On Culture & Carbon: Travolta, Space Travel, And Putting A Lid On It

I know that Scientology has something to do with extraterrestrial life. I believe it even has something to do with extra terrestrial privilege. That's why I am not surprised to read the following story about John Travolta, a Scientologist of some note, posted at Fox News' always-fun Grapevine :

Double Standard?

Actor and aviation enthusiast John Travolta says global warming is a very valid issue and that we should consider going to other planets or putting domes over our cities. But the Evening Standard of London reports Travolta conceded that, "I'm probably not the best candidate to ask about global warming because I fly jets."

In fact, Travolta has five private planes — including his own Boeing 707 — and keeps them at his home in Florida. The paper reports that in the past 12 months Travolta has flown about 30,000 miles, producing around 800 tons of carbon emissions, nearly 100 times the amount coming from an average person.
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It seems clear from the picture above of Mr. Travolta's Florida home -- just a little cottage somewhere near a runway -- that Mr. Travolta has already been living in something of a bubble. That might explain his eagerness to cap cities with domes. Of course, how he would manage to fly his little bubble, huge that it must be, into such domed heavens is a feat only L. Ron Hubbard might explain.

I like the idea, though, of extra-planetary polluting, of spreading the homicidal tendencies of humans to other realms. The world is not big enough for the Ego of Man; more space for Man is exactly what Man needs.

Florida, as we can see, is not at all big enough.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

PS. Make sure you click on the picture above to get a larger view. I just love the Heli-pad out front -- or is that out back? It all smacks of the Jetsons.

On 9/11: Rosie O'Donnell and Building 7, Imploding

It may very well be true that we in fact battle against those in high and lofty places, but it is clearly not true that those who sit in such esteemed heights are one whit lofty. Take Rosie O'Donnell, for example. There is nothing particularly outstanding about this woman; there is nothing that would lead any of us to think that she is even particularly gifted. When I think of Rosie, I think of luck more than I think of brains, talent, or even brawn. One wonders where Ms. O'Donnell might be without her connection to Madonna, that diva known widely around the world for her nice, tight, erudite acumen.

In the truest expression of the spirit of this age, Ms. O'Donnell brings to us her perspective on the World Trade Center "attacks" of September 11, 2001: the buildings did not fall according to the laws of physics (or something like that). Instead, it appears that the buildings were felled by internally-placed explosive devices (not that Ms. O'Donnell knows much about internally-placed explosive devices [Sorry. Dreadful joke].) But we can at least find humor in the seriousness of this comedienne; the court jester is earnest. Of course we all know what trouble there is in being earnest, but we shall leave that for another time.

At issue, or so Ms. O'Donnell points out in her blog entry, wtc7, is the curiously aberrant collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Conspiracy theorists and other 9/11 "scholars," you see, have pointed out that the building could not have collapsed on its own footprint because the fires afflicting it, which have been officially cited as cause of the collapse, were not symmetrical. In other words, for a structure like Building 7 to collapse so perfectly into itself by fire, the fire would have to be evenly distributed throughout the steel-framed building.

Also at issue are assertions that fires of the sort that ripped through the building could not melt steel framing. Add to this reports that witnesses saw plumes of smoke billowing out from the building during collapse, plumes allegedly compatible with detonations, and then blend in some emergency radio comments transmitted during the day, and, well, you've got a major conspiracy.

I will not venture into the science here, though it seems that even a lay person could come up with some pretty compelling explanations. What I would like to focus on is the simple fact that the building collapsed at 5:30 pm, more than eight hours after the very first whiff of jet fuel wafted over Church and Liberty.

And I also want to point out, if but for a second, that not a single person was killed -- or even reported injured -- when that building finally fell.

_________________
What Manner Of Conspiracy Is This?

Let us ignore the fact that if 9/11 occurred at all like it is suggested in the paranoid internet documentary, Loose Change, (see this, or this) then we're dealing with a conspiracy that included hundreds, if not thousands, of people. This requires us to suspend our adherence to what we know to be the cardinal law of crime: If you want secrecy, do your dastardly deeds alone. I think we would all agree that if O. J. Simpson had 1,000 accomplices assisting him with his wife's beheading, he would be serving time in San Quentin right this minute.

We can suspend or accept all the truisms and facts we want, but we cannot suspend the very real fact that this conspiracy proves only one thing: What a lousy conspiracy this is.

Let me ask you: If you have rigged a building with bombs intent on killing and maiming as many people as possible, why would you choose to detonate those bombs when everyone was safely away from that building? How is it that you could only manage to generate a great cloud of dust and a silly conspiracy theory? Why, pray tell, would you not drop the building when its occupants were spilling onto the streets, or when tens of thousands of people stood on the pavement looking skyward? How, too, do you broadcast your intent so blatantly; how is it that the fire department was able to declare that the building was going to collapse and that everyone should clear the area? And how do you manage to drop the building when nary a newscaster had his or her camera trained on the area?

Ah, perhaps there is a reason for such bungling. Perhaps the charges failed to go off at the proper time; perhaps there was a problem. Fair enough, we might conclude, but then we have to ask how it was that the bombs could be later detonated so sequentially, if, as everyone knows, ALL THE ELECTRICAL POWER was shut off for hundreds of city blocks.† Did some stealthy crew spool out wire disguised as a fire hose; did a crew spend some 8 hours (climbing over rubble, too!) reconfiguring the schematics -- and the scheme -- so that the buildings could be plunged down manually?

Really, the view from Rosie's high seat is breathtaking.

__________________
Let us ignore the fact that over 210 acres of debris fell from the sky that September morning. Let us forget that when those first buildings fell in Manhattan, they did so with such force that seismographs moved in Maine. Let us forget that the World Trade Center plaza was built on fill; let us forget that the entire plaza was built over six floors of malls, restaurants, garages, and subway tunnels; let us forget that the ground moved like jelly. Let us forget that each of the buildings was designed to implode by architects who knew that someday the buildings might need to be removed. Let us forget that jet fuel burns away nearly instantly; that fires burned bright that day from gases released from countless carpet fibers, sheets of paper, plastics and woods and varnishes; that fires, drawing torrents of rushing air through narrow passages like elevator shafts, will generate heat aplenty, heat like a blowtorch, local and lethal to flesh, bone, and steel.

Let us forget all this and ask the simple question: Why drop Building 7 at all, and why at 5 o'clock at night?

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Why, Of Course! (Or is that "way off course?")

According to Ms. O'Donnell, there is an answer to our question: the collapse of Building 7 was meant not to destroy people. It was meant to destroy evidence. You know, papers, files, tapes, you know the deal. Come on, you know! Data was destroyed, data that would NOT AT ALL BE DESTROYED IN A COLLAPSE!

Isn't it the case that FIRE destroys the very things Ms. O'Donnell would have you believe were ruined in an intentional implosion (one that could have easily smothered the very fires that would be most effective in destroying incriminating evidence)? It seems obviously true that fire is a vandal's best friend. Why implode? Ah, we'll never know.

And, lastly, who is it that is (most likely) responsible for this great conspiracy? That's right. George W. Bush.

(Alas, not that anyone has ever wondered if the Clinton Administration could have orchestrated 9/11. I mean, it is clear at the very least that the 9/11 attacks were being planned well before George W. Bush stole the presidency. Clinton minion Sandy Berger scooted off with what from the National Archives?! Never mind.)

Here's the fact about 4 planes crashing on the American landscape that fateful day in 2001, written in language Ms. O'Donnell will understand: Bush flied, people died.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

†Perhaps the building was rigged with bombs set to trigger with a mere cell phone call, or some other remote device. That cell coverage was gone in Lower Manhattan is well-known, so we'll have to rule that out. But even if the building was detonated via remote switches, we must ask how it is that the master-minds would have been comfortable with their plan: In the fiery chaos of 9/11, a series of linked bombs could have been -- and surely must've been -- compromised. This problem remains even if we accept the idea that the bombs were on a timer: surely some part of the layout of bombs had to be damaged by fire and debris. But if we admit this, then we admit that if only some bombs detonated, they would have done so asymmetrically. If that is the case, how could asymmetrical detonations cause a building to fall straight down if we have already concluded that only symmetrical explosions could have that effect?

