I Can't Watch Glenn Beck Without Freaking Out

So I change channels.

Wrong Again

I made a mistake. I thought it was the Rally to Restore Hannity. No wonder I was confused. But when I made my correction I was still wrong: It wasn't the Rally to Restore Humanity, either. Asking for directions, I made my way elsewhere. After much effort I fell in frustration, as I had only found the Rally to Restore Profanity. 

It seems that rallies pretty much everyone. 

The Right To Free Dissembling

Jon Stewart may be right: These are "hard times, not end times." But what times are these when lampoonists beg for civility? 

Juan Williams' Unpardonable Sin: It's Not What You Think

On Friday, during his weekly stint on "Inside Washington", noted columnist Charles Krauthammer asked, while discussing the firing by National Public Radio of news analyst Juan Williams, "But where did Juan go over the line?"

Joining Mr. Krauthammer was Nina Totenberg, an NPR correspondent who has publicly expressed very strong opinions outside her role as a news correspondent. Mr. Krauthammer observed that Ms. Totenberg has not been fired for essentially committing the same sort of allegedly egregious sins that cost Mr. Williams his job. Mr. Krauthammer was seemingly so perplexed by the incongruous behavior of NPR administrators that he asked his question again: "Where did Juan go over the line?" 

It seems to me Mr. Krauthammer's question was not answered during his appearance on "Inside Washington." So I offer an answer here: NPR fired Juan Williams because he committed the unpardonable sin of forgetting the creed of identity politics.

Juan Williams would not have been fired if he had chosen his words only slightly more carefully; he would still be working at NPR if he had said the following on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly: 

"Look, Bill, let me be honest. Sometimes when I get on a plane and I see some passengers in traditional Muslim garb, I can't help but be a little nervous. I am not proud of this; I admit it is a visceral and even irrational reaction I've had since 9/11. I mean the horror of that day is still with me powerfully; and when I notice folks wearing traditional Muslim garb on a plane, I immediately return to the fears of that day."

Readers may snicker at my revision of what Mr. Williams said, noting that what I've written is virtually identical with what he really did say. And readers may snicker at me for believing such words would have kept Mr. Williams safely in the employ of NPR. Is it because my revision makes his tone sound more conciliatory, even self-deprecating? Is it because he admits his anxiety is irrational? 

The answer to these questions is no. It is all more subtle than that, and very much more political. And it all has to do with seven words I omitted. 

What Mr. Williams did is suggest that self-identification as a member of a certain group, race, sex or other category consistent with identity politics is problematic. Here are his exact words, and please observe what I've highlighted:

"I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts."

Note what Mr. Williams has implied, that there is some other option to self-identification than that done "first and foremost." He seems to think there is an alternative to identifying oneself as X, a softer, subtler, less offensive alternative. One can be a Muslim, or anything else really. But to identify as a Muslim "first and foremost" leaves Mr. Williams, and others like him, feeling anxious, and maybe even a little impatient.

Perhaps you've heard this sort of thing before. Maybe you've heard something like this: "I am not against gays. I just don't understand why they have to identify themselves first and foremost as gay. I mean, I don't go around identifying myself first and foremost as straight."

Or maybe you've heard this variation:

"I am not a bigot, but I just don't get why so many black players in the NBA have to identify themselves first and foremost as bling-wearing, gang-banging, hip-hop blacks." 

To the truly politically correct who hold identity politics as sacrosanct, Juan Williams' words are an assault on those sacred cows the political left adores. Choosing one's identity for oneself is an existential necessity, or so it goes, and to flaunt that choice is well within the circle of rights contingent on that necessity. If you especially identify with a minority group prone to seemingly right-wing neglect or criticism -- groups like gays, illegal immigrants or apparently harassed and persecuted Muslims -- then by all means identify yourself FIRST AND FOREMOST as a member of that honored group. 

Moreover, Mr. Williams' comment raises the whole issue of multiculturalism, primarily the issue of assimilation. Mr. Williams does not (apparently) "first and foremost" identify himself as a black man; he does not constantly remind his listeners or viewers that he's a member of a black minority. He has, or so it appears, assimilated himself, finding equal footing with the apparently dominant white culture embodied by the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. He does not wear race on his sleeve; he keeps no obvious racial chip on his shoulder. But for him to suggest that others need not present their minority status first and foremost in everything they do is simply anathema to the left-wing of American politics. In this Mr. Williams stands in stark contrast to men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. (Williams, if memory serves me well, was quite offended by the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright; I believe Williams has even spoken in embarrassed and apologetic terms regarding figures that stand in the Wright/Sharpton tradition.)

Oddly, I am not of the opinion that Mr. Williams' firing has much to do with his position at Fox News; his status as a Fox contributor is not what got him in trouble at NPR. While various Muslim groups no doubt brought pressure on NPR to at least rebuke Mr. Williams, my sense is that the NPR ideologues took note of Williams' far-too-casual stance on identity politics, and they grew impatient with his failure to conform to the expectations of those politics. If, as NPR says, Mr. Williams had something of a record of offenses, I believe it was not his opinions per se that offended NPR. Rather it was Mr. Williams' expressions of impatience with minorities who fall prey to stereotypes, stereotypes that limit the liberation of those groups. Specifically Mr. Williams had strayed too close to being, as some have noted, a "Bill Cosby liberal," a black man who encourages other blacks to stop playing victim politics. Obviously, being a victim is a category of identity politics, and Mr. Williams' criticism of such, subtle as it was, was more than NPR could countenance. 

Lastly, let us not forget that Barack Obama wrote about his personal decision to self-identify as a black man, and this despite his largely and relatively privileged white upbringing and background. In many ways, Mr. Obama has chosen to present himself as "first and foremost" a black man, though his efforts to do so in public often seem rather forced (though I admit that here I may be judging him from my own prejudices about how an authentically black man would present himself). And let us not forget that some black liberals have dismissed the president as not being an "authentically" black man; and more than a few folks have noted that the president's handling of racial issues has often been more awkward than deft. But the sanctity of the president's personal choice of self-identifying as a black man is not to be questioned (and in the case of bi-racial children, I don't question it, as I can't imagine the difficulty).

In the end, Juan Williams, as a public figure and even a role model, committed the unpardonable sin of suggesting that identity politics is not a healthy game, that civilized people need not identify "first and foremost" as anything other than human.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

CONTRATIMES is REALLY BACK!

Greetings to my few and faithful readers. I have been absent for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I've been once again re-examining my role here and my 'place' in the blogosphere.

Some of you will remember that I wrote earlier this year that this site would no longer focus on politics. I am now retracting that statement. Allow me to explain why.

I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking over the past year and I've reached a conclusion. When this blog began it was specifically focused on religion, but not religion in and of itself, but religion as it is portrayed in Western culture and how a Christian specifically responds to that portrayal. My very first essay at Contratimes, "Krugman, that gnostic", was a criticism of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his understanding not just of Christian cosmology but Christian thought as a whole. But what Mr. Krugman essentially exemplified was the philosophy not of leftism per se but religious leftism. Thus Contratimes began as a critique of the religious left. 

As a result of the time I've spent immersing myself in sundry books and articles, and reflecting on that reading, I return to a conviction I simply forgot I held: My friends on the left are far more likely to make a religion of politics and the state than my friends on the right. This conviction is reinforced in my life at every turn. I witness it on a daily basis: at the local recycling center this weekend, I heard two people I know rather well, two devout Democrats, speaking of their activism as an all-consuming religious duty. Their speech was about creating a leftist theocracy; the establishment of a utopian state the perfect fruition of their unflagging zeal. 

