MARK'S REMARKS

from great expectations to bleak assumptions

2010-02-06T11:14:00.003-06:00

ABC News reported this week that President Barack Obama’s budget contains bleak assumptions about the continued future joblessness rate of the United States of America to which he brought so much hope a little over a year ago. Pres. Obama doesn’t think the unemployment rate will return to its relatively low 2007 level (the first year of the Democratic Congress) within the next decade. It is expected to remain at the 10 percent level through 2010. (This means the Democrats can expect a big hurt in November. Americans can handle a lot of things, but the feeling of uselessness that comes with being unemployed is not one of them. The Democrats may be about to get screwed by their own liberal rhetoric about self-esteem. But I digress.) great expectations All this lowering expectations and bleak forecasting inspired me to go back and dig up Pres. Obama’s acceptance speech from the night of Nov. 4, 2008. It’s very interesting, if not a little heartbreaking, to reread. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” -- Where are the possibilities? Where is the dream of the founders? I know way too many people whose possibilities are much fewer and farther between now than they were on Nov.4, 2008. Was this the president’s dream? To have a nation filled with people who have simply given up the chance to find work because those normally in a position to employ are too gripped with fear to risk their capital? “It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.” -- When has there ever been a greater sense of cynicism, fear, and doubt in the United States of America than right now? Is anyone in this country really confident that he will not lose his job as a result of this recession? Is there anyone who is hopeful about where this country is going? Ask any liberal Democrat what it was that drove 52 percent of voters in Massachusetts to vote a Republican into “Ted Kennedy’s seat” and I imagine you’ll hear something like cynicism, fear, and doubt. Only now, it’s cynicism, fear and doubt about Washington – and yes, the man who runs it. “…above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.” -- Most people, I would wager, could care less about whatever victory or defeat belongs to them so long as they have a job. And it’s precisely a job that does not belong to too many people these days. “There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.” – Finally he mentions jobs, but in what context? Right after the “new energy” – meaning so-called “green” energy – that he wants to harness. For Obama, it’s not just about clearing the way so you can have the job you want, or even so you can have any job (as most people these days who don’t have a job would pretty much take whatever offer they could get). It’s about Obama commanding and controlling the energy market and you into the kind of job that he wants you to have. “Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.” – But what have we been hearing about in the press and from the Administration itself for months now? Talk of a “jobless recovery,” which is defined by what Pres. Obama described. It’s downright prophetic. Stocks and economic indicators are going up, but ordinary people still don’t have work. I would suggest that a “jobless recovery” is no recovery at all. the hardest hit It turns out that the hardest hit sectors of the economic downturn, the ones still losing jobs, have been in construction, transportation and warehousing. Not too surprising. If I’m an investor, why would I want to risk my capital on a new building when the President of the United States is publicly supporting a bill to clamp down on emissions for stationary as well as mobile sources, and the Environmental Protection Agency has decided it wants to regulate carbon? This country thrived for years on the strength of its manufacturing sector. We built things that you can hold and sit on and use and drive around in. But these now are sacrificed to – to what? Limit our carbon output that actually turns out to be good for trees? The average duration of unemployment has hit a new record in January. The average unemployed worker has now been unemployed for 30.2 weeks. There are over 6 million Americans who have been unemployed for over 27 weeks. The preseident campaigned on hope. Today, it seems like all too many are living on hope against hope.

proof that i am a geek

2010-02-02T00:02:00.003-06:00

proof that i am a geek This past Sunday I bought a brand-spanking new, totally kickass laptop. It's got a 13.3-inch screen, which means it is just barely bigger than one of those "netbooks" that Derek Zoolander would probably love, yet as powerful as an actual laptop. It's extremely light weight, at less than four pounds, and it runs quite beautifully. But what am I most excited about with my brand-spanking new toy? Is it the really fast internet? The great Windows 7 interface? The easiest portability that I've ever enjoyed with a personal computer? The gobs of memory? Nope. What am I most excited about? Two words: Chess Titans. If you click on the "Start" menu, then "All Programs," then "Games," you will find a list of the classics: Solitaire, Minesweeper etc. But also on the list is a game not included in my old laptop (which now serves as my desktop). Chess Titans is basically chess, with solid graphics and an interface that includes statistics to record how well or poorly you've done (wins, losses, and draws). But there were a couple of problems I had with the game that infuriated me when I first started playing it. On the good side, the game has flexible levels of difficulty. You can set it on a scale of 1 to 10 -- 10 being "You must be Bobby Fischer" and 1 being "Just how badly do you suck at this game?" So I thought I'd go easy on myself and set it to 2, knowing that computers are notoriously evil chess players. Ask me how well I did. Yeah, the computer beat the TAR out of me. I whipped out my time-honored, unbeatable strategy to ensure the annihilation of my opponent (which, obviously, I will not articulate here), and the computer revealed to me that it's actually pretty dumb. Thanks PC! After a couple of embarrassing fails, I decided I was more interested in the experience of victory than in actually being good enough to deserve it. I set the difficulty level to 1. I was overjoyed to find that setting the difficulty level to 1 actually renders the computer quite inept. I laid waste to the PC king's defenses with relative ease and only moderate damage to my own army. The PC's queen would, in a most strategically indefensible fashion, place herself in direct harm's way, allowing my rook to pounce. My pawns would cross the board and become new queens. Before long the PC's king would be all alone, on the run from a rook and two queens. We would back him just about into a corner, I could smell victory! And then, a little window popped up, offering me the option to "End Game" or "Try Again." "Umm," I said, "I think I'd prefer to just kill the king and be done with it, if it's all the same." Puzzled, I read the little blurb below the strange draconian choice. "This game will be counted as a draw in your statistics." Que? Say what?? A DRAW?!? I've got the PC's king peeing all over himself. Another move and he'll be begging for death! What is this bulloney? I tried playing again. Once was frustrating enough. Three more times decimating the king's army and being cut off from sweet ultimate triumph by my computerized opponent, and I was about to do something very fiscally irresponsible with my new investment. But instead of chunking my precious new toy over the side of my loft, I decided to google "chess titans checkmate." Sure enough, I found an entry called, "Chess Titans: The Cheating Computer." Naturally I clicked on it. And I proceeded to learn something that I never knew about the game of chess. Turns out, the computer was not cheating. The games really were ending in a draw, even though the PC's king was running for his pathetic life and my army remained strong and my king untouchable. How is this possible? Well, it turns out, if you get your opponent's king into a situation where he is not presently in check, but any move he makes will result in his being in check, then the game is a draw. End of story. In order to keep the game going, you have to actually put the king in check when you move your piece, OR you have to give him some space to which he can move without checing himself. Did you know this? Cuz I sure didn't know this. I always thought if you get the king in a spot where he couldn't go anywhere without putting himself in immediate harm's way, that was checkmate. But what do I know. I play the easiest skill level of chess the computer will allow. The computer is basically saying, "Ordinarily I would smash you. But because you have asked me to be an idiot, I will pretend that I cannot (and will not at this very moment) think 3,000 steps ahead of you, calculating every best possible move I can make in response to every incompetent move you can squeeze out of that pathetic cerebrum of yours. I will even condescend to let you to systematically take my pieces and send my King running for his life. You're welcome."

spending gentle breeze

2010-01-31T15:52:00.004-06:00

I’ve recently taken a liking to looking at poll data, questionable though they may be. If nothing else it’s a large collection of opinions. My favorite is Rasmussen. A recent one shows that 61 percent of those surveyed say Congress is doing a poor job. The same percentage think that Congress should drop healthcare and focus on jobs. Obama made a big deal last year over the fact that thousands of Americans were losing their health insurance every day. May have been true, but most of the time it was because they were losing their jobs. If what Democrats want is for people to be able to have access to healthcare, then the best way to do that is by doing what must be done on their end to create jobs. I agree that Congress should “focus on job creation” – but not in the same sense as Congress “focused” on providing universal health coverage. The command and control approach clearly scares people. If Congress wants to create more jobs, it needs to allow private sector people the prosperity to do it. That means tax cuts and less spending. Will the president actually do any of that? Well, Obama recently said he would implement a spending “freeze.” That sounds nice, like a lot of what Obama says. But another recent poll from Rasmussen shows that only 9 percent of Americans surveyed think that Obama’s spending freeze will actually have a significant impact on the national deficit, which stands to put each individual American somewhere around $40,000 in debt. Good thing I don’t have any student loans to pay off. Maybe American’s skepticism stems from the fact that Obama’s “freeze” is only about $250 billion to address a $13-or-so-TRILLION problem. I’m not sure you could really call it a spending “freeze.” I’d more likely call it Obama’s spending gentle breeze.

"listening to God"

2010-01-11T09:51:00.000-06:00

Just now on Facebook a friend of mine, "CFL," posted this:

[CFL] still doesn't understand "listening to God." How do you know what your thought is and what is God inspired? I don't get it. Help!

I asked that exact question to a Dominican priest while I was in a Catholic seminary in Fall 2006. He responded by saying, [paraphrasing here] "I would guess on the Meyers-Briggs test you're more of an either-or thinker than a both-and thinker. You're wondering if it's you or if it's God. What if it's both?" I sat in stunned silence for a moment, and he said, "I just messed you up didn't I?" Just because something is your thought doesn't mean God hasn't inspired it. "His ways are not our ways" does not mean that what we want and what He wants for us are never going to coincide. It rather means that we often want to take shortcuts around our obligations to love God and one another. But that is an entirely different issue. If what you hear when you "listen" is not calling you to take some kind of shortcut, is not calling you to do something we understand to be sinful, then stop worrying and just go with it. God places desires in our hearts for a reason. He also gave us free will for a reason. He speaks to us through the desires of our hearts. Unless God sends Gabriel down to annunciate something to you, it just is not going to get any clearer than that.

Jesus and movies

2009-12-22T23:26:00.003-06:00

I love movies. I particularly love movies with lots of twists -- where you expect the story to go one way and it goes another. When nothing is as it seems. When you expect a character to be a bad guy and he turns out to be good. Or you expect him to be weak and he turns out to be strong. Or you expect him to be dead and he turns out to be alive. Generally, predictable is boring. I prefer the unexpected. The life of Jesus Christ is like the best kind of movie in that sense. It is an exercise in the unexpected -- a marathon of irony. Consider, for now, His birth. Based on coming attractions, brought to them for centuries by the prophets, the Israelites knew that the Messiah was "coming" -- maybe not "soon" but at some point. Based on the teaser trailers and on whatever spoiler information they could find, they knew that the one to come would be a King, and that His glorious coming would bring freedom to the House of Israel, once and for all. So we go in expecting all the flash and pomp of royalty. After all, that's how they rolled in ancient Rome, where there was no God but Caesar. Royalty was big, rich, political, fashionable, flashy, and elite. It was also predictable. It was also boring. But it was what we all expected. And what did we get? A feeding trough. Instead of a throne, a manger -- a receptacle into which feed is poured for farm animals. The instant Jesus enters the world, nothing is as it seems. Caesar, the imperial government leader hailed as "Savior of the World" and "Son of God," is now just a mere mortal, as much in need of salvation as the next guy. His gilded throne is worthless. The feeding trough is transubstantiated into the true vessel of royalty. It's nothing like we expected. We expected a red carpet, paparazzi, a sycophantic mob, dignitaries and heads of state elbowing each other to shake the hand of the Big Man on Campus, the King of Kings, the Buddy Christ, as he descended from the clouds for his grand entrance. But there was no room for Him. Not back then, not in the inn, not anywhere in Bethlehem except a cave surrounded by drooling, hay-eating quadrupeds. Is there room for Him today? Is there room for him in Hollywood? New York City? Washington D.C.? Is there room for Him in the hearts of regular ordinary people? Is there room for Him in my heart? Is there room for Him in the hearts of sinners? In the hearts of the morally assured and upright? Things are not always what they seem. The answer is not always what we expect. "Hope" isn't always the real thing. What's popular isn't always praiseworthy. The powerful don't always deserve it. Two millennia ago a child was born in the least dignified, least royal, least popular, least hopeful of circumstances. He was the last person we would expect to save the world, and He would do it in a way we could never imagine much less guess when the screen first lights up. Because what do we see when the screen first lights up? A feeding trough. With a little boy sleeping inside it. He may look small, but He's anything but helpless. And He may seem quiet and peaceful, but the last thing He will ever be -- is boring. Merry Christmas, everyone!

happiness and politics

2009-12-22T15:10:00.001-06:00

Not only are state officials seeking to satisfy the collective social conscience despite protests, they seem determined to even pursue happiness on our behalf, and on behalf of those less fortunate than we (the uninsured), by expert central-planners who decide how to best use other individuals’ property. “Happiness” – in the form of a health insurance plan. Yes of course. I’ve never known a single happy person who did not have some form of health coverage. That of course is a joke (or at least a bad attempt at one). On the other hand, in all seriousness, I have known a few unhappy people, many of whom had coverage plans for health, life, death and dismemberment, and other such things. This is not to say that insurance is not necessary, only that it will not precipitate happiness. But again – people know this. That’s why medical insurance coverage has been reframed as a “right” rather than a personal, individual responsibility. A “right” for one means a responsibility for others. Usually the responsibility is a negative one. A right to life means a responsibility for others to refrain from killing. A right to free speech means a responsibility for others not to impose silence (it does not oblige others to provide an audience and a microphone). But a “right” to medical coverage is different – in that it imposes on others a positive responsibility: to provide and to pay for medical care. Put another way, one person’s matter of happiness is made another person’s matter of conscience. Someone may counter that, while a health plan may not in itself precipitate happiness, not having a health plan may make one even less happy. Health coverage may not be the key to happiness, but it may be a necessary precondition. One may also counter that if material goods are so immaterial to one’s happiness, then sacrificing some portion of them in order to give all persons health coverage should not make one less happy. To the first, I would say that many will in fact lose their existing health plans in lieu of a new, and likely inferior, government one. Even if access to medical care is a necessary precondition to happiness, government-supplied access is not. What is a clearly necessary precondition to the pursuit of happiness is liberty. This leads to the second counter, which, yes, may also be true – in so far as one freely chooses to sacrifice a portion of one’s material goods, like Scrooge. No end is so righteous that the free choice itself can be rightly sacrificed. The benefactor is losing not only his property, but also the choice as to whether he may keep it. Without his material property, he may yet be happy. Without the freedom to choose how to use his property, for the building of God’s Kingdom, he may be quite unhappy. Most reasonable, thinking people understand this. The only way to persuade someone to give up his freedom regardless is to convince him that whatever happiness he would have by retaining it would be overpowered by his sense of guilt at not having met the requirements of his conscience. In other words, supporters of centrally-planned, freedom-dissolving medical care reform must appeal to conscience. They have no choice but to take on a morally superior air. Arguing that the willful surrender of one’s freedom, to an end so clearly fictional, will make us happy is simply too ridiculous.