Saunterings: Anthony Esolen Is A Very Busy Bellhop

You should saunter on over to Infinity Hotel, an essay managed with eloquence and capacious insight by Touchstone contributor Anthony Esolen. Can I erase from infinity's face the fact that I embarrassed myself at Mr. Esolen's fine forum by posting an utterly lame -- and probably heretical -- comment? Numbers, for me, really are numb-ers, if you get my drift. I mean, when I go to the dentist, I don't ask for Novocaine, I ask for numbers.

I would also suggest yesterday's Opinion Journal post by James Taranto, particularly the tragic and ironic story about the collapsed sewer system in Gaza. I have a gut-feeling that the whole story reported by Taranto -- with the help of the Jerusalem Post -- will not get much play. It is all very sad.

Peace this day.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

P.

On Christology: The Reformation Of The Episcopal Church

I am in all things apostate; it seems I am unable to conform myself to this new Christian world, or to renew my mind in the holy waters of the most popular baptisms. The Christ I find in church no longer speaks my name, nor do I recognize his voice. I am indeed a sheep of a different fold.

Whose voice is this that I hear in the opening remarks of an epistle calling the faithful to live a holy Lent? Is it really the voice of the Christian Savior, the Shepherd of the Church?

Here's A Second Call To A Holy Lent

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

I write this during the season of Epiphany, that season of the church year in which we remember the extraordinary ways that God showed up in the life of Jesus, convincing those around him that God dwelt in him in such powerful ways that he not only was like God, but that he was God. But by the time you read this, we will be in the season of Lent...

Christianity is fraught with mysteries, beautiful and hallowed mysteries that tremble with paradox. Perhaps the grandest of these mysteries is the Incarnation, the awesome dogma that Jesus the Christ is fully God and fully man, totally and simultaneously; possessing two natures in One dynamic symmetry, eternal and preexistent, and forever inseparable. The very dogma of the Incarnation is in fact so mysterious -- eluding most of our cleverest categories and schemata -- that it can hardly avoid being the very epicenter of heresy. When Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" it is a question of great ontological import; it is not a mere query about perceptions but about ontological identity, the very substance of Christ's nature. "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God," St. Peter declares. But his simple declaration is not so simple, or so clear, for heresies spring from this mystery like swine off a cliff.

Should it at all disturb me that the prefatory remarks about Christ in the aforementioned Lenten epistle are penned by the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson? Should I wonder at the implausibility of it all, that a bishop of the Christian Church could even suggest that God merely "convinced" people that Jesus was so much like God that he was God? Should I stumble over language suggesting the Incarnation is merely God "showing up" in the life of Jesus?

What to do with this casual reductionism, this grotesque informality: For God so loved the world that he "showed" up in a man and convinced everyone that he was God!

Perhaps the first thing I should do is announce that I am now the de facto Bishop of New Hampshire -- by default -- for the current bishop cannot be taken seriously any longer and should be defrocked. Alas, I cannot make such an announcement. I am not fit for the bishop's chair, nor am I any longer fit for the Kingdom this current bishop represents. I cast myself outside, where I shall wait in vain for the shepherd to leave the ninety-nine to look for me, to call my name.

He is too busy with "Dialogue", the spirit ruling the new church, to make such a call.

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The House Of Bishops Speaks

As some of you may know, the crisis in the Anglican Communion that reached flashpoint in the 2003 consecration of Christendom's first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, has now reached the breaking point. Last week, The Episcopal Church leadership, the House of Bishops, responded to recommendations offered by a council of Anglican primates by politely rejecting those recommendations. It is by all accounts a bold and honest position to take: The Episcopal Church of the United States -- of which I am a member -- has decided, if it must, to exist unto itself, though it does so with lofty, even nostalgic language regarding unity, fellowship and the church's great feelings of catholic affection for the body of Christ.

"We affirm once again the deep longing of our hearts for The Episcopal Church to continue as a part of the Anglican Communion…What is important to us is that The Episcopal Church is a constituent member of a family of Churches…That membership gives us the great privilege and unique opportunity of sharing in the family's work of alleviating human suffering in all parts of the world… we are aware as never before that our Anglican Communion partners are vital to our very integrity as Christians and our wholeness. The witness of their faith, their generosity, their bravery, and their devotion teach us essential elements of gospel-based living that contribute to our conversion.

"We would therefore meet any decision to exclude us from gatherings of all Anglican Churches with great sorrow, but our commitment to our membership in the Anglican Communion as a way to participate in the alleviation of suffering and restoration of God's creation would remain constant."

It is impossible to deny the sincerity and earnestness of the American episcopacy as they face being ousted from the Anglican Communion. There is indeed a softness of heart that almost sounds contrite. But when we come to the substance of the American apology we discover something utterly stunning.

Up until the very hour of V. Gene Robinson's consecration in November 2003, we heard of sweeping change in the Church: The Holy Spirit was "doing a great and new thing", opening once-blind hearts and eyes to the "authenticity of gay and lesbian personhood", shattering traditions that would define things otherwise, clarifying long-misunderstood passages of scripture used to bolster homophobia and exclusion. "God is still speaking," we were told by advocates of God's great reforms. In November 2003, the Episcopal Church of the United States was rife with change, with reform, pulsating with the Holy Spirit's renewing leadership. The Episcopal Church was inspired: This is who we are! proclaimed the Church as it identified itself as the liberator of all those trapped by sexual discrimination rooted in tradition and archaic hermeneutics.

But now, in the very hour in which my once-beloved church finds itself on the threshold of excommunication (of a sort), the very Church that encouraged the rejection of tradition now, in its own defense, invokes tradition to maintain its authority. In response to myriad calls that the Episcopal Church approve "primatial oversight," a sort of open-borders policy where conservative bishops from outside America could guide parishes within The Episcopal Church that reject the liberalizing of the American church, the American bishops have found a new defense: Tradition does not permit the American church to share leadership with outsiders. Suddenly and inexplicably the Church has found tradition authoritative and binding. Moreover, in November 2003, when the Church was re-interpreting sundry Biblical passages using a new hermeneutic, calling certain anti-homosexual passages "dated" or "anachronistic," the Church now finds certain passages in its preamble and its prayer book conveniently static and absolute. There is no new hermeneutic here.

Surely we all should find this sort of elasticity rather stunning. And surely we can call such convenient elasticity what it is: duplicity.

But no matter how sincere The Episcopal Church may sound in its grave regrets that people have taken offense at its liberating mission, its recalcitrance in the face of international pressure leaves many observant parishioners shaking their incredulous heads. The Episcopal Church, in a fit of ironic projection, is suggesting that the Anglican Communion is guilty of a form of colonialism: the Communion is behaving a bit like a surly king intent on keeping his colonies in line with the royal will (thanks Jordan Hylden). The irony, of course, is that the American Church is the one acting imperialistically, intent on pushing its expansive compassions on the rest of the world. Or am I wrong about this?

If I am wrong, then how should I explain Bishop Robinson's own summary of the American episcopacy's rejection of the Primate's recommendations? Do these sentences of his declare that The Episcopal Church sees itself as a misunderstood victim, or as something else?

"While we cannot know what the reaction will be to these statements throughout the Communion, we must be who we are – the Church struggling to live out faithfully the ministry God has given us in this place and time. Like many great reformers before us, 'Here we must stand. We can do no other.'” [emphasis added]

Ah-hah! Now we see! The Episcopal Church of America is the Great Reformer of Anglicanism! It does not at all intend to comply with what it sees as error. Bishop Robinson represents the "true Church" led by the Holy Spirit toward a "broader" Kingdom. Hence, The Episcopal Church is not the threatened, but the threat -- a threat to oppressions, many and abominable, and the legion errors that justify those oppressions. The Episcopal Church is the reforming force in the Anglican Communion; it is being faithful to the "ministry God has given" the Church "in this place and time."

Reforming is EXACTLY the word.

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The Most Damning Statement

In the House of Bishops' statement submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates' Standing Committee, we find a clue about the current state of church affairs. It is what I have repeatedly called the flight into subjectivity; I have warned elsewhere that such subjectivity is relentlessly manipulative, and that it breeds spiritual doubt -- Are you truly spirit-led? -- and even spiritual competitiveness -- Do you hear God as well as I? Subjectivity is a powerful and alluring force, and it ruins many a relationship within God's kingdom.

