The Written Peace:
Open Forum of April 26, 2005
Among the minor matters of minutiæ to mention, I must thank Wordlackey of the DemiOrator blog, who has been apprizing me of the problems with the xml feed for The Dark Wraith Forums. Several previous attempts to repair the problem proved only temporary: for some reason, the path to the location where the xml file is supposed to be saved keeps reverting back to an old, incorrect specification. I have instituted another fix, one that involves the digital equivalent of hammering nails into the path specification code. Let's see if that works.
A formal welcome should be given to some of our newer, regular commenters, here. Old White Lady, who hosts It's morning somewhere has been stopping by to visit; and of course, so has NeoCon Crusher, host of Pissed on Politics. A welcome is also extended to SB_Gypsy.
On to other matters—and shamelessly taking an idea from Shakespeare's Sister—I would genuinely appreciate any comments on good blogs. If you host one, or if you know of one, say so. Nothing weird, though: blogs about food that's still moving when you eat it are weird. So are blogs that offer risqué picture calenders of neo-conservatives... although the Mr. July shots of John Bolton frolicking on the beach at the San Diego Naval Station do have a certain marketability for their fusion of ennui and angst.
Where was I? Oh, yes. This is an open thread. Grab the microphone at the karaoke machine, say what you have to say, and stay for the entire show.
The Dark Wraith turns on the dance floor lights.
Published 4/26/2005 10:57:00 AM
<< 49 Comments Total
Just when you thought marriage had its benefits:
County may cut spouses from health insurance
Since returning I haven't yet had the time to read your Opus pieces (Opi?), but as I read this analysis it occurred to me you might enjoy it, too. It was written by the DC bureau chief of the Boston Globe.
- oddjob
Good afternoon, OddJob.
I've been wondering what became of you. Thank you for the link to that article.
And by the way, I'll bet not many people know this, but the plural of "opus" is "opera"! An opera is a musical that comprises more than one opening.
The Dark Wraith is actually disturbed now that he realizes he wrote an opera.
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith.
I think you've heard of me, so I won't blogwhore myself, although I will mention, for those seeking new and interesting voices, my blogroll is rife with them. I try to add between 5 and 7 new blogs each Friday, and although I add the occasional "big gun," the majority of my additions tend to be of the smaller variety.
(That is, for those who can actually access my blogroll. It's being worked on for FireFox users - I swear!)
Shakespeare's Sister curses her lack of programming ability and celebrates interesting bloggers.
When does the party get started?
I am actually having a bad case of writers cramp today. I can't seem to think of anything to talk about...Seems like I have talked about it already and I just keep going around in circles.
I was watching a fascinatin show on the history channel last night on meteors. It seems that "scientists" didn't even accept that meteorites came from outerspace or ever hit the earth until 1795.
Also, it really wasn't until the late 60's that scientists started accepting some of the larger craters on earth as being created by impacts with meteorites. Previously, most scientists thought all craters on earth were made by vulcanism.
I sure wish someone would find the Loch Ness Monster or an Alien Ship would land in Washington DC just to shake things up a bit.
How much longer can the world sustain its current level of population growth and food consumption? How long before a total collapse will occur?
War is no longer an efficient way to kill people. Nuclear bombs make too much of the earth unhabitable...I sure hope the dill holes at the top aren't thinking of unleasing some nasty little virus to help rein in the world's population.
Nature will take care of it I think one way or the other.
The most recent issue of New Yorker magazine (on the stands now) has the first of a three part series on global warming.
Very good reading. (For instance, I wasn't paying close enough attention to environmental news to know that now almost all of the world's major glaciers are in retreat. I knew many were, but I didn't know all were.)
- oddjob
Its weird that global warming will cause an ice age...But such is life, many things seem to be counter-intuitive.
Paradigm Shifter, et.al.,
"...nasty little virus..." comment?
Take a look perhaps at
whatreallyhappened.com/deadbiologists
PeterofloneTree...
Thanks...
