The last thing I want is for this blog to become another battlefield in the abortion wars. While I recognize the critical importance of the issue to many on both sides of the debate, the issue itself doesn't resonate deeply with this particular middle-aged male. I don't intend to even declare my position here. Some folks who know me may think they have reasons to guess one way; others may guess the other way; I ain't saying either way. I find that the mere mention of the issue tends to banish clear thinking from the conversation.
And that's exactly why even though I don't want to talk about abortion, I do want to talk about South Dakota's new abortion law, which passed the state's senate last Wednesday and appears on its way to full passage and signature.
The emotion that surrounds abortion has long distorted politics and governance in this country in ways that extend far beyond the boundaries of this one issue. It polarizes the both the electorate and our leaders (and office-seekers), leading to votes and appointments and decisions that are driven by the abortion issue but whose impact is much broader. For instance, how many religious folk who fundamentally agree with Democrats on issues of social justice nevertheless feel morally compelled to vote against the pro-choice party? And given the closeness of the last two presidential elections, how difficult is it to imagine that people voting against their own broader principles because of this one issue swayed the outcome? How many times has the selection of judges and high-level officials been colored by the abortion "litmus test"? (I believe that metaphor is now mandated by federal law.) How often has our national debate about important public policy issues such as medical research, health care, education, public hygiene, etc., been hijacked by abortion concerns, often things that are trivial and peripheral to the real issue.
This is not just a rant about the current Republican administration, either: For the more than 3 decades since Roe v Wade (and no doubt for years before that), abortion has provided the axis around which American politics has rotated... too often, to the detriment of the other legitimate business of the people.
The thing is, the most committed people on both sides might think it's right and just that this issue dominates our politics, because fundamental principles involved are so important. But this new law, and the arguments around it, hint that neither side is truly committed to their ostensible principles. Here's what I mean:
The principle on which the anti-abortion position stands is the assertion that a fetus is a human person, and that each abortion is a homicide, and that a public policy of legal abortion constitutes a horrifying holocaust. OK, let's follow that logic.
South Dakota law defines first-degree murder -- a Class A felony -- in part this way: "Homicide is murder in the first degree when perpetrated without authority of law and with a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or of any other human being...."
...and an abortion is clearly a "premeditated design" to terminate the life of a fetus. If we stipulate that a fetus is in fact a person, and remove from abortion the "authority of law," it follows as night follows day that an abortion is an instance of first-degree murder as defined by South Dakota's existing law. Further, in South Dakota a Class A felony is punishable by death, if certain aggravating circumstances obtain:
"Pursuant to §§ 23A-27A-2 to 23A-27A-6, inclusive, in all cases for which the death penalty may be authorized, the judge shall consider, or shall include in instructions to the jury for it to consider, any mitigating circumstances and any of the following aggravating circumstances which may be supported by the evidence:
. . . .
(5) The defendant caused or directed another to commit murder or committed murder as an agent or employee of another person;"
That is, as either the instigator or the so-called triggerman in a murder for hire... which, if you stipulate that the fetus is a person, means both the mother and the doctor in an abortion scenario, not to mention possibly any third party who knowingly paid for the abortion. Another aggravating circumstance is if...
"(6) The offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim. Any murder is wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman if the victim is less than thirteen years of age;" [emphasis added]
...and a fetus is certainly less than 13 years old. Once you declare, as a matter of law, that a fetus is a person, it's logically impossible to view in abortion as anything other than a murder-for-hire conspiracy... a serious crime punishable by serious sanctions, up to and including death, against all members of the conspiracy. So what does the proposed South Dakota law provide? Well, it provides for a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison for the doctor... and no punishment at all for the mother.
Excuse me? 5 years max for a hit man?!? Hired to kill a baby?!? And the person who hired him walks?!? The anti-abortion movement wants us to believe that a baby has the same fundamental rights 5 months before it's born as it does 5 months after, but the sponsors of this law clearly don't believe that: Try to imagine the outcry if anyone suggested a mother could hire a hit man to kill her 5-month-old infant and get off scott free. And that even the hit man could get no more than 5 years in prison. No, this law fundamentally fails to do justice to the very principle that is its ostensible justification... and in so doing, it casts doubt on whether its supporters actually believe what they claim to believe. Are anti-abortion activists, their opponents might wonder, really all that concerned about defending life, or is it all just a hook on which they hang their attempts to enforce a conservative public policy regarding sexuality?
But before the abortion-rights folks start feeling smug, let me note that there's plenty of sauce for both the goose and the gander here. Consider that the arguments against the South Dakota law began with complaints that the law lacked exceptions for rape or incest, and that it lacked a sufficiently broad exception to protect the mother's health. I confess I've never understood the rape-or-incest issue: If the fetus is not a person, all talk of exceptions is moot, but if it is a person, well... at what point did we decide it was alright to kill a child as long as you can show that the child's father is a rapist? The very idea that the sins of the father should be visited on the child even unto death seems positively medieval. Yet abortion rights activists often base their attack against proposed restrictions on the technical question of exceptions, and in the process risk implicitly conceding the underlying proposition. In effect, they're arguing for a law that defines abortion as killing but includes sufficient loopholes that anyone who wants to can get away with murder.
I'm sorry, but on the question of exceptions, the South Dakota law has it right, at least in terms of internal logic: Once you stipulate that the fetus is legally equivalent to a born child, you logically can't allow any exceptions other than to save the life of the mother. As a society, we recognize individuals' right to kill to save their own lives, but not to save themselves from embarrassment or inconvenience or even non-life-threatening illness. Can you imagine anyone saying it was OK for a mother to kill her 5-month-old sick infant to avoid catching the flu? Or to avoid the psychological pain of being constantly reminded of the man who raped her? Surely not... yet these are precisely the sort of mother's health exceptions that invariably come up in these debates.
Look, I understand that politics is the art of the possible, and at some level these are positions of political pragmatism. Abortion foes know people won't stand for a law that treats friendly small-town OB/Gyns like mob hitters and sweet college girls-next-door like stone killers. Abortion rights activists similarly realize that large segments of the country can't reconcile themselves to a totally permissive legal regime. So both sides make compromises, working for the future, and for a law that embodies as much of what they believe in as they can get.
The problem is that when your position is grounded in absolute principle, any compromise at all invalidates your whole argument. At the core of this debate, a fetus either is or is not a person. To say, on the one hand, that it is a person but you're willing to negotiate away a big chunk of its personal value to get your way or, on the other hand, that it's not a person but you're willing to pretend it's sort of one to mollify your opponents... well, either way, it's as ridiculous and unjustified as counting slaves as 3/5 person was. (Note that I do think it's logically and morally possible to assert that we can't know for sure whether/when a fetus is a person, and then argue about what sort of notice, if any, the law should take of that uncertainty. But in my experience, neither side ever takes this tack.) For some issues -- and this is one of them, I think -- the politics of "whatever works" just doesn't work.
Aside from the failure of either the law or its opponents to honor their ostensible underlying principles, there's another thing about this story that should concern even people who aren't deeply concerned about abortion: It's happening in South Dakota, and it's happening now.
The abortion ban law passed the South Dakota senate with just 23 "ayes." Earlier, there were 47 yes votes for the house version. Presuming the bill makes it through conference and the governor signs it, that'll be a total of 71 people -- just 71 citizens of a sparsely populated state (ranked 46th in population, with only one city of more than 100,000 people) -- who will have put their names to a measure that might well change the lives of nearly 300 million Americans. Why South Dakota? I can't prove it, but it's not hard to imagine that an out-of-the-way (and not incidentally, out-of-the-media-glare) state with a small, accessible legislature makes a perfect launching point for a stealth-bomber mission against "settled law."