conscience and politics

2009-12-21T14:34:00.002-06:00

It's my belief that if I am trying to persuade my friend to do a certain thing, I stand a much better chance of convincing him if I appeal to his happiness rather than his conscience. That doesn't mean my friend is selfish, it just means he is put off by people who have an air of moral superiority. So am I. And the beauty of appealing to his happiness rather than his conscience is that the two are by nature connected. It is at least in part by doing what is right and never doing what is evil – for ourselves and for our loved ones – that we find happiness. If something is moral, it should in some way, however remote it may seem, facilitate our happiness. What I can’t help noticing is that no proponent of government-run medical care that I have encountered has even tried to make the claim that the medical overhaul sometimes called “Obamacare” will help facilitate my individual pursuit of happiness – a pursuit to which I am entitled by my Creator – much less the practice of personal liberty to which I am also entitled by the Same. (In a way, this observation is almost too obvious to make. Clearly, the ethos behind such a massive distribution of wealth for a “universal” benefit has nothing to do with any individual’s pursuit of happiness, per se. It is a collectivist, social-ist initiative by definition.) No, the appeal has been entirely to “conscience” – a term I hesitate to use because a conscience properly ordered will not trigger feelings of guilt for refusing to support massive, government-run medical care. What we are told is: We will all have to suffer. We will have to sacrifice – sacrifice money in the form of taxes, liberties in the form of choice (either between coverage plans or whether to be covered at all). And since a person cannot pursue happiness when his or her liberty is constricted in such a fashion by authoritarian mandates, we will all have to sacrifice some of our happiness – even our ability to pursue it. After all, how could we skeptics so selfishly insist on retaining our liberty and our property against such a worthy cause as supplying aid to those less fortunate? And in the thick of the Christmas season no less? Such inquiries are no doubt sincere, at least usually. Certainly Ebenezer Scrooge himself was shirking a duty to his neighbor and acting and speaking callously of the have-nots. And clearly he satisfied not only his conscience but his desire for happiness by taking on a more giving spirit on Christmas Day. But Scrooge's was a freely giving spirit – not a state-mandated one. Further, he imposed costs on nobody other than himself. All individuals, like the Christmas Day Scrooge, must embrace our obligations to give freely of what we ourselves posses. In doing so, we find happiness. There is no Divine mandate to generously give of what is not rightly our own, which means doing so will satisfy no one's conscience, and bring misery, not happiness. The nationwide ruckus over the proposed and soon to be voted on reforms are fueled by that principle – that state officials are neither qualified nor permitted by the Creator to satisfy other people's consciences with other people's resources.

phone solicitor

2009-12-16T22:38:00.005-06:00

Got a call at work today.

Lady on phone from 212 area code: "Hi may I speak to the owner or manager of the business?" Me: "Uh he's not in right now. May I ask who's calling?" Lady on phone from 212 area code: "This is [nondescript phone solicitor organization] calling because we would like to offer you some quotes on our health insurance policy. Do you have one?" Me: "Uh I don't think I'm going to have time to answer all your questions, ma'am." Lady on phone from 212 area code: "That's all right sir, I just need to know if you purchase your own health insurance." Me: "Um, actually no you don't NEED to know if I pay for my own health insurance." Lady on phone from 212 area code: "All right well you have a nice day sir." Me: "Thanks, you too."

I tried my best to be polite and straightforward at the same time.

passion

2009-12-13T10:43:00.005-06:00

“Life without passion is unforgivable.” – Sean John

I saw this quote and attribution in a cologne advertisement, “Unforgivable” from Sean John “Puff Daddy” “P-Diddy” “etc.” Combs, while looking for Christmas presents at the mall with my fiancé. I never know if I’m going to actually find anything worth buying for myself or a loved one when I go to the mall, but I can almost always count on observing something that borders on ridiculous. This cologne ad crossed the border. It’s the Puff Daddy himself, wearing a black shirt and a bling cross around his neck, staring at the camera while draped longingly around him are two of his, er, lady friends. Anyway I thought it ironic because I would hazard that Mr. Combs is more correct than he realizes when he says life ought not to be lived without “passion.” The classical, Christian understanding of the word passion comes from the Latin verb “passio,” which means “suffer.” If a man is passionate about human liberty, it means he is willing to suffer defamation, physical harm or even death in his defense of it. If someone is passionate about virtue, it means he is willing to forgo and sacrifice lesser goods in his practice of it. To be passionate about a person is to be willing to suffer and sacrifice for his or her wellbeing above one’s own. The irony is that this is precisely the kind of “passion” that we so often try to avoid today. We run to other things to avoid this real passion. Sometimes people may run to fake passion – the kind advertised in Mr. Combs’ cologne ad. Is life without that kind of passion really unforgivable? Yes, but only because there is nothing to forgive. Life without fake passion isn’t forgivable or unforgivable. It’s commendable. It’s life without real passion that, at the end of the day, most of us could not forgive ourselves for. Because real passion is what happens when you really love someone. To love someone is to hurt with them when they are hurting. To allow ourselves to hurt and to be hurt. There is nothing fake, for example, about the Passion of the Christ. Fake passion is what happens when we fake love someone. We take only the good that someone can offer us, and abandon them in their pain and their weakness. For better, but not worse. For richer, not poorer. In health, not in sickness. Refusing to really love makes it impossible to really be loved, to really receive love. All because we didn’t want to hurt, or be hurt. Until one day we look back and realize that if we had it all to do again, we would gladly suffer and sacrifice anything and everything – especially fake passion – if only we could know what it’s like to love and be loved by someone. Nothing is unforgivable for God. He can and will forgive us for anything provided we are really sorry. The question is whether we could forgive ourselves once we realize we’ve lived a mostly fake life because we’re afraid of the hurt that comes with living a real one.

answers

2009-12-08T23:13:00.005-06:00

The desire for answers is a very human one. And it is natural and not at all uncommon to want the answers "now." My whole life I have searched for the answers, and wanted them now. At every step along the way, I wanted to know where the path was leading. What I see so clearly now is how necessary it was for me to be kept in the dark – not forever, but for a time. I could not have known everything at once. None of us can. God must parcel the answers slowly out to us. I now have in my life something I have so long desired. Something I wanted to ask God for but was afraid to. If at any point before the moment when it finally happened God had revealed to me what He was up to, or if I had tried to figure Him or His plan out, I imagine that I would have found some way, despite my best intentions, to sabotage it. So instead of demanding all the answers immediately, I stopped trying to figure things out. I let the desires of my heart lead me to where God wanted me to go. We should never stop asking God for answers, as He is the only one who can ultimately give them to us. But we should always remember that when we ask Him a burning question about where the path is heading, and He is silent, it is probably because He is up to something. Something wonderful.

it's about jobs

2009-11-05T07:14:00.005-06:00

There's a piece at MSNBC today about how Congress is trying to push through unemployment insurance extensions. It begins with a story of an unfortunate lady, Carolyn Johansen from Virginia, who has burned through all her benefits and now serves as a horror story for the job-seeking.

After losing her job last October, Johansen figures she’s applied for over 300 jobs, but can’t find anything, not even seasonal work for the holidays. A single mom with a master’s degree and a career as a librarian, she applied for work at Blockbuster this week but couldn’t get an interview.

Now wait a minute. You mean to tell me that we've spent $787 billion on the biggest taxpayer-funded economic so-called "stimulus" in human history and a librarian with a master's degree can't get a job? Where did all our money go? To raise some people's salaries and call it a "job saved"? This is ludicrous. And what's next? An $1.5 trillion healthcare bill? Is Cheryl Johansen going to be shot outta luck there too? But I digress. The White House has started playing the game of measuring how those mountains of cash have helped to stimulate the economy, and it is not just the right-wingers who are saying it: what we are getting is a jobless recovery. Stocks are going back up, but the people don't have jobs. Which means the money's out there, but not very many people seem to be enjoying it. So much for "spreading the wealth around." This is why conservatives eye things like unemployment benefit extensions with great suspicion. The government has done a demonstrably terrible job of getting money to the people (the very people it took the money from via taxes in the first place). Why would we want to give the government suits more authority to take more money? What reason do we have to think, based on their track record, that they will redistribute it fairly and equitably? Why not keep the money in the pockets of ordinary local citizens and see how skilled they are at spreading their own wealth around, by doing things like hiring people, and charitably giving? (The short answer is Government projects onto its constituents the most defining characteristic of itself: greed.) And now the Democrats, in the wake of Tuesday night's elections, are debating whether to focus on job creation instead of Barack Obama's far-reaching let-me-do-everything-for-you-because-I-can-do-it-better-than-you agenda. What I want to know is how many private sector, non-bureaucratic jobs have been created by the "stimulus." Because that's where the growth is going to happen. Otherwise it's robbing Peter to pay Paul. And "Peter" in this case is the next few generations of U.S. citizens. "Paul" is ... I don't even know who Paul is. It sure ain't Carolyn Johansen.

competition

2009-11-04T22:01:00.006-06:00

John Stossel has written an opinion on "The Double Standard About Journalists' Bias," in which he states:

Market forces, even when hampered by government, keep scammers in check. Reputation matters. Word gets out. Good companies thrive, and bad ones atrophy. Regulation barely deters the cheaters, but competition does.

He recalls how at the start of his journalistic career he made a living reporting that a) some businesses were doing shady things, and b) the government should do something about it. He still supports doing the former, but the latter not so much. Gradually he discovered that consumers tend to be just as capable of regulating the market with their wallets as the government is of regulating it with their laws. In fact, the consumers tend to be more effective and avoid the unintended consequences of regulation. Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation published an essay on "Why Government Control of Bank Salaries Will Hurt, Not Help, the Economy."

A government "pay czar" now sets salaries at many large American banks. The Obama Administration has proposed legislation to extend similar controls to the entire financial services industry. Apparently impatient with the legislative process, the Federal Reserve Board announced plans to regulate bank pay under existing safety and soundness rules, extending even to low-level employees.

There seems to be a lot of impatience with the legislative process these days. The premise is that bank compensation policies were a big factor in the recent financial crisis. In other words, leaving it up to private citizens who run companies to decide for themselves how much to pay the private citizens who work for them is the reason the market failed. Which of course means that these bosses can't be trusted with their own money. Which seems to mean, in the simplest terms, that they shouldn't be free. The essay continues:

Relying on this unproven supposition, regulators seek to mandate bank pay practices in order to reduce financial risk, most notably by limiting performance-based awards to restricted stock.

Rewarding someone for doing a particular job better than someone else? We can't have that! So says the federal government, to private citizens running private businesses. If you want to reward excellence in your company, too bad. It could lead to excess, and excess leads to ruin. Forget that the regulations will force executives to spread around the bonus awards blamed for the financial excess, rewarding below-median performances and limiting the incentives to perform above board. What's missed here is the spirit of competition. Competition means you work hard with the resources you have to overcome the odds and achieve success. That's competition, and it's what drives the American Free Market that has created the single most prosperous civilzation in the history of the human race. Are there still poor people in free market societies? Sure. But they are a) fewer and farther between, and b) less poor by comparison, than in any other economic scheme ever devised by man. The point is not that corporate fatcats should be canonized. The point is that bureaucratic mechanisms are not the best solutions to all of society's problems. The problem of financial excess for some and poverty for others can be addressed -- not perfectly, but more effectively than in any realizable alternative -- in an economic environment where people are free to make their own choices. If an executive at Wall Street Scumbags, Inc is charging customers an arm and a leg to pay his employees exorbitant bonuses to supply crappy products to the customers, then those customers can take their business elsewhere. In an environment where the government does not pick winners and losers, where it gets out of the way, competition will naturally emerge. It's not rocket science. It's just what Stossel is talking about. Competition forces the cheaters to play by the rules. Shooting himself in the foot Meanwhile, the Obama administration is claiming that 640,000 jobs have been saved or created so far by HR 1 (the $787 billion so-called "stimulus"). According to the Associated Press, the stimulus bean counters are counting a pay increase as a job saved. By that definition, the private sector "saves" hundreds of millions of jobs every year without the federal government's "help." But wait a minute, does this mean that the pay czar is actively working to prevent the "saving" of jobs in the financial sector? A cap in pay means a cap in raises. And a cap in raises means a cap on jobs saved. Obama is shooting himself in the foot.

remembering

2009-09-11T14:52:00.003-05:00

It was Tuesday. I was sitting at home studying for a journalism quiz at UT when my mom called and told me to turn on the TV. At first I only saw a burning concrete wall. Then the camera pulled back to reveal the whole picture. Then the second plane hit. Bewildered, I drove to the Cap Metro bus stop. The passengers were likewise all stunned. The driver told us that one of the towers was leaning. During the 30-minute bus ride to the UT campus, while some passengers shared rumors that they had heard, I and others just gazed out the window. It was a picturesque day. Not a cloud in the sky. The world didn't look, at least from Austin, Texas, all that different. It just was. When I got to my journalism class, we skipped the quiz and watched the events unfold on TV. The Pentagon had been hit as well. Tom Brokaw said America was "under siege." A tower collapsed. At the UT Student Union, where students usually either sat to eat and study, or got up to quickly leave for class, or stopped to socialize, today hundreds just stood, watching the screens. The other tower followed. All planes flying in U.S. air space were ordered to land immediately or risk being shot down. I went to daily Mass at the University Catholic Center. Fr. Bob said that the tragedy reminds us that "we need God." Arriving home that afternoon, I saw Shepard Smith on Fox News ask, "How the hell did this happen?" I saw that another plane was reported down somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, no survivors. I remember seeing what looked like a giant, charred, black hole in the ground, in the middle of a field. It was speculated to be another hijacked plane, intended to strike at another major U.S. icon, perhaps the White House or the Capitol building. Another tower in the World Trade Center, heavily damaged by the two that collapsed before it, fell to the ground. A reporter looking on from a few blocks away could be heard. "Oh my God. Oh my God." That night I watched a press conference with New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, flanked by the EMS, police and fire chiefs, each of whom had lost untold numbers of friends and colleagues earlier that day. The known casualties numbered in the hundreds among public servants and civilians, but were expected to total well into the thousands, Giuliani told reporters, perhaps even tens of thousands. Never Forget.

