Past Ruminations...

April 14-20, 2002

(April 20, 2002) Ý
On the clock. Being a football fan, the NFL draft has been on my mind today. My hometown team, the Baltimore Ravens, started the draft with two defensive choices. It looks like they are sticking to what has worked in the past and are rebuilding their defense. It will be an interesting year for Baltimore fans.

The heat wave finally broke today and the high tomorrow is supposed to be in the 50's. Yesterday's high was in the low 90's. Go figure.

We are in a drought, but my lawn hasn't gotten the message. It was high and green today as my wife did the rounds on her little John Deer riding mower. The rain we have gotten over the last three weeks, while not doing a lot for the reservoirs and the aquifer, has brought joy to roots of my grass. Sometimes the refreshment is deep and lasting and sometimes it just makes you feel good for a little while. It is that way with many things in life, both physically and spiritually. There are some ideas to be investigated in there.
 

(April 19, 2002) Ý
When "truth" is a lie not yet discovered. I can't read the news or commentary anywhere these days without the Israel-Palestinian conflict dominating the landscape. It appears the opinions are hardening radically against Israel in areas dominated by the new liberalism, college campuses, traditional media outlets, Europe in general, and recently, the British dailies.

You might ask why I say "new" liberalism. It seems to me that traditional liberalism was for open discourse, honesty in debate, fair access to express ideas, and the like. It didn't fit easily into left or right labels, though many called being traditionally liberal being left. When the world was considerably more conservative its bastions of support were colleges and universities and some mainline protestant churches and organizations. To me, the "new" liberalism is clearly left and in many cases no longer gives even lip-service to the ideals expressed by traditional liberalism. Instead, it espouses a radical political correctness, defined by its own very left political sensibilities. As this new liberalism took over the former strongholds of traditional liberalism, it became what it claimed to fight against, being every bit as brutish as any of the demagogues that traditional liberalism fought against, brooking no dissent to its agenda. 

This new liberalism has applied its tactics to the current Middle East conflict. Israel can do no right, and the Palestinians can do no wrong. Dissent from this position is not tolerated. The biggest problem with all of this, as I see it, is not just the obvious bias and intellectual dishonesty it fosters, but adding to that there is a failure of basic accountability and human responsibility.

We have been deluged over the last two weeks with the "massacre" in Jenin. The Palestinian spokesmen have been saying 500-800 civilians killed, bodies stacked up in the streets and alleyways, or shoved into mass graves. The Israelis say a few dozen terrorists and armed resistors have been killed along with a few civilians caught in the crossfire. Who was right? The mainline media in the U.S., most of Europe, and the English dailies have tended to uncritically accept the Palestinian statements, while convicting Israel out of hand.

Is Israel guilty? What does the evidence show? According to a Washington Post story today

Palestinian officials have backed away from earlier charges of a massacre in Jenin. But much about the battle remains a mystery. The director of the hospital run by the Palestinian Authority in Jenin, Mohammed Abu Ghali, said he knows of 37 bodies recovered from the camp. Twenty-three of them have not yet been claimed by relatives from shallow temporary graves in a dirt lot next to the hospital.

How many of the dead are those 10 or more Palestinians reported executed by the Palestinians themselves for "collaborating" with Israel? Where is the outcry against those atrocities?

Jenin is a small city (camp is an inaccurate description) that housed over 13,000 people in permanent homes, often two or three stories high, not in tents. It is estimated that somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 people remained in the camp during the fighting. So, what has been the outcome of all of this fighting in such a populated area, a situation ripe for excessive loss of life no matter how diligently force was limited? We have another statement in the article from Peter Bouchaert.

"It's been incredibly difficult to tell the difference between fighters and civilians," said Peter Bouckaert, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in New York, who evaded Israeli checkpoints to sneak into the camp. "I think it's clear that in the end what actually happened in Jenin will fall somewhere in between what the Palestinians are alleging and what the [Israeli army] claims. But only an independent authority can establish what actually happened."

So, down from a massacre of 500-800, to a number that has caused even Palestinian officials to back away from earlier charges, and then on to an admission of at least a middle ground of truth. But who would be an independent authority fair enough to establish the real truth? Who would be neutral enough to approach the situation without bias? Not the new liberals who already have their minds made up. Who then?

