Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

Gee Golly Gosh Darn It, Dontchaknow

After discussing my mode of discourse about Sarah Palin, I decided I really wanted to go back and take a closer look at her discourse. I'm sitting here, a few days later, feeling fairly calm and collected. I've got a debate transcript from CNN in front of me, and I've pulled a portion for examination, which I then tweaked for accuracy against the video of the debate on YouTube. There were lots of excerpts I could have selected, certainly, but I settled on this one. I have checked it several times, but if you want to see the excerpt yourself, I've included the video at the bottom of the post. The piece in question runs from about 1:10:05 to 1:11:36. I recommend watching, just so you can absorb the full effect of her vacuous, backwoodsy perkiness.

What I'd like to basically do is walk through the segment in its entirety. This portion (like most of what she had to say) is filled with fragments, run-ons, awkward phraseology, tangents and disconnected ideas. In it, she latches onto a single word spoken by Biden, and uses it to springboard into a totally irrelevant topic. She runs with it, but flounders twice into irrelevancies. Once she does get back on track, she still manages not to say anything. In short, it is the perfect demonstration, in miniature, of Sarah Palin's mental bankruptcy and the source of my disgust.

For context, the moderator had questioned the candidates about what their presidency might look like if anything were to happen to their running mates after the election. Biden answered first, and explained the Obama policies he would follow and why. Palin went next and ended her answer with a dig at Obama's economic policies (which was, at best, questionable). Biden quickly jumped back in with an indictment of the results of Bush administration policies, and drew the all-important link between Bush and McCain. The important quote, coming about halfway through his remarks, is this: "[...] ask them whether there's a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care."

Palin responds:

Aww, say it ain't so, Joe. There you go again pointing backwards again though. You prefaced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education and I'm glad that you did. I know that education you are passionate about and with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her, her reward is in heaven, right? Um, I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving. Teachers needed to be paid more. I come from a house full of school teachers. My grandma was, my dad who is in the audience today, he's a schoolteacher, had been for many years. My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watchin' this debate.

Education in American has been in some senses some of our states just accepted to be a little bit lax and we have got to increase the standards. No Child Left Behind was implemented. It's not doin' the job though. We need flexibility in No Child Left Behind. We need to put more of an emphasis on the profession of teaching. We need to make sure that education in either one of our agendas, I think, absolute top of the line. My kids as public school participants right now, it's near and dear to my heart. I'm very, very concerned about where we're goin' in education and we have got to ramp it up and put more attention in that arena.

She chuckles her way amiably through the first few sentences, prefacing a deflection that everyone can see coming a mile away. "Doggone it," she just wants us all to forget about what a mess the last eight years have created and how closely aligned her running mate is with the leader that brought us here. Well should she want to just laugh Biden's comments off and then ignore them. President Bush's approval rating last month was at 19%, a record low. That's lower than Truman's during the Korean War, lower than Carter's during the Iran Hostage Crisis, and even lower than Nixon's during Watergate. To honestly acknowledge the accuracy of Biden's observation (which you'll notice she does not deny) would be political death. Instead, Palin grabs ahold of the lifeline Biden has unwittingly tossed her: An in into a topic she actually thinks she knows something about.

You mentioned education and I'm glad that you did. I know that education you are passionate about and with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her, her reward is in heaven, right?

Oh, I'll bet she's glad. I will forever wonder what she would have come up with if he hadn't mentioned it. Still, she derails herself almost immediately in an attempt to form a sentence that reminds me of watching a hamster scrabble at the walls of its aquarium without gaining any purchase. It tries to go in three directions at once, loses track of its syntax, and finally circles around into a rhetorical question.

Um, I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving.

She starts over again and takes another run at the topic, getting a bit further this time. We've got a crushingly obvious observation, phrased backwards (education, America should focus more on it) and followed by a run-on thought that totally fails to make any sense, leaving a sad trail of mutilated verbage in its wake. Does she mean that schools need to improve to justify the already-high level of funding? Does she mean that they deserve more funding and should get it? Does she mean anything at all? We may never know.

Teachers needed to be paid more.

But now they . . . don't? This is just the first in a string of nonsensical and disorienting tense changes: "My grandma was, my dad who is in the audience today, he's a schoolteacher, had been for many years." Ow, right? But that's nothing compared to what's coming.

My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watchin' this debate.

This just shows that her mind isn't staying far enough ahead of her mouth to save her from dissolving into a lazy drift along the good old stream of consciousness. As one might eventually infer from that much-abused jumble of words, Palin's brother Chuck Heath teaches third grade at the above-mentioned school. Lord knows what she means by "best schoolteacher in the year," but it hardly matters. By the time she finishes leading herself down the garden path that is this whole paragraph, she has completely lost the thread of whatever it was she was trying to say (something about how teachers used to need more money, wasn't it?).

Education in American has been in some senses some of our states just accepted to be a little bit lax and we have got to increase the standards.

She limps gamely back into the fray in the next paragraph, but crashes and burns again without even leaving the tarmac. It's so outrageously stupid that it's almost clever; she seems to hint at a little apathy in American education without getting into potentially offensive specifics. Really, though, that's just one possible interpretation of a quasi-sentence-like mass that might keep a crack team of linguists and literary theorists occupied for years under different circumstances (i.e. if someone of importance who spoke with an ounce of credibility and intelligence had said it).

We need to put more of an emphasis on the profession of teaching.

After briefly navigating the treacherous, policy-filled waters of No Child Left Behind (and neglecting to mention the Bush/McCain backing of the program), Sarah "Captain Obvious" Palin sails the good ship "You Betcha" back into the more familiar territory of the blindingly self-evident. The success of this voyage emboldens her, and she decides it is safe to bring it on home.

We need to make sure that education in either one of our agendas, I think, absolute top of the line.

Whoops. Watch out for that grammatical sandbar. You might want to think about plugging that leak with a verb, or at least a complete thought.

My kids as public school participants right now, it's near and dear to my heart.

Sentence fragment ahoy! It's okay, dear. We know what you meant. Nevermind the dock, let's just get this sucker to the beach.

I'm very, very concerned about where we're goin' in education and we have got to ramp it up and put more attention in that arena.

A last, helpful swell from the direction of innocuous (but meaningless) statements that everyone can agree with brings the governor blessedly ashore and the lifeg- err, moderater hops to her aid with a quick joke. And you thought the guys on Wall Street were the only ones getting a bail-out . . .

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my complete bafflement that anyone can listen to Palin "talk" for two minutes and not have immediate doubts about her qualifications as a mayor or governor, let alone a possible vice-president. She has charisma, certainly, but it's like a black hole behind her eyes that consumes all doubt and derision, leaving nothing but brash, unfounded confidence in its place.

I think the commentators and pundits who were waiting for her to burn out spectacularly during the debate were morons (despite her desperate flopping in the Couric interview). They are the ones who set the stage for her ghastly nonperformance to exceed expectations. Note to everyone: Just because the candidate does not suffer a nuclear meltdown in mid-sentence does not mean she performed well, or even adequately. You've got one month to realize that she needs to be sent packing. Now, go do the right thing.

Sarah Palin is a Yokel

She is a yokel, and a putz, and a schmuck. That may sound ridiculously harsh, but I've just watched her debate Joe Biden for an hour and a half, and experienced shooting pain stretching from my ears up into the rational portions of my brain every time she opened her mouth. Am I a Biden fan? Not particularly, but this woman is an idiot. Do we really want to vote for yet another ticket that features someone who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear?" Palin has taken folksy jargon in national politics to a whole new level.

As of now, I still have not been able to discern what ratio of Palin's rhetoric is sincere blue-collar arrogance (more on that in a moment) and how much of it is naked, cynical pandering, but I'm certain that all of it is some combination of the two. I simply do not understand the appeal to any voter of someone who refers to herself in every other sentence as "average," "middle-class," "Joe Six-pack," etc.

Why would I vote for someone who self-identifies with the typical knuckle-dragging xenophobe who spends his leisure time chugging beer on the couch? This goes back to something I've had cause to complain of before: growing American pride in the "redneck" label and all of the moronic bigotry that that label implies. When did it become uncool to be well-educated, well-spoken, and well-bred?

As to specific complaints about Palin in the debate, her statements throughout the evening only reinforced her status as a mindless McCain mouthpiece, a clueless, bumbling tool of a dying campaign. I very much doubt she could have shoe-horned in one more use of the word "maverick" if she were getting royalty payments for it. It seemed to magically morph into every part of speech at some point during her remarks: "The maverickish maverick mavericked maverickally."

With respect to the economy, she stated that the best barometer of how the economy is doing is to attend a kid's soccer game. When asked who was at fault for the sub-prime mortgage crisis, her response began, "You're darn right it was the predator lenders." I don't in any way want to downplay the complicity of pure capitalistic greed. However, starting off on that tack is offensive on two levels: On the one hand, it ignores the personal responsibility of the people who took on more debt than they could physically afford, and on the other hand it demeans their intelligence, painting them as hapless rubes who were suckered by the Wall Street snake-oil salesmen.

