends are also in shambles after decades of efforts by Presbyterians to reach out and create healthy working relationships based on mutual respect...

In June 2004, with scant attention and without fair debate, the leadership foisted a divestment resolution on an unsuspecting church. While the action was likened to similar divestment from South Africa under apartheid in the 1980s, attempts to draw analogies between that country then and Israel now are factually indefensible. Only a few months later in the fall of 2004, senior church leaders were among a contingent that met with Hezbollah in Lebanon and praised them -- the same international terrorist organization that has killed thousands, including Americans, without remorse over several decades, and that receives major funding from Iran.

The church also funds fiercely pro-Palestinian committees, sends representatives to Palestinian advocacy conferences, and has written obsequious congratulatory letters to the terrorist leaders of Hamas on their recent election victory. Simultaneously, the church remains remarkably docile on profoundly serious issues such as genocide in Darfur, the Iranian nuclear buildup and mistreatment of Christians in communist and Muslim countries.

Presbyterian delegates also take leadership roles in organizations that blame the U.S. and capitalism in general for most of the world's catastrophes. The 2004 manifesto of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, for instance, went on about America's "imperialism," "domination" and "massive threats to life." And the Presbyterian Church's 2004 Stony Point Declaration was a similar self-parody, noting that "our nation . . . pursues global empire, backed by unprecedented military supremacy. Its un-qualified commitment to economic growth through a global, capitalist economic system has not served God's purposes of justice, peace, community and the integrity of creation, but has enriched the corporate ruling class . . . [creating] monstrous inequality and massive suffering."

Just as secular commentators are routinely identified as 'conservative' in the MSM while liberal ones go without label, the same is true in the religious realm. In the MSM's view there is a 'Religious Right' and then there is mainstream religion. One would think that the latter would stand for its avoidance of secular partisan politics altogether. As one pastor I know put it: Jesus' teachings necessarily had political implications... but he was not a partisan.

Alas, a Religious Left masquerading as mainstream often goes unidentified and thus unchallenged, ignoring certain inconvenient realities, borrowing words like 'peace' and 'justice' and giving them perverse new meanings twisted to partisan ends.

Music, Baseball, Love and Faith

In case there wasn't enough deeply reassuring, hyper-coincidental, unsolicited baseball serendipity already in my life, today just... happened.

Yesterday I get an e-mail from one of my brother's close friends: would I like to come to a special, exclusive event at Fenway Park? For free. Well, duh! Of course. (The same friend who, two months ago, ended up - at the last minute - coming with me to hear Joe Satriani.)

So on an absolutely perfect summer evening (clear skies, beautiful sunset, temps dipping into the 60's, light breeze out of left field) my brother's friend and I met up for a special Micrososft event put on for about 2,000 people. (Fenway seats ~35,000.) This was a different crowd than usual: 90% men. 99% had that pasty complexion and all-day screen stare that one only finds in folks who can program in their sleep and sometimes do. Great free food, all the free Sam Adams we could drink, and pretty much the run of the place (all except the grass).

We walked the warning track, sat in the dugout and investigated the 'Green Monster' up close. The name of the event? "Tech Ed"... which is a condensed description of my brother's career.

And as if that weren't enough, we were treated to a concert by Grammy winning recording artist 'Train', which - somewhat to my surprise - rocked. Their lead singer, Pat Monahan is exceptionally talented, flawlessly hitting some amazing high notes, and moving with confidence through chord changes and subtle touches. Very impressive.

Early on, they did 'Meet Virginia', which happens to be the name of a woman at church whom I'm supposed to meet tomorrow (and forgot to call tonight)... the same wheelchair-bound woman who neatly book-ended my brother's illness: her angelic presence in just the right places at just the right times to provide amazing support to me without either of us consciously planning it.

About halfway into their main set (after pausing while a woman received medical treatment for falling six feet onto concrete into the dugout after dancing on its roof in front of the stage), they launched into a cover of the Page/Plant classic "Going to California", followed by another Robert Plant tune I can't remember the name of because they did a fake-out lead-in with the initial bars from 'Whole Lotta Love'.

Robert Plant was probably my brother's absolute favorite artist. As a former DJ, heavy-duty record collector and concert-goer that was a refined judgment. The last concert we went together had Robert Plant warming up. Train? Robert Plant? Go figure. Two Plant covers in a row at a concert I'd gotten into for free?... at the last minute?... through a close friend of my brother's?... at the veritable mecca of my brother's favorite sport and home team, Fenway Park?

As I stared out at the Citgo sign (the one-mile-to-go beacon for those running the Boston Marathon as I did last April in honor of my brother's life) it only got better, i.e., more incredible, as they launched into 'Calling All Angels':

I need a sign to let me know you're here...
And I'm calling all angels
I'm calling all you angels

Which they immediately followed with 'When I Look to the Sky':

Cause when I look to the sky something tells me you're here with me
And you make everything alright
And when I feel like I'm lost something tells me you're here with me
And I can always find my way when you are here

I don't make this stuff up. Really, I don't. The year of thinking wishfully? I prefer a different explanation. God with us. Believe it. Know it.

Pondering Denmark - Pick Your Fascist Poison

Wandering off on a tangent from the last post and its news of a robust Danish export economy, I share this bit on the Baby Name Wizard Blog - discovered while doing research for a book:

The International Herald Tribune recently profiled Denmark's especially restrictive naming regulations:

"People expecting children can choose a pre-approved name from a government list of 7,000 mostly West European and English names - 3,000 for boys, 4,000 for girls. A few ethnic names, like Ali and Hassan, have recently been added. But those wishing to deviate from the official list must seek permission at their local parish church, where all newborns' names are registered. A request for an unapproved name triggers a review at Copenhagen University's Names Investigation Department and at the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, which has the ultimate authority." [emphasis added]

Which raises an interesting question: Which kind of fascism might we prefer when an Orwellian nanny-state known for cheese, beer and innovative children's toys goes head-to-head with the up-and-comer Islamic variety disinclined to visit their local parish church to get approval for naming their baby 'Osama' or 'Saddam'?

The pessimistic answer is a growing de facto apartheid between two repugnant if distinctly different versions of father-knows-best. The optimistic answer is a glowing ember of support for personal freedom, pluralism and minimalist government. Hey, there's an idea to try...

Partying With the Willfully Ignorant

I don't know what life is like for liberals living in overwhelmingly 'red' states - much less zip codes that vote 10:1 for the other side - but its mirror image is exhausting in its relentless, earnest encroachment on the fabric of everyday life. Some provide fodder for amusement (e.g., this and this and this). Most don't. And so it was this past weekend.

Here in the state that still applauds itself for its fervent support of John Kerry, Al Gore, Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and Jimmy Carter - to name but a few in a long line of sincerely misguided losers - it's impossible to go 48 hours without a casual and utterly non-political interaction veering suddenly into a mine-field of ignorant non-sequitors straight out of the editorial pages of the Boston Globe. (For those not familiar with the paper, the best summary comes from a former colleague who once remarked that it had become his refuge from a New York Times clearly in the pocket of the Bush administration after veering hard to the right. Yes, and I wish my fillings would stop picking up broadcasts from space aliens...)

One is faced with the choice of attempting (usually solo) a blood-pressure-raising confrontation of each falsehood with fact and each unsupported allegation with a long string of logic-probing queries, or taking a more intellectual if hypothetical approach to considering the alternative histories that each losing candidate might have wrought on this nation. The easier tack is to allow an awkward silence to fall as if someone had just remarked proudly on what they'd just left in the potty. The unfortunate side effect of that last approach however, is that one leaves an impression that one is aloof, ill, mute, sleep-deprived, or overly medicated... which are not inappropriate states of mind to pursue in such situations.

Two beauties from the weekend:

First, a walk in my neighborhood during which I spied... one of those cars, parked in the street. Those who live around here will know that I'm talking about. It's the kind of car whose owner has thought it important to plaster with a dozen different bumper stickers that one is absolutely sure - even from a great distance and before being able to make out the words - will not have anything positive to say about the John Birch Society, the NRA, NRO or Operation Iraqi Freedom. But this time: a surprise.