"inaction and inertia"

2009-07-22T15:26:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press reported yesterday that Barack Obama is defending his "relentless" push for a bill that aims to cover the 46 million or so medically uninsured United States citizens. Apparently he lamented that "the default in Washington is inaction and inertia." If we could be so lucky. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill including some fiscally moderate-to-conservative Democrats known as "Blue Dogs" are daring to ask the President to hang on just a minute while they consider whether it's possible to insure all those 46 million people without it costing the country 13 figures and causing the 250 million or so already-insured Americans to lose their private (and therefore inferior, of course) medical plans. pretty much now But Obama wants it done pretty much now. Just like he wanted the so-called "stimulus" done pretty much now. Pretty much now is a big thing for him. But true to the long tradition of populist demagogues, he reflects his insistence on action over thoughtful deliberation to the entire country. "And the deadline isn't being set by me," Obama was quoted in the AP story. "It's being set by the American people." A Washington Post-ABC News poll has found that for the first time support for Obama's universal health plan has dipped below 50 percent. So I wonder to which "American people" the president is referring. At any rate, since Obama first took an oath to faithfully execute the Constitution and laws of the United States, Washington has been anything but inactive and inert. And not everyone considers that Good News. government and anthropology Obama and those of like mind seem to proceed from the axiom that if they don't do this-or-that for the people, then the people will never ever do this-or-that for themselves. So by implication, the human person is lazy, or stupid, or both. That is generally the premise behind sweeping government action, that Washington knows best. A man's jurisprudential philosophy says something about his anthropological philosophy. Translation: what he believes about government tells us what he believes about the human person. If a man thinks the government has to do everything, like provide universal medical care, it's probably because he thinks the people cannot do anything for themselves absent bureaucratic machinery. In other words, he does not believe the human person, at his core, can be independent. On the other hand, if he believes the government need not and should not provide for every person's every little need, then he probably believes that people can rely on each other, by way of families, churches, businesses, banks, charities, etc -- to which people have been known to freely give and with which they have been known to freely bargain -- to do what they have to do to live happy, healthy, fulfilling lives. In other words, he believes the human person is, at his core, meant to be independent, i.e., free. the Great Supplier There is a long history of elected bureaucrats who considered government to be the Great Supplier of the people's every need -- physical, emotional, even spiritual. From such a perspective, "inaction and inertia" in government is a deadly sin. But if one believes that the needs of a person are satisfied in other spheres of life besides government (like religion, family, and business), then such inactivity may be sometimes inappropriate, sure, but sometimes very appropriate, and sometimes crucial. On the flipside, a relentless insistence on the constant activity of government can have a deadening effect on activity and vibrance in other spheres of life, like religion, family, and business. The more the government tries to satisfy appetites that people naturally quench at church and in the home and marketplace, the more those and other spheres of life besides government will atrophy. In other words, the more activity and vibrance we see in government, the more "inaction and inertia" we will find in the homes, churches, and businesses of this country. Who out there thinks we are more spiritual, more familial, and more entrepreneurial now than we were 20, 30, 50 years ago? Where would we rather find "inaction and inertia" -- Washington or our own backyards? utterly inept And in the meantime the government will all too often prove, by its nature, utterly inept at providing for people's needs that are naturally satisfied in these other areas -- food, education, shelter, and yes, medical care. Stanford economics professor Thomas Sowell put it brilliantly in his opinion piece yesterday.

None of the people who are trying to rush government-run medical care through Congress before we have time to think about it are pointing to Medicare, Medicaid or veterans' hospitals as shining examples of how wonderful we can expect government medical care to be when it becomes "universal."

I have heard it said about social issues, like abortion, that reformers (like pro-lifers) should work to change the hearts and minds of the people writ large before cramming through sweeping changes in law (which they can't do anyway until the Supreme Court dynamics change, if ever). Perhaps Obama should consider working to change the hearts and minds of Americans who find his vision of medical care horrifying. The risk of course would be that the more people come to understand his plan, and how much it will cost them, and their children, the more horrified they will be.

balls in a tree

2009-07-09T00:03:00.009-05:00

Tonight while playing sand volleyball with some friends, I got my football stuck up in a tree. I know, it's a lot to process in one sentence. Reread it if you have to. Yes, this did happen. It started when the opposing team sent the volleyball over the net and my girlfriend, who normally is MASTERFUL at the game of sand volleyball (picture me shaking head "no" when she isn't looking), flailed in a wild uncontrolled manner at the ball and sent it flying upward such that it peaked just above a high tree branch and fell comfortably and securely onto it. "I think I'll just rest up here a bit," the high quality volleyball said to the eight of us. Luckily I had my football in my truck. Now you see where this is going. I planted myself just beneath the high tree branch and channeling Peyton Manning threw the pigskin as hard as I could at the snoozing volleyball. My favorite ovular projectile shot several times up through the tree's many branches and into the sky like a ballistic missile, missing the cursed leather sphere by mere inches every single time. The volleyball just sat there, snoring away precious daylight. At one point I decided that I should stop letting her rip as hard as I could and try to just finesse it a little bit. So channeling Joe Montana I lofted a floater up towards the branch where the volleyball slept. And EUREKA! My pigskin actually made contact with the volleyball! But apparently I didn't put quite enough "umph" on my precious pigskin this time, as it just sort of wabbled upon making contact with the volleyball and then just decided to snuggle up with it. So between my girlfriend and myself, we managed to get two balls stuck up in a tree. They looked kinda cute up there, though, I must say. Anyway, thankfully, I, with the help of two fellow players (neither of whom was my girlfriend, who cheered us on), several rocks, a long strip of vinyl, and one big stick, managed to retrieve the balls and return each to its respective owner. The End.

pope: natural law essential for freedom

2008-12-05T15:19:00.009-06:00

I love whenever the Holy Father comes out with some statement because it gives me an excuse to wax philosophical. Pope Benedict XVI today addressed the importance of understanding natural law in a modern society that is more and more hesitant to make "judgments."

Referring in his remarks to a soon-to-be-approved draft document entitled "The search for universal ethics. A new look at natural law", the Holy Father pointed out "the urgent need, in the current situation of culture and of civil and political society, to create the conditions necessary to raise awareness of the indispensable value of natural moral law". "Natural law", he went on, "is the authentic guarantee everyone has to live free and respected in their dignity as human beings, and to feel they are defended from any form of ideological manipulation and all abuses perpetrated on the basis of the law of the strongest".

That "law of the strongest" reminds me of Benedict's "dictatorship of relativism," and I'm inclined to think that the two phrases could be used interchangeably. Ultimately there is no difference. I think no doctrine today poses a more serious threat to freedom than the intellectual error of relativism. It seems nice. Relativism seems laid back and unimposing. But by disposing of any moral fundament, relativism leaves the disenfranchised who live in a relativistic universe with no forum to address grievances when the powerful do them harm. If there is no moral law, then there is no social justice to seek after. The only legitimate way to vindicate one's desires in a relativist world is through the use of force. But the power of force is a gift given only to some and not to others. Relativism is, I think, ultimately the most popular modern excuse for people to not do what they know they must. I know I should step in and help this person who cannot speak for herself, but some might disagree. I might make enemies. And who am I to judge those who exploit her anyway? If they think she is lesser and not worthy of rights, who am I to tell them otherwise? When people are being exploited and disenfranchised, or even annihilated, and those who know what they must do don't do it, then the powerful win out. If there is no natural law, then force becomes the gravity to which all persons are bound. That's the law of the strongest. Relativism leads naturally to it. If relativism is true, for example, then there is nothing wrong with Iranian police arresting people for dressing like westerners. Simple freedoms like the kind we so obliviously enjoy in America depend, not on the dismissal of objective moral realities, but on the mutual understanding of a natural law that really safeguards our rights, even though we may not be able to fight for those rights ourselves. The natural law is the internal gravity that forces people to understand they have no excuse not to rock the boat, if they know that's what they have to do. The Holy Father is concerned that people are losing sight of that today. I don't blame him. Freedom without a moral compass is really just relativism. And that is no freedom at all. It is the opposite.

my BCS rant

2008-12-02T13:00:00.001-06:00

Three words: What a crock. Oh well, at least now I and my fellow Longhorn faithful no longer need have that awful taste in our mouths of actually wanting the University of Oklahoma to not suck, but only by a little bit. No, now is the perfect opportunity to hope for their bone-smashing, pride-crushing defeat. Why not? If they lose, it won't hurt our strength of schedule. After all, they would only be losing to another ranked opponent that we beat. So, destroy them, Tigers. Make the Sooners cry. Embarrass them. Make them wish they didn't get this far. Make them wish the pollsters had all come to their pea-sized senses and sent Bevo to the Big XII Championship Game instead. Take the big three teams in the Big XII -- Texas, OU, and Texas Tech. Who came the closest out of those three teams to beating both of the other teams? Not Tech. They came the closest to losing to both of their opponents and got spanked by the Sooners. Speaking of the Sooners, not them either. They spanked the Red Raiders, so thanks guys, but ahem, Texas beat OU. And it was clear that Texas won it by outlasting the Sooners. Both teams played great. But Texas just had more steam down the stretch. Texas did that to the Sooners, and then played two more well-ranked opponents, and beat both, before traveling to Lubbock to face the Red Raiders. Texas lost on, for all intents and purposes, the last play of the game. If they lost out on the National Title because of those final seconds of football then so be it, but in lieu of the Sooners, of all teams? I'm okay with Florida jumping us. That's a team we haven't played, and if we did, I think Texas'd beat them, but I can't say for sure. In the case of OU, I can not only say that they would. They did. Who was the only team out of those three to win a game against either of the other two outside of their home turf? Point of fact none of these three teams won a full-blown away game against either of the other two, but Texas came the closest, winning in Dallas against the team that is now going to the Big XII Championship game against the team that Texas beat the following week. Texas didn't get the pleasure of facing either of the other two teams at home. OU and Tech both did. The 2008 Texas Longhorns have pulled out an incredible season, playing with heart and passion that rivals what we all saw in 2005. In that season, it was expected from the beginning that they would make it all the way. They didn't get a chance to surpass expectations until they put the Trojans in their place and won the National Championship. This 2008 team has surpassed expectations since the beginning of the season, going through a four-week meat-grinder against top-11 teams and surviving the toughest division in the country with no more shameful blemish than a 6-point loss on a top-10 opponent's home turf. The shaft this team has gotten is borderline sinful. Eat my shorts, BCS.

pope considers change to liturgy

2008-11-22T08:26:00.002-06:00

Pope Benedict XVI is reportedly considering a change to the Catholic Mass. And it's not a huge retrogression*, Benedict-fearers. He's just thinking about moving the sign of peace further up in the liturgy. Francis Cardinal Arinze said the change "might help create a more solemn atmosphere as the faithful are preparing to receive communion," the Associate Press reported. I can see the rationale. I know whenever I'm at Mass, especially with friends, it's just a little awkward when the Eucharistic Jesus is up on the altar, we're getting ready to receive Communion, God Himself, into our mortal bodies -- and then all of a sudden it's like social hour for 30 seconds. Once epiclesis has taken place, it's better to keep our congregational eye on the ball, in my view. I won't be terribly vexed if the change doesn't happen, but I think it could be good. *I actually thought I was making a new word there, but turns out it actually exists. Ha.

evolution, empiricism, creationism, and theology

2008-11-22T07:39:00.000-06:00

I saw a story this morning about a scientist, Karl W. Giberson, who believes both in Christianity and in evolution, which is refreshing. The debate is raging across the country, including Texas, and it seems like few in the ring are actually pointing out that evolution, depending on what you mean by it, can be perfectly compatible religious belief, depending on what you mean by that. He had an exchange with an agnostic colleague Michael Shermer on Monday night. In a nutshell: Shermer: Why believe in God? Giberson: It makes the world so much more interesting. The mystery of God's existence is a more satisfying mystery than the mystery of how can all this arise out of a particle. Shermer: But what is your evidence for belief in God? Giberson: I was raised believing in God, so for me, the onus would be on someone to stop me from believing ... There is a certain momentum that is already there. Shermer: So you're stepping off the page of science. Giberson: Absolutely, but ... If it had been me in that hot seat, I would have said, "well, sort of." Or maybe even "not at all." Giberson is merely stepping off the page of empiricism. "Science" is not only that which can be proven empirically, as Darwin's theory itself demonstrates. It's a theory, not a law, which means at this point the best scientific data we have may point to it, but not enough to conclude it is true the same way we can conclude that the earth is roughly spherical and revolves around the sun. One of the first issues examined by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica is whether theology is a type of science. Because the word "science" just comes from the Latin meaning "knowledge." Can theology (literally the study of things divine) be known? Can we make conclusions about it that parallel reality? Aquinas says: yes. We can't boil it in a plate or breed it in a petri dish. But we can know certain truths by using reason, which can be just as powerful a tool for accumulating human knowledge ("science") as empirical procedures are. The point is no one is stepping off the page of science by believing in the Creator of Heaven and Earth. It is perfectly scientific. What it is not is empirical. Saying I love my brother and my sisters and my parents is not empirically provable either. But I'm not stepping off the page of knowable reality when I say that. History is the same way. Am I "stepping off the page of science" when I say that the Horns kicked the crap out of the Sooners in the last eight minutes of the game this year? Not at all. It is a knowable reality. But not because I took that proposition through the scientific method. Rather, because it is now well documented historically that the Horns did in fact score the last 15 points of the game and stuffed the Sooners mercilessly on October 11, 2008. That's knowledge. But it isn't empirical science. The problem is that we've gotten it into our heads that empirical science has a monopoly on knowable reality, i.e. truth. But can we empirically demonstrate that the only real knowledge is that which can be empirically demonstrated? Can we put that proposition in a culture dish and see what happens? Nope, it's a proposition of philosophy. And there's a name for it. It's called empiricism. And it is not science. I'll be glad to say I'm stepping off the page of empiricism by believing in God. Reasonable scientists want to teach evolution because it is science, or at least it is a scientific theory that has data. If scientists are really true to the principles of their craft, they will be interested in teaching that, and not teaching empiricism, since empiricism is not provable using the scientific method. The fear of parents I think is that that is actually what will happen if evolution is taught in their schools. But evolution as science is just (theoretically) knowable reality about the physical origins of the universe and the human race. When evolution claims to know not just the physical origins of man but also his metaphysical origins, then evolution itself steps off the page of science. At that point it probably shouldn't be called evolution, but evolution-ism. Because science of a certain type has to be arrived at through methods of the same type. Physical science is arrived at through physical methods. Historical science is arrived at through historical methods. Metaphysical science is arrived at through metaphysical methods. A creationism that claims to draw conclusions about man's physical origins makes the same mistake as an evolutionism that claims to draw conclusions about his metaphysical ones. It claims that because the creation of man's everlasting soul was instantaneous, the creation of his physical body must have been as well. That is not legitimate science, any more than evolutionism is. The various sciences -- physical, metaphysical etc. -- all make up one truth, and the truth is consistent. The conclusions of physical science will never contradict the conclusions of metaphysical science. But the way they fit together will not always be readily apparent. We shouldn't feel threatened by that. We should consider it an opportunity to explore more deeply what it means to be human.

