DoctorMental

Tips from Evangelicals (are there any?)

2010-03-05T19:25:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, especially in times of economic tsunamis like these, it is helpful to examine whether we have anything in common with our neighbor, even if you believe that your neighbor is a knuckle-dragger. Well, let's imagine that you are a mainstream-denominational-American-Christian, or an agnostic, or an atheist, or a non-Christian (and I will assume that the former will have no problem being associated with the others): can you imagine in your wildest dreams having anything in common with an evangelical ('good news") Christian? Well, being a knuckle-dragger, let me elucidate your trek toward--enlightenment? Maybe, maybe not. Let's deep-six all of the strange beliefs about Jesus, atonement, inerrant Scripture...what is left is this: there is nothing that can separate you from the love of the One that made you. Can you believe at least that? All the other really doesn't matter. You can find out the rest when you shuffle off this mortal coil. Or read Mark.

The Road to Servitude

2009-11-13T16:16:00.003-05:00

This was the name F.A. Hayek wanted to use for The Road to Serfdom in 1944, but because de Toqueville had already used it a couple of hundred years ago to describe the same thing, he changed it. The sentiment remains the same after all these years: collectivism enslaves us and diminishes our productivity, creativity, and humanity. It leads to immoral man ruling immoral society.

Reading political economics from the first half of the twentieth century has an interesting dialect: "liberal" does not mean "liberal" the way Americans have known the word for a hundred years. Rather, when Hayek uses the work, he means "libertarian", or specifically, one who loves individual liberty and objects to collective planning. What we call "liberal" in the States, he calls socialism. Again, just a translational footnote. England and Germany were the centers of liberty-speak (liberalism) in the last 25 years of the nineteenth century and the first 25 years of the twentieth. He goes on to demonstrate how the evil economic-political systems of his era, Naziism and Communism, were really the same: centrally planned economy (e.g., national socialism and international socialism are both socialism).

Hayek also notes that the seeds for socialism remain in the fertile soil of Western democracies, where well-meaning moralists equate, for example, losing a job with injustice, correctable by government. He presented a novel concept (at least to me): namely, if the government guarantees a citizen a job, in perpetuity, at a given wage, then the worker de facto no longer may choose his own job. Think about it; it's true if there are no other jobs outside the government system (think especially about the new health care plan). Do you (or would you) enjoy the ability to choose what job you want to do? Isn't that one of the things that causes you to get up in the morning? Doctors will become one of the newest victims of this predicament once the second half of reform (salaried docs versus pay-per-unit-work) becomes de rigeur. Remember that health care reform as proposed is only the insurance system part. The second part is controlling costs, and that requires controlling the physician and what she/he orders: that control cannot happen in a pay-per-unit-work system. The lose-pay-for-ordering-too-much-for-the-patient system is around the corner.

In America, of course, we are already into socialism up to our kneecaps. Health care reform is socialization of one-sixth of the American economy. Its unintended sequelae are only the latest additions to government enterprises in America, and may well deliver a coup de grace to our remaining economy, and more gravely, to our determination to continue as a free society.

Es Tut Mir Leid, Herr Arzt: AmeriDeutch Medicine Kommt

2009-09-12T08:37:00.004-04:00

There is an excellent article in Forbes Magazine this week about the German health care system. I'll cut to the chase for you Americans: everybody is happy, and the doctors get it in the neck. There are regional public option insurance companies (Krankencasse), and a few atrophied private options which don't add much to the robust public plan. The cost of medical care there is roughly half of what Americans pay per capita. And the savings doesn't come from doctors; it can't, since doctors only account for 10% of costs in the United States. Of course, if you count indirect costs from doctors ordering tests out of courthouse-paranoia, the cost attributable to doctors is at least double, but of course that is not corrected simply by changing us to Bismarcks 1880-era plan.

Nevertheless, Germany's plan works. A German told me recently that his nephew, a doctor in Germany, takes vacation for two months a year to go moonlight in Austria or England where the pay to doctors is higher, so he can supplement his salary. Ausgeseichnet? Vielleicht nicht! American doctors will do the same, or elseleave medicine and surgery en masse to get jobs as middle-school principals, where the pay is the same and the night-call responsibilities are a little nicer.

Love is More Than Government

2009-09-06T23:14:00.007-04:00

American: your hard-earned money will go where? To sanctioned, sanctifying love-work of your master, as you perceive that his spirit may determine? Or will it become your tax-contribution to health care reform? It will be one or the other. Listen:

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly." Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me." (NIV, Gospel of Mark)

"It could have been given to the poor" is the government-religion's pretense to seize wealth, in every age. Service to faith is therefore a "waste," says the humanist: service led as it so often is, by women.

Was he right? Will the poor be with us always? As long as some refuse to work, yes. And the human condition tells us that is always. Jesus, the only True Humanist.

Jefferson: The Anti-Obama?

2009-08-26T18:02:00.007-04:00

Found these quotes from Jefferson in my inbox today. I did not realize how treasonous he sounds:

--When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
--The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. (According to some sources, not a verified quotation!)
--It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. (Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820. FE 10:175)
-- I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
--My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government (one site states this is unproven).
--No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms...
--The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
--The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
--1802: 'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered...'

Another:
"I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23

Moondog Divines and Healthcare Proposals

2009-08-23T15:35:00.003-04:00

As a resident 25 years ago in the emergency room, we used to see indigent street people for non-emergencies because 1) they had no other place to go, and 2) we did not have an effective (read safe) triage system to deal with the problem. Although this misdirection clogged the ERs, the poor did get seen. Now, however, the problem now has blossomed out of all preportion: witness poor mothers bringing the family into the ER so that everyone can see the routine OB ultrasound of the baby.

Meanwhile, today, we have emotionally-challenged American mainline denominational clergy preaching to their shrinking flocks that the far-left Democratic health care plan is the Church's clear solution. Nothing new in that: they have politicized their pulpits for decades. Organized medical care for the poor and uninsured, if done right, may be a beautiful thing. We have yet to see it in this country, but there may be a way to get it done without wrecking systems that work. However, be very careful when you hear preachers clamoring for specific brands of political action. Put your hand on your pocketbooks, and remind them that Providence pays them from that source as well. Finally, remember your family doctor's current waiting list when you consider dumping an additional 40 million Americans onto the routine primary care office visit rolls for the all-you-can-eat special.

George Bernard Shaw: Obama's Spinmeister

2009-08-02T07:01:00.005-04:00

Last week, President Obama called otolaryngologists butchers-for-money, setting the AMA and most conscientious doctors on fire with ire. Now consider this expansion on his point, which could not have been done better if it were written yesterday. In his Preface on Doctors (from the play, "The Doctor's Dilemma", 1911), we have GBS wonking on health care, decades before the National Health Service was born, and while Britain still enjoyed private practice:

"It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity. That any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity. But that is precisely what we have done. And the more appalling the mutilation, the more the mutilator is paid. Scandalized voices murmur that operations are necessary. They may be. It also may be necessary to hang a man or pull down a house. But we take good care not to make the hangman and the house-breaker the judges of that. If we did, no man's neck would be safe and no man's house stable."

I'm still not convinced. If the doctor cannot make decisions with his patient, who can?

Obama's Health Plan: Ayn Rand speaks

2009-06-22T18:31:00.006-04:00

Doctors have not spoken loudly regarding Obama's health care plan, a Trojan horse of a government health insurance program which will blossom by killing all other insurance programs from the market (who can compete with the Government?) and leave us with a one-payer system (read: VA hospital system). Rationing for the people. But what about the doctors? Here's one:

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control...Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward...Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patient, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said only 'to serve'...Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce...It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it--and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't." (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957)

Persian Wisdom

2009-06-21T21:29:00.003-04:00

On September 29, 2006, I blogged about a lecture given by a U.S. political science professor, in which he discussed freedom in Iran in the context of rule under the mullahs. I received a reply that day traced to central Iran, apparently to a medical institution or school. The response was mysterious, but less so after this weekend: "I wish people in the world really knew how we feel here."

We know now how these young people feel. Without taking sides (what good would that do other than polarizing the Iranian people against America?), we can stand with the people and against violence, against corrupt election process, and for justice, for freedom, and for the future for Iran. We can also pray for the Iranian people.

Easter Message

2009-04-12T08:08:00.003-04:00

Hear the words of those who died so that we may live. What is the common human good that they would have us preserve?

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God...You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (Jesus Christ)

"(No men living) are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty....Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost...There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed." (Abraham Lincoln)

Hoefstadter

2009-03-19T20:35:00.002-04:00

"Almost the entire span of American history under the present constitution has coincided with the rise and spread of modern industrial capitalism. In material power and productivity the United States has been a flourishing success. Societies that are in such good working order have a kind of mute organic consistency. They do not foster ideas that are hostile to their fundamental working arrangements. Such ideas may appear, but they are slowly and persistently insulated, as an oyster deposits nacre around an irritant. They are confined to small groups of dissenters and alienated intellectuals, and except in revolutionary times they do not circulate among practical politicians." (Richard Hofstadter, 1967 Introduction, The American Political Tradition, 1948).

We are in revolutionary times.

Wisdom From the Ages

2009-03-07T13:27:00.002-05:00

The Lord is long-suffering; and of great mercy; forgiving iniquity and transgressions and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations. (Numbers 14:18)

In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. (from The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy)

Might these two passages be saying virtually the same thing?

Economics 101

2009-02-17T20:36:00.001-05:00

I am a Davidson grad ’81 and did not take introductory economics, like I should have, so please excuse what I ignore in asking this question. All of us want the best crystal ball to see where our current mess takes us. How would you critique this logic?
Assuming no other macroeconomic factors of major impact (crazy big assumption):
1. If a) individuals, businesses, and corporations face a reduction in economic activity (by any of most metrics you might choose), and b) the Federal Reserve responds with an offer of sufficient liquidity at its window with the banking system, then historically the American economy responds by recovering, with inflation.
2. If a) individuals, businesses, and corporations face a 10% contraction in economic activity, and b) the Federal Reserve responds with an offer of sufficient liquidity at its window, but the banks and the individuals it serves are unable to take advantage of it because the basis for the individual’s credit (house equity) has been decimated, then, in the absence of practical credit utility, the American economy will respond with a deflated currency and no immediate recovery.
3. If a) individuals, businesses, and corporations face a 10% contraction in economic activity, and b) the Federal Reserve responds with an offer of sufficient liquidity at its window, but the banks and the individuals they serve are unable to take advantage of it because the basis for the individual’s credit (house equity) has been decimated, and c) the Federal government spends an amount equal to one year’s GDP in domestic programs aimed imperfectly at job growth, then the American economy will respond with no or weak recovery, with inflation.

Cicero's Answer

2008-12-24T19:57:00.005-05:00

"...But our age, receiving the republic as a chef-d'oevre of another age which has already begun to grow old, has not merely neglected to restore the colours of the original, but has not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general outline and most outstanding features...it is so obsolete and forgotten, that, far from practising it, one does not even know it. And of the citizens what shall I say? Morality has perished through poverty of great men; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason, but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals charged with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by an mishap, that we retain only the name of republic, and have long since lost reality."

--Cicero, Roman statesman, 106 BC-43 BC

Veni, veni Emmanuel;
Captivum solve Israel,
Qui gemit in exilio, Privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel, nascetur pro te, Israel!

An Answer to Many Things

2008-12-06T07:57:00.004-05:00

Gasoline at $1.00 a gallon? Seems unreal, but experts now say it is a possibility.

Can we satisfy the best instincts of progressives who are concerned about our environment as well as conservative impulses to resist holding the country hostage to foreign oil and the terrorism thereby financed? Can we reapply a stimulus to buy Detroit's hybrid and new electric vehicles, thereby supporting the auto industry in a non-bailout way, while simultaneously stimulating the development of alternative sources of energy so the America (and the West) may be energy-independent? Can this all be done and continue downward pressure on petroleum costs? Absolutely.

The answer is simple: a $1.00 per gallon federal gasoline tax. The proceeds would be used to help pay off our staggering debt and government costs related to rebuilding infrastructure during the "depre-cession". That which we tax, we get less of (e.g., consumption of gasoline).

Respects to Obama From a McCainite

2008-10-21T20:41:00.003-04:00

I remember that day in 1974 as if it were yesterday. The angry young black man on the basketball team struck me in the sternum, cracking it, for no reason except that I was talking to a friend. I see a continuum between that day and the days in which his ancestors were enslaved by whites in my region, and on to the explosion of riots and anger that expressed itself in our schools most violently in 1970, and for several years after. Although I did not cause it, and could not have prevented it, I owed that experience to the Northern industrialists and Southern slave owners who were then only shadows, long forgotten. W. H. Auden said it best in his poem "September 1, 1938" (the date of the invasion of Poland by the Nazis):

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

So, why will I support Obama as President? That is, why will I support him after he may be elected? It will not be because I voted for him, because I will not have. Rather, I will support him because he will be my President. Moreover, I suspect that I will learn to love to support him. He is culturally neither black nor white, but may well lift the eyes of young black men from their shoes to his face, and away from any anger; a beacon of hope for alienated people; and we will have more black doctors, black lawyers, black scientists, black Fathers. I will not support him because I support socialism, for I do not. I will still worry at the harm his leadership of conjoined houses of socialist majority can do. But I am foolish enough to believe that he will have none of it, in order to unify the country for dark days ahead. I believe that he will not raise taxes because he will know that this will unhinge the small businesses still struggling and plunge us directly into depression. I believe that his socialist supporters will be disappointed, for he will not intend to do that with which he was required to sympathize in order to have the chance for election. For similar reasons, I do not believe he will dismantle nor weaken our military. He is one cool number, and he may be just the president we need. But if Providence deems it so, and the vote is tied save mine, then God will need to send two more votes for the fine black man with the wonderful white grandmother.