I'm no constitutional lawyer, but even a layman can see that the South Dakota law, as written, is unconstitutional under Roe and a raft of supporting decisions, including some recent ones. So why bother? And why now? Did South Dakotans experience a wave of fervor around the issue? Maybe so, but it's equally probable that somebody noticed the membership of the U.S. Supreme has changed just a skosh recently. Most of the press accounts about this legislation frankly admit that its purpose is to provoke a showdown over Roe.
Now, there's an honorable tradition of creating test laws or test cases to effect change in the legal landscape... but in this case, we're talking about a tiny number of legislators representing a (relatively) tiny number of voters tipping over the first domino, and all the other dominos will fall within the courts, out of reach of voters in the rest of the country. I'm not sure there's fundamentally anything wrong with that, but it makes me distinctly uneasy. I would think other concerned non-South Dakotans -- on both sides of the issue -- would feel similarly queasy.
I guess we'll learn earlier rather than later what to expect from our remade Supreme Court. That's one thing....
Unit of the Day: galileo, the CGS unit of acceleration, is used primarily by geologists to measure tiny local variations in surface gravity due to geologic formations. Abbreviated Gal, the galileo (yes, it's named after that Galileo) is equal to an acceleration of 1 centimeter per second per second. As small a quantity as that is (approximately 0.0010197 g), it's still large compared to the variations geologists are trying to measure; they typically work in milliGals.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Almost a Custom
I had so much fun last night posting about How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement that I've decided to institute a recurring feature here at the Spleen: the Unit of the Day. Each time I post (not necessarily every day, as you've guessed by now), I'll pick out a unit of measure that strikes me as interestingly obscure or otherwise amusing and post it, along with its definition and whatever pithy comment I might have to add. Unless I say otherwise, all the Units of the Day will be based on information from How Many? (and be linked to it, though in some cases you may need to scroll to find the unit).
To get things started...
Unit of the Day: snit, a U.S. unit of volume equal to 2 jiggers (3 U.S. fluid ounces) of liquor. Of course, it might also signify what you'd be in if a bartender refused to serve you 2 jiggers of liquor!
To get things started...
Unit of the Day: snit, a U.S. unit of volume equal to 2 jiggers (3 U.S. fluid ounces) of liquor. Of course, it might also signify what you'd be in if a bartender refused to serve you 2 jiggers of liquor!
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Big Unit(s)
I was looking something up today at work, and it occurred to me to share with y'all one of my favorite online resources: How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement. Now, for some of you, this might seem like a pretty geeky site to list among my favorites... but if you are (as I am) one of those people who can look up a word in a common dictionary and get sucked into browsing for hours, you'll find this site every bit as dangerously compelling as your Funk and Wagnalls. It's full not only of ordinary, everyday units of measure like inches and amperes and footcandles, but also of the arcane and obscure: units from ancient times (ever wonder what a cubit really is?) or foreign lands (bet you didn't know that in Central America a manzana is unit of land equal in area to a square 100 varas on a side), and units for things you never knew anyone bothered to measure (lunar eclipse brightness? the hardness of tablets [i.e., pills]? the darkness of beer or honey?)
As a technical writer, I often use this site to confirm the proper usage, abbreviation, symbol, etc., of units that appear in the documents I edit... but sometimes the information is of more, umm, topical use. If, for instance, you're thinking of going hunting with Dick Cheney, you might be interested in how they measure birdshot pellet sizes or shotgun gauges, and your next of kin might want to bone up on the Glasgow Coma Scale. And if you've been following the Winter Olympics in Italy, you might be interested to learn that the Torino Impact Hazard Scale measures not the force with which an ice dancer's hip hits the rink, but rather the risk of devastating impact posed by a near-Earth asteroid or comet.
Fascinating, eh? This is all the brainchild of one Russ Rowlett, director of the University of North Carolina's Center for Mathematics and Science Education. Check it out... but when you find you've wasted way too many hours learning (for instance) that a butt is generally defined as two hogsheads, don't blame me; blame Dr. Rowlett.
Enjoy!
As a technical writer, I often use this site to confirm the proper usage, abbreviation, symbol, etc., of units that appear in the documents I edit... but sometimes the information is of more, umm, topical use. If, for instance, you're thinking of going hunting with Dick Cheney, you might be interested in how they measure birdshot pellet sizes or shotgun gauges, and your next of kin might want to bone up on the Glasgow Coma Scale. And if you've been following the Winter Olympics in Italy, you might be interested to learn that the Torino Impact Hazard Scale measures not the force with which an ice dancer's hip hits the rink, but rather the risk of devastating impact posed by a near-Earth asteroid or comet.
Fascinating, eh? This is all the brainchild of one Russ Rowlett, director of the University of North Carolina's Center for Mathematics and Science Education. Check it out... but when you find you've wasted way too many hours learning (for instance) that a butt is generally defined as two hogsheads, don't blame me; blame Dr. Rowlett.
Enjoy!
Friday, February 17, 2006
Space Sports Follow-Up
Hey, I got an e-mail from Rocky Persaud, president of IPX Entertainment, about my earlier posting on their space sports proposals. He tells me they're now casting for a space-sports reality show related to their zero-gee game. I had actually already seen the press release, and planned to post the news here, but it was fascinating to hear from him. When I told him I'd try out myself if I weren't a middle-aged fat guy, he replied that they have other contests in development that would be open to regular, non-athlete type folks like myself. Cool, eh?
It's also cool that somebody outside my small circle of acquaintances has stumbled across this blog. If there's anyone else out there listening, besides atalbot and Mara, I'd love to hear from you.
Update (21 February 2006): Here's an interview with Rocky Persaud about Space Champions and the future plans of IPX Entertainment.
It's also cool that somebody outside my small circle of acquaintances has stumbled across this blog. If there's anyone else out there listening, besides atalbot and Mara, I'd love to hear from you.
Update (21 February 2006): Here's an interview with Rocky Persaud about Space Champions and the future plans of IPX Entertainment.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Science Fiction Double Feature
First a correction: In my earlier post on the State of the Union human-animal hybrid issue, I made a reference to "...as if anyone outside a Jules Verne novel were even contemplating the creation of human-animal hybrids!" Well, on further review, I believe I was actually thinking of The Island of Dr. Moreau, which is not by Verne but by the other giant of pre-20th century science fiction, H.G. Wells. Either I was remembering the French name in the title of Wells' work and therefore incorrectly attributing it to Verne... or more likely, I was confusing Moreau with Verne's The Mysterious Island, which actually continues the story of Captain Nemo and has (as far as I know) nothing to do with bizarre man-beasts. Oh, well... c'est la guerre, eh?
While on the subject of science fiction, though, I'm fascinated -- and more than moderately delighted -- to note that my daughter's high-school book club is soon to read Robert Heinlein's seminal 1961 novel A Stranger in a Strange Land. Why delighted? Well, aside from the fact that I've been a rabid Heinlein fan since discovering Red Planet in junior high shool, and the fact that the Heinlein Forum was my earliest online "home," I guess I'm pleased with the selection because the book's just so dangerous!
