First of all, let me say up front that the University of Mississippi, otherwise known as "Ole Miss" sucks out loud.  While the clearly superior minds at Mississippi State University are making breakthroughs that feed billions and keep beer and soda fresh, Ole Miss continues to churn out ambulance chasers, quacks and egg headed Faulkner wannbes.

That out of the way, there's a player on this year's team, left tackle Michael Oher, who is garnering national attention.  Moneyball author Michael Lewis' new book, The Blindside, chronicles Oher's rise from the streets and crack houses of Memphis to becoming one of the most sought after players in years.  Personally, I haven't heard buzz about a high school kid since Dan McGuire.  Similar to big Dan, Oher's appeal is in his physical proportions.  He's enormous at 6' 5" and 330 lbs, but at the same time, he can move like a guy coming out of the backfield.  Lewis interest in him springs from the fact that the game of football has changed over recent decades to the point where a left tackle is almost as important a position as quarterback.

Like I need a book to tell me what studs left tackles are.  That's what I played in high school, but I digress.

I saw Oher play on the TV this morning against Alabama, and he lives up to the billing.  I saw him make some beautiful blocks that I'm sure went unnoticed by 99.9% of the viewing audience, so I get a certain amount of satisfaction knowing that he and his position are receiving some positive attention.

Not all of it, however, will be positive.  Another reason Lewis is so interested in this kid is because of his friendship with Oher's adoptive parents, a  rich white, evangelical Christian family from Memphis who also degraded themselves by attending the University of Mississippi.  Coverage is predictable from certain corners of the cultural commentariat.  LA Times' Calendar Live section has this concern:

Lewis also documents the rule-bending done to keep Oher college-eligible. The administration at his high school accepts him although he can barely read. He secures a full-time tutor. When his grade-point average still proves too low for the NCAA, his adoptive father, a canny former college basketball standout named Sean Tuohy, manages to find a crucial loophole. He has Oher tested to prove he's learning disabled, then has him take numerous easy, online courses. Lewis treats these measures as ingenious. We are meant to cheer the fact that Oher has gamed the educational process.

How else are we supposed to react?  This may come as a surprise to those of you who know that I am a public school teacher, but I think it's terrific that Oher has had advocacy to get him through the government monolpoly that on one hand fails to educate him and threatens to deny him the chance to benefit from his natural gifts on the other.  It is the height of hypocrisy for reporters, public school teachers and NCAA officials to gasp and clutch pearls at the thought of an ignorant football player making it into big time college football.  Of the half dozen stories I've read that seem to bristle at the thought, none of them display any distaste for the notion that a school system allowed a child to go nine years without teaching him how to read.  Before anyone suggests taking millions of dollars out of this guy's hands, they should demand that every teacher and principle he had be fired and forced to pay back every cent they earned while they weren't teaching him anything.

As for his adoptive parents and the benefits they might derive from his success, so what?  They still took him in and showed him the love and compassion he never got as a child.  They did the work no one else was willing to do.  What exactly should have happened with this kid--the rich Christians should have left him at the bus stop?

Gosh...imagine what I'll have to say once I've finished reading the book (shouldn't take more than a few more visits to Borders to finish).  Just give me time; afterall, I am a former left tackle.

My Mind is Clean

Evidently, NBC has no problem offending Christians with Madonna's mock crucifixion but has a big problem with a computer animated tomato asserting that God can give us strength.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that Veggie Tales was on last Satruday on network tv, so I DVRed it and watched it with my kids.  It wasn't as good as the DVDs usually are, but it was still entertaining.  Come to find out that NBC had given Veggie Tales creator, Phil Vischer, the task fo editing it down for length, which he did.  Despite the fact that he had each episode down the correct time, NBC decided to go further and cut out the parts that referred to God, especially the Bible verses that come at the beginning and end of the show.

Visher posits an explanation:

The people who produce kids shows tend to come from the Washington, D.C./New York/Boston school of programming, which is primarily PBS or the Los Angeles school, which is “give them anything they want” – action, disrespect and so on.

There hasn’t been a lot of kids’ programming coming from a Christian worldview, so I don’t think that NBC ever had to wrestle with this. They had no principle that they could apply. I had to spend time going through what they were saying. What I seemed to have figured out is that they are OK with a Bible story if it’s in a historical context. We could say, “The Bible says God gave Samson his strength.” That was fine. But we couldn’t have Bob the Tomato turn to the kids and say, “God can give us strength too.” They said that’s not okay. When you apply a Bible verse to the audience, they said that is proselytizing. Parents who are atheists or Hindu may not like having their children be preached to.

