This morning I came across a good opinion piece by Jonathan Sacks in the Wall Street Journal discussing the recent riots in Britain. The following sentence especially caught my attention:
[A] tsunami of wishful thinking [has] washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement.
This is an outstanding summation of our times, wouldn't you agree?
That nugget was soon followed by a necessary acknowledgment: there has been an equally disastrous corollary to the decay found in our social fabric within the financial markets. It has resulted in something of a "hook-up" mentality that seeks a free lunch, so to speak, in a world where there are no free lunches. Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, went on to write:
Freud was right. The precondition of civilization is the ability to defer the gratification of instinct. And even Freud, who disliked religion and called it the "obsessional neurosis" of humankind, realized that it was the Judeo-Christian ethic that trained people to control their appetites.
Yeah, buddy. Insatiable appetites. Gluttony.
I'm sure I'll have more on this "reversing the decay" theme later, and the return to religion solution suggested by Last, but that is all for now.
This morning, thanks to reading comments to an Ann Althouse post, I came a across a fascinating essay that I highly recommend -- The Birth of the Blues. Only, this is no discussion about music or the Southern genesis of American blues. This is all about New England, in general, and Boston, in particular:
In politics, the blues were born farther north: in the Puritan commonwealth of 17th century New England centered around Boston. For the Puritans, the construction of a godly society was the first order of business. The state was not the enemy of liberty; the state was society’s moral agent.
Today’s libertarians sometimes like to call their blue model liberal opponents “unamerican”. Nothing could be farther from the truth: if Yankee New England isn’t American, nothing is. If John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, the Mayflower Compact and the first Thanksgiving aren’t part of the American story, friends, we don’t have a story. That doesn’t mean Boston is always right, much less that in its current state the Puritan big-state tradition in American has useful answers to offer, but it also means that Americans inspired by this tradition will continue to add to the discussion over our future.
And far from being dead and buried, the Puritan political tradition in America is best represented by our current president; intellectually and morally, President Obama is a distinguished representative of Boston at its best.
Fascinating. And it rings true to me. Read the whole thing for yourself and see what you think. It was a particular comment, however, that especially sparked my curiousity. Specifically this assertion:
Much emphasis is given to the way in which the Constitution compromised in dealing with the incompatibility between the Founding principles of liberty and equality, and Southern states insistence on maintaining slavery, perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the way in which the Constitution also compromised its principles of liberty and equality in permitting individual states to establish religion and enforce moral laws perhaps as odious to those who disagreed with them as slavery was to those who favored abolition.
Hmmmmm. That is truly interesting stuff to me, especially the context vis à vis "other" compromises made in order to get the American constitution adopted. Individual states establishing religion when the nation was first created definitely gets glossed over these days. Had that also been a unique component of the Southern situation, we'd never hear the end of it these days. But it's New England, and that changes everything.
I've returned from what must have been a solid week on the road that involved travel to South Florida, a flight out to Kansas through DFW, driving through major snow on Kansas roadways back to the KC airport, flight back to South Florida via DFW, and then a welcomed and leisurely seven-hour drive back home to Tallahassee.
Readers of this blog may remember me briefly discussing my contemplation of efforts to get involved with an organization trying to help Haiti move forward. Well, that's been done via a start-up. Thus the trip to Kansas. One highlight among many: we saw a fascinating presentation revolving around extrusion technology that has the potential to seriously impact malnutrition in Haiti.
But. Kansas in January?
Oh my goodness was it cold (eight degrees on the morning of our departure). On the drive into Kansas, my brain literally started sending signals to my entire body: prepare to hibernate, hibernate, hibernate. Must hibernate! Bundle up!
But our host family was warm and couldn't have been more gracious to us. That helped.
Still, this was the scene that greeted us at our hosts' home. I call it "Beyond Sabetha" as this could have been the theme for our visit, focused as it was on Haiti:
Sabetha had a certain charm to it (trust me, it truly did), and -- covered in a serious blanket of snow -- the white stuff probably transformed the winter landscape. The snow was quite dry and danced across the roadway when the wind blew. Luckily, the wind didn't really blow until Saturday night on our way to a fantastic steak place (the Country Cabin) in Hiawatha, Kansas. My 18 ounce prime rib, as I had been assured, was absolutely outstanding.