My recent article titled the "Microbiologists' Moira" is all about that...I think I linked to that site you provided as well...
that is why I brought it up...Shameless plug if you will..
But hey, I am dancing...is anyone else?
'ello, master Wraith. This morning, I found myself writing a sort of credo. It's pretentious, precious and full of itself but it does have a certain je ne sais quois.
I also have a really poor sample of my photoshop skills on a photo of Bush.
Good afternoon, Wordlackey.
I had seen that photo of Mr. Bush on your Website, and it troubled me deeply. I am not sure, but it would appear that someone has our fearless leader by the...
Oh. That's right. Fellows who go AWOL are said not to have those.
The Dark Wraith must re-interpret the photo in light of that realization.
Good afternoon, Shakespeare's Sister.
You are correct, of course. Some really good blogs get mentioned over at your hotel. As a matter of fact, you have ended up being sort of a node for Blogosphere Release 2.0 participants.
For my own part, I've been trying to get some notice for a few of the really talented, lesser-knowns, as well. I suppose my endorsements are sort of a mixed blessing, though: some bloggers might not be all that excited about getting attention from a crookéd nosed economist who haunts the Blogosphere referring to himself in the third person.
The Dark Wraith appreciates the downside.
Good afternoon, Paradigm Shifter.
Writer's block, huh?
It happens to all of us. I had a fiendish case of it for several years, once. I swear, had I been required to write my own petition to enter Heaven, I could not have done so.
Not that it would have done much good, anyway.
Your talk about meteors and meteorites reminds me of the many times that science has been way off track for long stretches of time. This has not been resolved by modern scientific methods, either. They can go awry; and the profound overuse of statistics by legions inadequately trained in probability theory has made the situation all the worse. Also, I fear that far too many students in colleges and universities are not being required to take courses in the history of science and in philosophy, the latter subject being enormously useful for learning about informal and formal logic without the layer of mathematics that obscures underlying principles.
Awhile back, in a calculus course I sort of inherited from another teacher, I started my usual routine of talking about interesting side stories in the history of mathematics, and then I launched into some descriptions of really cool stuff going on in science and technology right now. Students always like the relief those discussions provide from the pressure of grinding, mind-numbing math; and that whole way of teaching keeps the students from despairing so much of the long road they are on.
I made the mistake of bringing up the topic of how computers that generate circuit boards through generations of trial and error show striking parallels to what happens in biological evolution. I went further to tell the students about an on-going digital evolution project that is so cool it almost hurts.
Once again, as has happened before, several of the twelve students were visibly upset by my talk about evolution. One young man finally let me know that this talk about evolution was inconsistent with his beliefs.
He said he could not be in a class where this kind of talk was going on. Others agreed that this was unacceptable.
Sort of amazing. Also incredibly foolish, given that they had yet to learn that, underneath my excited-about-teaching exterior lies the professorial heart of a genuine asshole.
The Dark Wraith despairs of the future.
re: Ice age or no?
The article touches on that a little. It may turn out that the "ice age" only occurs in the immediate vicinity of the North Atlantic (as the Gulf Stream diminishes), while overall the globe continues warming, especially if we pump in enough CO2 and CH4 to get the arctic to fully thaw. Doing that would cause a self-reinforcing climate sequence where the only partially decomposed organic matter that makes up so much of the turf finally decompses the rest of the way, releasing more methane & carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the warming globe absorbs through increased plant growth.
Whether it goes that way or not is one of the unanswered questions, I think.
Unfortunately, since there's a lag time to much of climate phenomena between the input and the results, by the time we find out it'll be too late to do much about it.
- oddjob
Dark Wraith,
Do you teach at a religious school?
I can't believe they are still bringing up children to regard evolution in that way.
Well, Christians killed the mathematician Hypatia, dragged her through the streets, and scrapped the flesh off her bones with Oyster Shells...Tell your students about that next time...
Well, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.
I do not envy your position. Just reading your post made be blow an o-ring in my brain.