Humor in the Oddest Places

2008-10-13T21:35:00.001-04:00

From Berkshire Hathaway's 2007 Annual Report (wit from Mr. Buffett):

"The best anecdote I’ve heard during the current presidential campaign came from Mitt Romney, who asked his wife, Ann, 'When we were young, did you ever in your wildest dreams think I might be president?' To which she replied, 'Honey, you weren’t in my wildest dreams.'"

The Bailout in a Phrase

2008-10-04T08:27:00.002-04:00

Essential but insufficient. That describes the $700 billion plan to reflate/liquify the U.S. banking system. I knew that the problems had spread from banks to small businesses when I heard on NPR and read in the WSJ of the same small company in my area which had to lay off a chunk of its workforce for two weeks because its customers could not secure routine credit to make purchases. Now it is the larger economy's turn.

What has happened in this short time has already stripped some gears in a complex economy. Unfortunately, however, the credit crisis is not a problem that is solved by redundant capacity in the economy (like a stroke affecting speech areas, but with other areas of the brain picking up the slack, for you medical types). Rather, this is the economic equivalent of hypovolemic shock, when the body, as a result of an accident, had lost so much liquid, circulating blood (from the housing fiasco) that end-organ damage has occurred because of hypoperfusion of all of the organs (e.g., businesses), despite restitution of circulation through a late transfusion.

The kinetics are a bit like the gas shortage we experienced last week. The closure of the refineries by Hurricaine Ike was only temporary, but the effects rippled through to the plastic-covered gas pumps in the Charlotte area long after. Regardless, I'd rather ride my bike to work with no gas than to be the brave person running a small business for the next one to two years.

The Danger No One is Talking About (part 2)

2008-09-21T07:24:00.002-04:00

If the United States government has agreed to liquidate shareholders of investment banks while making whole the obligations made by irresponsible bankers to the end-users (who may be foreign governments) of these complex derived financial instruments, then the U.S. taxpayer is open to unknowable open-ended financial liability. We face the real possibility of large wealth transfers from the United States to other countries, including China and Russia. For those who wonder what the unseen costs to the United States may be, this is the most unnerving. Although we may later find out that bankruptcy at AIG and the others would have been preferable, let's hope not.

The Danger No One is Talking About

2008-09-20T08:41:00.003-04:00

In terms of national financial safety, we have come far since the banking crisis of 1933. The crisis unfolding this week is fixable, at least in terms of the full faith and credit of the Federal Government using the Federal Reserve and Treasury balance sheets to liquify the financial systems by injecting heretofore unknown massive amounts of dollars, while liquidating the shareholders of the affected investment banks and the insurance-financial behemoth, AIG.

I think that it is remarkable that whereas we had 5 investment banks only a few months ago (Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs), we enter next week with only two. Curiously, we seem to be looking more like the United States in 1929, in terms of banking: virtually all are commercial (depository) banks now, which do stock brokering on the side. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was designed to divide commercial banks from brokerage houses, so that bank tellers would not sell stock to customers, because this was thought to be a major factor in the banking crisis of 1933: the people made runs on the banks because they did not trust them anymore. Repealed by President Bill Clinton in 1989, the Act was no longer considered applicable.

Now, we must admit that it is probably a great thing to be rid of large financial monsters that were so lightly regulated. Having lax requirements for collateral-on-hand leads to playing fast and loose with other people's money. Perhaps, however, it would have been prudent to institute the enhanced regulation well before the present mess, and save the investment banks.

For those who say that the last thing we need is more federal regulation in this or any area, I would usually agree, but would merely point out that had the federal government not intervened last week en vigeur, we would need finally to rename the Great Depression as the Lesser Depression.

No one is pulling their money out of banks and putting it under mattresses. But the market has not really crashed to date. If it does, you can be sure that ordinary people will look at the name of the commercial bank in the website of their brokerage and will make their own decisions, rightly or (probably) wrongly, regarding the safety of commercial banks as a cash repository. Countering the run-on-the-bank mentality would be that the majority of Americans today use some form of payroll direct deposit or electronic bill pay tied to their accounts.

Tommorrow, though, let's discuss the real danger for all of us in what has happened in the past week.

No Pain with Palin

2008-09-17T21:11:00.002-04:00

I am sure you desire respite from the depressing economic news today.

So, I advise you to tune in (or watch the replay) of Sean Hannity's interview with Ms. Palin. My salient observations:

1) She has dialectical ancestors from a heretofore undiscovered county in Minnesota.

2) She should go back to her earlier hairstyle, to avoid distracting most of those of us with Y chromosomes.

3) We should petition Alaska to begin sending checks to those of us in the lower 48 as well.

On the Streets: Will Any Leader Make a Difference?

2008-09-05T20:03:00.003-04:00

Some may feel that if we only elected the right President, all of the homeless people would be off the street and would receive the health care they need. Having taken care of these fellow folks in many years past, I can tell you that if it were that simple, that life would be a dream for all of us.

Nearly 90% of indigent individuals living on the street suffer from mental illness. They are on the street because they are using the freedom given them ever since the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals was realized in the 1950s, with the new availability of miraculous agents such as Thorazine. One need only peek into the cavernous emptiness of the ancient state mental hospitals, such as Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, NC, one of the pioneer facilities of the late nineteenth and early-to-mid twentieth centuries, and one will know that the inmates have long since departed to the streets, and they prefer to stay there (or, many, in municipal shelters). They will also be notoriously non-compliant with non-psychiatric medical care. This is both the price and cost of freedom, for even the "least" of us.

My concern, when I hear misguided, resurrected ideas that government, and government programs, know best how and where these individuals should live, is that I am hearing echoes of liberal fascism's past: in the state lunatic hospitals in the Germany of the 1930s, where such persons were taken out of sight of people on the street (and ultimately out of sight of anybody). The point is that one cannot have it both ways.

Health care is certainly on the agenda of both presidential candidates, but we should all focus on what is helpful, reasonable, and possible health care, without depriving people, both mentally infirm and mentally productive, of their freedom. Thinking with a bleeding heart rather than a brain is a sure way to stumble badly on this problem.

An Historic Day

2008-08-27T19:04:00.004-04:00

Today is a most appropriate day to rekindle my service to you at this site, newly engendered and inspired by the nomination of the first black American to be nominated for President of the United States. I am not a black man, but I feel kinship toward Juan Williams (Chicago newspaperman, Fox and PBS correspondent), a black man who appeared, at least to me, to be emotional in his commentary in the immediate wake of the Democratic Convention's nomination, but who also had previously called Barack Obama to task on numerous occasions for his dangerous positioning for our country during his odyssey to the nomination.

I am proud of this man Obama. We must, all of us, savor this moment.

But there is a paradox. Africans were brought here in chains, whipped, and we are in awe of the fact that an African-American now towers in a position to whip us all into a give-back scheme that will empower no one but impoverish us all. Tax credits to those who pay no taxes is naked redistribution of wealth. Moreover, confiscatory tax rates sap instantly the incentive of individuals to produce: they wither the "unseen hand" prophesied by Adam Smith. Our day is a particularly inauspicious time to cripple economic hope.

I am white; I was raised from my birth in large part by a loving black woman and taught by loving black teachers. I have employed, and have been vocationally subservient to, and have loved, and been loved by, black people. But this man, whom we praise this day, for whom we are thankful to God for showing us that one day a black President will surely come; this very man we must, black and white alike, defeat soundly, because our nation cannot afford him.

Galbraith Revisited

2008-03-09T17:16:00.004-04:00

John Kenneth Galbraith, preeminent economist and historian, was actually part of history (a Roosevelt appointee), so that he had a bias in his writing about the advisability of government mega-action to effect change in the financial well-being of individuals in the United States. Of the decision to proceed with Social Security Act in 1935, he observed sixty years later: "Those who enjoy good fortune in the economic system, as ever and as now, attribute virtue to themselves and to the system as it stands. All change is thus to be resisted. No plea of personal well-being and possible personal cost can be entered; that would be too crude. Instead, it is said that the larger integrity of the system and its functioning must be protected and furthered. Some things do not change. The comfortable...similarly so contend (today)" (A Journey Through Economic Time, Houghton Mifflin: 1994). His writing sometimes reminds me of a liberal preacher with a background in economics. When national financial messes crop up, the little guy suffers, he seemed to say.

Now we have another national financial mess to clean up. Whereas in Galbraith's young years as an economist, the fiscal excess was the stock market bubble which was pricked in 1929 leading shortly to depression, and in 1980, the savings-and-loan bubble of bad loans followed by government bailout, we have an eerily similar bank bubble now, in the sub-prime loan housing crisis. As in the 1920s (margin accounts to buy stock and investment corporations), and 1980 (lax S&L loans to shaky real estate deals), the financial institutions have again loaned money that should not have been loaned. Rather than to require a sturdy show of earnest money (a downpayment of at least 10% had been traditional for ages), President Bush and Congress together decided that every American who wanted a house should get one, and lenders were happy to oblige (especially if they could sell the loan after they made it). Now, persons who should not have qualified for a loan in the first place are defaulting in droves.

To those who say the subprime mess is contained and restricted to a small percentage of all loans, Bill Gross of PIMCO, a respected bond expert for years, observed on the PIMCO website as early as September 2007, that patches of subprime decay will continue to pop up as the debacle unwinds: regulators have been absent, and this all reminds me of the 1980 S&L fiasco, except that large banks and finance companies are now the endangered institutions. Gross noted that "all assets with the exception of U.S. Treasuries look suspiciously like every other...(Summer and fall 2007) exposed a giant crack in modern financial architecture, created by youthful wizards and endorsed as a diversifying positive by central bankers present and past. ...Nothing within the current marketplace allows for the hedging of liquidity risk and that is the problem at the moment. Only the central banks can solve this puzzle with their own liquidity infusions and perhaps a series of rate cuts. The markets stand by with apprehension." What should we do about the housing market? Gross notes: "Granted a certain dose of market discipline in the form of lower prices might be healthy, but market forecasters currently project over two million defaults before this current cycle is complete. The resultant impact on housing prices is likely to be close to -10%, an asset deflation in the U.S. never seen since the Great Depression...70% of American households are homeowners (the nestegg for most Americans), and now many of those that bought homes in 2005-2007 stand a good chance of resembling passengers on the Poseidon – upside down with negative equity. A 10% “hook” in national home prices is serious business indeed...Housing prices could probably be supported by substantial cuts in short-term interest rates, but even cuts of 200-300 basis points by the Fed would not avert a built-in upward adjustment of ARM interest rates, nor would it guarantee that the private mortgage market – flush with fears of depreciating collateral – would follow the Fed down in terms of 15-30 year mortgage yields and relaxed lending standards. Additionally, cuts of such magnitude would almost guarantee a resurgence of speculative investment via hedge funds and levered conduits which have proved to be the Achilles heel of the current crisis. Secretary Paulson might also have a bone to pick with this “Bernanke housing put” since it more than likely would weaken the dollar – even produce a run – which would threaten the long-term reserve status of greenbacks and the ongoing prosperity of the U.S. hegemon."

Gross suggests that the Presendent consider an intervention "scaling Rooseveltian proportions" : "Why is it possible to rescue corrupt S&L buccaneers in the early 1990s and provide guidance to levered Wall Street investment bankers during the 1998 LTCM crisis, yet throw 2,000,000 homeowners to the wolves in 2007? If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support the American homeowner?...This rescue, which admittedly might bail out speculators who deserve much worse, would support millions of hard working Americans whose recent hours have become ones of frantic desperation. And for those who would still have them eat some Wall Street cake as opposed to Midwest meat & potatoes (The Wall Street Journal editorial page suggested they should get darn good and used to renting once again) look at it this way: your stocks and risk-oriented levered investments will spring to life like the wild flowers in Death Valley after a flash flood. And if you’re a Republican office holder, you’d win a new constituency of voters – “almost homeless homeowners” – for generations to come. Get with it Mr. President and Mr. Treasury Secretary. This is your moment to one-up Barney Frank and the Democrats. Reestablish not the RFC or the RTC, but create an RMC – Reconstruction Mortgage Corporation."

Galbraith would almost certainly agree. I hesitate, because multiple sources of stupidity precipitated this problem; but hesitation may be precisely the wrong thing to do just now.

Which raises an important point: do we have to be confident of either depression or war to implement heavy government subsidization (read: deficit spending) for problems in the banking system, or can we act, in a term recently used for war, "pre-emptively"? One thing is for certain: if nothing gargantuan is done, this could be very bad for all of us Americans, not just the ones with the starter homes.

Obama: Africa Fracas

2008-01-13T16:10:00.000-05:00

Will Obama be knocked out of the presidential race because of his church-racial-prejudice problems? Unlikely in the primaries, but certain to be an issue in the general election. Assuming, of course, that he gets by Ms. Clinton--certainly by no means certain.

The moral of the story is that it is better to limit one's ethnocentrism to a private failing rather than the public face of one's church. And we are all ethnocentric, aren't we?

Except, I imagine, for Jehovah's Witnesses: I was invited to a JH wedding gathering some years ago, and with all the colors of the rainbow present, all ages, even within families, I truly thought I had been given a preview of heaven (and my vision was not rose-colored: there was no champagne, either). Not surprisingly, these people were the only religious group in Germany to stand up to Hitler in the 1930s, Christian or otherwise.

You're Gonna Miss My Lovin

2008-01-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

There is an excellent skit of a well known black comedian whose character is about to have a colonoscopy. He apparently has received no Versed, because his anxiety threatens to spring him heavenward to grasp the light fixture with both hands and feet. Then the nurse comes in, flips a switch, and the lights dim, and the disco ball descends. Then, the soulful sounds of "You'll never find / Another love like mine" percolates through the endoscopy suite. None other than Lou Rawls himself emerges in a white coat and other gastroenterologist's gear, including latex gloves and a colonoscope, the end into which he incants his mellifluous melody.