Read this stunner by the American House of Bishops as it defends its recent actions:

"It is incumbent upon us as disciples to do our best to follow Jesus in the increasing experience of the leading of the Holy Spirit." [emphasis added]

Note the language -- "the increasing experience of the leading of the Holy Spirit." Is there anything more disheartening, even more deadening, than this? And is there anything more licentious?

If ever there was a time we needed God to free us from these reformers, it is now.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Saunterings: Mark Elrod and Joseph Bottum

If a discussion concerning "redemptive violence" is your pint of ale, then you might enjoy a two-part series on the subject by blogger and professor Mark Elrod. It is quite interesting. You can check it out by sauntering over to this link.
In a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful essay, Joseph Bottum over at First Things notes the rather empty faddishness of beyondism. Check out his 'Beyond "Beyondism.'" Bottum exhibits exactly the sort of perspicacity I wish I possessed.

BG

On Christian Living: Writing Only For The Faithful?

A few weeks ago I wondered aloud to anyone close enough to hear whether I was throwing my pearls beneath my own cloven feet. One of my concerns was that I had somehow forsaken the hope to which I had been called -- the "riches of [Christ's] glorious inheritance in the saints" -- in an effort to earn some other accolade. Specifically, I wondered whether I had been pulled off course by my many vanities, enamored of the idea that I needed to prove to the world that I, a serious and orthodox Christian, was nevertheless intelligent, properly worldly, and satisfactorily clever. Had I forsaken truth and the gospel of freedom merely to advertise that I wasn't a dimwit? Had I engaged in petty and popular polemics solely to impress? Were my many words simply cries for approval, approval from those outside the Christian Church? Did I publish here like a wild dog marks his territory, suggesting some sort of dominion, some sort of mastery to which the learned must show respect?

Even now, in these very words, I wonder: Why am I being so careful, so circumspect, as I type these words? Am I, even in confession's presumed transparency, still clouded by hopes that even in this well-expressed self-doubt, I will earn readers' applause? Is vanity still at work here? Am I still striving to impress those who stand decisively outside Christianity's creedal borders, those who have deemed Christians inferior and dumb?

Years ago I had a dear friend named Ben who would often wear, to the newspaper office where we both worked, a T-shirt listing the names of "Famous Unitarian-Universalists." It was an impressive set of names, though I could not refrain from always noting the shortness of that esteemed list. I also noted that had anyone decided to make a garment listing famous Catholics -- or, more broadly, famous orthodox Christians -- it would be much grander than a simple T-shirt. It would, in fact, be very much like a wedding gown, with a train as long as history.

But I had to admit to Ben that I was using fame differently, for most of the famous orthodox Christians of history are not really famous, at least not in the Henry David Thoreau/Albert Schweitzer-Unitarian-way some people are famous. Fame is not something Christians are called to attain, nor is the doing of good deeds cause for celebration. Good deeds are simply to be done. They are not something that is considered special. They are assumed.

However, it would be faulty to argue that there isn't a penchant for fame-grabbing and fame-naming in many Christian circles. Some of us recall how quickly the evangelical community proclaimed Bob Dylan's declaration of Christian faith in the early 1980's. Christians have their own list, though no Christian dare wear that list in public. Modesty and humility call us to self-restraint. But we literary-types who accept Christ know too well the names we can drop: T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, G. K. Chesterton, Fyodor Dostoevksy, Evelyn Waugh. Many of us aspire to be similarly listed.

Alas, have I given myself over to this idol, this idol of notoriety and fame? Have I meant to impress the world, without even thinking at all whether I am impressing the God I claim to adore? I have known my share of local notoriety as an award-winning news photographer and journalist; I have felt the pride in having people notice. But I wonder if in writing for a broader audience (here and elsewhere), and in taking on topics not usually within the scope of my interests, I am looking for the approval that sits in high places, the sort of places that serve as apparent gatekeepers of culture: The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and, sadly, Oprah.

Last week I almost reached the conclusion to forgo any writing that was not solely directed at a Christian audience. This not because I was suppressing my idolatry, but because I felt I was wasting my time writing to anyone else. How many folks, really, do we need commenting on Al Gore, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Sean Hannity and sundry other absurdities? Need I analyze George W. Bush's language when others are not only more qualified than I, they are more astute and even more passionate than I could ever be? Or IS this sort of stuff my passion?

But the theme of my many questions is the search for obedience. My musings need not solely circle around the idol of fame or approval, for there are many idols to which Christians give undue obeisance. There is, for certain, the idol of intelligence, of wits, to which I am particularly vulnerable; at its very worst, I fall servant to the idol that proves I am not as dumb (or mean) as those Christians over there. It is a nasty idol to serve. But how, really, do I obey God here? Simply by not tipping my head or genuflecting when my idols pass nearby? And is it at all beneficial to the Church, to the called faithful, that I spend anytime wrestling with matters where any victory will neither edify nor inform?

I wonder too much, perhaps. Yet I am reminded of the very lucid and simple exhortation given by St. Paul: Whatever you do, do it heartily unto the Lord.

Lord, how I try.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Philosophy And Rhetoric: America Lobotomized

I could list many reasons why a person should hate America, and I bet on a good day I could list many of the things that are in fact wrong with America. But this must not be a good day, for I have found but one reason why any thinking person should hate what is considered right about America.

What follows is a perfect example of what is exactly wrong with this country. I promise you that it is almost platonic in its form; this example epitomizes the death of the American mind, nay, the human mind, like few others. If you must, ignore the context and content; it is the process that counts here, the manner and structure and logic of it all that shrinks the mind and wilts the soul.

_______________

While skipping through far too many channels on my television this past Friday night (March 23), I landed on a discussion (this word no longer has meaning, by the way) between four media personalities, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes (partners of Fox News' Hannity and Colmes) and radio talk show hosts Michael Reagan (son of President Ronald Reagan) and Leslie Marshall. The purpose of this gathering of the minds was to discuss actor Charlie Sheen's recently expressed doubts whether the events of 9/11 actually happened the way they've been documented; and this great consortium of intellects was to comment on Sheen's role as narrator of a "documentary" detailing how the United States government lied to us all about what we saw -- or thought we saw -- with our own eyes. The film is to be underwritten by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban; it is a new production of the internet film, "Loose Change," of which I have written before.

What follows is a transcript I hammered out from the video link found at the Hannity and Colmes website. I did the best I could considering how many times such great interlocutors interrupt and speak over each other. (For total impact, I urge you to watch it now.) This is not a full transcript, mind you. I purposely omitted the first and last minutes of the interviews; I promise that I have not left out a single important thing. The salient points are found right here.

I am first going to share all of Sean Hannity's interview with Ms. Marshall, and then make a few comments. Then, I will quote Alan Colmes' interview with Mr. Reagan. There is NO INTERRUPTION between the two interviews; everything that follows is chronologically contiguous.

Let me first note that up to this point NO ONE in the discussion has mentioned either suppressing free speech or the First Amendment.

(Fox News' Hannity and Colmes, March 23.)

Sean Hannity: What about you, Leslie, do you agree with Sheen?

Leslie Marshall: ...This is hysterical. Last time I checked, we’re all Americans here, the four of us and we are all entitled to the same rights that both Charlie Sheen and his father [actor Martin Sheen, a vocal Bush critic], called the First Amendment.

Sean Hannity: Hey Leslie, why don’t you try answering the question. We all agree that’s, uh, uh ... OK. Yeah. Now, do you agree with him?

Leslie Marshall: It’s a First Amendment, it’s a First Amendment issue, Sean. Now, do I agree with him?

Sean Hannity: Leslie, who asked you about the First Amendment? He has the right to be an idiot. I am not doubting that, I give him all the rope he wants. I am asking if you agree with him.

Leslie Marshall: But I don’t think somebody’s an idiot if they disagree with you or me, Sean. I believe that is what is wonderful about our nation, that we have the right to disagree with each other.

Sean Hannity: You know, I know, but he’s, he’s putting together these conspirathy [sic], these conspiracy thoughts and I am asking you if you agree?

Leslie Marshall: Do I agree --

Sean Hannity: Yes.

Leslie Marshall: -- that the president took down the towers?

Sean Hannity: Yes.

Leslie Marshall: No.

Sean Hannity: A lot of left l--

Leslie Marshall: But I think Charlie Sheen is allowed to say it, I don’t think he’s an idiot for expressing his mind --

Sean Hannity: You don’t think so?

Leslie Marshall: --and for disagreeing with you or me.