Stranger, which famously added the word "grok" to the language (and inspired an actual neopagan church that still exists), is sometimes credited as the original prototype for communal, free-love ideals of 1960s hippies. I think that's a bit of a stretch, but there's no denying that the novel (which I've just finished rereading) presents... shall we say challenging?... ideas about some cherished social values, especially including sexuality and religion. Through the story of a human raised from infancy by Martians and then returned to Earth as a young adult, Heinlein offers a unique perspective on human social, sexual, and religious practices, mercilessly testing our underlying assumptions about sexual morality and the nature of God. Though some of it seems slightly dated now, as a whole, it's just as threatening to today's orthodoxy as it was to 1961's... perhaps more so. In short, it's just the sort of book that parents and pastors and "family values" advocates agitate to have removed from public schools.
And that's exactly why I'm delighted that my daughter's school is encouraging her to read it (admittedly in an extracurricular club rather than a class, but still...). In an era that is, for my tastes, all too prudish, prissy, and protective about the ideas we're willing for our children (or ourselves, for that matter) to be exposed to, such a fearless choice pleases me immensely. And it's not just this book: the RHS Book Club regularly draws its material not from the "safe ground" of the Young Adult section of the library, but from the best contemporary literary fiction, even when that means confronting adult themes. That the Book Club's faculty sponsors take this approach, that they (apparently) meet little opposition from the community, and -- it must be said -- that there's a ready audience of teenagers mature and thoughtful and inquisitive enough for these works... these facts help give me hope that our society is not quite so close to a new Dark Ages as I sometimes fear.
While on the subject of science fiction, though, I'm fascinated -- and more than moderately delighted -- to note that my daughter's high-school book club is soon to read Robert Heinlein's seminal 1961 novel A Stranger in a Strange Land. Why delighted? Well, aside from the fact that I've been a rabid Heinlein fan since discovering Red Planet in junior high shool, and the fact that the Heinlein Forum was my earliest online "home," I guess I'm pleased with the selection because the book's just so dangerous!
Stranger, which famously added the word "grok" to the language (and inspired an actual neopagan church that still exists), is sometimes credited as the original prototype for communal, free-love ideals of 1960s hippies. I think that's a bit of a stretch, but there's no denying that the novel (which I've just finished rereading) presents... shall we say challenging?... ideas about some cherished social values, especially including sexuality and religion. Through the story of a human raised from infancy by Martians and then returned to Earth as a young adult, Heinlein offers a unique perspective on human social, sexual, and religious practices, mercilessly testing our underlying assumptions about sexual morality and the nature of God. Though some of it seems slightly dated now, as a whole, it's just as threatening to today's orthodoxy as it was to 1961's... perhaps more so. In short, it's just the sort of book that parents and pastors and "family values" advocates agitate to have removed from public schools.
And that's exactly why I'm delighted that my daughter's school is encouraging her to read it (admittedly in an extracurricular club rather than a class, but still...). In an era that is, for my tastes, all too prudish, prissy, and protective about the ideas we're willing for our children (or ourselves, for that matter) to be exposed to, such a fearless choice pleases me immensely. And it's not just this book: the RHS Book Club regularly draws its material not from the "safe ground" of the Young Adult section of the library, but from the best contemporary literary fiction, even when that means confronting adult themes. That the Book Club's faculty sponsors take this approach, that they (apparently) meet little opposition from the community, and -- it must be said -- that there's a ready audience of teenagers mature and thoughtful and inquisitive enough for these works... these facts help give me hope that our society is not quite so close to a new Dark Ages as I sometimes fear.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Good God, Y'all! What Is it Good For?
War, that is.
One more bit about the SotU; I promise my next post won't be political (or at least not obviously so; I'm beginning to believe that, at some level, everything is politics).
All the commentary I listened to and read after the SotU reminded me of something that's been bugging me since... oh, maybe about September 25, 2001. You see, I keep hearing folks who oppose the Bush administration's Iraq policy falling all over themselves to say that of course we have to win the "War on Terror"; we just disagree on strategy... and tactics... and how much of our civil liberty we're willing to give up for the cause, and.... Well, here's the thing (my favorite Bill Bryson line): There is no "War on Terror"!
Mind you, I understand that as a matter of political reality, Democrats and liberals who hold or seek elective office have to protect themselves against the charge that they're weak on national defense; too soft to perform the cardinal function of government. And I don't mean to minimize the gravity of the struggle against terrorism, nor the evil of the terrorists. But "war" as a specific term has significant and unavoidable implications, and it's extraordinarily dangerous to use the word carelessly.
Cynical people will say this administration does everything carelessly; really cynical people may suspect there's more care -- of a Machiavellian sort -- than we might like in the administration's use of the word "war." You see, we historically have been willing to surrender rights and make other sacrifices in time of war, for the sake of ensuring the survival of the nation. We're willing to tolerate these temporary sacrifices in large part because they are presumed to be temporary. Notwithstanding the existence in world history of a Thirty Years' War and a Hundred Years' War, wars are always understood to be finite: Each side expects to win, lose, or reach a negotiated peace. In the World Wars of the 20th Century, folks happily accepted rationing, censorship of the mail, blackouts, air-raid drills, and a variety of other sacrifices "for the duration," and expression that survives in common usage to this day. That very phrase implies the expectation of an END.
We (justifiably) fought a war in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; we (unjustifiably, it seems to me) fought a war in Iraq. Both either are over, or will be over at some point in the foreseeable future (depending on how you view the ongoing operations in both places). We have defeated the Taliban and Iraqi armies and overturned the governments that fielded them. But however successful we are in thwarting terrorist plots and capturing or killing individual terrorists, we can, almost by definition, never win a broader "War on Terror."
Friends, the good news is that we as a nation are vastly, literally incredibly, blessed... blessed with material, spiritual, intellectual, and cultural riches most of the people of the world can only dream about. In addition, we are hugely powerful, able to act on the global stage essentially unchallenged. The bad news is that as long as we are this rich, this enviable, there will be people who envy us... and some of them will seek to channel their envy into unspeakably evil acts. And as long as we're powerful, there will be people who fear and mistrust our power... and some of them, too, will manifest their fear as violence.
This is NOT an apology for terrorism: In most cases, the terrorists' envy and fear and hatred are misplaced, and even when our opponents have arguably valid reasons for opposing us, no grievance can ever justify indiscriminate violence against innocent noncombatants. Murder is murder, no matter how good a reason the murderer thinks he has for being angry. There's no doubt that terrorists are our enemies... the enemies of decent people everywhere. We must struggle against them, diligently, earnestly, aggressively, bravely... but they are not nations, with armies and territory and governments that we can defeat or with which we can negotiate peace. Even terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda have no standing to surrender on behalf of global terrorism as a whole, nor will defeating them militarily end all terrorism.
No, terrorists are our foreign enemies more in the sense that criminals are our domestic enemies, and we have about as much chance of ever really "defeating" terrorism as we do of defeating crime. Until there's no more wealth, people will try to steal; until there's no more personal conflict, people will try to maim and kill. Similarly, until we are no longer enviable or powerful (an outcome you could hardly think of as "victory"), people in the world will try to steal our freedom, kill our peace.
We must, of course, keep up the struggle... but we can't fool ourselves into thinking there's an end to it. If we must, we can call the struggle against global terrorism the "moral equivalent of war," as Jimmy Carter called the energy crisis of the late 1970s, but if we actually call it "war" -- if we in the opposition acquiesce to the administration calling it "war" -- well, a permanent state of war leads to permanent war powers. (Can you say "Patriot Act"? I knew you could.) And permanent war powers have long been a stepping stone to totalitarianism, in history and in cautionary fiction.