Could these days be coming to an "end"? According to many gastroenterologists, yes.

Currently, no other specialist holds a candle to the gastroenterologist in the inevitability department. The cardiologist may never run you on his treadmill, much less "cath" you. You may never see the likes of my bretheren, either for the pulmonologist's bronchoscopy or the sleep specialist's overnight sleep study. But you cannot avoid the infamous colonoscopy at age 50 if you want to follow the American Cancer Society's recommendations for colon cancer screening. Oh sure, you could opt out for less-than-standard fare, such as a barium enema with a sigmoidoscopy, but the --shall we say--inconvenience--is the same. The gastroenterologist will ultimately ream us all.

In the future, however, virtual colonoscopy using CT or MRI may become the standard diagnostic procedure, obviating billions of rectosigmoid boogies via colonoscopy. If you turn 50 next year, however, you are "stuck" with the tried and true.

Hoping for Peace in the New Year

2008-01-06T12:29:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite verses in all of poetry was penned by Thomas Hardy during Christmas, 1924 (which is the name of the poem):

"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of Mass
We've got as far as poison gas."

Guess that's still true. We layfolks have a lot of work to do.

Happy, hopeful New Year.

Advice--and Prediction--for the New Year

2008-01-01T16:05:00.001-05:00

New year's resolutions--unachieveable? This year, beginning today, consider a resolution that is simple: Do your best with with the tasks you have been already been given to do. Granted, opportunity may--almost certainly will--come your way. But can you force this? While waiting for your opportunity ship to come in, pray for energy and concentration to complete the tasks at hand, however mundane. You'll work better if you talk to your doctor about a regimen of physical fitness to see you through your tasks. Why does physical fitness lend energy to your daily work? I have no simple explanation for you, but it does.

On the lighter side, a prediction: I have been correct about who will become President, at the pre-primary point, for six straight elections now. I will now venture a guess which may well be my first miss, but is nevertheless my gut feeling.

Huckabee.

Reason? He is an effective communicator who will pool, for the first time, populists, Republicans, poor people, Christians, old-time Clinton fans, rock-and-roll enthusiasts, little old ladies, and ring-nosed girls. He is also a splendid truth-teller. He looks a little like Gomer Pyle, but that only seems to endear him more to his base--which more and more appears to be most of us.

Meanwhile, Mr. Romney's character, style and content reminds me much of Mr. Kerry come back from the dead to the other side.

See if I'm right in November.

The Cause of the Civil War--And the Next One

2007-12-30T11:17:00.001-05:00

Some may think it inconsequential that the oldest American mainline Protestant churches are splitting (witness the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, in particular). Inconsequential? Perhaps. Splits have punctuated the history of these church lines since the Revolution. These remaining rump church bodies are small, owing to decades of neglect. After all, what harm could a split in these bodies do?

Arguably, it mattered a great deal in the past, and it mattered to Americans who never were part of these Christian institutions. In fact, it mattered to all Americans, and may have cost millions their lives.

If the PCA denominational start in the early 1970s is not considered, then the last time that the Presbyterians (PCUSA) split was in 1837. David Brion Davis is quoted (in Gary Wills' Head and Heart: American Christianities (2007)): "Slavery placed a central part in the national division of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches, institutions that had served as the cultural bridges between North and South." The Charleston Mercury, a newspaper which could reasonably be expected to be prescient concerning the outbreak of civil war, greeted the Methodist church split in 1847 as "the first dissolution of the Union." When the Baptists split in 1848, the Savannah Republican wondered whether this event "was intimately connected with our Southern institutions, and perhaps may have a remote bearing on the ultimate political relations of the Northern and Southern portions of the Union."

This time, the churches are splitting all across the country in a pattern which is less like blue states north/red states south, into a diffuse, geographic, small-plaid pattern which divides the very interstices of communities, much less states or even towns. The difference is that the churches involved are small and ineffectual. The churches which have power to change peoples' hearts and conscience today are, by and large, independent churches, or churches in small cooperative groups, which are growing. This change in the power of large Protestant denominations may blunt the forces which today threaten to tear the country apart again: support for our country's defending personnel, political unrest and divisiveness within the highest levels of government, brotherly (sibling-like, for the politically correct) love between all Americans. For example, in the Southeastern United States, things have changed dramatically over the past 50 years: the person you will be more likely to split with physically and psychically is not the person with the other skin color, but rather the person of your own skin color with the flaky ideology. Is it possible that this must change in order to avert the second Civil War?

Seasons Greetings

2007-12-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

I am so delighted to pen these words to you after such a long absence. I am sure most folks can identify with packed and burdened worklives and family lives this time of the year. Therefore as a homily to you but mostly for myself, I bring this word: There is a miracle coming.

I cannot tell you what yours is, though you may be burdened and hoping little for relief. But it is coming:

"In the time of my favor I will answer you,
and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
to say to the captives, 'Come out,'
and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'
They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.
They will neither hunger nor thirst,
nor will the deseart heat or the sun beat upon them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
and lead them beside springs of water.
For the Lord comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones."

Isaiah 49: 8-11, 13 (NIV)

Memory and History

2007-10-19T06:06:00.000-04:00

I went to Davidson last night to hear a lecture by a professor of history from Columbia University, Dr. Carol Gluck, who specializes in Japanese history. She spoke on "Past Obsessions: World War II in History and Memory." She distinguished memory carefully from history, but noted that memory colors history. It is interesting that the East and West German museums have been closed, and replaced by a museum which has been in planning for 16 years: the German Museum, in Berlin. The story told is the Western one.

I remembered a dinner I had 12 years ago like it was yesterday, because the content was so chilling. I was at a medical meeting, and ate dinner with a kindly Japanese pathologist who had also just arrived that evening. He was older, approaching retirement. While discussing recent medical discoveries, I mentioned what a miracle I thought it was, for Japanese and American scientists and doctors to work together so effectively, when only 50 years ago there was such a horrible war between our countries. The Japanese pathologist said, "Yes, but we had to react like that. The British, Dutch, and Americans had cut off our oil supplies, and we had to react. It was self-preservation, you see?"

Was this guy some Rip Van Winkle Japanese soldier, plucked from the jungles of Saipan?
Dr. Gluck noted that his response was the one taught to his Japanese generation. In contrast, she noted, many Japanese youth today are glibly unaware that Japan was ever in a war with America.

Chill, Turks

2007-10-16T18:43:00.000-04:00

The Turkish government definitely needs to calm itself regarding the observations of the American government regarding the Armenian slaughter of almost one hundred years ago. Methinks they protesteth too loudly.

After all, we are all murderers: Americans (Native Americans), Germans and Austrians (Jews), French (priests in the Revolution and others too numerous to mention), British (Indians and Americans), Spanish (South American Indians), the Japanese (Chinese): no one has clean hands. All are sinners and have, and always will, come short of the kingdom of God.

Actually, it may be that Turks are the injured party with regards to the Kurdish extremists. This is not the time for Kurds to unite politically over Iraq, Turkey, and Iran: such strivings mean only war and death. There may be a time, in the distant future, when all these countries are happy to concede a Kurdistan, but it is not now, and the militant Kurds, whom we sympathized with in Saddam's day, only seem bent on misery now.

The Turkish government must exercise restraint. Although secular, they must remember that most of their population recognizes a prophet who called all of us to repent, and also to forgive. The Armenians know this prophet, and know that they had to forgive the Turks; perhaps they must let the Turks know that they are forgiven, too.

In Search of Memory

2007-10-12T07:49:00.000-04:00

I am reading a great autobiographical book (In Search of Memory; Norton, 2006) by Eric Kandel, a Nobel prize laureate who is my father's age. He wrote the wonderful textbook I used in medical school called Principles of Neural Science; I loved it so much I wrote him a letter as a medical student, told him how much it opened my eyes to the natural world and the brain; told him who I was and where I was from, etc. This was before he was a Nobel prize winner and famous. He actually wrote me back, and I have been trying to find my old text (and the letter).

His autobiography is a fantastic combination of general-audience science and European history (he was a teenaged Vienna Jew when his family got swept up in the Nazi Terror in 1938; his dad's shop was smashed on Kristallnacht; they ended up in NYC, he went to Harvard, became an MD, then psychoanalyst versed in Freud, then a pioneer neurobiologist at Columbia, where he is now professor emeritus). I think that memory is what has driven his life: the intensity of the memories of a loving childhood; the searing memories of a mortal brush with Nazi terror as a child; and the tracing of memory which he lent his life to discover. Ever heard of "facilitation?" It is why I continue to write; I can connect words and ideas well, and it becomes easier the more I do it. This basis for this idea of simple learning Dr. Kandel discovered from simple, slimy water-animals and a couple of electrodes. I want to write him again, enclose a copy of the letter he sent me, and ask him if he remembers the medical student from North Carolina who wrote him in 1982. I am still looking for the letter, however; I can't remember where I put it.

Sick-o

2007-08-05T08:53:00.000-04:00

I saw Michael Moore's movie after hearing credible recommendations (I can here many of you hitting the floor in syncopal surprise). It is the only movie I have seen of his since the ancient Detroit-Flint auto movie, which I believe must have been his first major film.

Although the movie is replete with socialism, and his picture of the Canadian, British, and French health care systems, according to the Canadians, British, and French themselves, is analogous to adorning a pig with lipstick, he nevertheless is spot-on about the dysfunctional American private system.

I have conversed with friends and family about the pros and cons of federalizing the system. No one wants the worst that can and does happen in the federal system.

However, I don't believe we even have a choice in the matter. The private practice system of American medicine is now vanishing. The primary care physicians--the prototypical "doctors"--were the first to go (family physicians, pediatricians, hospitalists, and internists); the second tier to leave is the medical subspecialists (oncologists, endocrinologists, rheumatologists, and the like); the next group will be the hospital-intensive proceduralists (pulmonologists, intensivists, cardiologists, general surgeons, nephrologists, orthopaedists). These doctors will soon all work for hospital systems, because they cannot survive financially in private practice now, even when working maximally. Physician groups who are relatively immune to these changes will be the hospital-independent proceduralists (dermatologists, plastic surgeons).

Dermatologists and plastic surgeons share a protected place in the health care profession with dentists: they, in the overwhelming main, they don't practice in hospitals. Hence, there is no significant Medicare-, HMO- or hospital-related constraining factor in reimbursement (the dermatologists may quibble on the Medicare part of the assertion, but they will admit to you that they have no inclination to knock on a hospital administrator's door for a job).

Neurosurgeons are necessarily hospital-dependent, but they are blessed with personalities most akin to hospital administrators (the part that would negotiate heartlessly), thus assuring their intermediate-term independent survival.

Survival--at least, until the entire decaying private practice system collapses into a final hospital-network-versus-HMO battle of the behemoths. At that point, a federalized system will be the only option to beleagered patients and their families, scammed with out-of-pocket co-pays and deductables equal to the value of the medical care most consume in a year, and health insurance premiums driving employers and their employees to the brink of fiscal disaster. At that point, we will be screaming for the feds to save us, and the doctors will not be able to help.

Give it about five years.

The corporate supporters (Kudlow comes to mind) would do well to consider the physician factor when blindly supporting the old system of private medicine. The new system will contain private medicine as a minor sideline, much like the British system. But although the health care drug-and-device sector may do well for years to come, the HMO system faces a showdown with the federal government in the not-so-distant future, which will change the face of American medicine. Medicare is busted in 2020 (in contradistinction, Social Security has until 2041), so the federal government should be highly motivated to act.

The Earlier Crashes

2007-07-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

It is a singular experience to read the words of John Kenneth Galbraith, writing the intro to his 1988 edition of his 1955 classic, "The Great Crash of 1929." This paragraph caught my eye:

"A third controlling circumstance (besides the vested interest in euphoria and speculation), little mentioned then or recently, was the enactment earlier of tax reductions with primary effect on the very affluent--before 1929, those of Andrew Mellon; before 1987, more spectacularly, those of supply-side economics and Ronald Reagan. In both cases they were supposed to energise investment, produce new firms, plants, and equipment. In both cases they sluiced funds into the stock market; that is what well-rewarded people regularly do with extra (funds)."

Professor Galbraith could not have predicted the tax cuts of George W. Bush, soon perhaps to be made permanent. Could these have precipitated the events of this week in some way? It seems unlikely, since the experts tell us that the stock market is not overpriced, and that profits and economic growth is good. Rather, we are told that the stock market swoon is related to a rotten subprime mortgage market, a soft housing market, now combined with difficult commercial credit. The Federal Reserve could relax the situation by easing credit/lowering interest rates, but the Fed is hypervigilant about inflation right now. But apart from that, who knows where this market detour is heading? No clues here.

Who Protects Us?

2007-07-20T19:50:00.000-04:00

It is good to be back.

Since last I wrote here, I was given a book to read recently about new-millenium families and military service. It is "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service--And How It Hurts Our Country" (Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer, Harper Collins, 2006). Here is an excerpted quote from Steven J. Naplan, who served as Director for Democracy and Human Rights at the Clinton White House's National Security Council:

"If the U.S. military is to reflect the diversity of America and is to be peopled by the talented, dedicated young Americans we'd want protecting our freedoms and representing our nation, it has no choice but to engage in the extensive recruitment of high school seniors--an honorable and vital mission which deserves our cooperation, not obstruction. In the broadest sense, the U.S. military proticts our freedom to advocate progressive politics."