Sean Hannity: You think it’s a well-informed opinion that George Bush knew about 9/11 ahead of time, this big conspiracy that the government did this?

Leslie Marshall: But you’re calling it a conspiracy theory, right, and that’s what conspiracy theories are. The last time I checked, there are a lot of people today in Dallas standing on a grassy knoll still disputing the single bullet theory and Arlen Specter is still in office.

_______________

Forgive me for insulting you with my comments. I know you see the fallacy here, for it is glaring. But let me highlight it a little more.

What Ms. Marshall committed in this Q&A can only be deemed a thought-crime; she committed the fallacy of switching the question: by switching the question from whether she agreed with Mr. Sheen to his right to say whatever he wants, Ms. Marshall used a red-herring to throw the discussion off course. Notice how Mr. Hannity tries to pull her back -- "Do you agree with him?" -- and how she avoids the question, even though she asks it back, twice -- "Do I agree?" Ms. Marshall does not want to discuss or debate the film or the veracity of Mr. Sheen's opinions; she wants to protect his free speech rights, rights that NO ONE is denying him. BUT...

Notice that she takes umbrage with Mr. Sheen being called an idiot. As we all should know, such rhetorical indiscretions are also fallacious; they are the fallacy argumentum ad hominem, or arguments to the person. She is right to take issue with this, at least for purely logical reasons. BUT ALSO ...

It should be noted that Mr. Hannity's first question -- Leslie, do you agree with Mr. Sheen? -- might be a type of either the fallacy of the complex (or loaded) question, or a fallacy of the false question. I will expand on the latter in a moment, but the former, the complex question, is perhaps appropriately applied to Mr. Hannity, for he may have put Ms. Marshall in the position of answering yes or no to a question that really demands greater exposition. If Ms. Marshall had answered with a terse yes or no, she may have incriminated herself, thus (perhaps) explaining her rush to throw in a red-herring. But I don't see how she could have been so fearful of saying "no" to Hannity's question, especially since she eventually said "no." I can only conclude that Ms. Marshall is guilty of evasion so she could defend a position other than what is being discussed. Now, back to the interview:

(The hosts switch roles)

Alan Colmes: Let me go to Michael Reagan. The fact of the matter is I don’t agree with Charlie Sheen --

Michael Reagan: Good.

Alan Colmes: But, you know, you’re way of dealing with it is to “Let’s denounce Charlie Sheen, let’s denounce Martin Sheen, let’s denounce Mark Cuban," rather than actually debate the issue and talk about just what’s going on here, you want to make it personal and go after the individuals.

Michael Reagan: Alan, Alan, wait a minute. You, you sit there and say, “let’s debate the issue.” What? That America did bring down the towers? That maybe, "when all the Jews left the building," maybe they knew something that we didn’t all know? Debate that? You’re out of your mind to debate that?

Alan Colmes: You, you, you’re missing my point. You’re totally missing my point. My point is--

Michael Reagan: That is your point!

Alan Colmes: --you take free speech which we all agree we all have and you meet that with other free speech. And that’s the way free speech works.

Michael Reagan: I am not saying he can’t say it. Nobody is saying he can’t say it. But what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t be able to react to his stupidity?

Alan Colmes: I didn’t say you shouldn’t be able to, I said you choose to make it a personal attack on the individual rather than deal with what the individual is actually saying which you could easily refute.

Michael Reagan: Where’s the personal attack? The personal attack is that I think he is out of his mind!

Alan Colmes (chuckling): I know you think he is out of his mind. That’s the way you want to deal with it.

(Overtalking)

Michael Reagan: I think people who support that are out of their minds. And I think people who support that are also giving aid and comfort to the enemy who want to kill Americans.

Alan Colmes: Yeah, ah, stop with the aid and comfort to the enemy. Michael, can we believe everything the government tells us?

(Pause)

Michael Reagan: What kind of a question is that, Alan?

Alan Colmes: A good one. Thank you for asking.

Michael Reagan: Alan, that's a lousy question --

Leslie Marshall: Or it could also be that the answer is "no."

_______________

Again, there is so much deadening rhetoric here that I can hardly revive my own heart. But sometimes we need to force ourselves to stare into the abyss. Let us stare together.

Note what Alan Colmes does to Mr. Reagan. If you do not see it, look again, for it is clear -- and shocking: Mr. Colmes denies Mr. Reagan his right to free speech.

How do I reach this conclusion? Simple. Mr. Colmes, turning a blind eye to the fact that Mr. Reagan is entitled to EVERYTHING he is saying about Mr. Sheen, nevertheless says this inanity:

"My point is you take free speech which we all agree we all have and you meet that with other free speech. And that’s the way free speech works."

This benumbing lesson on free speech is utterly self-canceling: Mr. Colmes DOES NOT SEE that Mr. Reagan is utterly FREE to say exactly what he is saying. If free speech is free, then there is no denying Mr. Reagan the right to attack Mr. Sheen personally, or to reason fallaciously, or to do whatever he chooses with his words. Mr. Colmes is both blind and deaf to Mr. Reagan's use of free speech to battle free speech; Mr. Colmes thinks that his interlocutor should say SOMETHING ELSE, something that is NOT PERSONAL. What vacuity!

And then, to cap it off, Mr. Colmes says this in the MIDST OF DEFENDING FREE SPEECH:

"Yeah, ah, stop with the 'aid and comfort to the enemy.'"

I am sorry, but did Mr. Colmes tell someone to STOP uttering whatever he wants to utter? He did. For shame!

Mr. Colmes also asks this fallacious question, "Michael, can we believe everything the government tells us?" Not only is this the fallacy of the false question, even the complex question, it is meant to trap Mr. Reagan, who sees right through it. For if Mr. Reagan answers no, then, of course, Mr. Colmes' rejoinder is that perhaps Mr. Sheen is right not to trust what the government is telling us about 9/11; if he answers yes, then Mr. Colmes' response will be to ask whether Mr. Reagan believes that there are still WMDs in Iraq or that his father, President Reagan, did not know what Oliver North was doing in the Iran/Contra affair. It is, in short, a sick game. And this from a man who claims he wants a debate about what could be "easily refuted."

Lastly, just note that while Mr. Colmes is apparently interested in purging a person's free speech of all personal attacks, he spends his entire Q&A arguing against the person of Michael Reagan: Alan Colmes never actually discusses either the veracity of Mr. Sheen's claims or the veracity of Mr. Reagan's assertion that Mr. Sheen is insane. The fact is that Mr. Sheen may very well be "out of his mind." Insanity is a real thing; insane people believe all kinds of paranoid and polluted things. But rather than disabuse Mr. Reagan of his mistaken belief about Mr. Sheen's idiocy, Mr. Colmes attacks Mr. Reagan's personhood: he suggests that Mr. Reagan is only capable of thuggishness, of obsessing over and denying Mr. Sheen's competence.

In closing, remember that this is supposed to be a discussion about the veracity and propriety of the conspiracy theories as perpetuated by Mr. Sheen and others like him. But both Ms. Marshall and Mr. Colmes drag the red-herring of "free speech" through the discussion, and then, as noble champions of free speech, turn and trammel free speech (what you can't see in my transcript is that Ms. Marshall nods in vigorous affirmation of Mr. Colmes' rhetoric).

If free speech is free, then indeed leave it be. Even illogic is free to run amok. In fact, it is running amok. It is logic that is corralled, awaiting death. And as illogic runs free, telling itself that it is what is "great about America," it calls itself Dialogue.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

For a great read about the future of democracy -- and the need for a rational populace -- read the United Kingdom blogger/writer, Stanley Rosenthal at the Progressive. This link -- The Thirty-eight Dirty Tricks of Argument -- from his site is also enlightening, and perfectly on point.

Flashpan Friday: Sparks On Anything 2

Someone might easily find fault with my last two entries, but nobody can accuse me of not trying to keep things interesting. I don't mind looking a little unbalanced, especially in a world that is largely off-kilter.
_______________

Last year, the liberal blogger and politico Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, popularly known as "Kos" and founder of "The Daily Kos", opined (and I paraphrase), "Republicans don't know how to govern and Democrats don't know how to win." Somewhere on this blog I pointed out how strange this statement was, for if Democrats know how to govern, then surely they would know how to win, which is, in truth, part of governance; since they don't know how to win, one is compelled to conclude that they cannot govern. And, conversely, if Republicans know how to win, which takes no small act of governance, then Republicans can indeed govern.

