Another example of why hope is a virtue

For an end of year pick me up, when the weather turns bleak and our hopes for 2002 are running through times's fingers like the sand in an hourglass, Mark Shea points to Will at Mysterium Crucis who meditates on his journey this last year. I like it. As the father of three girls who is committed to raising another generation in the faith sometimes I despair. The modern zeitgeist - the knee jerk sloganeering, if you would - is anti-religious and anti-institutional. What is there in the organized Catholic church that would attract anyone, such as my wee lasses who will be growing up in an ever more secular world over the next twenty years? Why should they want to be a part of an organized religion with its baggage, rules and restrictions.

According to Will, the answer is Sacraments and Reality. Per Will:

As someone who could of easily become a pagan or a pantheist (and probably would have had my youthful relationship with organized religion been any worse), I think I can answer. For those of us raised outside of Catholicism, nature is the only sacrament we truly have. Everyone needs to touch God, not just to mentally commune, but to truly touch God with our senses. Rocks, streams, trees. The wind, the rain, the sun. The spellbinding beauty of Creation. This comprises our Eucharist. And we recieve it with awe. Idols tempt us to worship them. They are made by man to capture the the invisible majesty of the Divine. But nature is designed by God, and it is designed to reveal his glory. And he did a damn good job. Is it really any surprise that anyone would be tempted to adore it? Everyone needs the Real Presence in their lives, and they'll hunt down their own substitute if they're not given the real thing.

Two thousand years of philosophy, literature and culture because of organized religion or chasing the peripatetic banners of fads and sophism.

Very good. Thanks, Will.

Inside Game Stuff

OK, here's a big tip on scoring hits off of Google: mispell something. One of the cable channels was showing "My Name is Steven," which is about the Steven Stayner kidnapping, and I received about 60 hits related to searches on the kidnapping because of my posts on the Cary Stayner trial. Oddly, I am at number 19 on searches for "Staynor."

Second, I am going to sit back and rake in my hit dividends because Anna has scored a mention on Instapundit. "One weird site" indeed; but you already knew that if you were reading the left column of this here site - "A strange devotion to rodents, WMD's and bad SciFi flicks."

Q: Do you like Kipling

A: I don't know, I've never Kippled.

Sorry for the antiquated bad joke, but Brothers Judd Blog points out that it's Rudyard Kipling's birthday. John in the comments makes the interesting observation that Kipling spent only months - not years - in the NWFP. Here's the comment that I was going to leave in the Bros comment boxes, which seem to be down for the moment:

Kipling is often characterized as a racist imperialist. And yet, as you point out, Kipling could show a great deal of respect for native Indians. One of my favorite Kipling short stories is the "Miracle of Purum Baghat." Kipling -the purported xenophobic racist - shows more empathy toward the non-English character in that story than one is able to find in works written by those contemporary writers who profess an unconditional love for non-western cultures. Perhaps, because Kipling could see that non-western cultures had their unique virtues, he could also see their vices and shortcomings. This ability is unfortunately lacking among the multiculturalist tradition, to the impoverishment of modern literature.

Merry Christmas

Because of the tragedy of divorce and the eccentricities of custody orders, today was Christmas. The Widget, the Wadget and Boff happily unwrapped presents. My folks and my brother came over to watch the 9, 5 and 4 year old see what Santa brought them. Actually two out of three. Boff - the 9 year old - deconstructed the Santa Claus mythos a few years ago with the question, "why does Santa use bar codes on his packages?" Good question, actually. If you have kids that age, be forwarned that it's the oddball questions that you have to be prepared for. I spent all morning negotiating objects from those hard plastic shell wraps. Next year, I rent a blowtorch. I dragooned my draftsman brother to assist with the technical issues of reading the instructions on the various electronic toys they got. Among other things, the girls got Pixters, which are hand held drawing computers, like Palm Pilots. Just think, if one of these went back twenty-five years in time and fell into the hands of the Soviets, it would have tipped the global balance of power.

I did see Lord of the Rings II on Christmas Eve, though. Good movie, and not a bad way to spend a Christmas Eve in a way that doesn't risk involve playing sobriety checkpoint roulette. [Given my holiday situation, I was so lacking in Christmas spirit that I was expecting a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future and the angel Gideon from One Magic Christmas. .] I have never read Tolkien. I was in my time a voracious reader of Fantasy. Lieber, Moorcock, recently George RR Martin, but not Tolkien. The tragic mistake for me was reading National Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, which ruined the real Tolkien novels for me.

On the other hand, as a non-Tolkien reader, I am happy to report that the movie scans well without knowledge of the text. If Mr. Sulik is correct, while knowledge may be power, ignorance can lead to a more satisfying movie-going experience. [Who knew that Ents had wives? Not me. And I'm happier for it. In fact, I think I am now disturbed that Tolkien could conceive of the possibility of heterosexual activities among walking trees.]

Which then leads me to my tentative list of New Years Resolutions. Of course, I will leave on the list the usual resolution of not committing any sex crimes, which usually is understood as ruling out heroin induced necrophilia. [I think it's always a good idea to have one resolution on the list that one can feel fairly certain of not breaking by February 1.] Less likely, though, are (1) read the Lord of the Rings and (2) get into good enough shape to enter a couple of sabre tournaments. We'll see how those resolutions turn out.

My DSL has been having connection problems. If I don't post in the next several days, HAPPY NEW YEAR.

The Dog that doesn't bark

Hit & Run points out "What's Missing From the Year's Top Religion Stories?"

Slow News Cycle?

When a group that confesses a belief that we are all the progeny of genetic experimentation by aliens gets tons of ink, it's got to be. The Raven notes the goofiness of this story:

I've been watching Ms. Boisselier's press conference this morning on cable and she's like something out of a science fiction magazine, with an infectious giggle, French accent, and sparkling eyes that sit like uneasy pools over the wellspring of sheer madness. Rael (formerly known as Claude Vorilhon), the founder of the space-crazy sect, claims to have had secret meetings with extraterrestrials:

During these sessions, Vorilhon learned that humans were created in laboratories by people from another planet who had mastered the science of genetics and cell biology. The creators are the "Elohim," (singular, Eloha), a word that Vorilhon attests was wrongly translated in the Bible as "God." Vorilhon claims that the word "Elohim" really means "those who came from the sky."

Jay Manifold at A Voyage to Arcturus succinctly predicts:

This is the biggest howler since cold fusion.

Since he's the only blogger with the habit of littering his posts with math and hard science, I'm thinking he's right.

So, what's with all the attention? The quick answer is that we all know it's going to happen someday. What we do, or whether we do anything, will require a longer answer. My short input is that human cloning should be discouraged. Anything that has a tendency to reduce human diversity, or which allows fads - such as sex or physical appearance - to become part of the human genetic selection can't be good. In this regard, I am perhaps overly influenced in this attitude by Robert A. Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon [all the things worth knowing can be learned from Heinlein - pre 1975 Heinlein, that is] and the example of near unbuckling of the American corn belt in the 1970s when 15% of genetically non-diverse corn was destroyed by a leaf fungus.

Civil Liberties Watch. Ah, who cares?

Independently connecting a different dot than I sketched earlier this week, Roger Ho, Esq. asks whether a pro-life Catholic can be a federal judge.

Help.

What is Epiphany? [The feast day, not the experience.] Isn't it the date that commemorates the arrival of the Magi?

New Blawg

Check out the Statutory Construction Zone, which seems to have a focus on cases pertaining to statutory interpretation. Statutory interpretation is certainly a profitable area to contemplate if you want to undermine your belief in the capacity of humans to achieve clarity in communication.

Living History

Penner pointed me to this History Channel post commemorating December 23 as the sixteenth anniversary of Rutan/Yeager flight around the world. Since I am staking out the hotly contested niches of Fresno-related and history-related blogging, this is a natural to me. Burt and Dick Rutan were both Fresno boys before they moved up to C. Muncey territory. I remember either Burt or Dick telling me that their first exposure to flying was a demonstration out near Roeding park when they were boys.

I was fortunate to second-chair a jury trial in the District Court for the Eastern District of California for Scaled Composites, which was Burt's Mojave-based aircraft design company. The trial started sometime in mid-January of 1991, which coincided with the start of the airwar in what will soon be known as Gulf War I. I'll never forget Dick Rutan's comment that there is nothing more satisfying than flying into a "target rich environment."