Amidst all the usual stickers exuding oh-so-clever sarcasm about Bush Lying and Peas Whirling and Religious People Sucking and War Being The Result Of Preparing For It and Gender Modification Being a State-Sponsored Right: "Kennedy/Johnson".

No, not a fortuitously named pair of contemporary candidates, but that Kennedy/Johnson - the administration of more than a generation ago that - when held up alongside the current one along multiple dimensions of policy, popularity and even family background - is nearly indistinguishable from it (with the thankful exception of an unfortunate little history-turning event deep inside opposition territory.) The vast, yawning chasm between that administration and the current Democratic party platform seemed lost on the vehicle's owner... who fortunately wasn't present at the time.

Second, a lawn party at the home of a dear friend during which a casual conversation about families and running and the weather turned within seconds (and not of my doing) to "I can't believe how stupid it is that we went into Iraq. Bush's father knew better. It was all about oil. We should have just sent in Special Forces, popped the guy (Saddam) and left it at that." ...which right away begged dozens of questions. I decided not to ask them. The speakers - otherwise perfectly pleasant if casual friends of mine - were clearly impervious to facts. I'll ask them here instead:

If Bush's father was so wise to have shown restraint by leaving Saddam in power, then why was Saddam even more of a threat seven years after the first Gulf War? (Suspected and now, with actual records in hand increasingly documented with each passing day.) Why was he seen by virtually every Democrat (and Republican) as such a dangerous presence in the late '90s... right up until Al Gore lost the 2000 election and the consensus mysteriously evaporated? And what can be said to the Iraqis killed and tortured in the 12 years we left Saddam in power? Tough nuts? Sorry about the loss of your teeth and the rape of your wife and daughter while you watched and what's left of your arm, mangled in a meat grinder and your orchards and the rest of the people in your village, one of whom may have plotted to assassinate Saddam? Sorry?!

Whose oil was it about, exactly? France's? Russia's? Ours? How exactly did we benefit? Why is that wrong? What is your position on drilling in ANWR? Is that your SUV in the driveway? (Most of the attendees were driving them. For the record we drive a Toyota Corolla.)

When was it that liberal Democrats started tossing off phrases like "send in Special Forces and pop him"? Did I miss something or was this the same kind of behavior roundly condemned by Democrats when it was rumored that Republican administrations engaged in similar tactics in places like South America and Southest Asia in the '70s and 80's? And if their main beef is that there is 'chaos' in Iraq (there is, but no more so than parts of the United States), then what kind of order do they imagine would have come from Special Forces sneaking in, offing Saddam and retreating?

Fortunately we have Christopher Hitchens - a truly principled liberal who recognizes the chasm between Kennedy/Johnson and Hillary/Dean - to enlighten us beyond mere speculation on the last point. The answer is that under a minimally invasive 'pop Saddam' scenario, we would have had an entire cast of rogues and villains standing in line to replace him, terrorizing the Iraqi population, continuing to destabilize the region, and plotting bigger and badder things to do to us. A small sample:

...we know that Zarqawi was in Baghdad at least as early as June 2002, almost a year before the invasion. Indeed, as the Senate intelligence committee report has confirmed, it was in that month that the G.I.D. contacted the Saddam Hussein regime to "inform" the Iraqis that this very dangerous fellow was on their territory. Given the absolute police-state condition of Iraq at that time, it is in any case impossible to believe that such a person was in town, so to speak, incognito. And remember that in 2002, even states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were at least ostensibly expelling known al-Qaida members from their turf or else arresting them. Only Saddam's Iraq—which did not reply to the Jordanian messages—was tolerating and encouraging the presence of men who were on the run from Afghanistan.

It is customary to dismiss evidence of this kind with a brisk and pseudo-knowing sneer about the "secular" nature of Saddam's regime and thus its presumed incompatibility with theocratic fanatics. Quite how this CIA-sponsored "analysis" has survived this long is beyond me. At least from the time of its conclusion of hostilities with Iran, Baghdad became a center of jihadist propaganda and sponsorship...

And, yes, it hasn't yet been shown that any of them—except of course Zarqawi and his friends—were ideologically linked to the events of Sept. 11. But the intervention in Afghanistan was to make up for that atrocity. The intervention in Iraq was partly designed to forestall the next attack. Now I'm told that it has only made the jihadists more angry. Should I try to think of a policy that would have made them less so? [emphasis added]

Hitchens' piece is right, richly fact-packed must-read. He ends with this delightful 'P.S.':

I have today received a note from one of the Copenhagen editors who published the original cartoons, informing me that in the last quarter, Danish exports to the United States have increased by 17 percent and that, overall, the Danish economy has more than compensated for the results of the unjustified Muslim boycott.

Inspiration... Finally

Forgive the lapse in blogging. It may become more the norm. The last few days have provided a watershed of insight and closure that's led to my being wide awake at 2AM scribbling madly into a notebook - an entire plot and cast of characters spilling onto the page. Kinda fun. We'll see how it all comes together. More when I know it. More as I have time...

Beer vs. Music

Take your pick of transient cures for ennui:

The iPod has surpassed drinking beer as the coolest thing on campus, according to a survey... It is the first time since the 1996/1997 school year that drinking didn't finish first among undergraduate students, according to Eric Weil, managing partner at Student Monitor, which conducts college polls twice a year. "Back then it was the Internet that was most popular, but only for a single polling period, and there is no reason to suspect that beer drinking will not regain its position as the favorite activity in the next semester or two," he said.

Identifying the Good Guys 101

This just in:

The jihadis pulled the rabbi from the bus they'd just blown up and placed him on a makeshift stretcher. As Al Qu'aeda fighters arrived, saw that he was conscious, and tried to provide medical treatment.

No, wait. Sorry. That's from the fantasy newswire. This was the real one:

Iraqi police pulled [al-Zarqawi] from the flattened home and placed him on a makeshift stretcher. U.S. troops arrived, saw that al-Zarqawi was conscious, and tried to provide medical treatment, the spokesman said.

UPDATE: Another news item...

Three Guantanamo Bay detainees hanged themselves with nooses made of sheets and clothes... military officials said [they] were coordinated... Two men from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen... One of the detainees was a mid- or high-level al-Qaida operative... another had been captured in Afghanistan and participated in a riot at a prison there. The third belonged to a splinter group... all three had engaged in a hunger strike... and had been force-fed before quitting the protest action... The military said in a statement that "all lifesaving measures had been exhausted" in the attempt to revive the detainees. The remains were being treated "with the utmost respect." [emphasis added]

Hint: Keep track of which side seeks death as their highest ideal and which side works to preserve lives - even those of their sworn and determined enemies. The rest of the article is a sickening whine from Amnesty International and other groups about these poor men despairing of "justice" who ought to have their day in an (American) court and/or be released. Can you say: "prisoner of war"? The inmates are well aware that they're still fighting it. Are we?

Holocaust, Ahmadinejad, Israel and Europe Revisited

A German blogger I criticized last month responds. Read and decide for yourself.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear" is an awful novel. The characters are wooden, the plot (such as it is) a Hollywood caricature, transparently engineered to hook a film deal. But as a vehicle for an idea, it's had a more profound influence on my thinking (and my thinking about thinking) than anything I've read in the past few years. OK, almost anything.

What is that idea? That fear is an incredibly powerful filter for our interpretation of and reaction to external reality - far more powerful than we're usually able to see.

The vast majority of things we worry about are internally-generated fantasies. Illusions. Bogey-men. Lions and tigers and bears (that probably don't exist but let's not take the - imagined - risk by being complacent)... oh my! In our plugged-in, 24/7, media-driven society, fears are amplified by their amplification in a screeching feedback loop that bears little relation to the original sound that kicked it off.

With great authority, we're advised not to worry. With the authority of the evening news anchors, the bloggers and the editors at the New York Times, we do it anyway.

Most of the time, we live anywhere but in the moment, worrying about ever-more complex, remote and speculative phenomena utterly beyond our control. Bad things may happen tomorrow. That they didn't happen today doesn't stop us worrying about them so long as others are there to reassure us that we're not alone in our fear. Our fellow humans give us permission to obsess. Today's absence of trouble can even accentuate fear, the lack of calamity seldom negating a fear once kindled: the sharks are lurking... out there... waiting... maybe hanging out with the wolves...

