What are you reading?

Apparently there's a chain "what are you reading" thingy going around the blogsphere, and in the spirit of getting back into the habit of posting, I'll play along, but not send it along.

1. Number of books you have owned:

Using Delicious Library cataloging software, I'm up to 1,200 or so, with a 1,000 probably not catalogued, so I've probably owned close to 3,000 books over my lifetime....

2. Last book I bought:

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas

3. Last book I completed:

The Thin Man

4a. Five books that mean a lot to me:

1. Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

2. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg

3. The Journal of John Woolman

4. The Moon by Whale Light by Diane Ackerman

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen R. Covey

4b. What are you currently reading?

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Close to Home by Peter Robinson

Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni

Soul of the Republican Party at Stake

From a Knight Ridder August 3, 2005 story:

"Three senior Republican senators wrote a small amendment into the Defense Appropriations bill this summer that outlaws cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of all detainees in American custody.

No one can call Sens. John Warner, R-Va., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., soft on anything, much less terrorism...

On the floor of the Senate, before everyone left on vacation, Sen. Jeff Sessions (news, bio, voting record), R-Ala., sounded the administration line: There is no need for this legislation because we are not dealing with prisoners of war but "terrorists."

John McCain stood up and responded that the debate was not "about who they are. It's about who we are." We are Americans, the senator said, and we hold ourselves to a higher standard than those who slaughter the innocent in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in London or on 9/11 here at home.

This debate has a special resonance as investigation after investigation into the outrages against prisoners at
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and others into the mistreatment of detainees held in American custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, continue to focus all blame at the lowest possible level. This in spite of new testimony that strongly suggests that the blame, like cream, settles much nearer the top.

Please repeat after the good senator who knows about prisons and the torture of helpless human beings:

This is not about who they are. This is about who we are. We are Americans and we hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct. And, no, the end does not justify the means. Not now. Not ever, when the means include torturing prisoners."

And so say we all.

Harry Potter Wisdom for today

"Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back."

Dumbledore to Harry Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

What's wrong with SBC education

Ran across this story from a blog new to me: MainstreamBaptist in which a Southern Seminary prof talks about raising violent sons:

"Why I'm Raising Violent 4 Year-Olds June 1, 2005 (by Russell D. Moore) (excerpts by me)

...this is the second movie my children have ever seen in their lives. One was a tender, touching Christmas movie about a little boy who discovers that Christmas is all about believing in the miracles within. The second was a cartoonishly violent movie in which men go face-to-face with evil aliens; often chopping off limbs in the heat of battle. As I think about my film choices for my children, I will admit that I repent....of taking them to the Christmas film.

This is because of my overall philosophy of childrearing. I am aiming to raise up violent sons.

I am not seeking to raise sons who are violent in the amoral, pagan sense of contemporary teenagers playing "Grand Theft Auto" video games or carjacking motorists. I want them to be more violent than that.

I want them to understand that the Christian life is not a Hallmark Channel version of baptized sentimentality. Instead, it is a cosmic battle between an evil dragon and the child of the woman, an ancient warfare that now includes all who belong to the Child of the Promise (Rev 12). I want them to forgive their enemies, not because they are good boys, but because they understand that vengeance against the Serpent comes not from their hand, but from that of the anointed Warrior-King (Rev 19), whose blood-soaked garments don't often transfer to the imagery of a Precious Moments wall-hanging. And I want them to exercise self-control of their passions, not because it is polite, but because they are called to struggle against the Evil One, even to the point of cutting off their own limbs rather than succumb to devices.

(Link)

This is so far beyond the Prince of Peace, blessed are the peacemakers, and the writings of peacemaking scholar Glenn Stassen. Yikes

Subtle Hegemony

Today's word is hegemony, which means "The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others." It's use has been extended to include cultures as well. Here's a case and point:

Recently Howard Dean, DNC, made a couple of statements to the effect that the GOP is "not very friendly to different kinds of people," and that Republicans are "pretty much a White, Christian party." The Republican response from the VEEP was: "I think Howard Dean's over the top. I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does," Cheney told Fox News Channel. Additional negative comments were made by a myriad of other conservative pundits.

Recently, Karl Rove, White House Deputy Chief of Staff said that the "most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security."

"Conservatives," he continued, "saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

"In the wake of the terrorist attacks," he said, "conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States against the Taliban" while liberals supported a MoveOn.org petition "imploring the powers that be to use moderation and restraint in responding to the terrorist attacks against the United States." White House spokesman Scott McClellan responded by saying that Bush sees "no reason" for an apology.

There have been other similar situations where several Republican leaders have practiced the double standard: William J. Bennet writing on moral values (Book of Virtues), and then getting caught with a major gambling problem, Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction, and his supporters' defense (an addiction to drugs because of pain is different than those who are just addicted to drugs (those drug users are moral failures, Rush is not), Newt Gingrich's divorce of his first ill wife, while he was promoting "family values."