I have repeatedly turned to the idea of idols and idolatry at this site. I return to it now. My vision is perfectly clear and sharp: People of any political strain may fall into idolatry -- and often do. I understand a strange religious devotion to the state held by some of my conservative peers. But this idolatry is far less evident and pervasive in my life's experience. Granted, this is arguably due to where I live, steeped as New England is in a deep individualism with Unitarian-Universalist dreams that everything works together to the glory of humanity. Forgive the flippancy; I admit it readily. But there is indeed an effective influence the UU church has over New England religious and political thought, a controlling one. What is that influence in essence? Perhaps it is that there is nothing that is ultimately true other than what one chooses to be true. In other words, the idol to which we are to fall prostrate is Will.

Therefore, I am writing about politics because it is clear that politics is indeed a religion. 

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Thus Far, Rejoicing

As of this writing, the news in Chile continues to warm the soul, gladden the heart, and lift the spirit. 

A holy vessel, life within; from light to dark -- and back again. 

Are You Afraid (Of Idols)?

I wonder how it is that those who are not afraid to burn a Koran are considered Islamophobic by those who are afraid of what Muslims will do if a Koran is burned. How is it that the latter -- who do live in abject fear -- are considered tolerant, inclusive, and courageous, while the former, who are not enslaved to fear, are described as exclusive, and exclusively phobic? 

What a sad world we live in; what a sad country in which we dwell, when the President of the United States, succumbing to religious anxiety, asks a man not to burn a book for fear that such an act will harm "our troops." Since when have the American people, particularly just one of them, been called on to protect soldiers -- soldiers trained to the teeth to defend themselves -- by not doing something within the allegedly safe borders of a free America? Aren't our soldiers fighting abroad to protect Americans' right to speak freely -- and even burn a book? 

The President of the United States, and many folks like him, take umbrage at the rumor -- the mere rumor -- that a man might burn a book. And then, as Muslims riot overseas and kill people in protest of that rumor -- a mere rumor -- the President of the United States, and many folks like him, say nothing. 

Who are the Islamophobes? 

Sadly, no one seems to care. So be it. 

On Knots And Faith Untying: A Postscript

[It is suggested that readers turn to On Knots And Faith Untying to fully appreciate what follows.]

I had an incredibly successful summer fly-fishing for small and largemouth bass. I went out many nights, mostly on the pond upstream from my home, paddling through lily pads in my little kayak. Some nights I stayed out until 11:00; I could determine the hour by counting the number of times the hammer struck the town clock in the church steeple at the south end of the pond. It was all just wonderful, idyllic; a seemingly quintessential New England life. 

There was one evening in particular however wherein I felt myself tempted toward abject atheism. Disbelief in a deity assaulted me like mosquitoes after sunset: there was no swatting away doubt. For a moment the death of God was undeniable. I was alone in the universe as surely I was alone on a pond. There was no anchor for my mind, or my hopes, just the drifting with the wind, the indifferent, chaotic wind. 

You see, I was casting my fly -- a green popper designed to look like a small frog -- in a warm, evening breeze, and I spotted a larger splash than usual when I finally let drop the lure 30 feet from me. Clearly something was not right; I noted a snarl in the leader and floating line I was using. Frustrated, I yanked the line into the cockpit of my kayak to determine the severity of the problem. 

What I discovered was a knot that took my breath away. This knot wasn't merely a snarl. No, this was a knot that had intentionality written all over it. This was a deliberate knot. It looked like it had been tied by some brilliant weaver; some sprite in the air adept at crochet. If you don't know, a fly line consists generally of two lines, the main one, the flyline, which, in this case, was a floating line which helped keep my lure on the water's surface, and a short transparent leader, a strong, durable filament designed to conceal that the lure is attached to something. The clear leader is about "presentation," about fooling the fish into seeing merely a bug or frog on the water, and not something tethered to an opaque floating line several feet away. 

Amazingly, this artful knot was indeed spun in the wind. My casting forward, backward, forward, backward, each stroke necessary for me to strip line to extend my cast in the typical rhythm of a fly-fisherman, along with the breeze coming across the pond, combined to create a knot that essentially wove the popper I was using into this dazzling web of flyline and leader. The rubber "feathers" of my lure were perfectly incorporated; they were tied elegantly into the lines in a way that suggested conspiracy, even magic: something had grabbed my line and lure, tied a perfect knot, all while the line and lure were airborne, and for no other reason than to thwart me. To torment me. My rod was for me a device for fishing; for the laughing cosmos, it was a knitting or crochet needle working toward an insane confusion that did not at all look confused. 

As my aggravation settled into awe, I began to think about the genesis not only of the knot, but of the whole cosmos. I had been taught in science, and by the atheistic philosophers allegedly informed by such science, that this cosmos was utterly random in its genesis: that there was no Designer, no external Initiator, that the "cosmos is all there is, all there was, or all there ever will be." No doubt there have been some, like Stephen Hawking, who suggest that the cosmos was born without God, but nonetheless came forth from a pre-existing amalgam of laws, energy, and potency and potentiality: the universe took shape according to constructs inherent to the nature of a universe taking shape, constructs that "just were."

I've long if not always balked at such assertions about an un-intended, un-designed universe. I particularly halted at the idea posited by atheists that this was an uncaused universe that inspired them to awe, and this for no other reason than that the same atheists could not find awe in the idea of an uncaused God. They were favorable to an uncaused universe, but an uncaused God was anathema to them; the one they permitted and accepted, and the other they rejected out of hand.

But as I beheld the knot before me, one seemingly born of nothing but chance, I could see the atheists' point. Given enough time, given enough "chance" to mix in the air in the random patterns of a fly-fisherman's cast, a knot of incredible, awe-inspiring beauty could be tied along the very edges of a fly-rod's arc. There was no Designer here; this was random, a once-in-infinity collision between nothing and Being. This knot just was; it just appeared, dynamic and interesting, and it would NEVER APPEAR AGAIN.

This latter admission invigorated the rush of atheism that swirled around me. I could not duplicate such a knot; it would never exist again, nor could another be created identical to it. There could not be a duplicate, an identical knot. Was this not true of everything? Was this not true of the universe? Surely if there was a God then duplication would be well within the bounds of His powers, no?

But as I untied the knot slowly, though not in silence as a few unfortunate expletives slipped out of my mouth, and as I began to cast my fly into the watery sunlight all around me, I began to recall my days as a philosophy student. Duplication, I remembered, was inherently impossible: two things could be identical in all matters but one -- number. What this meant is that this A and this A are only nearly identical, as they both are separate in number; in position, place, space and time. There is no such thing as a true clone, as the clone of the original is not the original. Duplication is thus intrinsically impossible, a contradiction in terms. God Himself could never duplicate anything exactly. For a duplicate to be a true duplicate it would have to be the original, and that is impossible. Such violates the law of non-contradiction.

Moreover, I began to realize that I was not in an unclosed system but a rather closed one. The wind around me was not infinite: it was constrained by laws of motion, gravity, density; wind was just the movement of trapped air on a planet. It was not an infinite system; there was a fixed amount of air and a potentially quantifiable number of ways the air could move. The universe itself was, according to the scientists and atheists, a closed system: Carl Sagan himself once came up with a number that he averred was the largest number that could ever be, claiming, I believe, that the number could not exceed the number of "things", the particles, of which the universe consisted. To Sagan the universe and number ray were limited, constrained.