Some years later, I was working on a contract case arising out of the failed salvage of a B-29 in Greenland, which was the subject of a Nova documentary. This post describes the end result of the salvage operation:

In the spring of 1995, after a series of setbacks, (including the death of his chief engineer for seven years, Rick Kriege), Darryl had the old bomber rolling on the ice in a fast taxi, minutes away from attempting a take-off when disaster struck. A fuel line to an APU in the tail section had broken loose and sprayed gasoline on the hot APU. A fire broke out which consumed the big plane where it stood on the ice. Now wrecked for good, the Kee Bird would sink to the bottom of the shallow lake in the coming thaw.

Anyhow, I was communicating with an attorney at the Smithsonian (which just has to be the coolest legal job known to man) who would walk past the Voyager every day on his way to his office.

The OmbudsGod is posting some interesting discussions on the dysfunctionality of drug laws. Check it out.

My contribution to this subject is a recollection from my high school debate years when the subject was reform of criminal laws. Affirmative teams would run plans that called for the imposition of new and harsher penalties on drug laws. The negative response was the "heroin holocaust." As drug laws became harsher, heroin would become more expensive, which would lead to increased violence and heightened crime as junkies attempted to finance their habit. It was a great argument, but I guess it would really depend on the demand elasticity of heroin.

Merry Christmas

ABC hypes homeless working Moms.

This is nothing special, but it did make Best of the Web. The Fresno Bee ran an article on homelessness on Christmas Day.

If you had a merry Christmas, feel guilty.

The pleasant sport of heckling Jane Fonda continues.

Ah, college memories. I remember a spring day in 1980. The leaves were green, the sun was warm and the coeds were nubile. There I was with the College Republicans protesting Jane Fonda's appearance at UC Davis. If the wind had shifted, she would have been within produce range.

Anyhow, Jane Fonda was in Jerusalem and was greeted by the women in green. This part brings back fond memories:

Then Fonda and her entourage reach us --- and we turn around and begin our heckling:


"Hanoi Jane! Hanoi Jane! You are an American traitor! How many Americans were killed because of you? You are an American traitor and you came to Israel as a guest of Peace Now, Israeli traitors- You constantly identify with the enemies of the Western world. Once it was in Vietnam where you identified with those who murder Americans and now you came to identify with those Arabs who murder Jews. GO HOME! Shame on you! Shame!"

Michael Moore - who remains puzzled at why more Republicans weren't killed on 9/11 - inhabits a dark niche in my anti-pantheon. But let's face it, the Queen of Darkness will always be Jane, who never has had the class to admit that she was wrong - that the Communists did in fact kill millions after the Vietnam war - or to apologize for aiding the enemy.

Revisionist History Revised

relapsed catholic links to this article whose thesis is that the Nazis were intent on destroying the Catholic Church. The average person's historicial memory may be shallow, but why do current books on the alleged complicity of Catholicism forget to mention the Kulturkampf? The original Kulturkampf - cultural war - was between Bismark and the Catholic Church and was motivated by Bismark's need to integrate Catholic southern Germany into the Protestant German Empire.

Clearly, the Kulturkampf was no Holocaust, but if latent habits of thought and ingrained idioms led to the Holocaust, doesn't the historical antagonism of the German state to Catholicism cut against the effort to make Catholicism penultimately responsible for the Holocaust? Further, when considered in the light of Bismark, the Nazis appear to be carrying through the logic of the Kulturkampf. Finally, now that I am reading Gary Wills' Papal Sin, doesn't the earlier episode of the Kulturkampf shed some light on the papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (14/03/1937)? Wills gives Pius XI no credit for this encyclical - which did in fact condemn totalitarian Nazis from the pulpits of German churches - because of its focus on the institutional rights of the Church - which in fact were being eroded. But don't the earlier attacks by the German State on Catholicism offer some insight on the concerns and strategies that Pius employed? On this bit of history, Wills is silent.

William Sulik, esq. questions Times' selection of the current crop of female whistle blowers, and suggests some earlier versions that for some reason were overlooked by Times. (Ah, what could the reason have been?)

[Also, instead of getting them a Gameboy or a Body-Piercing Barbie (TM) or whatever, Mr. Sulik got his kids a blog. There's nothing like using the holidays to foster family values like literacy, dissent and lawyering.]

Antioch Road links to a The Atlantic article on Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame. There's a generational issue in here. If you're old enough, you remember the Fischer-Spaski matches and the sudden increase in interest in chess that followed. If you remember all that, you should definitely read the article.

Not since Socrates has there been a more dangerous threat to youth

law.com - Article [Pay site] reports:

The California Supreme Court thrilled rights activists Thursday by announcing that it plans to conduct further study on a proposal to prevent the state's judges from belonging to groups -- such as the Boy Scouts of America -- that discriminate against gays.

In a short statement, the high court said that during Wednesday's weekly administrative conference, the seven justices "discussed at length" proposals submitted by groups such as the Bar Association of San Francisco and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

This is the end game of a long term process. I have been reading about various attempts to preclude judges from associating with the Boy Scouts of America for almost a decade. This looks more serious than any past efforts.

When I read articles like this one, I am struck by their surreal quality. In a world of teenage pregnancies, sexual abuse by fiduciaries and perpetual problems of teenage drug use, the cognoscenti have thought long and hard and decided the problem is the Boy Scouts.

On the other hand, this proposal is really quite chilling in the offhanded way that a religious test may be incorporated into law. Apparently, judges can't belong to any organization that takes the view that homosexuality is immoral. Religious litmus tests do exist. In Lumpkin v. Brown (1997) 109 F3d 1498, Reverend Lumpkin allowed himself to be baited and outmanuevered in a television interview into either repudiating the literal meaning of Leviticus or apparently calling homosexuality a sin. Apparently a literalist, Rev. Lumpkin clumsily repeated "that's what is sayeth" to the usual brainless parsing of scripture. The Mayor of San Francisco fired Rev. Lumpkin from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission after the usual public reaction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the firing, writing:

As a private citizen, Reverend Lumpkin is perfectly free to preach vigorously and robustly that homosexuality is a sin. But he did not enjoy that same unrestrained freedom while he occupied the important and prestigious office of a Human Rights Commissioner.

The Court answered the charge of disparate religious treatment as follows:

We turn finally to Reverend Lumpkin's claim that his removal from the Human Rights Commission violated the Establishment Clause by endorsing a particular religious faith that interprets scripture "less literal[ly]" than does Reverend Lumpkin's. Appellant's Opening Br. at 30. Reverend Lumpkin's only argument is that the City promoted a religious faith that is antithetical to Reverend Lumpkin's. But Mayor Jordan's press releases consistently acknowledged Reverend Lumpkin's right to adhere to his religious faiths and stressed the secular reasons for Reverend Lumpkin's removal. When the Mayor announced Reverend Lumpkin's removal from the Human Rights Commission, he stated that "I have not in the past, nor will I in the future ask that a religious litmus test of beliefs be a part of the appointment process for any San Francisco Commission." CR 29, Exh. F. The Mayor went on to say that "when [religious] beliefs are volunteered in a way that negatively influences the operation of a state function, or suggests a justification for actions which may lead to violence, I believe it crosses the line between church and state." Id. Because these statements adhere to secular principles, they defeat Reverend Lumpkin's claim that his removal from the Human Rights Commission had the impermissible primary effect of promoting any particular religious faith.

Although Rev. Lumpkin should win no awards for diplomacy, his transgression consisted of admitting under pressure that he confessed that the Bible should be interpreted literally. But was that really his true belief? There was a lamentable lacuna of evidence that he had ever actually stoned anyone, or that he had ever incited an ignorant mob of religious zealots to stone catamites and other sinners. When asked about a passage from Leviticus, he repeated the mantra "that's what it sayeth," which sounds more like someone taking a bullet for the team than someone who has a well-developed philosophy of oppression.

What fun? Does this mean that we can essentially preclude Islamic participation in American democracy by citing a few choice passages from the Koran and asking if the believer confesses that Koran is the literal word of Allah? [For devout Moslems, the Koran is the uncreated word of God, just as Christ is the uncreated word of God. Thus, where Christians have their incarnation, Moslems have an “inlibration.”] Likewise, is the message that Biblical Literalists cannot be public officials unless they are willing to abjure their literalist traditions?

Maybe not. The Ninth Circuit put a lot of emphasis on the assertion that Rev. Lumpkin voluntarily injected his views into a political debate. Maybe so, but it didn't look that way to me. However, if you adhere to a religiously conservative creed and have aspirations of public service, be forwarned: practice the phrase "no comment" or "my personal religious views are not germane."