I do not know how I would react in a similar situation. My instinct would be to go into a huge lecture about evolution...
I really want to understand what makes these people tick. Is it just brainwashing from an early childhood age to accept such dogma?
Do they really feel that the earth was created 8000 years ago and God made Adam out of mud and Eve from one of Adam's rib?
I believe in God AND evolution. Why can't God work through evolution?
I know the theory of evolution has its problems, but some facts you just can't refute. There is just overwhelming physical evidence.
It's that type of GeoCentric Flat Earth thinking that is going to send us into another Dark Age. Much like the buring of the Library of Alexandria I fear that if things get out of hand there will be another catagorical rejection of knowledge and the church will once again rule by dogma.
Yes, Shifter, they really accept the Bible as historically accurate in all of its parts. Not all do, of course, but the chunk that do is enormous. The thoughtful ones among them know the reason why is because they believe the Gospel accounts to be literally historically accurate. Their faith is tied to the historical physical resurrection of Jesus.
This approach to Christianity is no different than wearing a hand-knitted sweater (bad analogy, but let me make my point & you'll understand). As long as you never snag the sweater on anything, you have a rather beautiful product if the craftsmanship is good.
What happens when you snag it, though?
Ultimately it unravels into a heap of yarn.
That's why they can't listen to discussions of evolution. It's a snag to their religious beliefs. If evolution is correct, then the Biblical account in Genesis is not historically accurate. If that's not historical, how does one decide what in the Bible is factual and what is not? If one cannot decide what is and is not factual, how can one believe in the resurrection of Jesus?
And as the writer of one of the Epistles ascribed to St. Paul stated, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17, New International Version)
Can't be havin' that now, can we?
- oddjob
(I speak as a former fundy, so I take the liberty of being sarcastic. Apologies to anyone who reads and is offended.)
good evening, Dark Wraith
For your original question,
I have a great philosophical-type blog that I love to read, called Waiter's Rant. http://www.waiterrant.blogspot.com/
He usually stays away from politics, and is very entertaining.
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith.
some bloggers might not be all that excited about getting attention from a crookéd nosed economist who haunts the Blogosphere referring to himself in the third person.
Some of us, however, prefer steak to soufflé.
Shakespeare's Sister appreciates the upside.
Odd Job,
I still just can't believe anyone can read the Bible and take it literally.
Don't get me wrong, I have read the bible, there is some interesting stuff in there. But one has to take into context that the books of the bible were picked and chosen. They were not "handed down" "as is" from God as some Christians apparently think.
I would hope that young Christians would care enough about their faith to learn the true, documented history of the rise of Christianity AFTER Christ's death.
They should at least learn about the Council of Nicea, Constantine, and how certain books were picked to be in the Bible and why others were rejected.
I think it would be helpful too if they would realize there were hundreds and hundreds of Christian cults before it became the official religion of Rome.
It is a shame (harkening back to your sweater example) that the leaders of the current Christian Church feel the urge to perpetuate so many myths about Christ and Christianity just so they can maintain a decent product.
IMO, they need to scrap it and start over.
Greetings all, I've not disappeared I've been working on one of my least favorite things in the world. Budgets.....
I dislike budgets almost more than I dislike the Bush Administration. And that's saying quite a bit.
It seems barring some miracle of finances that I might get delayed a year until Sept 06 in my quest to move to Vancouver. Unless the numbers I'm using are exaggerated or I'm just being too cautious about how much I might need to really make it.
I know I can get US Student loans but I don't know for quite how much so I asked a friend who goes up there how things are working for him to try and get some better info.
If I took the extra year I would be in light years better financial position with no debt to speak of. Whereas if I left this year I would have debt that would linger for years unless a good bit of money fell out of the sky.
The only problem is, is that I am really so over my current job it makes me crazy some days. But I could stick it out I think.
So my question for you guys is what in world do you all think? Also thanks for listening to me babble about my situation. I already know what I should do "stay put and clean things up" but damn I would love to do the other thing.