To the radical journal Mother Jones' condemnation of military recruitment of teens, Naplan observed:

"'Privacy' is the smokescreen behind which (these) critics attempt to mask their discomfort with the U.S. military--the same military which saved hundreds of thousands of Africans from certain starvation in the early 1990s, saved hundreds of thousands of Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims from mass murder just a few years later, and which today trains the young men and women who risk and sometimes lose there lives to protect us all from the terrorists who would happily take the lives of (critics of the military)."

Comforting reading in an uncertain time.

Memorial Day Wish: Take Care of the Veteran

2007-05-27T08:09:00.000-04:00

The Charlotte Observer today was finally (finally) spot-on about veteran care in the United States. The biggest problem is definitely not individual competences; indeed, quality assurance now is at an obsessive-c0mpulsive high in the system. Rather, we need more resources; in large part, this means we need many, many more people, to take care of the veterans. The care provided, in my view, is awesome, but the wait for care is long, and will get longer, given the wars, unless the people and resources are put in place forthwith. Congress and the VA leadership must step up to the plate on this issue.

Documenting War

2007-05-26T20:23:00.000-04:00

Ken Burns has made another epic documentary film: this time, the subject is World War II. This has been covered in different decades, with different styles, but I suspect the counterpoint with today's Iraqi-Afganistan operations will be interesting. It will be shown over several evenings on PBS later in the year.

The best previous documentary spanning the second World War was "The World at War," narrated by Lawrence Olivier, in 1973.

The principal differences between that war and this one: 1) World War II involved astonishing loss of life compared to the current conflicts; 2) the attack on American homeland that preceded that war resulted in a galvanized populace ready to make collective as well as individual sacrifices.

The implications of defeat are essentially the same for both wars.

The Difference Twixt Catholics and Baptists

2007-05-23T20:10:00.000-04:00

This here dissertation aims to distinguish for y'all, once and for all, the differences between Catholics and Baptists. They's more subtle than you think.

First of all, American (Southern and American) Baptists historically object to other Protestant/Reformed European-derived Christians, so one wonders how they could get along with Catholics. After all, how can you get along with people from a group that rejected a group that rejected you? Ah, laddie, that's the answer.

The deal here is that they have rolled around the world so far from one another that they have landed side by side. Yes, Baptists have no creed, whereas Catholics live and die by them; Baptists say hello to each other everywhere but the liquor store but Catholics had a different tradition; but, at least in America and Europe, American Baptists would appear to have a virtually identical set of common mores with their Catholic brethren and sistren otherwise: to wit, stance on abortion; primacy of traditional family; the list goes on. Read the journal First Things if you wish to know how close Catholics and evangelicals come to one another. Heck, I know a half dozen Catholic-Baptist couples with squads of children right here in my corner of North Carolina.

Things have changed over my generation of life, but I think the closer relationship between Catholics and Baptists/evangelicals is one of the sweetest ones. Especially true, given the history of vituperative and bile which can be traced as recently as the 1920s in Baptist periodicals (the Baptists caught this vile disease in America from the Presbyterians, from whom they descended in this country; the link between the Baptists to Smythe and Helwys in England/Holland is actually quite weak and is an historical footnote). In the U.S., this was never violent, but was a thorn in the side of all of us. Now the Presbyterians in the United States have withered, while the Baptists and similar evangelicals have flourished.

Can we learn anything from this? Well, the American descendents of the Northern Irish Orangemen (the Presbyterian Protestants, including the Baptists) learned their lessons a wee bit before our Scots-Irish cousins in Ulster, Belfast and environs; but according to the newspaper, these loved ones in the home country are learning their lessons now. O Londonderry Protestant, find ye a nice Catholic lass to settle down with. Amen.

Yo Ben

2007-05-22T21:16:00.001-04:00

"[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." Ben Franklin

Draft?

2007-05-21T19:46:00.000-04:00

Do you believe that the draft should be reinstated? Should all young people have an obligatory two years of civil or military service, such as in Israel? Would it be a glue that convinced all Americans that we all have a dog in this fight? Or no?

GOP Clarity

2007-05-16T06:14:00.000-04:00

The Republican presidential candidates debate last evening was clarifying. The questions were incisive, unlike the other party's debate earlier. We were able, then, to winnow down the field more effectively, in a single evening.

So much so, that Dr. Mental is able to provide you the nominee and his VP: Romney and Huckabee. Or will it be Giuliani and Huckabee? Well, my Ouiji board is not working perfectly, but you get the picture.

By the way, why is Huckabee so much different that the last President who was a governor of Arkansas? Both were poor, Baptist, and from Hope. Strange. The difference is that one had a present, loving daddy and one did not.

We Whipped This Problem Before

2007-05-13T07:01:00.000-04:00

True or false? The United States Navy was founded specifically to thwart Middle Eastern leaders and terrorists from their attacks on Americans, and was wildly successful. (Hint: "...to the shores of Tripoli.") Find the answer in either of two excellent books: Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (Michael B. Oren; Norton, 2007); or Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll (Norton, 2006).

Buechner

2007-05-07T20:06:00.000-04:00

A God-thing happened this past week to direct my entry today (no kidding). My son received a daily devotional by Frederick Buechner as part of honoring the high school seniors at our church Sunday. He will be going to the Naval Academy next month, so Buechner may not seem like the logical read. Indeed, the giver of the book wondered out loud, out of concern and love, whether the Navy will take the humanity out of him. (Not to worry.) The second, convergent, event was a blog response received this past week from a blog entry one year ago (Friday, April 7, 2006, archives--see right to link) on none other than--Frederick Buechner. So I must revisit the right reverend today.

Here is the thoughtful comment and question of my blog correspondent: "The problem with the kind of Christianity you seem to offer us to subscribe is that it seems to be rooted in one who had the appropriate rearing, background, etc? If that is the case, whom then should we really turn to --- who is qualified to speak of God?"

My answer: Why not give all the Jesus-voices at least one chance?

Buechner's father was an absent alcoholic, his mother privileged and distant, as Buechner described them in an NPR interview. Buechner had abandoned the church late in life, yet he continues to write as if he is in the church. All well and good. My point is this: If you were raised like Buechner, why listen only to Buechnerites? What good is it if you listen to only the voices that make you comfortable? Buechner is not blind literally, but part of him was blinded through no fault of his own, and he would readily admit it, I suspect. If you were born blind, do you really want to hang out with only blind people all your life? How about some seeing people who love you even though you are blind? Can you love them even you are frightened that they might mock you because of your blindness?

The answer is that we must turn to all the Jesus-voices, even the scary ones, even the strange ones. Even the very conservative ones. All of them, if we can bear it. It is no use to remain in a echo-chamber of likeminded voices, especially if the different voice invites the possibility of change. And change is not always in the direction you might imagine.

I can relate. You must suspect, by now, what side of the street I am from, on the theological/ideological spectrum. How easy is it, do you think, to hear my pastor read Acts 11 and realize, even before he had ended the reading, "He is about to preach a sermon on gay people." Listen:

(NIV) 1The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3and said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them."
4Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: 5"I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'
8"I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'
9"The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' 10This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.
11"Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man's house. 13He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, 'Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.'
15"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' 17So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?"
18When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

And sure enough, he preached a sermon on gay people.

The text, to me, is also about the fact that people with different emotional backgrounds need each other for completion, optimally within a community of faith.

I would have never come to either of these conclusions before I heard this pastor speak for the first time many years ago. I still don't agree with a good deal of what he says but I am richer for having heard it. Are you willing to learn from someone who has received a completely different set of life-cards than you were dealt? If you both happen to be Christian, you should think about this carefully.

So, too, if you have been scarred and scared in your life, soul-abandoned, with parents emotionally distant, divorced, alcoholic, or worse; if your correspondent appears to have had all the love he needed to grow up optimally and you didn't, do not shy away. Your sensitivity borne of pain is needed by the overly confident, and his confidence is needed by--you.

Social Justice: In Search Of A Definition

2007-04-29T18:52:00.000-04:00

A teacher of the Bible had a class today in which he posited that Jesus was political. Agree or disagree? He quoted an African-American activist who stated that a hungry child is, by definition, a political issue, because it takes the political process to fix the problem. He also suggested that the solution to credit card debt in our country would be jubilee: i.e., the ancient Hebrew concept of complete forgiveness of debt every seven years. This, he said, is social justice.

I am glad, at least, to hear honesty about this issue from mainstream American Protestant (PCUSA) clergy. In the classic philosophy texts there is retributive justice, etc., but what is social justice? It is really whatever your politics wants to make it. It is about raw power, and is especially dangerous in the hands of religious leaders. Well, we can all agree now that social justice is politics, pure and simple. Moreover, those who believe in their particular form of social justice would make Jesus Christ the National Chairman of the Social Justice party. The peculiar social justice movement popular today is about raw power, and is political power is especially dangerous in the hands of religious leaders (witness Iran; also note that Stalin was a seminary student prior to his joining Lenin).

I do not believe that we do people any favors by enabling them to continue irresponsible spending; in fact, we thereby contribute to their personal destruction. Nor do I believe that giving the mother of a hungry child money is superior to giving her (or her husband) a job, which requires no politics at all in a free society.

I believe that Jesus would have nothing to do with partisan politics; he said that his kingdom was "not of this world." When Simon the Zealot, a political activist, met Jesus, Jesus rebuked him, and called him to be Peter, the person of personal integrity. Raw political power is not the tool of the Christian. Liberal Presbyterian leaders are not the only ones who rally around this idol: conservative American Christian groups, such as the Southern Baptists as well as African-American churches, have in the past fallen prey to this apostasy as well. Justice? Come, let's reason together.

VA part 2

2007-04-27T11:48:00.000-04:00

I live in a world where "tommorrow" in blogging means "three days."

Anyway, the gist of the testimony in the congressional hearing concerning the VA was that: 1) The VA, and especially the Salisbury facility, is extremely responsive to corrective change in the quality system, and in fact the system is currently a model of efficiency and safety.

The problem which the congresspeople identified in their own experience is this: lack of resources. If the VA facilities are not given the resources--in people and material--to accomplish their mission effectively, the veterans (including our newest Iraq war veterans) cannot hope to enjoy the fine care which we can and do provide through the Veterans hospital system, because lines and delays will rule the day. This is a decision for the American people to make, in conjunction with the congresspeople who fund the programs. Now would be a good time.

In Search for Excellence in Veterans' Health Care

2007-04-24T07:56:00.000-04:00

House of Representatives committee hearings are often a mixed bag (fascinating or boring, depending on your interest level). I was fascinated to listen to the committee hearings on the Salisbury VA Medical Center (mainly because I work with the VA; also because I am a taxpayer, and want to know that our North Carolina federal tax dollars are spent effectively for our veterans). The Walter Reed Hospital affair has sparked interest in the twin question: How are our veterans hospitals functioning? You can listen to the hearing here. Analysis tommorrow.

Tragedy

2007-04-18T21:19:00.000-04:00

The horror that is Blacksburg is upon us, and we scarcely understand what it means. I have seen this campus when my son played tennis with a kid on the tennis team there a couple of years ago. It is quite large, like a small city unto itself, and situated in the beautiful mountains of southwestern Virginia. It seems very safe.

My special prayers this week are with the caregivers there. My old college roommate is a minister in Blacksburg, and I am sure that exhaustion of those who care for others is a risk in this situation. We can all pray for the kids at Virginia Tech, and for kids on college campuses all over our country. They are the leadership of our future as a people, and they need to feel safe.

Great to be back

2007-04-15T11:37:00.000-04:00

I am so happy to be able to type in this space again. I am like many of you--the work of life has gotten the better of me for the past two months, silencing old DoctorMental for a time.

But today is a good day for new beginnings, so I should like to begin with: Imus and rappers??

To toss a shock jock for repeating the lyrics of rappers is--well, justice. Justice for Imus, perhaps. But don't be fooled: money is why Imus is gone (the network executive's sponsorships are threatened); money is why the rappers aren't (all based on what the public will purchase). The coarsening of our culture is thus exposed. Could it be any different? Will young people buy lyrics that do not glorify the dehumanizing, sexual, violent objectification of women?

They once did. Black syncopation delivered by a very imperfect white guy. Our ancestors loved this hit. Tell me, what does it celebrate for young black women, young black men, young Asian/white/Indian/you-name-it young people? Something different? Picture, if you will, Snoop Dogg covering this tune (Swinging On A Star) It was number one for nine weeks in 1944--you could do worse. (Words by Johnny Burke, music by Jimmy Van Huesen recorded by Bing Crosby):

Would you like to swing on a star, Carry moonbeams home in a jar, And be better off than you are,
Or would you rather be a mule?
A mule is an animal with long funny ears
Kicks up at anything he hears
His back is brawny but his brain is weak
He's just plain stupid with a stubborn streak
And by the way, if you hate to go to school
You may grow up to be a mule
Or would you like to swing on a star, Carry moonbeams home in a jar, And be better off than you are,
Or would you rather be a pig?
A pig is an animal with dirt on his face
His shoes are a terrible disgrace
He has no manners when he eats his food
He's fat and lazy and extremely rude
But if you don't care a feather or a fig
You may grow up to be a pig
Or would you like to swing on a star, Carry moonbeams home in a jar, And be better off than you are,
Or would you rather be a fish?
A fish won't do anything, but swim in a brook
He can't write his name or read a book
To fool the people is his only thought
And though he's slippery, he still gets caught
But then if that sort of life is what you wish
You may grow up to be a fish
A new kind of jumped-up slippery fish
And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo
Every day you meet quite a few
So you see it's all up to you
You can be better than you are
You could be swingin' on a star

The Power of Freedom

2007-02-24T18:09:00.000-05:00

Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.

--John Quincy Adams

Allies

2007-02-22T20:50:00.000-05:00

I need to add New Zealand and Australia to the active supporters of the U.S. in Iraq. Coincidental that the countries supporting this effort were the exact countries actively opposing Nazi Germany 65 years ago. We may have a chance, if we can neutralize the half our Congress who own the chances of defeat.