GM gives up luxury jets

2008-11-21T20:00:00.000-06:00

Since I blogged about this a couple days ago, figure it's worth noting. General Motors today cancelled leases on two private corporate jets. Before September they had seven jets. Now they're down to three.

thoughts on muschamp and family values

2008-11-19T22:20:00.005-06:00

I've noticed one major buzzword from the coaches and players and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin since Will Muschamp was tapped to be Mack Brown's successor as head coach. Question: Does all this remind anyone besides me of Michael Scott from NBC's The Office? For those who may not know, he is the bumbling boss played by Steve Carell on the hit sitcom who constantly harps about how he considers his office workers "family." That's what the UT folks remind me of. Which is great, really. That kind of cohesiveness is great for the morale of the players et al. It just reminds me of Steve Carell and makes me giggle. Maybe that's just because I'm so happy Muschamp is sticking around to kick his players in the rear end until his players kick the Sooners and everybody else in the rear end. My favorite mention of family actually came when Muschamp said at the press conference that even if he left Austin for some other job, his wife would refuse to leave. Awesome. UT fans have our freakin' awesome city to thank for Muschamp sticking around. Now I ask you, would that ever happen in College Station? Or Norman? Just sayin'. Hook 'em.

big spenders seek bailout from ... other big spenders

2008-11-19T13:29:00.015-06:00

Here's an example of why some people dislike corporate America. ABC News is reporting that the CEO's of the big three automakers from Detroit "flew to the nation's capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy." Herein lies the tragedy and the folly of the bailout. These companies are in the hole now, why? At least in part, because their bosses seem to have no idea how to spend their money frugally and responsibly, like the ordinary Americans who work for them do. But for all the (often but not always appropriate) distrust of big business executives in this country these days, rarely do I hear anyone in the mainstream press or elsewhere talk about how greedy and slick the politicians in Washington are. Yet who are these expensive suits who don't know how to spend their money going to for help? More expensive suits, who don't know how to spend their money. Except in this case it won't be "their" money, it will be your money and mine. That doesn't solve the problem. At best it delays it. Or worse, it may exacerbate it, by socializing it. I think all this bailout stuff shows that free-marketers are not necessarily always in the tank for the rich. They certainly are in the tank for the rich when those rich spend the money earned by their enterprises responsibly, in such a way that sustains the prosperity of their families, their workforce, and their customers. Such businesses do exist, and they thrive in this country. But when wealthy executives spend their money in such a way that lands their company in a world of hurt, the limited-government ideal of personal responsibility kicks in. These big guys had their chance. They weren't good stewards of the wealth they had. Now it is theirs no more. Free-market, limited-government types say such is life. Time to use the American spirit, not the American tax-dollar, to rebuild. See Mitt Romney's op-ed in the New York Times today. And yes, he does call for getting rid of the planes. (I imagine some may object: "Yes but what about all their employees! All the jobs that will be lost if the automakers go under!" Well wait, the big oil companies have employees too, millions of employees. But nobody talks about them when the pundits bash "big oil" and call for every legislative trick in the book to bring about their destruction. But I digress ...) That's why free-market types oppose these government interventions. True capitalists are pro-good business. And the market (i.e. the people, i.e. you and I) determines good businesses from bad businesses, winners from losers, by where we spend our money. The people. Not the fellowship of empty suits in Washington who don't know any more about how to spend responsibly than the dudes in the luxury jets.

Round Rock superintendent pulls teen sex drama off bookshelves

2008-11-18T23:12:00.014-06:00

I guess some in authority do still possess common sense. Today the Round Rock Independent School District Superintendent Jesus Chavez removed a book containing sexual situations and base language from the shelves of Ridgeview Middle School, which of course is a middle school, which is often frequented by middle schoolers. The book, titled "TTYL" (talk to you later), is about three high school sophomores who are dealing with your various stereotypical buffet of twisted teenage drama -- flirtatious teachers, sleazy boyfriends and the like. Of course, it took Chavez's intervention to offset a ruling from a few weeks ago in which the district's nine-member book consideration committee decided that the book was perfectly appropriate for middle schoolers, many of whom have not yet reached puberty. As a person who aspires to raise mischievous middle schoolers of his own someday, I have to wonder what else is in this library. Is Gossip Girl in there too? (Apparently students have told reporters that there are lots of other books in the library just like TTYL.) I confess I haven't read this TTYL book, nor do I care to. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's as bad as parents have said it is, because I have had a taste of such twisted prose myself, in the form of Gossip Girl, which TeenPeople Magazine called "Sex and the City for the younger set." Oh joy. I was in a Barnes and Noble some months ago and wandered into the teen literature section. I opened up a copy of Gossip Girl and flipped to a page at random. It was ... scary. I looked around to see if anyone saw me; I felt like I was in the adult section at Village Video. Maybe I'm just an old fogy at 27 but sexual morality aside -- I don't see how what is in those books can possibly inspire the next generation to make the world a better place for themselves or for other people. What it does seem to teach young people is that their problems and perspectives matter more than other people's problems and perspectives, that they have a right to (or at least should desire at the expense of all other goods) high-end material wealth, and that friendships should be based on utility. Ultimately I think the problem is that older folks don't give young people enough credit. Some grown-ups seem to think that young people are basically self-centered, selfish, and sexually insatiable, and so find it entirely appropriate to put stuff like TTYL on the book shelves of middle schoolers. If we keep telling them they can't be good, who are they to argue?

Some new Dems not sold on tax hikes or bailout

2008-11-18T21:47:00.011-06:00

Question: If you're a Democrat who opposes raising taxes and opposes using taxes to pay for big corporations who dig themselves into a whole, does that make you a "maverick"? There are at least a few Democrats recently elected to the U.S. House who have won in districts that traditionally vote conservative, and according to them, still do. Now that they've made it, they actually are voicing concern over some of the more leftist policies that conservatives fear Barack Obama will be able to foist on the country with no potent opposition. The article speaks mainly to the aforementioned tax hikes on people and small businesses that make $250,000-plus a year, and the latest proposed bailouts. Here's what I'm wondering: How would these maverick D's vote on something like the Freedom of Choice Act? The fate of the pro-life movement's legislative efforts at a national, state, and local level, may be in their hands now.

MUSCHAMP TO SUCCEED MACK

2008-11-18T16:41:00.007-06:00

FREAKIN' AWESOME. Or is it too good to be true? That was my initial reaction. If Longhorn head coach Mack Brown is going to be around for another eight years, isn't that a while for defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to wait around? But he called it a "no-brainer." Whatever you say, Will. I'll take ya.

Catholic bishops cut off ACORN funding

2008-11-11T21:55:00.003-06:00

The Associated Press is reporting that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a program run by the U.S. Catholic Bishops that supports anti-poverty and social justice programs nationwide, is no longer going to make grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morin of New Orleans. The bishops' decision stems from claims that nearly $1 million had been embezzled from ACORN by the brother of its founder. In case anyone has been making a point to avoid the news, ACORN has been hard at work across the country registering voters from poorer and working-class neighborhoods, as well as (allegedly) registering voters who don't exactly ... exist, except in the fantastic imagination of Walt Disney.

whose dream is it?

2008-11-11T13:34:00.004-06:00

I keep hearing this commercial on talk radio for the website girlsgotech.org, which is aimed at encouraging young girls to study math and science and go on and become engineers, doctors etc., which is great. But the commercial says that a certain percentage of girls "lose interest in math and science" by the time they reach a certain age (I forget when exactly), and therefore, "it's up to you to keep their dreams alive." Now, wait a minute. If I lose interest in biology by the end of my freshman year of high school (which I did), is it really a "dream" of mine to go on and become a vascular surgeon? If my parents push me to keep going in math and science so I can go on and become doctor, and they tell me that they are just trying to "keep my dreams alive," I'm going to wonder if it's really my dream or their dream they're trying to keep alive. If some girls (not all, just some) really "lose interest" in math and science, maybe it's just because they'd like to do other things, like public relations or teaching or acting or graphic design. What's wrong with that? Whose "dream" are these people really talking about? Just throwing it out there.

chuck norris wears michael phelps pajamas, and other thoughts

2008-08-15T11:22:00.005-05:00

I do confess, three weeks ago I did not know who Michael Phelps was. I don't watch swimming. I didn't follow the '04 games. And apparently, I'm French. But this past week I had the opportunity to watch the guy, and well, I'm convinced he was raised by dolphins. If sharks went to the movies, there would be a scary summer blockbuster about a shark-eating man, and it would be called, "PHELPS." Dun-dun. Watching the Amphibian Olympian* was a truly inspiring experience for me. One morning this week I was watching him leave mere mortals in his majestic wake and I said to myself, "Ya know, if Michael Phelps can win a bajillion gold medals, I should be able to shower in less than five minutes." So I timed myself. Four minutes, 25 seconds. Thanks Michael! I never knew I had it in me. Okay other thoughts I've been having lately: If I was a member of the men's gymnastics team, and I had a really lousy routine, I think on my way back to the dugout (or whatever you call it in gym), I would just say to myself, "Oh well, at least I have rock-hard abs and monstrous biceps." Seriously, did you watch those guys? Let's be honest. The women's gymnastics team from China averaged about 12 years old, except for the captain, who I think is 20. I think one of them may have been in the single-digits still. They were good, no one denies that. But won't they still be just as good four or eight years from now when they're old enough to legitimately compete? Just sayin'. The truest optimists are always prepared for the worst -- even better prepared than pessimists I would say, because optimists are always ready to see the good in the worst situations. I hope I never become one of these people who can get angry just by sitting around. Have you ever seen them? That can't be a good way to live. COMPLETELY off-topic, but something I've been meaning to say: The Dark Knight is the first movie I've ever seen where calling it "badass" wouldn't really do it justice. *I thought of it myself. I know -- genius.

the value of politeness in debate

2008-07-09T08:31:00.006-05:00

Sometimes I think the country would be a whole lot less divided if people were just more polite to each other. One thing I try never to do is interrupt a person. There's no better way to lose all of one's persuasive powers, it seems to me. This sentiment was inspired by a conversation (if you could call it that) between radio talk show host Laura Ingraham and the hosts of the View, including first and foremost Whoopi Goldberg. Part and parcel of the problem, I think, is the medium. I can't really blame Whoopi or Ingraham on this. A ten-minute television segment that masquerades as a debate will almost inevitably be more about who can get more clever jabs in than who really is right or wrong about the issues. Ten minutes is just not enough time to listen thoughtfully to someone and ask questions. It is only enough time to listen to the first half of what someone wants to say, and then presume to know where they're going and argue against everything they have said and were probably about to say. Even if one accurately predicts where someone else is going, isn't it better to let them air it out and then ask questions and make sure we understand what they're really saying and what they mean? But we're not that patient today. We want three sentences from one side and three sentences from the other, and what we get is a garbled mess of interrupted words and clauses from both sides. All these people really do is interrupt each other. I guess on television you have to, but in that case how much closer are we to understanding what is really going on here? Not very. I think St. James said something about being slow to speak and quick to listen. The ability to do so is a strength, not a weakness, and in my opinion lends credibility to a person who can master such arts.

the genius of America

2008-07-03T11:11:00.005-05:00

"Church and State" is nothing new. The human race has a long history of divinizing the State and state-izing the Church. We often hear that for a long time religious institutions like the Catholic Church carried out functions that today are largely considered the exclusive prerogative of the State. And for a long time governing authorities were considered vested with a certain divine authority, if not the divine authority.

When Jesus said "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God," that was a revolutionary statement because it implied that there are some things in this world that do not belong to the government. Who or what kind of government it is doesn't particularly matter. Back then it was Caesar. But the temptation and tendency of man to vest divine authority in government institutions did not stop with him.

Fast forwarding to the 20th century it was the various Fascist, Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) regimes that sprung up in Europe and almost destroyed the world. The goal of them all was to create a secular religion, a super-commune that made the traditional God irrelevant and unnecessary. The State and the Church were one and the same. And because they were the same, there was no need for a hierarchical ranking. The State did not have to subordinate itself to some traditional God because the State was God.

Those are only some of the more recent and explicit manifestations of the temptation to vest the state with divine power. Other subtler instances of the temptation litter the human race's history.

The genius of America, to me, is that it is a reaction against that very temptation of men to divinize the State. The United States of America is an experiment in what happens when the State itself recognizes that not everything belongs to it. Its citizens do owe some things to it, but they owe the most important things to something else. Something greater.

The genius of America, or at least certain great Americans, has always been in recognizing the difference between A) vesting divine authority in the State, and B) allowing principles of right and justice that are rooted in religious traditions to guide the development of policy. There are many today who still say that the government is doing A when really it is doing B. When a nation does A, it tries to set itself above God. When it does B, it recognizes that its values are not its own. It did not create its values, and it cannot change them.