On top of that I was using DESIGNED and WILLED things: fly-rod, fly line, and bait; a kayak; human hands, an arm, a shoulder, a spine, a brain; electrical impulses coursing through flesh, twitching muscles, pulling tendons, rocking bones, stretching ligaments. None of these was infinite; my body, the kayak and the fly-rod were not flitting about in chaos or randomness. They were each poised in time, as objects that behaved according to design and structure and certain laws; there was an architecture here that was undeniable, and a limitedness that made the architecture possible and even successful.

No, this was not a moment for atheism but theism. The knot before me was created by orderliness, by the very design of the cosmos, the man in the boat, and the things made by men. Design and intent were all around me; I was as intentional as the fakery of the fly I was using. The knot hadn't "just happened." It was, without a doubt, created; I had, in concert with the wind and the dynamics of pole and line, tied this knot according to a set of quantifiable strokes of my arm, wrist, fingers.

All this finally opened my heart and mind to the Christian assertion that the universe is not really closed; that God inheres in His creation -- it is His idea, after all -- and that He is nonetheless outside of it, standing as Creator, Maker, Designer, and that He can enter His creation at any time. In our very thoughts and reflections on things like chaos and beginnings our minds invariably and necessarily bring qualities of order, sequence and time to those thoughts. We cannot know or perceive chaos: it does not exist to us, even, really, as an abstraction. It is to us nothingness. It is the unknowable.

And that is the point, really. It is unknowable to those within the universe. We cannot see the outside of the box because we are not only in the box, but of it, the very dust of it. There is no possibility of what is inside the box ever gaining a position that is itself outside the box: we cannot ever be objects to ourselves. Nor can we escape time, order or place to see what is outside of, or before, all that is All.

So a knot that threatened my faith served to tie me more fully to the God Who Is. I am not alone on the surface of a sunset-filled nothingness, casting about willy-nilly for a nothingness to hook myself into. I am connected already; there is a hook that pierces my side. I float in a space that is brimming with wonders -- a space so full of the lovely Intent of God it's hardly a space at all. I splash, I leap, I fight and pull; I tie myself in knots.

I paddle my way home through lily pads, towards the God Who catches and releases, the God Who untangles and sets us free, to float, to dream. To become fishers of men. This I affirm, accept. Believe.

God is out there, and never far away.

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Knots And Faith Untying

As a mere child, C. S. Lewis lost his faith in God and the whole of the Christian story. There were several reasons for this, all of which he describes in his lovely autobiography Surprised By Joy. But one reason particularly speaks to me; it is indeed the only thing I share in common with the young Mr. Lewis. In short, Mr. Lewis came to believe the universe was thwarting his simplest ambitions. He describes the cosmos' stubborn resistance as one of the "seeds of pessimism" that found fertile soil in his mind, a pessimism that grew till he became "an apostate, dropping my faith with no sense of loss but with the greatest relief." Permit me to quote Mr. Lewis at length:

As to the sources of my pessimism ... I am now inclined to think that the seeds of pessimism were sown before my mother's death. Ridiculous as it may sound, I believe that the clumsiness of my hands [Lewis and his brother were both born missing the first joints in their thumbs. -- Ed.] was at the root of the matter. How could this be? Not, certainly, that a child says, "I can't cut a straight line with a pair of scissors, therefore the universe is evil." Childhood has no such power of generalization and is not (to do it justice) so silly. Nor did my clumsiness produce what is ordinarily called an Inferiority Complex. I was not comparing myself with other boys; my defeats occurred in solitude. What they really bred in me was a deep (and, of course, inarticulate) sense of resistance or opposition on the part of inanimate things. Even that makes it too abstract and adult. Perhaps I had better call it a settled expectation that everything would do what you did not want it to do. Whatever you wanted to remain straight, would bend; whatever you tried to bend would fly back to the straight; all knots which you wished to be firm would come untied; all knots you wanted to untie would remain firm.

It is important to note that Mr. Lewis does not argue his public life was thwarted by the body politic or by his family. He does not suggest teachers inhibited his creative progress or some nemesis intimidated him to such a degree he fell back in retreat. Instead, what Mr. Lewis tells us is that this sense of "resistance or opposition on the part of inanimate things ... occurred in solitude." [emphasis mine] He was privately thwarted; when alone, he felt that something stood against him.

I said above that this is the only thing Mr. Lewis and I share in common, but even this commonality is distinguished in two ways. First, I do not conclude, as Mr. Lewis seems to, that the universe is poorly designed (he playfully refers to his accepting the "Argument from Undesign" as the strongest argument for atheism). I do not conclude that either the universe or God is deficient, but that I am. My inabilities and limitations tempt me to self-condemnation: I should be better; I am not good enough. Second, my pessimism is unlike Mr. Lewis' not only because mine is directed inward, but because it is something I have not outgrown. He would describe, or so I bet, his pessimism as rather adolescent. I am sure he would even see it as part of his adolescent "passion" or "lust" for the Occult. I am sure he discovered in himself a naïveté, formed in the imaginative play common to boys in solitude, that the universe was a magical place where young boys could attain mastery ("maistry", as Lewis suggests) as magicians, wizards, knights. In fact, I am quite confident he did discover that very thing, at least unconsciously, and that he would agree with what I've just written.

I, too, accepted this view of myself as a boy. I expected great things, even superpowers, of myself. In solitude I believed my knots would hold and that my aim was straight. I recall even believing I could will by sheer force of mind a heavy snowstorm resulting in a "snow day" in which school was canceled. Child that I was, there was just enough success to reinforce my illusions and just enough failure to ensure I'd delude myself that willpower and pride could attain perfection.

Interestingly, when I became a Christian; when I fully poured myself into the Faith, I brought with me this sense of the superman. Maybe it was not so much a sense of being a superman as it was of being a super sage, a sort of Christian wizard. I would attain and achieve. I would prosper. I would possess "maistry." Indeed, I really did believe that I could attain a level of spiritual invincibility where God -- my benevolent Father -- and my deep faith in His benevolence, could clear a path for my faithful feet broader than the dry lands the Israelites marched upon through the parted Red Sea.

And somehow, as St. Paul might argue, sin seized an opportunity. The fruits of faith for me began to turn sour. When thwarted I abused myself. When I stumbled I became my greatest scold. Pride cast its aspersions: What sort of fool have you become? This struggle is beneath you, you worthless clod. Look at how you flounder. Look at how others do not. See with what ease they live their lives? But you. You disgrace me.

This is not God or the universe speaking so unlovingly. It is my own soul. God is not shaking His head or wagging His finger. The universe is not out to get me; it is not, as Mr. Lewis suggested, "a menacing and unfriendly place." I am out to get me; I am an unfriendly place to myself.

I shall follow this installment of Contratimes with a tale of a knot. I intend to share this tale tomorrow. It is a fine tale about an extraordinary knot and the moment of atheism such a marvelous knot inspired. Of course I may not get to my tale as planned, since plans, especially as summer wanes, have a way of changing. But the hope is there, and where there is hope, well, there is everything.

Peace.

Part II begins here.

©2010/All Rights Reserved. 