What's this have to do with hegemony? The conservative movement in America has taken over language, the church, education, the airwaves, so that it's beliefs are considered to be "normal," while progressives who protest, who see the world differently, are weird, devient. It is the hegemony of one group's value system over another. Selah.

Poverty reduction

Here's some somber facts to think about as the G8 gather in Edinburgh, Scotland. Taken from Altercation:

[The US contributes]... just 0.16 percent of GDP to global development—that’s one-sixth of one cent for every dollar we earn. What hope can a country have when its ruling ideologists tell the world to shut up about development because we are spending so much on guns and killing people?

America’s relatively niggardly welfare system, even its most generous incarnation—since significantly reduced--raised poor incomes only moderately, reduced the proportion of adults in poverty from 26.7 to 19.1 percent. In Germany, France, and Italy, meanwhile, employing the same benchmark, the number hovers around just seven percent.

As for the elderly, where the U.S. social security system is its most generous, it manages to reduce the level of elderly people living in poverty from nearly sixty percent before transfer payments to just below twenty percent afterward. Yet the Europeans improve on this performance as well. Germany, France, and Italy all spend roughly twice as much of their national income as does the United States. What’s more, with our inferior system of public health, and family-friendly employment laws, the U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all of their citizens.

Source for all of the above:: OECD, Health Data 1999: A Comparative Analysis of 29 Countries (OECD, 2001).

The Lord God Bird

Heard a simply amazing story on NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon, about the town of Brinkley, Arkansas and the economic hopes the community has for revitalization after a recent viewing of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

The bird was thought to be extinct, and was "rediscovered" after 60+ years. Local artists talk about making art in the birds' image, a local restaurant has an ivory-billed woodpecker burger, and a hunting lodge gears up for birders who want to take a guided trip to see the bird. The town is in the bayou.

The bird is called the Lord God Bird, because when people saw how big it was; they supposedly said "Lord God!"

The radio story is an incredible compilation of community voices, no narrator. Plus, there's an amazing original song (The Lord God Bird) written and performed by Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens.

The link to the story, and a free download of the song (current as of today) is here.

Clouds

Clouds
Originally uploaded by Kurwin.

I see London, I see France... what do you see? Heard a great sermon today on Hagar naming God; "the God who sees."

Loving the brief lazy days of summer.

The Conventional Wisdom

From Freakonomics:
The first trick of asking questions is to determine if your question is a good one. . . It was John Kenneth Galbraith... who coined the phrase "conventional wisdom." . . .the conventional wisdom in Galbraith's view must be simple, convenient, comfortable, and comforting--though not necessarily true. It would be silly to argue that the conventional wisdom is never true. But noticing where the conventional wisdom may be false--noticing, perhaps, the contrails of sloppy or self-interested thinking--is a nice place to start asking questions (p. 90).

Levitt uses as an example Mitch Snyder the homeless advocate. He reported in 1980 that there were 3 million homeless Americans, and furthermore, 45 homeless people die each second (meaning 1.4 billion dead homeless each year. The total US population then was about 225 million). Later on, Synder admitted he made it up, because he didn't want reporters to go away without a number.

Reference: Becker, G. S, & Becker, G. N. (1997). "How the homeless crisis was hyped," in the Economics of Life. New York: Crown, 2000, pp. 60-69.

This is what is so intriguing to me about today; blogging and the internet can catch a lot of mispeak: honest mistakes and intentional mistakes.

Jesus Meek and Mild

In a discussion about Luke 9 last Sunday, we pondered long and hard Jesus' comments about the cost of being his disciple. He had no kind words for those who wanted to fulfill familial obligations, or bury the dead. Earlier in the chapter, he wants to know how long he has to stay around, because everyone around him just doesn't get it. When the disciples want to call down fire (like Elijah did), on a town that's not receptive to them, Jesus rebukes them.

I don't know about you, but I don't often hear others say that Jesus rebuked them. More often than not, they talk about how "Jesus told me to do this;" more "In the Garden" hymn talk than tongue lashing.

So, imagine my interest when I found this quotation today in a SoJo email:

"I believe it to be a great mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it.... We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus meek and mild was so stiff in his opinions and so inflammatory in his language that he was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever his peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference."

- Dorothy Sayers

Balloon Glow 2005

Balloon Glow 2005
Originally uploaded by Kurwin.

Just what we needed on a cool night!

Regarding "Justice Sunday." Here's a snip from a recent Jim Wallis SoJo email (4/21/05):

"That is an escalation of the religious/political war. And the two together sound like assertions of a Republican theocracy. Behind these activities lies a fundamental assumption by Republican operatives and their conservative religious allies that they own religion in America. They demand that religious people vote only their way. They claim that "values voters" in America belong to them, and they disrespect the faith of those who disagree with their agenda. There are better words for this than just "politically divisive" or "morally irresponsible." For these are not merely political offenses, they are religious ones. And for offenses such as these, theological terms are better - terms such as idolatry and blasphemy.