But forsooth, the great Kos received his wish in November of 2006. The Democrats won.

And now they govern like a high-school student council. It is like watching children playing a grown-ups' game. The only thing they seem particularly good at is turning everything into a convenient scandal: "It's hearing time in Washington!" Talk about a quagmire.

That the great posturing party is now in control leaves the attentive wondering whether the Democratic leadership is capable of anything other than shrieking. Well, shrieking and resolving. And more resolving, over and over.

____________

What, do YOU think, is the bottom line to all this pandering, and all these many hearings held in Washington to such fanfare? We have threats of subpoenas in a case where there can be no crime; we have hearings about the imminent end of the world if we belch forth any more carbon-dioxide. We have much bluster about the great liar in the White House; we hear much invective hurled at President Bush's competence and his gross dependence on Der Führer Rove. We hear a priori assertions that the war is lost, or that it is a war with "no cause" (I do not expect you to be able to figure that one out).

But what is the reason for all this foolishness, all these empty words, empty war resolutions, and empty warnings? What is the ultimate end of all this? In short, I believe it is the end of thought, democracy and freedom. The leaders of the Democratic Party want you to believe that the final word has been spoken, and that it is irrefutable, unquestionable, undeniable. One party knows all, thinks all, declares all. The debate is over. Bush lied and people died; the "consensus" is indubitable, and to deny it is to deny the Holocaust; the White House is secretive, cunning, and malicious through and through; the dismissal of US attorneys is proof of treason; the CIA's most beloved spy was viciously outed by a cabal of neo-con tyrants who enjoy torturing innocents "in super-duper secret torture dens at Guantanamo Bay" in a "culture of corruption," the very culture that hates injured soldiers in Building 18. These dogmas are self-evident.

But the big reason is this: Such rhetoric and puffing out of the chest, such wailing and gaveling, is all meant to make people dependent, not on themselves in Emersonian self-reliance or in the deep individualism of Protestantism, not on God or the Spirit of God, but on a group of men and women who have a donkey as their mascot. It is about the end of intellectual and spiritual freedom; it is the end of non-comformity as Americans once knew it. You must depend. You cannot choose, you cannot question. Doubt has been erased, faith is made certain. There is no more clouded glass through which we look; Al Gore and the deliverers have spoken, and all mysteries are made clear. Now, just submit! (Islam!)

Might might not make right, but hearings surely do.

Shhh! Our idols are in session. We await our orders on what to think.

___________

I can't help but refer readers to Ann Coulter's latest column. She may be coarse, she may act far too unlady-like for the fastidious fusspots among us who believe that women should behave a certain prescribed, decorous way. But I find her funny; she's a blonde-haired, long-legged, too-skinny Don Rickles with a formidable pen. She may be wrong on all counts (she isn't), she may be hyperbolic and mean, but she is not a trifle to be dismissed. In her inimitable manner (at least by me), Coulter writes

If this is how global warming devotees defend their scientific theory, it may be a few tweaks short of a scientific theory. Scientific facts are not subject to liberal bullying — which, by the way, is precisely why liberals hate science.

Not bad, Ann. You definitely gave me a good laugh with ¶8.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Con Version

(A prose poem. Sheer whim.)

I have no cash in the bank and there are no coins in the jar. I am spent.

We talked all day, all night, of things that make up our dreams -- peace, joy, the soft touch of love in the chill dawn. But we see through a glass for most of the time, a cracked and stained glass, brushed dark with blood. There was no truth in these talks, nor could there be. But there was hope:

You laugh at my words: I am so brave and far too sure. I know my way through a dark set of thoughts, I say, and then leave the room with gloom set on my head. I thought I could see, I knew I could hear; but you were right to note that I could taste my fears -- in your kiss.

Oh, how I reach now for your hand, the stars in your skin, the soft clouds in your hair. I reach and reach, but I grasp naught but hail and rain, and sharp flakes of cold pain. You built a wall here that is years thick; I kick holes into its side and climb to a ledge made of books you wrote in jest; mere verse for the fool who loved you.

But I will leave to write my own page, and you will have to leap high to get a glimpse of my fame. You did not know me then, and you will not know me now. That is not my name!

But it is all a hurt that stills truth: truth will not move. And it will not leave. It stays like a scar on my days. It aches like a thorn in the side.

(We laughed once at the old dame who gave her one cent -- all she had -- to the poor. We would give more, we thought.)

If that makes sense, in our one vain time.


©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

(I simply wrote this for exercise. I need to do this sort of thing every now and then. Working with monosyllabic words is always something of a catharsis for me. I've just hated my writing of late, so this kind of discipline kicks my brain around a bit.)

The Moral Center Is Green

[He continues to lose.]

I see a man coming toward me, offering salvation, if I only believe, if I just have the courage. Follow me, he says, though not exactly. I have a moral to place on your shoulders; my burden is heavy as coal, as easy as a bag of fluorescent lights. Take up your carbon cross and follow me. For I have a world I want you to make colder, harder. I promise you can do this, for this is no catastrophe. It is an opportunity. The fields are white, ready for harvest. Please, follow me, and I will make you a sort of fleecer of men.

And so I go forth to make the earth cold. It is unarguably my moral duty. I am required by conscience to ensure that winters are harsher, longer; that ice caps grow and arable land is consumed by glacial creep. I fight for shorter, cooler summers; I pray the earth to slumber longer during winter's solstice and yet to speed past the summer solstice with nary a heat wave, irrespective of hemispheric balance. I shall work miracles.

I am an equipped warrior: I have my word of truth -- the holy word of inconvenient truth -- infused with the infallible and inerrant words of science's best minds, minds that have gathered in great councils, dividing truth from all that isn't. I have my switch plate of righteousness that runs directly to my solar panels; the holy wind rushes through my windmills, and tongues of fire no longer lick at my carbon-smeared furnace. I wear the helmet of carbon sequestration. My feet are shod with the good news of hybridism.

Permit me, please, to cite only one passage of my new holy canon, prophetic in its precision:

'The harbinger of change shall come as Prius* -- which means before -- drawn from the legal term, nisi prius (unless before):"unless before the day appointed (nisi prius) the judges shall come ... (which they always do) and there try the cause."† The judges indeed are coming.' (AIT 6:6-9)

I walk with the cool, controlled sun in my face, and the carbon-neutral magisterium at my back. I cannot falter, for I have courage. I look with faith to the hills and see from whence my turbine help comes; I walk through the valley of the shadow of heat-death, and I cast the shadow aside.

(Blessed indeed are the carbon-pure in spirit, for they shall see their god shivering on a carbon-neutral street.)

But these streets are paved with green.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

*The Toyota Prius is a popular hybrid car. Owners consider this a carbon offset; though they do this, of course, without ever asking if Toyota uses MORE carbon fuel to manufacture and deliver the car.

†I happened to find this quote at the Free Dictionary after searching for the definition of "prius." I thought the passage perfectly apt for a satirical look at the religious fervor associated with much, if not most, environmental activism.

What A Different President Thinks

(It is maybe a bad sign that this is my fourth post today. Who knows? But I feel so strongly about what I buried in Post #2 that I cut and pasted it here. It's that important.)

Perhaps you have heard or read what the Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said in the past few days. President Klaus is ringing a different alarm. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, Klaus has written to the US Congress warning that "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer forms." The biggest threat is "ambitious environmentalism." Klaus wrote:

"[I am] really concerned about the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. …While discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom. …the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world."

But I need to quote even more of this fine article for our purposes here:

"[Klaus] noted that this ideology wants to replace 'the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world.'

"Its followers, Klaus added, consider 'their ideas and arguments to be an undisputable truth' and use sophisticated methods of media manipulation to exert pressure on politicians to achieve their goals.

"Klaus claimed that the environmentalists' argumentation is based on the spreading of fear and panic, and in this atmosphere they continue pushing politicians to adopt 'illiberal measures, impose arbitrary limits, regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions on everyday human activities and make people subject to omnipotent bureaucratic decision-making.'

"Klaus also said that environmentalists 'neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change,' that there is and has been no ideal state of the world, and they ignore the future economic and technological progress."

I find all of this philosophically fascinating. I wonder if you do too.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Important links relevant to this discussion: The Wizard, fkap (interesting story!); The Reference Frame (Klaus transcript!); Randall Sherman (hysterical!) [Nice job all!]