Let Others Speak 8.12.10

"Maturity: among other things -- not to hide one's strength out of fear and, consequently, live below one's best." -- Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

Let Others Speak 8.11.10: On Faith

"Below even the sunniest and most secure human relationship, the abyss lies waiting -- because our lack of faith is fascinated by the possibilities of the night side of life." -- Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

Let Others Speak: On Irony

"Where did all the irony come from? What pole sent this glacier that has pinned modern culture under its massive arrogance? Irony asserts implicitly that you are superior to the thing you are ironizing over, or to its maker. Ordinarily it is a useful, important color in our emotional paintboxes. But when we paint everything this color, its character changes. Irony is quintessentially the attitude of someone at a dinner party who wants you to know that he can't leave but would rather be anyplace else. The educated elite of America and the West have been feeling mighty ironical ever since the cultural revolution: They have denounced and forsworn Western culture but never had any intention of leaving the table while the feed was underway. So they have had to settle for letting everyone know how much smarter they are than the other guests, how little they are enjoying themselves, and how superior they are to the culture they themselves superintend. ...

"What did we accomplish in that great cultural revolution that created the new ice age, the Sterile Age, the Age of Irony? We manfully whacked down virginity and, crashing to earth while we celebrated it, crushed the idea of purity in the mud. And then we toppled art, which fell backwards and smashed sanctity to splinters. And then spitting on our hands we shouldered loveless sex and paraded it in triumph, which had the unplanned consequence of exalting sterility and grinding out passion among the cigarette butts. And our dry ironic laughter, which has always been joyless, has come to sound like labored breathing on a deathbed." [emphasis mine] -- David Gelernter, "Dead in the Water"

Let Others Speak 8.9.10

"The flat soul is what the sexual wisdom of our time conspires to make universal... Are we lovers anymore?" -- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

I Bid You...

A Happy 8.9.10!

Freed Believers (In Chains)

[What follows was written in early July. I did not publish it then. In fact, I forgot all about it until I spotted it in my queue of un-posted work just a few minutes ago. I present it as is, unfinished. -- Ed.]

OK. So you've had a hard faith. You were raised in a tough church. Your conception of God was all wrong. You've been living under a cloud of fear, judgment, wrath. You were told the gospel was free, full of grace, and then you were told to follow a bunch of rules. You followed those rules; you swallowed the idea that grace was a legal term. You fell short -- always. You could not live up to expectations. You failed to gain mastery and the plaudits such mastery allegedly merits.

And now you're wounded -- and mad.

I went this morning to the "Free Believers Network," a website for the disheartened who still have faith; for the disenfranchised who still want to belong. Those who find their way to FBN are greeted with this:

We are a growing network of Christians committed to returning Christianity to its natural habitat. As you browse through this site, open your heart; ask yourself one question: What if?

I can't resist: What does Christianity's natural habitat look like? Does it look at all like a web-based social network? Is that Christianity's natural habitat?

Perhaps you are not like me. Perhaps you'd like to see Christianity return to its roots, its roots in the dust of Palestine, watered by the Spirit under the brutal sun of Roman occupation. Maybe you believe this is the period of Christianity at its purest, its most authentic.

I, however, do not hold such a time in high regard. I am not one to wish for Roman occupation, nor am I one to romanticize walking about in sandals, with a tunic, a staff; a donkey for a friend. But many of my more "emergent church-type" peers strike me as longing for the "old ways," ways, if they just thought about it, that would be lived without any scriptures at all (the early church almost exclusively drew from a comprehensive and beloved oral tradition). The early church, formed in the natural habitat of Palestine under Roman tyranny, was rife with power struggles, idolatry, apostasy, heresy, sexual immorality and corruption.

In short, the natural habitat of Christianity is like any other time or place. Indeed, it IS any time or place.

But note that the faithful at FBN believe something I don't. They believe they know not only where the true habitat of Christianity is, they know where it is not, and they can lead us from the artificial habitat in which Christianity is largely lived today to the real, authentic, genuine habitat that was lost, abandoned, rejected.

They are wrong. 

©2010. All Rights Reserved. 

Let Others Speak 8.7.10

"Rebellion for me is articulating my views, trying to be honest about what I see. I don't think a lot of people in the public arena do that ..." -- Michelle Obama, Vogue interview (2007)

[Indeed.]

Let Others Speak 8.5.10

"When citizens do act in their public selves as though their faith matters, they risk not only ridicule, but actual punishment." -- Stephen Carter, The Culture of Disbelief 

Let Others Speak, Part 2 8.4.10

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." -- G. K. Chesterton

Anne Rice Was A Christian? Who Knew?

I guess in certain circles, really small circles, the big news is that author Anne Rice has "quit being a Christian." Her thoughtful announcement was tactfully posted on her Facebook page, which, apparently, is in accordance with the rigid expectations of the newest decorum. 

Admittedly the circle in which I exist is even smaller than I thought. Ms. Rice has "quit being a Christian"? I had no idea she had even started playing. 

What, pray tell, will the Church do now? Maybe Bono can stand in the gap. 

©2010/All Rights Reserved. 

Let Others Speak 8.4.10

"Postmodernism opens with the sense of irrevocable loss and incurable fault -- a death that 'begins' with the death of God and 'ends' with the death of ourselves. We are in a time between times and a 'place which is no place.'" -- Mark C. Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology

Let Others Speak 8.3.10

"Are we by nature fated to suppress the deepest we know lest we offend?" -- Charles Malik, A Christian Critique of the University 

More Shameless Promotion

Contratimes' more religiously-inclined readers must not forget to check out Shallow Church, a new venture in faith. 

The Democracy Of Din

"Contratimes will continue, I believe, but its days of political commentary are over. ... The only time I will write of such things (i.e., political, economic, etc.) is if I believe they speak to our dangerous habit of idolatry." -- BG

Walking into a bookstore often gives me a headache, especially if I actually walk into it. Ouch. I should really look up.

My pain is generally the result of too many stimuli, of information overload. There is so much crying out for attention in a bookstore; there is hardly a book section that is silent. Over there are the Narcissists: Read about me! Along the brick wall are the Alarmists: All hell is imminent! By the side window one finds the Sensualists and the Aesthetes catalogued in the Boasters section: Look at what we love, so beautiful! On this table one finds the Soothers -- We are at peace! -- tucked in with the Comforters -- We know peace and success and we can give them to you! On the back wall is a large section of Namers and Solvers of Problems: We have answers! Near the café one finds the Deeply Reflective and Trenchantly Analytical: We just know! Not too far away one finds the Peregrinators, all telling me where they've been, with some even telling me where to go. In the middle one finds shelves covered with books written by Epicureans filled with good taste: Check out our palates! Adjacent are the Luxuriant bidding me to look between -- and beneath -- their covers; and to the right, the Exalted: Check out my palace!

Near the lavatory wall one finds Exterior Decorators shouting that an outside makeover can revive your insides; while the Interior Decorators insist, at least some of them, that if you feel good about your insides, your outsides will shine too (and even a few Really Good Interiorists denounce the outsides as so much sexist vanity). Near the red couches one hears the clatter emanating from racks full of the Analgesics, Depressants and Stimulants, all promising escapes and romps and fantasies and dramas and adventures, and sundry tours de force: We won't waste your precious time; we'll take you away from the dulness of your life! 

It's no wonder I get a headache.

And the same goes for TV, newspapers, the internet; blogging. My headaches come from all the shouting, beckoning, pleading: Give us your attention! Achtung!

I wonder, really, if it is ultimately a good thing there is a "new media." The term, of course, is misleading: the newness refers not to the quality of media but the quantity. There have never been so many voices and so many vendors seeking attention, dispensing "information."