As sophisticated as they may seem, our human minds and natures remain fundamentally prehistoric and reactive. I in no way abandon the idea of science and reason in noting that we choose (often unconsciously and/or with little discipline) where and how to apply it, rarely doing so even half the time. Not do I abandon faith in a benevolent Creator God in saying that evolutionary mechanisms of adaptation have relentlessly weeded out those of us who didn't react before all the facts were in and dispassionately weighed.

Fight or flight. Absorb the data at hand, watch and sense what others are worried about, then go with the crowd. It's much easier that way. Attention and focus are precious.

But no, you say. I am independent. I am intelligent. I am a holistic thinker. I read books. I went to school. I'm one of the literate, privileged, non-partisan, blog-reading few who are above all that. I think, therefore I am. I seek and weigh facts and reach conclusions. I am slow to anger. I judge without passion. Congratulations. You are a remarkable evolutionary anomaly.

You're walking across the street in midtown Manhattan one lovely morning on your way to work, swinging wide of the crosswalk to get past the slow-moving crowd. You hear a loud sound behind you. Another day in the Big Apple. You're late for work. You don't break stride but something in your subconscious can't help noting the widening eyes and opening mouths of people on the opposite sidewalk. Someone gestures. Someone screams.

Instinctively you jump sideways, despising yourself for doing so as you turn your head to see... the side of an 18-wheeler, six inches from your face. At the next intersection, you walk slowly with the crowd in the exact center of the crosswalk... and at every other intersection, the rest of the way to your office. Two hours later, your hand is still shaking slightly - too little for anyone else to notice, but you it's there. You've already called your broker to sell that stock you'd been worrying about for weeks, the nanny to "just check in", your wife to "just say hi" and the dermatologist for an appointment to check on that mole on your shoulder.

Fear. It has a halo effect. We escape it only with great difficulty (or faith).

We would (quite understandably) like to control bad outcomes if we can - often before we even understand what's really good for us in the longest term view. Yet when we can't, it's almost as reassuring to convince ourselves that we can... or at least in the hope that we might. As we advance in our understanding of the world, the paradox is that our desire to manage it leaps light-years ahead of our capability to do so with any precision. Our hubris leads us into the fallacy that tantalizingly superficial knowledge equals the ability to create and control.

We understand much about how the brain works... so let's create artificial intelligence. Major disappointment - the promise embarrassingly far ahead of the creeping if still-promising reality. We understand much about cancer... so let's work to eradicate it... until people start living longer and we find that it on the whole it is a disease largely related to time spent on the planet... something that's hard to avoid, even if it's possible to delay aging's effects, manage its ravages and preserve or extend our threescore and ten. Or not.

We know a lot more about distributed terrorist insurgency... so let's imagine we can wipe it out in a single campaign, bring the troops home, close the borders and relax back into our neat suburban dot.com bliss. Desperately naive. We can predict the short-term local weather marginally better than we could 30 years ago... so let's work on trying to control it... globally... over centuries... even though top scientists have already admitted that that's impossible or at least wildly impossible to predict. Was there a massive non-sequitor leap in there that I missed?

So it is that we sit with our old academic geologist 'hat' on, mouth agape, reading Sharon Begley's piece in this morning's WSJ Science Journal (subscription required). What is she worried about? Don't laugh.

No, I mean it. Stop smirking.

I saw you smirking. Seriously. C'mon. Pay attention. This is important.

This could affect your future. More importantly, it could affect your children's future. OK, so maybe it's more appropriate to say that it could make page nine of the News of the World at some point in the life of your children's children's children's children's children's children if they all live to be 120 due to organ replacements and don't have their kids 'til they're 60 so they can focus on their careers and only 1.7 per family on average, please.

Or maybe their kids... or a few generations beyond that. We're not sure. Anyway...

With great earnestness, Sharon Begly is worried about... how the retreat of glaciers due to global warming will affect plate tectonics, which it's been shown can lead to more earthquakes and volcanoes... at some point... in formerly glaciated areas... except that it's been happening in Canada and parts of Scandinavia... sort of... well mildly... on occasion... where hardly anybody lives... for several thousand years and we think maybe somebody once had a brick fall on their head from one of these things and died and isn't that terrible. I told you not to smirk! Begley writes:

Imagine the surface of Earth as a giant trampoline that accumulated a slab of ice over the winter... Once the trampoline's ice turns to water that drips over the edges in the warm days of spring, the concave elastic slowly rebounds to its original flat shape. That's how Earth responds as glaciers retreat, and the consequences promise to be ... interesting. The reason is that one cubic meter of ice weighs just over a ton, and glaciers can be hundreds of meters thick. When they melt and the water runs off, it is literally a weight off Earth's crust. The crust and mantle therefore bounce back, immediately as well as over thousands of years. That "isostatic rebound," according to studies of prehistoric and recent earthquakes and volcanoes, can make the planet's seismic plates slip catastrophically, and cause magma chambers that feed volcanoes to act like bottles of shaken seltzer.

To be fair, Begley's tone is straightforward. She writes well. She's done good research. The phenomenon she describes is quite real. It's also nothing new. I studied it two decades ago as a geosciences major. What's new is that it is being hitched to a media wagon (global warming) being pulled at high speed by a pack of meth-addled, rabid wild stallions. What Begley doesn't do is to adequately provide the context that set this fun new fear in perspective. In particular:

1) the timeframes involved are incredibly long - decades and centuries if not millennia or more,

2) the actual effects are relatively mild, largely local and ultimately of speculative magnitude,

3) the phenomenon has been going on already for 10,000 years at least (didja notice? ...neither did I),

4) the vast majority of glacial ice that could retreat (leading rebound)... is in faraway places where nobody lives (Antarctica, Greenland) or in places like Alaska where earthquakes occur almost hourly, and buildings are engineered to withstand most of them.

5) the cause of glacial melting is uncertain at best - meaning that we mess with it at our peril. (If the theory on historical causality is incorrect, the engineering behind any manmade future change will also be flawed - an expensive, planetary roll of the dice.)

Point one is perhaps the most important: timescales. That aspect is usually brushed over quickly in the main flow of the global warming debate as well. When decades, centuries and millennia are the timescale, the conversation must turn to human ingenuity: the spark of divine inspiration that leads to unimaginable invention. Quick mental exercise: list all of the technologies and feats of engineering and invention you depend upon today that did not exist 30 years ago. Do the same for 100 years. Now try 500. You get the idea.

The human race has proven since the beginning of time its ability to adapt and be resilient across an extremely wide range of circumstances: deserts to oceans; tundra to jungles; civilization to chaos and back again several times. Which doesn't mean that we've lost our capacity to be blinded by fear and thrash around trying to control that fear in ineffective ways. Too often we attempt to control our external world before we calm our inner one.

In our hubris to apply our gradually dawning knowledge and ability towards control of the big, scary things (some of which are true; though far more are not), we miss the simple notion that stepping out of the way can be more effective than confronting the charging bull. Because wouldn't it be foolish if we went to all that trouble and the bull turned out to be... just a bad dream?

Zarqawi's Death - More Important Than it May at First Appear

Dennis Prager noted this afternoon on his radio show a significant item embedded in Tony Blair's remarks on the death of Zarqawi and some potentially critical connections that may be behind it. Blair:

I think for obvious reasons two important things have happened. First of all, the death of Zarqawi, and also the Iraqi prime minister's decision to nominate his defense and interior ministers and so complete his government...

What Blair does not mention is that the new Iraqi Defense Minister,

Iraqi Army Gen. Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim al-Mifarji, is a Sunni Arab unaffiliated with any party. He was thrown out of the military and Saddam's Baath Party in 1991 after he criticized the invasion of Kuwait and received a seven-year prison term... [emphasis added]

Which was followed, later in the day by this:

Iraqi Prime Minister Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday that the $25 million bounty on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's head will be honored. "We will meet our promise," al-Maliki told al-Arabiya television without elaborating. The United States had put forth the $25 million bounty for information leading to the death or capture of al-Zarqawi...