Universal Conscription: Antidote for Stunted National Emotional Growth (and Possibly Survival)

2007-02-19T10:55:00.000-05:00

"Today, across the western world, the generals dislike conscript armies. They want light, highly trained, professional regiments. but it's hard not to feel that the end of the draft--the end of routine military service--has somehow weakened the bonds of citizenship. Citizenship is about allegiance. We benefit from our rights as citizens of the state and in return we accept our duties as citizens of the state...Ultimately, it is as Americans or Britons, Australians or Canadians that we resist the assault on our liberties." (Mark Steyn, The Face of the Tiger, 2002).

Mark Steyn is a thoughtful Canadian whose fellow countrymen abandoned this mindset after the second world war.

Why doesn't the United States adopt universal conscription? The Israelis do. This experience of discipline would be a maturing experience for young people, and would not be confined to military service. Civil or foreign (e.g., Peace Corp-type) service options would almost certainly be available in such a plan.

One might say, "Well, sure, the Israelis do this. After all, they face an existential threat."

Do we not? Did you ever stop to count the nations that are allied with us currently, in the war against terror? I count, let's see, Tony Blair's Britain, which shall not for much longer be Tony Blair's Britain, so long term I reckon that makes zero.

Universal conscription in the United States is part of Theodore Roosevelt's admonition to walk softly, but carry a big stick. It is necessary for the persistence of freedom in the world, because no one else in the world will loan qualified people to help.

Get Off Your Freedom-Loving Behind

2007-01-31T06:04:00.000-05:00

"If freedom is not on the march against tyranny, then tyranny will be on the march against freedom. Neither is static."

--Cal Thomas

Stand Firm

2007-01-25T20:11:00.000-05:00

Two ideas:

The most important thing in our time is to stand for what you know is right regardless of hostile popular opinion, and to trust what you know is just and right and not your fears.

The second is like unto it: place your concerns in their proper perspective. A custodial worker friend told me today that this friend's house had burned to the ground. Do my problems amount to more than a hill of beans compared to such struggles?

Find someone to help: this will calm your anxieties about the future, our country, our world.

Western Society: In Eclipse? Or What?

2007-01-14T08:54:00.000-05:00

I have read two interesting books recently: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond; and America Alone, by Mark Steyn.

These books intersect at the notion of what will bring an end to the Western World as we know it. Diamond raises the Malthusian strawman of overpopulation, and assumes that we have learned nothing about conservation (nor anything else, really) in the past ten thousand years. We will come to an untimely end because the Mayans did, he supposes.

Steyn sees something occurring much earlier than the rising sea levels washing us away.
Stein's assessment of Diamond's book: "It's all about Easter Island going belly up because they chopped down all their trees...Same with the Greenlanders and the Mayans...Poor old Diamond can't see the forest for the trees because of his obsession with the trees. Russia's collapsing and it's nothing to do with deforestation. It's not the tree, it's the family tree. It's the babes in the wood. A people that won't multiply can't go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the age we life in. Because, when history comes a-calling it starts with the most bassic question of all: Knock-knock. Who's there?"

A fact and a quote. Spain's birth rate is 1.15 births per couple, unsustainable to replace the population. Mathematical result: Spain is finished as an entity in Western civilization. Other European countries are not much different, except France (1.89), where one third of all births now are Muslim. America's, on the other hand, is 2.11. "...the fact remains, Europe is dying and America isn't...instead of calling for America to 'join the world', why not try calling on Europe to rejoin the real world? Otherwise you'l be joining what we used to call 'the unseen world.' Or here's an even more radical thought: why doesn't 'the world' try joining America?"

The culture of (demographic) death in the West is driven by dead-ends: massive government social support programs that impose a tax structure so that no one can afford to have children; and life choices such as active and exclusive homosexuality and abortion which do not augment the population (take the moralism out of it: these activities are simply demographic dead-enders).

And Steyn provides an insight from the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar, in the Oslo Dagbladet recently: "We're the ones who will change you. Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same contries is producing 3.5 children...Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

How wonderful it would be to unite demographically with the Muslim (who now wishes to be separate, at least in Europe) so that the best of their population-sustaining birth-rate and life-giving demographic rules (we call them morals) could mix with our best instincts of love for the stranger/enemy/the weak, dignity for women (we call them social justice). America is the best laboratory for living with the stranger. This would take an act by the same God on which we all call. The miracle is that He has already acted in history, and the Peacemaking Teacher is recognized by both cultures. But will the Teacher be heeded? Or will the forces of death within both civilizations?

Still Truckin'

2007-01-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

That's an old expression, isn't it? I mean it to celebrate the fact that I have blogged two days straight, which is a record these days for me. I hope to do better in the New Year: this is my New Year's resolution to you.

Meanwhile, we all continue to go to work, waiting until June until we can earn our first dollar of the year (not paid in taxes). Someone please inform Ms. Pelosi that three-fifths majority requirement in the House of Representatives during the earlier (Republican) House is far more protective of taxpayers than the simple majority which the new majority intends to implement and use to beat us all over the head with new taxes.

Show Us the Plan

2007-01-07T08:16:00.000-05:00

You will rarely hear me criticise the President on these pages; others, such as George Will, do it much more concisely and cogently than I will ever do.

I must now speak, however, and my credential is that of an Ordinary American. To wit: If the President intends to ramp up the number of military personnel in Iraq and has a pre-proofed plan with probability of success to pacify the country, let's hear the plan, and I am sure the country and the troops will be happy to go. There are children in Iraq who need to go to school, breathe free, and not have to worry about their parents being killed in sectarian violence.

However, the People spoke in the election, and there can be no doubt that they have demanded a change in strategy or withdrawal. I have a son considering admission to the Naval Academy, and I certainly have a personal stake in this.

If the President intends to surge our manpower in Iraq despite demonstrating no change in plan of battle, and in the face of a Congressional Democratic majority duly elected by the people, then he will be disregarding the concerns of the American people.

If there is no victory plan, then he should withdraw troops to geopolitically reasoned, semi-permanent bases (e.g., protect the Kurds, guard the oil for redistribution of assets to the Iraqi people). Further escalation of the sacrifice of American youth is only justifiable if lasting freedom and safety of poor people is a certain result.

Wake Finally Wakes Up Again

2007-01-02T20:09:00.000-05:00

Wake Forest is playing Louisville in the Gator Bowl tonight. The last time Wake Forest played in a bowl game, it was the Gator Bowl--in 1946--and my father played tailback for Wake (tailback was a type of shotgun quarterback in the old single-wing formation). I inherited none of his athletic prowess.

Hope they win (my apologies to my Louisville readers).

A Christmas Gift

2006-12-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

I wish you and yours the gift of love. My gift to you is...a movie review for the season. Here are the best movies to see, equally sound for your girlfriend, wife, child, or mother. (Better still, bring all four with you to see the show):

Happyness (Will Smith): Based on a true story, I believe this is the best performance by Mr. Smith. Don't go for comedy. My son made the comment that the film is unlikely to get a ringing endorsement from Julian Bond. Think Barbershop. The story is inspiring. Puts us one step closer to the day when "Race: Black, White, Hispanic, American Indian, Other" will never be found on any application.

A Night in the Museum (Ben Stiller): All of your favorite comedians--and of old dudes like me (old men I thought were dead: Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney). Hilarity for all ages.

May you have no "Santa Baby" on your list: "There's only one thing I need--a deed--to a platinum mine." What a great line.

Age-related Rights

2006-12-20T18:09:00.000-05:00

I spoke with my college-aged son today regarding age-dependent rights. Currently, highway federal monies are denied to states with drinking ages below 21 in the U.S. Should a young person age 18-20, honorably serving in the military, be denied rights on the basis of age? The age-dependant rights generally concern risk of harm to self or others (alcohol, tobacco, the vote, handgun permits) and may involve wisdom to avoid doing harm (alcohol, the vote, handgun permits, court trial as an adult). He feels that if a young person is serving his or her country honorably in the service, at risk of personal harm, that the person deserves the rights afforded other adults Americans. Therefore, he feels that the age of military service should be the statutory age of general adult privileges.

This line of thinking is reasonable, with one major and fatal exception. The jarhead at Camp Lejeune, who is learning discipline, honor, and service, may have little in common with the freshman fraternity pledge at an elite college or university, who may have a radically different idea of fulfillment. I repeat, may have.

Therefore, I propose a new statute: that young men and women who join the armed forces be afforded the rights and responsibilities of the other adults with which they serve, and that these rights supercede state statutory law in this particular 18-20 year old population. Such rights would, of course, not apply to persons not serving in the armed forces; those persons would be subject to the applicable laws of their state.

Any takers?

2006-12-18T18:51:00.000-05:00

"Be what you are, and say what you feel, because those who care don't matter, and those that matter don't care."
--Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)

More Peace

2006-12-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

Getting up early in the morning has its perks. If your life places you squarely in the crosshairs of family, fellow workers, children, and customers or clients, with needs to be filled and questions to be answered, it is inevitable that your power will be drained to low ebb by the end of the day. Why not get out of bed prior to the inevitable onslaught and have some time for reflection? This can be done at the breakfast table with a cup of joe, or even in the woods, if you are a naturalist or deer enthusiast, as you watch the sun come up. Nothing beats the latter, by the way.

A New Iran Thought

2006-12-10T14:02:00.000-05:00

I have discovered an interesting "new" blog. Best I can figure, it is written by the author of "Dilbert", the comic strip depicting the inanities of life in the corporate world. He has a particularly interesting take on the likehood (or not) of nuclear conflict with Iran here.

Peace on Earth

2006-12-09T06:54:00.000-05:00

(This is the text of a talk I presented to Presbyterians recently):

“Glory to God in the Highest, and Peace on earth, good will to men with whom he is pleased.” I believe I was at Davidson when I learned that this was actually a commonly used Roman governmental greeting during the reign of Augustus Caesar, and the gospel writer felt it was appropriate to insert this in the Christmas story. I guess there’s always been politics tied up with religion, especially when it comes to peace, which has always been an elusive quality in the Middle East.

Where does peace begin? The story has it that Will Willimon put a poster on his office door at the seminary program at Duke. The poster shocked his seminary students and faculty alike, and he got plenty of grief for it. It read: “A modest proposal: that Christians not kill other Christians.” The comments he received were, “Are you promoting killing non-Christians?” or simply, “What do you mean by this blasphemy?” He told a student that no, he was not in favor of killing anyone, but that people were killing each other over religious differences in epidemic fashion. Could we start by not killing fellow Christians? At least it’s a start, he said.

This man was saying that peace begins at home. We are a group of Christians rent by division. I have a modest proposal: that we do things together as Presbyterians that promote unity amongst ourselves. I was so frustrated one day at being in such a fractious denomination that I checked the web out for the perfect group of Christians to hang out with, the perfect denomination. I thought, I’ve had enough. I’m going to find the perfect church. You’ll be surprised to find that I could not find a perfect church. There isn’t one.

I did find a neat one, though. This is a denomination that is growing exponentially in participant members, not dying, and is of the Reformed Tradition. It is the Evangelical Covenant Church, a multiethnic denomination started by Swedish immigrants in 1885. They state that they value the Bible as the God’s Word to us; the gift of God’s grace and ever-deepening spiritual life that comes through faith in Jesus Christ, the importance of extending God’s love, justice, and compassion to a hurting world, and the strength that comes from unity within diversity. They describe themselves as: Evangelical, but not exclusive; Biblical, but not doctrinaire; Traditional, but not rigid; Congregational, but not independent. Where they do missions is instructive. They are active in mission projects that you would all be very comfortable with. War-torn Sudan and Congo are principal areas, as well as Darfur. They choose tasks which most thoughtful Christians of any political stripe can agree. For example: genocide is wrong. Conspicuously off their list: Palestine.

It may well be that the Israeli government needs to reform their relations with Palestinians in their midst; in fact, there is very little question about that. But Presbyterians are divided about Israel; most do not support their gifts being spent on field trips by Presbyterian personnel to encourage the Hezbollah organization. Though I may feel led personally to ally with the cause of the Palestinian people, the way to be an activist on their behalf is through effective organizations outside your church, because Christian people within the church cannot agree on these things. That does not mean that your position is not valid; it only means that you will destroy your church through disunity and attrition if you don’t go outside the church to pursue your calling in these matters. There is so much that needs to be done that we do agree on. I believe this was a lesson learned by Simon the Zealot once he met Jesus. Wars will come and go. The kingdom is not of this world. Jesus is interested in personal non-violence, and that begins at home, in our churches, in our denomination.

I don’t think I’m going to join the Evangelical Covenant Church. I learned that their only congregation in this area is clear over in Matthews. I guess I’m stuck with you guys. And you are stuck with me. A pastor here remarked several months ago, “I would like to go to lunch with evangelicals or conservatives, but none will go out with me.” Well, ask me to lunch.

Christ Was No Keynesian

2006-12-03T08:38:00.000-05:00

The Unseen Hand. In the eighteenth century, the famous philosopher Adam Smith described it: the force behind why a man or woman goes to work to actually provide for other people. The baker makes bread to sell to others, and with his money he buys goods from the butcher, and so on it goes. Economic self-interest leads to a stable market system and general prosperity, assuming that the market is a free one.

But why would one try to make a quality product? Why, for example, when I leave my reading glasses in the pocket of my suit coat, don't I get either melted glasses back after the dry cleaning or a stern lecture from the dry cleaner? Why do I rather receive both a nicely dry-cleaned coat and a paper envelope containing my glasses; and why, joyously printed on the envelope do I behold, "Look what we found!" ?

