Privacy IS Cuil

Some Contratimes readers will recall that I have voiced more than a little concern over the rather invasive practices of Google (sorry Google).

This morning I read about Cuil (pronounced cool, I believe), a new search engine created by former Google engineers. Cuil's claim that the engine searches more sites than any other, even Google, is well beyond my ability to verify. But Cuil's promise that all searches are essentially anonymous seems rather proper. No collecting data, no stashing searches, no loading up a browser with cookies.

I have already spent some time using Cuil (I like its "safe search" filter especially), and I must say it is at least an attractive alternative to the rather uninspired look of Google, Yahoo or Ask. I am not sure about its critical effectiveness, but perhaps my doubts are due to my near total dependence on Google: It is hard to get used to new things. But I think I will give it a go for a bit; it's already the default search engine in two computers in this household.

I'd love to know what you think.

Peace.

BG

Getting It Just Wrong

It was during one of those nights of many nights lying awake, mortality breathing on my cheek, when I took stock of my prayers. You see, my prayers are not really prayers. They are more like distress flares over a dark sea.

"Real" prayer, so to speak, that personal and intimate bending of heart, mind and will toward God when one is alone, has become far too intimate for me. I am afraid of what I will see, not of God, but of myself. I shudder at the thought of too much scrutiny, so I shutter the windows to my heart.

How silly, I know, to think God cannot see what I try to hide. The fact is, I am not hiding a thing from God, only from some part of myself. And even that is not true; the denial is of something, and that thing is known and understood. I see everything that is known. The denier knows.

But perhaps not even that is true. Perhaps that is why I do not pray, because I do not want to learn another heretofore unknown thing about myself, about how I have let another person down, or disappointed God. It is sad to say this, but it is true that the vast majority of my Christian experience revolves around disappointment: that my parents and teachers and friends and family and God -- always God -- expect more, are disappointed. How rare to hear a sermon about a God who is not disappointed, to hear of his pleasure, approval and delight. Is nothing ever good enough for him? Is he never happy? Has he no contentment? One wonders what sort of God we worship who never delights in his children without some reminder that they have left him a bit cross, a tad disappointed. Is this the way God -- our Father -- wants us to think of him? Surely there are days he wants us simply to be grateful that we are not under condemnation, celebrating the freedom of a love that perfectly casts out all fear. Or are we always and every day to feel that we have let him down? Is that the perfect love that casts out all fear? Or is that the imperfect love that casts out just some fear?

This morning I will go to church. I will be reminded again to sing about how wonderful God is; I will be reminded that I must say nice and right things about him, or else. I will also be reminded that I have fallen short, that repentance and contrition are due once again. That I still have things to work on, to improve. That God loves me unconditionally -- but.

St. Paul declares that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. None! Nada. No condemnation at all. And yet there is so little freedom in the wake of such great news. Nearly every Christian I know worries, worries so much they weigh their words, their prayers, with diligence bordering on obsession. They speak watching their tongues, afraid to say the wrong things, afraid to upset God, afraid that he will take something away from them in order to teach them some hard lesson. Most of the time, it all seems like a great big bargain: "God, I will be obedient and grateful and prayerful and adoring, just don't mess up my plans, kill me before I have lose my virginity, take my well-paying job from me, harm my children or strike me with illness. Deal?"

And I notice that when I raise this issue about fear, about there being no condemnation for those who are in Christ, I am greeted with a rejoinder that leads inexorably to some anxiety about whether anyone is really certain about being IN Christ Jesus.

I have heard Christian teachers of prayer exhort their charges to "pray with precision," to pray with bold "accuracy." But why? What will happen if I don't? Something bad? Will God punish me if I fail to put the name of Jesus in every sentence I speak? Will I be in trouble if I forget to close my prayers with the "in-Jesus'-name-I-pray" coda? Will I be in trouble if I am not "specific"? Will I disappoint God again?

Indeed, if my prayers in the dark are not always signal flares over a vast silent sea, they are, sometimes, a question. What, O Lord, does it mean that "perfect love casts out all fear?" Where, O Lord, is this love, this place of fearlessness where love is not disappointed?

