Get Thee to the Bookroom!
"To the bookroom!" I call to my dog, like Batman to Robin, and he complies by immediately lying flat and breathing condensation against its wood floor.
I'm in what the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus called the "sanitarium of the soul", referring to Ramses II's "House of Books" and not my humbler replication. Ramses was no hero outside his book room since he was likely the Egyptian Pharaoh that Moses dispensed with, at least according to my handsome set of Funk & Wagnall's vintage 1948 (which, when consulted, reminds me of how I'd like to have encyclopedias from around the turn of the century).
Ramses lived in the 13th century B.C. and his birth and death dates appear chronologically flipped, as all B.C. lifespans do. It occurs to me that he had no idea that centuries later his death would be regarded numerically as a movement towards someone else's birth rather than a movement away from his own. The story of mankind in a nutshell.
So, under climatically perfect conditions (that is fall/winter officially sprung and a weekend free of family gatherings) I struggle against my only foe, somnolence, in the comfortable library recliner. I start off with a heap of "The Education of Henry Adams", who is presently dissing his Harvard (non)-education. After a pleasant couple hours it's on to a selection of Andrew Greeley's "The Jesus Myth", who is wearily hectoring (I feel like a marathoner with someone on the sidelines yelling 'run! faster!'), and afterwards a dollop of Billy Collins' sympathetic poetry followed by some of Robert Hugh Benson's "The Friendship of Christ" after a long toke from Joseph O'Neill's Manhattan novel. So many books, so little time...
November 07, 2008
Bob McCain & John Dole
Fueled by the cheap adrenalin of the election, I was like the junkie inserting the needle of politics such that even the skin in the fitness center went unnoticed: "He'd be a good man if there was an election held every day." Yet it had played out with enough inevitability that it seemed McCain was phoning it in, at least until Palin and even there there was a hint of Bob Dole; I recall the latter reaching out to the base with the then exciting Jack Kemp, the young tax-cutting star with a full head of hair. The Republican playbook was predictable this year to the point of parody when McCain went on Saturday Night Live in order to appeal to the grandkids as a cuddly elder statesman. I see erectile dysfunction ads in the senator’s future.
Maybe part of it was that the Republicans in general and McCain in particular felt they should lose, because of their weak governance combined with the historic aspect of a potential first black president. It would be bad form not to let the younger fella win, especially if you don’t think the results would be all that horrible. Which I think is what McCain thought. He never gave off a sense of urgency or appeared too concerned about an Obama presidency.
I’m told that major league baseball players see winning the pennant as more important than winning the Series. Their fans feel quite differently, or at least I did. I thought of second place as a bigger tragedy than fourth. But the players themselves are playing mostly for pride and that pride is mostly influenced by playing against those they know, within their own league. “Just to get to the World Series is enough,” they say. It’s personal in the playoffs. The Series guarantees the white hot spotlight and that's enough. I got something of the same vibe with McCain, for whom the Republican primary was his pennant win.
Fueled by the cheap adrenalin of the election, I was like the junkie inserting the needle of politics such that even the skin in the fitness center went unnoticed: "He'd be a good man if there was an election held every day." Yet it had played out with enough inevitability that it seemed McCain was phoning it in, at least until Palin and even there there was a hint of Bob Dole; I recall the latter reaching out to the base with the then exciting Jack Kemp, the young tax-cutting star with a full head of hair. The Republican playbook was predictable this year to the point of parody when McCain went on Saturday Night Live in order to appeal to the grandkids as a cuddly elder statesman. I see erectile dysfunction ads in the senator’s future.
Maybe part of it was that the Republicans in general and McCain in particular felt they should lose, because of their weak governance combined with the historic aspect of a potential first black president. It would be bad form not to let the younger fella win, especially if you don’t think the results would be all that horrible. Which I think is what McCain thought. He never gave off a sense of urgency or appeared too concerned about an Obama presidency.
I’m told that major league baseball players see winning the pennant as more important than winning the Series. Their fans feel quite differently, or at least I did. I thought of second place as a bigger tragedy than fourth. But the players themselves are playing mostly for pride and that pride is mostly influenced by playing against those they know, within their own league. “Just to get to the World Series is enough,” they say. It’s personal in the playoffs. The Series guarantees the white hot spotlight and that's enough. I got something of the same vibe with McCain, for whom the Republican primary was his pennant win.
Week in ReviewSo Tuesday was the big kahuna day and I was rather relieved it was over so soon: “If it twere done, let it be done quickly.” Ohio ended it for McCain, proving wrong some blognosticator who thought the polls incorrect. (I thought they were wrong but in the other direction – I thought more young people would vote.)