The answer is to be found in that great proto-Smithian philosopher, Jesus Christ, who said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (which, by the way, was a subtle advancement in economic theory over the admonition of one of his teachers Rabbi Hillel, who said "Do not do to others that which is hateful to you"). The deal is this: If you do only that which completes the task asked of you by the customer (or your "neighbor"), you will have fulfilled the letter of the economic law, but not the spirit of excellence. Christ knew that there was an Unseen Hand through which, if everyone did what was in their own interest economically, and in which some also extended an attractive, quality product to others, that the individual's self-interest would lead to a vibrant economy in a in a free market, and the individual's altruism would lead to personal gain (market share): just the reverse of what one would expect.

Toledo Credo

2006-11-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

It feels good to be back! A word of explanation: work has imprisoned me for the past month, so I am only now back, refreshed by Thanksgiving, with time to reflect, which is so necessary to blog about anything. Have you had some time to rest lately? I hope so.

My family and I were in Toledo, Ohio for Thanksgiving break, and had a wonderful, restful time, and saw some excellent 18-and-under USTA indoor tennis. Indoor, because, unlike North Carolina, the closest bordering state was, to the north, Michigan. We were freezing, yet informed that the Toledo residents (Toledors?) were having unseasonably warm temperatures. Folks were unfailingly nice and helpful.

I left feeling a bit concerned for Toledo, and indeed, for the cluster of cities in that area: from Detroit to Fort Wayne; from Cleveland to Flint. Growing up in NC in the 1960's, we considered these cities to be the powerhouse engines in the national economy, and could only aspire to be as prosperous one day. Now the situation is entirely reversed, with the auto industry the engine of reversal. Toledo is a city that, on the face of it, froze around 1980. The buildings are mostly older than that, with no apparent urban renewal. We played in a tennis complex that was ranked as the USTAs finest in 1985, yet has had no apparent remodeling since then. Now, to be fair, the courts themselves were in excellent shape, but it is clear that the people of Toledo have had be smart about exactly where to put their money, whether it be tennis or downtown Toledo, because it is apparent that money is at a premium in the Lake Erie region today, and I can only attribute this to the demise of the American auto industry. If you say, "Don't be a pessimist; the big three can turn it around," I can only point to the smoke-stacks of Fieldcrest-Cannon Mills, the textile giant in my town, which came crashing down through demolition in my area recently, a testament to the flight of textile jobs to the third world. If you don't think the same thing is happening in the auto industry, consider the fact that Walmart may be selling its own line of Chinese cars within five years.

Now, it is a wonderful thing that third-world poor people are becoming third-world auto workers. Isn't this what we in the developed West intend, or did we expect our well-meaning missionaries to continue to perpetuate dependency with hand-outs for another hundred years? Milton Friedman, who left us this week, was right: let capital seek its resting place freely, and we all ultimately benefit.

Yet, we must direct our attention, as a nation, to the people of Lake Erie. Despite the textile debacle, North Carolina (particularly the Charlotte area), is having a growth explosion. The textile industry implosion, however, was just a blip compared to what awaits these proud Midwestern industrial workers. We could fuss at the unions, but no one will remember any of the players once the work is gone. The question is, what will replace the auto industry?

The answer must be technology and growth industries--the new Apples and Microsofts. With the mighty Ann Arbor brain-trust powerhouse nearby at the University of Michigan, a new mega-Research-Triangle-Park is due in this northern Midwestern paradise. Titans of the new American nano-industries: invest here.

A Wonderful New Age in Investigative Journalism

2006-10-16T21:13:00.000-04:00

60 Minutes in the new world: this past week, a black journalist interviews a black professor about white lacrosse players wrongly accused of rape by a black woman, and wrongly accused by a white DA. In the late sixties, when I first remember 60 Minutes, who would have thought it possible? Pretty cool.

Depending on China

2006-10-09T15:59:00.000-04:00

North Korea has almost certainly completed a successful underground nuclear test. If this is so, then the United States is put in a position of depending on the Peoples Republic of China to contain North Korea.

The wild card in this is Japan, which is on the verge of changing their constitution to allow offensive weapons, occasioned by their newfound vulnerability to North Korea's frightening combination of ballistic and nuclear capability within reach of the Japanese mainland.

The North Korean dictator has put Japan in a position not unlike that of Israel vis-a-vis Iran.

China could do the world a favor and de-nuclearize the PRK. But China may be the only country in a position to do so.

Learning from Badness

2006-10-02T20:12:00.000-04:00

The allegations against Representative Foley regarding young male pages in Congress is upsetting. There is nothing good that proceeds from this. If true, he should resign and come to justice, and if other Republican congressmen knew, they should resign.

There is something called circumstantial providence. God's circumstantial will was explored by Leslie Weatherhead, a Scottish pastor in Britain during the Blitz in 1940, when he had to minister to moms that had just lost their young sons, pilots over the skies of Britain bravely fighting the Luftwaffe. How could it be God's will that they die suddenly?

We all know the circumstantial Providence of God through that horror. But what could be the circumstantial Providence in this horror?

Could it be that progressive and Democratic Americans will be able to verbalize, perhaps for the first time, why, regardless of God's mercy, we must all assure that those that sexually abuse our children must not be given clemency, and must be physically removed from society, permanently, for the sake of all our children?

Persian Pearls

2006-09-29T20:55:00.000-04:00

I heard a political science professor from Louisiana speak at Davidson College last night. He is an expert on Iran, and has been there about every year since the revolution, it seems. Some facts that surprised me:

1) Iran is actually more moderate than some surrounding Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia. The professor has noted higher hemlines for the women every year, and their faces no longer are veiled. Surprisingly, President Ahmadinijad passed a law allowing women to attend soccer matches (previously unheard of, with half-naked men running around kicking a ball and all that), so he is not as "conservative" as we have been led to believe (the ayatollah repealed the law). Of course, the President is still a nut case, saying the Holocaust never happened, and that he would wipe Israel off the map. But a moderate nutcase (what the heck does that mean?). The current Ayatollah has consolidated power so that the president now is actually quite weak (which begs the question: why does do the mullahs let him talk to Mike Wallace and scare the capers out of us?)

2) Iran is a young country. After the Iran-Iraq war, the birth rate shot up, and only 18 years ago did the theocracy mandate birth control and population management (odd for an Islamic republic). Hence, Iran is currently experiencing a baby-boom wave. The Islamic leaders are therefore considered old fogeys by the young citizenry, who want--well, they want what young people in the West want. Hence, the government has avoided confrontation caused by stringent cultural control (and the hem lines go up). The last thing the mullahs want to do is create the conditions for a counter-revolution. These young people have been poor all their lives, but they are educated. (One recent contact to this website was from a medical university in Iran). The emphasis on education began before the 1979 revolution, and has continued since, to the credit of the Islamic government.

3) Iran has no ground army to speak of. They were decimated by the Iran-Iraq war, and have never built back up. Presumably, they feel that the deterrant of a nuclear weapon will preclude the expense of a large, expensive conventional force. And, the professor concedes, the chances are somewhere north of 95% that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and is lying that it is not.

4) Should the U.S. or Israel decide to clear out the nuclear facilities with bombing, Iran is able to retaliate by a) turning the heat up in Iraq, perhaps 3-4 times what we are experiencing now; b) international terrorism (including expatriate Americans); but they don't have much they can do to Israel, as was demonstrated in the proxy Hezbollah effort.

It is completely understandable from the Iranian standpoint, the professor notes, that the mullahs want nukes; he seems to suggest that Iran may be more trustworthy with the security of nukes than, for example, Pakistan, but who can really know? It seems self-evident that progressive proliferation will ultimately lead to a bad accident. Hence, America's dilemma.

HIV Prevention: Money Wasted?

2006-09-22T05:38:00.000-04:00

The New England Journal of Medicine this week covers The Toronto International AIDS conference. Bill Gates spoke; he has infused massive money into the world problem. Nevertheless, effective treatment for the millions and millions of affected Africans will cost over $1000 per person per year.

Interestingly, in discussing prevention, abstinence outside of a monogamous relationship is never mentioned as a reasonable education goal within the review. These are supposed to be some of the most intelligent people on the planet, and condoms and barrier methods are still the bulwark of prevention. However, as the Dominican baseball player fictitiously interviewed on Saturday Night Live thirty years ago ruefully confirmed, rubbers break.

Africans living longer with intermittent antiretroviral drugs, as wonderful as that option is for individuals, simply triples and quadruples the time opportunity to spread virus within affected individuals who will now spike viral load at multiple points in their lives rather than die immediately from their disease. Hence, multidrug resistence is inevitable. Changing social behavior on a global basis will not be cured by drugs, but loving, just, religious education. The problem is the secular religion that we all tend toward in educated circles. Our AIDS planning is predicated on our own moral relativism and freedom from sexual restrictions. If we refuse to be bound by such rules, how can we expect to impose the same rules on Africans whom we seek to help?

Relax for a Moment

2006-09-21T18:32:00.000-04:00

Fall is in the air in North Carolina. A lovely nip in the air. It is important to take time out to appreciate simple gifts like a brilliant blue Carolina sky during this particular time in our collective lives when we are weighed down with the worries of the world.

Response to Usual Anti-Iraq War Piece in the Presbyterian Outlook (PCUSA)

2006-09-19T22:11:00.000-04:00

RE: Fearful preachers don't fire at the war elephant
Interesting that Lincoln is proffered as the model here,
presumably to speak against the war in Iraq. In fact, that Republican President led the country to hyperpolarization and death on behalf of the freedom of a little-loved people whom no one considered American citizens. Just prior to his reelection, his popularity had fallen to a point lower than any modern president, and he was only barely reelected because he was the wartime president. To defeat him, the Democratic Party in the United States ran on a platform of ending the war at any cost to bring the young soldiers home, and urged the President to make peace immediately with the enemy, which would have allowed the enemy's freedom-suppressing regime to continue indefinitely. Does this sound familiar? Yet this was 1863, not 2003. Had that war, and its attendant peace movement, gone the way preached then from the Presbyterian pulpit at the Old Laurel Hill Church near my home in North Carolina (and in many pacifist northern Presbyterian churches), my existence here in the Confederate States of America would undoubtedly been far different and darker that it is with the freedom I enjoy today in the United States. Working arm in arm as I do today with the ones of a different complexion would be unthinkable. And my great-greatgrandfather fought for--extending the analogy--the terrorists. As it was, General Sherman's troops ended up carving their initials in the bell tower of the church in Laurel Hill when they commandered it for the night during the violent march down to Atlanta in 1865 (those initials remain there today, a sober reminder). I for one am glad Mr. Lincoln stuck with the program. I trust that his successor will as well.

Helping New Yorkers Rediscover God after 9/11

2006-09-12T06:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was indeed a sad day. I really did not think it would be so. After all, it has been five years; we have become purposeful about repelling the evil forces. The most common emotion for many of us recently is the emotion called "irked": irked at those fellow citizens (whom we also love) who feel we could actually abandon this situation and survive.

But it was a sad day, even for those of us who lost no personal friend or family. It was sad because we had sympathy for those who lost loved ones. I felt particularly heartbroken for those left behind in New York who have lost their faith. "Where was God?" some say. Indeed, as a PBS Frontline special demonstrated last night, one cannot look at Auschwitz or Treblinka survivors and those loved ones left behind in this tragedy and see much difference. It is understandable that many are angry at God in the aftermath. I made the mistake of reading John Shelby Spong's "Sins of the Scripture" this weekend (the first time I have become physically ill after reading any book), and he makes it clear that he has no use for a figuratively male God who is helpless to prevent tragedies such as this one. We cannot understand suffering, but we can accept that we are loved despite our suffering. We can consider that a previously lovely and loved human being, once violently dead, may now be happier than we are. While acknowledging that Bishop Spong must have had an incredibly absent father to come up with the theology he attempts to peddle to us, one that he admits is without God (no theism), we must admit that those left behind have no emotional bank account remaining to let them embrace the God they once knew, even though they must know him differently now, and those of us who are unhurt must help them embrace God again.

If you have friends in NYC, drop them a line this week. They'll appreciate it.

Rememberance at St. Patricks

2006-09-11T06:49:00.000-04:00

My family and I attended St. Patricks Cathedral's morning services in New York yesterday. 9/11 was heavy on the minds of all; the homily was delivered by a theology student who began his study in York on that day; he provided care and sustainence to the workers at the site. Following the service, there was another service, this one an ecumenical service for the firemen. The cathedral was surrounded by firemen in their blue suits and white hats. Today has become a more weighty day than any of us knew it would.

A Plea for Judgement

2006-09-04T13:52:00.000-04:00

Consider this quote from Dorothy Sayers:

“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

Airline travel: spartan travel

2006-08-21T20:33:00.000-04:00

What can you take on a domestic flight now? Not much. According to the Delta website, all baggage must be checked, no liquids may be brought on board, and I conclude it would likely be easiest to fly naked.

On the Other Hand

2006-08-15T19:11:00.000-04:00

The other side: yes, we yearn, the Lebanese yearn, the Israelis yearn, for the ceasefire. Nonetheless, the downside is that Hezbollah regroups, the Iranosyrian pipeline resumes, and we revisit this conflict inevitably. The Israelis, if realistic, bemoan this ceasefire in a way. What sad irony. No win.

The kernel of truth is that Iran fuels the fire; Iran uses the Hezbollah Arabs. Iranian leadership views the Arabs as Hitler viewed the Slavic nations: as slaves of the future.

Only when the United States gets serious about Iran will the fires simmer down. People must live freely; theocratic, fundamentalist government will not permit it. But Iran, since 1979, has never felt the heat for its underwriting terrorism in Lebanon and beyond.

The conservative columnist George Will has his doubts regarding the wisdom of having invaded Iraq. He will be correct only if the American people do not muster the resolve to see this crisis through the years. And it will be years. At least a generation. For Arab and Persian children have been raised to believe this hatred.