What happens, do you think, when we can't really get away, not just from the Culture of Dissemination and Marketing and Opinion and News, but from the Culture of Consuming? I know that if I hear somewhere that X is the rage, and that, upon further inquiry I learn to like X; and that if, in liking X, I begin to note that everywhere I turn X, or some X spinoff or derivative,  is being discussed, analyzed and prodded to death; and if I notice that from TV to blogs to books to comedy routines to art to music to conversations on the street and arguments at a dinner party X in all its forms is inescapable, I discover I not only hate X, I pretty much hate everybody else too. I get sick of X, and, in the process, I get sick of everything associated with X: electronic media, books, dinner parties, concerts, newspapers.

Satiety is often a dangerous, vile thing. It seems that if one wanted to rule the world the best thing to happen would be the creation of MANY VOICES, of a TRULY DEMOCRATIC MEDIUM, like the "new media." For where there are many voices, there is cacophony, chaos. The New Democratic Medium begets tedium, and tedium leads to satiety, fatigue, indifference; to ennui. Everything is lost in the din of either/or, of this or that; in an endless flow of example, counterexample; in a ceaseless rhythm of "exceptions." Some people can withstand this onslaught and are immune to its effects. They exalt in chatter, gossip, opinion; the sowing of "clarity" and discord. They adore the political idols; for many the political is their idol. But others are not so stalwart. They crumble or wither, or just get distended and bloated and bent out of shape, sated to the point of discomfort, even sleep. They've had too much. They actively consume themselves into passivity, requiring that they lie down, take a nap. 

It may not be the suppression of voices that ruins the world, that leads to tyranny. It may be this exalted and celebrated plethora of voices that results in most voices shutting down. Let everyone speak at once in order to silence as many voices as possible: Let's give them a headache so that they may walk away. 

Let's give them more than they can handle. Perhaps that way they will let us handle even more.

Peace.

©2010/All Rights Reserved.

Let Others Speak 8.2.10

"The great illusion of leadership is to think that others can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there." -- Henri Nouwen, The Road To Daybreak

Rethinking, Rebooting, Reconnecting (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, which I did not intend to be serial at all, I announced that I would no longer offer political commentary here at Contratimes. I admitted that politics was not the intent of this blog; that I had gotten off track. It would have been perhaps incisive of me to admit I was a victim of the Zeitgeist I meant to confront: that the spirit of the age divides us unnecessarily along all sorts of lines -- political, ideological, philosophical and religious -- and I was so divided. But currently, or so it seems, the Zeitgeist splits us largely along political lines. And I am tired of those splits. 

It would be as silly to overlook the argument that all things are political as it would be to make such an argument. Surely some will see here, even in this sentence, evidence of a political scam, some agenda driven by a push for political dominance. But I have nothing to give those who harbor such suspicions. All I can say is we are known by our fruits. 

In the end, there is no reason for me to offer here what can be found elsewhere. There are better writers, thinkers, pundits. The internet is rife with such. There is no need to add to the list of choices -- or to the din of ceaseless chatter. Is it any different to offer a blog more distinctly Christian? Who knows. 

Not everything is wrong that one does, and surely not everything done is right. I am sorry for what I've done wrong here. I feel bad for those I may have offended. But such contrition does not mean I believe I could have done anything else, or that I could have avoided offending everybody. Such is life. Even the Perfect has enemies. Even Love is hated. I tried to stay above the fray and found that I was beneath it. I tried to elevate the discussion and found that I was debased. I tried to bring Reason to the forefront and found in that effort something akin to spiritual resignation: "This, too, is vanity." I tried to be more than I am, and became less in the process. For what I had hoped would edify did not. 

Peace to you.

On Biting Midges And Ensuing Chaos

It is a lesson in causality. 

I will spare readers the details. Some of them are dull, others ugly. Too ugly.

Last night, because it was the night of the Full Buck moon, I ventured out on a 141-acre pond I had never before kayaked around. I had been by this lovely pond many times, but I had never circumnavigated it either by boat or on foot. (There are no paths or roads that circle it, though a town road skirts the north and western edge.) The pond is 12 miles from my home. 

It was a beautiful evening, and the breeze was perfect for keeping the mosquitoes away. Despite the breeze, the paddling was relatively easy. Several small coves were even rather calm. And I was able to get close to a pair of loons, which was a pleasant surprise. 

Just as I made myself to the north/northwest end of the pond, I looked south and east and, through a gap in the hills, spotted the glorious full moon. A front had come through a couple of hours earlier, chasing away the humidity. The sky was crystalline, crisp, and getting cool; the moon was brilliant. I drifted for a while adoring the cosmos and thanking God. It was perfect, just a gentle breeze. No bugs. Nothing but Beauty. And Bliss.

Until I got out of the kayak. Then I discovered that my bare legs had been ravaged by ceratopogonidae. Biting midges, no-see-ums. These nasty, invisible vicious little creatures had found refuge from the wind inside the cockpit of my kayak and feasted on my naked legs (I prefer to kayak in shorts). Their legacy looked like a burn; it felt worse than poison ivy. And then I remembered a friend warning me about the very pond I was standing next to. "The no-see-ums will kill you!" he warned, and I believe I not only doubted him, but I chose to forget his words. Why would I forget such a warning, especially since, of all the biting bugs that bug me, no-see-ums ravage me? 

When I got home -- everyone is away so I am a bachelor -- and having made peace with nature, I made myself a huge salad with tomatoes, extra sharp cheddar, avocados, mandarin oranges, raisins and other pleasures, and then made a curious decision: I concluded that the messy kitchen, including the imperishable groceries from the day before that had not been put away, could wait. Besides, I told myself, I really love cleaning the kitchen in the morning... 

Did I tell you my dog died in April? And did I tell you we still have a pet door to the outdoors that the cat just loves to use? Well, both things are true. I just thought you should know. 

After the Mighty Midge attack, I knew that I could not sleep with the windows open, as no-see-ums (that's what we call 'em in these here parts) can easily pass through the typical window screen. So I closed the windows -- things had cooled down a lot anyway -- and turned on a fan to circulate a steady breeze over my bed. This is a capital idea, as the air current affects the flight of any no-see-um intent on doing me harm. Of course, with a fan near your head and your windows closed, you don't hear a thing. But last night there was something I probably should have heard, clearly and instantly. 

I know already that you know what it is I wish I had heard. I know you know what I found when I awoke this morning. I found that I did indeed need to clean my kitchen this bright morning, as raccoons had broken into my house and made a mess of my already messy kitchen. Ever seen a whole container of perfectly good and brand new oatmeal dumped all over your kitchen island? Even the red leather on the boutique-y barstools my wife bought was scratched by eager claws. Glasses were toppled, though not broken, and avocado pits were gnawed on. My brand new bag of awesome corn chips was ripped open. There was even a huge chunk of my kitchen sponge that was missing. It was all really rather unpleasant.

And the outside garbage bins -- which I really do like to keep in order -- were toppled over in the backyard.

Needless to say, I blame this on the midges. Well, maybe not. Maybe my friend is to blame -- for not warning me sufficiently. Yeah. It's his fault. 

It's amazing how much harm can come from what you don't see. Or hear. 

Or heed. 

Peace. 

©2010/All Rights Reserved. 

Rethinking, Rebooting, Reconnecting

The other day I asked Contratimes' guests to help me, as I found myself no longer sure of what the Zeitgest -- the spirit of the age -- is, or was, or what it looks like. I still don't know with anything approaching certitude, but I think I am getting nearer to an answer. 