-Gary A
OK Gary, think of this as your first assignment in becoming a pastor.
I assume you've at least once heard/read someone refer to that "still, small voice" inside?
Listen to that.
- oddjob
Believe what you like, Shifter, but come to terms with the FACT that there are tens of millions of your fellow citizens who believe exactly that!
And no, they DON'T know about the picking and choosing. Were they to find out, they'd find a way to make it all go away for the same reasons they don't want to listen to discussions of evolution.
Oh, and it doesn't just happen to kids who were born into it. Hardly!
I was not, neither were most of the people I met.
- oddjob
Oddjob,
So how can we chane it?
Start a new church? LOL
Still, it disheartens me...
So many battles to fight and so little time...
Good Evening All,
Well, it's good that the more mainstream Christians are starting to speak up, and take the conversation back. I think that most of us are not ready to be ruled by the American Taliban yet, or ever. However, it is truly a shame that the children of these misguided people are not educated properly. The evening news has a story as I write, about another right-wing nut case wanting to ban alot of books in the school library, because he thinks they are all about the "gay agenda". They have already banned MARK TWAIN from school libraries because he used the dreaded "N-word". How strange can this world get??
How strange?
Reading the Book of Leviticus and imagining it as the literal law of the land would be one way to find out.
- oddjob
NBC has lost it's damn mind.... I just saw them running a special on a real life exorcisms right before their crazy funy show Revelations.
Have a we as a country really just lost our damn minds. How can we actually broadcast TV like this and have it get good enough ratings to continue to do it.
-Gary A
As someone who has benefited from his Wraithful references, I’ll take all the "crooked nosed economists" I can find. With a little luck, school will disappear soon and the Left Behind Child can get down to posting more than a single post a day.
Good Evening All,
Yes, I am alive.
I've looked (albeit not research-paper-hard), for any information as to why many Republican Congressmen are threatening an important part of our democracy. The definiton of the "nuclear option" and what would happen are pretty common knowledge by now, but my question is...What is wrong with the over 100(?) judges that the Senate has approved? Why use the nuclear option for 6(?) of them? What's the rebuttal from the Republicans on that? I hope somebody can enlighten or has a good link, I'd appreciate it.
lowlyredstater
Hey lowlyredstater! I don't have a link or more than my own hunch, but that hunch would be that you'll find the answer among those who go to Grover Norquist's weekly meetings (ie., virtually anyone who is anyone among serious DC conservatives). If Norquist and Rove are at all typical of their thinking, I suggest you peruse their thinking on things like cooperation, bipartisanship, and the importance of winning total victories.
- oddjob
Also, lowlyredstater, they find their strength in numbers alone. Why do you think they proselyte so much?
If they lose, they're through.
If we lose, we pop up elsewhere. They can't get rid of us fast enough. Kind of like dandelions.
wiseguy
Good evening, Lowly Red Stater. At least now I can suspend my plans to send out a search party to look for you. The good news is that the Saint Bernards can be relieved of those burdensome casks of beverage that can now be put to better uses than being hauled around by dogs.
OddJob is correct. The Rove & Co. strategy is winner-take-all, scorch-the-Earth, and leave the remains for the buzzards. Look at the descriptions of the behavior of men like Bolton, who has been described by multiple, first-hand witnesses as literally violent when things don't go his way. That's not leadership; and it's not really madness, either. It is, instead, a style of control that has no use for concensus, pooling of knowledge, and reason among the reasonable.
I speak as one of the most independent and least team-oriented folks around, and this is not some shade of strong, independent-minded vision. What these neo-cons do is world-class tyranny. Although every fiber of my being wants to say that the solution lies in a good round of old-fashioned ass-beating for these kinds, that would do no good. No matter how hard they are knocked back, they'll keep coming at you.
They are, in that regard, relentless; and finding a strategy that is successful against them is really, really difficult. Just about everyone reading this comment knows just how hard it is to permanently ignore a relentless, whiney person. Sooner or later, that person gets his or her way, if for no other reason than that people just want peace, and they'll eventually do just about anything to shut the whiner up.