Two Fronts

2006-08-14T20:56:00.000-04:00

Ceasefire. It is very welcome. The Mike Wallace 60 Minutes interview with the Iranian president, on the other hand, was very disturbing.

Which begs the question: since Iran has no gasoline refineries, does a blockade of incoming refined petroleum products to Iran, with subsequent economic upheaval and revolution there, trump any other military option that the United States has? Could be.

I Used to Think That I Was Cool

2006-07-28T19:27:00.000-04:00

"Riding around on fossil fuel." Do you remember that James Taylor song? "But then I knew what I was doin' was riding down the road to ruin." A close relative just graced me with Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

Readers of this blog will remember my posting two years ago a recollection that on the Zugspitze, in southern Germany's Alps, I spied a graph kept for decades by the punctilious Germans, not interested in documenting global warming, but just doing what Germans do--document. ("Kann ich seine Papiere sehen, bitte? Danke.") I was disturbed then by a change in the monthly/yearly temperature readings from a flat line to straight up since about 1998. This gave me the first glimmer that global warming is real. I hate taking someone else's word for it, especially tree hugger folk.

I'm not as sure as Preacher Gore, however, that manmade pollutants are the proximate cause of the current upturn, but I don't rule it out. The question is, what do we do? What could we do anyway?

We can do a lot, and all of it deliciously capitalistic. The average cost of a BTU of energy is at an all-time high: high enough to make discovery of cheaper, efficient (and carbon dioxide friendly) energy sources profitable. Hydrogen will be the number one zero greenhouse gas, and the Seven Sisters are working on it. Meanwhile, whatever is going on continues to go on, and Loris, SC may soon be beachfront property, but with China and the developing world at full tilt economically, what we Americans do or don't do in the short term seems tangential at best. Buy a hybrid anyway, just to hedge our bets.

Knowledge: The Physician's Gift to Others

2006-07-09T09:49:00.000-04:00

I was reminded today of a medical mission trip several of us took years ago to a bordertown in Mexico called Reynosa. It is situated opposite McAllen, Texas. On this particular day, a mother brought her child of five to the clinic. Fortunately, our group included a pediatrician to see this child, but any of us could have diagnosed the problem: cerebral palsy. This child had obvious developmental delays, with paralysis and contractures of various limbs. The child was able to smile lovingly to his mother, but communicate little else. The mother asked, in Spanish, when the child would be able to walk and talk. The pediatrician informed her through the interpreter that these things would never happen, and that there was no cure; the boy's brain was damaged at birth, and damaged irreparably. The mother began to weep bitter tears in the clinic, because she had held out hope for many years; hope held falsely because she had no doctor to tell her the truth.

We in the United States take our health care for granted, but did you know that doctors take health care for granted, too? Many doctors spend more than a little of our time berating ourselves because we see patients in the clinic who have chronic diseases for which there is no cure and for which all we can do is attempt therapies which, if we are fortunate, provide only partial relief of symptoms. We feel like fakes, sometimes: able to cure some things, but most of what we see back is what we have been unable to cure, and these cases come back to us in the clinic and hospital over and over precisely because we are impotent to cure.

But doctors sell themselves short. It almost seems that there is a malevolent force in the universe suggesting that we think that way. For the real truth is that, although it is not given to us to cure everything, we forget that one of the most precious items we dispense is information. Knowledge.

It is the knowledge that freed the mother of the little boy with CP: the freedom to stop living long years in a fantasy, and begin the painful process of living with the reality that things would not change, but that through her family, iglesia, friends, and prayer, that she would survive and be strong. We take the imparting of knowledge in this way for granted in this country. No one would imagine such a mother in the United States being long without benefit of this specific but life-affecting information.

We all take medical care for granted. Even doctors do.

Presbyterians as Baptists: Mighty Funky

2006-06-28T21:31:00.000-04:00

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) voted to accept the report of the Peace, Unity, and Purity Task Force of the denomination. Named "peace", because we have none; "unity", because we have none; "purity", because...well...

The task force was faced with the demand from a corner of the church that sexually active gays be ordained into the ministry the church as pastors ("Ministers of the Word and Sacrament.") Such an ordination is contrary to the constitution of the church, which states that fidelity within the bounds of Christian marriage and chastity outside of Christian marriage is required of candidates for ordination to the ministry within the Presbyterian Church. Although not changing the constitution in this regard, the acceptance of the Report of the Task Force is the acceptance of their recommendation that, since we can't all agree that ordination of sexually active gays to the ministry is prohibited, we can however say that if a small group of local Presbyterian churches (a Presbytery) says that a church rule or constitutional clause is "non-essential", well, it may be ignored by that group of churches.

Do you see where the title of this entry comes in? Presbyterians have been "connectional" Christians historically. We govern and discipline each other in matters of doctrine. No more, however: now each local group decides which rule it will obey, like Baptists. This licence/licenciousness applies, really, to any irregular church practice: say, to excluding persons of a certain race from ordination. Or excluding women from ordination. Or excluding liberal Christians from ordination. You see, this sword of non-judgmentalism cuts both ways.

The leaders of the church, in announcing this change in governance to the laity, have proclaimed loudly in the processional remarks that 1) the constitution is not changed; and 2) the General Assembly voted to not split (schism) in reaction to the approval of these recommendations. I don't think it will be that easy. Maybe we can agree in the short-term not to split. But the Task Force and its supporters have sown the seeds of schism because of the new congregational, Baptist-like structure they have imposed on the whole of the Presbyterian Church. In the individual Baptist churches, the people are always one preacher away from catastrophe. Now it is true with the Presbyterians. More to the point, the greater conservative feeling of the laity (versus the clergy) means that renegade churches will have ordination rules and other rules that would make Jerry Falwell blanch. That's right: far from protecting against schism, the Presbyterians have insured the eruption of schismatic, reactionary churches which will be far more numerous than the radical ones. The split, then, when it comes, will be not so much deliberate as accidental.

Don't Neglect Your Friends

2006-06-23T07:32:00.000-04:00

A recent study indicates that Americans, who ten years ago reported that they have, on average, three close friends, now report that they have two close friends. The authors do not speculate on specific causes. I do.

I have (and you have) little doubt that our wired lives have pushed out time for friends. The computer and its spin-off work habits have brought wonderful efficiencies and productivities, and there is hardly an adult whose life is not impacted by this phenomenon. Nonetheless, our workmate/lovemate connection with the computer takes a chunk of our weekly time which I would estimate is the former domain of approximately one close friend.

Friendship takes time. It is its own reward. It is a cornerstone of life together for Christian people (our best writers through the centuries have formalized it into major works: read "Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoffer for a sold-out view of it). Non-Christians would also affirm that there is something essential in our shared life together, and sometimes the friendships between Christians and non-Christians are the most special. It is almost natural law. With the possible exception of e-mail, the computer does nothing to enhance these relationships.

Friend, take time out for a neglected relationship. Sacrifice the computer; master it, and do not let it master you.

Ice Dream

2006-06-19T21:46:00.000-04:00

It's a bit like a dream. I remember, as a teenager, great excitement as our bus full of Presbyterian small-town youth (with Baptist imports like me) were ferried one hundred miles down the straight stretches of U.S. 74, through the wilds of Richmond County and the Jessie Helms-ville of Wingate, NC, to the bright lights of Charlotte, where we shopped for Christmas presents for our families, and did something physical which we could never do at home in the sandhills of North Carolina. We ice-skated. I gazed at the pretty Charlotteans piroetting, then splattered to the ice in my misfit skates.

As a grown-up with little dudes, I took my family from Sanford to Cary, the new megalopolis, in the fall of 1990. A nip was in the air; we wanted to skate. The Cary rink was absolutely packed: young hockey enthusiasts surrounded by ice ballerinas. I have never seen more people packed into one place since. The accents were clipped; other parents, other kids, originally from out of state, now North Carolinians. The entire city of Cary is from out of state. Having fun on the ice.

But this is a dream. I think I had a dream, years ago (or is it deja vu?) that a Raleigh team was playing against the Edmonton Oilers, in the NC State Arena in Raleigh (right beside Cary), with deafening, screaming North Carolinians; with the panel ads surrounding the rink displaying such local names as RBC Centura; could it be? Only a dream. This is, after all, North Carolina.

No dream, baby. We are winning 2-0 as I click the "Publish" button.

Words of Comfort for Beloved Elders

2006-06-10T07:49:00.000-04:00

I have noticed, as a forty-something, that my elders (especially the highly educated ones) are having a very difficult time with the war. I corresponded with such a friend recently thusly:

Dear (friend),

I have enjoyed your heartfelt emails.

I believe that this letter (that each of us received) from (another friend) raises a serious question for those thoughtful, sincere Christians who came of age and adulthood and raising families during the Vietnam conflict (the generation earlier than my generation). You are of this generation, the generation under whose guidance I was raised; indeed, you were a teacher of ours. This question could not have been seriously contemplated, I think, in 1968. But the question remains:

Can we escape from the conclusion that our Lord, the man-God Jesus, willfully chose to die a violent death on behalf of helpless people, and did he not fully understand that his actions would lead to the deaths of innocents? The Christian man who struggled with his own times in the graduate school of 1968 must ultimately answer, forty years later, that surely He did.

Christ and Culture

2006-06-04T18:28:00.000-04:00

I have begun reading Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture (1951). This is a book which was extremely popular among "progressive" (read mainline denominational, bohemian Catholic, and seminarian) Christians at the time, and is a compelling read today. I expect that, when I get done with it, I will be re-convinced that Christ does not necessarily come to the world with my Southern drawl and some of the conceptions and attitudes that I continue to harbor as an evangelical Christian. After all, Jesus, culturally, was an observant Jew, born as one, died as one. He was not raised as a Southern Baptist as I was, and I suspect that at age, say, 20, he might even not be completely at home in the Presbyterian Church (USA). (As a matter of fact, I shudder to think what he might think now, if he were plunked down in the decision-making national General Assembly which occurs this month. Would he, for example, cotton to another field trip to the Hezbollah in Lebanon? Oy veh!)

I am convinced, however, that he is somehow tied up, in an essential way, in all these funky ways we group up within our different cultures and understand his message. I happen to believe that the secular social justice work that the liberal Christians feel called to do, and the frankly proselytory work that American evangelicals espouse and couple with assistance to the poor in the world, can both be done right if the focus of both groups is the God-man. Also, I wonder whether, for the woman or man who cannot understand why this man of two thousand years ago has anything to do with one's forever future, one or the other of these groups may offer the salve of comfort to the godless psyche that lasts a lifetime and perhaps beyond. I wonder this even while both Christian groups look at each other as if the other was a creation of the dark side. Both see the other as a threat to themselves, when each bears the mark of its maker with a different set of missions to accomplish. It is both pathetic and hilarious.

I worry, however, about the progressive ones today. The same Presbyterians who a hundred years ago were all about establishing fertile ground for Christians to flourish in places like the Sudan (now experiencing horror under the Muslim government). By the way, lest anyone doubt it, God loves Muslims, and this is evident in that there are more Muslims in America than Presbyterians, who are now shrinking in number: less than half than in 1965. Does God love those groups more who are more populous? By definition: if He loves us all individually the same, and there are more of them, why, he loves them more!

One problem in Christian progressive thinking today is political correctness and sin: only white orthodox Christians can commit sin, not Muslims or any other group. The East African Presbyterian Church, which American Presbyterians established, is now twice as large as the shrinking American Presbyterians, and they are engaging in mission efforts here, much as the Anglican African archbishops are receiving American Episcopal churches. Actually, this is kind of cool. I always felt uncomfortable with the idea of white people bringing enlightenment to the black world, and turnaround is fair play. Nevertheless, I feel very sad indeed for my Presbyterian "sisteren and bretheren." Will Presbyterians truly be extinct one day? Time will tell, but given the history of the Christian Church, the only group that has grown through the ages is the one with the most objective, historical sins on its shoulders: the Catholic Church. Perversely, that thought should give Protestant Christians hope for the future: cultures change, but the living community of Christ lives and moves on, made up of selfish slobs and worse, and yet we are loved by unseen hands.

Start Your Engines, North Carolina

2006-05-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

All the things I missed yesterday. Regis and Kellie broadcasting live from the Speedway in Concord (not Charlotte: let me dispel that confusion); and the world premiere of the antimated Pixar movie "Cars", with Owen Wilson and Paul Newman (both of whom are in the Concord/Charlotte area this weekend.
And to think I spent the day at work.

For a history of NASCAR, check this out from a spell back.

The Cola Cola 600 is here tommorrow. I have never been to a race, but grew up 20 miles from the Rockingham Speedway, and am thankful for all that racing does for our economy.

They're Not the Only Ones that Think That Way

2006-05-26T19:35:00.000-04:00

World Islamic scholar and Princeton professor emeritus Bernard Lewis, in The Crisis of Islam (Random House, 2003), regarding mistakes that the United States has made in the Middle East in decades past:

"Different groups in the (Middle East) region drew two lessons from these events--one, that the Americans were willing to use both force and intrigue to install or restore their puppet rulers in Middle Eastern countries; the other, that they were not reliable patrons when these puppets werer seriously attacked by their own people, and would simply abandon them. The one evoked hatred, the other contempt--a dangerous combination. Clearly, something deeper is involved than these specific grievances, numerous and important as they may be, something deeper which turns every disagreement into a problem and makes every problem insoluble. What we confront now is not just a complaint about one or another American policy but rather a rejection and condemnation, at once angry and contemptuous of all that America is seen to represent in the modern world."

Remarkably (and disturbingly), the "something deeper" attitude that Professor Lewis describes among Muslim extremists also characterizes a large group of Americans who tend to be the largely weak-minded, congenitally affluent, guilty following of American univerity intelligentsia.