Why Kansas in January? Because we are endeavoring to implement an agricultural and economic development strategy in Haiti that actually moves the needle, so to speak. Something practical and away from Port-au-Prince. Something that isn't primarily governmental but private sector.
I'll close with a photo of one of my best friends. He's a driving force behind our efforts and a proud Haitian who aches to try and improve conditions in the land of his birth. I love this photo; it seems to capture so much. But, what can you do with a Black Man in the snow . . . hmmmm?
Trust me when I tell you this, we didn't stay out in the snow for long. No sir, buddy! I was just happy to not get crushed with a snowball.
Please wish us Godspeed and good fortune. Haiti needs it.
Honestly, I have never wanted a pro football player to prove so many idiots wrong as I want Tim Tebow to do so. No one even comes close. I've never seen an elite white athlete so critiqued or mistaken for big and slow, as opposed to big and athletic, nor have his intelligence so casually impugned.
I don't want Tim to succeed to spite people, nor do I want him to be a success simply because he's a homeboy or a Fightin' Florida Gator. Nor do I want him to succeed simply because he's trying to walk the straight and narrow as a Christian. It is the sum of all of these things, I suppose, but at the top of the list is certainly his incredible struggle to lead by example as a 21st century Christian. Not overbearing, nor apologetic, yet certainly in and of this world, and certainly engaged in the struggle to emulate Christian values.
Now comes Chase Heavener, doing a documentary on this most incredible man I like to call the "Big Kid from Big Duval," and it has the feel of something special. You may take a look at the trailer on Chase's website linked above or go to the ESPN MediaZone. If you took the time to take a look at the video, surely you see what I mean regarding it having the look of something special.
When Tim first came to Florida and exploded into the consciousness of the Southeastern Conference, I worried about only one team doing something foolish and crazy because they just couldn't stand the shooting star that was Tim Tebow. Mind you, the source of my worrying wasn't an SEC team. No, sir. That team was FSU. And, as it turned out, none of those damn Noles could ever do a damn thing to him in his four years at UF. I've since stopped worrying about Tebow. He may sustain a career-ending injury in the NFL and it may be one day soon. But I don't worry about it anymore. Faith supercedes injury and Tim served as the ultimate reminder to me of that fact.
That is the incredible power of this young man. Faith supercedes injury of any sort, injury delivered by any means.
I finished watching the new Kanye West longform music video "Runaway" last week just before Thanksgiving.
Truthfully, Kanye's never been much of a rapper to me but, of course, I'm not a rap aficionado. He is clearly creative, however, and obviously quite a producer. That said, here it is, all 30-something minutes, if you're interested (raw language is periodically used throughout):
My goodness, what a beautiful chick to feature in his video! Selita Ebanks is her name and she stars as something of a phoenix (defined as a legendary Arabian bird said to periodically burn itself to death and emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix; according to most versions only one phoenix lived at a time and it renewed itself every 500 years) who is alien to modern earth and ultimately repulsed by what she sees of life on earth in the 21st century.
Here's an unrelated picture of Selita that captured my eye, courtesy of TheBeauteeShop, from her work with Victoria's Secret:
Quite a woman, quite a phoenix. Skinny, to be sure, but quite a woman. I absolutely loved her in the "Runaway" video and I also thought the overall imagery in the film was impressive.
As for the story/video/theme --what can I do but sigh, and then slice.
Charitably speaking, okay, Kanye, okay. People are phony, unaccepting, sheep-like slaves to manipulation and conformity and host to all manner of other ills, and on top of all that they are sinful as hell (yourself included, Kanye??? Or are you an alien and different enough to except yourself from the norms of humanity? Like a phoenix? No, I think one point he was trying to make is he's screwed up but so are all of us -- okay, Kanye, okay).
Yep, ladies and gentlemen, go run and shout it from the hilltops. This world is doomed (freedom = free doom) . . . so, escape if you can. And, oh yeah, America is a bastard. At least that part of America that isn't with the conscience crowd and isn't still apologizing for African slavery (as opposed to Arab enslavement of Africans, or, one wonders, as opposed to world slavery in general?), blasé, blasé, blasé, yada, yada, yada.