So we have Zarqawi at a "safe" house, deep inside Sunni-controlled territory. He's hit. How did we know to hit him? Who tipped us off? Why was a Sunni appointed to a key post (surely one of the top three in the country) within hours? Why was it made abundantly clear - also within hours - that the $25M bounty would be paid out, not specifying to whom? Are we connecting the dots yet? To top it off, the appointment of a Sunni as Defense Minister sends a not-so-subtle signal to Iran: back off, dude; you won't walk all over this one and get away with it.

If they connect in the way Prager speculates that they do, then the news is unbelievably good. Sunnis are saying "enough" and calling off their dogs. You could say they were bribed. I say it doesn't matter. A precedent has been set. The war will continue but it is effectively over - not because Zarqawi is dead but because of the way he gotdead. His own people turned him in. I don't enjoy celebrating any death, however I will absolutely celebrate what this all implies.

Pluralism, Beautiful Pluralism!

Late last night we asked:

What do you get when you mix a 40-something tongue-tied evangelical blogger, a 20-something secular Buddhist New Yorker from Alaska, an insistent if good-natured Unitarian intellectual, a 30-something Quaker school graduate sent there by his "Jewish hippie" parents, a 20-something German resident who recently converted to Orthodox Judaism(!) and a 50-something woman who kept totally quiet but I'd bet my bottom dollar is a deeply faithful Catholic... all with a few bottles of wine at a business dinner?

The short answer: a reason to celebrate America. And that doesn't include the wonderfully entertaining good-ole Georgia boy across the table, the jet-lagged German Lutheran to my left, the peppy career-focused agnostic Texan, or the two Indian immigrants-who'd-made-it further down the table. What a great country!

It was a loud restaurant. (Either that, or I'm losing my hearing). Thus I didn't catch the entire conversation. But someone - I think it may have been the 20-something secular Buddhist Alaskan New Yorker born in Taiwan - caught my ear when she started talking about religion. Just five years out of college (a good, if exceedingly liberal one here on the East Coast), she'd apparently never heard the maxim that one is well advised not to broach the subject in a business setting. Too late...

The exchange is difficult to summarize except to say that it was respectful, curious and surprisingly honest. The younger folks plunged in with earnest gusto (holdover from dorm life?) while us older folks mostly held back, listening. It's too easy to remember similar conversations that ended badly (or at least pointlessly) and be inclined to avoid taking such risks.

That's unfortunate. Maybe that means I'm a merely keyboard evangelical, and not the street corner kind. We all have our comfort zones. Had I not been exhausted from a long day facilitating a high-wire meeting, I might have plunged in too. Maybe.

It's hard to know how to enter such a conversation when the reason why you believe amounts to a series of life events that have inexorably eroded your un-faith.

Why did I not believe just five years ago? I'm not all that sure anymore. It was an un-belief that didn't stand up to close scrutiny. Until a certain point in my life, I'd just never bothered to give it the scrutiny I'd give to any other topic for which there's a final exam or moment of reckoning in front of a client or boss. Why bother? Without a moment of reckoning in the future, the illusions and lures of the world much more pressing and fun - the focus on the here and now.

There are the milestones to talk about (getting laid-off and losing your stock options, having your 8-year-old ask why you didn't come to church, the horror and bewilderment of 9-11, a friend's gentle proselytizing on the commuter train, the death of a loved one, the death of another loved one...) But which thread makes the quilt? Which instrument makes the symphony? How do you pick just one to describe and imagine that the full force of the creation will come across in such a sound byte? You don't. Not in words. Not in a loud and crowded restaurant. Not when the Holy Spirit is saying: "down, boy; chill; not now; not here".

The fact that the younger four did plunge in is encouraging. Despite mild protestations to the contrary ("I don't like the idea of someone else [i.e., God] deciding what's right and wrong." "I don't like the idea of having to do and not do certain things."), I noted a spiritual hunger and openness in all. Why else work up arguments against faith (or even being respectful of it or bother spending time on it) if you don't give it some credence - some peripheral possibility of being true. I sensed a skepticism of religion and a tentativeness about God, but not a dyed-in fundamental anti-belief.

Seeking and stumbling at least provides traction to work with. Most worrisome was the 30-something intellectual Unitarian Coast Guard vet who'd decided with great conviction that religion ought to fit his life and outlook and not amend it - a kind of Netflix spirituality: I'll arrange to hear what I want to hear when I want to hear it, thank you very much. Been there. Done that. Life inevitably disrupts that queue of pleasant, unchallenging notions.

Most fascinating was the revelation by a 20-something blonde native German woman (on assignment in New York) that she'd converted - unrelated to marriage - to Orthodox Judaism. I didn't catch the entire story, but the person I and others had heretofore overlooked as an low-level administrative drone in the organization positively brightened up as she started talking about her study of the entire Talmud. That takes a lot of intellectual and spiritual dedication - the act itself a prayer of sorts. What motivated her to convert, much less to make that study wasn't immediately clear. I'm dying to hear the entire back-story from my colleague who was sitting much closer to her.

Net/net: this was not the kind of conversation any of us would have even thought of plunging into (much less blogging) in Shanghai, Moscow, Havana, Tehran, Kuala Lumpur or a hundred other places. The open-ended, multi-lateral, inconclusive nature of it might be frustrating to some, yet it's precisely that openness that gives the Holy Spirit room to maneuver gently - building her own kind of momentum in each soul, picking her shots for maximum effect.

What a great country we live in!

Nattering Nabobs of Negatiivity: The MSM on Zarqawi

Headline: "Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid"

OK. Fair enough... until we find this in the fourth paragraph:

But any hopes the Jordanian-born terror leader's death would help stem the violence in Iraq were dimmed hours later when a car bomb exploded in a Baghdad market, killing 12 and wounding 65.

Any hopes? After just a 12-hour lag? How's that? Whose insanely unrealistic hopes would those be? Who created that strawman? News of Zarqawi's death - just breaking publicly this morning - might not even have reached the perpetrators. Why would anyone imagine that it would deter or disrupt them in the short term? It is dishonest little quips like this that make people distrust the MSM as a vehicle for, well... news. And this was the wire service. We'll give credit where credit is due as the NY Times grudgingly plays it straighter:

The announcement of Zarqawi's death, shortly before noon on today in Baghdad, appeared to mark a major watershed in the war... American and Iraqi officials all muted their high spirits today with a recognition that violence is bound to continue, a point underscored by a midday blast in eastern Baghdad...

Long Day Away

Apologies for the dearth of posts today as well as the comment moderation backup (must find better system...). I haven't had a 16-hour client day in a long time. They seemed easier 10 years ago when I wasn't running point. Just got back with (as my colleague put it) plenty of unexpected blogging fodder.

Preview:

Question: What do you get when you mix a 40-something tongue-tied evangelical blogger, a 20-something secular Buddhist New Yorker from Alaska, an insistent if good-natured Unitarian intellectual, a 30-something Quaker school graduate sent there by his "Jewish hippie" parents, a 20-something German resident who recently converted to Orthodox Judaism(!) and a 50-something woman who kept totally quiet but I'd bet my bottom dollar is a deeply faithful Catholic... all with a few bottles of wine at a business dinner?

Answer: A very interesting plunge into the meaning of religion...

Must sleep. More later.

Beheading the Prime Minister

I've been silent on this story because it pretty much speaks for itself. But lately I've been thinking... If they're planning this kind of thing in Canada, for goodness sakes:

• what might terrorists be planning here?
  
  
• can we finally dispense with the notion of terror targeting having anything to do with what we do (e.g., foreign policy) and recognize that it is and always has been about who we are?
  
  
• can we please stop talking with such fervor about razor wire on the Mexican border and cheap lawn care labor as if it were the only important national security issue and start talking about defending ourselves in a more balanced fashion anywhere that terrorists might come in?
  
  
• does anyone really think this will wake up an entire nation experiencing a liberal hangover worse than after a night drinking cheap tequila on the streets of Harvard Square?
  