There’s a heightened sensitivity because it’s for kids and it’s delivering a message. If it were on Sunday morning, then it would probably be okay.

A tomato can refer to the Bible on how Samson got his strength, but not the God can gove us strength, too.  What kind of world have we created, here? 

Vischer doesn't seem to want a big hullabaloo over this, and I personally won't be writing any nasty emails to NBC.  However, I find it hard to reconcile some of the lessons I've seen in Veggie Tales programs with the his attitude.  In many of the stories, the characters teach children to have courage and to put God first.  They also warn kids not to follow the world's ways, but to follow God's instead.  I'm wondering if they're going to write a show in which Larry the Cucumber advises Junior Asparagas to avoid using the "G" word because the Grapes of Math might otherwise go back to their old, Steinbeckian name.

As for NBC, they should go hide in shame.  Veggie Tales is only mildly religious as it is.  Even in their original forms, they don't mention Jesus or dwell at all on the concept of salvation.  There's no Creationism or evolution bashing.  There's no moralizing on sexual issues or anti-abortion rhetoric.  It's basically 7th Heaven with vegetables. 

We know Jesus is offensive and only suitable for television when He is being mocked or lampooned.  But since when did the generic concept of "God" become a ratings and ad revenue killer?

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Here's an interesting letter to the Chicago Sun Times:

The Muslims are not alone in their oppression of Christianity. Israel too must be taken to task for its more subtle forms of repression.

The Franciscan Order, which oversees the Catholic churches and our other properties in Israel, has reported how Catholics are being systematically eliminated from the country legally and without violence. It is being accomplished by lack of jobs, housing and education that is being made available to Christians of all denominations.

Unfortunately, not enough Catholics are aware of this situation or lack the will and unified voice to alter the situation. It would be nice to have an apology from the Israeli government for this injustice.

Christianity seems to be the target of all earthly powers, including its own members. The Muslims do not need to burn our churches to render us ineffective -- just keep having more children. The majority of Christians -- Catholics are no exception -- do not believe enough in their religion to have large families. Most are followers of Planned Parenthood: zero to two children.

While his point about the lack of jobs in Israel sounds too much like a liberal democrat talking point, he may be onto something regarding Christians and birth.  I can only guess, but it would seem that the majority of Christians do follow the Planned Parenthood formula of having two or fewer children becuase that's what most everyone else does.  Like most everyone else, Christians get divorced, have sex before marriage, co-habitate and put their kids in government schools, so why should they be any different when it comes to procreation?

I will venture another guess, however:  The fringe minority of Christians that everyone is afraid of is still having large families.  That means that they are going to become an ever growing part of our population, and it will be nobody's fault but the liberals' and moderates'.

Kinda sucks, don't it.  If you don't have kids, you'll soon be outnumbered.  If you do have kids, you've destroyed the planet or your chance at fulfillment or whatever the heck that scares you about having kids.

For some reason, that makes me smile.

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Non-Christians need to give this whole "all extremists are the same" line a rest:

They are the religious extremists. Lots of people in this country profess a religious faith, and for many of them, that faith is Christianity. For others, it's Islam. Whatever the case, it's the extremists who give the others a bad name. It's the crazy-acting ones who make others not want to be around them. Quite frankly, it's the weirdos who cause the ruckus.

We've seen it when Christian extremists try to make everyone pull their children from public school or march against people who have just as much right to live as they do. We've seen it when Islamic extremists blow up buildings and kill in response to a papal speech. We've seen the extremists at work.

I have no problem with Monica Carter calling me an extremist.  I would be proud if at the end of it all, Jesus counted me among those who displayed zeal for His cause.  But how dumb is this columnist comparing homeschoolers to Islamic terrorists?  If she wonders why her side can't get rid of us, she ought to consider that her arguments make no sense.

It's no wonder either given the source of her information:

Enter Randall Balmer, who is the author of the new book "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America." He is professor of religious history at Columbia University in New York. He says the crazies (he didn't use that word) have hijacked Christianity of today.

"The religious right has compromised the faith," he said. I asked what that meant. His response: "One of my quarrels for the religious right is that they have failed to abide by the basic etiquette of democracy. They want to commandeer the conversation."