On Wednesday came the welcome distraction of water aerobics and given the two week interval I felt like a knife through butter. No more Humphrey Bogart in the “African Queen”, the resistance of the water seemed slight as I sluiced and churned. The clock burned slow only during the first 15 minutes while I still lived in the mind. Words having such power over me that I half-memorized the pool rules over the repetitive laps: “No open wounds,” it declared memorably.
Both Wednesday and Thursday were Indian summer days and had a “last possible” aspect to them. The street afire with fall colors, I spent some time on the back porch reading a biography of Flannery O’Connor while our gallant fence held back winter like a castle wall in Eire. She’s just getting sick now, with the lupus that would eventually kill her. It seemed she had the strong character capable of enduring sickness before she'd gotten sick, in the tradition of the maxim that God never gives us more than we can handle, though I also wondered if it was because she had a strong character that she'd gotten sick, in "only the good die young" fashion. In other words, did God make her strong to endure the sickness or was the sickness brought on because she was strong?
It’s hard to properly appreciate these warm days since they feel like such anomalies. They feel somehow false in their non-seasonal temperatures, or at least profoundly temporal. Like "Fool's Gold".
Thursday after work I had an appointment to get the picture for what I call the parish yearbook but is officially known as the parish directory. The lady administrating it is about my age though still having what looked to me an ‘80s haircut. It might've been nostalgic.
I was irritated that I was irritated about this errand, such a minor thing to get your picture taken and yet it felt like an inconvenience. It was inconvenient because it was optional. That which is not optional is rarely inconvenient. The ‘80s gal said I didn’t have to wait around to choose a picture, so I gladly jumped bail and headed out, telling her jokingly that I would hold her responsible if I didn’t like the picture she chose. The next day I would learn that my signature was required to allow publication and I would have to come back. Ay-yi-yi. Bureaucracy we shall always have with us.
Later watched an old episode of ‘Sixty Minutes’ that reported on two brothers intent on suicide. They are bullfighters in Spain aching towards self-knowledge, that is a knowledge of their limits, where the final limit is death in the ring. Despite numerous gores and close calls the elder brother put off his planned retirement for at least another year.
Because their father died in a bullfight their mother had tried to protect them by sending them to the U.S. for school. It backfired; eventually the baptism in their blood proved too strong. The elder brother said that the draw of bullfighting is that he learns more about himself and that it was in drawing close to death that he feels most alive.
Sarah, Gee
The thing I worried about from the get-go was that McCain was bringing up a political phenom too early. How much it will hurt her future career is hard to tell. Geraldo Riveria thinks she'll never recover from the Tiny Fey impersonation, and it would seem that hers was a polarizing introduction.
Obama, with a similar lack of experience, was introduced favorably and only gradually became more of a polarizing figure (although it's obviously still unclear how he'll govern). It was fortunate for him that he had that gentle introduction aided by a favorable media.
Political fortunes are tough to read since there's a lot of luck and timing involved. Since style is something Americans like to alternate in successive administrations, it's quite possible that after four years of the cool and unflappable Barack Obama, America will be ready for the hot (in the telegenic sense) and energetic Sarah Palin. I don't know what's true about what she knows or doesn't know, but given her native intelligence I wouldn't hold it against her if government schools let her down. The same lib establishment that protects bad teachers and disdains school accountability is the one looking down upon someone who, in the service of making the world a better place, hasn't had the lesiure to become an autodidact.
The thing I worried about from the get-go was that McCain was bringing up a political phenom too early. How much it will hurt her future career is hard to tell. Geraldo Riveria thinks she'll never recover from the Tiny Fey impersonation, and it would seem that hers was a polarizing introduction.
Obama, with a similar lack of experience, was introduced favorably and only gradually became more of a polarizing figure (although it's obviously still unclear how he'll govern). It was fortunate for him that he had that gentle introduction aided by a favorable media.
Political fortunes are tough to read since there's a lot of luck and timing involved. Since style is something Americans like to alternate in successive administrations, it's quite possible that after four years of the cool and unflappable Barack Obama, America will be ready for the hot (in the telegenic sense) and energetic Sarah Palin. I don't know what's true about what she knows or doesn't know, but given her native intelligence I wouldn't hold it against her if government schools let her down. The same lib establishment that protects bad teachers and disdains school accountability is the one looking down upon someone who, in the service of making the world a better place, hasn't had the lesiure to become an autodidact.