Will there be any retractions of the former accusations against Israel? Will apologies be forthcoming? Not yet, probably not ever. After all, who can believe anything Israel says or does. Those bodies have to be somewhere.
 

Reaching in, reaching out. I just had a phone call from a friend who had been reading my blogg and wanted to cheer me up a little. He has email, but I think he considered the phone more personal. I have been thinking about this issue of technology and distance and Jim mentioned to me about the feel of my writing and how he noticed that I was walking a fine line trying to balance the personal and private with the personal and public. He noted that you can work through more private thinking offline (It should be noted that writing something down does help clarify one's thinking.). I told him that was not a problem and I don't really have a need for an offline journal, which I have never kept in the past. To be honest, this online journal has resulted in a phone call from a friend expressing support; hey, at least on some level it is being successful.
 

(April 18, 2002) Ý
Keeping on, keeping on. I have been at this now 11 days. This is the longest I have ever kept anything remotely like a journal and not missed putting something in it. If I can keep going for another 17 days, it might become a habit. I seem to remember someone saying that it takes 28 days of continuous repetition for something to become habitual.

While I do a lot of writing, this is different. In technical writing, the demands of the program, process, or environment determine what you say; you just have to figure out the best way to say it. Here, nothing is determined except the blank daily space. That can be daunting, but also enriching to that internal well of expression that every writer depends on. Who knows where this will go?

I think it will take me about 4-6 weeks to finish fleshing out the site and exploring some ideas about how to present the information. One thing I want to do is index everything (surprised?). That way, previous entries won't just die in the dustbin of inaccessibility. It will help me probe a little deeper into the possibilities of online indexing, while at the same time prevent anything older than 5 or 6 days from becoming the dead letter blogg. If it was worth reading the first time, it is worth reading later. Besides, I might just say something useful once in a while.

If you have wandered into this little experiment and have an opinion about what I should do, let me know? Just click on the email link at the top left or bottom of the page or click here. You may have noticed I am spelling blogg with two g's. I guess I am just ornery. I can't guarantee I will incorporate your suggestion, but then I can't say I won't either.

Brain-dead day. There are times when its hard just to have a series of coherent thoughts. Today arrived with chirping birds outside the window at 5:30 (spring asserting itself within the summer-like heat wave) but eventually settled into a collection of incoherency. Things missing, software being rebellious (Outlook refused to send mail, attachments froze messages, rebooting helped but then didn't), phones ringing, and ringing, and ringing some more, heat rising (thermometer hitting 90 by 1 p.m.), etcetera, etcetera. Yet work beckons, yeah demands even, deadlines loom, and responsibility wages a pitched battle against sluggishness aspiring to sloth or at least sloth-like indolence. Help, cries the dispirited soul, wailing to the empty room.

Sigh... Was April always like this? I don't remember it so.
 

(April 17, 2002) Ý
Better life for ordinary people. Dinesh D'Souza writes in Red Herring that America's not just a place to come to get rich, but rather a place were the little guy, the ordinary person, is better off than anywhere else in the world.

America is a place where "poor" people have TV sets and microwave ovens, where construction workers cheerfully spend $4 on a nonfat latte, where maids drive nice cars, and where plumbers vacation with their families on St. Kitts. I recently asked an acquaintance in Bombay why he has been trying so hard to emigrate to America. He replied, "I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat."

Dinesh's opinion bears closer scrutiny in our current climate where the cultural and racial representatives of various "minority" groups continuously decry the state of "their" poor in America, while trying to generate class distinctions based on wealth (variously defined) and then create strife between those classes, pitting the "poor" against the "rich", the successful versus the downtrodden or discriminated against. Some politicians seek to embrace this issue as a means of gaining support, since the "rich" are an easy target even though recent figures say less than 5% of the population pays over 55% of the taxes.

If the inside "poor" have it so bad here, why do the outside "poor" do everything they can to get here, legally or illegally?

Being there. The Washington Post is reporting that Maj. General Tommie Franks made errors in judgment in the attack on Tora Bora in December that probably allowed Osama bin Laden to escape.