  
• Why didn't they bother plotting to behead Paul Martin? (rhetorical question: why didn't they bother plotting to behead Jimmy Carter? answer: because he was their best friend)

UPDATE: The WSJ editorial page has this on Wednesday:

...we'll point out that this terrorist cell seems to have been entirely composed of citizens and legal residents of Canada. As interesting is that the cell was identified through the work of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which monitored Internet chat rooms frequented by Islamic extremists... Question: Did that surveillance require a warrant? Do you care?

Jackson Pollack Web App

Total change of pace. Get yourself in a pre-school finger-painting mood and roll the cursor around for a couple of minutes of pure visual amusement. Click to change colors. Let your kid have a turn.

Ground Zero Memorial - Digging Into Assumptions

Great op-ed by Debra Burlingame (sister of American flight #77 pilot Chip Burlingame whose plane was crashed into the Pentagon) in today's WSJ (free at OpinionJournal).

The Vietnam War did not take place on that grassy mall in Washington. Ground Zero is a historic battleground; and of the 2,755 who died there, 1,157 were vaporized without a trace... This is an investment in the future that will allow visitors from all over the world the opportunity to see the contrast between those who died to take the lives of strangers, and those who gave their lives to save them.

Which is exactly what New York's cultural elite don't want to happen. Don't draw the distinctions too clearly. Don't paint Americans as heroes because we're already ashamed of our image abroad as loud, arrogant bullies who don't "play nice" at the UN.

Don't paint the Islamofascists as... Islamic... or Fascist. Because that would be... bad. Intolerant. Un-PC. And worst of all, sympathetic with the Bush administration. Earlier in the piece, Burlingame notes:

The New York Times editorial page went so far as to suggest that the 9/11 museum is not really necessary since "most of us remember that day very clearly." The same paper, in contrast, published six hyperventilating editorials last year, telling us that the Freedom Center [and its slavery exhibits] must be built on sacred ground to provide the memorial with "historical context," albeit one that didn't include a word about terrorism.

Which makes sense to those that secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) think that the 9-11 hijackers were freedom fighters with a legitimate or at least understandable grievance against Israel and thus the big, bad, imperio-corporate United States that they couldn't solve any other way. Abhorrent as it sounds to state it that plainly, it's hard to conclude that that is not the world view of those fighting against a Ground Zero museum.

Calling for the inclusion of diffuse, and at best tangentially-related material designed to add "context" to the facts of that horrible day is just another way of excusing the inexcusable - of airbrushing the hard edges off of a new, pure and unprecedented manifestation of evil. Asking what all the fuss is about because "most of us remember" is just another way of saying "we don't mind if our children forget".

Would any sane person seriously argue for example, that the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam or the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland should focus on the "context" of German economic woes during the Weimar Republic? Or about the Nazi's gripes against Jews during the 1920's and '30's?

They would not. This is no different.

Liberal Isolationism; Liberal Opportunism

Dean Barnett at Soxblog identifies a singular inconsistency in the left's thinking on Iraq:

One of the themes of the left’s anti-war stance has been that we shouldn’t care about Iraqis. You might recall a long ago Democratic nominee for president decrying the fact that we were building firehouses in Baghdad and under-funding firehouses in America. The underlying message was that Iraqis weren’t worth bothering with. First, they weren’t worth delivering from the depredations of Saddam Hussein. Next, their future wasn’t worth fighting Baathist dead-enders and Syrian no-goodniks over...

But if you spent the last three years trying to convince America that the Iraqis’ well-being should not be an American concern, it becomes a tough sell to convince Americans to get outraged over alleged war time atrocities when the victims are the very people you’ve been so determinedly marginalizing.

Exactly. Classic liberalism (as different from the current mislabeled variety as horses are from horseradish) uses the God-given, created-equal status of every human being as its philosophical jumping-off point, steering clear of elitism and entitlement. It forces its own set of hard choices and trade-offs, has spawned its own set of competing approaches to governance, and has had its share of bad actors masquerading under the banner. Yet despite all that, classic liberalism has withstood the test of time as a coherent, consistent body of socioeconomic and political philosophy.

Agree with it or don't, but it's the idea that buoyed JFK and Truman, as well as the 'neocon' block behind Republicans' day in the sun. What's given modern 'liberals' trouble is their lack of a distinct alternative that's anything more than pure, petty opposition for its own sake. (Or as a bumper sticker in my neighborhood puts it: "Enough is Enough!" ...begging questions such as: "Enough of what, exactly?", "OK, then what?", "Why is that alternative demonstrably better?" and "How do you know that it's better?")

So long as today's leftists flip back and forth between deep caring and utter contempt for their fellow man (often - and this is the most troubling part - without even recognizing that they are doing so) they will not be trusted with leadership and will not inherit the mantle handed to them by their party's more responsible and philosophically grounded predecessors.

In the short term, that's unfortunate for the two-party system. The most active, interesting (even fractious) debates now go on between paleocons and neocons. It's a discussion that boils down to whether Republicans divorce and cede power to whatever or agree to continue papering over intra-party rifts that will never be fully resolved.

Because of the flip-floppy nature of what has become the left, the other 'discussion' - between classical liberals and today's liberals - lacks a common set of assumptions to make debate even possible or rational. "National interest"? One side is embarassed to even admit that we have a right to have one, much less talk about what it is or ought to be. First Amendment? Grossly different interpretations. Criteria for whether elections are valid? Almost no common ground. Whether laws should be enforced? Should be pretty basic; it's not. The role and power of Congress vs. the President in appointing and vetting judges? Complete train wreck. Status of world government vs. U.S. law? Fight-to-the-death.

We didn't start out trying to draw such pessimistic conclusions but until we return to some common basis for having political dialogue, the lack of it may lead us places we'd rather not go.

Baseball Team Looking for a Few Good Men

Last Friday I speculated that it was "virtually unheard of" for a professional major league baseball player to have Isaiah 40:28-31 as their favorite Bible passage, implying a more generalized lack of faith in the sport - the familiar stereotype being the "womanizing, money-hungry, drug-taking prima donna lusting after his third Ferrari".

That may have been premature. It was certainly unfair, especially in light of this:

On the field, the Rockies are trying to make the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons and only the second time in their 14-year history. Behind the scenes, they quietly have become an organization guided by Christianity — open to other religious beliefs but embracing a Christian-based code of conduct they believe will bring them focus and success.

From ownership on down, it's an approach the Rockies are proud of — and something they are wary about publicizing. "We're nervous, to be honest with you," Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd says. "It's the first time we ever talked about these issues publicly. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone because of our beliefs."

Dave Zirin at The Nation sneers at this idea, sensing a theocratic, anti-liberal, quasi-government conspiracy under this non-private expression of religion that (as Michelle Malkin observes) is mild to the point of feckless apology. Zirin begins:

In Colorado, there stands a holy shrine called Coors Field. On this site, named for the holiest of beers, a team plays that has been chosen by Jesus Christ himself to play .500 baseball in the National League West.

For those unfamiliar with the code: Coors = conservative = evil. Anything associated with Coors, however remotely, must be held up to ridicule by the liberal media. The Nation's editors don't disappoint, using the opportunity to slide quickly into unrelated and patently nonsensical racist innuendo:

When people are nervous that they will offend you with their beliefs, it's usually because their beliefs are offensive... maybe the management that prays together gets paid together... Also, there are only two African-American players on the Rockies active roster. Is this because Monfort doesn't think black players have character?

As if African Americans - as a group - were somehow excluded by virtue of Rockies management becoming more explicit about their Christian beliefs? How's that again?

"According to the Gallup International organization, African Americans are the world's most religious people. When asked to rank on a ten-point scale the importance of God in their lives African Americans recorded a mean score of 9.04, the highest of any subgroup responding to the question. Their religiosity is manifest in high rates of church membership (72 percent compared with 69 percent for other Americans)... "

But it doesn't stop there. The (liberal) Nation gleefully takes another swipe at the conservative Coors clan by interviewing a fellow journalist and implying that his opinion represents the views of "taxpayers" (begging the question of what right "taxpayers" might have to restrict owners from expressing their religious beliefs through a business):

Then there are the fans. I spoke with journalist Tom Krattenmaker, who has studied the connection between religion and sports. Krattenmaker said, "I have concerns about what this Christianization of the Rockies means for the community that supports the team in and around Denver--a community in which evangelical Christians are probably a minority, albeit a large and influential one. Taxpayers and ticket-buyers in a religiously diverse community have a right not to see their team--a quasi-public resource--used for the purpose of advancing a specific form of religion. Have the Colorado Rockies become a faith-based organization? This can be particularly problematic when the religion in question is one that makes exclusive claims and sometimes denigrates the validity of other belief systems."