On Politics And Global Warming: What You Might Not Have Read

In preparing for today's entries on the global warming buzz, I happened upon this transcript posted at Rush Limbaugh's website. I did not go to Mr. Limbaugh's site intentionally; a Google search led me there, and I am glad it did.

Perhaps you read that James Hansen, a director at NASA, testified at yesterday's climate change hearings held by the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Mr. Hansen has relentlessly reported that the Bush Administration has tried to suppress his scientific voice -- and the voice of other government scientists -- for apparently refusing to conform their work to White House ideology. That Mr. Hansen has been free enough, however, to grant 1,400 or so media interviews in the last few years seems to have slipped his mind.

But if you want to read great political banter, and if you want to see what the major media have concealed from your view, then I urge you to read all of the transcript found at Mr. Limbaugh's website (actually, this is a transcript of Limbaugh's radio broadcast where he plays the audio clips from the hearing).

I am so intrigued by all of this that I feel compelled to paste some of the transcript here, but I will refrain. You must read Congressman Darrell Issa's opening remarks, and how he takes Mr. Hansen to task. Plus, I believe NASA research scientist Roy Spencer's remarks are really quite important. Please, I am pleading. Take the ten minutes to read the text found at the link above.

Also, I thought you might find this article, "Scientists have inconvenient news for Al Gore", published in the Sydney Morning Herald, a thoroughly decent read.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics And Global Warming: A Vice President And A President Do Battle

I tried to live-blog this morning, to very little effect and perhaps much frustration. The event I was watching included the Dalai Lama of Climate Change, former Vice President Al Gore, who testified today before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. I found him earnest but incredibly dulling, though dulling not by being boring, but by over-reaching and over-stating. Mr. Gore's most bold claim is that the scientific community -- the "consensus" -- is unanimous: mankind is the primary source of global warming and climate change.

Mr. Gore spent much of his opening statement arguing that CO2 levels are dangerously high; he sees a "correlation" between CO2 levels and increased temperatures. In fact, at one point in his testimony, Al Gore argued that the planet "has a fever" and that, though we are only talking about a few degrees of increased temperature, everyone would agree that the difference between 98.6 and 103.6 is cause for grave concern. Irrespective of this absurd anthropomorphism of the planet and the fundamental weakness of the analogy, Mr. Gore believes that the evidence proves causality, and that the proof is irrefutable.

As I have noted before, confusing correlation and causality is utterly unscientific. Mr. Gore commits this non causa pro causa fallacy right before our eyes; he says it with emphasis and conviction, and yet, seemingly, too few notice. If I were to argue that my age and CO2 emissions have increased in a directly proportional relationship, I could not be dismissed as unscientific, for CO2 admissions have increased as I have gotten older. But surely everyone would snicker at me if I concluded that my increased age is the cause of CO2 emission increases world-wide or, more pertinently, that CO2 emissions are causing me to get older. A correlation does not a causality make.

This is all, truly, quite alarming, though not because it is such bad logic, but because such bad logic is touted as brilliant and courageous leadership by the sychophants sitting in front of Mr. Gore. But Mr. Gore's presentations are nothing of the sort. He is confusing things to promote an agenda, an agenda which might very well be himself. That he is sitting in such high places is not surprising; what IS surprising is how successful he has been in convincing others that the science is unanimous, infallible and indisputable.

If you are not sure the debate is alarming, perhaps these lines from Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist Ellen Goodman, a columnist at the Boston Globe, will open your eyes:

"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."

Ms. Goodman's hyperbole -- one that borders, I believe, on the immoral -- can be found in her February 9, 2007 column, No Change in Political Climate. Of course, no one in the scientific community that I know is denying, or has denied, that climate data show a noticeable warming trend, so Ms. Goodman might argue that she is safe: people who deny the trend are this era's Holocaust deniers. But we know she is not saying that; she is asserting that anyone who disagrees with Al Gore and his band of unanimous, all-knowing scientists is the child of Holocaust-denying parents, so to speak. That Ms. Goodman's language utterly cheapens the historical and moral value of the Holocaust is undeniable; her remark is a contemptible cheap-shot and she should be soundly chastised for making it.

There is more to all of this, of course. As some of you may know, the recent news-cycle has brought to us the curious counter-arguments to global warming models offered by University of Copenhagen's Bjarne Andersen; the reports can be found all over the web, like here, here, or here. As these links show, the idea of a global temperature, particularly an average one, is fraught with problems; one report says that Mr. Andersen argues that "compiling temperatures from various places and averaging them would be like calculating the average phone number in the phone book." Good for Mr. Andersen. At least his study shows that the scientific community, at least those like Mr. Andersen who study thermodynamics, are not all of one mind.

WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

Perhaps you have heard or read what the Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said in the past few days. President Klaus is ringing a different alarm. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, Klaus has written to the US Congress warning that "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer forms." The biggest threat is "ambitious environmentalism." Klaus wrote:

"[I am] really concerned about the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. …While discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom. …the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world."

But I need to quote even more of this fine article for our purposes here:

"[Klaus] noted that this ideology wants to replace 'the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world.'

"Its followers, Klaus added, consider 'their ideas and arguments to be an undisputable truth' and use sophisticated methods of media manipulation to exert pressure on politicians to achieve their goals.

"Klaus claimed that the environmentalists' argumentation is based on the spreading of fear and panic, and in this atmosphere they continue pushing politicians to adopt 'illiberal measures, impose arbitrary limits, regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions on everyday human activities and make people subject to omnipotent bureaucratic decision-making.'

"Klaus also said that environmentalists 'neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change,' that there is and has been no ideal state of the world, and they ignore the future economic and technological progress."

I find this all philosophically fascinating. I wonder if you do too.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics And Climate Change: "Peer Reviewed" – Al Gore Returns To The House

(Live blogging with Al Gore)

Announcement: Al Gore invents the ElectroNet!†

I know it is the epitome of nerdism -- or is it geekism? -- for me to sit and watch Al Gore testify before the US House joint subcommittee on climate change. And I can honestly say that I am dumbfounded.

But what does it matter what I think? Mr. Gore is right now making the lamest argument I've ever heard as he defends his thesis that humans are increasingly short-sighted in their vision of the future: apparently we are living too much -- contrary to all we were told by 1960s visionaries -- for today, or so Mr. Gore declares. Instead, we need to be planning for the long-term, for the far-off future. But surely my thoughts on this matter are utterly irrelevant. But may I ask, do you think that "day-trading" is proof that we are short-sighted, that we are even ignorant of the future? Well, Mr. Gore does.

And then Gore makes this strange connection between the Congress and the "300," the Spartan warriors depicted in the recent comic-book film, "300." Gore right now tells Congress that its members are the "535" who are called to fight "the greatest challenge America has ever" had to face: climate change. It is a cute pop reference.

"These are not NORMAL times," avers Mr. Gore. And now he gives us his suggestions to save the planet from ourselves, and restore normalcy:

1) Immediately freeze CO2 emissions in the United States. ... then start the reductions of CO2.
2) "I believe we should start using the tax code to reduce the taxes on income and make up the difference by pollution taxes". ...Carbon pollution is not presently factored into the marketplace. We need a revenue-neutral tax shift.
3) A portion of those revenues should be and must be earmarked for the lower income groups to help them make this shift.
4) We need to be part of a major global treaty ... [one that includes the following major domestic steps], one replete with cap-and-trade initiatives:

a) A moratorium on any construction of any coal-burning power plants that do not comply with certain standards.
b) †ElectroNet: Congress should allow regular folks to sell electricity back to the grid from domestic, household carbon-neutral power plants.
c) Raise CAFE standards.
d) Ban incandescent light bulbs.
e) Form a carbon-neutral mortgage association.
f) The SEC should require disclosures of carbon emissions in corporate financial reports: stockholders should know of the environmental hazards associated with companies' actions.

[I am paraphrasing because I haven't the skill to take strict dictation.]

Truly, I am numbed by all of this. Mr. Gore is so amazingly dulling to my wits that I can conclude that I must not be made of iron; if iron sharpens iron, then I am either made of lesser metal or neither of us is made of iron. But what is really interesting is Gore's sacred pronunciation of "peer-reviewed," as if this not only adds gravitas, it serves as the imprimatur to Mr. Gore's arguments drawn from "recent findings."