Back to the Boy Scouts. The concern is that the Boy Scouts are discriminatory and it lessens public trust to have judges belong to such organizations. The easy analogy is to racially segregated institutions. The analogy will not be challenged, but it should be. Racially based policies are irrational. Racial differences, as Jonah Goldberg aptly notes, are skin deep. Intelligence, adaptability, perseverance and other character traits and behaviors are not based on chance differences in skin pigment. Racial segregation was wrong because it was part of, and fostered, a system that deprived blacks of equal rights and benefits without a compelling neutral reason based on fixed involuntary characteristics. [Depriving certain groups of equal rights can be justified. We do it all the time with certain groups such as criminals or youthful males in times of war. We also do it with jury panels. In the case of criminals, the deprivation is justified becase the members of that group are volunteers. With the military draft and jurors the best we can say is that the selection process is justified by the Rawlsian idea that the system is justified by the net gain in utility and fairness is generally assured by the fact that no one knows who will be conscripted. ]

Sex is different. It just is. Sexual segregation is built into the human psychologocial and social scheme. It may come as a great disappointment to sixteen year old boys, but no feminist has ever called for the integration of the high school phys ed shower room, and, absent a dramatic change in attitudes to casual sex among the emotionally immature, as in Starship Troopers, there will never be such an integration. Likewise, every gym I know has flouted the Unruh Act and cordoned off "women only" sections. Are they wrong to do so? Probably not, every women I have spoken to confesses that they like their privacy, albeit there is an ever-present segment of women who like working out in the men's section. Presumably the same phenomena would be found among men, if only men were given similar options. Privacy, and sexual privacy in particular, it would seem is wired into the system.

What does this mean where homosexuality is concerned? The odd thing is that sexual privacy concerns are dismissed where straight men are concerned. Most straight men eventually accept the fact that they will never achieve their dream of showering with the Dallas Cheerleaders, or having free access to College Women's Volleyball team's locker room because of the privacy interests of certain women. A protestation that a man would restrain himself and be the perfect gentlemen would never fly. Nor should it since sexual security is one concern, but not the only concern that motivates sexual segregation rules. A glass partition between the boys and girls showers would clearly not satisfy legitimate privacy concerns.

What then about homosexuality? Is there no similar privacy concern between heterosexual and homosexual men? Although every gay man I have read or spoken to about this issue asserts that the idea that they are attracted to heteros is just silly, they also subscribe to a belief that straight men are curious about homosexuality and would like to give it a spin [usually with personal anecdotes to substantiate the belief] and that there are secret gays in the population that they can identify. However, spurious my extrapolation from reading and conversations to the homosexual population may be, the fact is that no women would rationally accept a man's statement that he is not interested in her type as a basis for waiving her interest in sexual privacy.

What then about morality? Is it wrong for certain religious traditions, such as Catholicism, to describe homosexuality as "disordered?" [While at the same time vouchsafing a homosexual's full civil rights.] Probably not. One thing about morality is that it establishes rules of behavior to accommodate the majority's concerns. Like it or not, men can routinely be thrown into circumstances where privacy is compromised - gym classes and, more importantly from a historical standpoint, the military come to mind. Traditional morality is designed to provide an accommodation to the privacy interests of that other social group - men.

A final return to the Boy Scouts. Is it, therefore, irrational for the Boy Scouts to view homosexuality as "disordered?" Not if my previous points have even the slightest logic. If privacy concerns are real, then the Boy Scouts can take the same position that boys should not be placed in positions where privacy is compromised that it could rationally take regarding girls. [If anyone wants to challenge this point, start with a cogent argument that single males should be allowed to escort groups of girls on camping trips without a chaperone.] Even if the concern is not about sexual activity, the issue of privacy remains. Likewise, is it possible for a judge to believe that the Boy Scouts merit his support and that he or she could be fair to homosexuals in legal proceedings? I imagine that's possible since I have never heard a judge recused because of his failure to spearhead the integration of shower facilities.

Finally, if supporting the Boy Scouts is a prima facie bar for judicial service, is being a member of the Catholic Church? How about being a member of a literalist Protestant church? Is public service open only to atheists, agnostics and unitiarians?

If not, why not?

If so, what does religious freedom mean?

Two Cheers for Trent Lott

Lott Surrenders GOP Leadership Post. He will also stay in the Senate. As a Republican, one would assume.

Three Cheers, though, for those Conservatives and Republicans who would not let their message of a truly color-blind society be compromised. Three Cheers for the Republican Party that proves that it's not so stupid as to think it can get away with anything that has a taint of racism. As Bill Bennett pointed out on Hannity and Colmes several nights ago, there is not a double-standard in this country. There is a single standard. Any Republican who gets involved in anything that might appear racists or ethically improper has to step down. Republicans are stronger because the media acts like Robespierre where Republican transgressions are concerned.

On the other hand, I just saw a news conference with Pelosi where she congratulated the Republicans for dealing with one of its problems of racism. She then argued that Republicans had shamefully used the Confederate flag issue in Georgia to defeat Democrats on racist grounds. The Confederate Flag? Republicans? Who was on what side of the Civil War? Who instituted segregation? Who fought a war to preserve slavery? Which party voted for Civil Rights Legislation in greater numbers than the other throughout history? Who put up the Confederate Flag in the first place? Which party wants to deny equal opportunities to people because of their race?

With Lott as Majority Leader, it could only have gotten nastier.

Six Degrees of Separation

C. Muncey has a nice reflective post on the Stayner Yosemite Murder case and the tragedy that such horrendous crimes have on victims everywhere. In this case, the pain that Stayner inflicted on Stayner's parents, who he met years ago and knows through acquaintances. The post also furnishes material for reflection on the nature of good and evil and on those people who confront evil as part of their working world.

Fair Competition Update

ABCNEWS.com reports that a Jury has found Wal-Mart forced Its employee to work unpaid overtime. The story notes:

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, accused Wal-Mart of violating federal and state wage laws by making employees continue to work without pay after their shift ended or by calling on managers to edit time cards to eliminate overtime.

"This was a finding by a jury that Wal-Mart permitted its employees in 18 of its Oregon stores to work for free," said James Piotrowski, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.

"Pemitted" to work for free? I suspect that the employees were told that if they didn't put in the extra time, they were not doing their jobs with all of the attendant implications. Note also that it is not just a matter of employees not getting overtime pay, they were not being paid at all. This seems remarkable in light of the public face that Wal-Mart projects to the middle class as a caring and involved community member.

Wal-Mart has been extremely succesful. As a believer in the free market, I have defended Wal-Mart on the basis that its success comes from consumer preference. But let's face it, the free market requires fair competition. If a Mom and Pop grocery store complies with overtime laws while Wal-Mart gives itself a competitive advantage in ignoring those laws, Wal-Mart's success is not a triumph of capitalism. In other words, the mere fact that Wal-Mart's success has driven out numerous small and independent stores is not a basis for criticism of Wal-Mart so long as Wal-Mart is not giving itself an illegal edge.

On a side note, I strongly suspect that this practice is not limited to a few non-complying managers scattered around the country. A quick websearch shows that similar class actions against Wal-Mart have been filed thoughout the nation. I know that I have three former Wal-Mart employees as clients whose allegations - now enshrined in legal pleadings - match the allegations proven true in Oregon. Note, finally, if well founded - and based upon the fact that identical claims are spontaneously emerging nationwide, that seems a reasonable conclusion - these overtime class actions are serving the free market system by making sure that everyone is playing the game by the same rules.

More Christmas cheer

James Lileks dismantles another person who is celebrating the annual festival of dumping-on-the-middle-class-traditions-of-Christmas.

All Lott, All the Time

Trent Lott's ToDo List.

Lane Core, Jr. imagines a gentler, kinder jihadista.

Bellisiles Again

Professor Jerome Sternstein criticizes Knopf for continuing to market Arming America and for publishing a corrected edition - "corrected" by Bellesiles! Sternstein doesn't mince words:

When weighed against the multitude of falsifications and errors that plague the book, the supposed "corrections" are so minor as to be almost nonexistent. For example, Bellesiles misquoted the 1792 Militia Act in the first edition but replaced it in the paperback version with false statements about the relationship between the 1792 and 1803 Militia Acts.

Objective historical scholarship seems to be taking it on the chin. Stand by for more as the Radical History Review organizes to have the American Historical Association publicly oppose war with Iraq. I'm waiting for the usual deluge of agitprop.

Why I drink coffee.

Verus Ratio points out that Monday was the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

relapsed catholic religion news media culture links to Daimnation! who links to this newspaper article about anti-Semitism among the Saskatchewan Indian community. It seems that "respected Saskatchewan Indian" leader David Ahenakew has expressed empathy for Hitler's Final Solution as follows:

"That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe. That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world. And look what they're doing. They're killing people in Arab countries."