Admittedly this personal essay carries with it the potential cause of more anxiety, namely that we should be anxious about having God wrong. But that sort of anxiety would be silly. What is not silly is that there is a gospel that claims to have set us free, free from guilt, anxiety, fear; from having to weigh our words; from worries about whether God will smite us if we don't get everything right. Even the signal flares in the night are OK, no? Surely God does not shame us for being afraid. Does he?

If there is anything he might shame us for, however, is that as Christians we believe that fear is normative, that God must always be approached with language that appeases his short temper; that God's default emotion toward us is anger and that he is always looking for reasons to chasten. But the irony suggests paradox: God might be angry for our seeing him as fundamentally angry.

To rephrase another St. Paul passage, if God is against us, who can be for us? Sadly it seems I believe that God is against us. Unless, of course, I get everything just right.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Imponderables

The nearly full moon is setting as I write; that great light shall return this evening in full phase, softly switching places with the very serious sun. It is like the changing of the guard at an ancient palace, all so proper, so lovely. Despite the assumed formalities, somehow the stern and punctual sun tolerates the distracted and oft-disheveled moon, who always shows up at different times, and then rarely in full uniform. Except tonight. Tonight the show will begin as promised once a month (and sometimes twice), on time, in tandem, along the gilt edges of day.

Dawn has not yet fully broken over my head, over my anxious day that is not yet. But my ears tremble this morning with a chorus: Why do the birds always sing at dawn?

In listening I sing, and return to my little house, climbing stairs to a quiet bed.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Utterly Molish

This morning I sit on my deck, overlooking our small meadow and the few goldfinches that settle on the bird feeder nearby, and I settle into The Wind in the Willows, that great classic by Kenneth Grahame. My tea cools in its smooth mug. A black-billed cuckoo calls from the east over Moose Brook.

It's a pleasant morning to be messing about in boats, though I haven't time to paddle away somewhere today. But the other night I did have time to paddle upstream in my kayak to the town pond where fireworks were to be launched for a belated Fourth-of-July celebration, being the Sixth of July. And while returning in the smoky dark, my journey home being in the same direction as that taken by the fireworks' sooty exhaust, I was startled by a most curious event: A small fish jumped into my kayak and landed on my naked thighs (I was wearing shorts).

Had anyone been sitting along the brook's bank, they would have heard through the impenetrable gloom the sound of a screaming man, then some emittance of blasphemies, then a crash into brambles followed by more verbal improprieties, and then a soliloquy of sorts followed by hearty and incredulous laughter.

Indeed, even in the pitch dark, it is fun messing about in boats.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

A Fossil Not At All Facile

Nathan Cervo, a noted literary critic, poet, man-of-letters and English professor (now retired), is a friend of mine. We are not close friends, I admit, but we are close enough to have a great deal of affection for one another.

I spoke with Mr. Cervo yesterday about his recent letter to the editor published in the local newspaper. As a result of that conversation, he granted me permission to reprint that letter here. So, I do.

Please note that Mr. Cervo is well-known for his diction. Believe it or not, this is Nathan Cervo using simpler words.

C. S. Lewis once described himself as a dinosaur. Mr. Cervo, who is quite old, brings us a senior and scholarly view on the current state of affairs; his critics, no doubt, would like to retire him to the tar pits. Here's his letter:

'As an epitome, or compendium, of the New America, there can be little doubt that Barack Obama will become our next president. He represents a demotic force that has been germinating in the soil of American liberalism from the establishment of the "novus ordo seclorum" (the new order of the ages; see the back of a dollar bill); that is, of secularism. It is triumphant secularism that is more openly manifesting itself in such expressions of freedom as the destruction of the family despotically headed by a male and its gradual supersession by same-sex marriage and a galaxy of one-night stands replete with drugs.

Secularism tolerates any gelded form of religion, mindful that statism is superior to all constructs of piety. The state is sovereign. (Did not Jesus, the first liberal prophet, say, "The truth shall make you free" and "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"?)