The anti-slavery movement, for example, was a fiercely religious one. The members of the movement were very religious, very narrow-minded, and they absolutely wanted to impose their morality on everybody else -- and they were right to do it. Their morality was not just their morality. It was and is the morality of a power that is greater than the State. And as soon as the State marginalizes that power or tries to defy it or become greater than it, the State falls.

The temptation has always existed within the United States to abandon its foundations and to give up the constant struggle to better reflect them. But the genius of it, the idea that a government can just get out of its people's way so they can live their lives and give to God what belongs to God, is what makes me a patriot.

assorted thoughts on God

2008-07-01T22:56:00.006-05:00

I find that a lot of folks have been bothered by gas prices lately. And I do admit, I have been one of those people from time to time. But I find that it helps, when I am becoming bitter about it, to remind myself that Jesus died for my sins. I've heard it said that holding a grudge against a person for a past wrongdoing against me is like allowing the person to pay free rent inside my head. If that's true, I think forgiveness is the eviction notice. Max Lucado wrote: God loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay that way. That's a great message because it tells the whole story. God loves us too much not to challenge us. He loves us too much not to want more for us than we would choose for ourselves. I've heard it said that prayer is a way of refueling. I agree that that could be one of its benefits, but it is not valuable only because of that. It's a trap to measure the value of prayer by one's professional productivity following prayer. Prayer is a way of stopping what we're doing and just being with God. And that's valuable regardless of anything else. I think it says something about modern culture that "random" is one of its most popular words. "random thoughts," "random stories," "random encounters," etc. It indicates to me a general attitude that the course of events in our lives and the world are guided by nothing. While I don't think that people are puppets, or that the world is God's chess board, I do like to think that God in some mysterious way guides our relationships and the things that affect us daily. So personally I try to use the word "random" as little as possible. If I thought there was any more fulfilling intellectual, spiritual, or emotional endeavor on this planet than being a Christian, I don't think I could be one. Jesus heals the soul, invigorates the spirit, and blows the mind.

i got punched in the chest

2008-06-23T07:56:00.005-05:00

I had an almost dreamlike experience a couple of nights ago. I was at a bar in Katy, Texas with some of my dearest friends night before last. Nature was calling me, so I went to take care of it. In this particular bar there was a door (more like a secret passageway) that led to an intermediate hall which in turn led to the men's and ladies' rooms. I took care of my business (and yes, I washed my hands), and as I was walking out of the men's room back into the hall that led back into the bar, I saw on the door leading back into the bar, a sign that read "pull open slowly." This immediately struck me as a very sensible rule. No doubt there will often be the occasional inebriated person on the other side stumbling towards the door and pushing on it in a very uncoordinated and clumsy fashion. If on the other side someone yanked open the door at the last moment, no doubt the inebriated person would faceplant. So I obeyed. I pulled the door open ... very ... slowly. On the other side of the door was a young woman, drink in hand, her members swaying like a tree in the wind. We shared a moment of awkward eye contact. Her stare, unlike her swaying limbs, was focused and quizzical. I could not tell if she was trying to be flirtatious or hostile. Not that it would have mattered. But smiling, I stood aside and held the door open so that she might enter. As she walked in she did not take her eyes off of me. And just as she was passing by, her free hand became a fist, which she then proceeded to apply rather forcibly to my upper abdominal wall. BAM. I made no reaction. I feared that, if she was trying to flirt, any response whatsoever from me would be interpreted by her as an acceptance of her advances. So I dared not ask her the obvious question -- "Why?" I simply walked through the door back into the bar and towards my party -- thinking to myself the whole time, "I just got punched in the chest." I feel like I should have gotten a T-shirt.

freedom and peace

2008-04-18T09:41:00.004-05:00

Man wants to be free, naturally. Throughout history we see the yearning of the human person to be free. And in a sort of cyclical way he attains it, and then loses it again. Both the gaining and the losing seem to happen in spite of himself. He gains freedom in spite of his own incompetence, and he loses it in spite of his insatiable desire to keep it. And as he appears to attain more of it, he in fact merely enslaves himself yet again to some lesser master than himself. Even as man desires to be free, he chooses to be a slave. It’s a mutation of his nature. Instead of ruling his passions, his passions rule him. How many people out there really go after money or sex for the goods that they really are? How many people in fact pursue them insatiably because they feel they cannot be happy without them? These goods are less than the man himself, and yet rule the man. The man has relinquished his own power. Augustine once said that man has become “ruled by his lust for rule.” By trying to become masters, we make ourselves as powerless as chattel servants. What is real freedom then? There are in the world three different kinds of men. There are those who stand for nothing, those who stand for the wrong things, and those who stand for the right things. Only one of those types of men is actually free. I won’t waste any time on that second type of man, since I think no one these days really wants to stand for the wrong things. Or if he does, I probably don’t have anything to say that he would find worthwhile. The stronger temptation these days is to be that first man. The first type of man appears to be free to the uncritical eye. He appears to have no foibles, no constraints, no inhibitions, no fears. But the man who stands for nothing has nothing really worth having. In the end, all we really have is what we stand for. Now a man who stands for nothing doesn’t stand for freedom. And if it is true that all we really have is what we stand for, then it follows that a man who does not stand for freedom naturally does not have it. In the same way, a man who stands for nothing also does not have joy, happiness, fulfillment, or peace. Peace. It is sometimes believed that peace is achieved by standing for nothing. A tempting concept. Standing for something often leads to conflict after all, and can there really be peace in the midst of conflict? Would it not be easier to stand for nothing and avoid ruffling any feathers? Isn’t that the true path to peace? But all we really have in the end is what we stand for. Peace is not nothing. If we stand for nothing, we will not have peace. Whoever first appended the words “and quiet” to the word “peace” gave birth to a grievous error indeed. I think a lot of the people in this world who claim to stand for “peace,” if only through faultless misconception, really just want “peace and quiet.” But the movement for it is simply called “peace.” So the people who actually want to stand for something are accused of working against peace, and mongering conflict. And this is not unique to our current time or to military combat. This error spans human history. Peace is difficult to achieve because it requires that a man stand for something. Peace and quiet is easy. A man can do nothing and have peace and quiet – the kind of peace and quiet achieved at the end of the day in Rwanda, or 1944 Auschwitz. And that’s how we become slaves. It starts in the mind, with the intellectual misconception that freedom means the freedom to have everything we want and peace means doing and standing and fighting for nothing to get it. So what is real freedom and what is real peace? Both consist in and are achieved by standing up for something, or someone. By committing and devoting oneself to the right things. It’s an interesting pseudo-conundrum. To be free we must be willing to subordinate ourselves to something greater. We must acknowledge our own smallness before that good to which we devote ourselves, and for which we choose to stand. But that means also that we have to fight in order to have peace. We have to defend the goodness of things, even when we’re accused of being divisive or unnecessarily combative. Freedom and peace are innately attractive to us. The struggle it takes to attain them is less so. But the struggle is where man really finds his life; it is what sets apart a man who stands for something from a man who is afraid to stand for anything. "Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." --Winston Churchill

the salvificity of Jesus (on faith, pt 2)

2008-03-11T09:30:00.000-06:00

I described Jesus as a lot of things in my last post. (If you haven't read that one yet, I recommend reading it first.) He is reliable, real, concrete, constant, ultimate. But there is one thing that I forgot to say about Him, which is one of his most important and revolutionary characteristics. He is salvific. He saves. (Note: According to dictionary.com, "salvificity" is actually not a word. But it sounds like it should be. And if it isn't, then fine, I just made a new word. A new word to describe The New Word, Jesus.) Anyway, if there's anything that people look for everywhere, it's salvation. It's healing. We're messed up kids. And we know it. CS Lewis writes beautifully about this in the first chapter of what I consider to be one of the top three books of all time, Mere Christianity. We know that there is a way that we should be, and we also know that we aren't like that. And we want to be, in the deepest part of ourselves, but the basest part of ourselves doesn't want that. We just want to settle for something less than salvation. Some temporary consolation, some fleeting happiness. And in our settling for these temporary consolations and fleeting happinesses we become convinced in our minds that here we may actually find salvation. And talk about blind faith. We find ourselves thinking that if only I find the right job and make X amount of dollars a year and make the right friends and make it with the right person and buy the right house on the right lake with the right huge boat, then everything in my life will be perfect. Mind you there's nothing necessarily wrong with desiring these things and pursuing them and even getting them. But let us never be so blind as to think that such things will save us, i.e., restore to us the happiness that we know we were born to have but don't. There is only one that can do that: Jesus. He is a unique figure in all history. The Roman and Greek gods toyed with man and manipulated him. Other places in history and including these other mythological gods, the deities demanded sacrifices of man to atone for his wrongdoing against the gods. There is nothing inappropriate about that, except in cases of human sacrifice and other atrocities. Religion is often blamed for the human blood that is spilled and destruction that is wrought in an effort to atone oneself to the gods. Christ is unique because he freely and willingly made himself the victim of that atrocity. The gods before him demanded sacrifice, but never offered mercy, never offered healing. This God comforted Israel with promises of it (we see them throughout the Old Testament - Gen. 3:15, Isaiah 52 and 53, just to name a couple of examples). Those who suffer at the hands of "religion" have an ultimate champion in Jesus Christ - the most religious man in history, and the most unjust victim of religion in history. If there be any worthy object of religion, it is Him. He made the radical claim that he could take our brokenness and make us whole, that he could restore to us the happiness that we all know we were born to have but know deep down we don't. And he proved himself right, by defeating the ultimate sign of our brokenness: death. And he proved it over the last 2000 years in the lives of the saints. That's what Easter is all about. Christ's restoration of his sisters and brothers, the daughters and sons of the Father, to the joy that we were meant for. To know Jesus of Nazareth and to love as he loves is to be a saint. And to be a saint is to have that joy.

on faith

2008-03-11T08:30:00.000-06:00

I feel like writing something about faith. Not for any particular reason, other than I suppose because it's Lent and it's a good time to be thinking about these things. I'm working on "just doing it" when it comes to writing, so I figure I'll just write whatever comes to me now and if something else comes to me later I'll throw that out here too. Faith. A lot of people think that faith is "blind." There's truth to that, but only partially. It is true that we have to believe that God is the chief architect of our lives and that he knows what is best for us. But I do not subscribe to the notion that faith has to be based on zero knowledge, zero "sight" whatsoever. Faith doesn't blind us. Faith opens eyes. We saw that in last week's Gospel, as a matter of fact. This guy was born blind and Jesus spit on some dirt and smeared it on the guy's eyes, and the man saw. Jesus. With his own two eyes. That's what Jesus does to each person who has faith in him. I fancy myself a fairly rational person. I like to do what makes sense. So the idea that faith is something divorced from knowledge, from data, from reason, is something that I can't accept. But I sometimes get the sense that the term "blind faith" is used to imply that reasonable people can't have faith. I believe faith is imminently reasonable. I would not be a person of faith if I didn't think it made sense. Some people think that it's silly to have this faith, in God, in Jesus. But the thing that I always come back to is that everyone has faith in something. There's no person in the world who has not invested in something in the hopes of something good happening to them or for them in this life or the next. The question is not whether a person has faith, the question is what the person's faith is in. What is its object? From the answer to that question, other questions follow. Is the object of our faith reliable, or is it flimsy? Is it something real or is it an illusion? Is it something concrete, or is it shrouded in vagueness? Is it something constant, or does it come and go? Is it ultimate, or is there something greater beyond it? A person can answer that the object of their faith is reliable, real, concrete, constant, and ultimate, if the object of their faith is Jesus of Nazareth. He's reliable because he spoke true things and because he accomplished something no other human being has accomplished: He rose from the dead. He's real, he's not a storybook character. He's concrete, he's not just a name or an idea. He's constant. He is not going to be there only in good times but not in bad ones. He himself has suffered torment and betrayal, and temptation. He gets it. And he is ultimate. There is nothing greater in the universe than Jesus. He is the one who gives us life and it is for him that we live -- if what we desire is happiness. The greatest happiness in life is to know Jesus of Nazareth, and to love as he loves. Whatever befalls us in life, Jesus the Christ will be as real and as present as ever, even in those moments when we feel as though he is not. If I find any kind of "blind faith" admirable, it is this kind: not blindness of mind or reason, but blindness of feeling. I heard this analogy once: When we walk out of a darkened movie theater into the light of day, we often experience temporary blindness. That temporary blindness is because our eyes are having to adjust to the intensely heightened amount of light coming in. I think the presence of Jesus (and the Father and the Holy Spirit) is a lot like that sometimes. When we feel as though Christ is not at all present, He most nearly and intensely is.

the Lord's prophet casts the wrong vote

2008-03-02T16:03:00.005-06:00

You think I'm joking. But it's right there in today's reading, I Samuel 16:6f:

As Jesse and his sons came to the sacrifice, Samuel looked at Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is here before him.” But the LORD said to Samuel: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.”

Quite an interesting reading in light of the upcoming elections in my home state and others. For my purposes I certainly don't plan on publicly endorsing anyone. But it's quite a conviction of our tendency when it comes to choosing our leaders. We tend to judge from "appearance" and "lofty stature." We certainly have a good pool of candidates in that respect. You can't run for president or for any other elected office in this day and age of saturated media coverage without being able to both look and sound good. Because that's what radio bandwidth and the TV screens capture. That's the data that we have. But it's the heart that makes a person fit to lead, not the appearance or the sound of a person. Where it gets the most tricky is being able to discern real courage from the mere appearance thereof. It is easy to appear courageous, committed, principled. Gigantic, historic movements have swelled up behind leaders who were great at giving a good speech, and so won great power, and then used that great power to do unspeakable evil. They were good at appearing to be courageous, committed, and principled. But really being all that is something quite different. That's why looking at the heart and looking at the appearance are not the same. The Lord's own prophet was himself duped along these lines. Are we wiser than he? If today's recount from the Good Book teaches us anything, it's that an inquiring and thoughtful mind is an important tool in discerning who leads us. Here's hoping we each have one on Tuesday. (Note: The right vote was David -- King David.)

where we're going

2008-03-01T16:03:00.007-06:00

From today's reading, Hosea 6:1--

“Come, let us return to the LORD, it is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence."