Gasp! "Exclusive claims"?! "Sometimes denigrates the validity of other belief systems"?! (Did he mention, "blowing themselves up in public to usher in the 12th Imam"? If he did, I missed it.) Oh my! They aren't Unitarian Secularists! They actually... believe that there is truth and non-truth and that they are different. How could they?! Put them in political correctness jail - quick!

Of course if Krattenmaker, Zirin and others were truly disturbed by these developments, there's nothing stopping them from not buying tickets, not watching Rockies games, and/or switching their loyalties to more traditionally ill-behaving, faith-agnostic sports organizations and individuals. They aren't exactly a threatened breed.

In the meantime, they'd do well to actually read the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

Nothing about "unless you're a business" or "unless you water down your religion to popularly acceptable blandness" or "unless you're associated with a national pastime" or "unless you utilize facilities that local taxpayers once saw fit to subsidize".

Wouldn't it be interesting if the Rockies' owners found greater success with this move? And wouldn't it be even more interesting if they didn't ...and chose to persist with it anyway? Such contrarian willingness to suffer because of one's views used to be thought of us commonplace, even admirable.

A guess at what comes next: sexual harassment law starts to be used as an analogy and a lever to stop a new class of political-correctness-offending workplace 'crime' - that of religious 'harassment'. The imposition of anti-religious values of course (inherent in many workplaces) will not be included. Mark my words.

Outside the Beltway has more.

Pausing and Pondering

Well that was instructive...

I'm still stunned, trying to figure out what conclusions I should draw from the fact that over 1,300 of you would read, comment and send heart-warming e-mails on my Friday post: 'Running, Baseball, Love and Faith'. Thanks, Anchoress. Thanks, Roger. Thanks, everyone. That may not be big traffic for many blogs. It's huge for this little part-time experiment that I've not even bothered to upgrade from screaming blogger orange. Yet...

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I don't claim anything more than human insight here, but at the same time, the post felt like it was written for me. I lived those moments and wrote them down. No research required. As a newcomer to Christianity, I'm not sure if 'testify' is the right way to describe it. I made some connections and took the risk that others would not summarily dismiss them. Amazingly, no one did - at least not anyone who said so.

It has occurred to me more than once this weekend that I may still be in the throes of a Year of Magical Thinking but also that that may not be quite the indictment that it might seem. It's a book I have yet to read, but many have related Didion's basic thesis: one is more prone to making such seemingly fantastic connections in grief - finding reason to hope when reality is that one's loved one is dead and we don't know for sure what awaits, as Hamlet put it, in "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns".

And what is magical thinking if not coincidence noticed and amplified? I.e., exactly the kind of thing that I wrote about on Friday? And how is 'magic' distinct from what has become mainstream religion? Did it seem magic when on the first Pentecost which we celebrate today, 'tongues of fire' descended and Jesus' disciples and the gathered multitudes suddenly had no need for Berlitz tapes? Was it magic when New Guinean Highlanders encountered airplanes and cameras and automobiles early last century, pulling them along 10,000 years from a Stone Age existence in an instant?

We're inclined to say no to the first because magic carries pagan overtones. Over here is RELIGION and over there is MAGIC. And there are legitimate distinctions. But sometimes we make more distinctions than are warranted. We're inclined to say no to the latter because we know better. Modern technological developments are not magical because they were created by man. We (or at least someone) knows precisely how it was done. Which begs the question of whether the insights that led the inventors of those things were not 'magical' in another sense; i.e., divinely inspired.

If man is made in God's image, why should we dismiss the product of man's intellect as completely divorced from Godly insight and the influence of the Holy Spirit? (This is my point of departure from the otherwise brilliant Ayn Rand.)

Many of the greatest artists and inventors on the planet believed specifically in that process (e.g., Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Why then does modern society believe that God cannot act (often unconsciously) through man? Through believers and unbelievers both? Through my niece and her hand-crafted butterfly, carrying a message she did not know she was carrying? Or through the runners just ahead of me at Boston who did not receive specific guidance (that I know of) to "wear this shirt today so this guy you don't know who lost his brother and grandfather can see it". They just did their thing and it all fit together into a beautiful, healing symphony written and completed long ago only we can't see it because we're trapped in time.

Why are we so convinced that coincidence is a thing reducible to the naturalistic laws of probability and only that? E.g., heads turning up five times in a row is more likely than heads and tails alternating perfectly every toss over and over and over. Why is it not the case that 'coincidences' are the embroidered patterns on a great quilt that God has woven out of space and time and lives? We notice the anomalies and feel a need to ascribe them to something inside our frame of reference - reducible to numerical description. Yet if God made the whole thing, then why are those anomalies not also evidence of His hand?

What are the chances of all the things I described on Friday happening in those ways? It's not even worth calculating because they were each unique moments. To chart the number of times that fatherless little girls fall asleep for the first time on their uncle's lap while watching a marathon run in dedication to their daddy in just the way she used to fall asleep with her father while watching baseball while a guy who is staying at his house is there because he ran another world-class race the day after the father died and improbably managed to qualify to be there because he felt the dead brother's spirit with him urging him to 'run' and then hand over an incredible token (his highly coveted finishers' medal) to the widow that closed a circle for him with his dead father from long ago... It goes on and on and on. The divine quilt. The divinely embroidered fabric. The divine symphony.

Pull on one thread or pick out one chord or one instrument and the set-up for one amazing coincidence requires the description of ten others. And we're amazed? We should be. But surprised? Hardly. It's a quilt! It's a sympony. (No, it's not a dessert topping or a floor wax!) It's interconnected. It is not just my experience on that one day but everyone's. Every day. It's only that when we're hurting we're too exhausted to look with the world's eyes for awhile and what's left is the stuff we ignore on our way to Starbucks and the dentist and the oil change and the dog groomer and the bank and the big presentation and the job interview and the piano recital.

It is God in our peripheral vision... God just outside our reach so we will stretch and grow in the process of looking for Him.

Which is a longwinded way of working out what I'm starting to think is a better use of this blog than being an echo chamber for worrying about an Iranian lunatic and heaping scorn on people convinced that global warming is a big deal. Which is not to say that I'll be dropping those subjects entirely or reverting permanently back to the first person singular. I'll just be looking for a new way of processing what they mean and fitting it into the insight Friday's post gave me.
In that vein, Joe Carter over at Evangelical Outpost has a nicely reflective post on blogging and what it ought to aspire to:

We hope for. . . community But we often reward ... individuality...
We hope for. . . eternal perspective But we often reward ... focus on the trivial and ephermeral...
We hope for. . . wisdom But we often reward ... foolishness...
We hope for. . . depth and breadth of interest But we often reward ... shallowness and narrowness of concern...
We hope for. . . unity But we often reward ... division...
We hope for. . . faith, hope, and love But we often reward ... doubt, pessimism, and uncharitableness

Stay tuned.

Running, Baseball, Love and Faith

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my grandfather's death. As has been the case with various anniversaries surrounding my brother's illness and death, it came with some pleasant surprises. Some might dismiss them as "coincidence". I do not. I hope you'll see why.

Three years ago this month, my grandfather (call him 'B') sent me a hand-written letter. Its main purpose was encouraging me in my attempt (ultimately if improbably successful) to complete a 100-mile wilderness running race. 'B' had taken the time to search out a Bible passage that might be appropriate, finally settling on Isaiah 40:28-31:

28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Inspired by that gesture, particularly from a man who had pushed through nearly 100 years himself - as I was about to push through as many miles - I hand lettered verse 31 onto my race jersey (see my blogger profile picture taken thirty miles into the event).

I thought of B's letter and that passage often during the event. I improbably 'soared', completing the race just after dawn, a little more than 24 hours after I'd started. I'd immediately called my grandfather in Georgia to share what I'd accomplished. He'd been gleeful along with me, admitting he'd thought I might not make it - joyful that I had. An athlete himself in his youth, I could sense the man he once was in his 95 year-old voice that day. We both knew where my strength had come from.