Interview with René Girard...
...at First Things:
...at First Things:
I think the most influential aspect of my work is to show that Judaism and Christianity exist in a continuity with archaic religions. I am fundamentally an anthropologist and a rationalist. What I say is that human societies are very different from what specialists call “animal society” because the former have religion. In archaic society religion and culture are absolutely one, even when they don’t seem to be. Religion, therefore, is a way that human beings learn, without realizing it, how to deal with violence in their midst. Here, sacrifice comes in as the killing of substitute victims. This phenomenon as a scientific entity should be explained in purely anthropological terms. It takes no religious conviction to be understood. It is a complete revolution in the way that even people unfavorable to religion understand archaic religion; to show that they are absolutely indispensable to the survival of man is a very important thing.
In a way, Christianity is the end of archaic religions because it reveals that the victim is innocent. When you understand Christianity correctly in its closeness and distance from archaic religion it is the same structure, the scapegoat phenomenon, that Jesus is victim of. Yet the text is intended to destroy your belief in scapegoat phenomenon instead of using it in order to have sacrifices. The relationship is very central and rational with all archaic religions in the past that may go back tens of thousands of years. This is very important.
Reason #178,119 I Would be a Poor Politician:
They have to respond to the same questions over and over.
Witness my daily slog to the cafeteria in which your correspondent carries not only fatigue (from the tsunmami of politics and the haunting notion that I may miss something) but a homemade cast for my right wrist, the result of an injury that occurred when your correspondent showed off his ability to perform a cartwheel to his disbelieving daughter-in-law ex-gymnast.
"What happened?" is the natural question at work, but it quickly became something I lost interest in answering, the novelty having worn off. The novelty of the message of a politician must never wear off for the politician, lest his answer seems canned and inauthentic.
And so to the cafe I go where I draw attention to myself buying a huge amount of semi-subsidized food. (We don't cook anymore, but rather I bring home dinner from the work cafeteria.) The quantity of food draws many "Are you hungry?" comments, many spoken by those who think they were the first to come up with this.
They have to respond to the same questions over and over.
Witness my daily slog to the cafeteria in which your correspondent carries not only fatigue (from the tsunmami of politics and the haunting notion that I may miss something) but a homemade cast for my right wrist, the result of an injury that occurred when your correspondent showed off his ability to perform a cartwheel to his disbelieving daughter-in-law ex-gymnast.
"What happened?" is the natural question at work, but it quickly became something I lost interest in answering, the novelty having worn off. The novelty of the message of a politician must never wear off for the politician, lest his answer seems canned and inauthentic.
And so to the cafe I go where I draw attention to myself buying a huge amount of semi-subsidized food. (We don't cook anymore, but rather I bring home dinner from the work cafeteria.) The quantity of food draws many "Are you hungry?" comments, many spoken by those who think they were the first to come up with this.
Blind-sided by Reverse Racism
I'm beginning to think whites are usually the last to know when there's a racial problem. While we know of lingering black resentment, we had no idea it was as bad as it was (given the anti-white sermons from Rev. Wright that were occurring there and in many other black churches). I didn't think Mexican-Americans felt similarly, but read Bill Luse's post and weep.
Does it help not to acknowledge this or pretend it doesn't exist? Or is it better to expose it and try to eradicate it through education as the multicultural left has done with much success during the last 40 years concerning prejudice against blacks?
You can say that what goes around comes around and that it's karma and all that, but most whites weren't around during the Jim Crow laws. It now seems quite possible that widespread racism, in this case against whites, is alive and well. The one good thing about the Obama presidency is it will reassure African-Americans who are of good will that Rev. Wright is Rev. Wrong.
I'm beginning to think whites are usually the last to know when there's a racial problem. While we know of lingering black resentment, we had no idea it was as bad as it was (given the anti-white sermons from Rev. Wright that were occurring there and in many other black churches). I didn't think Mexican-Americans felt similarly, but read Bill Luse's post and weep.
Does it help not to acknowledge this or pretend it doesn't exist? Or is it better to expose it and try to eradicate it through education as the multicultural left has done with much success during the last 40 years concerning prejudice against blacks?
You can say that what goes around comes around and that it's karma and all that, but most whites weren't around during the Jim Crow laws. It now seems quite possible that widespread racism, in this case against whites, is alive and well. The one good thing about the Obama presidency is it will reassure African-Americans who are of good will that Rev. Wright is Rev. Wrong.