We should bring our religious convictions about all moral issues to the public square - such as the uplifting of the poor, the protection of the environment, the ethics of war, or the tragic number of abortions in America - without attacking the sincerity of other people's faith, or demanding that we should win because we are religious. We must make moral arguments and mobilize effective movements for social change that can powerfully persuade our fellow citizens, religious or not, on what is best for the common good."

In the C-J on Friday Joe Phelps, pastor of Highland Baptist Church made statements on how the "Justice" meeting was against Baptist principles, and the separation of church and state. The pastor of Highview's response was to impugn Phelps' character: saying he just wanted to get in the paper and on TV.

This is a standard right wing tactic: switch attention from issues by making personal attacks.

Today in the C-J, Sen. Mitch McConnell wrote an op-ed piece stating that Democratic complaining is the standard line from the liberal elite media. "Why can't Republicans go to church," he asks? He does make a point; I'd like all Republicans to go to church and read all the words of Jesus about the poor, the widows, the hungry.

Most complaints about the meeting today are not that Republicans are meeting in a church, but that Republicans are saying that by filibustering 10 appellate court nominees, Democrats are denying their Christian freedom. (NOTE: yet another right wing trick: write an op-ed piece about the wrong issue). Hence the theocracy comments by Wallis.

I don't recall Democrats denying conservative Christians the right to go to church, to pray and interpret the Bible as they see fit.

Last Class Today

Last class for the Spring Semester. We brought the two classes together and heard a panel consisting of a Democratic senator, a Republican senator, a child advocate and an elder abuse advocate.

What was interesting was the insistence by the two senators that senators really like each other, and that the process is truly much more collegial and democratic than the press portrays. Of course, they admitted that they would often support their party, check their friendships at the door, and then after the session go and have coffee. This was in marked contrast to the election process, which to me, is bitter, rankorous, extremely negative, and highly personal.

The advocates spoke of the process to getting legislation passed; the necessity of having legislative allies, of doing your homework on the issue and on the opponents to the bill; of being persistant (rarely does a bill pass the first time it is introduced).

While I find all of this fascinating, it is troubling to think that in the four years it took to pass an elder abuse law, who knows how many older adults died because new trainings had not been conducted and service provider relationships had not been strengthened. Kind of makes you wish for a smoother, speedier process when social problems that involve life and death need legislation. A process that isn't oftentimes petty, vindictive and greedy.

My grandparent's barn

100_295
Originally uploaded by Kurwin.

I used to play on the tractor and explore around in this barn when we would visit in the summer.

Dots changing colors

Hmm. The red state, blue state thing is more complicated than I first realized here, and here. Abortion rates falling higher in blue states than in red states? Blue states have lower divorce rates?

What's one to do? How about distract us from connecting the dots by doing this, let's take over the word justice and say it only relates to being for or against President Bush. You can't with the one had complain about the out of control liberal Federal courts, and then with the other hand, complain that Senate Democrats are fillibustering 10 nominees to those Federal courts.... This is called "obscuring the connections between the dots."

4 dots for God's Politics

Just finished God's Politics, by Jim Wallis. In it, he suggests a "third way," a way of bridging the left and right politically and religiously, finding common ground around issues both sides can agree on. For example, he assserts that most people on the Left who are pro choice, would rather women not have abortions. Why not form partnerships with those on the right, to give women alternatives to abortion (adoption, foster care), as well as reduce the economic circumstances that lead women to have abortions.

Time and time again, Wallis points out that conservatives are correct when they emphasize choice and ethics, and liberals are correct when they emphasize the economic, cultural, and political factors that keep people down.

Here are some of his more interesting "predictions for the New Millenium:"

1. The Religious Right will lose control of the discussion of religion and public life and other voices will be heard.
2. The Spice Girls (who?) will not be remembered, and Martin Luther King, Jr. will.
3. Overcoming poverty will become the great moral issue as we move into the new millennium.
4. Some liberals will get the values questions right, and some conservatives will really care about poor people.
5. So a new option will emerge; conservative in personal values, radical for social justice. The number of spiritual progressives will grow.
6. More parents will choose good books over mindless and soulless television.
7. The Left will decide, as the conservatives already have, that ideas are important and will begin to offer some better ones.

My students and I began a discussion in class last week on how to overcome poverty, and I told them that Wallis' book was one dot to connect. More on that discussion later.

Iris in the Spring

Iris in the Spring
Originally uploaded by Kurwin.

Finally, it is Spring. Saw this flower last April on a walk to daycare with Ellie.