Without any coordination or communication by any of the family (including 'B' before he'd died, we later confirmed) the pastor of B's church had selected the same Isaiah passage to read at his funeral. Go figure. He had no idea that it was B's favorite.

Flash ahead to this April...

I'm at the start of the Boston Marathon, holed up in a nearby church recreation hall, sitting on a rare piece of empty floor space not far from a life-sized crucifix hanging on the wall, along with 500 others running in support of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute where my brother was treated last year. Due to the generosity of friends, family and even a few readers of this blog, I managed to raise over $40,000 for the cause.

I had thought about waiting outside in the unusually fine April weather, but a chance encounter with another runner of the same 100-miler I'd done led me inside to chat. That turned out to be crucially important to the rest of what transpired.

Just before we were to leave to walk to the starting line, the organizers turned the microphone over to one of our fellow runners for a pre-race meditation. 'N' is the wife of a well-known professional baseball player. Her honey-sweet southern accent immediately captured my attention. What came next did far more than that.

With very little fanfare ("I know y'all may come from a variety of faith traditions, but I'd like to share something that's given me strength in hard times"), she recited... Isaiah 40:28-31[!!], followed by this:

"May God Bless each of you today with good health,
good strong legs, feet and heart as you run.
Lord, please give us the fortitude to bear the pain
and continue running. Give us the courage to stop
running if we are injured and the wisdom to distinguish
between the two.

"Lord, this is not about us; it is about YOU doing good
work through us. Use us as your instrument of good
will and healing for those we love and care about.

"May your thoughts be of those we are running for,
those who have suffered and are suffering.
We are willing to suffer for them. Amen

"All it takes is faith like a mustard seed!
God Speed to you all!

Shaking at the powerful 'coincidence' of hearing B's favorite Bible passage read in his same Southern accent at just the moment I most needed it, I scurried to the front of the room to find 'N', thank her, and inform her of its meaning for me. Alas, she was lost in the crowd and her own race preparations. You may be wondering how I knew exactly what she'd said. Hold on. We're getting to that... :)

A week or so after the marathon, I was still uninspired to write one of the introspective monologue race reports for which I've become semi-notorious among family and friends. I had bits and pieces of insight into "what it meant", but nothing was really coming together. The most significant thing I could recall was hardly enough for a full report:

Well into the race - a few miles before getting to the point where my family would be waiting for me but still several miles from the finish, I'd hit a low spot, recognizing I couldn't do this alone. After running 100 miles, some think that a marathon ought to be 'easy'. It is not. I'd prayed a quick little running prayer to the effect of "Lord, you took me this far..." [landing a much sought-after Boston Marathon entry in my e-mail box just two days before my brother died last fall] "...now please help me see this through!"

Less than a minute after saying that little mid-race prayer for strength and faith and patience, I'd come up on two runners wearing jerseys I hadn't seen all day and would not see again.

Ahead and to my right was a man with "ISAIAH 40:31" hand-printed in big, block letters on the back of his shirt. I'd been looking hard for someone with that jersey since it's effectively mine as well. At virtually the same moment ahead and to my left, I spotted a woman wearing a jersey with a giant colorful butterfly on the back.

A butterfly. I'd never seen one like it. It was not a little decoration but the main feature of the shirt - stretching from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Longtime readers will recognize the deep significance of that symbol - a story I related last August and again in my brother's eulogy.

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.

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."

Hmm... My impromptu prayer is immediately followed by a clear "brother 'E' symbol" and an equally clear "grandfather 'B' symbol" running almost side by side directly ahead of me, pulling me forward, just at the moment I most needed a major boost. Are we paying attention yet?

Other than that anecdote (as significant as it was!), the only over-arching thought I'd had consistently was that this time, perhaps for the first time in nearly three decades of long-distance running, the race had most definitely NOT been about the running itself - or me. I had felt myself a vehicle; the race a ritual that would enable other parts of God's plan to transpire.

My little niece falling gently asleep on my lap for the first time ever that night - just as she used to do with my brother, her father when he (also a big baseball fan) would sit down to watch the Red Sox - was certainly way up there on the list, though it was hardly the only thing. Raising four times more money for cancer research than I'd ever hoped or dreamed of doing is also something I'll put in the 'miracle' department for reasons that would require another long blog post to explain. (Short story: a VERY BIG donor came completely out of the woodwork - from 20 years in my past - on the anniversary of my brother's diagnosis - a date he did not know.)

Though I had not remembered them precisely, N's words (I'd largely forgotten them except for the Isaiah part), almost perfectly described my experience: a tribute to my brother (and grandfather 'B') and a way to be God's instrument, if only for a few hours.

Still wanting to make the connection with N, I asked the organizers a few days after the race if they'd share her e-mail address with me, half expecting that they wouldn't. As the wife of a major league sports figure, N doesn't need more random yahoos filling her mailbox with e-mail. To my surprise and pleasure however, they were happy to pass it on. I dashed off a short note expressing how grateful I was for her serendipitous role in encouraging me so specifically at the start of an especially emotional race. I did not share any particulars about 'B' or 'E', their dates of death or anything else.

Weeks went by and I didn't hear anything. No biggie. E-mails often get lost in the ether; she's busy; and in any case I hadn't asked for a reply. Case closed. Maybe I'd run into her next year. Or not. I was glad I'd sent it anyway.

Flash ahead to yesterday - the eve of the anniversary of B's death. A large Fedex envelope arrives. Return address: 'N'... in my home town. Interesting. I opened it.

Inside it was:

• A copy of her pre-race prayer (above)
• A hand-written note on her personal stationery with Hebrews 12:1 engraved at the bottom ("Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.").
• A bronze Isaiah 40:31 eagle keychain
• An Isaiah 40:31 eagle cutout penny medallion
• A 24kt gold plated Isaiah 40:31 bookmark...

...and two more items, one of which was:

• a signed baseball card (N's husband).

I'm not well versed in such things but even to the untrained eye, it's a rather unusual card. The typical stuff is printed at the top: height, weight, birth date, draft date, major league debut date, etc. The rest of the card reads as follows:

"Life sure is challenging at times. We often think we have all the answers but many times we are only fooling ourselves. I grew up going to Church and had a great Christian influence in my home. It wasn't until... just prior to starting my professional baseball career that I understood being a Christian was more than going to church and coming from a Christian family. Being a Christian meant that I understood there was nothing I could do to earn God's favor and a place in heaven; it means I need to trust in what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross. Jesus died for my sins and rose again so that I could have eternal life. That decision of putting my faith in Christ has given me the assurance of spending eternity in heaven with Jesus. It has also given me confidence in knowing that God provides me with guidance in every circumstance if I will call on Him in prayer, just talking with him like you talk with a friend. Over the past few years, I've also been able to grow by reading God's Word - the Bible. Life isn't perfect. I don't always drive in the winning run, but I have a greater purpose in life - to bring Glory to God, and live with the assurance that I will spend eternity with Jesus in Heaven. My favorite Bible verse is Isaiah 40:31[!!]: "those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint."

Whoa... Not your typical American sports hero. Not your typical womanizing, money-hungry, drug-taking prima donna lusting after his third Ferrari.

Because the Isaiah passage is one of only a handful that specifically mention running, it's not all that uncommon among believer/runners I know, though I will often go several races without seeing it. Among baseball players it is virtually unheard of. Which brings us to the last item:

• a pair of leather batting gloves in the colors of N's husband's team

The gloves are custom-embroidered with "Isaiah 40:28-31" in large letters on each wrist, each one signed by N's husband. Not that I do much power hitting these days, but in case I change my mind, they fit perfectly. (OK, so I've never done any power hitting and don't plan to.)

There's a final even more important synchronicity in all this that completely escaped me until I ran it by my aunt (B's daughter): baseball. My grandfather 'B' was an absolute baseball fanatic, having played as a youth and coached high school teams as an adult.