Now it's time for me to be what some will surely describe as uncharitable: Kanye, this is what you are pushing as revolutionary and thought provoking? This is how you exhibit your creativity? Gil Scott-Heron and Comment #1 ??? Really? In 2010? With an African American as President? With black folks winning seats in Congress from districts that are primarily white in the South? And Republican? With Jay-Z as something of a music mogul, owning his music and more? With black athletes earning millions in multiple professional sports and some of them breaking into ownership of professional franchises? With black businesses open and productive all over the nation and African Americans indisputably the richest community of African descent anywhere on the planet?
Apparently so.
One approving reviewer of the film, Ken Tucker, wrote:
Late in Runaway, the phoenix speaks: “You know what I hate about your world? Anything that is different you try to change, you try to tear it down.” West’s visual and musical sophistication was constantly contrasted with images of the phoenix’s playful innocence, until she finally burst into flames and ascended back “to my world,” as she put it, leaving West’s character desperate, running down the road after her, left alone.
Me? What do I think of the video?
I say it's drivel dredged up from the time period of the late 60s, early 70s or so, a time when ABC Records wouldn't promote what would become Louis Armstrong's classic "What A Wonderful World" in America because it just wasn't revolutionary cool, don't you know. ABC apparently had to be shamed by the British public (who made Armstrong's classic a number one single over there) to really push it in the land of its birth.
How incredible is that? Quite incredible, to me.
The bitch-and-moan babies on the far left still insist on bitchin' and moanin' as a governing mindset in the 21st century, even as they earn millions while simultaneously disrespecting many more millions. As financial instability lurks on the global stage, as an era of making do with less, an era of genuine austerity when judged by the standards of the late 20th century, inches ever closer to becoming reality. In the face of all that, here comes Kanye with "Runaway."
Note to Kanye (George Bush Hates Black People) West: you might want to quit sucking from your Mama's revolutionary dead tit.
Yeah, brother, I got a plan. Runaway from your mindset as fast as I can.
Over the weekend, the media (mis)reported that Benedict had renounced the Roman Catholic Church's longstanding "policy" against condom use. I put "policy" in quotes because the media have a tendency to portray all church positions as if they were like rules for trash pickup; easily changed or abandoned upon papal or bureaucratic whim. That's not how it works.
What Benedict said in a book-length interview is that in certain circumstances, using a condom would be less bad than not using one. To use Benedict's example, a male prostitute with HIV would be acting more responsibly, more morally, if he wore a condom while plying his trade than if he didn't.
The pontiff understands that not all harms are equal. Assault is wrong, for instance, but assault with a deadly weapon is more wrong than assault with a non-deadly one. Recognizing and limiting the harm you do can be the "first step in the direction of a moralization, a first act of responsibility in developing anew an awareness of the fact that not everything is permissible."
There is absolutely nothing difficult to discern in any of this. Unless, of course, you are purposely being dense in the cause of generating controversy.
Not all harms are equal. This strikes me as a sentiment that resonates particularly well with an African American audience; something my father would have agreed with. I may be projecting on this point and it may be why this opinion piece struck me so hard this morning. Earlier this year, while contemplating the Florida-Georgia football game, it occurred to me that this edition would be the 30th anniversary of my father's last Florida-Georgia game. It's a game he never attended but it meant something to him anyway even though he wasn't much of a sports fan. And, much to my dismay, he cheered for the "wrong" team.
Thirty years.
Thirty years!
The November 1980 game was a classic, of course. Herschel Walker, Lindsay Scott, and all that good stuff. In the following spring, by the middle of March, my father would be dead. His influence, of course, lives on in me and the five other children from his union with the girl from Andersonville, Georgia.
A father's influence has a way of lingering. With that, I return to the column I read this morning:
As for the church's preferred approach — abstinence until marriage — it may be impractical in most parts of the world, as the critics claim. But it would undeniably save more lives than condom use if put into practice. What seems to offend many isn't the efficacy of the solution but the suggestion that such values have any place in the modern world.
The church's position is that the truest notes are those that not only celebrate life and love but cut through the whitewater racket of devouring time. As those notes become harder to hear, the answer isn't to stop playing them but to turn up the volume.
Perhaps it's the approach of yet another dad-less Thanksgiving — a holiday during which we give thanks for whatever parts of our lives that are set to the music of those true notes — that has set my mind in this direction. But that shouldn't surprise, for he was always the rock in my river.
Yes.
On all counts.
It seemed to be at least a decade after he died before I could really think about a holiday such as Thanksgiving without getting quite emotional. Well done, Jonah. There's a good message in your column, with an interfaith application, and a nice personal touch, too. Quite appropriate for the Thanksgiving season.