November 06, 2008
No Honor Among Some McCain Staffers
It's interesing to me that John McCain ran on his honor and, for good or ill, seemed to pull his punches in what turned out to be a rather muted campaign against Obama. His motives were likely good (though one can't know if he ran the campaign he did simply to protect his reputation in the Senate) but it's interesting that his sense of honor didn't extend to the point of protecting the reputation of Sarah Palin, a political newbie on the D.C. scene. From Byron York on The Corner:
It's interesing to me that John McCain ran on his honor and, for good or ill, seemed to pull his punches in what turned out to be a rather muted campaign against Obama. His motives were likely good (though one can't know if he ran the campaign he did simply to protect his reputation in the Senate) but it's interesting that his sense of honor didn't extend to the point of protecting the reputation of Sarah Palin, a political newbie on the D.C. scene. From Byron York on The Corner:
The question here is not whether Palin was a good or a bad choice for vice president. Reasonable people disagree on that one. It's about the character of the McCain campaign. There is no doubt that it included some fine people who, whatever their opinions, wouldn't be involved in this kind of behavior. But it also, obviously, included some who would. John McCain ran for president, to some large degree, on the character he had displayed throughout his life. Not so for some of those around him.
November 05, 2008
From the Corner & Elsewhere
Mark Steyn is his usual humorous self:
Pondering Peggy (Noonan)
Mark Steyn is his usual humorous self:
Just to be clear: I'm not indulging in the same somewhat moist-eyed congratulations as some of our colleagues. I extend my congratulations mainly in the same sense that elderly British veterans of my acquaintance like to express their admiration of the marvelously innovative ways their Japanese captors found to torture them. The President-elect ran rings round our side, and found many novel ways to torture us.And from Richard Brookhiser:
Suggested Reading...To understand what many of the winners are feeling. (William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book XI)
O pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, us who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven! O times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!....
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole Earth,
The beauty wore of promise—that which sets
(As at some moments might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of Paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!....
[Men]
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia,—subterranean fields,—
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,—the place where, in the end,
We find our happiness, or not at all!
Pondering Peggy (Noonan)
R. Reno on First Things today...
A Republican may protest that income inequality is not a problem, but, when enough voters are energized by the issue, then by definition it has become a problem—a political problem. The same holds for medical care, the cost of education, home prices, and the fate of the perpetually unemployed and unemployable. A free-market theorist can explain how markets provide the most efficient approach to these social problems, but the body politic does not always want efficiency.
So let’s set aside the arguments for free-market capitalism based on claims about its efficiencies and capacity to produce wealth. I want to focus on some moral arguments for free-market capitalism, so that we can more fully and intelligently participate in the growing call for a reassessment of our economic system...
Let's Start a Third Party! (Not!)
Well I sure wish that Barack Obama, back in the mid-'90s, had decided that the Democrat party had gotten too conservative. I wish he would've said, after welfare was cut drastically back and Clinton had said that the 'era of big government is over': "I've had it. I'm going to start my own third party. The Democratic party has taken the black vote for granted for far too long."
Because if he had, we wouldn't be facing a Barack Obama presidency today.
(Btw, it's been nice to see the elated reactions of black Americans over the age of 50 - those who had experienced systemic, structural racism in their lifetimes. They got to see a black president elected and that's the one good thing in all this.)
Martin Luther King Jr. showed the way to effective evangelization in a political setting. He didn't start a third party. He marched, he protested, he prayed, he preached. And eventually one of the major parties, the Democrats, listened.
But I realize that the way the world usually works is the major parties lose their most ardent people because those folks see the gulf between their beliefs and a major party and see that gulf as too big to bridge.
That's not to say that we shouldn't use our votes to protest. John McCain wouldn't have received my vote had he nominated a pro-choice running mate, nor would I have voted for Giuliani. I suppose everyone has to draw their own lines.
Well I sure wish that Barack Obama, back in the mid-'90s, had decided that the Democrat party had gotten too conservative. I wish he would've said, after welfare was cut drastically back and Clinton had said that the 'era of big government is over': "I've had it. I'm going to start my own third party. The Democratic party has taken the black vote for granted for far too long."
Because if he had, we wouldn't be facing a Barack Obama presidency today.
(Btw, it's been nice to see the elated reactions of black Americans over the age of 50 - those who had experienced systemic, structural racism in their lifetimes. They got to see a black president elected and that's the one good thing in all this.)
Martin Luther King Jr. showed the way to effective evangelization in a political setting. He didn't start a third party. He marched, he protested, he prayed, he preached. And eventually one of the major parties, the Democrats, listened.