I have come to realize that Contratimes is no longer doing what I initially intended. What I mean is that I am not doing what I intended to do at Contratimes. This blog did not start out to be political. I did not intend to expend so much time and effort criticizing liberal policies and ideas or defending conservative ones. But I just got sucked in. And then I got lost. 

What this blog was meant to do was to be a place where a Christian worked out his faith in a world that stands against that faith. What this blog was meant to be was an example of how Christianity can help a person live in a world of despair, alienation, moral and intellectual confusion, and temptation. I grant not only that such would be a huge undertaking, it also presumes I am not desperate, alienated or confused. Or so such a charge could be made. But this site was not to be about me. It was supposed to be about Christianity. It was supposed to be about how Christianity confronts the spirit of the age. It was supposed to be about how Christianity helps in difficult times and how Christianity helps us realize that all times are difficult. It was not to be a Christian para-church one might find in digital form, but a sort of salon for discussion, reflection, inquiry, and candor. A safe salon. 

What is the spirit of the age? Let me guess. 

It is the "spirit of the power of the air" that sows doubt, that calls us to find meaning in things, things carnal, things political, things material. The spirit of the age beckons you to find life and love in idols -- in things created -- and not in the Creator of all things. The spirit of the age whispers -- "Surely you will not die" -- and then tells you to taste, eat; enjoy the idols that await. The spirit of the age offers temporal joy and yet delights in temporal despair, and even finds in that despair a reason to be happy, and even a  reason to boast of "authenticity" or "gravitas" or "brutal honesty." Better an honest hell than a dishonestly happy heaven. 

The spirit of the age tells you that you can have it all -- here, now, soon. It tells you that God is nothing but love, though the attentive know that if God is nothing but love, there is no God at all (at least not one that matters). 

The spirit of the age denies all absolute truths but one: that it's absolutely true that absolutes don't matter. 

The spirit of the age tells you that truth and meaning are not discovered but created, invented. The spirit of the age encourages you to "think for yourself" and "be your own person," but it never encourages you to see that in taking its advice you've not thought for yourself and thus are not your own. And it never tells you that someone had to discover that meaning and truth are created, invented ...

The spirit of the age imparts fear at every turn, fear of not belonging to the right group, or the newest ideas. The spirit of the age demands that you not worry about your destiny, and then tells you that you should be ashamed for looking old, unfit, or for driving a certain type of car. It tells you death is nothing, and then it tells you that life is everything -- and only then a certain kind of life, an enviable one -- and that you better not die too soon. 

The spirit of the age tells you that the Church is too legalistic, and too invasive, always poking its nose into your business. And then it tells you that you MUST act and think a certain way and -- Oh, by the way, why are you so prudent, so incessantly modest, about your love life? The spirit of the age mocks at those who would legislate morality, and then brings the gavel down in approval of laws that ensure every one is decent, in the "right" way. The spirit of the age proclaims "Live and let live!" and then wishes that those who disagree with such a generous precept would just die. 

The spirit of the age believes that one ought "to move the boundary stone set by your forefathers," but that the stone ought to be moved only one way -- outward -- or removed altogether. No doubt there are times the spirit of the age seeks to move the stone inward in a false belief that even a more restrictive life in this world will grant the greatest eternal and temporal joy, but the spirit does this rather rarely: It's joy is to see humans always looking for an idol, new or old, to turn the heart toward nothingness. It's glee is found in destruction: misery loves company. 

And it's inspiration is envy, an envy that does not care to have or possess, only that others do not have; that no one ultimately possesses.

I initially attempted to confront this spirit at Contratimes, but I missed my mark. My interest is not really about confronting the Zeitgeist because such is a losing battle. I would rather resist it, and if I could, I would even ignore it. There is a different Spirit. A better one. One as old as forever. One as new as this moment. 

Contratimes will continue, I believe, but its days of political commentary are over. (I may take what I've started at Shallow Church -- which is evolving -- and meld them into what I've begun here.) The only time I will write of such things (i.e., political, economic, etc.) is if I believe they speak to our dangerous habit of idolatry. This is not a Republican thing I am doing here, or a Libertarian one; and it's not a conservative thing. It's just a kind of Christian thing, offered in grace to anyone living in this very non-Christian world. 

Peace to you.

Bill Gnade

Read "War of Words"

I found Andrew Ferguson's "War of Words" incredibly enjoyable. I hope you do too.

"A Theology Of Disunity, Part 1"

Continuing my series of shameless promotion, I remind readers -- by that I mean interested readers -- that there is a more distinctly Christian blog now offered by the author/administrator of Contratimes. Here's proof.

Confession Number 2,139.5

More to share.

A Shallow Statement Of Faith, Part 3

I don't think I can stop. It's serious.

A Shallow Statement Of Faith, Part 2

It may seem a strange new project, but it really isn't. Click here to see what I mean.

A Shallow Statement Of Faith (A New Project)

What Is The Zeitgeist?

This blog begins with a bold claim. Confronting the Zeitgeist "one day at a time" seems at first glance a noble goal, but it has proven an elusive one. The boldness lies not in the confronting but in the definition: my work assumes I know the Zeitgeist. Of course that is not all it assumes. But it does assume I have a working definition of the spirit of the age.

But do I? I am unsure.

If there is a spirit of this age, what is it? Perhaps we ought to change metaphors: If there is a fragrance to this age, what does it smell like? If there is a voice of the age, what is it saying? If there is a flavor of the age, have you tasted it -- and is it good? 

I don't think I can tacitly flatter myself anymore. I cannot divine the spirit of the age, at least I can't right now. I ask readers for help; I ask a neighbor to give me his coat. Perhaps one of you will even give me your shirt as well. 

Peace. 

Gliding Through The Prayer Book

Last night I kayaked over a mirror set beneath a silver half-moon. It was glorious, utterly quiet. I paddled slowly, even with stealth.  Tranquility was disturbed only by the occasional sound of my fly-rod, the soft splash of a fly, and the burst of a largemouth smashing the ceiling of its pond. I was on liquid glass beneath a night sky streaked with clouds, sky and water seeming the same thing. I drifted upside-down. 

When I finally thought fly fishing a sacrilege in such hallowed air, I broke down my gear and paddled the mile or so home from the far side of the pond; I wended my way down Moose Brook ever so quietly, moving nearly imperceptibly. Occasionally I would glide through pockets of cool air where breathing seemed easier. I wished I was drifting on a mattress, or in a baby's bassinet. I wanted to fall asleep. I thought of a baby, alone, drifting among the water lilies, floating in a basket woven of rushes, of love. 

And then I wanted to just roll over, to fall into the crystalline sky, to be baptized again. One final time. 

Last night was the latest I had been out this summer on the water, and I think as the full moon approaches, I may stay out till dawn. I've gone out nearly every night during the past two weeks. It's almost a discipline.

It's like compline. It's my evening prayer.  

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

And We Move On...

Life seems a series of serial sets. One set is the set of births, of new beginnings. Another is the set of deaths, the big ones as well as the little. One would be a fool to argue there are not subsets -- little deaths may be on their own -- but there is no doubt such things come again and again.

I experienced one of those little deaths this weekend, and it surprises me how much it hurts. 