Just ask George Orwell.
Say it again!
One more bit about the SotU; I promise my next post won't be political (or at least not obviously so; I'm beginning to believe that, at some level, everything is politics).
All the commentary I listened to and read after the SotU reminded me of something that's been bugging me since... oh, maybe about September 25, 2001. You see, I keep hearing folks who oppose the Bush administration's Iraq policy falling all over themselves to say that of course we have to win the "War on Terror"; we just disagree on strategy... and tactics... and how much of our civil liberty we're willing to give up for the cause, and.... Well, here's the thing (my favorite Bill Bryson line): There is no "War on Terror"!
Mind you, I understand that as a matter of political reality, Democrats and liberals who hold or seek elective office have to protect themselves against the charge that they're weak on national defense; too soft to perform the cardinal function of government. And I don't mean to minimize the gravity of the struggle against terrorism, nor the evil of the terrorists. But "war" as a specific term has significant and unavoidable implications, and it's extraordinarily dangerous to use the word carelessly.
Cynical people will say this administration does everything carelessly; really cynical people may suspect there's more care -- of a Machiavellian sort -- than we might like in the administration's use of the word "war." You see, we historically have been willing to surrender rights and make other sacrifices in time of war, for the sake of ensuring the survival of the nation. We're willing to tolerate these temporary sacrifices in large part because they are presumed to be temporary. Notwithstanding the existence in world history of a Thirty Years' War and a Hundred Years' War, wars are always understood to be finite: Each side expects to win, lose, or reach a negotiated peace. In the World Wars of the 20th Century, folks happily accepted rationing, censorship of the mail, blackouts, air-raid drills, and a variety of other sacrifices "for the duration," and expression that survives in common usage to this day. That very phrase implies the expectation of an END.
We (justifiably) fought a war in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; we (unjustifiably, it seems to me) fought a war in Iraq. Both either are over, or will be over at some point in the foreseeable future (depending on how you view the ongoing operations in both places). We have defeated the Taliban and Iraqi armies and overturned the governments that fielded them. But however successful we are in thwarting terrorist plots and capturing or killing individual terrorists, we can, almost by definition, never win a broader "War on Terror."
Friends, the good news is that we as a nation are vastly, literally incredibly, blessed... blessed with material, spiritual, intellectual, and cultural riches most of the people of the world can only dream about. In addition, we are hugely powerful, able to act on the global stage essentially unchallenged. The bad news is that as long as we are this rich, this enviable, there will be people who envy us... and some of them will seek to channel their envy into unspeakably evil acts. And as long as we're powerful, there will be people who fear and mistrust our power... and some of them, too, will manifest their fear as violence.
This is NOT an apology for terrorism: In most cases, the terrorists' envy and fear and hatred are misplaced, and even when our opponents have arguably valid reasons for opposing us, no grievance can ever justify indiscriminate violence against innocent noncombatants. Murder is murder, no matter how good a reason the murderer thinks he has for being angry. There's no doubt that terrorists are our enemies... the enemies of decent people everywhere. We must struggle against them, diligently, earnestly, aggressively, bravely... but they are not nations, with armies and territory and governments that we can defeat or with which we can negotiate peace. Even terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda have no standing to surrender on behalf of global terrorism as a whole, nor will defeating them militarily end all terrorism.
No, terrorists are our foreign enemies more in the sense that criminals are our domestic enemies, and we have about as much chance of ever really "defeating" terrorism as we do of defeating crime. Until there's no more wealth, people will try to steal; until there's no more personal conflict, people will try to maim and kill. Similarly, until we are no longer enviable or powerful (an outcome you could hardly think of as "victory"), people in the world will try to steal our freedom, kill our peace.
We must, of course, keep up the struggle... but we can't fool ourselves into thinking there's an end to it. If we must, we can call the struggle against global terrorism the "moral equivalent of war," as Jimmy Carter called the energy crisis of the late 1970s, but if we actually call it "war" -- if we in the opposition acquiesce to the administration calling it "war" -- well, a permanent state of war leads to permanent war powers. (Can you say "Patriot Act"? I knew you could.) And permanent war powers have long been a stepping stone to totalitarianism, in history and in cautionary fiction.
Just ask George Orwell.
Say it again!
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The State of the Union is... Wicked!
OK, I swear this won't always be a political blog, but on SoU night, it's hard to resist.
A while back, I posted an entry about Wicked, the musical. Since then, I've been reading the novel that inspired the show, and I'll no doubt have something about that when I'm done... but tonight, after listening to the president's State of the Union Address, the word "strawman" means something to me other than a denizen of Oz.
Throughout the first, foreign "policy" related, section of the speech, the president consistently contrasted his administration's policies to "isolationism," as if his political critics were isolationists. (I was hoping to quote directly from the speech, but the text is apparently not online yet. It's "coming soon" here.) Really? The opposition that urged him to pay more heed to the United Nations is isolationist? The folks who begged him to give Hans Blix, Mohammad al-Barradei, et al., more time (and credence) are isolationists? Those of us who were ridiculed by our own leaders because we refused to expunge from our junk food's names those "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," the French... we're isolationists? It is to laugh!
This is a classic strawman argument. The president wants us to understand that his policies are infinitely superior to isolationism... never mind that none of us is actually advocating isolationism. Among those of us who oppose Mr. Bush's adventure into Iraq, there's a wide range of diverse opinions about what we should do instead... but even those pushing for immediate withdrawal of our troops there are not, as the president would have it, advocating "retreat to within our borders." The president's liberal and Democratic opponents are generally more internationalist than the president has ever even dreamed of being (not for nothing does the classic bumpersticker begin "Think Globally..."). We want to engage the global community; we just would prefer to engage it in a somewhat less brutal and useless way than we currently are in Iraq. I think we can all agree to oppose "isolationism"; I just wish we could get the president to agree that the opposite of isolationism needn't necessarily be imperialism.
Later in the speech, the president invoked the examples of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and (IIRC) FDR, praising them for persevering... for not giving up. Well and good, as far as that goes, but these icons' greatness lay not merely in their perseverance, but in the nobility of the causes in which they persevered. For not giving up to be a virtue, it is a necessary precondition that what you are not giving up not be evil. A lesson, sadly, our leaders don't seem to have learned.
PS: On the subject of strawman arguments, at one point the president called for strong legal prohibitions against the horrors of human cloning and its related technologies, including "the creation of human-animal hybrids." As if anyone outside a Jules Verne novel were even contemplating the creation of human-animal hybrids! Those of you brewing up centaurs and mermaids in your basements... well you just go straight to bed without your supper! Shame on you! ;^)
A while back, I posted an entry about Wicked, the musical. Since then, I've been reading the novel that inspired the show, and I'll no doubt have something about that when I'm done... but tonight, after listening to the president's State of the Union Address, the word "strawman" means something to me other than a denizen of Oz.
Throughout the first, foreign "policy" related, section of the speech, the president consistently contrasted his administration's policies to "isolationism," as if his political critics were isolationists. (I was hoping to quote directly from the speech, but the text is apparently not online yet. It's "coming soon" here.) Really? The opposition that urged him to pay more heed to the United Nations is isolationist? The folks who begged him to give Hans Blix, Mohammad al-Barradei, et al., more time (and credence) are isolationists? Those of us who were ridiculed by our own leaders because we refused to expunge from our junk food's names those "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," the French... we're isolationists? It is to laugh!