Is it accurate to say that God punishes us for the sins we commit? In a way, yes. The author of Hosea doesn't have any bones about that. We don't like the idea of punishment in today's world. We think of it as an evil, something that is unnecessary and excessive. But we are God's children. And any parent worth their salt can tell you that children need to be punished. "Go to your room." It's not because they're stupid. It's just because that's how they learn. It's certainly how I learned.

We humans are very good at minimizing the seriousness of the things we do wrong. Rational argument only goes so far for the human intellect. We can only grapple so much intellectually with the implications of what we do. We have to be confronted with something extreme, even something violent, in order for it to really process.

That's where punishment comes in. Punishment is how fallen creatures like ourselves learn to avoid evil. Children who are never punished become adults who never learned. In my job as a journalist, I sometimes cover criminal justice issues, how the state tries to deal with problems of crime. I can say from having covered these issues that when children grow up never having been taught by their parents, everyone pays, especially those children who become offenders. And the government must look for remedies--ways to teach these grown-ups who never learned to stop being children--with varying degrees of success. It all begins at home. The best way to deal with a criminal is to raise him up as a child not to become one in the first place. That's when you realize, it is a mercy from the parents when they punish their children. A lot of unnecessary pain is avoided that way. So it is with the Almighty, and us. Until we become saints in heaven, we will always be as children to Him. Until that time, we must be taught. We sin, we suffer consequences. It's like gravity. We don't look where we're going, we trip, we fall. That's how it works. When we fall, we learn to look where we're going. God could leave us to our own devices. But he knows that if he does that, we will just grow up to become criminals. In his mercy, he teaches us to look where we're going.

the dark knight ... whoa

2007-12-18T13:27:00.000-06:00

I just saw the trailer for The Dark Knight on youtube, and I'm not ashamed to say, a little pee came out. http://youtube.com/watch?v=WaIR9dAZRR0&feature=bz303 Joker: "A little fight in you. I like that." Batman: "Then you're gonna love me."

fearless

2007-12-16T21:20:00.001-06:00

"Say to those whose hearts are frightened, 'Be strong, fear not.'" --The Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 35, verse 3 This is one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. Today it was a reading at Mass, and the timing, as sometimes happens for me, was uncanny. I have been in pretty heavy discernment mode for a while--granted, in a manner altogether different than when I was in seminary. I've been asking myself what I should do about certain situations in my life, and wondering what principles should guide me. Simply put, I've been discouraged. But lately I've been asking myself this question: If my life were a story that I was writing, and the main character was me, what actions would I write myself taking? If I'm the hero of my story, and the hero is confronted with the exact situations of my actual life, what does the hero, i.e. myself, do? In stories, what kind of decision does the hero often make? It's usually not the safe thing. Sometimes it's the crazy thing. Sometimes he tells his friends what he plans to do and they respond by saying something like, "Are you insane?" or "But that's suicide!" And we as readers might even agree with them. But the story is always more interesting and more fulfilling for the readers when the hero does what he knows in his heart he must do, anyway. Jesus is the clearest and best example of this, especially since he is a historical figure and not just a fictional one. But there are examples throughout history and fiction. They are dauntless. Focused. Undeterred. Heroes in stories often face steep hardships and formidable foes. But the underlying enemy they always have to face is the hopelessness of their situation, and the hopelessness inside themselves. In the face of the most desparate circumstances, though the hero may struggle with fear and doubt, ultimately, nothing can deter him. Often when the hero is confronted with something that ought to shatter his spirits, confirm to him that he is on a suicide mission, convince him that he must turn back or die, he is reminded of something--something that gives him hope. Like Frodo standing on the riverbank at the end of Fellowship of the Ring. He remembers Gandalf's words. "All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." The words of Isaiah were that for me this morning. "Be strong, fear not." That's the way of a hero. Fearless. I hope someday I can make it mine.

no movie for peppy people

2007-12-03T13:06:00.000-06:00

If you like to feel upbeat and happy when you walk out of a movie theater, trust me--do not go see No Country for Old Men. Or even if you like to leave feeling generally satisfied, like you may not have liked the ending so much but are content that a complete story was told with an acceptable ending, No Country is not your kind of movie. If you like to walk out of a movie theater inspired by the noble actions of its characters, even if the end result was a sad one, do not go see this movie. If on the other hand you like to leave a movie theater feeling dejected, as if you've been infected with an irredeemable melancholy that will probably stick with you for at least the next couple of days, like a bad cold, by all means throw down your money. But there are some folks out there, many of them professional film critics, who base their like or dislike of films not on the specific type of feeling it gives them, but on the intensity of whatever feeling it is. That is to say, they are concerned with the craft of it. How well is the movie made? How effective is it at arousing in its audience the response at which the filmmakers are aiming? In this case, very. In fact, if these are the only criteria for judging the quality of a film, then No Country is one of the very best, if only because it succeeds so incredibly at darkening the collective outlook of people who see it. That, I suspect, is why those who look only for skill craft in a film will like it so much. I am--unapologetically--not one of those people. No Country is the best reviewed movie in the United States right now. It will probably win Best Picture. And after having seen the film, I understand why. I agree that it is undeniably well-made, and the first 90-or-so minutes of it are chilling and suspenseful and just a great ride. The last 30-or-so minutes, while also chilling and suspenseful in their own right, were so unnerving and disturbing that I feel compelled to warn my friends, many of whom are happy people like me, about the bad taste that it has left in my mouth. Are the last 30 minutes credible? Does it make sense that what happens in the last 30 minutes of the film could actually happen in real life? Yes. And yet the only word I can think of to describe the last 30 minutes is "absurd." What I mean is, I get the sense that the philosophy of life the makers of the film are trying to convey is that human life is absurd. Especially life in America. Especially life in West Texas. Along those lines, I suspect the adulation over the film is probably as much to do with its message as with the skill its makers demonstrated in conveying it. All the elements of the film--the high-octane and graphic violence, the deflated hopelessness of its heroes, and the absolute remorselessness of its antagonist--add to this message of irredeemable absurdity. No Country for Old Men was directed by the Coen Brothers, Ethan and Joel. I've seen pictures of them on the Internet Movie Database, and I have to say, they look pretty down in the dumps a lot of the time--and I don't blame them. If I had made a movie like this, no matter how well-crafted my final product, no matter how much praise it got from no matter how many critics, it'd be hard for me to sit through the whole thing and not be like, "Wow, how depressing is this!" You've been warned.

some facebook applications are just stupid

2007-10-29T22:31:00.000-06:00

This evening while looking at my Facebook newsfeed, I was confronted with an "advertisement" that so upset me that I felt the need to inform Facebook's powers that be of my profound distaste. So I dug around on their site (it took some major digging) and finally found a place to submit feedback. It said that if I were to come across any "offensive" advertisements, I could "report it," by pasting the advertisement copy into the text box, and then giving feedback. So, here's what I wrote to them. *** First, I thank you for the service you provide in Facebook. It is in my view a great social instrument. Millions of people now benefit from the work you all have put into this network. I am especially glad you have given us a forum in which to give feedback for things we find on facebook that bother us. I'm afraid I do have a beef with one of the advertisements that recently insinuated itself into my newsfeed. "Add the Saw 4 application to your profile. Hidden in the video is a clue to unlock a secret clip on the official Saw 4 site. Saw 4 is in theaters 10-26." In general, I find slasher movies pretty offensive. In particular, the Saw series is so absurd and disgusting that I think reasonable people (and I like to think I am one) can be rather taken aback when being confronted by an ad like this in their newsfeed. I have no interest in a "Saw 4" application, and I will never have any interest in a Saw 4 application or any other application whose apparent sole purpose is to promote nauseating, ultraviolent crap. For that reason, if it is at all possible, I would most appreciate the removal and replacement of this advertisement with something rather more pleasant, like Skittles. Thank you very much again and have a great week. *** If you feel similarly, you can go to Facebook's "help" section and click on the very first option, "News Feed and Status," and then click on "What's the deal with ads in News Feed?" A message will come down saying that they at Facebook want to create advertisements that are "appealing," "useful," and "relevant." At the end of that message is the aforementioned hyperlinked "report." Seriously, a Facebook application just for Saw 4?? Yuck.

bleeding orange

2007-09-30T01:16:00.000-05:00

The day started off so good. It started when I woke up at about 1115 in the A.M. I would have slept later were it not for my baby sister. I call her that, but really she's a junior at UT. She didn't get the memo that she's supposed to stay eight years old forever but anyways. She needed a ride to go to the UT football game against K-State Sucks. I was, admittedly, hesitant to oblige at first, mainly because I wanted to continue sleeping indefinitely. But I did as any self-respecting big brother would do, and it rather paid off, in light of the fact that I ended up stumbling upon an extra ticket to the game. What joy! It was the first UT football game I would get to see since I think 2005. I was very excited indeed. Then of course, the crapfest of a game ensued. Most of us know what happened. I won't go into it except to say that it was the ugliest, most sustained beating the Horns have taken since probably 2003. At halftime I had gone to the concession stands to get a bag of Skittles. During the second half as my beloved Horns were getting the Bevo crap kicked out of them, I worked on the $5 king-size bag of sugary bits to dull the anguish I was feeling inside. By the time the cannon fired the last shot of the game, I had gotten about a quarter of the way through it and stuffed them in the cargo pocket of my shorts--rolling the bag shut to prevent leakage of course. Little did I know that at the end of it all, God would decide to treat a stadiumful of dejected UT faithful to a funeral-esque torrential downpour. I and my party jogged a good bit of the way back to shelter. Standing water the whole way. It was like summer revisited. I longed for a kyak. As I was trudging through the relentless sheets of precipitation, I looked down and noticed a large multi-colored stain on my shorts. And then I remembered, ah yes, my bag of Skittles. I reached into my cargo pocket and sure enough, every last one of my little bits of sugary tooth-rotting goodness had leaked out of the bag and were resting at the bottom of my pocket, soaking in the big ole fat rain. The colors all mixed together to make one color which, to my eyes, actually appeared to be burnt orange. A stream of that burnt orange ran down my leg. I was literally bleeding orange. And that's how I felt inside, like I was bleeding orange. Hook 'em.

frosted flakes

2007-09-05T15:06:00.000-05:00

This morning as I was fixing myself some breakfast, something occurred to me. I think that Frosted Flakes are the most festive cereal of them all. Sure, they don't have multi-colored marshmallows or anything fancy like that. But think about it. You pour some FF into your bowl. You start to pour in the milk, and then surprise!--a fountainous geyser of milk shoots right back up out of the bowl ... and onto your kitchen floor. Grrrrreat! Now tell me, what other cereal does that? It'd be pretty flippin' sweet if it weren't for the immediate need to clean up the now-wasted dairy product on the ground. It's most inconvenient, especially in light of the fact that with FF, it's a race against the clock before they decay into this soggy sludge. They're grrrrreat--for the first ninety seconds or so. After that, nnnnnot so much.

Labor Day and Bevo

2007-08-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

Have you ever gotten all the way to the end of the day on the Thursday before Labor Weekend and only then suddenly and finally realized that the greatest Monday of the year was indeed just around the corner? What a glorious feeling! I'm a news reporter for a weekly publication that comes out on Fridays, which means that Thursdays are always longer than a Charles Dickens novel. This evening, after finally putting this week's issue to bed, I felt a sudden euphoric rush as I realized, "Wait a minute, I have Monday off!" O Joy! Made the whole day worthwhile. In other news: The count is now at just under 42 hours. By the time anyone reads this it'll probably be closer to 30 or so hours. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the kickoff of the 2007 University of Texas Longhorn Football Season. This year, Bevo Strikes Back. My roommate just observed that I've been sitting in front of my computer at work all day, writing. And now I'm sitting in front of my laptop, writing. I'm a sick individual. Good night, everybody.

the onion knocks barry bonds out of the park

2007-08-22T11:41:00.000-05:00

I recently ran across another satirical gem from The Onion, this one on Barry Bonds "setting" the home run record. "Barry Bonds Home-Run Scandal Somehow Becomes Feel-Good Sports Story Of Summer." It's the perfect illustration of how low our standards have sunk when it comes to professional athletes. The "raging, juiced-up misanthrope" is the man of the hour.

let's roll

2007-08-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

I have been told many times in the course of my life that I tend to be rather “scrupulous.” I readily admit that I have some pretty strong moral convictions. And I still think that I am right to have those moral convictions. I hold myself to pretty high standards. I try to be a good person, and when I fail (which is not rarely) I’m pretty hard on myself. I try to avoid evil, and when I fail (which is not rarely) I’m pretty hard on myself. And most of the time, I still think that’s appropriate.

Now here’s the part where there’s a word I have to say, even though I really don’t want to. The word is “but.”

Holiness is a great thing. The desire to avoid sin is a great thing. But we should never be so naïve as to think that the devil cannot use our desire for holiness or (more often) our desire to avoid sin to his own dastardly ends.

I first discovered this, of all places, in seminary. It was there where I first asked myself the question, How many times in my life have I convinced myself not to do something because I was afraid of the possibility of it leading to sin?

I’m not talking about real near occasions of sin here either. I’m not talking about buying a skin magazine “just to read the articles,” or snorting a noseful of crack just to see what it’s like. I’m talking about singing. Getting up on stage and actually singing in front of people. I’m talking about talking to a girl. Really talking to her.

“No no,” the voice in my head would tell me. “If you do that who knows where it will lead? To all measure of wickedness, no doubt! Surely this is not worth the risk of losing heaven.”

I used to think that that was the voice of God talking to me. Now I know it is someone far less mighty, and with quite an opposite agenda. Those words I would hear, they are the devil’s favorite trick, the one he especially loves to use on people who try very hard to be holy and to avoid sin.

The devil loves to use our fear of sin to keep us from doing the things that God really wants us to do.

An example: Lately I have been on a huge singing tear. I have discovered (again, for the first time at seminary) that I love to sing. Love it. And not only that but I love to get up and lead people in singing. Just recently I got to help lead (stress the word “help” there) a praise and worship jam session, and I’m hoping I get to do it again soon. I positively love doing that.