Thoughts On TIME's Fallible Headline

In a recent issue of TIME magazine, the editors of that periodical chose this headline for its cover story: "Why Being Pope Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry." In the wake of that apparently bland article, one writer asked why the editors would have used such a headline; he was perplexed by the whole of that headline, and you can read his thoughts here.

Here's the comment I left in response to his query:

I have not read all the comments here; I have not read the TIME magazine article in question. But please permit me to express what I felt when I first saw the headline when I spotted this particular issue of TIME on the newsstand.

It’s simple. The editors of TIME are exploiting a wild misunderstanding about papal infallibility. The common belief is that the Church teaches the Pope is intrinsically infallible in all matters. In other words, the Church teaches that the Pope — as Pope — is never, ever wrong and thus cannot apologize. The headline is really a fundamental dig at a parody of Catholic teaching; the headline is perhaps even meant as ironic. If so, it is ironic in an extremely mean and petty way. Ultimately — if the editors are NOT ignorant of Catholic teaching — the headline employs a straw-man fallacy, one that essentially courses through those salons willfully ignorant of Catholic doctrine and dogma.

This is cheap journalism at its most obvious. It’s vulgar; it’s the sort of stuff offered by snickering scoffers one might meet in junior high school. The whole thing brings to mind a revised temptation of Christ: “If you’re really infallible, you can’t be wrong about anything, can you?” TIME wants to exploit this fundamental prejudice about Church teaching, hoping that, if the headline is all people read — and it will be — the prejudice will still be effectively reinforced in the populace.

Truly discouraging.

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Apologies

I have once again turned on the function that moderates comments. I can describe it in no other words than that Contratimes is under attack by "DM," who dumps absurd comments here. It is a shameful attempt, or so I believe, to sully the integrity of this site and others like it that present a Christian "worldview" in an intelligent, gracious and generally well-written manner. I may have "DM's" motives all wrong, but I doubt it. 

If anyone knows how I might shut out "DM" and his/her ilk, please advise. I deleted 3 identical comments yesterday, spammed even through "word verification" security steps. The comments strike me as perverse, random, stereotypical and, sadly, anathema to dialogue. 

Sorry for the inconvenience. I believe that comment moderation stifles discussion and discourages reader visits. My hope is to get things back to normal as soon as possible. 

Peace. 

Bill Gnade

The Days Are Numbered

Last evening I went kayaking. And fishing. I caught the tail end -- in many ways the best end -- of the longest day of the year. I was alone on the water until 9:30; the sky was still beautifully aglow, the sun unwilling to quit behind the reclining edges of the earth.

About 8:45 I caught a largemouth, about 15 inches long, and gently released it into the cool waters. The waxing gibbous moon touched the violet sky to the south and east. At the top of the 9 o'clock hour the church bell chimed at the far end of the pond, its final peal trembling softly over lily pads and through pickerel weed, faintly shaking the still air beyond the quiet woods and the far-off fringes of winter.

I paddled down the outlet to the winding, lazy Moose Brook, quietly wending my way home. A beaver startled me at the break of one bend, slapping its tail seemingly right inside my eye. I had to lay back on my kayak -- my legs extended along the bow -- to glide beneath the old bridge, my hands touching the damp, rusted steel beams a couple of inches from my face. I climbed onto shore with more effort than last year, and dragged my kayak across the lawn toward my house. I moved with gratitude, and reluctance.

Slickly Tarrying

I ask this rhetorically, recognizing, of course, that all questions are fundamentally asked rhetorically. I ask, "Would it have been politically disastrous for the Obama Administration to have the Deepwater Horizon oil leak capped quickly; would it be even worse for the administration if the oil leak was easily and quickly cleaned up?"

To some readers the question may seem ludicrous. I admit they are most likely right. It sure sounds ludicrous. 

But please note the longstanding trope -- now more trite than trope -- that the Republican Party has "always been in bed" with "Big Oil" and the ruthlessly greedy denizens of Big Business. The trope is part of any liberal's DNA, being asserted with machine-like predictability; and it has made its way into the narrative of the current oil disaster in the Gulf. But the trope is like a wet blanket over the eyes, blinding us to the truth that if the oil leaked throughout the Gulf can be quickly contained and cleaned up, then critics of Big Oil's "reckless indifference to the planet for greed's sake" have little political leverage. Does this explain Mr. Obama's failure to act quickly at the outset of this crisis? Why has he been so slow to accept help from those who've offered it? Why has he dragged his feet in meeting with officials from BP? Why has he not used all the resources at his disposal to help BP and the state governments who are desperately asking for help?

And why, too, has he spent the bulk of his energy, and most of his words, on placing blame, threatening punishment, and seeking recompense -- think big $$$ -- and "justice"? Why his energetic denunciations, and yet his lethargic assistance? 

This seems clear: the Democratic Party MUST MAINTAIN THE TROPE and its derivatives. The party MUST CONSTANTLY REINFORCE the trope that oil companies are inherently corrupt, that the oil industry is toxic from beginning to end, and that oil spills are the worst ecological event in history, ruining the earth and seas for years, decades and centuries.

By the way, denunciations of greed are nearly always rooted in greed. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Forgetting, An Unmitigated Disaster

It was a simple question asked by Don Imus. He asked it this morning: "Has there ever been such an ecological disaster like this anywhere at any time?"

I paraphrase Mr. Imus, but I do complete justice to the question. Has there ever been such a horrid thing as this oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico?

Mr. Imus received an adamantine answer from his newsman: "Never. Absolutely not. No."

I wrote about the Ixtoc 1 oil disaster earlier at Contratimes (here and here). It is an important bit of history, nay, it is a wildly important bit of history. I hope Contratimes readers learn more about it (here's a great start, as is this).

Friday night I asked a question at a political gathering of like-minded folks: Does anybody remember the June 1979 Ixtoc disaster? No one remembered.

Why? Perhaps because at the time of that incredible disaster in the Gulf Americans were obsessed -- as were the news media -- with two things, Three Mile Island (March 28, 1979) and the Iran Hostage Crisis (November 4, 1979). Yes, the media attended to the Gulf gusher that dumped 30,000 barrels of crude oil every day into the Gulf for TEN MONTHS, but there were other dangers to worry about (and America was still struggling with the gas crisis that hamstrung, or was exacerbated by, the Carter administration). As I've admitted earlier at Contratimes, this writer, who was just a young man at the time, has no recollection of the Ixtoc 1 disaster. But I sure remember the national panic around nuclear power and the crazy ayatollah in Tehran.

Despite America's national preoccupations at the close of the 1970s, it nonetheless amazes me that none of my friends or peers remembers the Ixtoc 1, and this for the simple reason that you'd think we'd all remember a disaster that began on an oil rig whose name is an accidental anagram for Toxic. How could we not have remembered the Toxic Ixtoc off the Gulf coast of Mexico?

Have the media and administration ignored the Ixtoc 1 disaster because it actually works against their  preferred narrative -- and their political agenda? Does it harm the administration to remind us that what Mr. Obama claims is "unprecedented" isn't unprecedented? Does it hurt their cause to inform citizens that the Gulf actually recovered far better than expected?

I have listened to loads of pundits and read their opinions. I cannot comprehend their ignorance, or their silence, about this important event that began in 1979. Nor can I explain their silence about the recovery of the Persian Gulf after Saddam Hussein dumped vast quantities of oil into that sea in 1991. Here's an interesting passage from The Weekly Standard article (to which I linked earlier today):

As the New York Times noted in a 1993 story, the Persian Gulf recovered surprisingly faster than anticipated from the 1.2 million ton spill Saddam Hussein engineered in 1991: “The vast amount of oil that Iraqi occupation forces in Kuwait dumped into the Persian Gulf during the 1991 war did little long-term damage, international researchers say.”