Well, I guess if there is one group of people where anti-semitism would matter the least, it would have to be the Saskatchewan Indians. On the other hand, in light of the continuing project to make anti-semitism the original sin of European Catholicism you have to wonder how that purported Western cultural attitude infected a Native Canadian activist. [The answer, in my humble opinion, is that kooks are kooks everywhere, and tendentious cultural-genetic explanations are simply another form of the "blood libel."]

More tendentious historical posturing.

In the opening round of the annual festival of "let's-dump-on-middle-class-Christmas-traditions" Church of England Bishop, the Right Reverend Keith Sutton, has offered up this bit of Christmas cheer:

The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Keith Sutton, said the shepherds were not the lovable characters depicted in Nativity plays but were on "the fringes of society" and that, for most people, Christmas was a chore.

He ridiculed the "superficial" and "false" images on cards and in songs of "a little helpless baby" whose mother travelled on a "cute donkey" to a stable "stuffed full of cuddly animals".

In fact, he said, Jesus was born to an unmarried mother from a religious family, "with all the cultural and social pressures you can imagine".

The pregnant Mary had to travel long distances on "the most uncomfortable form of transport available". The Wise Men "were on a mission from Herod to discover the whereabouts of the baby Jesus so that he could be killed". Mary and Joseph were forced to flee "as refugees seeking asylum in Egypt, as Herod oversaw the slaughter of innocent babies in an attempt to ensure that the Christ-child was killed.

Obviously, the Right Reverend's statements have some merit, although my understanding was that the Magi did not "nark" on the Baby Jesus to Herod. Perhaps the Church of England blue-penciled everything after Mathew 2:8, like was done with 1 and 2 Maccabees and the Book of Wisdom.

On the other hand, the Right Reverend's agenda is obviously to subvert the modern traditions of Christmas. But does the Right Reverend have any idea about what he's doing?

The modern form of Christmas celebration is a relatively recent tradition. As Historian Stephen Nissenbaum notes in the Battle for Christmas prior to the mid-nineteenth century, Christmas was associated with drunken revelry, begging and crime sprees. Apparently, living up to their reputation as dour, humorless killjoys, the Puritans outlawed Christmas because Christmas was "an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor "wassailers extorted food and drink from the well-to-do." Christmas wasn't safe for society until it became a family-oriented holiday focusing on the home and children. Part of the salvation of Christmas was the poem, A Visit from Saint Nicholas, which began to standardize the image of a domestic Christmas. As Nissenbaum observes:

In the real world of New York, misrule came to a head at Christmastime. As I have shown in my book The Battle for Christmas, this season had traditionally been a time of carnival behavior, especially among those whom the knickerbockers considered "plebeians." Bands of roving youths, lubricated by alcohol, went about town making merry, making noise, and sometimes making trouble. Ritual usage sanctioned their practice of stopping at the houses of the well-to-do and demanding gifts of food and especially drink--a form of trick-or-treat commonly known as "wassailing." After 1800, this Christmas misrule took on a nastier tone, as young and alienated working-class New Yorkers began to use wassailing as a form of rambling riot, sometimes invading people's homes and vandalizing their property. One particularly serious episode took place during the 1827 Christmas season; one newspaper reported it to have been the work of a mob that was not only "stimulated by drink" but also "enkindled by resentment." The newspaper warned its readers not "to wink at such excesses, merely because they occur at a season of festivity. A license of this description will soon turn festivals of joy, into regular periods of fear to the inhabitants, and will end in scenes of riot, intemperance, and bloodshed."

According to Nissenbaum:

And "The Night before Christmas," published in 1823, became its apotheosis. What these enduring verses accomplished was to address all the problems of elite New Yorkers at Christmastime. Using the raw material already devised out of Dutch tradition by John Pintard and Washington Irving, the poem transformed stern and dignified St. Nicholas into a jolly old elf, Santa Claus, a magical figure who brought only gifts, no punishments or threats. Just as important, the poem provided a simple and effective ceremony that enabled its readers to restrict the holiday to their own family, and to place at its heart the presentation of gifts to their children--in a profoundly gratifying, ritual alternative to the rowdy street scene that was taking place outside. "The Night before Christmas" moved the Christmas gift exchange off the streets and into the house--a secure domestic space in which there really was "nothing to dread." And don't forget that in real life, prosperous people did have something to dread--after all, those wassailing plebeians might not be satisfied to remain outside.

The Right Reverend is free to find the modern form of domesticized Christmas less palatable than an alternative Christmas which celebrates the marginalized elements of society. But before he opines further, he should consider whether he honestly prefers the alternative which celebrated drunkenness, riots and attacks on one segment of society by another.

Who was Harley Earl?

History News Network reveals all.

Columbia revokes Bancroft Prize for Arming America.

Please note how Trent Lott's thoughtless statement has provoked first rate political reflections

Andrew Sullivan picked a different passage from Bush's speech on Trent Lott for Bartlett's. This is my pick:

Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals. And the founding ideals of our nation and, in fact, the founding ideals of the political party I represent was, and remains today, the equal dignity and equal rights of every American.

Direct and moving.

And then there is Peggy Noonan. She's written another great column, which reflects on the Conservative's sin of deafness to the moral nuances in discussions of race. She also calls for Lott's resignation.

Finally, check out David Frum's Diary on National Review Online which reflects on why the heat on Trent Lott is generally coming from the Right. Frum explains:

The political right has been battling against racial preferences, set-asides, and quotas for close to three decades now. Over the course of that fight, conservatives have articulated a clear and consistent message of equal justice regardless of race. That message has become a central defining principle of the conservative movement, and the people who have championed that message – Ward Connerly, Clarence Thomas, Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom, Tom Sowell, Shelby Steele, Bradford Reynolds, the Institute for Justice, William Bennett, John McWhorter, and so many others – have become conservative heroes and sometimes conservative martyrs. The mainstream of the conservative movement was simply not prepared to see that principle traduced in order to protect a senator for whom it did not have much respect to begin with.

If clear writing comes from clear thinking, Frum may very well be right.

This kind of thing makes me proud to hang out with these guys.

National Review Calls for Trent Lott's resignation. I don't think Lott really is a racist or pro-segregationist, but expressing regret about the political setbacks to Jefferson Davis and the Dixiecrats shows a lack of political wisdom. Political in the good sense of reaching out to the groups that compose society in order to form a concensus, and Lott's comments raise doubts as to his good intentions. [The comments are really shocking, in truth. It's as if some German politician were expressing regret that there has been a delay in achieving the ideals of the Nazi administration.] It's good to see that the Right is living up to its principles and political common sense. But I suspect this is what happens when the levers of media culture are in the hands of the opposition. The Right knows it will be pilloried by the usual list if it doesn't act with principle, whereas the Left during the Clinton years was truly surprised to find that the transgressions of the Clinton administration were not swept under the rug.

Inside Science Fiction Reference, if you like that kind of thing

Jay Manifold links to real live pictures of a Pierson's Puppeteer! I didn't believe those Big-Foot photos, but this has made me a believer! Now find me a Kzinti and a Bandersnatch.

Another year older and deeper in debt.

Dodd testifies that hope is not the least of the virtues. Good work. Keep the faith.

Slavery Reparations Again

Professor Schuck lays out the case against reparations which include (a) instrumental objections - who is taxed, who is benefitted? (b) consequentialist objections - the dysfunctions engendered by reparations will swamp any benefit they create - and (c) horizontal equity - which is worse, slavery, the holocaust, the Armenian genocide or the oppression of the Irish under the English?

Via Instapundit check out this article for a very common example of bigotry that would not be permitted if it was not directed against any other group.

Ut Unum Sint links to an article on Protestant churches offering the "Voice of the Faithful" their churches to hold meetings. Having been involved with Protestant churches in dissent from their denominations, I recognize that these kind of offers are quite common by local conservative churches where a conservative church is on the outs with its liberal denomination. When a liberal church is in dissent from a more conservative denomination, these kinds of offers come from other liberal churches. The undermining of the Catholic church by these kinds of offers if probably not Protestant v. Catholic, it's orthodox v. liberal.

On further thought: The implication of my gloss on Bill Cork's article is that there is a sense of common interest among the different factions of various denominations which is political and not doctrinal. Given the common general tendency of the liberal religious to be more interested in real-world activism, and less interested in doctrinal niceties, might we someday see a realignment of the declining mainstream Protestant churches - of either their liberal membership or of the rump-church that remains after the members who are concerned about doctrine depart - into a single institution?