Having grown up in a pre-television era, he had an amazing ability to listen to a game on the radio (almost always tuned in from April to October) and have it all in his head in real time. "Who's on first?" He would know. "What's the count?", "What's the pitcher's ERA?", "Is the batter a leftie?" He would know. "How many fast balls this inning?" Total recall. Totally tuned in. Total baseball fanatic.

So on the anniversary of the eve of my baseball-fanatic-grandfather's death, closely tied in to a run full of prayer-specific symbolism for both him and my brother, specifically referencing his encouragement of my running in the past, I receive an unexpected spiritual care package stuffed with memorabilia stamped with his favorite Bible passage... which just so happens to also be the favorite passage of the first professional baseball player to whom I've ever had even the remotest personal connection.

Hello! Are we awake yet?

Short of my grandfather walking into my office in a new 25-year-old body and giving me a hug, I can't think of a more direct and obvious way of saying: "I'm still here; so is Christ; so is your brother. We're waiting. We love you. Go on. You still have work to do."

And as if that weren't enough, in just a few weeks, the choir from B's church in Georgia is ("coincidentally" for the first time ever) coming to Boston and attending a game in which N's husband will be playing. They've given me free tickets to come with them.

Ever since their World Series win, tickets to Red Sox home games have been like 100-dollar bills on the sidewalk. They're hard to find if not unheard of. They never just fall into your lap for free. OK, that's not quite true. The last time (in 20 years) that I managed to score tickets to a Red Sox game was... last June; same week... when my brother had a pair he couldn't use because he was sick. Right along the first base line; lower section; perfect weather. He gave them to me. I called him from the game. The Red Sox won.

I thought I was convinced, yet I realize that if such a blatant 'intervention' was necessary to bolster my faith and get me to blog about it, I was probably a lot weaker (in faith) than I ever suspected or knew. Today I can say with greater conviction than ever - though not as much as I hope to have next week, next month or next year: There is purpose. There is order. There is love. We are being watched over. We are incredibly blessed...

Do you not know? Have you not heard?...

U.S. Atrocities, Iraqi Violence, Inner Cities and Double Standards

In reference to our post yesterday on statistics for violent death in Iraq and several U.S. cities, an astute commenter points out that the actual picture may be a bit more complicated.

Nonetheless, the broad conclusion remains the same: there are parts of the U.S. where the rate of violent death is worse than - or at least no better than - that which we see across Iraq. Thus our question also remains: why are our standards of reporting and involvement different?

One obvious response is that the Iraqi people didn't elect us. Fair point. It's important to remember however that the choice was binary. One can poll the Iraqi people today on how long they want us to stay, what role(s) they might want us to play or how much they 'like' us (and we suspect that a fair poll would show us in a reasonable if not overwhelmingly positive light).

But the only truly relevant question is "would you have preferred Saddam"? It is either/or, not yes/but... as with the last U.S. presidential election... or any election. There the choice was not "George Bush versus 20/20 hindsight and second-guessing by hundreds of pundits and partisan opponents" but "George Bush versus John Kerry". Two men - each with all of their human foibles and constrained visions.

Another possible response is that Iraq isn't part of the U.S. and therefore not our responsibility, or that going into Iraq was somehow 'optional'. Again, fair point but it's one made on shaky ground. It cues up the well-hashed rant on what was known about Saddam and WMD, the international consensus that he was a real menace, what's now known about movement of those WMD to Syria, whether we were pulled into a larger war not of our own making on 9-11, the fundamental nature of hyper-empowered terrorism and the need for pro-action and pre-emption in an age where the possibility of a nuclear 9-11 is impossible to ignore. Whew. And that's only the summary of the summary of that rant. It also triggers a warning: isolationism is not only what the Islamofascists want but it has a lousy track record.

'nuf on that.

There's also the critique that Iraq is a country and the U.S. numbers are for cities. OK... reasonable observation. It still begs the question: why is there not a national media drumbeat about insanely high levels of violence in certain U.S. cities while on Iraq there is? We suspect the answer lies in - how shall we say - the demographics of those cities and the liberal PC balloons that would be burst if those demographics were to be examined too closely.

Finally, there is the most damaging, and in our opinion most legitimate 'My-Lai' critique. I.e., that there have been atrocities perpetrated by U.S. troops. The apparent facts are utterly sickening: a pregnant woman, an elderly man in a wheelchair, children. As James Taranto logically observes however, the context is binary:

If the Marines "overreacted," then the killings were not premeditated. They could not have killed both in the heat of the moment and in cold blood.

Neither motivation excuses the killings, but depending on which one is true, the prescriptions for policy and punishment will probably be different. Pending a full investigation we don't want to go too far here, but if true as reported, the individuals responsible ought to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law - as appears to be starting to happen. Just as U.S. cops would be if they were found to be guilty of committing similar crimes in (for example) the aforementioned violent U.S. cities.

But the My-Lai critique is also misleading - and more complicated than it might first appear. Here's why.

Not only are the alleged U.S. atrocities being prosecuted (i.e., rather than excused or covered up), but given the sheer numbers, they appear to be the exception that proves the rule. People don't expect U.S. troops to randomly murder civilians because... they don't do it very often. And the reason they don't is that our stated ideals and laws strongly condemn doing so. Despite the abhorrent stereotype on the left of U.S. soldiers being wild-eyed baby-killing fanatics, they are not trained - as our enemies are - to kill civilians en masse as a matter of course. We have invested vast sums, in fact, in making our weaponry, strategies and tactics increasingly discriminating and respectful of human life over time, given the context in which they must operate, namely, war - an imperfect business at best.

When the Islamofascists do the same thing with routine, almost factory-like regularity and premeditation, it garners far less outrage. Headlines, yes, but not outrage.

"They are freedom fighters", some say (ignoring the fact that they fight for the precise opposite of freedom, e.g., for women, gays, non-Muslims, etc.), or "What do you expect? The Jews took their land" (ignoring whom one is getting in bed with when one makes such statements, not to mention the utter geographic non-sequitor that connecting Iraq's troubles with those of the Palestinians represents), or "We invaded their country", (ignoring the fact that we did so because their former leader threatened us and we almost unanimously agreed that such threats were credible... or that we're actively turning governance back over to the Iraqis on a timetable unprecedented in the history of war.)

So yes, investigate, prosecute and punish. Just as we would do with U.S. cops gone bad. And, as Tom Barnett regularly notes, let's work harder to build a 'SysAdmin' (aka, cops) force to step in when the conventional military has done what it needs to do in the early stages, namely break things and kill enemy combatants.

But let's not use atrocities - here or there - as an argument for letting bad guys have the run of the place or confuse them with the overall level of violence and who is perpetrating it. Let's use this instead as an opportunity to acknowledge and demolish the double standard that holds Islamic terrorism, its sponsors and its philosophical roots to be somehow noble and legitimate while failing to acknowledge the moral superiority of ours. Or that uses it as a reason to get out of Iraq, but not for cops to get out of U.S. inner cities. The standards we are fighting for are not those of the ones committing the atrocities (on either side) but of the larger society routing out and punishing those who do (on either side).

UPDATE: U.S. troops exonerated... in one incident. Another still open.

A U.S. military probe has exonerated U.S. troops in the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Ishaqi in March, finding American forces followed standard procedures and committed no misconduct...

Which does not mean that this will be left alone by the MSM as it seeks to fit this into a Vietnam template: My-Lai! My-Lai! It doesn't make us feel any less ill at the notion of innocents being killed, however that came to pass - standard procedures or no. Sigh. War is hell.

Iraq in Perspective: Less Violent Than DC, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, St. Louis and New Orleans

Extraordinary. The facts will set you free. Annualized civilian death rates from violent causes per 100,000 population:

New Orleans - before Katrina: 53.1
Washington, D.C.: 45
Detroit: 41.8
Baltimore: 37.7
Atlanta: 34.9
St. Louis: 31.4
Iraq: 27.5

Why does one warrant regular front page coverage while the others are back page metro at best? We have a theory.

To be consistent, shouldn't the out-of-Iraq crowd be pushing for withdrawal of police from these other, more dangerous areas? Or should we be sending military troops in? Interesting philosophical dilemma.

H/T: NB

UPDATE: Looks like we may have been a little too hasty. Clarification here.