This is a classic strawman argument. The president wants us to understand that his policies are infinitely superior to isolationism... never mind that none of us is actually advocating isolationism. Among those of us who oppose Mr. Bush's adventure into Iraq, there's a wide range of diverse opinions about what we should do instead... but even those pushing for immediate withdrawal of our troops there are not, as the president would have it, advocating "retreat to within our borders." The president's liberal and Democratic opponents are generally more internationalist than the president has ever even dreamed of being (not for nothing does the classic bumpersticker begin "Think Globally..."). We want to engage the global community; we just would prefer to engage it in a somewhat less brutal and useless way than we currently are in Iraq. I think we can all agree to oppose "isolationism"; I just wish we could get the president to agree that the opposite of isolationism needn't necessarily be imperialism.
Later in the speech, the president invoked the examples of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and (IIRC) FDR, praising them for persevering... for not giving up. Well and good, as far as that goes, but these icons' greatness lay not merely in their perseverance, but in the nobility of the causes in which they persevered. For not giving up to be a virtue, it is a necessary precondition that what you are not giving up not be evil. A lesson, sadly, our leaders don't seem to have learned.
PS: On the subject of strawman arguments, at one point the president called for strong legal prohibitions against the horrors of human cloning and its related technologies, including "the creation of human-animal hybrids." As if anyone outside a Jules Verne novel were even contemplating the creation of human-animal hybrids! Those of you brewing up centaurs and mermaids in your basements... well you just go straight to bed without your supper! Shame on you! ;^)
Belated "Hello" and Housekeeping
Well, the holidays have come and gone (long gone, actually... I started this entry in early January, but got sidetracked by the predictable post-holiday cold), and it's about time I got back to this. I realize I sort of backed into this blogging business, so I suppose I should take a moment to introduce myself, and define (to the extent I can) just what in the heck this is going to be.
My name is Bill Dauphin; I'm 45 years old; I live in Vernon, Connecticut (in the Hartford area, more or less); and I work as a technical writer (proposals and reports, not manuals) for a major aerospace company. My wife teaches English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at the University of Connecticut American English Language Institute.
The son of a NASA engineer, I was born in Florida and raised in the Houston, Texas, area. I graduated from Friendswood High School, received a BA in English from University of Houston in 1981, completed an MA in English/Creative Writing from Binghamton University in 1984 (we called it "SUNY-Binghamton" in those days), and finally, just for the fun of it (really!), picked up an MS in Space Studies from University of North Dakota's Space Studies Distance Learning program in 2003.
So why blog? Well, at first, it was because my 15 year-old daughter was blogging, and I figured I'd better get with the program. Then too, a favorite online haunt of mine, the Space Arena BBS, stopped taking new postings (you can still read the archives, if you're brave), and I ended up reading some of the regulars' individual blogs to try to keep up. One day I wanted to post a comment at Jon Goff's Selenian Boondocks blog, and somehow managed to convince myself I had to have a Blogger account to do so. I was wrong, of course, but by the time I figured that out, I had the account, and it just seemed natural to use it.
When I told Andy, my best buddy and model rocketry teammate, that I'd started a blog, his response was succinct: "I detest blogs!" If y'all buy some rocket kits from him, he'll probably forgive me, but the comment did start me thinking about what the devil I'm up to here. This is not any sort of attempt at "citizen journalism" like the pro bloggers (my current favorite of whom is Eric Alterman at MSNBC.com): I don't have the facts, skill, or authority to do that well, and I'd really hate to do it badly. It's also not intended to be a public diary like my daughter and her LiveJournal friends have: High-school students really do care about the minutiae of each other's days, but can't imagine anyone cares about mine. And I'm certainly not interested in the kind of bottom-feeding stuff that must have prompted this cartoon.
So why waste the electrons, eh? Well, it turns out -- and this'll hardly be any surprise to folks who know me -- that I do have an opinion or two. I don't pretend that they're necessarily any better than anyone else's, but they're there, rattling around inside my head. I find that putting my thoughts into words helps me understand more clearly what I actually think... and this is a way to wring out those words without inflicting them (or at least, not all of them) on my poor family. Call it letters to the editor, without the pesky editor. Better yet, call it a cheap alternative to therapy.
If you stop by here and find me yelling, be of good cheer: I'm not yelling at you (well, probably not... depends on whether your name is Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld... but I digress). And if perchance some bits of my self-therapy happen to enlighten or entertain (or just bemuse) you, great!
My name is Bill Dauphin; I'm 45 years old; I live in Vernon, Connecticut (in the Hartford area, more or less); and I work as a technical writer (proposals and reports, not manuals) for a major aerospace company. My wife teaches English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at the University of Connecticut American English Language Institute.
The son of a NASA engineer, I was born in Florida and raised in the Houston, Texas, area. I graduated from Friendswood High School, received a BA in English from University of Houston in 1981, completed an MA in English/Creative Writing from Binghamton University in 1984 (we called it "SUNY-Binghamton" in those days), and finally, just for the fun of it (really!), picked up an MS in Space Studies from University of North Dakota's Space Studies Distance Learning program in 2003.
So why blog? Well, at first, it was because my 15 year-old daughter was blogging, and I figured I'd better get with the program. Then too, a favorite online haunt of mine, the Space Arena BBS, stopped taking new postings (you can still read the archives, if you're brave
When I told Andy, my best buddy and model rocketry teammate, that I'd started a blog, his response was succinct: "I detest blogs!" If y'all buy some rocket kits from him, he'll probably forgive me, but the comment did start me thinking about what the devil I'm up to here. This is not any sort of attempt at "citizen journalism" like the pro bloggers (my current favorite of whom is Eric Alterman at MSNBC.com): I don't have the facts, skill, or authority to do that well, and I'd really hate to do it badly. It's also not intended to be a public diary like my daughter and her LiveJournal friends have: High-school students really do care about the minutiae of each other's days, but can't imagine anyone cares about mine. And I'm certainly not interested in the kind of bottom-feeding stuff that must have prompted this cartoon.
So why waste the electrons, eh? Well, it turns out -- and this'll hardly be any surprise to folks who know me -- that I do have an opinion or two. I don't pretend that they're necessarily any better than anyone else's, but they're there, rattling around inside my head. I find that putting my thoughts into words helps me understand more clearly what I actually think... and this is a way to wring out those words without inflicting them (or at least, not all of them) on my poor family. Call it letters to the editor, without the pesky editor. Better yet, call it a cheap alternative to therapy.
If you stop by here and find me yelling, be of good cheer: I'm not yelling at you (well, probably not... depends on whether your name is Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld... but I digress
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Something Wicked
Throughout my days in high school and undergraduate school, my mother was a freelance arts critic, covering theatre, dance, and music in the Houston area (mostly theatre; she even wrote a book on local theatre history). I tagged along with her to more than a few performances, and one I recall in particular was Houston Ballet's Caliban, created in collaboration with local rock group St. Elmo's Fire (which evolved from the earlier Wheatfield and featured one half of the future Trout Fishing in America). The notion that the monstrous slave from The Tempest was a misunderstood character was common in literary criticism, but this work reimagined Shakespeare's story from Caliban's point of view. The actual details of the show (which I remember enjoying) didn't really stay with me, but the concept did.
I thought of this last Sunday as I was watching the touring Broadway musical Wicked. The musical is based on the novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire, who has recently made something of a career out of this trick of reimagining beloved stories. In case you've been too busy hiding from the NSA to notice, this award-winning show and the best selling novel that inspired it recasts The Wizard of Oz, telling the story not of Dorothy and her traveling companions, but of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.