Under management as intense as any project by the KGB, Obama echoes Karl Marx in private conferences and, probably believing socialism to be an epiphany of belated Christian romanticism, publicly avows himself a disciple of Jesus Christ. Like a modern Diogenes, holding a lantern before him, Obama searches at noon for an honest man. Unfortunately, he does this in the cesspool of Chicago politics.

Basically, Obama is the mock Sir Galahad of the liberals, whose strength is as the strength of ten because he and his rhetoric are callow; that is, are a perfect mirror of the majority of American voters, who have been liberalized out of their wits down through the ages by the creeping infamy of public education, whose cachet is that the only true religion is sociology.'

In posting Mr. Cervo's comments here, I seek to give voice to an elder statesman of letters, so to speak. I do not in any way intend to promote Mr. Cervo's ideas as identical with my own, nor do I claim to agree with them. I am simply giving an older generation another place to give voice, to be heard. No doubt Mr. Cervo's opinion is at least singularly expressed, though in fact it could be totally unique to him: no one else of his generation may think his way at all. Regardless. I have opened my blog to the thoughts of someone I respect profoundly for his stalwart defense of humanity's mind, soul, and heart. He has long been a true defender of civilization ... and the Cross.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

It's So Bad, It's Really Quite Good!

The Concord (NH) Monitor editorializes today about the horrors of water-boarding as proven by the willful and self-promoted water-boarding of that notorious belletrist, Christopher Hitchens. Mr. Hitchens writes about his "ordeal" in the August 2008 edition of Vanity Fair.

In the Monitor's somewhat embarrassing essay, "This should quell the debate over use of water-boarding," we find the paper in agreement with Hitchens' dubious verdict that water-boarding is, indeed, torture. The paper also adds that torture is "un-American."

But just a modicum of circumspection here might lead us to conclusions antithetical to the Monitor's deep moral sensibilities. Permit me to make a few simple points; I promise I can prove that there is something not only vapid in both Mr. Hitchens' and the Monitor's conclusions, there is something risible and absurd.

________________________

A SMALL POINT WORTH MAKING

First, let it be noted that Mr. Hitchens has largely been vilified by liberals and Democrats everywhere for his unapologetic support of the invasion of Iraq and the US's deposing of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Hitchens firmly believes in "Islamofascism"; he defends the West at every turn not only from Islamic insanity but also liberal pusillanimity. He is not a friend of the Left, at least when it comes to the "War on Terror." At least he's not been a friend until today.

Second, let me ask a couple of simple questions.

If I clearly warn you that, should you drive on any American highway in an intoxicated condition you will be -- if apprehended -- heavily fined, do you not voluntarily submit to that consequence if you do indeed drive drunk on I-90?

And if I clearly warn you that you will be sentenced to death should you be arrested for kidnapping a child and traveling over state lines with that abducted child (where you rape and murder that child), do you not voluntarily submit to those consequences should you choose such risky and abhorrent behavior?

No doubt I could ask many other questions like these, but I do not want to belabor the point. And the point is this: If we as Americans clearly forewarn our enemies that they will be subjected to water-boarding should they be apprehended, isn't it the case that our enemies voluntarily submit to that risk when they step onto the battlefield to do us harm? Alas, I believe that there is nothing to argue regarding this point: they DO volunteer to be submitted to such consequences.

Hence, let us conclude that Christopher Hitchens has done nothing really interesting here other than to participate in some form of masochism. He volunteered to submit to something considered by folks at the Concord Monitor (and elsewhere) to be nothing short of torture. Alas, he freely chose a set of consequences; as such, he is in every way culpable for his own suffering.

But it is not the case that either Mr. Hitchens or any enemy combatant was unaware of the consequences: what is known beforehand cannot lead to a surprise afterwards. Enemy combatants are not thrown into chaos, into a maelstrom of caprice and deceit; nor was Mr. Hitchens. Enemy combatants KNOW what they are getting into, and yet do not flinch from their paths.