Throughout the debate, Palin's dialogue was littered with button-cute, country-fried buzzspeak and strangely devoid of meaningful content. So much so, in fact, that it leaves me with very little to talk about beyond a general distaste for her values, her style, and the lack of activity taking place between her ears.

In the words of a pre-debate commentator: "People making the mistake of trying to understand her unparseable constructions suffer greatly. Only by matching her smile and blank cheerfulness can one withstand the sucking black hole of unreason that is Palin attempting to communicate with words."

Quite.

I despise her and her entire regular-American approach to politics with a flaming passion. It has been a blight on the nation since the days of Andrew Jackson. I'm still with Jon Stewart. I want my president to be an elitist. You don't know anything about leading the nation because you're just like the rest of us? Well, screw you. Get out of the race.

You Pinheads.

"Really? One of the most outrageous double standards you've ever seen?"

The media-political complex may be about to field the first female vice-president or the first African American president, but some things never change. They're all still lying sacks of . . . well, you know.

Christians in the Movies: 2005-2007

This was way too long to dump on Sharpton's comment section. That would be evil. Find the rest of the conversation here.

But what about in entertainment?

Well, you came to the right place. I should start with the very clear disclaimer that, as the savvy reviewers over at Christianity Today could tell you, it's a mistake to limit one's search for Truth and Love and Redemption in entertainment solely to films with Christian characters . . . but this is about how Christians themselves are portrayed, so we'll let it slide.

I should also note that, as you may already know, I firmly oppose the Michael Medved, "Hollywood vs. Religion" nonsense that posits some sort of intentional, strategic assault on our faith by the entertainment industry . . . as if it were ideologically homogenous enough to agree about anything beyond "I want my movie to make me a bundle of cash."

I decided arbitrarily to look at movies starting in 2005 . . . just to go back during the last few years. I've seen just over 200 movies produced from 2005 on, and here are some of the examples I nosed up of movies that portray Christians/Christianity, in no particular order:

Into Great Silence - A 160-minute glimpse into the spiritually full lives of the Carthusian monks in a monastery in the heart of the French Alps. Not only does it demonstrate the richness of a life devoted to the service of Christ, the film itself is a deeply spiritual experience in quiet meditation and contemplation of the Holy.

V for Vendetta - Features every anti-Christian cliche in the book, from the pedophiliac bishop to the ambitions we Christians clearly harbor for fascistic domination. Fortunately, its characters, like its source material, are pure cartoon.

Junebug - Prominently features a scene at a church potluck in a small southern town, with prayer and singing and general fellowship that feels so warm and genuine I'm still not convinced the filmmakers didn't just set up a camera during an actual church gathering and toss their actors into it. Little movie, lots of critical acclaim . . . launched the rapidly-ascending career of Amy Adams (Enchanted, Charlie Wilson's War).

Serenity - While I personally think there is more than one way to interpret Shepherd Book's statements like "I don't care what you believe, just believe," one could legitimately put it in your "wishy-washy" category. Book is, to me, a moving example of a principled and loving Christian, then again the faith he practices is an odd (and not very developed) futuristic brand . . . so maybe it shouldn't count as anything at all.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - In general, I'm steering well clear of movies that are merely symbolically linked to Christianity, but this particular story is so widely-known to have originated from within "our camp" that I feel I can legitimately toss it out there. Did a pretty tidy business at the box-office, and should allow for the production of all 6 sequels in the coming years.

Driving Lessons - The mother of the main character is a petty, vindictive, narrow-minded and extremely hypocritical caricature of a Christian (played by Laura Linney, who seems to relish such roles). The movie sucked in almost every way and was pretty much panned by audiences and critics alike.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose - Raises deep spiritual questions while casting a Catholic priest in a highly-sympathetic light as a compassionate man of faith and simultaneously featuring a Christian lawyer as a man whose faith is not based solely on blind, non-thinking acceptance.

The Da Vinci Code - My disdain for the book is no secret, and the film wasn't much better. The target of this film is clearly a fantasy version of the Catholic Church, which finds its sinister self at the center of the ultimate in ludicrous conspiracy theories.

Keeping Mum - A surprising and delightful dark British comedy which centers around the family of an Anglican minister played by none other than Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean). My favorite moment is when the minister delivers a sermon on grace that he has spent the entire film working on, only to be suddenly struck in the middle of it by a powerful action of grace on his own life that he had failed to notice until just that moment.

Jesus Camp - Hard to call this a "portrayal" I guess, since it's a documentary. The slant of the portrayal is all in the viewer . . . many Christians could watch this and cheer. Me . . . not so much with the cheering. Notable for having caught footage of Ted Haggard preaching a sermon against homosexuality just a few months before that whole gay prostitute thing blew up in his face. Anyway, this is an unflinching look at what some of us are really like.

Joyeux Noel - Features perhaps the most moving celebration of mass you'll ever see, given by an Irish minister (elsewhere shown to be a courageous and compassionate Christian) to a gathering of mortal enemies in the midst of a WWI battlefield, brought together in the peace, joy and grace represented by the birth of Christ.

Deliver Us from Evil - Again with the documentaries and the "portrayals" . . . This one's about the Catholics again. Specifically, it's about a particular priest who was moved from parish to parish by his supervisor to avoid massive scandal from all the kids he kept molesting. Not really an indictment of Christians or Christianity, though.

Amazing Grace - The story of devout Christian William Wilberforce and his lifelong struggle to end slavery in England is brought to life in this film starring Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd). Wilberforce's faith is definitely not downplayed . . . very reminiscent of Paul Scofield's portrayal of Sir Thomas More from A Man for All Seasons.

There Will Be Blood - Features a rather wild-eyed preacher who is 2 parts raving loon and 1 part slimy opportunist. While his church features baptism and a cross, it is clearly some kind of fringe cult . . . Never explicitly called Christian, I kept expecting them to pull out a bag of snakes. To the best of my memory, the name of Jesus is never even mentioned.

Lars and the Real Girl - At the center of this story is a tight-knit church community that surrounds its members with a safety net of love and support, even when they're acting really, really weird (as Lars is). (As they wonder how to deal with the Lars situation, the pastor simply asks "What would Jesus do?" and that settles the discussion.) The pastor offers relevant sermons straight from the Bible. Currently nominated for a screenplay Oscar.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days - Nominated for Best Foreign Film a few years ago . . . tells the story of devout Christian Sophie Scholl and her courageous and principled stand against the evils of Nazi Germany which ultimately cost her her life.

Cinderella Man - The title character and his family are devout Catholics who value integrity. They are part of a church led by a priest very much invested in his congregation, which gathers about them as a family in prayer at various points.

Adam's Apples - A mean neo-Nazi gets more than he bargained for when he gets sent to Pastor Ivan for rehabilitation into society. Unable to take advantage of Ivan's trusting, happy nature, he sets out to destroy that sunny idealism instead, but will he prove to be any match for a genuine holy fool?

A lot of pastors and commentators and people who maybe go to the movies two or three times in a year like to warn us all about the evils of Hollywood and the anti-Christian agenda and God knows what. The implication being that you can't make a trip to the multiplex without running into an ad for the next blockbuster with a lousy Christian stereotype. But I'm out there, on the ground, watching that big screen like a hawk and I'm here to tell you it just ain't so. Films where Christians are bad are few and far between (far more rare than the real deal, unfortunately) and when they do show up, no one pays them much mind except the Christians waving picket signs out front.

Unmitigated Disaster

There were some fair questions raised in response to my last post, and it made more sense (in terms of length and content) to respond in another post. I should say first that nothing in particular "brought this on." After all, I didn't make the video, I just saw it and posted it. On a deeper level, the person who thought this was worth posting grew up going to churches where the seating consisted of metal folding chairs set up in a converted gymnasium. I can't help glancing around when I walk into an American church and wonder how much money went towards the thick carpet, stained-glass windows, padded pews and whatnot that could have gone to . . . I dunno . . . orphans in Latin America (just to pick an example completely at random).

So, if I raise these questions about relatively small amounts of money spent on churches, how much more am I going to question billions of dollars spent on funding a war? Answer: A lot. To say nothing of the fact that, with each passing day, larger and larger segments of the population are realizing this particular war was a huge mistake (that adjective is so hopelessly inadequate).

Considering your past statements of disdain for cries of "think of the children", it seems a bit odd for you to post a video essentially dedicated to that. You might say that in this case, it's a legitimate point. But sometimes, other people bringing it up have legitimate points, too.

I have two things to say: 1) My disdain for "think of the children" is limited exclusively to those who advance the cry on the basis of "protecting" the kiddies from whatever book, TV show, movie, video game, song or painting offends or threatens their touchy, loud-mouthed parents. On the one hand, I find it ludicrous that these people think such issues amount to anything worth throwing such a wall-eyed fit over, and on the other hand I find it offensive that they demand the entire world be dumbed-down, watered-down and made over to match their own narrow, hysterical worldview. The difference, to my mind, is this: That's a stupid, reactionary wingnut issue and this is a legitimate quality of life issue.

2) To be perfectly honest, as a childless young adult who is married to a teacher and is up to his ears in debt for school loans and house payments, I wasn't giving "the children" the bulk of my attention in that video. I was more struck by the number of homes and home improvements the war could have paid for by now, as well as the hundreds of thousands of college educations and teacher salaries. Sure, children are involved in some of those considerations to one degree or another, but not exclusively by any means. A far more apt phrase would be "think of the people."