I stumbled across this today at American Digest and was struck by my strong desire to visit a place I've never quite made it to -- Gettysburg:
That's powerful stuff.
It makes me so incredibly sad to think of the not insignificant number of African Americans who have turned their backs on the magnificent legacy of Abraham Lincoln -- unable to view the great man in anything remotely approaching a just light.
Yesterday my wife and I were treated to a day of reunion with an old freind and an interesting night of theater that left me flush with pride and excited about future possibilities. The purpose for our trip to New York was to see a production of "The Contract," (playing until October 19th at the Kraine Theatre, 85 East 4th Street in Manhattan) which is being workshopped by FAMU and UF grad, James Webb -- soon to be Dr. Webb once his NYU dissertation has been successfully defended. Not only is this a play that is written by, and produced by, James Webb, he also acts (and acts well) in the production.
We've been extremely partial to him since he first graced the mainstage at Charles Winter Wood way back in the 1990s and it was evident that he was not your average student actor. He was diligent, and unlike so many of the unserious kids sleepwalking through bachelor's degree programs today, he actually studied *and* took to the craft he aspired to join with an attitude of respect. In educational theater these days (and perhaps it has forever been thus), an attitude like that immediately stands out when it is matched with real talent.
James is a passionate Mississippi boy and is proving to be quite the playwright. This spring, FAMU will mount one of his earlier creations ("Black Widow") and it will certainly have Tallahassee talking.
What about the play we saw last night? Well, The Contract addresses a quite controversial and (given the current salacious allegations against Bishop Eddie Long up in Georgia) timey subject. The subject will not suit many and will clearly not be an acceptable cup of tea from which to sip for many. The play is set in New York City and involves three characters. One character, Paul, is a struggling graduate student at the Ivy League's Columbia University who is dubious of the organized church in America and perhaps worldwide. Like many a graduate student, that's not all he's doubtful of. For instance, he has the curious opinion that the Alcoholics Anonymous approach, requiring permanent admission that one is an addict, isn't simply of varying utility but is, in fact, wrong.
The other two characters in this interesting play are a married couple from Birmingham, Alabama (Daryl and Deborah) where, under the very public leadership of the husband, they run one of the largest black mega-church enterprises in all of the South. In private, however, the wife is setting the terms in the continuation of their relationship and enforcing . . . the contract. As they are both minister's of the gospel, and in furtherance of their attempt to better spread the good news of Christ Jesus, they've also established a satellite church in New York City. This requires a once-a-month trip North. This, ostensibly, accounts for their interaction with Paul.
However -- the pastor, the wife, and the graduate student are sinners (as we all are) and symbiotically have their interconnected demons placed on display in a creative work that clearly has tremendous promise and is surely destined for serious acclaim. I'm biased, of course, but I genuinely believe the play will generate some serious heat. I'm less certain, however, that it will channel that heat in the fashion the playwright hopes. You just never know, especially with an explosive topic such as this one. Once the work is created and given over to the outside world, the playwright is no longer in control. The (hopefully) wide and varied consuming audience is.
It will be interesting to see how the playwright digests the feedback he gets from this New York workshopping exercise, and it will also be interesting to see if he dares to bring the production South for further workshopping. The subject is one of the most explosive in all of Black America but it also may have resonance far beyond the African American cultural context. For a bit more insight into The Contract, straight from the text of the play, please click this link.
This is just a quick prompt (and somehow apropos for my first post of the year) in case any reader has not read Avatar: The War Against Humans over at neo-neocon. It's a great read with interesting comments, one of which was picked up by Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest. Van der Leun was struck by neo-neocon commenter Jim Sullivan and it's no wonder why. Wow, what a list Sully!
It's OK to kill things as long as you use a bow and arrow and not a gun or missile.
Teh Interwebz au Naturale of the Allmother (or whatever the
f*** the Giganto-smurfs called her) beats the technology of a species
that has harvested the power of the atom, is capable of celestial
travel, and has armored the unholy f*** out of everything. Also:
It's a much better way to call up your bizarro world rhino and
pterodactyl allies (the ones that previously wanted to eat you) than a
Tarzan call or a Conch shell. But, you still have to send the Dire-pony
express to the Four Corners of the world to rally the tribes.