Posse Comitatus

2006-05-21T07:53:00.000-04:00

May the National Guard apprehend illegals at the border? They can provide support to the police, but according to posse comitatus, no, they cannot arrest civilians.

What is posse comitatus? According to USDOJ & Government Watch , the law "was championed by far-sighted Southern lawmakers in 1878. They had experienced a fifteen year military occupation by the US Army in post-Civil War law enforcement. They understood the heel of a jackboot. In a nutshell, this act bans the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from participating in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on U.S. soil. The Coast Guard and National Guard troops under the control of state governors are excluded from the act."

Here is the law as it is on the books:

20 Stat. L., 145

June 18, 1878

CHAP. 263 - An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, and for other purposes.

SEC. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section And any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.

10 U.S.C. (United States Code) 375

Sec. 375. Restriction on direct participation by military personnel:

The Secretary of Defense shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to ensure that any activity (including the provision of any equipment or facility or the assignment or detail of any personnel) under this chapter does not include or permit direct participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.

18 U.S.C. 1385

Sec. 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of
Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to
execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

My question, then, is: since illegals are not citizens of the United States, and since the national guard is charged with defense of the borders of the United States, and since illegals at the border are defacto "invading forces," does this change the equation? What are your thoughts?

No Easy Solution for POW Camps

2006-05-20T15:34:00.000-04:00

Berlin: UN commission has called for the closing of Guantanamo Bay, saying that the fact that it is a POW camp de facto makes it a place of torture.

We can make the same argument, of course, about the environment of death row inmates. The idea that enforced confinement commonly leads to or exacerbates mental illness is well established.

What, then, do we do with those who have decided to kill others through terrorism or other acts of war? What other place is appropriate? Longing for the perfect world will not make it different; these are hard tasks in front of us.

Happy Mother's Day

2006-05-14T16:33:00.000-04:00

Have you ever meditated on the tabloid-type message implied in one of the Ten Commandments? You know the one I'm talking about. Imagine an article in the National Explainer with this headline: "Study Shows that Children Who Respect and Care for Parents Live Longer." Yet that is what the writer of the Pentateuch suggests that God writes as law for Moses to take to the people of Israel. Here it is: Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you (Exodus 20:12, RSV).

Two Christian traditions might look in this differently. For example, my native evangelical tradition says, simply, after reading this command: "This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God." In other words, that God himself promises that we are likely to live longer if we honor our parents. But I would argue that the liberal Christians with whom I am now given to hang around with for an equal part of my time would agree. Using the historical-critical method of studying these dusty Hebrew texts, they would duly note that the human author of the commandment, speaking for God, noted empirically in his world that persons who cared not for their parents were generally dysfunctional and cared not for themselves, either, putting themselves at risk for disease, death, and destruction. The fact that some parents bring this on themselves by their own decisions with regards to their children does not diminish this conclusion one bit.

My mother always loved me sacrificially, so it is easy to love her back. But what if your mother is not so lovable, for reasons that have burdened you for years? If so, what's wrong with loving your mother, even if she is unloveable? It may save your life. What do you have to lose? Who knows--you may even find out what God is like in the process.

You Are A Potential Soldier

2006-05-07T19:54:00.000-04:00

George Will in the Washington Post this week reviews the excellent and essential "United 93." He includes this quote from almost one hundred years ago from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr.:

"In this snug, over-safe corner of the world . . . we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world, and in order that we may be ready for danger. . . . Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism."

PGA Golf in Charlotte This Week

2006-05-06T07:22:00.000-04:00

At the Wachovia Championship in nearby Charlotte, held at Quail Hollow C. C., Vijay Singh made 5 birdies in 7 holes, from number 2 to number 8, yesterday. I am not able to go this year, but from my observations over the past three years, my opinion of the conditions of the course from the perspective of both players and spectators is that this event is second only to the Masters in beauty and spectacle. My credentials are only that I am a country boy who grew up 25 minutes from Pinehurst.

Movie to Watch

2006-05-02T15:52:00.000-04:00

Way at the top of a green mountain at Pepperdine University lies a beautiful memorial to Tom Burnett, one of Pepperdine's most beloved alumni. Watch "United 93" at your local theater and find out why. This movie should be seen by every adult American citizen, and is a transforming experience.

Church-Affiliated Colleges: Not a Black or White Issue

2006-04-30T17:50:00.000-04:00

There is a tendency for all of us to want to categorize things. It makes it easier for us to use them if we can sort them into categories. People, however, are not things to be used and cannot be objectified anyway, given the extraordinary complexity of our fellow sibs on this big ball called Earth. To be sure, then, colleges which are affiliated with churches defy this categorization, much as we may wish to do so.

To wit: Compare the examples of Davidson College (where I am enjoying my 25th alumni reunion this weekend) and Pepperdine College (where I visited recently). Davidson is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), and Pepperdine is affiliated with the Church of Christ (not to be confused with the United Church of Christ). Davidson's church affiliations have weakened recently with the removal of the requirement that trustees be Christian, and the many of the speakers on campus have a decidedly leftward bent. On the other hand, Davidson is the alma mater of the new press secretary for the President, Tony Snow; was the venue for a recent lecture by William Kristol; and, finally, is the alma mater of people like--me. It is even declarifying to call the sponsoring church, the PCUSA, a "liberal" church, because those characteristics commonly associated with modern American liberalism are prevalent only in the majority of the ministers, not necessarily in the majority of the laity.

Pepperdine, on the other hand, is unabashedly Christian in its worldview; to wit, it begins orientation for prospective students in the chapel. It has a unique credit system for attending colloquial lectures and programs on campus dealing with comparative religion, Christian spirituality, and ethics. It has a week-long mini-college for alumni and friends of the University to attend each year which is self-evidently Christian in orientation. It informs prospective students and their parents that students of all faiths or of no faith are welcome at Pepperdine, and that a Christian worldview will be presented, without requirement for agreement or proselytory acceptance.

Clearly, these are two very different Christian institutions of higher learning. But generalizations may not be made. Consider these two scriptural quotes, one found the common student space of each college. The textbook selections at Pepperdine's student bookstore reflect the spirit of free inquiry found at Davidson, plus a healthy dose of evangelical spirit. Imperatives to social justice would not necessarily be expected to be posted prominently at Pepperdine. Yet, when trays are returned in Pepperdine's dining hall, the student cannot help but read these words posted on a panoramic plaque: "For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required; and of him to whom men entrust much, they will require and demand all the more (Luke 12:48).

And at Davidson, in the beautiful Alvarez student union building in which the students love to congregate; in the institution I love which seems at times to believe that human knowledge is the god that shapes our religion; on the wall at which I look now is mounted a different plaque which the student can but only read as they pass out the door towards the classroom buildings:

"Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24)."

Someone is thinking outside the box in both of these wonderful places.

Wish It Would Go Away

2006-04-29T02:07:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all for typo correction.

In truth, I wish the entire Middle East situation was a typo correction. I think that most of us cringe to think of "worse-ness" there; we all wish it would just go away. I am no different than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in 1938, on the brink of war with another force, who wished aloud on the radio: "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing." It was a bummer then, and it is a bummer now.

It's Not the Economy, Stupid

2006-04-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

The presidential election of 2008 will be especially fascinating in that there will be no presidential or even vice-presidential incumbant running.

The other interesting (and compelling) aspect is what the election will NOT be about. It will not be about the economy alone this time. It will not even be about the energy upheavals.

The election will be about whether the United States invades Iran or not. Nuclear capabilities in Iran are imminent. The Iranian regime has declared itself to be about the destruction of Israel. Israel will be virtually certain to take out nuclear weapon capability there before it becomes functional; this is dictated by their history as a nation. The United States will not wish to permit Israel to take such a step unilaterally, and will certainly have great misgivings about being a partner with Israel in such an operation.

Yet Israel, given its history, will insist on defending itself, through with the concession that it will refrain from unilaterally disabling Iran unless the United States acts jointly and preemptively, either with Israel or without. The United States defense strategists know that strategic bombing of selected nuclear sites in Iran would be only a temporary setback to the Iranian regime, and would inflame the passions of the regime and segments of the population. Therefore, the United States will ultimately feel compelled to act in this operation: with or without Israel, and almost certainly without (remember the first Gulf war? Why did Israel not retaliate when the Scud missles were raining down upon their cities? There is a very good reason, and both Israel and everyone else in the Middle East knows it).

In addition, United States military strategists have projected that a draft must be implemented no less than three years in advance of an invasion to bring ground forces up to strength. Coincidentally, the estimate is that Iran will have functional nuclear weapons in three to ten years.

When all of these facts are considered together, it is clear that President Bush will not be the president to send the United States into war against Iraq, but that there is a high likelihood that he will take steps to augment the military over his last two years in office, possibly including a draft, so that his successor will have to make the decision whether to invade or to stand down. Military leaders in general do not like the type of armed force they receive in a draft, because of the lack of selectivity of the recruits, and obviously a draft is not popular with the public unless the citizenry is 100% sold out on the goal of toppling a regime. One of the options is that the President would increase pay dramatically for enlisted persons, perhaps including a significant early pension receivable upon honorable discharge from the military, over and above current benefits.

In any event, count on the next presidential election centering on the question of whether Iran must be invaded.

Home Girl

2006-04-20T11:01:00.000-04:00

I noted with great interest this morning the survival of Kellie Pickler on American Idol. She is likely of the same genetic stock as me, grew up in Albemarle in Stanley County, North Carolina, which is an hour's drive both from my birthplace and also from where I currently live and work. When you listen to her on television, you are listening to what my aunts and uncles and grandparents sounded like, at least on one side of my family. The major difference between someone like me and someone like her is a world of education, and nothing else. You must know that any ability to reason that you have learned and every precision of diction you possess is a gift, and has nothing--nothing to do with your worth as a person.

In Kellie's case, little education and great disadvantage was her handicap--and her gift. By report, she had little paternal support in growing up, and no visible means of support. She had great hunger to make this happen, which I would have never had. I think she had grandparents who loved her very much--grandparents are so often the saving grace for so many in this world.

The testament to the the spark of her appeal (not her looks) is the reaction of most of America to her survival after her self-admitted "I butchered it" on an old standard song earlier this week. She was--astonishingly--granted a reprieve, and a contestent who actually performed better was cut. Was this because of her looks? No way. Had her personality--which is not dependent on pronouncing the word "salmon"--been any different, she would be gone.

Those of us from down here who spend a lifetime trying to flatten their accent should take heart: be who you are. That's who you were meant to be, and the maker of your life knows better than you.

Recently I saw the fantastic Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA; home of the Oscars and site of the finals of the American Idol competition. Now I am beginning to wonder: will Kellie be there? You never know.

The Big Apple

2006-04-09T05:30:00.000-04:00

Last week I spoke at a meeting in Long Island, and had an opportunity to speak with several twenty- and thirty-something New Yorkers about living in the greater New York Area. I had three surprises. The first was that all said that owning one's own home in Long Island was out of the reach of middle-income people, and that therefore they rented. The second was that parents, who had lived their all their lives and owned their own homes, were paying upwards of twelve thousand dollars a year for property taxes for small, Archie-Bunker-style homes, and were now considering moving out of the area.

The third surprise was that they are all coming here. That is, to North Carolina. Half of these folks either had relatives or friends who were moving down here, or were contemplating coming themselves. The proceeds from the small houses on postage stamp lots there buy mansions here.

I would not bet more than a cup of coffee on any prediction I make, but here's one: when the middle-class cannot afford their own homes in New York City, we will soon face a demographic and economic implosion there, led by collapsing real estate prices. The twin prediction is that the New South has not stopped booming, but rather, it has only begun, with mammoth-proportion growth to come soon.

Frederick Buechner

2006-04-07T06:16:00.000-04:00

I heard Frederick Buechner this week on the Diane Reames Show on NPR. This unusual man, an ordained Presbyterian minister, is about my dad's age, around 80. He has been a New York writer most of his career. His writing in recent years has been of a devotional nature, and he is the darling of the Christian Left in the sense of spiritual energizer. Certainly he is no politicizer, in the vein of liberal Christians such as, for example, Bishop Spong. But he has something in common with high-profile Christian clergy of extreme positions, such as Spong, or even Jerry Falwell: His father was a spiritually-absent alcoholic. In the case of Buechner, his father committed suicide after vocational failure. Moreover, Buechner describes his mother as a daughter of a rich family, and describes her as self-centered, needy to the point of taking away from him any growing-up-adolescent period that many of us take for granted, for both us and our children, in this life. More and more I have learned that these people are children of God whom He likely loves especially because of their impairments for which they are in no wise responsible. They are, however, in no way infallible or even reliable guides on our spiritual journeys.

I have read some of Buechner's devotional work. It is perfect for reading while drinking a cup of steaming chai on a cold, dreary day. It is the type of introspective, contemplative work which makes me feel good when I read it, although I am quite cognizant that I don't always need to feel good, but I do always need to think well, especially when it comes to Christian duty. Buechner freely admits that he hardly ever goes to church anymore, and in the interview, put the blame on the preachers, no longer interesting because they are trapped by the world's cares in the form of church administration so that they can no longer preach effectively. He feels he doesn't need the church, although he admits he owes much to the church. For such an eloquent man, I find his reasoning most disingenious. He strikes me as one who is unwilling to advocate for others or himself the hard work of picking up one's cross and carrying it.

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers is much less satisfying devotional reading from a confort standpoint, written as it was by a British preacher in 1911. Don't read it if you want to be popular with everyone: for example, it is a daily read of George W. Bush. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship is no picnic, and living by its precepts could literally be lethal. But these are the types of places I find authentic Christianity--faith which is not always easy.