"The debate on the science is over with!" exclaimed Mr. Gore at 10:54 AM EDST.

Really, Mr. Gore?

More later, I think.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Flashpan: Sparks About Anything

1. This morning, in the wake of last week's major raid on illegal immigrants working at a New Bedford, MA factory, the New York Times offered us this editorial (Immigration Misery), which began with this dandy lead:

"A screaming baby girl has been forcibly weaned from breast milk and taken, dehydrated, to an emergency room, so that the nation’s borders will be secure."

Let us ignore the fact that this is yellow journalism from capital to period. Let us also ignore that the crying baby story is apparently not even rooted in fact. Instead, let's focus on mere rhetoric: What this sentence and the rest of the editorial represent is a glaring example of the fallacy argumentum ad misericordiam. In other words, it is a blatant appeal to misery or pity to lend gravitas to an argument. It is not an attempt to reason, but to affect or persuade. It is not an appeal to the mind -- to logic or science or analysis -- but to the emotions. It is heart-string stuff; counter-rational and, sadly, untrustworthy.

It is also shameful and sickening. And all too common.

But in the last analysis I think we should note that it is perhaps bad practice for any journalist to forcibly wean a screaming baby from breast milk in order to find a lead.

2. If you have not seen world-renowned Islamic scholar and Princeton professor Bernard Lewis deliver the 2007 Irving Kristol Award lecture, then you should. It is a great lecture, irrespective of whether the man is at all right. He is 90 years old however, so there are moments when his throat gets a little froggy; you'll find yourself clearing your own throat in sympathetic reflex as you watch. But the man is a giant of a scholar. I found the whole thing riveting. But I am a nerd. You can watch the lecture here.

3. I cannot over-praise the essay in this month's First Things called "Just War and Iraq Wars," by George Weigel. Weigel is consistently one of my favorite First Things contributors. Unfortunately the essay is only available in the print edition of First Things, so you'll have to either find one on the newstand or steal one from the seminary library (or you pastor wannabes should get a subscription ). The article is the best thing I've read on the battle for Iraq and the war on terror. And by best, I mean the best thing -- by a long shot. But in lieu of Weigel's fine work, there is this First Things debate about George Bush's effectiveness. The debate is really quite good, though it is between two men who undeniably fall on the conservative side of the issues (not that there is anything wrong with that). Check out what Joseph Bottum and Michael Novak have to say.

And then get a subscription. It is truly a great journal. Besides, you'll just dig Richard John Neuhaus as he extemporizes out in the public square.

4. Now that I have mentioned Joseph Bottum, I can't ignore his disheartening blog entry from yesterday. No, it's not that he dealt with some sort of bleak tragedy or dark tale. He merely observed that much of what is published in the blogosphere is pure rejectamenta. But not everything. Bottum's essay is part lament, for sure, but it is also part paean: he finds prose that sets him laughing or sets him reeling, both with delight. And he further observes that no one has yet found this generation's on-line Chesterton. Not that the world even needs another Chesterton; I believe Gilbert Keith might holler that there is more than enough of him walking these streets. But Bottum's essay in the final analysis disheartens me not because he is a hard editor to please (I bet he is) or that he has rejected my mean efforts at smooth and elegant prose, but because his words prompt me to reject them myself. It is one thing to be heard, and another to be appreciated; but neither compares to being original and interesting. Any fool can write something a reader might not easily forget, but it takes a certain talent to write something a reader might take pleasure in remembering.

It is odd that I should find myself tempted to measure success in terms of how quickly I reach Bottum.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics/Culture: You, That's Who: A Call For Gay Ghettos At The Huffington Post

In his blunt and bludgeoning way, Charles Karel Bouley, radio talkshow host and columnist at the Huffington Post, calls for the very thing he decries. He does not know it, of course, or else he would be saying something different. But his essay -- Who, Exactly, Are You Calling Immoral? -- published at the HufPo today, proves that Mr. Bouley is in high dudgeon as he responds to US General Peter Pace's remarks about homosexuality. (General Pace made the remarks yesterday at the Chicago Tribune; the following is pulled from the Tribune's web edition):

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace said in a wide-ranging discussion with Tribune editors and reporters in Chicago. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.

"As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Pace said. [bold added for emphasis]

(Let it be noted the Tribune admits that the interview with the man who sits as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was "wide-ranging." That the Tribune chose to lead with a man's personal remarks about homosexuality in the military is curious. More later.)

But let us read how the essayist at the Huffington Post believes his like-minded peers should respond to all of this:

"I grow tired of my community trying to make organizations accept them, states, recognize them, governments respect them. We have power in numbers, and in our wallets, use it. If a state votes against same sex marriage or civil unions, move to a state that allows them. Reward the economies of fair states with your home purchases, car purchases, tax payments. Punish those that don't. Leave churches that don't accept you as a whole, real, non-broken person. Screw the Catholics and Evangelicals. Find a place where a real god, a god of love and acceptance is worshipped. Take your tithes, your physical presence, your donations elsewhere.

"It's time we stop begging everybody to accept us and just reward the people that do. And when those that don't feel that crush, lose that money, lose those bodies, lose the revenues, when the rolls dwindle or areas don't get rejuvenated and property values shoot up (every time gays take over an area, it shoots up†, ask South Beach in Miami, Hillcrest in San Diego, West Hollywood in California, Castro in San Francisco) when people start realizing that gays make this country work just like non-gays, and that without us some of the wheels just won't turn as well, then change will come."

How nice. A call to boycott, and a call to partitioning. Nay, it is a call to ghettoizing and to institutionalized hate. Mr. Bouley, after all, wants to oppress those who disagree with him. And he wants to isolate one group -- his "community" -- from anyone who does not think and act like him and his peers.

How very moral, and how convincing: Mr. Bouley's position is so easily defended he resorts to calls for balkanization and financial deprivation. Of course, I do not today see at any major conservative news or commentary outlet a single writer calling for us to ghettoize gays and lesbians; I hear no one calling for us to withdraw from Unitarian societies, Reformed synagogues, or to stop skiing in Vermont, shopping in Provincetown, drinking Tequila in Key West or gawking at the Wharf in San Francisco. But I do find a call from a gay advocate at the Huffington Post to do essentially that very thing.

One is tempted to urge Mr. Bouley to make good with his promises: Indeed, have everyone who is gay and like-minded move to Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and certain enclaves in California.

And, moreover, I would hope that if Mr. Bouley and his peers are not going to spend money on the homophobics around them, they will also not work for any homophobes who might own the company from which they draw paychecks or accept ANY MONEY FROM HOMOPHOBES FOR ANY REASON OR ON ANY CONDITION.

________
EDIT-ORS

Why would the Chicago Tribune choose to lead today's headlines with what a general in the US military said about homosexuality? Is it because the paper's editors' knew that there would be a tremendous wave of umbrage pouring over the country, and through the media and the Web? Did the Chicago Tribune see that it had a story that would dominate tonight's news cycle? Perhaps yes to both. But perhaps the Tribune also meant to do something else, namely, to bury something, to hide it, to drag a very piquant red herring in front of our noses. Though the paper said the reason Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"-policy question was asked had everything to do with curiosity about how the military is going to bolster sagging troop numbers, one wonders if there is something missing in that admission. What else did Gen. Pace say in his "wide-ranging" interview?

Hmm. He said this, for example:

"Addressing a range of other military topics, Pace said House Democrats' proposal to wind down the war could hamper President Bush's planned troop 'surge' in Iraq by creating gaps in troop levels."

Oops. Did General Pace say that the Democrats' proposal would adversely affect troop levels? Indeed, he did, if the Tribune is telling the truth. Of course, THAT sort of thing is not worth a headline at all. Instead, switch the problem: Troop levels are not in jeopardy because of Democratic action, but because of Gen. Pace's alleged homophobia.

(The whole Tribune story is worth reading. It is quite jumbled, bouncing back and forth on the gay/military issue. It does report that Pace is critical of Pakistan's recent political decisions that have hurt the overall war on terror. See copy of story here [you'll have to sign in, but it's easy and worth it].)