In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. Franks did not perceive the setbacks soon enough, some officials said, because he ran the war from Tampa with no commander on the scene above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The first Americans did not arrive until three days into the fighting. "No one had the big picture," one defense official said.

How important is it to be there? It appears that when the chips are on the line and quick decisions have to be made, very important.

As we move toward a more remotely connected world we get tempted to live, work, and manage both our living and working from long distance. While there are many things that can be done using the wonderful technology we have today, there is a renewed understanding that hardware can never replace wetware. You need people, people in place, people reacting to the events first hand.

As the Christian church moves into the interconnected world we often try to get more done from a distance, trying to get the most from that 15% who do most of the work, but can we really? What do we sacrifice to accomplish "more?"  What happens when we are only linked? Does the "two or three gathered together in my name" apply to email, faxes, and phone calls? 

In many ways what you are reading is an example of applying technology to interaction. It is my attempt to "being there" to anyone who is willing to listen, some of whom are my friends and family. There are only so many hours in the day, so my efforts here come at the expense of my efforts somewhere else. This blogg is less personal than emails to friends and acquaintances, which are less personal than handwritten letters and definitely a step down from a phone call, though to some people a handwritten letter is much more personal than a phone call.

Some would argue that it boils down to fitting the approach to the circumstance. Others would say that the distance of technology diminishes us all, impersonalizing what used to be essentially personal communication between human beings. I wonder. I read Andrew Sullivan's blog, Daily Dish, several times a week. Over the past year, I feel I have come to know him; he has become personal to me in many ways. Someone asked me if he reads my blog. Hardly! However, if he did, I might become personal to him. Would we then have a relationship? Good question. It is something to think about. <ruminating>
 

(April 16, 2002) Ý
Who are they? I came across an interesting survey relating to my concern, expressed yesterday, about how my taxes are used. Scott Rasmussen Public Opinion Research released a poll that says only 27% of Americans think that they get their money's worth for taxes. They also gauged opinion on the amount of taxes we pay.

66% of Americans say that federal income taxes are too high while only 5% say too low. 26% believe that income taxes are at about the right level.

The one thing I found missing in the poll was any demographic data that would show how income or other factors affected opinion, which would be helpful, considering only 31% believe that our taxes are correct or should be increased. Who are the other 69%, who appear to be opposed to what our government routinely does, and that is raise our taxes, often in hidden ways through fees, licenses, and other non income taxes and tariffs.

At the root of this argument is the poor, at least they are the straw men propped up from the ideological left. That word carries such baggage and emotional context that even its definition is a politically motivated event. How do we separate those who choose, either because of  lifestyle or other reasons, not to work and consequently are technically poor, from those who labor to the best of their ability yet are unable or barely able to afford the essentials of life (which by the way are not television, movies, video games, VCRs, or DVD players) such as basic food, clothing, and shelter. Then among those who labor, what about those who make poor choices such as sacrificing their limited resources on entertainment, alcohol, drugs, and other non essential expenditures? How do we find the true poor and separate them from those suffering from self-inflicted poverty?

Turning on your benefactors. In an interesting blogg article, a pundit who labels himself muslimpundit discusses how much of today's accurate scholarship on historic and contemporary Islam and Islamic society began with the work of 19th century Jewish scholars.

Indeed. Despite the fact that past Muslim civilisations [sic] regarded and treated Jews as second class citizens, and delegated them to, in the minds of Muslims, as a people humiliated by God as a result of their past “transgressions”, and therefore universally looked down upon by Muslims as examples of cowardice and weakness, it is all the more astonishing to observe that Islam’s dignity was resurrected, and therefore returned, only through the instrumental scholarship of Jewish students of the Middle East.

Scroll down to the The Forgotten Legacy on his web page. Warning: some of his language is street harsh, but not in this specific piece. Note: sometimes the site is inaccessible due to traffic at Blogger's blogspot.com.
 