“No no,” the voice in my head tells me. “If you do that who knows where it will lead? To all measure of wickedness, no doubt! Why, if you continue on this course, and heaven forbid you are successful, you will certainly become a narcissistic prima dona (to the extent you are not already)! You must be humble! You must be quiet! Surely this is not worth the risk of losing heaven!”

How truly amazing. If I had never gone to seminary I would never have learned from my spiritual mentors to question that voice.

It is true of course that those who perform theatrically and or musically have to direct their work towards a higher purpose and not merely to the glorification of themselves. But for them decide that it is proper not to direct their work towards anything at all—by not working in the first place—would only result in there being a little less good art in the world.

And really, that’s quite satisfactory for the Evil One. He doesn’t always want us to go out and do something wicked. Sometimes he is quite content to see us simply not do anything at all. Not go up on that stage. Not sing that song. Not pick up that phone. Not talk to that person. Just sit there and watch our videos. Listen to our Ipods. And go to sleep.

God can take a broken relationship and bring some measure of good out of it. It doesn’t make the evil that led to the broken relationship righteous, but God being the cosmic genius that he is can take a person’s misguided and wicked deeds and use those to bring the person (and his victims) closer to Him. It’s messy, yes. It’s painful, yes. But it can happen.

What can (or perhaps more properly will) God do with a nervous kid who sits on his laurels all day playing Xbox because he’s too afraid to pick up the phone and call her? With a young woman who won’t admit to herself that she’s really got a gift for inspiring an audience and so never sings that song, or goes out for that part in the play? With a kid who doesn’t try out for the team because he doesn’t want to be the reason someone else doesn’t make it?

Any of that sound familiar?

Don’t let the devil scare you into doing nothing. He wants you to keep still. He wants your soul to gather moss. Jesus wants you to get rolling.

Let’s roll.

you have to read this posting: it's my birthday

2007-08-10T14:44:00.000-05:00

I haven't had access to the internet at home the last few days, since I have recently moved into a new pad. It's flippin' sweet. It'll be even flippin' sweeter when I and my roommates get some luxurious frills in there ... like ... chairs. Anyways, here's a few thoughts from the last few days. You have to read them. It's my birthday. Not long ago I was at Barnes and Noble browsing the magazine rack, as I am wont to do at times. A couple of highlights. The latest issue of Muscular Development Magazine has one of the scariest covers I've ever seen. When I first saw it, I threw up a little bit in mouth. This body-builder guy, the only way I can think to describe him is he looked like Jaba the Hutt. You couldn't tell where the dude's body ended and his face began. He was just so bulgy and veiny and fakety bakety I actually for a couple seconds thought he was a character from Star Wars. And in big letters on the cover it reads, "500 HARDCORE PAGES! MASS FREAKIN' MUSCLE!" Okay, having good tone and all that, being physically healthy, that's one thing. But do guys actually look at Jaba the Hutt there on the magazine rack and actually WANT to look like him? Ew. Sorry folks. I know I've been going on about the cultural preoccupation with physical appearances, but it's just been jumping out at me from everywhere lately. Completely unrelated: I also saw a college football magazine called "Scout," which had on the cover the quarterback for the USC Trojans. I forget the guy's name. Anyway, the headline is "TROY RISING: USC is back on top." Sheesh. Here we go again. Everyone loving on USC. Oooohing and Aaahing over USC. "Whoo, USC! Those Trojans have so many weapons! Is USC the best team EVER?" Or might we be getting a little bit ahead of ourselves with all this "back on top" mumbo jumbo? Being ranked #1 in the coaches' poll and whatever other poll there is out there at the beginning of the season does not mean you're the best. Just ask Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. Assuming Mr. Leinart has finally admitted to himself that the best team actually did win back in '06. Facebook is awesome. Today I've gotten more postings on my wall than in the last three or four months or so. It must be my birthday. Thanks everybody!

not exactly EWTN

2007-08-06T09:22:00.000-05:00

Today on "The Adventures of Shallow People": This morning I was watching the news, as I am wont to do at times. They were talking about the usual, ya know--the Iraq war, the stock market, the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, smart lipo... Wait a minute--smart lipo?? Yes, that's right. The news people thought it worth the morning commuters' time to talk about a new cosmetic procedure to remove the fat that in medieval times (and even up til about the 1920s) was considered sexy. They're calling it "smart liposuction." Their coverage of the procedure was purportedly an objective view of whether the procedure is legit or if it's "just another scam." Yet while they were talking about it they showed all these ladies frolicking on the beach and strutting blank-faced down runways. Hmm, what message does that send? What channel was it on, you ask? Why, the Fox News Channel of course! Like I said, I don't defend everything they put on their airwaves. I do respect them for giving voice to Father Jonathan, but none of these news outlets are exactly EWTN.

"healthy man"

2007-08-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

NOTE: In my profession before my bout at seminary, I used to publish a weekly newsletter which of consisted of my latest thoughts on popular culture. I haven't commented on popular culture in a while, but last night I was fortunate to have dinner with a few of my loyal readers from back in the day. They suggested that I get back in the business of highlighting and commenting upon the three-ring circus that confronts us all when we surf the internet or watch TV. Inspired by this affirmation, I've decided to take up this practice again, if only because there is so much good material out there these days--some of it refreshing, some of it outrageous. Here are some of the latest examples: Refreshing If anyone wants to know why I like Fox News, this is why. Do any of the other refined and intellectual news networks prominently display a Catholic priest blogging on their website? Well, I just went looking on the other big three--MSNBC, CBS, CNN. Not prominently. In fact, not anywhere on the main pages. Maybe I just didn't notice on those sites. All I know is I go to the Fox News website and without even having to scroll down I see this dude in a Roman collar--Father Jonathan Morris, featured blogger. "Whoa! Is this a news site?" In his blog Father Jonathan discusses how to raise your kids. The upshot: talk to them, pay attention to what they're doing, and my favorite: lead by example.

Children respect honesty and sincerity. They see through and despise hypocrisy. Parents who want children to listen to their advice must first make sure their own lives line up with what they are preaching. Would you like your children to eventually be church-going citizens? Go yourselves. Would you like your children to use the media wisely? Don’t waste your time on useless or salacious entertainment. Do you want your children to be faithful to their future spouses? Your own example, in every aspect of your life, is the most powerful educator and will make an indelible impression on your kids. They may wander for a time, but they will never forget what is good and true.

Now, I'm not going to defend everything that the Fox News Channel puts out. But this is why I at least at times do respect them. In most other news outlets these days, media relating to Catholic priests or Christian leaders in general usually don't approach them as sources of wisdom on how to live our lives. Which is why I read this and I thought to myself, this is a news website? I thought raising kids was a private matter. People don't want to know about that stuff anyway, right? They want to know about the latest pop diva to check into rehab or the latest football player to get indicted with burglary charges (or worse). Outrageous I mean if the people are interested in stuff having to do with their personal lives, it's more often going to be stuff like, a lady who lives with her boyfriend who prefers watching indecent material online to spending time with her. And gee, what should the lady do? Well our "relationship specialist" thinks it's a good idea to ask to be included in his porn-watching. (I'm not making this up.) Another example: There's a link on the CNN homepage today, under the heading "HEALTHY MEN," with a picture of this shirtless guy's pectorals, but not his face. His head is outside the frame. It's almost as if someone bumped into the cameraman just as he was taking the picture. Anyway the caption reads "Show us your guns! Show off your biceps and rock-hard abs. And tell us how you got them!" "Healthy" This is just a little more evidence of the rather maladjusted American understanding of what constitutes a "healthy man." I'm lucky to say I have many guy friends whom I would most readily and happily classify as "healthy men." Very few of us, I am afraid, can be said to have either "guns" or "rock-hard abs." We do engage in physical recreational activities, like Wednesday night volleyball for example. I love sports. Put a football in my hands and I immediately become about ten percent happier. But that's not what makes me or any of the good men I know "healthy," at least it's not the only or even the most important thing. As best I can tell, my guy friends and I are healthy because we know what we stand for, and what we want our lives to be about. And we know we do not want our lives to be about going to Sixth Street on Friday night in search of a good shag. And that's not to say that people who are very physically in shape are only interested in that, but it says something about a culture's priorities when our understanding of "healthy living" consists entirely of how big our guns are. It's just more enjoyable and more fulfilling, as best I can tell, to have other priorities. Just to try to be a good person, you know, a gentle man. If I ever have a son, I hope I can teach him at least that. Hopefully Father Jonathan will still be around.

rain sucks

2007-06-26T10:12:00.000-05:00

Okay seriously, when did Austin turn into friggin' Seattle? For the last two or three months it seems like, Austin has been constantly struck with a series of torrential downpours the likes of which I can only recall from my childhood years in Louisiana. For days and days and days, nothing but RAIN. RAIN RAIN RAIN! Why is this happening? Well, normally over the summer a ridge of high pressure settles over the Lone Star State, creating day after day of big cloudless Texas skies. From one horizon to the other, a brilliant majestic blue. I love days like that, because they bring out the greenness of everything else, especially in the hills of Austin and surrounding areas. But oh no, NONE OF THAT this summer. What we have this year is a ridge of high pressure in Louisiana, and another ridge of high pressure in New Mexico. And nestled in between them is a great big barge of low pressure, hovering over our heads just waiting to send down sheets of unholy wetness, soaking through our work clothes and short-circuiting our cell phones.

The last time I remember the sun actually coming out and shining for an extended period of time was the day I didn't wear sunscreen. Very funny, God. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I miss the days of drought. I'm glad we're not all parched and the grass isn't that dry yellow color. But COME ON, we couldn't have just ONE cloudless day to lift our downtrodden spirits? How 'bout it God? Just one bright shiny Texas day, and then you can return us to the incessant deluges for which you seem to have such an affinity. Please?

last night at happy hour

2007-06-21T07:02:00.000-05:00

Amber: "Mark, are you noncommittal?" Mark: "...mmmaybe?"

atheism and popes

2007-06-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

i'm thinking of reading an atheist book. today after work i hung out for a short while at a bookstore in north austin. i was browsing around the religion section, as i am wont to do, and came across an actual subsection of atheist books. "hmm." i took one off of the shelf just for the heck of it. i've spent a good many years of my life reading books that bolster my faith, in some cases by people who used to be professed atheists. in fact, i myself was an atheist once--in the fourth grade, for about two weeks. in response, Mom and Dad presented me with the elementary school version of St. Thomas Aquinas' "first cause" argument. "if God doesn't exist, then how does anything else exist?" either i wasn't smart enough to come up with a clever enough answer, or there simply is none. either way, back to Catholicism. i still have no good answer to that question, or to several questions that arise when one entertains the idea that the entire physical world is uncreated and self-sustaining. and i'm pretty sure that i wouldn't find satisfactory answers to them if i read an atheist book, because atheism doesn't really claim to offer any. atheism is like the ring of power from Lord of the Rings--it has only the power to destroy. so i'm considering reading an atheist book as much for the spirtual challenge as for the intellectual exercise. what would the spiritual challenge be? well, i'll give an example. like i said, i took an atheist book off the shelf this afternoon and just started reading chapter one. the author managed to get about three lines before negatively stereotyping people of faith. it was his first or second sentence. about how he had often seen that those who claim to be people of charity and compassion lose those virtues when confronted with people like himself, who disagree. if his intent is to persuade people of faith that he is correct in his beliefs about the universe, he's not off to a good start, not necssarily because his arguments are unsound, but because his approach is off-putting. i can't speak for all of us, but i know that this Christian is tired of the whole "believers are hypocrites" mantra, not because i think it's false, but because i know it's true and don't need to be persuaded any further. granted, just because this one atheist can't restrain himself in the opening passages of his book doesn't mean all atheists write similarly. i'm sure there are many non-believers who are perfectly nice people with positive attitudes, and whose writing reflects that. but this particular author isn't doing them any favors, at least not in the first few pages. just as fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist Christians and Muslims are of little or no help to their sisters and brothers. see what i mean? if this is how i respond to the first page of an atheist book, i can only imagine reading the whole thing. it's not so much about whether i can get through the whole book and not be shaken in my belief in God by his arguments. i'm pretty sure that would not be a problem. but can i read the book all the way through without letting it upset me? i hope so. i haven't made up my mind about this yet, though. i'm open to people's input. the big question i have to face is whether or not it would be worth my time, when there are so many other books i could read which i would venture are much more likely to challenge and enhance my thinking. for example, the latest from Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth. among the mind-blowing insights i've encountered so far: he actually says in the book that the phrase "Kingdom of God" is an inadequate translation, because "kingdom" implies merely a locale. the phrase is really all about God's total sovereignty over the whole universe--the relationship he has with, and the allegiance he demands from, his people. Benedict writes:

"Kingdom of God" is therefore an inadequate translation. It would be better to speak of God's being-Lord, of his lordship.

i seem to remember a Catholic magazine with a certain philosophical tilt that had an article about how the phrase "Kingdom of God" is antiquated, and the Church needs to move on from it. most of the world, the article said, has left behind the monarchic form of government and doesn't think in such terms. so the article made suggestions as to other possible phrases one could use to describe the relationship, such as, for example, the "dance of God," like a tango i guess. i've never had a problem with describing God's relationship with his people as a dance, or as any number of other things, so long as it is not intended as a replacement for the amply documented image of God as King. that was the problem i had with this article: the notion that a clear scriptural image needs to be moved away from rather than explored. so now Pope Benedict himself is saying not only should we not move "beyond" this image, but we need to go back to how the ancients understood it. "Kingdom of God," as most people understand it today, doesn't go far enough. it is not kingdom, but kingship. this is another problem that atheists have in persuading others of their position, at least in the case of Catholics. it is certainly easy for a simpleton like me to read a couple of pages by an atheist, and simply say to myself, "this person wouldn't last a minute with Benedict XVI, or John Paul II." there's simply no visible equivalent in the atheist community, at least in stature. there's no atheist pope. i actually had a (perfectly pleasant) conversation with an atheist once who made that very point to me. atheists have never really gotten organized and centralized. i have to wonder though, what's there to organize? it would be kind of like anarchists forming a police squad. wouldn't that rather defeat the purpose?