We've all seen it; and many of us—whether or not we want to admit it—have accommodated the pestilent little people who hound us to death.
Rove, Bolton, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and scores more of their ilk are of this breed, except that they can turn vicious on those rare occasions when things don't go their way. The damage they do in that regard is not worth it for most people. I am not certain that there are many who would be willing to risk the damage the neo-cons could cause if they were to be refused for very long.
In that regard, I cannot be too harsh on the Democrats who seem to appease them. Neither can I be too harsh on the moderate Republicans who, despite their much better judgments to the contrary, are going along with this awful, spiraling descent into tyranny.
How do you stop men like Rove, Frist, Bolton, and the others? Perhaps shine a bright light on them? Ask Joseph Wilson or Sibel Edmunds about that plan.
Be just as nasty and mean to people around you as they are? Ask Howard Dean about that plan.
Be optimistic, hopeful, and darned-near visionary in the good way you see America, its people, and its future? Ask John Edwards about that plan.
The rhetorical attack above certainly doesn't mean they cannot be stopped. What it means is that we need to go beyond seeing them for what they are. And we need to see them not as ignorant beasts, even if that really is their nature.
One solution is rather obvious, Lowly Red Stater. Unfortunately, it is a self-administering solution, the one used by any organism when an aggressive, destructive, and unrelenting cancer has metastasized within it.
May God help us if we can't think of something before the organic being called the United States solves the problem that way.
The Dark Wraith reaches deep for an alternative.
Dark Wraith,
I think Howard Dean was going somewhere UNTIL the DNC decided to embarce the more "centrist" and "moderate" Kerry.
A lot of good that did.
Dean gained all his early traction with Firey rhetoric. Ofcourse the Iowa Scream did him in...
It is just my opinion but I think it can be even more effective today.
Hard hitting, below the belt, gloves off punches I think can do it.
There are/were no WMD's
Our border with Mexico is more of a terrorist threat than Iraq ever was.
We have busted, bloated budget deficits.
Economy is in the crapper.
Gas prices at record highs
Dangerously blending religious beliefs with politics etc etc.
The sad thing is, the NeoCons have already accomplished Job #1 and I dont think anyone realizes it...
The CIA has been revamped and stacked with NeoCons. So has the FBI, NSF, and Pentagon. Now the NeoCons are looking to stack the Judiciary.
Even if in 2006 the Dems win some seats back and in 2008 there is a Dem Prez, the NeoCons will still have control over Foreign Policy which is all they really want anyway. They couldn't shiv-a-git about the United States.
Ahhhh! Blogger messed up a nice long post, so I'll try and shorten it.
-Thanks for the replies!
-This blog is pretty good, I never comment, and it's some Canadian politics(which Gary might appreciate, either soon or a year from now.) His "Liberal Eye for the Conservative Guy" is hilarious.
-Teach evolution in schools, let people teach what they want in Sunday School. My biggest beef with the Christians who cling to creationism is that it won't matter when you die whether you believed in evo/creat. What will matter is how you lived your life. Your deeds and words will dictate whether or not St. Peter presses the "Hell" floor trap button.
Yeesh, that was the short version.
lowlyredstater
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
I have been reading your fine blog for some time now. I especially appreciate the thought-provoking informative comments left here.
I agree that BushCo & his minions have a relentless, win at any price mindset that is dangerous. No doubt about it, it is a war we are thrust into with this crew of pirates. To give any quarter to them is, sadly, seen as a sign of weakness and only reinforces the disgust they feel towards any who aren't as ruthless as they are.
What to do about it? I believe that it is essential to stand and fight them at every opportune moment. To do any less is to risk the anniliation of the American dream. There will be no mercy shown to those who "go along to get along". Speaking for myself, I am more inclined to die on my feet than to live on my knees.