C. Muncie is Proclaiming the Fogmoot

Join the RC bloggers of the Central Valley in drinking a toast to J.R.R. Tolkien's 111th Birthday.

The Dark Goddess Of Replevin has some thoughts on the possibility that Cardinal Law has done some bankruptcy planning - look for a filing shortly after Xmas.

My New and Improved Alternate Business Plan Involves moving to Australia.

Hit & Run: Libel for Trouble

I'm still trying to work through "issues" arising from his complaint on 9/11/01 that not enough Republicans were killed.

Reason Mag's blog, Hit & Run,links to MOOREWATCH.com - Watching Michael Moore's every move. Favorite site it and keep this blog in business.

More on Rawls

The Spectator has an article on The Academic Liberal.

This is "gosh-wow" neat

A Voyage to Arcturus has a permalink Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log which reports on possible photographic evidence of surface water on Mars. Now, I have made some bad decisions in my career choices, and thus do not even pretend to be a planetologist, but the phot does look like a damp area on Mars. Put water and a heat source together and there might be the necessary conditions for life on Mars.

Valley towns just can't buy any respect.

24 : Season Two is rocking along as a show to watch. Good characters, strong storyline, but, jeez, you think that they would do enough research to be able to pronounce "Visalia" properly. I heard every character on the show pronounce "Visalia" "vi-zal-ee-yu." My buddy Quan didn't know what the heck they were saying for a while. It's actually "Vie-sail-ya." Funny thing is that the first time I heard this exact mispronounciation was when I was at UCLA Law School and Alan Garfield told me his girlfriend Mirriam was an adjunct rabbi in "vi-zal-ee-ya." It may be an LA thing. [Also the shots purportedly set in "Vie-sail-yu" were not set in any valley town. The mountains were obviously too close. It looked like Burbank. Also "Davenport" Air Field? The only airport in Visalia that I know is the Visalia Municipal Airport right off of Highway 99 and 198. Pass it everytime on the way to Bakersfield.]

Update Visalia has that schwa ["uh"] sound at the end. The key is to realize that the first syllable of Visalia rhymes with "high."

OK, say it right and stop sounding like a hick.

Gee, I wonder what Kim Basinger, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Lange and Martin Sheen think about protecting Americans from a thermonuclear Pearl Harbor.

Gee, I wonder what hitting myself on the head with this mallet would feel like.

Some Notes on a Classic Christmas Movie for my Canadian Partner

Apparently, they don't show "It's a Wonderful Life" above the northern outskirts of Fargo, since he discovered this movie last year. Anyhow, here's Jonah Goldberg's favorite scenes.

Roger Scruton on the Conservative Temperament

Here's Scruton's article.

The Scruton piece allows me to post one of the many Scalia dissents which exhibits beautifully written prose. This is from United States v. Virginia et al., 518 U.S. 515 (1996).

Much of the Court's opinion is devoted to deprecating the closed mindedness of our forebears with regard to women's education, and even with regard to the treatment of women in areas that have nothing to do with education. Closed minded they were--as every age is, including our own, with regard to matters it cannot guess, because it simply does not consider them debatable. The virtue of a democratic system with a First Amendment is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly. That system is destroyed if the smug assurances of each age are removed from the democratic process and written into the Constitution. So to counterbalance the Court's criticism of our ancestors, let me say a word in their praise: they left us free to change.

Much of Scalia's judicial writings - at least in the Supreme Court - have a style that rivals Holmes or Cardozo. I'd like to think that some of Scalia's expressions will have a Holmes-like prestige 50 years from now. I doubt it. Provocative counter-cultural ideas - such as that the curent age does not have the final answer on morals - are not likely to be part of the cultural landscape anytime in the near or middle-distant future.

Rawls Retrospective

Brothers Judd Blog has a nice post on Rawls' contribution to political philosophy that is a bit contrarian for an obituary. Check out the intelligent exchange that went on in the Comments.

The OmbudsGod has a quiz for you to take.

Madd, damn

A Small Victory describes a bad summer job, and the hypocrisy of a latter-day WCTU.

Joshua Claybourn's Domain links to an article showing that mixed-faith marriages have substantially higher failure rate. The article states:

The American Religious Identification Survey 2001 (ARIS) finds that of all U.S. adults who have had children with someone of another faith, 10% are divorced, compared with 3% for parents of the same faith.

Those numbers seem awfully low compared to the 50% divorce failure rate in society generally.

Josh's take is "duh?" But I don't know. I don't think I ever dated a Catholic. I married a Protestant gal, and I was never more surprised than when our priest made us sign the contract that the children would be raised Catholic. I had thought that that was another urban legend. On the other hand, that was really the best thing that anyone could ever have done.

The Blog from the Core links to Victor Davis Hanson's column on a world turned upside down. Give yourself ten points if you spot the reference to Hanson's hometown in the column.

David Frum is right. And I don't think anyone is arguing to the contrary. Why, oh why, is it that when God was handing out choices, we got the reformed Dixiecrats and the Democrats got the wealthy drunk Irishmen.

It all started with Rushdie

Mark Steyn points out that then seemingly ridiculous affaire de Satanic verses was a chilling foreshawing of the future. Islamists pretended to assert extra-territorial jurisdiction over purported offenders of its honor and the West offered a weak defense based upon artistic freedom and the importance of understanding the cultural concepts of the issuers of the fatwa. As Rushdie observed after a plea for tolerance was issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury, "There is only one person around here who is in any danger of dying."

Cork goes me one better

Ut Unum Sint uses the TerraServer to "aerial recon" Gettysburg and the National Cemetery. Neat idea. Wish I'd thought of it.

What's the street address for the Antietem Battle Field?

Update I looked at the Gettysburg photo from a higher altitude, and the intersection of roads that made Gettysburg a battle field is still as clear as day. [I guess Gettysburg hasn't grown in 150 years the way Fresno grew in the last thirty.] Very neat.

Evolution and Economics


Read this ScienceDaily News Release: New Theory Explains Economic Growth In Terms Of Evolutionary Biology for a confusing bit of chicken and egg reasoning. The theory which is described as the first attempt to draw out the implications of economic growth theory for evolutionary biology postulates that the change from centuries of economic stagnation to a state of sustained economic growth was accompanied by an "evolutionary leap" in human biology. The article assumes that there is a gene for behavior which favors investment in smaller "high quality" families and behavior which favors larger families but more disinterested parenting. Either the change in the relative distribution of these genes caused the Industrial Revolution, or the Industrial Revolution favored smaller "high quality" families, and hence people with those genes. The article seems to be saying both things at once.

For example, apparently early in the last century, genes favoring quantity momentarily became favored again over genes favoring quality, until it recorrected back to favoring genes favoring quality. Or perhaps it was the economic situation which favored those genes which changed. Hence, according to Oded Galor, the lead theorist:

"During this hunter-gatherer period, the absence of direct intergenerational links between parental resources and investment in their offspring delayed the evolutionary advantage of a preference for high-quality children," said the authors.

In fact, according to the theory, a switch back to a quantity emphasis began to take place in the 20th century.

"During the transition from stagnation to growth, once the economic environment improved sufficiently, the evolutionary pressure weakened and the significance of quality for survival declined," said Galor. The inherent advantage in reproduction of people who highly value a large number of children gradually dominated and their fertility rates ultimately overtook the fertility rates of people who value high-quality children, he said.

Galor believes that there is a genetic basis to the individual's preferences as to family size:

The predictions of the proposed theory are consistent with the time path of population, technology and income since the emergence of Homo sapiens, said Galor.

"Once biologists identify the genes that control fertility behavior, the predictions of the theory in the context of the evolution of the human species could be tested as well, comparing genetic valuation for quality in hunter-gatherer tribes to those in societies that have experienced the Neolithic revolution," Galor said.

According to the authors, earlier episodes of technological progress did not generate a "takeoff" because the necessary human evolutionary change had not yet completed its course.

Which leads to a prediction:

The theory generates an alternative intriguing prediction, he said.

"It suggests that during the epoch of stagnation, men who were from a physiological viewpoint moderately fertile (men with a moderate sperm count), and who were therefore induced by nature to invest more in the quality of their offspring had an evolutionary advantage over highly fertile individuals," Galor said. This would suggest that sperm count has declined in the last thousands of years, he said.

Which is going to be proven how?

There's enough in this theory to offend a lot of different groups. Putting aside the obvious slam against large families, the theory seems to be warmed over Lamarkianism which became Lysenkoism under Communism. The idea that humans are malleable in large population and that particular genes control nuanced behaviors would seem to support the ideas that underlay the horrid project of creating a "new communist man." [A competing idea is that humans have a core values that are inherent in their response to the laws that God established in nature and that individuals are "persons," i.e. agents in making their own free decisions as opposed to being instruments through which other forces act is often found in the writings of John Paul II.]