This is largely an appeal to emotion. There's little in the way of facts or numbers, just "how much we spent", and "cute little kids pictures."

This is the one place where I think you're way off-base. "Little in the way of numbers"? Seriously, did we watch the same video? Sure there are pictures, and most of them even have a cute kid, but the impact is all in the numbers. This is how much we are spending on the war every day. This is exactly what we could be doing instead. This is how much more good money went after bad while you sat and watched us tell you about it. The photographs are not particularly maudlin, merely visual representations of the numbers. Does the presence of the pictures really drain all of the common sense out of the presentation of those cold, hard figures? The video didn't appeal to my heart, it appealed to my bottom line. Don't mistake passion for emotion.

How many lives have been changed for the better in Iraq? How many people live free of fear now, live better lives? All we hear about from the news is death. There's so much country there, there has to be life, too. Are you saying that American lives are more important than Iraqi lives? Haven't you taken the opposite of that idea in the past?

This is probably going to be the biggest sticking point, but I think that these are very important questions. My answer, in a nutshell, is this. I don't know how many lives we have changed for the better, or how many live free from fear . . . but the word on the street is "Not as many as have been changed for the worse and not as many as now live in fear and/or with a decreased quality of life." My research suggests that the war we have waged against the country for the past almost-five years has claimed more Iraqi lives than are attributed to the atrocities of Saddam Hussein during the previous 24 . . . to say nothing of the fact that we were directly involved in his rise to power and supplied him with his first list of human, even civilian, targets to eliminate.

As I've discussed many times, our country has failed (at a terrible cost) to learn from any of its foreign policy history of the past 60 years. We have developed an idiotic habit of ignoring long-term consequences of our actions in achieving short-term goals. I have no doubt that even after we are finally out of Iraq (if we ever pull it off), there will be fallout down the line that no one but the people in power have the slightest inkling of yet (and they are too stupid, stubborn and short-sighted to care).

Of course I'm not saying that American lives are more important than Iraqi lives. Far from it. That's why I care that estimates number Iraqi civilian casualties in the several hundreds of thousands since the invasion began. And really, what do you think we're doing with the money that is not being spent on Americans in America? Do you seriously think we're over there building schools and homes with it? We haven't even managed to bring most of the country back up to pre-war levels with regards to basic services like water, electricity and medical.

The best thing for Iraq is, and always was (stretching back to those first days in 1963 when the CIA pulled one of its famous "regime changes" that put Saddam Hussein's political party in power), that we leave it the hell alone as soon as possible and for as long as possible. Our war budget should be diverted into more peaceable channels, immediately. And you can take that to the bank.

In conclusion, have another video:

Warning: Too tired to give this a proper proof-read.

Obstinate Twits

I have a certain appreciation for Focus on the Family. They've produced a lot of things I've enjoyed (and also some I haven't) over the years, from their publications to their website to their radio dramas, and even some video releases. I think that (most of the time) they are one of the good public faces of evangelical Christianity, which to me means that I am generally not embarrassed to be part of the same religion as them. They are a respectable contrast to the shameful antics of, for instance, our Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells.

However, that aside, I have no respect for how Focus engages with our culture. They approach everything with a tally sheet, ready to mark down the number of swear words, negative attitudes, sex scenes (actual or implied) . . . the list goes on and on. These are potentially useful statistics for certain audiences, I suppose, but for the most part I wonder why anyone who needs to know exactly how many times someone says s*** in a movie ever goes to the movies at all.

To FotF's credit, they actually do watch/read/listen to whatever they're talking about before they discuss it, but I've gotten the feeling on more than one occasion that a review was half-written before they ever walked into the theater. There is no real discernment involved in what they do, and no, mere balance-sheet auditing of "wholesome" vs. "inappropriate" content is not an acceptable substitute for true judgment.

Well, speaking of ironic lapses in perception, a Looking Closer reader noticed something amusing and frustrating. Dr. Dobson recently distanced himself from an error in the Washington Post which stated that he approved of Harry Potter. This couldn't be further from the truth, see, because everything about Harry Potter is a danger and a detriment.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the Focus website, there is an editorial bemoaning the low value placed on "sacrificial heroes" by our "superficial culture." Contrast that with this headline from Christianity Today (a model of Christians engaging in an even-handed dialogue with culture).

And that's really all I have to say about that . . . other than to note, yet again, that anyone who still insists on ragging on Harry Potter is an obstinate twit.

Don't Tell Me That

So, the phone rings and a woman asks me if I can see if we have a certain movie. Well, of course I can. She wants The Bell Jar (1979). As I'm typing it in, she notes that it's also a book by Sylvia Plath (I was aware of this). Sure enough:

"Nope. We have a few copies of the book, but no movie."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, they assigned the book to my kids last Thursday and they have to have it done by Tuesday, so I'm trying to find the movie. It's ridiculous. That book is two inches thick."

Well, gee. If you'd told me that in the first place, I could have told you we didn't have it without even looking it up.

(For the record, "two inches thick" is a ludicrous claim. Our large print copy isn't that thick. The regular paperback is 288 pages long. I estimate it would take me well under 6 hours to polish off. Also, by all accounts, the movie version is a wretched adaptation. Call me vicious, but I hope those kids get caught and/or fail accordingly.)

Rage

I disapprove rather strongly of a lot of the library's movie acquisitions . . . most of them, actually. And it's not just because I'm a film snob, either. We scrounge the very latrines of Hollywood for our selections . . . inexcusably awful dreck like Epic Movie, Norbit, and Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Basically, if you ever accidentally saw a trailer and thought, "That looks like the cinematic equivalent of sucking my own brains out of my nostril through a straw while simultaneously grinding powdered glass into my eyeballs and rythmically beating the back of my head against a concrete wall" then we probably have that movie available for check-out . . . and people do, of course.

I know a lot of these people by sight. They are regulars, and they take whatever they can find so long as it will flash pretty lights up on their TV screen while they gaze in stupid wonder at the magic of the moving pictures. I have often fondly imagined a special ink stamp that I would have with me, just for them. They would have it applied to their foreheads each time they checked out, and it would say:

I'm being overly vitriolic, I know . . . But ultimately these people are the ones responsible for the overwhelming stupid of low culture, and that is a difficult thing to forgive (as little as they may actually deserve my ire).

And, really, they aren't the ones I'm upset at today. No, all of this is a total tangent to what actually set me off. A woman, presumably an unusually stupid and clueless breed of parent, dropped our DVD copy of Epic Movie with a sticky note on the front that said "This movie is not suitable for children. It contains nudity and foul language!" There was a tacit implication buried in there that we had somehow given the impression that this was the perfect thing to plop the kiddies in front of for an evening of wholesome family entertainment. Yeah. Also, consider the following:

-Aside from various visual clues in the very nature of the images on the DVD cover itself, there was an enormous UNRATED banner plastered proudly across the front in black and red, flanked by the skull-and-crossbones.

-The back raucously proclaimed this to be the "Unrated, Uninhibited, Unbelievable Edition!"

-The very brief plot synopsis identified the movie's chief villain as "the evil White B--ch" (filtering mine).

-Special Features listed included such tasteful and varied gems as: "Breaking Wind," "How Gratuitous," "Everyone Loves Beaver: Epic Hookups," and "Epic Porn – What Would Your Porno Movie Be Called?"

So, yes, idiot. Next time you get a movie for children spend a cursory 10 seconds glancing over the cover. Maybe I won't feel the barely-controllable urge to pummel you unconscious with a DVD case.

Haters

I was listening to a news report on the Bott Radio Network on the way back from lunch, and I was alerted to a legislative controversy that I didn't even know existed. Frankly, I was rather shocked to hear, first that the issue in question is not a foregone conclusion that was dealt with years ago, and second that it is a source of disagreement at all.

The issue is whether to make perceived sexual orientation (specifically homosexuality) part of the already existing federal hate crimes law. What that basically means is that if someone were to, say, kill you because you're gay or because they think you're gay, it would be considered a hate crime. Cuz, see, it's a crime and the motive was hatred.

The particular report I listened to was not very informative, and I was only half paying attention when I suddenly heard the commentary. Of course, this proposal was laid at the doorstep of the gay agenda, that great blight and scourge on American society. The suggestion was made that, not only had reports of hate crimes against gays been inflated and blown out of proportion, but that perhaps a substantial number of the reported crimes had even been faked in order to garner support for the amendment.

I did a little poking around to see what it was all about, and discovered that, indeed, this bit of legislation has not been well-received in all quarters. 'Well, that's odd,' I thought. 'I wonder who would be opposed to having less hatred in the world? . . . Oh, Christians. Wait . . . what?!' It seems that Christian organizations everywhere are loudly decrying the passage of such legislation as persecution of Christians.

When a significant minority group which often falls victim to prejudice, even violent prejudice, has its chance for a little extra protection blocked by a religion that has an obvious bone to pick on the grounds that the protection offered would squelch said religion's right to defame said minority, I think even a half-wit can identify precisely who is experiencing persecution. The assertion is that this amendment is directed specifically against the Christian faith. If said issue is that big of a deal to said faith, then I would counter-assert that said faith needs to get a life.