Respectfully disagree with your stance on St. Peter lowlyredstater. The reason they're so insistent on right dogma is because of one of the Epistles, where the writer deliberately points out that THAT standard is perfect deeds, and who among us has achieved that? The writer continues by citing an Old Testament passage, "There is none that doeth good, no not one." (King James Version, which is how I memorized that particular bit). Therefore what one believes is crucially important, and thus the insistence on right dogma.
On another neo-con topic, I meant to link to this Boston Globe article yesterday, but forgot. This is just bound to make DW's day, I'm sure!
House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner's (R-WI) latest probably unstoppable train wreck. This is the same guy who wants to put an armed fence around the country's land borders, just in case you were wondering. Fences are also wonderful ways of keeping people IN.
- oddjob
AAAKKK - and I haven't yet convinced my husband that we should move to Canada. . . . .
Morning, all.
In one of his above comments, Mr. Wraith seemed to suggest that the only way the United States can move beyond its current difficulties is for it to destroy itself, and then become reborn in a new and better form. I think I agree with that, and it raises the interesting question of what exactly the nature of this "new form" should be.
As someone who was only very recently cast into the great American melting-pot, I have found that the longer I live here, the more I think the only solution to our problems may be for the Blue States to secede from the Union.
Other commentators on this site have said that we need to rely on the inherent wisdom of the American people to save the system in its current form; but most of the American people fall into two diametrically opposed and irreconcilable camps, both of which have very different views about what constitutes wisdom. Some might argue that there is a mushy middle ground available, but as the Right becomes more and more radical, the “average American” will be forced to pick a side.
On one hand we have the North and the major conurbations, which for the most part seem to embrace modernity and progressiveness. Then, there is the rest of the country, my encounters with which have been truly shocking. Stuck down here in Indiana, I feel like a shipwreck victim from one of those old B-movies entitled "The Land that Time Forgot." Each day I am beset by tribes of savage natives – and must be careful in my dealings with them lest I offend some strange superstition or primitive custom. That is not to say that in their own way many of them aren’t nice people, but the village square does have a rather ominous looking cauldron in the middle of it, and there are times when I worry that Mr. Shakes Au Gratin could be on the menu. Not right now, perhaps, but someday.
It seems to me that after the Civil War, the North and the South behaved like a married couple, which, in an effort to overcome the strife in their relationship, decided to have a baby. Of course, as is usually the case in these situations, the original reasons for the marital strife did not go away, and instead merely festered under surface, occasionally boiling over into ugly confrontations. It may be that we are reaching the point where little baby is all grown up and has gone off to college; in which case it’s a good time for Mom and Pops to end the charade, and start thinking about what they’re each going to do with the rest of their lives. A nice condo in the city for Dad, and a cute cottage in the country for Mom could be the best solution for all concerned.
Easy, huh!
Won't happen without armed insurrection, and even then it's doubtful.
I know the United Kingdom is less so than it once was, but how soon do you figure on the various Celtic nations seperating for good from the Anglo-Saxons?
- oddjob
Hey, oddjob.
Well, Britain is a lot smaller than the U.S. and in certain important respects is more homogenous - I'm not sure it makes a good analogy with the situation here in the U.S.
If the conservatives prove as unstoppable as people on this blog have been suggesting, couldn't there come a time when armed insurrection becomes the only option? Or more likely, that the situation could become so bad that the only way to avoid armed insurrection is for the country to undergo some kind of split.
You're right, though - it does sound far-fetched, and I guess I threw it out there in part just to see what people's reactions would be. To an outsider (to this one, anyway), America does seem like two countries at times, and I wonder if it would make more sense if it were to split.
Good afternoon, Mr. Shakes.
I do not foresee an armed insurrection against the central government. What I do see is some kind of political mechanism evolving quickly over the coming decades, perhaps furtively, that sidesteps the entire concept of federalism.
The central government of the United States has enormous power, not the least of this being the power of the purse. This creates an interesting problem for the neo-conservatives, one similar to the problem faced by the Ante-Bellum Washington establishment: if the federal government does not provide huge, continuing, and growing largesse to share with the states, what then motivates the states, in the long run, to hold fealty to the will and dictates of that federal Constitution other than brute force and the mass of binding laws and interlocking constitutions?