In other words, those who are extreme in their views want to take over. Balmer's premise is that religion and government shouldn't keep the same company. Is that to say they should be strangers? Hardly. But sleep in the same bed? No. "I am not emphatically arguing that people of faith should not make their views felt in the arena of public discourse," he said, "but there is a very real danger of identifying faith with one political movement or political party or administration."

The early American colonists couldn't get away from that government and religious thing soon enough "" they crossed an ocean to escape.

"As a historian of religion in America, religion always functions best from the margins of society," Balmer said. Not all smack-dab up in the middle.

Ms. Carter needs to be told that Prof. Balmer doesn't know what he's talking about.  The early American colonist came to either make money or to have the freedom to associate only with those of like faith.  If he's referring to Jamestown, he's way off.  They were looking for gold and gems.  If he's referring to the Pilgrims, he's even further off the mark.  They wanted to create a religious utopia, and although they introduced concepts similar to seperation of church and state, there's no way they viewed it as many do today.  The early American colonists were very comfortable with injecting the morality derived from religion into their laws and government.

And what planet is this Balmer character from anyway claiming that Christians have comandeered the conversation?  Who exactly is even listening to Christians where it counts?  Schools are squarely toeing the secular line (hence us crazies calling for parents to pull their kids out of public schools), the courts hand the biggest victories over to the ACLU and NOW, and popular culture does everything in its power to render the Christian un-cool or evil.

I've said it before, and it bear repeating:  All you non-Christians should thank what ever it is you believe in that you've yet to encounter any truly extremist Christians.  When Christians do decide to get serious about their faith, it's not going to look anything like what you think.

My Mind is Clean

This is about the funniest thing I've read ever from Joel Stein at the LA Times:

I DON'T LIKE being touched by strangers. And by "strangers," I mean anyone I'm not having sex with. I don't like massages, I don't like hugs, I don't even like to high-five. I just don't see the point. Either we're going to do it, or we're not. And, as I've learned the hard way after overreacting to a cheek kiss, apparently we're not.

So, as a radical form of immersion therapy, I drove to an office building in West L.A. on a Friday night to pay $30 to cuddle with strangers for four hours. The Cuddle Party was invented two years ago in New York and has spread to 13 cities, including L.A. It's a sex club for the most stunted generation in history. Because, for an adult world that takes cupcake breaks, reads "Harry Potter" books and goes on trips to Disneyland, it's possible that Cuddle Parties might replace cocktail parties. We are just a few years from a fad where adults crap their pants.

I was told to wear a set of pajamas, which, it turns out, are in short supply because of it being past 1958. My lack of pajamas turned out to be for the best, because the location for the Cuddle Party was inside a ReMax realty building, where guys in suits stood in the lobby, punching it out. I'm pretty sure they would have punched out a guy in silk pajamas, as he fell to the ground whimpering about how he doesn't like to be touched by strangers.

I would like to quote the whole thing because I can hardly choose the best lines.  But here's another:

Many of these rules were about erections. I found out that an [word for sexually excited organ] is "sexual energy just saying 'hi.' " I had always thought [plural for sexually excited organs]were sexual energy saying "FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE AND FOCUS ALL OF YOUR ATTENTION ON ME RIGHT THIS SECOND!" But "hi" made sense too.

And another:

Luckily, Lynn asked if she could be my first cuddle. She instructed me to lie down and spoon her. We were about four minutes in when she said, "My parents were monsters." Looking to change the subject, I asked her what she did for a living. She told me that she gets rid of psychological blocks from people's bodies. "Oh," I said, "by getting them to face their fears?" She looked at me strangely. "No," she said. "With a machine. I get rid of the psychological blocks in their muscles."

Aside from these gems, the best part of the article is the "cuddle stud".  He's a guy who uses the cuddle parties to find vulnerable women with whom to make-out.  If you think he's pathetic, think of the ladies who submit to his charms.  How desperate can human beings be?

The fact that such a thing as a cuddle party exists is pretty good evidence that the world is jacked up beyond repair.

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MetroWhig takes the discussion a bit further:

It would not surprise me at all to see a civil war within my lifetime, and I think it's the one thing that would make me leave the country because I don't think it will be "won" without destroying all the things that make this country great.

I don't see the next civil war ending in anything other than a totalitarian 1984-ish state; There's too much high technology out there for it to end any other way, and too little education in the broader population to prevent it from going this way.

I'd have to say I would be very surprised by a civil war in my lifetime.  For one thing, the national government is way ahead of that curve.  That's what gun control is all about.  So the most likely scenario would involve a split within the military, a scenario most unlikely given its structure and civilian control.  While citizens do have guns and ammo, they're going to be no match for the government.