Is it just me, or do Christians claim the most "persecution" from the groups we are most willing to persecute, discriminate against, villify, and condemn in our turn? When even we cannot be charitable to those who hate or disagree with us, I shudder to think that we may be forced to rely on the charity of the unbeliever. Our voices grow ever more shrill and demanding in their insistence that Americans be governed by our principles and our principles alone, all while framing events as an apocalyptic struggle for an entire way of life.

We blindly place our faith in ultimate victory on shakey ground like the general rightness of our cause and the supposed fundamentalist Christian origins of our system of government. Meanwhile, we burn the bridges labeled "reason" and "tolerance" and "love" that connect us to the very people we should be reaching out to. Should our faith in the system ever prove unjustified (as it seems likely to), our precious rights and values will be left completely at the mercy of those we have made our mortal enemies. Sure that's bad, but my point is that we ourselves are more than a little responsible for drawing the battle lines so recklessly and raising the stakes so impossibly high in a conflict we might not win.

Anyway, in specific terms, the chief objection is that this legislation would supposedly make it possible for anyone in America who publicly calls homosexuality a sin to be charged with a hate crime. Scary-sounding terms like "thought crime" and "police state" are being thrown around. Well, first, let's get one thing straight. These Christians aren't against a police state because they value personal freedom. They're against a police state because they don't get to be the police. They aren't fooling anyone but themselves when they say otherwise.

Aside from seeming to obscuring the issue and making us all look like Nazis, I don't know whether these claims have any potential credibility. I really don't. But here's what I do know: According to this publication on hate crimes from the Department of Justice, in order for something to be classified as a hate crime, it first has to be an actual crime i.e. "murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property." There have been federal hate crime laws on the books for nearly 40 years. If "hate speech" were covered under these laws, wouldn't we have seen some sort of crackdown on groups like the KKK before now?

There's certainly some interesting room for discussion here, were anyone willing to breathe deeply and calm down. What is the proper balance between freedom of expression and wanton intolerance? Should hatred be illegal in its own right? I haven't really fleshed out my own ideas about this yet, but I don't see the problem here.

Meanwhile, is there any particular reason to believe that general sermonizing would be placed on the same legal footing as KKK protest marches or cross-burnings? Assuming, even for a moment, that that would be the case and that such activities would be considered hate crimes (and neither assumption seems plausible), I'm still having a hard time casting the bulk of my sympathy in the direction of the "God Hates Fags" crew or their less inflammatory bretheren.

Seriously, is our right to proclaim the sinfulness of homosexuality from the rooftops really more important than their right not to be bullied, beaten, and killed? We aren't Old Testament prophets, dispatched to lecture everyone on how naughty they are. We're supposed to be about unconditional love, and that's not what this looks like to me.

Milking the Sacred Cow

They are the greatest success the industry has to offer. Everything they publish is turning to gold. Their books fly off of our library shelves, and I reluctantly feed the flow of fundamentalist fiction to faithful fans fastidiously awaiting their reserved titles as they are released. Money talks, and it says that this is what Christians want to read; the work of two writers who have set Christian fiction back at least 3 decades: Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.

It all started in 1995, when the first book in their interminable saga (Left Behind) erupted. I was 12, and I don't even remember clearly what nationally best-selling Christian fiction for adults looked like before this. Did it exist? (Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness comes to mind as an example of a big hit in the Christian world, but did it get this kind of attention? Plus, he stopped after two.)

I'm certainly aware that the school of End Times thought represented by Left Behind is nothing new (hence a great deal of its success, I'd say). And, of course, popular accounts of it aren't exactly original either . . . The subject caught fire in the United States during the early '70s, continuing through the '80s with movies (A Thief in the Night), "nonfiction" books (The Late, Great Planet Earth), and so forth.

Still, something has clearly changed, and I don't think any of the apocalyptic grist flowing out of the Christian fiction mill has spawned a franchise on the order of Left Behind. In fact, I don't believe there has been a franchise this shameless in Christian marketing history. Back at the beginning, the series was conceived as a trilogy; three books examining the rapture, tribulation, and second coming. When I began the series late in 1999, there were 6 books out with a 7th on the way and a parallel series for young adults with several published titles under its belt.

I personally read the first 10, and then I simply couldn't continue. 10 was at least 3 too many. Hey, I'll be generous . . . I was younger, but I did get some enjoyment out of them at the time. I once sprinted across a shin-to-knee-deep pool that I knew was full of scalding hot water. I started off moving so fast that I was about halfway across before I noticed how much it hurt. I couldn't turn around, I couldn't stop, and I was terrified of tripping and landing on my face, so I kept moving. I emerged from the other side with feet and lower legs as red as boiled lobster. Similarly, I used to read some things so quickly, I could go a very long way before realizing how awful they were. I also read somewhere around 50 Hardy Boys mysteries shortly before beginning this series. It wasn't until my late teens that I learned to occasionally just stop reading something.

Meanwhile, here we are at the end of 2006. Left Behind: The Kids has hit critical mass with 40 (forty!) books in its series. Left Behind appeared to have ended with book 12. Then (and my chronology on this is a bit fuzzy, but who cares?) Jenkins and LeHaye went back and wrote three prequels: The Rising, The Regime and The Rapture.

This prequel trilogy begins 27 years before Left Behind and brings its characters up to the instant the series begins. A good half of The Rapture is devoted to the experiences of the raptured and, in a shockingly ego-centric display, a sizable chunk of that concerns the equivalent of an Academy Awards ceremony in heaven. Only, instead of the best movies of the year, Christ is handing out acclaim to the greatest Christians EV4R (sic). The atmosphere of these scenes is very drippy, with billions of happy fundies drooling over the scrupulously righteous (perfect, even) lives of such (apparently) superstar giants as Billy Graham, Dr. Bill Bright, and Ken Taylor (of The Living Bible translation).

Meanwhile, amidst the publishing of the prequels, Jenkins and LaHaye both went their separate ways, each beginning a new series that would cover the End Times in an alternate universe from the one they'd created together. So far, Jenkins has a trilogy whose titles begin with the letter "s" starring a Christian James Bond, and LaHaye has a trilogy called "Babylon Rising" starring a Christian Indiana Jones. Both are obviously derivative, although LaHaye's is doubly so since Peretti has been-there-done-that a good decade and a half ago.

However, the pièces de résistance of this eschatological spread are still to come. You'd have thought that the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment would be a good place to conclude one's account of the End Times (book 12 even featured the sub-title "The End of Days"). Not so, small sage. This coming March will see the release of book 13: Kingdom Come.

The horrors of the Tribulation are over, and Jesus Christ has set up his perfect kingdom on earth. Believers all around the world enjoy a newly perfected relationship with their Lord, and the earth itself is transformed. Yet evil still lurks in the hearts of the unbelieving. As the Millennium draws to a close, the final generation of the unrepentant prepares to mount a new offensive against the Lord Himself--sparking the final and ultimate conflict from which only one side will emerge the eternal victor.

Do they seriously propose to fill an entire book with that plot? Won't it run something like:

Evil, unrepentant guy: I'm still evil and unrepentant! Victory shall be mine! God's going d-

God: *casual smite*

Evil, unrepentant guy: Smoted! Ow, my eternal soul!

The End

Are people still paying real money for this? Oh, and I did say pièces earlier. Just a few days ago, I received this book from Tech Services, ready to go out to the shelf:

The Jesus Chronicles: Book One
John's Story: The Last Eyewitness
by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye

Before the Tribulation, before the Rapture, before there was a legacy that could be left behind . . . there was Jesus. Now the authors of the phenomenal Left Behind series introduce The Jesus Chronicles, four books that individually and collectively paint a vivid portrait of the Prince of Peace told in the voices of those who knew Him best: the Gospel writers, John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

Yes, Jenkins and LaHaye will now be fictionalizing all four gospels. Finally, we can hear this story retold again. This is such a necessary and worthwhile effort, what with the originals being so long out of print and all. And I'm so glad that they'll be putting the story of Christ in proper perspective, as a small foreshadowing of the much grander story arch presented in the Left Behind series.

As I reflect on the literary wreckage that these two men have wrought over the past decade, I come to a deeply disturbing realization: Jenk and LaHa have an infinite of time to work with, stretching in both directions along the timeline they have created jointly, and an equal scope along an infinite number of alternate timelines which they could create separetely or together as they please. There is no reason for them to ever stop, and at this point, odds are pretty damn good that Christ will come back before they run out of Christian bestsellers.

Y'know, Dr. Olson is always talking about all the literary types she wants to meet in heaven (despite a salvation status which, for many of them, is dubious at best). Well, I think I'd like to hunt down these two guys in the sweet by-and-by . . . and just laugh and laugh and laugh.

You Make Me Sick

Take Four: As I listen to and observe the well-nigh incessant whining, complaining, outrageous rudeness, and (yes) even stupidity of our patrons here at the library, I am frequently tempted to blog about them. However, these occurrences are so frequent, and the specifics pass out of my memory so quickly, that it just generally doesn't happen. But seriously . . .