The theory also doesn't seem empirically obvious. Do small families mean "quality," or do they mean indifference. Certainly, the family size of the professional classes have declined, but the decline has accompanied the outsourcing of parenting to day-care and the development of the phenomena of children who are not seen by their parents for long periods of time until there is an orgy of overcompensation in the form of shuttling the children from soccer games to dance recitals. Is this really quality? What about the values and traditions that are lost because of the absence of indoctrination that comes with long periods of sustained contact? Likewise, one historically sees small families at different points in history, chiefly among the elite populations of historical groups that are in a decline. The Roman aristocracy was not noted for its large families, hence the practice of adoptions which shows up at various times, and I doubt that the birth dearth in the Soviet Union reflected a genetic commitment to quality child rearing.

Which leads to the other psuedo-science aspect of this theory - it seems too consistent with the values of academia. It assumes that smaller families are quality families. It assumes that nuanced personal behavior has a discrete genetic basis. Both ideas are typically found among members of the narrow professional class that inhabits academia. The idea that there is a one-for-one contact between homosexuality and genetics is a given among the same people who would say that a similar assertion about genetics and "racial intelligence" or genetics and criminality is racist. As Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions points out the choice between competing scientific paradigms is not solved by logic or experimentation. It often turns on non-scientific considerations, which often turns on the prejudices of the class to which the scientists belong or on political considerations, as in the case of Lysenkoism.

Verus Ratio called my attention to this

Verus Ratio links to David Frum's column which compares Bush's Christmas address to Clinton's.

What a good idea.


relapsed catholic links to an article on the internment of the Italian-Canadians in Nova Scotia by the Canadian government. Oddly, I had a conversation on Thursday with some Chinese-American Rotarians during which I learned that the numerous wineries owned by Americans with Italian names around San Francisco had its genesis to the World War II internment of the Japanese-Americans when the Italians were able to buy up Japanese farms for ten cents on the dollar. I had noticed in passing that the wrong group of potential Axist sympathizers were interned. Who knew that the Canadians agreed?

Bad Theology means Bad History

The ever-insightful Joe Bob Briggs offers his contribution to the "what would Jesus drive" discussion. He says, and he's right, that so much of the WWJD discussion is silly. Jesus had other issues on his mind than what modern Americans should drive, and some of the things that did catch his attention got fairly countercultural treatment.

I do have one nit to pick with Joe Bob. It's something that seems to be surfacing in different contexts, and is the notion that Jesus or early Christianity had nothing to say about abortion. Joe Bob writes:

I should throw in one more for the pro-life people. He didn't speak against abortion at all. This was in a culture that not only had abortion, but the practice of abandoning babies to die of exposure if they were discovered to have physical flaws or diseases.

Sorry, Joe Bob. Pagan culture had that attitude. As Sociogist R. Stark in The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History notes Christianity's historical success derived in substantial part from Christian morality. Because Christianity did not throw away its children, and practiced safe sex in the form of monogamy and chastity, Christian outbred and replaced pagan populations. Stark notes in this article:

It is true, of course, that the Christian commitment of historians in earlier generations often did make the rise of Christianity seem to be the inevitable triumph of virtue via divine guidance. Indeed, as [L. Michael White] noted, ..."the term 'expansion' comes to be used . . . as a virtual synonym for 'triumph of the gospel message.'" But if these excesses prevented more thorough scholarship..., that is not a sufficient justification for dismissing theology as irrelevant. Indeed, in a number of earlier chapters it has been evident that doctrines often were of immense importance. Surely doctrine was central to nursing the sick during times of plague, to the rejection of abortion and infanticide, to fertility, and to organizational vigor. Therefore, as I conclude this study, I find it necessary to confront what appears to me to be the ultimate factor in the rise of Christianity.
Let me state my thesis: Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations.

In short, there was an early Christian morality, the gist of which rejected the "culture of death" which surrounded it. So, Joe Bob engages in bad history.

But the further problem is bad theology. A theological tradition which finds scripture sufficient and complete is going to have problems with the implicit challenge of Joe Bob's, and other's, argument that if its not found in the New Testament, Jesus didn't say it, and if He didn't say it, it can't be important. There's a lot of things that Jesus taught which aren't written down. There are things that are important which were worked out as implications of what He did say. Those things are of course traditions. Certain of those traditions, like the very firm tradition against abortion and infanticide, were critical to the success of Christianity.

My Mennonite Partner thinks Jonah's column is dead-on

The Goldberg File on Hypocrophobia. The idea is that no war is ignoble unless its prosecution might benefit American interests. Jonah's observations also apply to certain observations that Henry Kissinger, who in their opinion is a war criminal, is not the proper person to head up the investigation of another war criminal. See this post at Eschaton for Helen Thomas most recent plunge into senile dementia:

Q Ari, two questions. What was the President thinking when he appointed an alleged war criminal to investigate a war crime? What was he thinking?

MR. FLEISCHER: Who are you thinking of?

Q Chile, Allende, Cambodia, Kissinger.

MR. FLEISCHER: Would he appoint --

Q Kissinger.

MR. FLEISCHER: Oh, I see what you're saying. Everything that I said when Henry Kissinger was appointed two weeks ago, about the outstanding integrity of Henry Kissinger and the high regard in which he's held. You should have been here two weeks ago; you missed that one.

Go ahead, you get a follow-up because you haven't been here.

Q You said Iraq has lied in the past and its continuing to lie. Kissinger lied to Congress about Cambodia. Kissinger lied to Congress about Chile. How do we know he's not going to lie about his investigation?

But, here's the thing: there is a difference between someone who lies to promote democracy, and prevent something like the million deaths that would inevitably follow, and which did follow, a Communist take-over and someone who lies to promote Islamo-fascist goals. Thomas is obviously in a state of full-blown "hypocrophobia." One can see the chain of logic working itself out. Kissinger is worse than Osama bin Laden because Kissinger must be judged by the best ideals of democracy, whereas what can you expect from bin Laden. This is nonsense, of course. All I personally hope for is seeing an end to the 60's sometime during my lifetime.

Pearl Harbor Day

It is Pearl Harbor Day, and I didn't want to let it pass without remembrance. Anna at the Belligerent Bunny Blog offers her nuanced thoughts on the historical meaning of this day. She also offers her perspective on Pearl Harbor as part of a learning curve:

When I think of the suicidal fanatics who hurl planes at us today, I wonder if there is anything we can learn from history. Yes there is. Pearl Harbor teaches us that the appropriate solution is nuclear.

Now, I'm sure that lesson plan is offered with a great deal of tongue in cheek. But who knows? And shouldn't it be America's enemies that are wondering what those insane Americans might do if they are sufficiently provoked?

Update The Angry Clam has a good Pearl Harbor Day post including this link to a post about one of those well-if-he-didn't-say-it-he-should-have historical urban legends, specifically, Admiral Yamomoto's non-observation about waking a "sleeping giant." I think there is some historical provenance in this historical non-event since Yamamoto did express a belief that Japan's rampage would last about a year before American production ramped up.

Second Update Anna is running a "swinging 40's weekend" at BBB. Check it out.

The Sociology of Media Bias

The OmbudsGod links to Media Minded who takes E.J. Dionne's recent column on media bias to task. Dionne acknowledges the existence of media bias by writing:

To the extent that there has been a bias in the establishment media, it has been less a liberal tilt than a preference for the values of the educated, professional class -- which, surprise, surprise, is roughly the class position of most journalists.

Now this is exactly the point that media critics have been making for twenty years. The media represents a distinct "class," to recycle Marxist terminology. Although they like to think of themselves as better educated and more objective, this class like all classes promotes its interest, which explains both the dramatic expansion of First Amendment rights with repsect to defemation law and the restriction of those rights in speech codes. Because of its position, this class materially sets the public agenda. As Media Minded notes about Dionnes' concession:

What an arrogant and evasive passage. The "values of the educated, professional class" reflect the sort of elitist liberalism that conservatives have bemoaned for decades. Calling it something that sounds prettier doesn't change that. And if you've got a group of so-called "objective" journalists who vote Democratic at something like an 80-percent clip, isn't that a problem? As for Dionne's bit on social issues, well, what he leaves out is as important as what he puts in. Dionne is right about abortion and religion not getting covered properly. But how about affirmative action (especially the horrendous coverage of Proposition 209 in California) or virtually any story that touches on race? How about immigration? Or homosexuality? Or AIDS? Apparently, those controversial and divisive issues don't count in Dionne's reckoning.