OK, so I'm sitting in Hartford's Bushnell Performing Arts Center, expecting a big theatrical spectacle based on a clever twist; a sort of literary joke. Well, spectacular it was, and clever as well... but I was surprised -- pleasantly astounded, in fact -- by the literary depth of the piece. Beginning with Elphaba and Glinda as schoolmates, reluctant roommates, and neophyte sorcerers, Wicked is in turns a multigenerational family tragedy, a rumination on the nature of friendship, a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of good intentions, and an exploration of the sometimes blurry boundaries between good and... well, wickedness.
But wait; there's more! This confection of light and sound is also intensely political, examining the uses of propaganda and exposing its power to obliterate criticism, demonize opponents, and unite an unsuspecting people behind a leader who, as Elphaba immediately perceives, has no real powers of his own except for the art of flim flam.
The New York Times review of the original Broadway show (excerpted on the show's website) comments that "[t]he contrast between the young women, who wind up as reluctant roommates at sorcery school, is used to examine a society that values surface over substance, the illusion of doing good over the genuinely noble act. It goes without saying that you don't have to squint to find parallels with a certain contemporary Western nation in which artful presidential photo ops win more votes than legislative change." And Time cuts to the more chilling political center of the piece: "As the Wizard ... puts it, 'The best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy.'"
The Wizard does give his people enemies, in the form of the anthropomorphic Animals who live among them. Hounded out of teaching jobs and other professions in which they use human speech, the Animals systematically lose their ability to speak. Elphaba comes to the Wizard believing he is noble, kind, and wise, and that he will help her defend Animal rights. When she discovers the truth and turns against him, the Wizard has an even more compelling "enemy" through which to frighten his subjects into compliance. Using faulty intelligence, exaggerated claims, overzealous police forces, and domestic spying (the flying monkeys are, it turns out, unfortunate slaves whom the Wizard has tricked Elphaba into giving wings specifically so he can use them as "scouts" within the Land of Oz) to brand Elphaba as the Wicked Witch and mobilize the people of Oz to track her down.
Hmmm... anything sounding the teensiest bit familiar?
Time calls Wicked "a family musical that might make the Bush Administration squirm." Indeed. And that's (to borrow a phrase) a Very Good Thing.
I thought of this last Sunday as I was watching the touring Broadway musical Wicked. The musical is based on the novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire, who has recently made something of a career out of this trick of reimagining beloved stories. In case you've been too busy hiding from the NSA to notice, this award-winning show and the best selling novel that inspired it recasts The Wizard of Oz, telling the story not of Dorothy and her traveling companions, but of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.
OK, so I'm sitting in Hartford's Bushnell Performing Arts Center, expecting a big theatrical spectacle based on a clever twist; a sort of literary joke. Well, spectacular it was, and clever as well... but I was surprised -- pleasantly astounded, in fact -- by the literary depth of the piece. Beginning with Elphaba and Glinda as schoolmates, reluctant roommates, and neophyte sorcerers, Wicked is in turns a multigenerational family tragedy, a rumination on the nature of friendship, a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of good intentions, and an exploration of the sometimes blurry boundaries between good and... well, wickedness.
But wait; there's more! This confection of light and sound is also intensely political, examining the uses of propaganda and exposing its power to obliterate criticism, demonize opponents, and unite an unsuspecting people behind a leader who, as Elphaba immediately perceives, has no real powers of his own except for the art of flim flam.
The New York Times review of the original Broadway show (excerpted on the show's website) comments that "[t]he contrast between the young women, who wind up as reluctant roommates at sorcery school, is used to examine a society that values surface over substance, the illusion of doing good over the genuinely noble act. It goes without saying that you don't have to squint to find parallels with a certain contemporary Western nation in which artful presidential photo ops win more votes than legislative change." And Time cuts to the more chilling political center of the piece: "As the Wizard ... puts it, 'The best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy.'"
The Wizard does give his people enemies, in the form of the anthropomorphic Animals who live among them. Hounded out of teaching jobs and other professions in which they use human speech, the Animals systematically lose their ability to speak. Elphaba comes to the Wizard believing he is noble, kind, and wise, and that he will help her defend Animal rights. When she discovers the truth and turns against him, the Wizard has an even more compelling "enemy" through which to frighten his subjects into compliance. Using faulty intelligence, exaggerated claims, overzealous police forces, and domestic spying (the flying monkeys are, it turns out, unfortunate slaves whom the Wizard has tricked Elphaba into giving wings specifically so he can use them as "scouts" within the Land of Oz) to brand Elphaba as the Wicked Witch and mobilize the people of Oz to track her down.
Hmmm... anything sounding the teensiest bit familiar?
Time calls Wicked "a family musical that might make the Bush Administration squirm." Indeed. And that's (to borrow a phrase) a Very Good Thing.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Airing of Grievances
I was in Home Depot yesterday buying replacement fuses and other mundane household items when it hit me: There was no special seasonal display of aluminum poles. And when I thought about it, I realized I'd been shopping in Target, Kmart, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Borders over the last several days, and in not one of those stores was I wished a Happy Festivus! Could it be that there's a War on Festivus? Where is the Bill O'Reilly who will rally to the defense of Costanzians everywhere? Really, I ask you, does this seem moral? At long last, have we no values??
Notwithstanding the fact that holiday shopping often turns into Feats of Strength, it seems that traditional Festivus observances are largely disregarded by our crass, all-too-busy consumerist culture...
...or so I thought. On a whim, I Googled "Festivus" and discovered that Seinfeld's fictional (or should I say, formerly fictional) secular alternative to Christmas refuses to go away. To complement a variety of quirky celebrations around the world, it has its own website, two new books, even its own song. One of the editorial reviews at Amazon refers to Festivus as a "bare-bones celebration of second-rate miracles and hopeless regrets," and really, what could be a more relevant holiday for these benighted times?
This Thursday you can see how it started -- the Festivus equivalent of It's a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas all rolled into one -- on TBS. Check your local listings!
BTW, in case I don't talk to you tomorrow... Happy Solstice!
Notwithstanding the fact that holiday shopping often turns into Feats of Strength, it seems that traditional Festivus observances are largely disregarded by our crass, all-too-busy consumerist culture...
...or so I thought. On a whim, I Googled "Festivus" and discovered that Seinfeld's fictional (or should I say, formerly fictional) secular alternative to Christmas refuses to go away. To complement a variety of quirky celebrations around the world, it has its own website, two new books, even its own song. One of the editorial reviews at Amazon refers to Festivus as a "bare-bones celebration of second-rate miracles and hopeless regrets," and really, what could be a more relevant holiday for these benighted times?
This Thursday you can see how it started -- the Festivus equivalent of It's a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas all rolled into one -- on TBS. Check your local listings!
BTW, in case I don't talk to you tomorrow... Happy Solstice!
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Luna City Olympic Organizing Committee
Just to prove this blog won't always be crusty and full of political angst... how cool is this discussion of space sports? Now that Richard Branson is preparing to open the first commercial spaceline and Peter Diamandis' Zero-Gravity Corporation is flying private customers, the idea of of sports in microgravity or lunar gravity is edging out of the realm of science fiction and into reality. Because Zero-G's microgravity parabolas last only 25 to 30 seconds each, it's hard to see how the Paraball game IPX Entertainment is developing could be anything other than an exhibition sport, but eventually there will be hotels in space (at least, there will be if Robert Bigelow has anything to say about it), and as surely as night follows day, there will be sports.