What is it with you people who don't wanna talk to me? You walk up and throw a stack of books and a library card at me. I start to check them out to you only to discover that they're already checked out to you. Perhaps you want to turn them in? Perhaps you'd like to renew them? I don't know . . . You didn't tell me. Sometimes you shove a driver's license in my face instead of a mysterious stack of books. What? No, really, what? I'm not a cop. I didn't just pull you over. What do you want?

Let's not kid ourselves. I know you can talk. Remember last week? When I told you you had a fine? I don't recall you having any trouble telling me off then. Did a truck happen to run over your voicebox in the meantime?

Look, I'm not asking for a friendly greeting. I don't care for small talk. Don't feel bad if you don't have a witty remark ready for me . . . Chances are I've already heard it 4 times today anyway. I understand your dilemma. Here I am, this obnoxious total stranger with whom you must establish contact in order leave with what you want. Honestly, I don't relish our fleeting interactions any more than you do. But, for both our sakes, bite the bullet and tell me exactly what you want so I can get you out of my sight that much faster. Because . . .

You make me sick.

What Is It With You?

Take Three: As I listen to and observe the well-nigh incessant whining, complaining, outrageous rudeness, and (yes) even stupidity of our patrons here at the library, I am frequently tempted to blog about them. However, these occurrences are so frequent, and the specifics pass out of my memory so quickly, that it just generally doesn't happen. But seriously . . .

What is it with you people who can't read? Why are you here? We're a library. What do you think we have to offer you? You stand next to the signs that say "No Cell Phones," conversing loudly with someone neither of us can see. Sometimes you do it while I'm trying to check out your books for you. You know, the ones you can't even read, you illiterate twerp. You walk right past the signs that say "All Computers are in Use" and ask me if there are any computers available. What are you going to do on the internet if you can't read? We don't allow porn on our machines.

You know what . . . new policy. You're an illiterate idiot. Get out of my library. You can come back when you're literate. Unless you're still an idiot.

You make me sick.

But Seriously

Take Two: As I listen to and observe the well-nigh incessant whining, complaining, outrageous rudeness, and (yes) even stupidity of our patrons here at the library, I am frequently tempted to blog about them. However, these occurrences are so frequent, and the specifics pass out of my memory so quickly, that it just generally doesn't happen. But seriously . . .

What is it with you people who don't understand me when I say, "All of the computers are taken"? No, really. They are. All of them. No, I don't have any special computers set aside for college students. Or old people. Or people with 11 fingers, people who prefer Burger King to McDonald's, or freaking Somolian refugees. No. I do not have a computer that I am saving just for you, Mr. John Q. Public, you egomaniacal freak of nature. You are not important. You are not special. You are not even very well-liked. Take a number and wait like everybody else. Or better yet, go buy your own dang computer. I promise it'll always be set aside just for you. Unless you have relatives or friends who visit you at home (which I find doubtful, at best).

You make me sick.

Don't Get Me Started

As I listen to and observe the well-nigh incessant whining, complaining, outrageous rudeness, and (yes) even stupidity of our patrons here at the library, I am frequently tempted to blog about them. However, these occurrences are so frequent, and the specifics pass out of my memory so quickly, that it just generally doesn't happen. But seriously . . .

What is it with you people who show up with movies that are multiple days overdue and say, "Can't you cut me some slack? I didn't even get to watch them!" Are you kidding me? No, seriously. You had a week to get those back to me, and you didn't. Now I find out that you didn't even make good use of the extra time you took. Since you obviously couldn't come up with even so much as half an hour during the past 10 days to pop down and turn them in, it's no wonder you didn't quite find the time to watch all five of them.

No, I'm not going to reward your poor time management. No, not even if you come up with more examples of just how bad you are at getting stuff done. The only real question is, "WHY DID YOU CHECK THEM OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!" Well, that and the ever-pressing, "Is it that everyone else in your life panders to your every need, or is your self-centered excuse-mongering entirely a product of your own pathetic lack of any sense of personal responsibility?"

You make me sick.

My Letter to LeTourneau (Updated)

*** Update ***

Yesterday evening I got a reply from Corey, who wound up with my e-mail. Having said that, it is almost redundant to confirm that the response was more than satisfactory. He replied respectfully to every part of my message, promised to get Rachel 4 free meal vouchers, and agreed with me and all of you in condemning the response to Rachel's original request for compensation.

He also encouraged me to be a little less . . . Well, you all saw the original e-mail, and I don't think I need to go through it with you and point out where I was fair and justified and where I was just ranting, generalizing, and taking cheap shots. However, having thanked him for all his help and promised to give a more moderate approach due consideration, I do still feel that my experiences as a student have shown me a side of LeTourneau that won't allow some occurrences to be dismissed on the grounds that those involved "have good intentions" or "want what's best for the students." So, I expanded my reply a bit with the following:

Now, as to the general tone throughout my e-mails . . . The second in particular was (obviously) composed in some haste and sent impulsively. I tossed out a general reference or two that had no place in the e-mail at all if only because of sheer irrelevance. As for the first message, had I known for sure that it would go to you, for instance, it would have been a very different e-mail because I know I can get a fair hearing and a real answer without abrasively demanding one (and I can avoid a lot of background, since you know me). Of course, whether or not my tone should ever be abrasive and demanding, regardless of the circumstances, is a good question.

Nevertheless, I am certainly aware that no employee is setting out to do a bad job, and that there are many who care deeply about the students. Without naming names, every student who has been around long enough knows the people they can go to who will do their best to resolve any problem and who will treat the students as equals in the meantime. And we also know who will be unhelpful and condescending, with responses ranging from glib and dismissive to simply curt and dismissive. Unfortunately, there are quite a number of them as well, and they occupy very important positions.

I don't know what response I would get from them in return for abrasive demands (probably a less than satisfactory one, I grant you), but I do know from past experience that politely sincere inquiries are generally met with a demeaning brush-off. Four examples of which I have personal knowledge come immediately to mind just from the past year where LeTourneau's response to something left me simply appalled.

Side-note: I didn't include any of the examples and I wrapped up the e-mail from there. However, the incidents I had in mind were:

1) In a meeting with Dr. Austin, I explained quickly but in detail the problems faced by LeTourneau history majors thanks to a very clearly inadequate number of staff members (two), rendering the major as offered by LeTourneau inferior both in terms of academic value (considering what we pay for it) and in comparison with other Universities. I didn't put it in quite those terms, I simply tried to express our rather desperate need for additional faculty. His response: "Well, accrediation only requires one history professor, so we're already exceeding that." That was it. A twelve-word response which made it exceedingly clear that his interest in the quality of our education was no deeper than his desire to make the University look good. When mediocrity brings success and acclaim, why strive for excellence, right?

2) Rachel paid a visit to the school nurse (yes, she actually found her . . . and I think she might even have been in her office at the time, but don't quote me on that) in need of medication for some sort of ailment (many of the finer details of this incident evade me at this precise moment, I'll confirm them with her later and flesh this out). The nurse, having been made aware of Rachel's asthma, the other medications she was on, and the nature of her ailment, gave her a bottle of pills to cure it. Walking out, the first thing Rachel noticed on the bottle was something to the effect of "People with asthma SHOULD NOT take these!" The entire incident raises an interesting question: When you go questing for the school nurse (no other verb adequately describes it), is it healthier not to find her?

3) As all LeTourneau students know, last semester Gary Holeman decided to impose an internet bandwidth cap of 3 GB per month on University students (if anyone jumps in with "it's not a cap!" I will stab you in the face). He was interviewed by the campus newspaper about the details surrounding said cap, and one of the questions pertained to what would happen if the limit were exceeded. Holeman's response (I should really dig for the exact quote, but most of you will remember) boiled down to pinching the offender's internet down to the equivalent of a bad modem connection. He concluded (and I paraphrase), "If someone goes over, I want them to really feel the consequences." The entire sentiment expressed here was so distressingly petty and vindictive. It was clear that Holeman regarded the cap as a punishment on evil people who would dare to use more than 3 GB in a month. Students pay a lot of money for our internets, you'd think we could use them without drawing down the wrath of an angry IT.

Holeman went on to whine in a most immature and childish fashion in the very next issue of the paper, saying that his words had been mischaracterized, that "it's not a cap, it just limits your internet" or something retarded like that, and that he was disappointed in the writers over a graph comparing LeTourneau's download limit to that of other schools (shockingly, LeTourneau was on the extreme low-end of the scale). Personally, I think he just felt betrayed because he was laboring under the false impression that the YellowJacket was a propaganda rag. Incidentally, having lived on-campus during the cap for the past 4 months, I have not noticed that the internet is much faster or better than it was before. However, on August 31st, I bled over my 3 GB by a couple of megabytes, and let me tell you, I felt the burn. Bravo, Mr. Holeman. I am completely ashamed of myself and I won't let it happen again.

4) Early last Spring someone (for God only knows what reason) stole the toilet paper dispenser out of the Village Center bathroom. Subsequently the bathroom was locked for about 2 months (supposedly out of order). This bothered me consistently for weeks until finally I went up to MSC-2 to inquire about it. As I recall, I presented the situation to Corey and asked when we could have our bathroom back. He thought that sounded reasonable enough and called Brad Bowser out and asked him about it.