But I realize that the way the world usually works is the major parties lose their most ardent people because those folks see the gulf between their beliefs and a major party and see that gulf as too big to bridge.
That's not to say that we shouldn't use our votes to protest. John McCain wouldn't have received my vote had he nominated a pro-choice running mate, nor would I have voted for Giuliani. I suppose everyone has to draw their own lines.
Looking at Latinos
Despite this February prediction from a Latino leader saying that McCain would dominate the Latino vote, it didn't come to pass.
Why?
The owner of the Latinos for McCain website understandably laments:
This ties into the losing of California because my perception is that Gov. Pete Wilson's attempt to close the border was what turned the state Democratic by associating Republicans with having a dislike for Latinos. In other words, Republicans outside CA didn't learn anything at all from California! Of all the issues for the Republican party to fall on its sword for, is illegal immigration really worth it? I'm cool with killing the party for the pro-life cause, but illegal immigration? I love Laura Ingraham, but... we lost our brand.
Ruben Navarette says:
There were at least two ironies in this election. One was that McCain suffered from his own poor law, i.e. on the McCain-Feingold bill. (Well, I guess that's not irony...) And second was that the Republican most friendly to Latinos would get such a small percentage of their vote. As McCain said on FOX News recently, "it only proves life isn't fair."
Despite this February prediction from a Latino leader saying that McCain would dominate the Latino vote, it didn't come to pass.
Why?
The owner of the Latinos for McCain website understandably laments:
"I am a first generation American. My father was from Mexico and raised us to respect our family and our God. Most of my uncles and aunts raised my cousins the same way.A LA Times article sheds some light on the subject:
It now amazes me to see so many of my fellow Latino’s supporting a Presidential candidate that clearly does not have the heart for our culture or our values.
Case in point. Being raised in the church, I am reminded of the verse... "I knew you while you were in your mother’s womb."
Protestant Latinos, a growing group of voters who were key supporters of President Bush in 2004, have shifted their backing to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, driven in large part by anger toward Republican immigration policies...Protestant Latinos -- about a third of all Latinos -- heavily supported Bush's reelection. This year, however, just over half of these voters support Obama for president; a third said they would vote for Republican Sen. John McCain.Part of it might be due to some guilt by association. It was perhaps naive to think that trying to impede the flow of illegal immigrants would be seen as anything other than a nativist anti-Latino effort. Politico said: "McCain seems to have wound up with the worst of both worlds: He appears to be getting no credit from Latino voters for his past support for immigration reform, while carrying the baggage of other Republicans' hostility to illegal immigration."
More than 80% of Protestant Latinos, who tend to identify themselves as evangelicals, said the candidates' positions on immigration would be central to their vote this year, according to the survey.
This ties into the losing of California because my perception is that Gov. Pete Wilson's attempt to close the border was what turned the state Democratic by associating Republicans with having a dislike for Latinos. In other words, Republicans outside CA didn't learn anything at all from California! Of all the issues for the Republican party to fall on its sword for, is illegal immigration really worth it? I'm cool with killing the party for the pro-life cause, but illegal immigration? I love Laura Ingraham, but... we lost our brand.
Ruben Navarette says:
But make no mistake, when all is said and done, Obama will win the votes of a majority of Latinos. Ironically, he's going to benefit in the general election from the same thing that made it tough for him to win Latinos votes against Clinton in the primary: brand loyalty. This time, the brand is the Democratic Party, and with just one Democrat on the ballot, that's where most Latinos will put their support.Add to that what a Marketwatch article says in pointing to Obama's Spanish-language ads promising college assistance, greater access to health care and more jobs - in other words, the classic Democrat vote-buying approach.
There were at least two ironies in this election. One was that McCain suffered from his own poor law, i.e. on the McCain-Feingold bill. (Well, I guess that's not irony...) And second was that the Republican most friendly to Latinos would get such a small percentage of their vote. As McCain said on FOX News recently, "it only proves life isn't fair."
Despite the Hangover...
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There'll be sun!
Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
'Til there's none!
When I'm stuck a day
That's gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,
And Say,
Oh
The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow!
Tomorrow!
I love ya
Tomorrow!
You're always
A day
A way!
I've Been Remiss...
...in failing to mention that I am the black sheep in a group of otherwise spiritually-advanced writers participating on a blog started by Mary Herboth called Broken Alabaster.
...in failing to mention that I am the black sheep in a group of otherwise spiritually-advanced writers participating on a blog started by Mary Herboth called Broken Alabaster.
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