Soldiers are bad unless they are A) not Caucasian or B)
handi-capped. All other soldiers are A) psychopaths B) mindless
myrmidons or C) nameless cannon fodder (or in this case arrow fodder)
Even shallow, selfish, homicidal savages are good because they're savages and therefore inherently and unquestionably noble.
The best way for primitive screw-heads to fight off a
technologically superior, militarily sophisticated force is to fight
the superior force on their terms. Asymmetric strategy, insurgent
tactics and guerrilla warfare couldn't possibly even the odds. Not in a
million years.
All scientists are compassionate and resent the very soldiers
prepared to die to protect them. This is completely reasonable and in
no way intellectually dishonest. Hollywood decrees it!
Subjugating other species is wrong -- unless you are able to
have mind-blowing ponytail intercourse and biologically hack into their
brain. Then it's OK.
When you encounter a new mineral that floats and causes whole
mountain ranges to float, the coolest, catchiest, most marketable name
for it is Unobtainium. After you succeed in mining it, it semantically
transforms,a la magma/lava, into HaHaHa!I'sAllMine-ite.
When the nobly savage Giganto-smurfs, the Emo-scientists and
their Land-networked planetary defense menagerie evict the eeevil
military-capitalist Gestapo from their idyllic floating mountain
paradise back to their ecologically dead world, the nature frolickers
all live happily ever after. There's no chance in hell that those same
military-capitalists will return with a full blown invasion fleet.
Never happen. Hollywood decrees it!
As I said, I wanted to love the flick and I did love the cinematography but . . . my goodness, the script!
Cut-and-paste child's play!
Is it impossible in the imagination of Hollywood for there to be good and bad corporations? Good and bad military operations? For business to be fairly representative of people, good and bad? That they be allowed to have some range? I mean, this is really getting absurd. Truly absurd.
I also have a quibble that may be strictly related to my status as an Army man but . . . Marine units? Identified as such and operating as such? In space? Mimicking airborne soldiers and engaging in air assault activities? I mean, damn! That's flat-out bizarre. At least it is to me.
And speaking of a lack of range, will there ever be a stereotypical "yankee" or west coast dude who turns out to be the bad Soldier/Marine in one of these blockbuster flicks? Have I missed it? I'm not a movie guy, and I often flush the memories of movies I do like and enjoy them on second viewing because I've forgotten so much of the flick but . . . is there a law that says the bad Soldier can't be a Californian? New Yorker? New Englander?
Did I mention that I loved the cinematography? Yes, I also loved the way I was able to buy into Zoe's character.
However, I didn't love the music. It seemed awkward and out of place. A friend said, and I agree, they would have been much better off making the musical score truly exotic since they worked so hard to make the people of Pandora so damn exotic. And speak of the devil -- Pandora? Give me a break! What a name choice (certainly not selected by the natives!) -- so, we're consciously harkening back to Greek mythology, huh? Flush monotheism, is that it? Unless, of course, the deity is Mother Earth. Pseudo-science as religion married up with Environmentalism as religion combining to form the overarching social contract, all of which is flavored with some maudlin "white bad, colored good" nonsense. That sums up this move.
Not good.
Obviously, the patronizing portrayal of the natives didn't work for me, either.
Oh look, what's this? Strong, intuitive, smart colored chick enchanted with the singular, sympathetic, disabled white boy flush with vigor in his new colored body.
Okay, somebody is about to try and make my head explode -- right?
Yes.
And my head did explode, as it has on many occasions when force-fed color-coded instructions on how I should be feeling or thinking in response to the magic of the movies. Especially when it invariably has the the lead colored males in subservient or supporting roles.
I could go on but I won't; if you've read this far you clearly get the message. Visually, it's a great flick. It strikes me as not very difficult to have modified this script and greatly improved the end-product. The secret would have been to make it less feminine, to make the commanding officer of Earth's forces more Petraeus-like, to utilize the clans on Pandora earlier in the script by allowing the would-be leader of the Na'vi to seek their assistance for forming an alliance to fight the Sky People, and allowing the story to then be all about the genuine intersection of counter-insurgency efforts, diplomatic initiatives, ambition and good old-fashioned love. On both sides of the conflict.
That, utilizing some skilled screenwriters who don't have issues with male authority, would have made for a fantastic flick no matter how you wanted to end it and the flick would have been defensible.
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