There is the guerilla option, which is more likely, but it would cause such destabilization that I doubt many at all would be willing to endure the disruption of their lives long enough to tolerate the randomness of such tactics.  For those who will be quick to point out the success of guerilla style resistance movements, let me point out that such movements were culturaly enabled.  We are not the Vietnamese, nor are we the Iraqis.

Finally, what issue would set it off?  The big debates now are over immigration, abortion and the war.  I can see the immigration debate sparking a conflict along racial lines, but that would be more like a foreign war than a proper civil war.  Abortion has commonalities with slavery, but the all important economic factor isn't there...at least yet.  I suppose I can imagine a "life states" vs. "death states" split developing different economic interests.  I don't know what those differences would be, but they would have to be great enough for people one hundred years later to debate whether the real cause of the Second Civil War was abortion or economics.

I think we're too lazy and effeminate to fight a civil war.  Or perhaps that just means the good guys will win an easy one.

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Not that I'm taking too much of this kind of thing all that seriously, but there is a bit of a "canary down the mineshaft" aspect to this:

I don't give a @#$%.

Seriously. I don't. Nothing that happens here suprises me any more. I've largely insulated myself from actually having contact with this society. I have no job. I never directly come in contact with the government in any form. I'm well along my way of severing all ties with the US. My emotional ones were severed years ago. The physical ones aren't far behind.

Why?

Because all of this fritting over policy and politics is chasing after the wind. That's why. Ignore it. Ignore them. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for this is the Gift of the Lord. Consern yourself with you and yours. Enjoy your work. Enjoy your life. Because everything else is chasing after the wind.

There is no satisfaction to be had in fretting over the state of the US, or the latest assault on your independence. It is chasing after the wind.

Nate, the author of this rant, is hard to take seriously, but what third or fourth rate blogger isn't?  My first reaction to this kind of Napoleon Dynamite rhetoric is to chalk it all up to the fact that some people just can't handle not being able to brandish their weapons at the Krispy Kreme drive through window.  However, I'm not going to pretend that if we aren't already there, we're very close to being completely screwed as a nation.

So my question to you all is what has to happen before you will pack up your family and get out of Dodge?  And where would you go if you did?

My Mind is Clean

We just received our copy of Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn's [url=http://www.christianlogic.com/catalog/the_fallacy_detective.htm][i]The Fallacy Detective[/i][/url], which we'll be using to introduce the boy to the study of logic.  It's very cool becuase it uses [i]Dilbert[/i] and [i]Calvin and Hobbes[/i] cartoons to illustrate the fallacies.  The authors' sister, Johannah, also contributes a cartoon called [i]Nuna and Toodles[/i] to fill in the rest.  You know I like cartoons.

You also know that I experience no shortage of disillusionment with public schools, so it comes as no surprise that I can't believe that logic is rarely taught.  Ask yourself how it's possible to teach kids in 7th-12th grades how to think when they have no background in logic.  All you can teach them is what to think.  And I think that's exactly how public schools want it.

Here are [url=http://www.christianlogic.com/articles/short_list_of_fallacies.htm]three very common fallacies[/url] that pop up almost daily:
[quote][b]4. Tu Quoque (You Too): [/b] Where someone dismisses your viewpoint on an issue because you are yourself inconsistent in that very thing.

Fred: “I wouldn’t smoke cigarettes if I were you. It is a bad habit and it will bring you all kinds of problems.” Jake: “Don’t tell me not to smoke. You do it, too.”
“I don’t see what is wrong with speeding – everybody does it.”

[b]5. Faulty Appeal to Authority:[/b] Where someone appeals to the authority of someone who has no special knowledge in the area they are discussing.

My car mechanic says the best way to fix computer problems is to just give the computer a good, sharp kick.
Bert: “I’ve been homeschooled all of my life, and I think it has helped me out a lot.” Clyde: “The man who has the highest IQ in the world said he didn’t think homeschooling turned out good citizens. He said he didn’t think homeschoolers received enough socialization, so they will become social misfits. Do you still think homeschooling is a good idea?”

[b]6. Appeal to the People:[/b] Where someone claims his viewpoint is correct just because many other people agree with it.

Political Candidate: “My opponent says abortion is murder – despite the fact that a recent poll concluded 76% of Americans believe an abortion does not murder an innocent child.”
It looks as if more people vacation in Florida than any other place. It must be the nicest place in America to visit.[/quote]

Of course, these are the ones the teachers are guilty of. :D

My Mind is Clean

I know this has been a topic on RN many times, but I can't say I've come across a good layperson's defintion.  It could be that my memory has failed me, but nevertheless, I would like to see if we can build one. 