(April 15, 2002) Ý
The cost of doing business. Tax day. For some Americans, this day carries a lot of baggage. Early in my life I didn't worry too much about it. I usually had my refund by April 15. But in a way my taxes are like my lawn. When I didn't have one or at least one I cared about, weeds were of no consequence. But when I got a real lawn, with an expanse of green grass, the condition of that living carpet took on new meaning. I became concerned about a number of things that never crossed my mind before. It is the same with my income and taxes.

When I didn't make all that much, I really didn't think about taxes, but as my wife and myself progressed in our professions and started to make more money, suddenly taxes took on a whole new meaning. Suddenly taxes took on the characteristics of weeds in my lawn; most, if not all of them, need to be eliminated. That is not to say that I don't believe taxes are necessary and the government doesn't have the right to collect a reasonable amount of income to keep our country secure and working. However my definition of that right and the governments definition seems to have parted company along the path of my concern.

Many things I see the government doing and much of its spending in the things it ought to be doing just don't make sense to me. I guess my problem relates to the view that government is there to serve me and it serves at my pleasure. It has no inherent rights, other than the rights I give it and that includes its right to exist.

At its core, government is bureaucracy and at its core bureaucracy is only as good as the people and the systems that make it up. Bureaucracy is not new. We have had it since men collected into tribes and hierarchies developed within groups of people. It has been said that Rome succeeded in large part due to its bureaucracy, but it has also been noted that once Rome began to decline, its entrenched bureaucracy prevented it from adequately reforming itself. It was a prisoner of its own success and within that success were the seeds of its own demise. That may or may not be true. The real question for us is, does our bureaucracy serve us, or is it forcing us to serve it? The answer to that question is the answer to my concerns as well as my desire to realistically and ethically deal with my taxes.

Dissembling. Michael Medved discusses the hypocrisy of the New York Times and Newsweek in blurring the lines between victim and murderer. It seems these publications consider those killed by suicide bombers and the bombers themselves equally "victims."

Nevertheless, Newsweek tried to evoke sympathy for this calculating and cold-hearted killer: "A split second later, a powerful explosion tore through the supermarket, gutting shelves and sending bodies flying. When the smoke cleared and the screaming stopped, the two teen-age girls and the guard lay dead, three more victims of the madness of martyrdom."

This is sophistry at its worst and conveniently sidesteps the responsibility of choice. We are never freed from the obligations of our decisions. We must all bear the consequences of our actions and to equate innocent victims with their murderers, no matter how misguided, is really propaganda, propaganda with an agenda far removed from justice and objective reporting.
 

(April 14, 2002) Ý
Listening. I think one of the hardest things to do is listen, to really hear what someone else is saying to you. I don't just mean the words, because often in verbal communication, the words don't convey the whole meaning. Also, sometimes the spoken words are incomplete. That is one reason why writing, like in this Web log (blog), is often a clearer way to communicate some things than trying to convey them verbally.

I am able to see what I am writing, adjust it, rephrase it, or even remove portions or all of it. Verbally, once the words are out of your mouth it is very difficult to adjust what you have just said and you definitely can't remove them from the mind of those who heard them. When they are heard they are registered and interpreted by the people you are speaking to.

Written communication allows everyone to go back and reread what you said. We can debate the meaning, since we all have the same source material to deal with. However, spoken communication, unless it is recorded, is not able to be reheard. Often two people cannot even agree on what was just said, since often, other concerns, impressions, even preconceived notions, influence your understanding not only the meaning of what was said, but of the words used to say it.

Being Sunday and since I was at church today, this leads me directly to the importance of Scripture. It is written down. It is not a memorized epic poem passed down by religious poets and only approached as an oral tradition. It is written text. We all have it, and it is the same for all of us no matter how we want to interpret it. We can discuss it, argue over it, debate to our hearts content, and tomorrow it will still be there, the same words in the same order. It won't have changed due to our faulty or misinterpreted recollection.

I think that is significant. I think that is part of God's plan, a major portion of His plan. While it is true that Christians believe that the Word became flesh and in that flesh redemption was accomplished, it is also true that the Word is written, written for our instruction, written so there might be disputes among us so that the truth might be established. But while those disputes go on we are all appealing to the same unchanging source, since it is written down and it will be the same tomorrow as it was today.