I am not so dull-witted or hard-hearted as to suggest the current oil leak in the Gulf is NOT an unmitigated disaster, one that we can brush aside as "not all that bad." I have always been an environmentalist, though I stand in what might be called the "Franciscan tradition" rather than the political ecology movement I was weaned on as a child. What is happening tears my heart out; I simply cannot look at the images of pelicans covered in crude oil. But I am concerned far beyond the environment of the biosphere; I am deeply concerned about the environment of the human mind, be it the individual or the collective. I am worried that we are not only forgetting, we are not even learning or knowing. It's not that we've forgotten, it's that we never knew in the first place. What I mean is this: The Deepwater Horizon leak is NOT unprecedented, nor is it -- yet -- the "worst oil spill in history." Not to KNOW this, or to willfully ignore it, is a pollution of the mind.

It's its own disaster, entirely toxic.

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

The New Plantation

We heard many things in the days following the election of a certain president. We heard most singularly that to criticize him was to commit a racist act. 

Today, those who criticized others for criticizing Barack Obama are now criticizing him rather vociferously. But these critics of the president are immaculate. They can't be racists. They're leftists. 

Where must one go to be so successfully inoculated? 

"How To Think About Oil Spills" -- The Weekly Standard

Interesting, indeed.

Insanity As Policy: So The White House IS Emotional About Oil

Incredible.

(If the link does not work, search Google for "Drilling Bits of Fiction." I found the article this way.)

Thoughts On Ms. Maddow's Report [revised, 12:16 pm]

I thought the following quotation a fitting preface to what follows:

My favorite observation on engineering comes from Frank E. Mosier, formerly a top executive at Standard Oil, because it recognizes both the possibility of greatness and the impossibility of perfection. In a commencement address at the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering in 1989, Mosier said, “All engineering is glorified failure analysis, and great feats of engineering are nothing more than successful bets that your ideas will be more economical or efficient or beautiful without being disastrous.” (Andrew B. Wilson) 

________________

I promised I would comment on Rachel Maddow's report to which I linked below (June 7, 2010). Part of me wishes I hadn't made such a promise. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that I have little to say that may be interesting.

What Ms. Maddow intends to highlight in her report is that the technology used at present to cap the massive oil leak 5,000 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico appears utterly archaic. She notes the antiquity of the techniques at hand; there is an ironic tone throughout her report. The thrust of her story: things have not changed much in the last 30 years. To her, that's inexcusable.

But is it inexcusable? Is it fair of her to hold such faith in technology's progress? Is her criticism rooted in reality, or has she assumed something religious, namely a belief that mankind is always progressing, or must progress, or can progress, if the collective will and mind are focused on the highest ideals?

I note that nothing has much changed in thirty years in stopping fires. Fire trucks still race through town and city streets, hoses and nozzles are tugged and pulled; water is pumped from tanker or hydrant and aimed to douse flames. Yes, occasionally foam is used, but the method is nearly the same; besides, foam is used only to suppress relatively small conflagrations (except, I believe, at airports). But things have not much changed, really, in the method.

I note too that the electricity coming to my neighborhood comes the way it has for far more than 30 years. Improvements are obvious, but they are relatively minor: the technology has been honed, but not yet perfected, and surely not transcended.

The way water is delivered from well to kitchen tap; this, too, has not changed much over the years, at least here, where I live. There is a pump; the physics of varying pressures still follow the typical pipe-and-hose technologies used seemingly forever. (And while many in my town have wells, the town water system is built on a reservoir/gravity model, a model which is undeniably Caesarean.)

I have sat in airplanes that have not been substantively improved upon -- in any theoretical sense -- for decades: I have sat on airplanes that are perhaps 30 years old. Such planes still roll down long runways; they still roll on round rubber tires, and they still jostle passengers in rough air.

So, one might observe that the BP disaster is to be fixed only one way: by using technologies no one seems able to improve upon.

But there's a wrinkle even here, as it seems things have improved. Ms. Maddow notes that the first disaster analogous to the BP spill, one that occurred in 1979, was only 200 feet beneath the ocean's surface: The Ixtoc well dumped 30,000 barrels per day into the very same Gulf of Mexico, and  it took nearly ten months to bring that well under control.

And yet today, right now, BP is dealing with a well 25 TIMES deeper than Ixtoc; a mere 55 days into the current disaster, the flow of oil is not yet stopped, but it is at least restricted.

Indeed, this morning oil is still leaking at a harrowing rate in the Gulf, but the technology seems  considerably improved since 1979, though, of course, the current state of that technology is not what one would describe as revolutionary. But that BP has managed to capture huge quantities of oil over the past few days says something about the state of technology here, that it is not necessarily as archaic, or as absurdly feckless, as Ms. Maddow portrayed.

Ms. Maddow's report also fails to fully enlarge upon the news event she uses to begin her report: the June 1979 oil spill along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). What is interesting is that the TAPS was opposed for years by environmental groups, and yet such groups' dire predictions about the overall environmental impact of the TAPS have not been fulfilled, as the TAPS has not been an unmitigated environmental disaster. The June 1979 leak was caused by the pipeline settling; there were several leaks that occurred because of settling along the line's impressive length. But there has been nary a significant leak along that line, or surely not as many as predicted. Curiously, some of the leaks occurred as a result of sabotage (e.g., 16,000 barrels in 1978). Even one bullet hole made quite a mess (258,000 gallons in 2001).

But what Ms. Maddow doesn't explore is the obvious, that a leak on land is far less difficult to contain and control than any leak is under water. Is the BP Gulf Oil spill an argument for dry land exploration and drilling? (I ask this, of course, with the assumption that there are no viable alternatives to oil that are at the ready.) Is this an argument that, if ocean drilling is still desired, shallower depths should be preferred? Or are we grateful that, if a disaster should occur at sea, it is as far from land as possible?

Lastly, allow me to quickly explore Ms. Maddow's last assertion that the oil industry is the most profitable industry in the world. (No, it isn't.) But first we need to clarify our terms. What does "most profitable" mean? Does it mean the business that nets the largest number (in $$)? Well, then, perhaps the oil industry is wildly profitable, as some oil companies post quarterly profits in the tens of billions of dollars (though I guess Wal-Mart is now vying for top spot in the "most profitable" category). But "most profitable" in the technical sense refers to those companies who show the largest profits above margin, above their total operating expenses. Those huge numbers seen in the oil industry are only 10% over margin, whereas profits in other industries show profits 20-30% over margin. Not long ago, when everyone was up in arms over Exxon-Mobil's massive profits (as a total number in $$), which were a mere 10% over margin, American Express and Apple were showing profit margins well above 20%. Surely the more profitable businesses are not necessarily those whose quarterly earnings statements show the largest possible dollar amount. If Big Oil is to be loathed for making profits of 10%, why not Big Credit and Big Computer, who "steal" from their customers, enjoying profits of 25 to 35%?

(Please, don't send me links from Forbes or wherever showing me I am wrong here. I am not. There are businesses that are far more "profitable" than the oil industry. Please note, again, how I am using the term, as a percentage of total revenues. [A $1 billion profit sounds impressive, but not if you've spent a $1 trillion to get it.])

Anyhow, just some thoughts. 

Peace. 

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