Probably the "killer app" of space sports will be a totally new game that we've never heard of, but it's fun to speculate about how existing games would work in space. Some sports -- soccer, lacrosse, team handball (or water polo without the water) -- seem like they'd translate pretty easily to 3-D, zero-g versions; others -- basketball, volleyball, tennis -- seem like they'd be pretty hard to shake loose from gravity: How do you dribble, spike, or serve a ball when there's no up-and-down? And individual sports, especially so-called extreme sports, are surprisingly tied to gravity: It's no coincidence that NBC's X-Game competitor is called the Gravity Games.
But what about space environments where there is gravity? The most famous moment in space sports history (admittedly practically the only moment in space sports history!) is Alan Shepard's lunar golf shot. But lunar golf as a sport rather than a stunt will probably be played indoors. On the Moon, low gravity may be a plus for games, but the lack of air outside is probably a minus: In golf, no slices or hooks... but no deliberate shot shaping, either. In baseball, no curveballs, sliders, knuckleballs, or "rising" fastballs, and no waiting to see if that deep fly ball hooks foul, either. Where's the fun in that? Of course, all these quibbles would be answered by moving the games indoors: Standard air pressure and lunar gravity (1/6g) would give you crazy hooks and slices, and perhaps fastballs that really rise! Of course, given how far the balls would travel, the venues would have to be huge. Try to imagine how big a sheet of ice you'd need for lunar curling!
One thing you could do on the Moon is... fly! Immortalized in Robert Heinlein's story "The Menace from Earth" (in the collection of the same name) and described in Neil P. Ruzic's 1970 speculative nonfiction work Where the Winds Sleep (unfortunately out of print), the coolest imaginable lunar sport is to strap on a pair of wings and fly like a bird, taking advantage of Earth-born strength, Earth-standard pressure, and lunar weight.
So what do you think? Looking forward to the Luna City Olympics? I know I am.
Probably the "killer app" of space sports will be a totally new game that we've never heard of, but it's fun to speculate about how existing games would work in space. Some sports -- soccer, lacrosse, team handball (or water polo without the water) -- seem like they'd translate pretty easily to 3-D, zero-g versions; others -- basketball, volleyball, tennis -- seem like they'd be pretty hard to shake loose from gravity: How do you dribble, spike, or serve a ball when there's no up-and-down? And individual sports, especially so-called extreme sports, are surprisingly tied to gravity: It's no coincidence that NBC's X-Game competitor is called the Gravity Games.
But what about space environments where there is gravity? The most famous moment in space sports history (admittedly practically the only moment in space sports history!) is Alan Shepard's lunar golf shot. But lunar golf as a sport rather than a stunt will probably be played indoors. On the Moon, low gravity may be a plus for games, but the lack of air outside is probably a minus: In golf, no slices or hooks... but no deliberate shot shaping, either. In baseball, no curveballs, sliders, knuckleballs, or "rising" fastballs, and no waiting to see if that deep fly ball hooks foul, either. Where's the fun in that? Of course, all these quibbles would be answered by moving the games indoors: Standard air pressure and lunar gravity (1/6g) would give you crazy hooks and slices, and perhaps fastballs that really rise! Of course, given how far the balls would travel, the venues would have to be huge. Try to imagine how big a sheet of ice you'd need for lunar curling!
One thing you could do on the Moon is... fly! Immortalized in Robert Heinlein's story "The Menace from Earth" (in the collection of the same name) and described in Neil P. Ruzic's 1970 speculative nonfiction work Where the Winds Sleep (unfortunately out of print), the coolest imaginable lunar sport is to strap on a pair of wings and fly like a bird, taking advantage of Earth-born strength, Earth-standard pressure, and lunar weight.
So what do you think? Looking forward to the Luna City Olympics? I know I am.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Essential Math: D>R!
"Atalbot," a friend of my daughter's, is blogging the effort to defeat Rep. Rob Simmons of Connecticut. His introductory post makes a number of very good points about the fact that Simmons, who represents a relatively liberal district, poses as a moderate while in fact serving as a loyal footsoldier in the Republican Congress. The same entry includes a pointer to a site for Connecticut progressives that includes, among other things a great deal of unhappiness about Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Senator and former candidate for vice president, who increasingly seems to be a Democrat in name only.
Points well taken, all. Simmons is a winger in moderate's clothing and Lieberman is to the right of more than a few of his Republican colleagues... but I don't think it matters: Simmons could in fact be everything he claims to be, and I would still oppose him, because of that pesky R next to his name; Lieberman couldn't possibly disappoint me more, yet I will continue to support him, because of that D (until, that is, I'm certain he would be replaced by another D).
Here's the thing: At the beginning of my "career" as a voter, I was very much an issue-oriented, vote-for-the-person-not-the-party sort of guy. I still think that's a good strategy for a thoughtful voter in a perfect world. But our political world is far from perfect, and much farther from perfect than it was when I first started voting. Beginning with the Reagan administration, the Republicans have steadily driven U.S. politics to an increasingly stark ideological division. Now I find it impossible to vote for a "good" Republican (or against a "bad" Democrat) because no matter how much I might respect and agree with the individual candidate, one more R (or one fewer D) inevitably strengthens a governing ideology that I find as intolerable as it is intolerant.
In the run-up to my town's recently completed elections, a candidate for town council knocked on my door. This was a man I knew of and respected, a police officer who works with the DARE program in the local schools and who, as far as I can tell, is a decent, thoughtful citizen. But when he started to tell me his positions on the issues, I had to stop him:
"You're running as a Republican, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't vote for you under any circumstances. You're probably a wonderful person, and you might even be right on town issues, but I can't vote for any member of your party for any office for any reason. I disagree that strongly with the direction your party is leading us."
He tried to tell me how little town politics had to do with the national party; I didn't care. These days, I can't escape the notion that every elected Republican, at any level of government, inherently supports and strengthens a philosophy of government that is, IMHO, ruining our country.
Maybe someday we'll be less polarized, and it will once again be safe to focus on individual candidates and issues. In the meantime.... Well, in the last presidential election cycle, we heard (as always) a lot about "electoral math." As the 2006 election season gets underway, there's only one expression of electoral math that matters: (D>R)X2!
Points well taken, all. Simmons is a winger in moderate's clothing and Lieberman is to the right of more than a few of his Republican colleagues... but I don't think it matters: Simmons could in fact be everything he claims to be, and I would still oppose him, because of that pesky R next to his name; Lieberman couldn't possibly disappoint me more, yet I will continue to support him, because of that D (until, that is, I'm certain he would be replaced by another D).
Here's the thing: At the beginning of my "career" as a voter, I was very much an issue-oriented, vote-for-the-person-not-the-party sort of guy. I still think that's a good strategy for a thoughtful voter in a perfect world. But our political world is far from perfect, and much farther from perfect than it was when I first started voting. Beginning with the Reagan administration, the Republicans have steadily driven U.S. politics to an increasingly stark ideological division. Now I find it impossible to vote for a "good" Republican (or against a "bad" Democrat) because no matter how much I might respect and agree with the individual candidate, one more R (or one fewer D) inevitably strengthens a governing ideology that I find as intolerable as it is intolerant.