I don't remember Bowser acknowledging my presence at all during the exchange, but he pretty much killed the idea of unlocking bathroom on the spot, and added words to the effect of "If they can't keep from vandalizing their bathroom I don't see why we should open it up for them." It was at that point that I realized that Bowser didn't regard the bathroom as out of order at all, but that we had been without the use of it for 2 months because we were being punished for something that anyone on campus (or, in fact, in south Longview) could have done. To paraphrase Bowser: "Oh, we can't have nice things!" The VC bathroom eventually reopened, but as of when I was last in there a few weeks ago, the toilet paper dispenser still had not been replaced.

I think each of these instances shows a level of incompetence, self-absorption, or lack of respect for students which is quite worthy of a diatribe in its own right. However, I've posted and purged myself of bitterness for the time being. I'm grateful for people like Corey that keep LeTourneau from resembling its more conservative and authoritarian bretheren. If anybody has any further fuel to throw on the fire (or water to put it out) feel free to toss in your two cents. I'm done for now. Any further dialogue with Corey will continue outside of the blog.

The original e-mail is beneath the fold.

_________________________________________________

I'm not sure where this e-mail ought to be directed, exactly. I am not totally familiar with the structure of Student Affairs, and I hear that there has been a bit of a fruit basket turnover with various positions recently, rendering the directory on LeTourneau's website inaccurate. I hope you can see that this e-mail gets to the right person or people.

My name is Jared Wheeler. Last spring I graduated from LeTourneau after attending for four years. In late May, I moved into apartment 1D with Rachel Gullman, who has attended LeTourneau for three years (this is her last year). For the current academic year, Rachel wanted the same meal plan she'd had the year before (13 meals and a certain amount of flex money). However, when she requested it, she was told that somehow, by moving closer to both SAGA and the Hive and joining the married students (a group which has their own RA, RD, chaplain, and senator and which is at least the size of any residential floor on campus) she has become (of all things) a commuter.

This seemed extremely silly, for obvious reasons, but when she asked why this was the case, she was told it is because LeTourneau has no breakdown for precisely how much a meal plan costs by itself. This was so obviously a ridiculous statement (even in comparison to the random application of commuter status) that I immediately wondered what the price breakdown could show which would prompt the administration to bury it.

However, policy is policy and at the time it hardly seemed worth arguing about. Rachel had a refund of several hundred dollars on her student account, and she requested that the "lunch every day" meal plan be paid for out of that. (Funny how there is no problem computing the cost of 5 meals a week, but figuring out 13 meals a week is beyond LeTourneau's ability.) The transaction was approved and she has lunched with no problem for the past two weeks or so. Today, however, when we went to the Hive at about 1:30, Rachel's card was refused. She was told that she could have no food until the problem was fixed in SAGA. At this point, my lunch break was nearly over and I had to get back to work, so I left Rachel to get the problem fixed at SAGA and hopefully get herself some food.

The people at SAGA sent Rachel to MSC-2. The people in MSC-2 sent Rachel back to SAGA. The people in SAGA sent Rachel to Student Accounts. The people at Student Accounts told Rachel to go back to SAGA, at which point she realized that she had wasted over an hour being given the grand runaround through the hot summer sun due to a complete lack of interdepartmental communication. After she told the people at the Business Office what had happened, they told her that their system was down and to come back in 15 mintues. At this point SAGA was long closed and all hope of getting lunch was gone.

She returned after 15 mintues. The system was still down. She was told she would be called when it was back up, but didn't receive a call until a few minutes before the offices closed. The error (of course) was a clerical one within the LeTourneau system, and it is to be hoped that Rachel's meal plan will be available to her again by lunchtime tomorrow. However, tired, hungry, and sweating, Rachel had asked hours earlier if she could somehow be given a voucher or some other form of refund for the meal she had missed due to a system glitch that was in no way her fault. She was told that "It is not worth it to us to refund the meal."

To summarize: As an "on-campus commuter" (the term makes me laugh, much the way "separate but equal" does, but somehow that's what Rachel is) Rachel is given a patently false reason for why she can't purchase as many meals as "normal" students can. Within two weeks of school starting she is denied a meal due to a problem with her card; a problem which neither of us once encountered during our 7 combined years at LeTourneau as "normal" students. The perennial problem (which rivals my experiences of third-world bureaucracies for sheer incompetence) of LeTourneau's inability to communicate between departments sends Rachel on an outrageous wild goose chase which costs her a meal (which did cost us a calculable amount of money, despite LeTourneau's supposed difficulties with the numbers involved). A LeTourneau employee, representing the attitude of the University towards its students (and paying customers), declares it "not worth it to [the University]" to refund payment for goods and services never rendered due to an error made by said University.

Every student I know has some story of a similar incident that took place at some point during their time here; an incident where it suddenly became very clear that the policy-makers at this school are a lot more interested in taking our money than they are in making sure we have a fair return on it. I have a few of these stories myself. So does Rachel. College students are young and new at fending for themselves, and it is pretty easy for the University to pull stunts like these. I never really bothered to complain before because 1) the attitude of the University seems to indicate that giving student complaints fair consideration has an extremely low priority, and 2) I wasn't really interested in getting in a tussle with the people who had ultimate power over my degree. But in this case, we'd kind of like the meal we paid for (despite the University's apparent lack of concern) . . . and maybe (although I don't expect it) the real reason why married students are only eligible for commuter meal plans.

Sincerely,

Jared Wheeler

P.S.

Rachel was sent this morning by Student Accounts back over to SAGA to get her card reactivated. At SAGA she was told she would have to talk to someone named Sara, who was supposedly in the back. She never showed up, and after waiting for some time Rachel had to go to class and couldn't wait anymore. It just so happens that by a strange coincidence, I know where Sara was. She wasn't on campus at all. I work at the Longview Public Library, and I happened to notice her there today at around the time when Rachel was waiting for her in SAGA. Rachel returned to SAGA later, only to be informed that her card had been activated all morning, even before she was sent to SAGA in the first place. Once again she had had her time wasted for nothing, not to mention the stress of not knowing what she was going to do for lunch.

How does anything ever get done at all on this campus? Nobody ever seems to know what's going on with anything anywhere at any time, and the people who supposedly do know are always AWOL. It's like trying to find the school nurse.

A Plea for Consistency

So . . . Proving once again that he is either a hypocrite or an idiot, Dubya finally vetoed his first bill the other day, essentially halting any hopes of embryonic stem cell research in the United States for the near future. The veto prompted one of the more inspired segments I've seen from The Daily Show, which I've long enjoyed. Check it out.

The president's decision in conjunction with the Jon Stewart clip has brought a line of thought to the front of my mind that has been slowly building for quite some time. However, before I get to that, here is (in a nutshell) why I (still) think our president is a total moron.

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) as practiced in fertility clinics is a way for couples to have children who would not otherwise be able to. The process produces around 16 surplus embryos which are then frozen in storage. As of a few years ago there were an estimated 400,000 of these frozen embryos in existence. The vast majority of them will eventually be discarded unless they are used for research which has the potential to save lives.

The embryos already exist. The embryos are going to be destroyed. All . . . all . . . Bush has done is to make it impossible for them to be used for any constructive purpose whatsoever. Not only that, but he and his people are throwing around terms like "murder" (which has sense been downgraded to mere "taking of human life"), implying that his veto has basically put a stop to the destruction of the embryos. Right.

Incidentally, the only argument against embryonic stem cell research that I have heard thus far which doesn't simply disintegrate under its own weight is some variation on a lack of scientific proof or lack of results in the field. Well, gee, could that possibly be because people like our Special Olympics president keep blocking the research? Results don't just appear like magic if you wait long enough, y'know.

Additionally, Tony Snow, speaking for the president, said "The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something living and making it dead . . ." Look, if a frozen amalgamation of 4-10 cells counts as something living, then I'm pretty sure the president has violated his own morality if he's ever used a condom. A full load of sperm certainly has more potential to become "life" than any those embryos do right now. (If you're the visual type, pardon the mental image.)

Actually, the question of whether Bush has violated his own moral system is answered regardless. He has, does, and is . . . every single day for the past three years and four months. And this brings me to my real point. The stem cell debate is completely tangential, it was just bothering me. I have not yet fully made up my mind about when I think life begins, but I am very much pro-life. It's one of the few issues I really care about, politically, because it's the only one that really seems to matter on an eternal scale.

What's really bugging me is this: Being pro-life, the way I see pro-life, alienates me from both major political parties. Democrats are largely "pro-choice," so that's not acceptable. (I always thought it was really cute the way they had to call themselves "pro-choice" in opposition of "pro-life" cuz they couldn't very well call themselves "anti-life" or "pro-death.") But Republicans, conservatives, and most of the Christians I know who are supposedly so very "pro-life" when it comes to abortion seem to be very "anti-life" in almost every other way. They strongly support capital punishment. They're positively religious (often literally) about going to war.

Does being pro-life have any meaning whatsoever if you're only pro some life? "That is the issue before us," the president says of stem cell research, "and that is whether or not we use tax payer's money to destroy life." In this case, he has decided no. In the case of Iraq, yes. So, he only holds his staunchly pro-life views with regards to frozen cell clumps, not actual living, breathing people. Why?