_________
DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

Let us remember that it was Bill Clinton who elevated to the status of policy the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" numbness embraced by the military. Of course, it demands the question, If homosexuality is moral, why would anyone not be allowed to ask about it, and why would anyone not want to tell about it? In praxis, then, President Clinton's policy treated homosexuality as immoral, though not necessarily egregiously so. He at least suggested that speaking about it was wrong. Nevertheless, demanding silence about sexual orientation and behavior is utterly homophobic; to me, it is the only truly homophobic stance one can take: No one can utter a word about it. To state outright that homosexuality is wrong, immoral, unnatural, illogical or just plain unhealthy is hardly to state something homophobic, it is assert something as allegedly true. But to demand silence about it; to have a "Shhhhh!" policy in the military, is homophobia par excellence. Egads, most psychologists and even novelists know that any family's dysfunction is directly rooted in what that family CANNOT and MUST NOT talk about. Curiously, the only conclusion one can reach is that Bill Clinton institutionalized dysfunction in the military. General Pace, echoing the policy's intent, at least has the courage to state that he personally finds homosexuality immoral. Good for him.

But in the end, this is the sad moral of this tale of free speech's demise, and it is a lot like what I wrote about yesterday: the policy is really about General Pace's failing to heed his own services' policy: No one should've asked, and he should not have told -- because he is a bigot. And we must stop our ears at his harsh, cold words. Or so it goes.

_________
BOULEY IS A WHOLE PERSON

If there is one thing that sets Christianity apart from the populist faiths currently en vogue, it is that Christianity has not once said that any person, except Christ, is whole; or as Mr. Bouley puts it, "non-broken." In fact it is the one thing that may very well prove Christianity is undeniably true. I have never met a whole person, nor do I know anyone else who has been so lucky; every person I've met has needed to be saved from some demon, sorrow, malaise or besetting sin. Mr. Bouley may indeed set himself above the common herd of humanity, touting himself as fully integrated. But the rest of us honest souls can't help but admit that he strikes us as remarkably disintegrated, a broken man in a great deal of denial. I am sure he can find -- in California no less -- a church and a god that will love him for his apparent integrity and wholeness, but I believe his call for such a deity can only yield but one foolish youth -- Narcissus.

_________
†GAY PROSPERITY

†This idea is rooted -- in part, I believe -- in the work of Richard Florida, whose book, The Rise of the Creative Class argues that in communities where there is a high-level of social tolerance, economies thrive. That Mr. Bouley believes this, is clearly evident; though his sentence makes one think that wherever gays increase in numbers, communities turn to injecting themselves with hard drugs:

"…every time gays take over an area, it shoots up, ask South Beach in Miami, Hillcrest in San Diego, West Hollywood in California, Castro in San Francisco."

That phrase -- "take over an area" -- is unintentionally chilling, for certain. But the effect of Mr. Bouley's "policy" is intentionally chilling: he wants to take over.

I wonder what Mr. Bouley would have to say to this observation about San Francisco, made by a fellow Californian from that beloved city and gay haven (quoted from the Salt Lake Tribune):

"San Francisco is one of the 'least family-friendly cities in the U.S.,' says Maurice Healy, longtime editor of Catholic San Francisco, the diocesan paper. 'Only about 14 percent of families have children under 18. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor. The lack of affordable housing is a crisis.' "

Oh, forget it. I know what Bouley would say, since Healy is a Catholic: "Screw the Catholics."

But what Healy says is really quite true. Have you ever looked at property in, for example, Provincetown, Massachusetts? It is surely NOT a place for the poor OR real economic diversity. But the overlooked fact in all of this is really rather plain: wherever the rich gather in great knots of prosperity, the first thing to go (often) is morality. Why? Because the rich can afford to be indulgent; the rich can afford to be immoral. Therefore, prosperity alone is feckless in helping us determine the health or wholeness of a group, a movement, a community.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

PS. Lest anyone be confused, let me at this moment announce that no where here, or anywhere else, am I calling for the ghettoizing of gays and lesbians, or for the balkanization of American culture. Any idea of such forced segregation is reprehensible to me.

On Politics: Even More New Puritanism, Of A Sort

It's all about the First Amendment.

Unless you are listening to a conservative give a speech. Then it's time to turn into a New Puritan. Truly, umbrage has never been so hair-triggered.

You've heard the story: After having agreed to participate in a presidential candidates' debate sponsored by Fox News, the Nevada Democratic Party has withdrawn from the event, leading to the cancellation of the debate. Something was said; the Nevada Democrats instantly turned exceedingly righteous, so righteous in fact that they stopped their ears at the sound of a particular joke. They have taken umbrage. They are full of woe and dismay.

And they are proving that America is being overrun by New Puritans.

Amazingly, the New Puritans in Nevada have come -- or so one would think -- to the defense of George W. Bush.

Take a tour with me through the horrifying joke that led to this new spate of righteousness. Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News Channel, was fêted Thursday at the Radio & TV News Directors Foundations' First Amendment Awards banquet. During his acceptance speech, Chairman Ailes said the following (Warning: Not For The Squeamish!!!):

First of all, I was told I should do some headlines, so I'm only anchoring this, re-reporting.

I think we all need to go very slow on this global warming thing. I realize saving energy is good, but I think it may be a trick to get our anchors to stop using blow dryers.

[Laughter]

A man in France was arrested today for using his car to run down a pedestrian. He said he thought it was Osama bin Laden. OK, it was a mistake, but it still ranks as France's biggest military victory ever.

[Laughter]

John Seigenthaler and I are the same age. Look at how he let himself go.

[Laughter]

It is true that I said Britney Spears looked great at the Academy Awards. And I later found out it was Jack Nicholson.

[Laughter/ooohs]

It is true that just in the last two weeks Hillary Clinton has had over 200 phone calls telling her in order to win the presidency she must stay on the road for the next two years. It is not true they were all from Bill.

[Laughter]

And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'

[Laughter]

Yes, yes. Pretty shameful stuff. In fact, it is the very worst one can imagine. But I am wondering: Could you pick out the joke that has been declared a mortal sin?

Well, in case you didn't catch it, it is the joke wherein Barack Obama's name is mentioned. That's right: The great offense is the joke ridiculing George W. Bush.

I know, I know. It IS hard to understand how the Democrats of Nevada could be so sensitive about jokes mocking the president. I am, indeed, surprised that they should so quickly come to his defense. But I am no doubt prone to committing the fallacy of facetiousness; the Democrats of Nevada are actually SHOCKED that it was jokingly insinuated that a tongue-stumbling president might confuse the name of Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden. That Bush would be prone to this sort of mistake should have given Democrats some pause, as Bush's shibboleth would prove that he was a threat to decency, and a friend of Sen. Edward Kennedy's. After all, who can forget the great outrage when Sen. Kennedy said in 2005 (see YouTube clip here):

"Why don't we just ask Osama bin Laden, Osama Obama, uh, Obama, what his ... since he won by such a big amount."

(Now that's funny! Of course, there was no outrage.)

But the New Puritans in Nevada, led by the chief puritan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have pulled the plug on any Fox News Channel cooperative because, in light of Mr. Ailes' joke given at a banquet honoring free speech:

"We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments."

And what comments might they be, other than ones ridiculing the intellectual and verbal capacities of the President voiced under the constitutional right to free speech? Democrats cannot defend these comments? Since when?

But the real reason the Democrats are backing out of the Fox News-sponsored debate is due to pressure from MoveOn.org; the real reason is hidden in this priggish quip by MoveOn. org, which called Fox News a "mouthpiece of the Republican Party." In other words, the left-leaning MoveOn.org crowd is intimidated and fearful; they are not confident enough in their own convictions to be asked questions by folks allegedly committed to Republican ideals. The Democratic Party -- or so we can hear them say -- is only so strong and convincing: it will gleefully submit to a New York Times-sponsored debate because that medium is a Democratic Party mouthpiece, where the questions will be safe, easy, unthreatening. But Democrats debating in a Republican-biased forum? Impossible!

And to top all this off, journalists rushed to Barack Hussein Obama to ask him whether he was "offended" by a joke that had nothing, really, to do with him. He replied that he was not offended.

'"I didn't take great offense at the joke," Obama said in an Associated Press interview while campaigning in Iowa. "I have been called worse."'

He's been called worse? One might be tempted to tell the Blessed One (Barack means 'blessed') that he was not called any thing in Mr. Ailes' joke, that this had nothing to with him. But who would do such a thing? After all, when it comes to campaigns, presidential candidates probably do think that everything is all about them.

Umbrage!

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.