Certainly, the decoupling would be complex, but it seems to me that the neo-conservative dream of a quasi-Libertarian society where the "government is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub" leads almost inevitably to a government too weak to hold together its disparate parts.
When I was in grammar school, the history textbooks presented the Civil War as a thing of the past, the issues that led to it having been long since resolved. Tbe Civil Rights Act of 1964 and similar legislation enacted in the last century were more or less a matter of tying up loose ends. Civil strife was not much more than a cautionary tale in not attending to details.
The time since then, especially the time of this President's administration but also the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, points to a more complex reality: military victory is not social victory, nor is it ideological victory—not unless the enemy is utterly wiped out.
The North did not obliterate and remove the South in the Civil War. Instead, the Union Army crushed it, wrecked it, and then brought it back into the Union, where its peoples could fester in their bitter hatreds for the next handful of generations, fed by relative poverty, lack of adequate and expansive education, and shards of states' rights that allowed their old to pass down hate to their young.
That, I would submit to you, means that the Civil War as a military operation might have ended a century and a half ago, but continues to this day. Ultimately, any secession, even if it be through the fiat of laws that distance the progressive states from the less progressive states, would be merely the latest chapter in an on-going struggle between two nations that became irrevocably separated from one another a hundred and fifty years ago.
Will this happen? The alternative is a progressive crushing—perhaps an alternating, progressive crushing—of one side by the other.
Absent this solution, war would be viable, once again. If that be necessary, then the victor must this time finish the job that Mr. Lincoln, in his fundamental decency as a human being, could not bring himself to do, even as his generals had done their part to begin that process in the wasting destruction they laid upon the South and its people.
Sometimes, the hope of reasoned solution—which is always predicated on the existence of reasonable people on both side of a divide—must be surrendered to the brutality of ancient war.
The neo-conservatives dream of a brutish world. Let us then see if they are strong enough to survive in that blackened world of their aspirations.
The Dark Wraith has spoken.
Good Evening oddjob,
True, none of us have achieved perfect deeds, as the writer describes. I believe the verse you quote is more along the lines of Romans 3:23. But, the accepted Christian belief is that you can atone for your "misdeeds," and become perfect, or "Christ-like." And since Christ (at least Biblically) wasn't wrapped up in how this world came to be, shouldn't Christians also not be so wrapped up in it as well? Personal beliefs may have seeped into my previous post, but I tried for objectivity.
It's easier to find the end of a circle than to come to any whole conclusion on religion.
lowlyredstater
The first blog I look at every day is "Liberty Street"
http://libertystreetusa.blogspot.com/
The lady has a keen, analytical mind.
If you haven't visited Liberty Street, you really ought to check it out.
Chief
At this point in my life on matters Biblical I think the best summation of what really matters in how one leads one's life is probably found in the Book of Micah:
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8, New International Version)
To paraphrase Hillel, all the rest is details.
- oddjob
I tried to comment yesterday, but I would get an error message. :(
Um... my comment is on something completely different. I added Blogscream to my blog a few days ago, but then took it down. After I included it, the formatting for my sidebar got all weird. I couldn't figure out how to fix it, so for the time being, I took Blogscream down. I'm sure it was something I did in the coding and I promise to work on it when I get a chance.
Oh, wow! I love seeing my name on other blogs. Thanks for the mention, Dark Wraith.
We have lost another giant, almost as significant in his way as Hans Bethe.
- oddjob
Oh, Lord. Morrison was about the last of them. This country has lost its voice of the dissent of that generation of scientists.
When the giants have passed, all then that remain are their lessers.
The Dark Wraith remembers those who served their country, and then served their world.
And yet, even in the darkness, a light (of the "green" kind) is kindled! (Hat tip, James Wolcott)
- oddjob
THIS is an AWESOME speech!
- oddjob