I ask this in response to a WND column titled The Vanishing Conservative:

The malaise is movement-wide. Indeed, it is debatable as to which group is in worse shape, the ''conservative'' politicians or the ''conservative'' commentariat. While the leftward drift of the administration and the Congress have not escaped notice despite the best efforts of its cheerleaders to play it down; the abandonment of principle in favor of pragmatism has caused many in the so-called conservative media to do the likewise.

To which I responded in an email:

If the conservative movement survived the New Deal, it will survive George W. Bush and Bill Frist.

It's interesting that you set yourself apart from a movement that would be more than a little thrilled to see most of your agenda implemented. Moreover, is libertarianism really a "progressive" or "innovating" political movement? I've never seen it as such. The difference I see in conservative thought (books, not radio hosts) is that we want the right to live in communities whose uniformity goes no further than the local level. To me, that is the only road to diversity and liberty. I honestly don't see how either conservatism or libertarianism seek to improve the human condition through government policy.

Then came the WND columnist's reply, in which he gives a list of reasons why he's not a conservative.  But I really think there's a problem with definitions.  I don't think language is the whole problem, but it might be part of it:

Of course, as I pointed out in my column today, the word "conservative" has become rather nebulous, so perhaps we had better define the term more precisely before discussing whether or not it applies to various individuals.

So, I listed three things I have culled from the writings of conservative thinkers:

1. Tradition as a source of wisdom

This is not advocating the establishment of a religion at the national or even state level. What it means to the bulk of conservative thinkers is the right to live in a community of like-minded individuals who respect certain traditions. If I'm not mistaken, most libertarians want all communities to be uniform in the sense that even local government should have no authority to set moral standards. That's where we disagree, I guess.

2. Change should be gradual if it comes at all

This is where modern conservatives are in a quandry, but only if they wish to be pedantic. I doubt anyone would blame a conservative for wanting rapid change back to the way things were before if a foreign invasion had occured the prior afternoon. Why, then, eschew the label "conservative" because you fear it might not allow you advocate increasingly radical change in the way we do things? I've even heard some argue that conservatives are contridictory in their criticisms of judicial activism while working towards overturning Roe v. Wade.

3. Organic Diversity 

Conservatism as defined by its intellectual founders has always focused on the local and the varieties created when the local is respected. What we have with rampant liberalism and libertinism is not diversity, but something pretending to be thus while actually bringing greater numbers under conformity. I think social conservatives miss the boat on this one becuase many if not most of them are too heavily influenced by the New Deal and earlier progressive movements. A social conservative is off the mark when he or she wishes to create a national moral standard where a local standard will do.

What are the other defining characterisitics of conservatism?

My Mind is Clean

Citing a June article in Scientific American, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams expresses his glee over findings that appear to prove that praying for sick people doesn't work:

I have to say that I wasn’t surprised to learn that praying for sick people didn’t help. If praying worked, convenience stores would have lines of monks down the block every time the lottery reached $100 million.

But I was delighted to learn that I can hurt people by praying for them. Now when I get mad at someone, I no longer need to say that I wish he was dead. I’ll just say, “I’ll pray for your health,” thus killing him.

First of all, Scott glossed over this part:

Dean Marek, chief chaplain at the Mayo Clinic, saw the problem as a possible flaw in the study design: "The sense of community was not there. You could call it impersonal prayer rather than intercessory prayer."

It appears that the experiment was conducted as if prayer was some sort of magical language.  One can only imagine that as God watched this happening, He had a difficult time striking the fake prayer teams dead with bolts of lightening.

Secondly, Adams predictably ignores any theological issues raised by such an experiment.  Why would a God who warns His followers not to put Him to the test for the mere purpose of lessening their spiritual burden scramble to satisfy the scientific curiosity of a bunch of non-believers?  Of course Adams and his scoffing ilk don't believe in the Bible, so there's no use in pointing out the theological issues.

Then why go ahead with the experiment?  That's the problem with strict empiricism.  There's more to life than what can be experienced with the senses. 

An experiment with prayer?  Why doesn't the Scientific American test God in the one way He did condone?  They should start giving their money to widows and orphans.  If God blesses them, then they'll know.  Anyone think they're willing to take that challenge?

My Mind is Clean