Media tilt is only a minor matter compared to a similar endemic bias in the Law. Do the current legal standards on abortion reflect a public concensus. Notwithstanding the constant media drumbeat, a dramatically high percentage of Americans would favor restrictions on abortion which are not permitted by the present legal regime. Likewise recent decisions on the public expression of religiosity are entirely out of contact with the broad consensus of Americans. In both cases, the current legal positions may be enlightened and right, but the problem is that it is a particular class that views these positions as enlightened and cannot understand that the rest of the population might legitimately dissent from the preferences of that class.

Friday Five

MeanDean at blogs4God postulates the following "Friday Five."
1. Did you get any snow yesterday? If so, how much? Are you kidding. This is sea level California. We keep that cold sticky stuff where it belongs - up in the Sierras.
2 What is the biggest snow storm you've ever experienced? Actually about three years ago. We get snow about once in every thirty years. The only previous one I recall was in 1969 and melted by midmorning. The one in 1999 was a monster. I think it was about two inches and it shut the city down. People would have starved in isolation if it hadn't melted by the next day.
3. What is your favorite snow-time activity? Irish coffee.
4. What is the largest snow man you've ever built? What were the circumstances? With a two inch "blizzard" you do the math.
5. With regards to sledding, do you prefer the old-school American Flyer with metal runners, a poly vinyl plastic wonder, an inner tube, a "liberated" cafeteria tray, other? What, is there something in the cold weather that makes you people turn kleptomaniac? What is this "liberated" cafeteria tray stuff. That's stealing. Of public property. Purchased by federal funds. You can do serious federal time for that kind of thing. We're not talking easy time in the county lock-up; we're talking federal time. So keep your nose clean. Anyhow our big winter activity around here is building Fogmen.

Neat Site

It's things like this make the hours of time that you spend surfing the internet at work so worthwhile. Actually, I got this from my Dad. MSN TerraServer has a system that lets you get aerial views of locations in the United States. Here's my neighborhood from 600 feet up. My house is right behind the orchard. Here's a topo map of North-Central Fresno County from 1971. Back then my neighborhood was about 5 miles north of town out in the country, and all of north Fresno is really fig orchards.

Campaign Finance Reform in action

The California Patriot Online

Law Promotion Alert

So here I've been positioning myself as the guy to see in Right-Central California when you all get hailed into the State of California because some defamatory post you've blogged is hosted on a mainframe sitting in downtown Fresno because the cost of living is like 40% less than the rest of the country and the local JC is turning out legions of underemployed code crunchers. Minimum contacts? You betcha. You reached out and put something here. Business blooms. I can justify my "advertising" line item for time spent on this blog, and everyone is happy. Then smarty-pants Denise Howell has to go and win the Pavlovich decision in front of the Cal. Supreme Court which says California will not exercise jursidiction over all of the out-of-state reprobates posting defamatory material and violating copyright on California mainframes.

I'll be shutting down now and moving to my alternative "business plan" of putting discount coupons for legal services on the back of my business cards.

You mean all those anti-Catholic bigots were right

Forgiveness is a Christian obligation. Who are we to judge. Let he who is without blah blah blah. After a lifetime of having to listen to slander and calumny about nuns and priests, this loser gives the Papist-bashers another five centuries of ammunition. This kind of predatory behavior is found in every institution. It is not inherent to the Catholic church. It is, however, the duty of every Catholic not to defer to this kind of filth in their church.

By the way, I have three young daughters, and I sue people for a living. If I get anyone like this in my sights in Fresno, I will own not only his future, but the future of anyone who even thinks about protecting him.

Have a nice day.

General Law Information site

ChessLaw

Faith and Reason

EveTushnet has some cogent thoughts on the interrelationship between faith and reason.

The Bloviator reports on the U.S. Catholic Bishops statement on domestic violence. Although the statement does not clearly state that domestic violence is grounds for annulment, it does counsel that no one is required to stay in an abusive marriage and encourages abused persons who have divorced to consider the possibility of an annulment.

My understanding is that separation is permissible under these kinds of circumstances, but that annulment looks at the state of mind of the parties at the time they entered into the sacrament of marriage. In other words, did they then have the requisite intent and state of mind to be married. If they did at that time, then annulment is not available. It almost seems that the Bishops are signalling a sotto voce change in Catholic docrine on annulment.

Update: First, it's sotto voce, and not soto voce. Second, the reason I couldn't find "sotto voce" in the on-line Latin dictionaries is that the word is Italian, and apparently from opera, meaning under one's breath, in lowered tones. So, our useful phrase for the day is "sotto voce."

Think that life emerged after a random lightning strike in the primordials soup of chemicals? Well, you're wrong!

ScienceDaily reports about a "Revolutionary New Theory For Origins Of Life On Earth."

Solar Eclipse Alert.

Jay Manifold reminds everyone that there will be a solar eclipse tomorrow. Except it's in South Africa.

Of all the astronomical events you can watch, solar eclipses are my favorite. Largely because they happen during the day. What astronomy wonks see in getting up at two in the morning to stand around in near freezing temperatures to look at a light show that can be simulated by consuming too much tequila escapes me.

More Sex Harassment Stuff

Erin O'Connor at Critical Mass is posting on the recent resignation of Berkeley's law school dean over "sexual harassment" charges. Erin is right that it seems to be a real case of "he said, she said." Erin is also right that sexual harassment laws are systematically abused for political reasons. In my experience, sexual harassment claims - and mere accusations can be death sentences for certain employees - have the effect of disadvantaging older long-term male employees in favor of young short term female employees. In the more problematic cases that I have seen the accused is a man who has worked a job for twenty plus years and the accuser is a young short term employee who is offended by some off-hand comment. Where the employee is marginal, such as where he is approaching retirement or has suffered a work-related injuy, employers will assess the relative risk and costs of a sexual harassment suit against the possible risk and costs of a claim for termination without good cause and will factor in the older employee's declining productivity. Next thing you know the older man is gone. [There is an entirely different set of calculations where the employee is extremely productive, such as a very succesful salesman.]

The real question in the Dwyer case, though, is where is the sexual harassment? At its core, sexual harassment involves a misuses of the power relationship inherent in employment. Thus, sexual harassment can involve quid pro quo, where sex is traded for benefits or to avert threats, or "hostile work environment," where the workplace, or schoolsite, is affected by severe or pervasive sexually offensive conduct, displays or communications. With all due respect, while fondling a drunken woman off the work or school site may constitute sexual battery, it does not clearly involve actionable sexual harassment unless the Dean's position was used to advance the sexual battery. For that matter, given recent decisions that sexual batteries by police officers are not within the course and scope of employment, Berkeley may have no liability if the alleged sexual battery is proven.

The action here may be based on allegations of retaliation for opposing or objecting to unlawful conduct. Certainly, the one year time period to file a claim with the DFEH concering the incident has been blown. [Assuming that the DFEH has jurisdiction over student complaints. Otherwise the statute of limitations is one year under California's Unruh Act.] The alleged statements by the "EEOC compliance officer" that "the official refused to assure the student that her identity would be kept confidential or that she would be protected from retaliation" may be setting up a retaliation theory.

The alleged statements seem off the wall but I have been in cases where a victim comes forward with the claim and she was told that she could not report anonymously and that her identity would not be kept confidential. Her identity was thereafter almost immediately broadcast throughout her work department, which resulted in increased hostility and various retaliations. My view is that some attempt should be made to keep the complainant's identity confidential, but it may not be possible under all circumstances.

The last statement, though, is incredible, if true. A complainant should be assured that there will be no retaliation, which is what the law requires. On the other hand, retaliation means different thngs to different people. Social ostracism may not be unlawful retaliation, and this may have been the context of the communication. Nonetheless, I have seen incredible statements made by HR in similar circumstances so no statement should be automatically discounted.

This may be the social enineering aspect of this case. The complainant's attorney may be attempting to educate Berkeley's HR about the law with respect to receiving claims of sexual harassment. I have to question the rationality of this goal, inasmuch as the conduct doesn't really look like sexual harassment. [Again, if you believe the plaintiff's story, it looks like sexual battery, which is a crime, and there is a completely different forum for lodging a complaint, which we call the "police."]

My quick assessment is that all things being equal this is not an attractive case. The value in this case might have been the publicity value, but frankly the value that can be leveraged from concerns about publicity are usually not great, and the value goes away once you pull the trigger and make the claims public. At that point, the defendants have every incentive to fight. Always leave your opponent a golden road of retreat.