i am ready for some FOOTBALL

2007-06-17T09:49:00.000-05:00

so, i was watching fox news sunday this morning, and this commercial came on for ... the Indie 500. today at NOON. i saw this and i thought to myself, this is a travesty! sundays are for one thing and one thing only--besides the Lord of course: and that's football. ... okay maybe basketball in the springtime. but one thing is for certain: sunday noon is not to be wittled away watching multi-colored vehicles drive around in a circle. to say nothing of saturday. people, i can just hear The Texas Fight Song and other trademark ballads of the Longhorn Band. i can just see the players (well, the law-abiding ones anyway) striding majestically onto the field at DKR Memorial. i can just feel the bleachers rumble beneath my feet as the burnt orange side of the cotton bowl erupts in rapture while colt mccoy systematically picks apart the inept secondary of the oklahoma sooners. i am so ready for this. but no, not today. now we're in that uncomfortable middle part of the year where really no interesting sports are happening. no football, and now no basketball. of course, there could still be at least one or two more basketball games if it wasn't for the near-monopolistic concentration of skill in a single team. don't get me wrong. i love the spurs. but what we saw in the finals was a clearly better team doing the least they possibly could in order to dispose of an inexperienced squad that was simply in over its head. i'm sure this will only be the first we've seen of them. well, lebron james anyway. in the meantime, 76 days until gameday at DKR Memorial. it won't be a moment too soon.

taking stock

2007-06-13T22:38:00.000-05:00

i was in a Catholic seminary this past fall. it was a fairly large place with long, deep, dim lit halls that you could see a long way down. when i was there, i got to know a lot of my seminary brothers by observing how they walked. from such a distance, on the other end of the hall, you could never see faces. just the stride. some walked very quickly and with purpose. some with a lot of brass. some sort of bobbed up and down as they walked. some slowly and calmly, unassuming and simple. tonight, nearly five months after having left the seminary, i was playing sand volleyball with my friends on a church campus in northwest austin. we were hanging out afterwards and getting ready to go to sonic when i noticed off in the distance, this guy walking toward us. i couldn't see a face, just a stride in the street light. "i know that walk!" i said. sure enough, it was one of my seminary buddies who slept just down the hall from me in the dorms. talk about coming out of left field. we greeted each other and spoke at length for the rest of the evening about where we both are in our lives now, and about how the rest of the guys are doing. it turned out to be a great and unexpected opportunity for me to take stock of what's happened to me in my life since i chose to leave, and how my life is so very different now. i left seminary on january 22 of this year. i went to stay with my parents, look for a job, basically start over. i still loved Jesus, i just knew i wasn't called to be a priest, which was scary because i didn't really have any idea what else there was for me to do. so i started looking for a job. pretty much any job. i don't think i'll ever know why God spared me the limbo of unemployment so quickly. it took me about a month to find a job. as a serious journalist. in my hometown of austin, a fierce job market as it is. less than six weeks after leaving a seminary, flat broke and with no direction, i had stumbled upon a full-time job doing what i do best in a town that is just crawling with people who can do it better than me. and i'm covering, of all things, the state capitol. i've gone from working in the heart of the Church, where tomorrow's leaders are tried and trained, to working in the heart of the State, where today's leaders ... well, i'm still not really sure what those people do. the two settings are more similar than one might think. but to be sure, one quickly becomes aware of the clearly different priorities in a state institution, of the values that are sacred there but not in the Church, and the values that are sacred in the Church, but not there. going there has been a real exercise in memory for me. remembering to look at the world with Jesus eyes even when it seems to be ruled by so many other things besides him. but really, there's nothing unique about that experience for any person of faith. it's actually the most normal thing in the world. most people who are Christians have to go to jobs where religion is not explicitly exercised. most people aren't "ministers" in an official sense. the challenge and the opportunity for me has been to take the sense of peace i had in seminary and continue to use that when i'm out in the world. which often means just being patient and courteous, and doing our jobs well. so much else has changed. i drive a truck now. i'm getting ready to move into an apartment with two other very laid back guys. but most importantly, i've made a boatload of new friends in the last four months. a whole cast of characters. and somehow i've been able to stay in touch with a lot of the friends i had before i went to seminary. i told my seminarian friend that aside from all the spiritual benefits of going to seminary, it was actually the most practical thing i've ever done. because if there was anything that i had lacked throughout my life, it was clarity. and i knew that i was not going to find clarity until i hunkered down and just went to seminary. so i did. no dilly-dallying, no second-guessing, no thinking myself out of doing it. i just did it. and when i got there, i got all the clarity i needed--and more than i wanted. i got so much clarity that i found i had no choice but to go back home and get busy doing what God was actually calling me to do, whatever that is. and in the long term, i still don't really know. but i do know that i don't have to know it right now. and i know what i have to do tomorrow, and that it's what God wants me to do, so i'm fine with just doing that and seeing what happens.

onion: for greater good, duncan roots for cavs

2007-06-13T07:57:00.001-05:00

this is hilarious. the onion, a parody newspaper for those of you who don't know, reports that tim "darth vader" duncan and several other spurs are actually hoping the cavs will pull it out, just so the NBA will finally have a good story to tell. funny stuff.

liveblogging game 3: spurs at cavs

2007-06-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

tonight i was feeling really nerdy and random, so i decided to liveblog game 3 of the NBA finals between the don't-know-how-to-lose san antonio spurs and the too-young-to-die...well-maybe-not cleveland cavaliers. i tried to make it funny and entertaining, but the players didn't give me much to work with. here it is, enjoy! *** 7:52PM: okay ... maybe the sweetest national anthem performance i've ever seen. ben harper rocks. if you didn't see it, you can probably find it on youtube later. 754: haha, the DJ plays the "empire strikes back" theme for the spurs. so i guess gregg poppovich is the emperor, and tim duncan is darth vader. lebron james must be luke skywalker, cuz tim duncan's his daddy. 757: fire just spewed from the jumbotron. that's not a fire hazard? ...it's still goin', too. 803: waitin' on tipoff...and frozen pizza in the oven ... 805: aaaand we're off! 807: aaahhh parker! breakin' my heart! at least the pizza is good. 809: darth vader just scored the first points. big surprise there. 810: okay now he's got the spur's first four points. 816: bruce bowen for three! that's right cavs fans, just quiet down for a bit, that's right. 818: am i the only one that thinks it's weird that obiwanu ginobili and darth vader are on the same team? 820: dude lebron skywalker is hosting the espys! flippin' sweet. mmm...pizza. 822: wow it's the largest lead the cavs have had in the series! they must be kickin' ass! ... oh wait, it's just four points. 823: dude the spurs rebounded something! and bruce bowen from downtown again! the man in an assassin! ... hmmm ... if he were a star wars character, i think he would be boba fett. (i feel like such a geek right now.) 824: man ... the force isn't very strong with darth vader tonight. ... yet. 829: boba fett just drew a foul. he really is an assassin tonight. ... except he just missed two free throws. nevermind. 830: obiwanu! why did you do that?? 831: darth vader duncan--8 points. boba fett bowen--6 points. rest of the spurs--NADA. 832: go jacques! i don't even know that guy. he looks like avery johnson back in the day. 836: that's the dumbest wendy's commercial i've ever seen. i miss dave thomas. he was cool. 837: they finally showed EVAAAA! 839: hahaaa ... former UT star kevin wilson just shot two totally illegit free throws. hook 'em kev! and then skywalker steps up to the line and ... misses one. HA-ha! 843: can you spurs get any closer than five points behind? yer killin' me smalls!! 845: you know, i kinda wanta see that 1408 movie. ... maybe i'll just rent it later. 854: skywalker has three fouls. boba fett has three three-pointers. 855: ... did duncan even touch that guy? how is that a foul? 858: the iPhone scares me. it's gonna take over the world someday. 908: dude the spurs scored a basket! how long has it been?? 910: oh ho hoooo boy. robert horry ... the man is a three-point machine. and we have a tie game with less than a minute to go. 912: whoa! parker floats it in at the buzzer! 40 to 38 spurs at halftime! that is some crazy shizz. 914: dood! i sooooo wanta see evan almighty. "...just a little precipitation??" 931: san antonio had ten straight points to close the half. crazy. 935: second half begins. oberto hits one. parker hits one. spurs up by four. these finals are dangerously close to just becoming a bore. don't get me wrong, i love the spurs, but gee whiz people. 945: they showed eva again! 946: i'd like to see how eva reacts when tony parker messes up. 947: ...and we're tied up at 48 with just over four minutes to go ... in the first half? no no, in the third quarter! what are we in college?? 954: see, tony parker just missed a layup. woulda been a perfect time to show eva! 957: boba fett at the free throw line ... why can this guy drain threes like there's no tomorrow but he can't hit a free throw? he reminds me of ... well me, actually. 958: there boba fett goes again with the three! 55-50 spurs. 1000: NBA record low 27 combined points between both teams in the third quarter. i thought i was just joking when i made that college comment. 1005: oooooo the fans whipped out the scary towels. they're twirlin' em around, oh my. 1006: barry hits another three! it's 58 to 50 spurs! this could be really great for the spurs and ... really bad for the rest of the NBA. 1011: darth vader just scored for the first time since the first quarter. 1016: parker nailed it and they still didn't show eva! that's just ridiculous... 1016: finley for three! it's 67 to 57 spurs with just over six minutes to play. it looks bad for the cavs. 1027: two and a half minutes left in the game. it's 67 to 63 ... looks like neither of them is going to even get anywhere close to 80 ... unless there's overtime. and i really hope that does not happen. i've seen enough ugliness for one night. 1034: darth vader at the free throw line. ... the force is strong with him. 1035: parker for three! and they showed EVAAAA! ... i dunno why i get so excited. i don't even watch desperate housewives. 1036: whoa ... ginobili goes to the line with 10.4 remaining and the spurs up by TWO. at least the ending is half decent. 1037: ginobili! why do you miss??? okay at least he made one. spurs by three. 1038: spurs by ONE. 1039: okay let's get this ugliness over with. ... ginobili back to the line. 1040: and he makes 'em both! whew ... okay 5.5 seconds to go, 75 to 72 spurs. cavs are really hangin' on by a thread here. 1043: and just like that ... the ugliness is ended. it's 75 to 72 spurs, who are now up 3 to NADA. and the big three--darth vader, obiwanu ginobili and lucky parker--didn't even play that great. i guess nobody really did tonight. except bruce "boba fett" bowen. but oh well, one more game to win, spurs. make it prettier than this trash!

WEAR SUNSCREEN

2007-06-11T14:18:00.000-05:00

remember the sunscreen song? it started out as an article written by mary schlimich of the chicago tribune in 1997 and was released as a music single in 1999, read by moulin rouge director baz luhrmann. we all know how it starts:

ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97, WEAR SUNSCREEN. if i could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. the long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists.

true. but what schlimich and luhrmann fail to mention, and what i most recently have failed to appreciate, are the short-term benefits of sunscreen!

over the weekend i had the pleasure of attending a boat party with some friends of mine from church. we were out on the lake and it was a great time. for four glorious hours we ate barbecue, we drank beer and coke, we swam around, we did it all. but there was one thing that at least one of us ... okay yours truly ... did not do. and that's wear sunscreen.

why on earth not, you ask? well in short, it's cuz i'm white as a goose. and i thought maybe if i didn't wear sunscreen, that would facilitate the epidermis-darkening process known as "tanning." what imprudence! what folly! what the hell was i thinking??

let me tell you something people: everything hurts.

going to sleep at night hurts. waking up hurts. showering hurts. putting on clothes hurts. driving hurts, especially when you're checking your blind spots. sitting down hurts. getting up hurts. walking hurts. eating hurts. going back to bed hurts. think of any action that one could conceivably do. it hurts.

basically the only way to avoid pain in my present state is to stand straight up and not move at all. no leaning. that hurts.

so next time you're feeling really bummed over the paleness of your complexion, stop and think before subjecting your body to the full wrath of ultraviolet radiation. just bite the bullet and slap on some sunscreen.

because not only can it prevent you from getting skin cancer, as proved by scientists; it can also in the meantime spare you several days of unremitting physical pain.

just trust me on the sunscreen.

so, we should just fry 'em?

2007-06-11T06:45:00.000-05:00

I've been interested in the death penalty question for some time, especially from a Catholic standpoint. So this was interesting to see. FoxNews and MSNBC are both reporting a study that was recently published by some professors from the University of Colorado which seems to demonstrate that the death penalty actually does deter capital crimes. The number making the biggest headlines: For every one person executed by the state on death row, 18 would-be victims are not themselves executed by private individuals. Obviously, the data needs to continue to be looked at very closely--by me as well as by the persons who put the study together, and the journalists reporting on it. I'm Catholic and have many friends who believe death penalty abolition is appropriate for the United States. The biggest question I've always had is, But what if the death penalty actually deters people? I've heard that there was no evidence that it does. But I've never heard that there was positive evidence that it doesn't. And I'm not assuming anything now, I'm just asking: What if there is actually something to this data? Is there a "legitimate use of force" issue here? All I do know is that the study is consistent with one major death penalty case that I actually know something about, because my dad wrote a book on it: the McDuff case. The guy was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted. He was paroled. He killed a bunch more people. Granted, the guy was paroled, and that shouldn't happen either. But the data in the study, assuming it's being accurately reported by the press, seems to reflect (at least part of) reality. Of course on the other hand, even if the data is true, one might say that the death penalty is a bandaid on the gaping wound of violence in society. Even if it serves some "good," some might say, the ultimate solution is evangelization, not lethal injection. Plus there's the question of whether innocent people are wrongly executed. If that's true then there is no social benefit great enough to justify their killing, by the state or anyone else. So, basically, I don't know anything more now that the study's come out than I did before. But I think it's good that the study was published because it will force advocates on both sides to discuss issues about which they tended to simply make assumptions before. Or perhaps I'm being optimistic.

colt mccoy eats at chili's

2007-06-10T23:37:00.000-05:00

so i was at chili's at 45th and lamar this evening with a couple friends and who do you think walks in and sits at the booth right next to us? COLT FREAKIN' MCCOY. i couldn't believe my eyes. and yes, he really does look twelve years old.

okay people ...

2007-06-10T23:16:00.000-05:00

yall ready fa this?