Hence, the Concord Monitor cannot justify supporting Mr. Hitchens self-abuse by arguing that he submitted to water-boarding voluntarily. Mr. Hitchens, just like enemy combatants, knew beforehand what he was getting himself into. (Let it be added that Mr. Hitchens goes to great lengths to inform us about the Americans who have trained to ENDURE water-boarding, proving that at least American soldiers, who become "enemy combatants" when captured by our enemies, surely knew beforehand what they might face should they enter the fray. But it strains credulity to think our enemies are unaware of what they face if captured.)

________________________

MY MAIN POINT, REALLY


In all of this, from the Monitor's editorial to Hitchens' actions, there is a stultifying irony. Late last year, war protesters actually water-boarded a volunteer during a protest in Washington, D.C. as a demonstration of how torturous water-boarding can be. In other words, water-boarding is not so reprehensible and torturous that protesters are unwilling to torture one of their willing friends. No, water-boarding is just torturous enough to give protesters the information they want: that water-boarding is torture.

No doubt liberals, such as the editors at the Concord Monitor, believed quite sincerely that Mr. Hitchens was withholding much needed information, information he quickly and freely handed-over to editorial boards everywhere once he was subjected to torture. But again, water-boarding is not SO bad that any Concord Monitor editor has condemned the water-boarding of Mr. Hitchens. No, no, no. That sort of torture is just fine. Forsooth, Mr. Hitchens has finally received what he no doubt deserved (at least in the minds of his critics) all for the sake of a few empty and hypocritical political points scored by those who had already, a priori, condemned what is at least a very controversial method of interrogation. If water-boarding is too awful to use to extract necessary intelligence from enemy combatants, it is too awful to use to extract moral clarity from "volunteers."

Lastly if -- as the Monitor avers -- torture is undeniably "un-American," it strikes this writer as patently absurd that water-boarding for protest or propaganda IS apparently (at least to the Monitor) consistent with all things American.

Really, it is hard to believe that this is all not a joke.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008

"Gundamentalism"? How Precious!

If you are not familiar with the writings of Mark D. Tooley, director of the United Methodist Committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, I would encourage you to make his acquaintance via this very astute (and accidentally hilarious) essay.

One cannot easily reasonably imagine that there is a person of the cloth, so to speak, who would opine that "gundamentalism is a religious movement without spiritual grounding," but reality trumps reason, at least most of the time. Gundamentalism may indeed be a religion without grounds, but so, it seems, is gun hysteria; and nothing is more hysterical than the prophetic voice which is the Rev. Rachel Smith (Mr. Tooley has Ms. Smith's Christian name wrong, which disappoints me).

"Gundamentalism ... is without spiritual grounding," Ms. Smith? What does that even mean?

Look, I am no gun-toting redneck; I've never opined here one way or the other regarding gun ownership or gun control. But I have been quite outspoken about the fundamentalism of the Religious Left, of which Ms. Smith is very much a part. The Religious Left tirelessly claims that the Religious Right is tirelessly trying to impose its values and religion on the world; meanwhile, the Religious Left does nothing BUT impose its values and religious ideals on the world, the secular AND religious worlds. The hypocrisy, so blatant and obvious, is nonetheless always stunning. Religious Left blindness is incalculable, really.

And if Ms. Smith is concerned that the Supreme Court has got gun-rights wrong -- that it has found a right where there is none -- I would ask her to provide us the spiritual grounding she most likely believes provides Americans the constitutional right to kill babies in utero -- and out! -- with daggers, knives; our bare hands.

(As a total aside, I have never met a pro-life, anti-abortion vegan, have you? I am not suggesting such folks don't exist. I am suggesting that they are rather rare [and never medium rare].)

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Mind Abhors The Death Of Reason

Contratimes readers recall the unfortunately-this-is-true story of the public servant disciplined and dismissed for using the very apt word "niggardly" in a public meeting wherein budgetary issues were on the agenda. Extremely wounded souls claimed injury over the man's allegedly racially-insensitive diction. That the word has nothing etymologically in common with that other word matters little; that there is no commonality other than a mere homophonous relation (this term, by the way, is not a "gender slur") matters little to the offended.

Now comes this incredible story out of Purdue University. It is simply amazing.