To see the president stand up and say, "I think it's important to promote a culture of life. I think a hospitable society is a society where every being counts and every person matters." And then to hear him casually toss off an estimate of 30,000 Iraqi citizens killed in a war he started like he's calculating the number of jelly beans in a jar . . . I just have to stand up and shriek "Hypocrite!"

Even if Bush were right about stem cell research, he's still wrong. But he doesn't even have that right. He's just all wrong. As of this moment, "pro-life" has no significant meaning as an expression of actual human values. And I don't think that's the way it ought to be.

Thank God for Graduation

If you haven't seen it already, head over to this link ASAP. There you will find the final draft of LeTourneau University's Quality Enhancement Plan.

I have endeavored for the past semester and a half to comprehend just what it's all about, with little success. Everything anyone could tell me about our QEP sounded like meaningless business-speak (Christian Leadership Distinctives, anyone?). Only now, as I see the entire disastrous canker-sore that is this idea laid out before me do I truly understand:

The goal of the Quality Enhancement Plan is nothing less than the replacement of legitimate academic pursuits with pure, grade-A BS material such as the #@!$ I had to put up with from Dr. K in my capstone course last fall.

I don't understand. There are intelligent people that I like and respect on the committee that dreamed this up, including the chair. Why do they not comprehend that this is the worst idea ever?

To get specific, the QEP has basically chosen (from, apparently, several candidates) a theme for LeTourneau University. That theme is "The Five Christian Leadership Distinctives." (I can't help but wonder what the other candidates were . . . Ponies? The Bell Tower? Ingenuity?) They will now proceed to saturate us beyond the breaking point with their chosen theme.

What's that you say? We're saturated already? Plagued by the five gloopy inanities on every single syllabus and waving at us from freaking banners that blanket the campus, it's no wonder you think that. But you're wrong . . . so very wrong. Here's how. Implementation Strategies:

1) Faculty Development -- Goal 1: Faculty will increase their awareness of the five Christian Leadership Distinctives. Goal 2: Faculty will participate in professional development activities that foster the use of the Christian Leadership Distinctives in classroom instruction. Goal 3: Faculty will undergo training in the design of classroom assignments that can be incorporated into the student ePortfolio.

I weep for my professors. Truly.

2) Curricular Integration -- Goal 1: The Cornerstones course for traditional students and the Introduction to Team Learning course for nontraditional students will lay the curricular foundation for the understanding and integration of the Christian Leadership Distinctives. Goal 2: Each School offering traditional programs will identify multiple courses throughout the curriculum in selected major(s) for the integration of the Christian Leadership Distinctives. Goal 3: Students will engage in a variety of classroom activities that further their understanding of the Christian Leadership Distinctives. Goal 4: The School of Graduate and Professional studies will incorporate the Christian Leadership Distinctives into all Business courses in the online BBA core program.

This is the real kicker. Whereas before all of our teachers were required to merely slop the five limp-noodle mantras onto their syllabi, they will now be required to come up with actual classroom lesson plans that integrate them into the course teachings. For instance, Watson may now need to give a lecture on Collaborating Service in "English Literature II." Johnson may have to assign a report about Discovering Purpose in "Texas and the American West." Hood may be required to organize a group activity around Deepening Skills for "Revelation."

3) Student ePortfolios -- Goal 1: The ePortfolio will be introduced in the Cornerstones course for traditional students, and in the Introduction to Team Learning course for nontraditional students in the online BBA core program. Goal 2: Students in traditional programs will produce and continue to update their ePortfolios throughout their course of study. Goal 3: Each School offering traditional programs will identify one or two mid-level and one or two upper-level courses that will incorporate the ePortfolio. Goal 4: The School of Graduate and Professional Studies will implement the ePortfolio in each course throughout the online BBA core program.

Lest this sound like it might be a good idea, this is not about compiling a nice folder of the best papers or projects in your field which you produce during your time here. Specific upper-level courses within your major will now require you to produce additional material relating to your life goals which will then be added to your portfolio. The process begins in Cornerstones.

My Development
In the following five sections (each one corresponds to a specific Christian Leadership Distinctive) you should reflect on what you have learned. You should have a minimum of two paragraphs in each section, although most will require more length to cover both required and desired information.

Discovering Purpose:
Discuss your calling and vision as you currently understand it. First, answer the
following questions: Who has God created you to be? What has God called you to do, both corporately and individually? How can you begin to prepare for and practice that calling while you are a student at LeTourneau University? Second, based on your responses to the above questions, write a personal vision statement that is no more than two sentences in length. Third, reflect on the beliefs, values, and experiences that helped to shape your vision statement, and address the following questions: How does this vision statement give meaning and direction to your life activities? How does the process of discovering purpose, including your current understanding of your vision, shape or guide your development in each of the four Cornerstones (personal, intellectual, spiritual, and relational)?

Grounding Values:
You should include a reflection concerning your worldview, faith journey, and a discussion of the ethical values that you will use in your life. How does the process of grounding values—including your worldview, faith journey, and ethics--shape or guide your development in each of the four Cornerstones (personal, intellectual, spiritual, and relational)?

Broadening Knowledge:
Examine how you have grown personally, intellectually, spiritually, and relationally through the courses that you have been taking at LeTourneau University.

Deepening Skills:
Reflect on how courses that you have taken that apply to your major have affected your personal, intellectual, spiritual, and relational development as a professional in your discipline.

Collaborating Service:
Examine what you have learned as a result of service to the community (such as the Cornerstones service project), your church, or the campus community. How do these experiences shape or guide your personal, intellectual, spiritual, and relational development? What service activities will you investigate or become involved in while a student at LeTourneau University?

My Documents
There are three subsections to the My Documents area of the ePortfolio: personal documents, academic documents, and professional documents. In each of these three areas, you should include a section concerning your goals, strengths & assets, obstacles & challenges, and action plans. In other words, you will create a Personal Success Plan that you will include in the Personal Documents section of the ePortfolio. You will create an Academic Success Plan that you will include in the Academic Documents section of the ePortfolio. You will create a Professional Success Plan that you will include in the Professional Documents section of the ePortfolio.

There's a lot more worthy of discussion in this document (which runs to 79 pages in length), but that should be enough to get started. Please, if you are (or ever have been or ESPECIALLY ever will be) a student here, go take a look and decide what sort of response feels appropriate. Thank God I finished coursework here before this hit the fan, because I have to say, beginning a university education at a school that operates like we're about to start operating looks about as appealing as testicular cancer from where I'm sitting.

Discuss.

History, Conservative Style

I received a forwarded e-mail today, entitled "History" and subtitled "A California Lawyer's Perspective on Iraq War." I enjoy forwarded e-mails, by and large, and I thought I would share a bit of this one with my readership. I can't paste in the whole thing, because it's terribly long and there wouldn't be any room left for my own commentary.

The basic thesis amounts to this: Islam is having both an Inquisition and a Reformation right now. If the Inquisition wins, Jihadists will try to take over the world and we will have to stop them. If the Reformation wins, all trouble in the Middle East will go away. Our war in Iraq is the best chance the world has to help the Islamic Reformation win, and if we succeed in Iraq, they will win.

Plus, our only choices regarding how to handle "the Jihad" are [various choices], and the only one of those that's any good involves doing exactly what we are doing. Additionally, all you nay-sayers are wrong about the war because [various reasons]. And furthermore, you pathetic people who are complaining about [time, money, casualties] are retarded because [insert war here] was much larger and more costly, and you didn't hear our ancestors complain.

And now, a few highlights (as I feel led):

Regarding our entry into World War II after Pearl Harbor, the author (whose name happens to be Raymond Kraft) says, "It was a dicey thing. We had few allies."

Well, I suppose that's true depending on your definition of few. After all, we only had the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, China, France, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, India, and . . . a few others. These few, small countries against the combined might of enormous land masses like Japan (not to mention Germany and Italy). Now, this is something of a minor point to quibble with, I realize, but I include merely to illustrate the general tone of the entire piece. Our California lawyer friend plays fast and loose with adjectives and figures, and especially dates, in order to manipulate the audience. Moving on . . .

Now, one thing I always love to see whenever conservatives begin to hotly defend our outrageous actions in Iraq is the idea that we went there for the express purpose of [insert purpose that has nothing whatever to do with weapons of mass destruction here]. In this case, the author makes the incredible claim that we chose Iraq as our Middle East battlefield against the Jihad. Hmmm . . . I think the next battlefield of our choosing should be the Grand Cayman Islands. That sounds fun. Because remember, wherever we start fighting, terrorists will flock there to oppose us, and we can crush them all with one blow.

Furthermore, he states that, "It was our intention from the beginning to do just enough to enable the Iraqis to develop a representative government and their own military and police forces to provide their own security, and that is happening." Funny thing about our intention from the beginning . . . it keeps changing. Nowhere in the entire piece does the author cite our actual intention, which (of course) was a frantic hunt for nonexistent WMD. I have noted that conservatives these days take two approaches to WMD in Iraq. They are either in a state of denial, clamoring that they have to be there, somewhere (although even Dubya has given that up by now), or they just pretend that the entire intelligence fiasco never happened at all and our reasons for going in were entirely different, as in this case.