In the run-up to my town's recently completed elections, a candidate for town council knocked on my door. This was a man I knew of and respected, a police officer who works with the DARE program in the local schools and who, as far as I can tell, is a decent, thoughtful citizen. But when he started to tell me his positions on the issues, I had to stop him:
"You're running as a Republican, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't vote for you under any circumstances. You're probably a wonderful person, and you might even be right on town issues, but I can't vote for any member of your party for any office for any reason. I disagree that strongly with the direction your party is leading us."
He tried to tell me how little town politics had to do with the national party; I didn't care. These days, I can't escape the notion that every elected Republican, at any level of government, inherently supports and strengthens a philosophy of government that is, IMHO, ruining our country.
Maybe someday we'll be less polarized, and it will once again be safe to focus on individual candidates and issues. In the meantime.... Well, in the last presidential election cycle, we heard (as always) a lot about "electoral math." As the 2006 election season gets underway, there's only one expression of electoral math that matters: (D>R)X2!
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
A Very Taliban Christmas
Until this year, I've been blissfully unaware that the "War on Christmas" has joined Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and the Grinch in the pantheon of seasonal media perennials... guess I need to pay more attention, eh? Imagine my surprise (dismay, actually) to discover that this was not just some News of the Weird item, but a somewhat serious issue in some allegedly mainstream media outlets.
Well, beating up on retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, Land's End, et al.) during the "overcommercialized" holiday shopping season (there's some irony there, about which more in a bit) is always easy, but today I'm reading reports (e.g., here) that even the Bush White House has run afoul of this self-appointed Christmas Inquisition. It seems that the White House has, like the aforementioned retailers and many others, opted for an inclusive, nonsectarian holiday greeting, sending a "Christmas" card that wishes recipients a happy holiday season. Horrors!
Now, the "overcommercialization" of Christmas has been a theme of public comment for as long as I can remember. In fact, I believe that's one of the major themes in the 40-year-old A Charlie Brown Christmas. Viewed from that perspective, you'd think that retailers "taking the Christ out of Christmas" by using generic non-Christian holiday greetings would be a feature, not a bug... a welcome separation between the allegedly crass commercialism of the season and serious religious observances. Apparently not, according to the "War on Christmas" crowd (and there's that irony I mentioned above).
But never mind commerce, what about the President... our President... a professed Christian? Shouldn't he send out "real" Christmas cards? In a word, no. Let's be clear about something: "Happy Holidays," "Season's Greetings," and such do not insult, demean, or exclude Christians; what such greetings do is not exclude non-Christians. Given that he is, in fact, our President, it's entirely appropriate that Mr. Bush include all of his constituents in his holiday greetings, whether they are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Druids, Wiccans, agnostics, atheists, or whatever. Evensecular humanists!
People who reject these efforts at inclusiveness, no matter what they may say, are not "defending Christmas." They are, in fact, attacking all expressions of holiday cheer that are not explicitly Christian. This is the Taliban attitude: It is not sufficient that you tolerate and respect my faith; you must respect my faith above all others. Ideally, you must practice my faith, in the way I consider correct. If you do not practice my faith, you must shut up about the existence of any other faiths, or about the notion that some people practice no faith. It is this attitude that led the original Taliban to destroy all signs of other faiths, even at the cost of denying the world historic treasures, and it is this attitude that motivates these American Taliban to shout down all expressions of winter holiday joy that are not their own.
Now, on the grand stage of world events, arguing over holiday greetings might seem trivial... and it would be, if that were all that was going on. But already the "War on Christmas" has been tied to Supreme Court nominations, and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Consider: The Bush White House represents the most overtly religious, Christian-friendly administration of my lifetime. If they don't satisfy the "War on Christmas" faction, it's hard to imagine anything short of outright theocracy will. People, I don't care whether you're religious or secular; right or left; Republican, Democrat, or other... you must not vote for these theocrats or anyone who supports them, or enable them in any way. If you think you're safe because you're Christian, think again: If the President isn't Christian enough to suit them, how do you know you are? And if you are today, how do you know you will be tomorrow? Don't forget that under the original Taliban, the people who suffered the most were Muslims.
That's about enough for my first real blog entry, eh? So I'll just say... Happy Holidays!!
-Bill
PS: This may be the only time I ever defend the Bush White House, so enjoy it while you can. ;^)
Well, beating up on retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, Land's End, et al.) during the "overcommercialized" holiday shopping season (there's some irony there, about which more in a bit) is always easy, but today I'm reading reports (e.g., here) that even the Bush White House has run afoul of this self-appointed Christmas Inquisition. It seems that the White House has, like the aforementioned retailers and many others, opted for an inclusive, nonsectarian holiday greeting, sending a "Christmas" card that wishes recipients a happy holiday season. Horrors!
Now, the "overcommercialization" of Christmas has been a theme of public comment for as long as I can remember. In fact, I believe that's one of the major themes in the 40-year-old A Charlie Brown Christmas. Viewed from that perspective, you'd think that retailers "taking the Christ out of Christmas" by using generic non-Christian holiday greetings would be a feature, not a bug... a welcome separation between the allegedly crass commercialism of the season and serious religious observances. Apparently not, according to the "War on Christmas" crowd (and there's that irony I mentioned above).
But never mind commerce, what about the President... our President... a professed Christian? Shouldn't he send out "real" Christmas cards? In a word, no. Let's be clear about something: "Happy Holidays," "Season's Greetings," and such do not insult, demean, or exclude Christians; what such greetings do is not exclude non-Christians. Given that he is, in fact, our President, it's entirely appropriate that Mr. Bush include all of his constituents in his holiday greetings, whether they are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Druids, Wiccans, agnostics, atheists, or whatever. Even
People who reject these efforts at inclusiveness, no matter what they may say, are not "defending Christmas." They are, in fact, attacking all expressions of holiday cheer that are not explicitly Christian. This is the Taliban attitude: It is not sufficient that you tolerate and respect my faith; you must respect my faith above all others. Ideally, you must practice my faith, in the way I consider correct. If you do not practice my faith, you must shut up about the existence of any other faiths, or about the notion that some people practice no faith. It is this attitude that led the original Taliban to destroy all signs of other faiths, even at the cost of denying the world historic treasures, and it is this attitude that motivates these American Taliban to shout down all expressions of winter holiday joy that are not their own.
Now, on the grand stage of world events, arguing over holiday greetings might seem trivial... and it would be, if that were all that was going on. But already the "War on Christmas" has been tied to Supreme Court nominations, and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Consider: The Bush White House represents the most overtly religious, Christian-friendly administration of my lifetime. If they don't satisfy the "War on Christmas" faction, it's hard to imagine anything short of outright theocracy will. People, I don't care whether you're religious or secular; right or left; Republican, Democrat, or other... you must not vote for these theocrats or anyone who supports them, or enable them in any way. If you think you're safe because you're Christian, think again: If the President isn't Christian enough to suit them, how do you know you are? And if you are today, how do you know you will be tomorrow? Don't forget that under the original Taliban, the people who suffered the most were Muslims.
That's about enough for my first real blog entry, eh? So I'll just say... Happy Holidays!!
-Bill
PS: This may be the only time I ever defend the Bush White House, so enjoy it while you can. ;^)
Friday, December 02, 2005
Howdy!
I guess having a blog is mandatory these days, eh? You could say I'm just trying to keep up with my 15-year-old daughter... but the truth is, my favorite online forum (The Space Arena Board) has just stopped accepting new posts, and I need a new place to rant, rave, and pontificate. I don't know how often I'll post here, or whether anyone will care... it is what it is (or rather, it will be what it will be).
-Bill
-Bill
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