No doubt this offers more fodder for those thinking that the home schooling movement might consider establishing home universities. At the very least, home universities would seriously reduce higher education's massive "carbon footprint." Or is that higher education's massive carbon "jackboot-print"?

Peace.

BG

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

A Daily Kos Blogger Asks, "Are You A Patriot?"

Kossack ScottyUrb discusses patriotism at the Daily Kos, and I would encourage you to read his "Are You A Patriot?". At least, I urge you to read the first 23 comments that follow that interesting essay (it won't take long).

I ask, is Urb right about patriotism? Instead of a true patriot being that American who becomes a sacrificial lamb to his country and neighbor, as Urb suggests, can a self-serving individual be a patriot? If I DON'T care for my neighbor's well-being, am I unpatriotic?

If you have been reading left-leaning op-eds for any length of time, you will recall that many of them express disgust at an administration that does not call on its citizenry to sacrifice, particularly in this time of war. Urb hints at the same sort of noble sensibilities; he'd like to see more sacrifice, not less.

But the question is this: Are not those fighting in the name of the United States on the front of terrorism doing so precisely so NONE of us will have to sacrifice? Is that NOT the highest goal: that our soldiers are fighting so that we are FREE to choose to sacrifice -- or not? In fact, isn't that the very highest ideal and the very proof of a tremendous and wonderful nation, that it is strong enough to protect its citizenry without that citizenry even noticing?

So, too, it seems to me, is patriotism's very soul: to live in a place where "To be or not to be?" IS the very question. You are free to be patriotic; you are free not to be patriotic. You are free to be neighborly, and you are free not to be neighborly. You are free to be altruistic, and you are free to be egotistical (in fact, if we were all altruists, there would be something akin to chaos, or total social and moral stagnation: altruism NEEDS selfish people, no?)

Urb's essay (or, more specifically the comments that follow) proves that people only feel good about their country when it is right. I have explored this idea before, and it seems to me rather unassailable, at least in many instances: the difference between a conservative and a liberal when it comes to patriotism is that a conservative is much more likely to scream out "My country, right or wrong!" while a liberal will only proclaim "My country ... only when right!" I do not hold too tightly to my distinction, though I do believe it is not without merit. As I've said elsewhere, a conservative will love his family no matter how dysfunctional, while a liberal will only love his family only after it has gone to therapy.

True patriots, such as Urb and his guests, disdain unconditional patriotism; the only meaningfully true patriotism is conditional, and those conditions, alas, are entirely liberal and progressive. America the beautiful ...but only when good, right and thoroughly in line with leftist doctrine.

That is what I hear in the comments by Urb and his guests. I wonder what you might hear.

But, I must stop myself, for I know many conservatives who disdain this country -- who do not love it -- when it is controlled by liberal and/or Democratic policies. Perhaps, then, we can only conclude that patriotism is always directed at a future possibility or a nostalgic past; it is never current, America is never good enough. America can only be good enough some other day -- If only we elect this man!; If only we pass this law! -- or could only have been great on a day long since lost.

But I have one more thought on this matter, and it is a question: Isn't a true patriot that person who is willing to die for his country, even if that country is not as good as it could be? (Imagine this country fully and totally liberal. Could such a country ever assemble a military defense force consisting solely of volunteers? I don't think so. Perhaps that explains why so many of our military volunteers are indeed conservative: they really WILL sacrifice for others, others who disdain them.)

Peace.

BG

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Such Sorrow

I heard the Amber Alert on the radio. I was driving somewhere, tuned to a local station, when I heard the tones, the sirens; and then the message. Perhaps I was drawn in because I had not heard the Amber Alert before, at least on the station to which my radio was tuned. Perhaps I couldn't help myself as a father, as a concerned parent. Perhaps I could not help myself because it was the first-ever Amber Alert from Vermont.

Brooke Bennett, 12 years old, last seen -- .