Sidenote: Here is my earlier post on a recent California case discussing the element of "pervasiveness" of sexual harassment in the workplace. The facts of that case are the kind of gobsmacking bizarreness that proves that truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to at least be believable.

Ted Nugent gives thanks.

Ted Nugent scribes an essay on the things he was thankful for this Thanksgiving - America, freedom and, of course, corporate capitalism. He almost makes me wish I liked head-banging rock and roll. I like his observation that Thanksgiving is not merely a speed bump between Halloween and Christmas, it deserves it's own recognition as a "special holiday that naturally comes during the hunting season." [In your face, PETA.] I want to describe him as a counter-culture of the counter-culture, but his concluding paragraph argues that the counter-culture has some pretty deep roots:

America isn't at a social or political crossroads as some will try to tell us. Those who believe that would have told you 500 years ago that the earth was flat. Thirty years ago they would have been stoned on LSD, drooling and dancing naked at a Grateful Dead concert. My advice is to avoid these people. They will always gravitate towards the negative. Take it from an old, cocky rock 'n' roll guitar player whose God-given senses remain finely tuned: America's best days are in front of us.

Rock on.

This is kind of mind boggling

According to the ScienceDaily News, Jupiter-Like Planets may be formed within several hundred years, and not millions of years. In other words, blink and a Jupiter-Size planet may show up in your accretion disk. Well, maybe it's not so mind boggling since the universe itself was formed from a microdot within microseconds. Well, then again, it is all pretty amazing.

Man, Occam's razor can be very cruel

Check out genehealy.com: for a quick deconstruction of Al Gore's popularity problem.

How Appealing points the way to a law blog with a great name - The Dark Goddess Of Replevin Speaks. If you don't know what replevin means, follow Mr. B's links to the answers.

More liberal open-mindedness from the last bastion of tolerance


Roger Ho, Esq., who provided an amicus brief in this case (cool), advises that the First DCA (District Court of Appeals to you landlubbers) has ruled that Berkeley can retaliate against the Sea Scouts for the position that the Boy Scouts of America takes on homosexuality.

There is a certain appeal to this position. Federalism and conservative principles favor the notion that local communities should have substantial latitude in defining the contours of a community's morality. There is also something satisfyingly conservative in describing governmental actions as "privileges" and not "rights." Further, the Scouts have staked out a position as a private association, and so there is a "biter bit" irony to taking them at their word and denying them public benefits.

Here's the problem. All of those arguments have been made in the past when it was a conservative community challenging a broader liberal attitude, and it has never been permitted. The law does not allow a community to condition its grant of privileges or benefits on the content of a group's message. It also recognizes that withdrawing benefits after they have been granted is constitutionally noxious. Hence, a community library cannot remove a book from the shelves based on the book's content [although it may be able to decide not to purchase the book based on its content. [ See Board of Education v. Pico. ] Likewise, a community cannot pass a law stating that homosexuals are not a protected class for the purposes of its local anti-discrimination laws. [See Romer v. Evans (1996)

Both actions were assessed by the U.S. Supreme Court as involving content-based actions that sought to stigmatize a particular viewpoint.

Now, I personally disagreed with this analysis when it was pronounced. But, gosh, it sure was popular with folks at the New York Times and in Berkeley at the time. It is as they say, the law. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. It all depends on whose ox is gored, etc. It seems now that the good folk of Berkeley are trying to stigmatize a particular viewpoint by through state action. The only way to see a difference is to be able to understand that those cases involved a bunch of anti-freedom book burners and this case involves courageous freedom fighters. In other words, it's the message that counts.

Perhaps the Left will find a new vitality in legal doctrines allowing greater flexibility to community actions against noxious political viewpoints. After all, they were able to reverse field on the wisdom of the Independent Counsel law once it started being applied to democrats. [Another constitutional decision that I was not alone in viewing as questionable from the outset. See Morrison v. Olson.]

Argh. The dumbing down of America continues apace.

GOP not PC at WSJ so it's RIP.

A Ramadan Thanksgiving

Masood Cajee, who lives in the Central Valley, writes about the problems of synthesizing Thanksgiving and Ramadan. It sounds like a problem. No turkey until after Iftar. I have a similar problem when St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday, but thankfully there is always the Bishop's dispensation.

Neat Site

Click here for Monterey Bay Aquarium's Monterey Bay Cam.

One of the problems with literalism

Mormon Church may excommunicate a graduate student who used genetic information to show that the Mormon claim that Native Americans are descended from the "Lost Tribes of Israel."

Pay the price

Peggy Noonan finds a deeper meaning in Tom Daschle's complaints about Rush Limbaugh. Her point is that there has been a "paradigm" shift in the way that Americans view dissent. One case in point is the young man who wants to be both an Eagle Scout and an atheist. Because of his concern about his integrity, he doesn't want to express a belief in "reverence." [One of the points of scouting is that "a scout is reverent."] But he doesn't want to pay the price for his integrity. As Noonan writes:

In the America of 50 years ago and a 100 years ago and 1776, this is how it went:

You, a citizen, decide you want to belong to a group but you believe in "A" and they believe in "B." There is a clash. Here the old American myth kicks in. You, the citizen, stick with what you believe, and don't join the organization. You won't lie about what you believe, and they won't change what they believe. So they don't let you in. You pay a price for where you stand. But you can keep standing there.

You keep your integrity, and maybe in time the group will change and you and your suffering will be the reason. (This is the story of, among others, Dr. King in the Birmingham jail.) Or maybe the group won't change its ways, ever. But you have your integrity and they have their rules and this is America.

Noonan then discusses Tom Daschle:

He, as a leader of a great political party, is an example-setter for the young. Some of them might look to him as a famous man who knows how to be an adult. After the dreadful showing of the Democrats in the election he held a news conference in which he famously blamed Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio talk show hosts for inciting people to . . . well, to not liking Tom Daschle. Rush says mean things about Tom. His listeners, who Tom Daschle subtly suggests are possibly unstable and insane--how could they not be, they're conservative--get a little too excited when they hear Rush, and start to make rude sounds. "The threat level goes up," says Tom Daschle.

Oh, please. Boo hoo. When people disagree with you they criticize you. When you're trying to tell an entire nation how to live, which is what big-time politics comes down to now, some people will fight back with terrible weapons such as sarcasm, irony and vulgarity. They will sometimes be mean. So what?

Tom: Grownups pay a price for where they stand! Being put down by conservatives is the price you pay. Is it really too much?

Rush Limbaugh has 20 million listeners. If Tom Daschle wants to make progress for his side why doesn't he go on his show and talk to them? Take call-ins, explain your views, be a man, move the ball forward.

Let me slide from Noonan's observation to a slightly different one. When did the Left become so whiny? The idea of stoically paying a price, even an unjust price, seems to have entirely disappeared from the Left. I suspect that in general the Right is inherently more tolerant of the irrationalities inherent in any system, and has more of a willingness to say that something that appears unjust may have to be tolerated because the system or order is given a higher priority in a hiearchy of values.

The Left wasn't always so whiny. One of my personal heroes is Eugene V. Debs. Obviously, I abhor Debs socialism, albeit the fact that he was one the highest polling third party candidate in American History, a a feat he achieved in prison, is one of those fascinating bits of trivia that history is littered with.

No, I admire him for his stoic commitment to principles. Debs helped to found the American Railway Union. When the Pullman workers went on strike over truly horrific conditions in the company town of Pullman, Debs threw the new ARU behind the Pullman workers. The strike was broken in part by the intervention of the federal govenrment and the use of anti-strike injunctions. Debs went to jail for the first time for his violation of these anti-strike injunctions. [It was in prison that Debs converted from moderate trade union activism to full-throated socialism.]

Thereafter, Debs became the flag-bearer of socialism. As part of which, Debs opposed America's entry into World War One. For his trouble, Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1918 for his opposition to the war. He was pardoned in 1921 by President Harding, President Wilson having vigorously rejected pardon requests.

There is something admirable about Debs. Perhaps, under the right circumstances he could have become America's Lenin. I don't think so. Lenin was an abject coward who ran at the first sign of danger. Debs always paid the price. I think Debs actually had a moral core which was absent in his almost contemporaries, Hitler, Lenin and Mussolini.

Debs clearly viewed the American system as unjust and corrupt. I am sure he viewed his treatment as the kind of cruelty that one could expect from what he viewed as a corrupt and decadent system. But there was something courageous and compelling about him. He took it like a man. He knew that he was paying the price for the positions he felt he had to take. I can't help but think that Debs would look at his intellectual heirs with a certain contempt for the lack of manliness.