The piece really gets good, though, when Kraft starts trying to do history, attempting to show us how minor and short-term our sacrifices in Iraq are in comparison to other wars, and so forth. The dates fly thick and fast here:

Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany . . . World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a 'whimper' in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 - a 17 year war - and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again . . . a 27 year war.

Let's see . . . Napoleon came to power at the very end of 1804, was defeated at Waterloo in 1815, and spent nearly a year in-between in exile on Elba. If you're lucky, you can squeeze a 10-year "War on Napoleon" (if you will) out of that, but considering the dude was dead by 1821 . . . Well, I guess that in the grand cosmic scheme of things, ten years is approximately half of a century. Whatever.

Speaking of exaggerations, consider what he calls a 75-year war between Germany and the rest of Europe (1870-1945). I presume he is referring to the three wars Germany fought in Europe during that period: The Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), World War I (1914-1918), and World War II (1939-1945). That's eleven years of warfare out of seventy-five . . . A number far smaller than the United States has spent at war since 1941, whether you count the Cold War or not. That's hardly what you'd call a constant conflict.

Furthermore, his entire characterization of World War II is grossly inaccurate. I have never in my life seen anyone seriously place the beginning of World War II at the Japanese invasion of China in 1928. You might just as well place it with the Battle of Hastings (1066), citing the fact that somewhere in the world, someone was fighting someone else during that entire time. And experts agree that, once one side of combatants surrenders to the other side and all the peace treaties are signed, the war is over. Tacking the ten extra years of American occupation onto the end of World War II is kind of cheating . . .

And I have to say, the thought of those "Japanese Nazis" with their goosestepping and aspirations of building the master Aryan race just chills my blood. What was it they called themselves? The House of the Rising Swastika?

I have to ask, if Kraft can't get simple numbers right, and feels the need to exaggerate things that are easily refuted, what makes anyone think he's right about anything else? And, sure enough, he doesn't just get numbers wrong. He's also hopelessly confused about ideologies.

"In the 20th century, it was Western democracy vs. communism, and before that Western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western democracy vs. German Imperialism."

Funny thing about a few of those . . . World War I was really more a case of German Imperialism vs. Everyone Else's Imperialism, in point of fact. And if we're going to be strictly accurate, the progression was Western democracy and communism vs. Nazism/Fascism, then Western democracy vs. communism. Let's not forget who was on which side when.

There are just a few more things that I wanted to point out at random before I wrap up . . . It's difficult to give an orderly response to something that is long, chaotic, and wrong on so many levels. Kraft's ideas about "the Jihad" are obviously severely distorted, given that he seems to think it refers to a single, coherent body of extremists who are organized and rallied behind the same banner, with the same goals, etc. He repeatedly says things like, "We can surrender to the Jihad" and "If the Jihad wins" and so forth. Of course that is absurd.

Let's say I want to surrender to "terrorism" . . . where would I go and with whom would I sign a treaty? Let's say that "terrorism" wins . . . Who is that, exactly? Who is the victor, and what are they doing? The entire idea of Islamic terrorism being considered as a single entity called "the Jihad" is simply ludicrous, and (as I said), demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the situation. In other words, it's no wonder this guy supports the war in Iraq as vital to defeating terrorists . . . he's an ignoramus who hasn't the foggiest idea what's going on over there.

To further demonstrate the absurdity of the whole idea, my friend Jonathan Wilson wrote the following document, which I found rather amusing (click to enlarge):

Anyway, one final thought before I lay the thing to rest. Kraft encouraged readers to pass his work along to students because apparently we don't know anything about history, and lack perspective and stuff, thanks to our liberal educations. Having read everything he had to say, I felt it would be wrong to just let it slide by. Near the end, Kraft says the following:

We can be defeatist peace-activists as anti-war types seem to be, and concede, surrender, to the Jihad, or we can do whatever it takes to win this war against them. The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win. Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

Yes, we pacifists are a sorry lot . . . never seem to get far, do we? Consider, for instance, the early Christians, foolishly refusing to fight back against the persecution of the Roman Empire. If memory serves, their movement was entirely stamped out by . . . oh, about 313 AD or so, and they were never heard from again. So much for passive resistance. I'm sure by now you're thinking of examples yourself . . . What about the Mennonites vs. the Nazis and, later, the communists? Who lasted longer there? Ghandi and the British Empire? Martin Luther King, Jr. and the KKK?

Conservative Christians confuse me so much sometimes . . .

Close Encounters of the Shallow Kind

So, I was in the mall eating lunch with Rachel today and we happened to notice a fairly large gathering of people in the central plaza. Wandering over to get a closer look, we happened upon a twisted and sickening sight: Dozens of small girls between the ages of about 6 months and 5 years dolled up in bows and frilly dresses and being paraded on a stage by their mothers as part of what was apparently an infant beauty contest.

A number of words and phrases came to mind at this point, things like shallow, irresponsible, bad parenting, and self-esteem death. There were babies who couldn't even walk, and little 'uns who could walk but obviously had no idea what was going, all being paraded about like mantlepiece ornaments.

However, I believe the scariest one of all was a small girl who couldn't have been older than five. She stepped confidently onto the stage, face completely straight, and sauntered across to the center. Turning to face the audience, she placed first one hand on her hip, then another, shifting her weight in the appropriate direction. There was nothing innocent or childlike in her movements at all. Nothing but her size differentiated her from adult beauty contestants that I've seen on TV. She was all business.

What's she going to be like by the time she hits 12? 15? 18? What about the other girls? How will they turn out, being raised by mothers who are already shoving them onto the modeling stage? The entire display was simply depressing.

Me = Disgusted

The Partisan Menace: A Rabbit Trail

This is the last week of guided reading and response for Intellectual History because, frankly, we've run out of history to discuss. Well, that and the fact that we have the next month to produce a 20-25 page paper on our topic of choice. With that in mind, the discussion this week was more than a bit fragmented. I, for one, had my mind on a few hundred other things, few of which had anything to do with intellectual history, but we muddled through nonetheless.

As we talked over the the emerging oppositions between Liberals and Conservatives following World War II and growing into the divisive partisan politics of the present day, I remembered a few things in particular which struck me from the reading. I come from a staunchly conservative background, but extremes make me nervous and I prefer to approach issues from a more moderate perspective. Striving after balance, I often pull farther left than I would otherwise go when I am confronted with a narrow-minded, one-sided view from the right. I haven't yet had the chance to see whether I can swing the other way, too.

And speaking of such views, most people I know (on the Right) seem to have a very strange view of what it means to be Left. My understanding of it is almost always different from their understanding. The following excerpt from a piece published in 1960 not only sums up my view of the difference between the sides very neatly, but goes on to discuss (using issues of the times) the basic problems with the Right's criticism of the Left.

The Right, among other things, means — what you are doing, celebrating society as it is, a going concern. Left means, or ought to mean, just the opposite. It means: structural criticism and reportage and theories of society, which at some point or another are focussed politically as demands and programmes. These criticisms, demands, theories, programmes are guided morally by the humanist and secular ideals of Western civilisation — above all, reason and freedom and justice. To be “Left” means to connect up cultural with political criticism, and both with demands and programmes. And it means all this inside every country of the world.

Only one more point of definition: absence of public issues there may be, but this is not due to any absence of problems or of contradictions, antagonistic and otherwise. Impersonal and structural changes have not eliminated problems or issues. Their absence from many discussions — that is an ideological condition, regulated in the first place by whether or not intellectuals detect and state problems as potential issues for probable publics, and as troubles for a variety of individuals. One indispensable means of such work on these central tasks is what can only be described as ideological analysis. To be actively Left, among other things, is to carry on just such analysis.

To take seriously the problem of the need for a political orientation is not of course to seek for A Fanatical and Apocalyptic Lever of Change, for Dogmatic Ideology, for A Startling New Rhetoric, for Treacherous Abstractions — and all the other bogeymen of the dead-enders. These are of course “the extremes,” the straw-men, the red herrings, used by our political enemies as the polar oposite of where they think they stand.

They tell us, for example, that ordinary men can’t always be political “heroes.” Who said they could? But keep looking around you and why not search out the conditions of such heroism as men do and might display? They tell us we are too “impatient,” that our “pretentious” theories are not well enough grounded. That is true, but neither are they trivial; why don’t they get to work, refuting or grounding them? They tell us we “don’t really understand” Russia — and China — today. That is true; we don’t; neither do they; we are studying it. They tell us we are “ominous” in our formulations. That is true; we do have enough imagination to be frightened = and we don’t have to hide it: we are not afraid we'll panic. They tell us we “are grinding axes.” Of course we are: we do have, among other points of view, morally grounded ones; and we are aware of them. They tell us, in their wisdom, we don’t understand that The Struggle is Without End. True: we want to change its form, its focus, its object.

To summarize: Conservatism = "What we have done in the past is good. Society should either remain this way because it's working, or (as the case may be) return to an earlier state because that worked better." It's all about moving backward in order to move forward. Conservatives tend to idealize the pas