Yesterday Brooke Bennett was found, buried off a gravel road, alongside a maple sugar shack; what should be sweet in that idyllic Vermont countryside is no more. I weep, and I am not sure why. I can't explain why I prayed for her, when I have not prayed for all of the girls I've heard about who have vanished; who have been so brutalized. Maybe I can't do it but once or twice a year; perhaps I can't pray without ceasing. Maybe no one can.

That Brooke Bennett was murdered is hellish enough. But her story is far darker, far more distorted, than I had imagined. It is too dark to glimpse at; it's a darkness that scars the retina of the soul. One can't look without suffering loss. And if one cannot look at it without suffering, imagine living -- and dying -- through it.

Fathers, sons, brothers and all noble men. I bid you to purge your hearts -- with me -- of anything that is sexually impure; love your women, your wives, daughters, sisters and girlfriends. Let all women know that you are safe, as safe as angels; let us all live in such a way that no woman -- ever! -- sees demons where there should be gentlemen, rays of light ... and protectors of all that is good, lovely, pure.

And may the mercy of God, and the grace of His love, restore Brooke Bennett, now and forevermore.

Peace.

BG

"Will Someone Please Vet These Facts Before I Eat My Foot?"

How embarrassing.

Barack Obama promised the other day in Unity, New Hampshire that one of his presidency's top priorities would be to ensure that women would get "equal pay for equal work." Now the junior senator might have to issue a broad mea culpa. Or something else.

During a campaign stop in New Mexico recently, Mr. Obama told supporters

"McCain is an honorable man... but when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer. It starts with equal pay."

Now the Cybercast News service, citing a report from the US Senate secretary, reports that Mr. Obama actually pays his women staffers less than his male staffers, while Mr. McCain actually has more women on his staff than Mr. Obama and pays them more than his male staffers.

Check out the Cybercast report here (it includes a link to the Senate report). It should make for an interesting discussion over lunch with your coworkers. Unfortunately, the report does not spell out the other half of the equation -- "for equal work" -- so Mr. Obama should be able to rather easily save face (unless, of course, his staff finds out).

Hell hath no fury, Mr. Obama ...

Peace.

BG

Perhaps You Would Be Interested ...

Besides blogging here, I blog at NH Insider, a site mainly devoted to New Hampshire politics. I thought you should know I cross-posted a tiny item from Contratimes over at NH Insider; the subsequent discussion has been quite interesting. Perhaps some of you would like to join the debate. Of course, you do not need to be from New Hampshire to voice an opinion. So don't be full of bash. Join us.

Bliss!

BG

Lest I Forget? Well, I Did!

Once again, the inimitable James Taranto deserves praise here, especially for this rather apt reminder:

"The point is this: If you vote for Democrats on the theory that Republicans are a threat to civil liberties, caveat elector. Bill Clinton and his administration incinerated children at Waco, undertook the policy of "extraordinary rendition," used a grand jury investigation to intimidate journalists at The American Spectator, deported Elian Gonzalez to communist Cuba, and signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which restricts the habeas corpus rights of American citizens."

How could I have forgotten?

Peace.

BG

Global Warming As Theology?

OK. Despite the fact that we are all about full and responsible freedom here at Contratimes, you must read "Global Warming As Mass Neurosis" by Bret Stephens. It is simply and unequivocally brilliant.

Mr. Stephens poses a very serious challenge to global warming "science" this morning in today's Wall Street Journal, and this excerpt is particularly daunting:

"This ... is, of course, a forecast, not an empirical observation. But it raises a useful question: If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science."

No dispute here. Should there be?

And then he tosses us this gem:

"A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence."

And then:

"Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

"As it turns out, a lot, at least if you're inclined to believe that our successes are undeserved and that prosperity is morally suspect. In this view, global warming is nature's great comeuppance, affirming as nothing else our guilty conscience for our worldly success."

Mr. Stephens ends strong referencing William James' stellar Varieties of Religious Experience, though I believe he fudges a bit what Mr. James meant by "sick-souled." Nevertheless, this is a tight and astounding essay, written to the pith, cutting to the marrow.

(If you have not read "Yellow Science" over at First Things, you are missing something special. Author James Kerian convincingly compares global warming science to yellow journalism. Fascinating.)

Peace.

BG