"Conscious of the conflict between his desire to be good and his inability to obey his father's advice to bank on his own strength, Richard came to the Christian faith sometime in his senior year. ...His life began to change very quickly. He said even his parents noticed that, while Richard had been something of a wild teenager before going to college, he now seemed compliant and polite."
--Jesus in Beijing
Not an effect conversion had on me, I'm afraid.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Monday, December 29, 2003
"DESIRE: APRIL FOOLS": The fifth and final installment of the current short story. This one was fun. What happens to Holly, the world's first bachelorette adulterer?
You can get the final segment here or--I recommend doing it this way--start from the beginning here.
Friday, I'll start posting "Getting Fired."
You can get the final segment here or--I recommend doing it this way--start from the beginning here.
Friday, I'll start posting "Getting Fired."
READING AROUND IRAQI BLOGS: "usually my nightmares have either Italian girls dumping me, or American soldiers stopping me on check points." Raed of course. Plus, lots of stuff exploding outside the windows, in the night. And black market gasoline.
Healing Iraq: "It's good to be back to normal again. By normal I mean total chaos, endless lines for gasoline, long electricity outages, and sounds of unknown explosions and gunfire. Yes you guessed it right, I'm back in Baghdad again. Though to be fair things have relatively improved since the last time. Electricity has been better since Christmas (only 12 hours of outage!) and queue lines at petrol stations are a mile or two shorter. And no I'm not being sarcastic at all. Thats the way it is.
"I got back yesterday evening. My parents were really happy and I was surprised to hear that our neighbourhood was surrounded and raided by about a thousand American troops just two days ago. Thank Goodness our house wasn't raided." And much more.
Iraq at a Glance: Gas on not-black market. Also, notes from Basra (scroll around).
Iraq the Model: "...children who fear the moon." Haunting poem. Also women in Iraq, Uday's Iron Maiden, and electricity. Also a letter from Samoa, Iraq, where the Dutch are at.
Mesopotamian: Crocodile tears from the Arab countries.
Nabil (of Iraqi sportsblog fame) is back, after his exams.
New blogs (new to me, anyway): A Family in Baghdad.
Secrets in Baghdad.
These are more of Salam Pax's blogchildren. In fact, they are Raed's family. The student has become the master....
Road of a Nation: Blogchild of Iraq the Model. Written by an architectural engineer.
Iraq and Iraqis. Expat. Quick and interesting posts.
The Iraq Blog Count. This rocks.
Iraqi Blog BBS. Via Mesopotamian.
Great to see the new "faces." Our prayers are with you and your country.
Healing Iraq: "It's good to be back to normal again. By normal I mean total chaos, endless lines for gasoline, long electricity outages, and sounds of unknown explosions and gunfire. Yes you guessed it right, I'm back in Baghdad again. Though to be fair things have relatively improved since the last time. Electricity has been better since Christmas (only 12 hours of outage!) and queue lines at petrol stations are a mile or two shorter. And no I'm not being sarcastic at all. Thats the way it is.
"I got back yesterday evening. My parents were really happy and I was surprised to hear that our neighbourhood was surrounded and raided by about a thousand American troops just two days ago. Thank Goodness our house wasn't raided." And much more.
Iraq at a Glance: Gas on not-black market. Also, notes from Basra (scroll around).
Iraq the Model: "...children who fear the moon." Haunting poem. Also women in Iraq, Uday's Iron Maiden, and electricity. Also a letter from Samoa, Iraq, where the Dutch are at.
Mesopotamian: Crocodile tears from the Arab countries.
Nabil (of Iraqi sportsblog fame) is back, after his exams.
New blogs (new to me, anyway): A Family in Baghdad.
Secrets in Baghdad.
These are more of Salam Pax's blogchildren. In fact, they are Raed's family. The student has become the master....
Road of a Nation: Blogchild of Iraq the Model. Written by an architectural engineer.
Iraq and Iraqis. Expat. Quick and interesting posts.
The Iraq Blog Count. This rocks.
Iraqi Blog BBS. Via Mesopotamian.
Great to see the new "faces." Our prayers are with you and your country.
CALIFORNIA LEADS IN MAKING EMPLOYERS PAY FOR JOB DEATHS: ...It happened at the Aguiar-Faria & Sons dairy, a sprawling farm of some 1,700 cows operated by one of Gustine's leading families. Two dairy workers, illegal immigrants from Mexico, drowned in a deep, dark sump hole filled with manure and wastewater. The coroner's report succinctly cataloged their struggles in life and in death: Between them, they had eight pennies and one dime in their pockets; their lungs, however, were packed with bovine excrement.
The people of Gustine saw one more hard, cruel stroke of fate.
Roy Hubert saw a golden opportunity. In January, in a place where dairy is king, he methodically assembled enough evidence to persuade a grand jury in nearby Merced to indict the farm's general manager and its herdsman for involuntary manslaughter and other felonies.
Just like that, both men were looking at nearly five years in prison.
...Many were baffled by what they saw as a ludicrous intrusion by the government. How could there be a crime in something like this, something that nobody ever meant to happen?
Especially when Pat Faria had not even been on the farm that day.
...Roy Hubert would have been amazed, and disappointed, by any other response.
"These are not evil people," he said. "They are not people who hurt for the sake of hurting. They are not bad people. This is good ol' Pat, good ol' volunteer fireman Pat. He feels terrible. He's devastated. I get a lot of that. Well, good. So are the widow and the mother and the father and sister and brother. Just imagine the incredible despair and anguish as you're drowning in manure."
...California stands alone in the United States in its willingness to prosecute employers who kill or harm their workers by violating safety laws.
Long before Congress created the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1970, California had its own workplace safety standards, and it is one of 21 states that run their own versions of OSHA. Its powerful labor leaders and big-city district attorneys have long been adept at using headline-grabbing workplace deaths to win ever-stronger enforcement powers for the state agency, known as Cal OSHA.
Under federal law, it is a misdemeanor to commit safety violations that kill workers. The maximum penalty is six months in jail and a $500,000 fine. But after a deadly refinery explosion in 1999, California adopted one of the nation's first laws making that same offense a felony. In California, conviction carries a sentence of up to three years in prison and a $1.5 million fine.
Every workplace death or serious injury in California is investigated with an eye to potential prosecution. That work is done by a special Cal OSHA unit, mostly former police officers, whose members are required by law to refer every death to local prosecutors if there is credible evidence of a deliberate safety violation.
Federal law sets a far more exclusive standard: only the most egregious workplace deaths--those caused by an employer's "willful" safety violations--can be referred to the Justice Department. But as The New York Times found in an eight-month examination of workplace death in the United States, in even those worst cases, the federal OSHA only rarely seeks prosecution.
It is largely the same story in the other states that run their own workplace safety programs. California has prosecuted more employers for safety violations than all of those states combined, The Times found. At the same time, its workplace death rate is substantially lower than that of the rest of the nation. [Eve's emphasis]
Still, California's record can be misleading. Most of these prosecutions take place in Los Angeles, San Francisco and a handful of other large cities whose district attorneys have the resources and political will. In dozens of small rural counties, district attorneys have been just as reluctant as the rest of the country to pursue what are often technical, time-consuming and politically sensitive prosecutions.
Roy Hubert and his small band of roving prosecutors are trying to rectify this pattern of uneven enforcement. Called the Circuit Prosecutor Project, they work from the offices of the California District Attorneys Association in Sacramento, under the direction of Gale Filter, a man who combines a prosecutor's cold-eyed pragmatism with a reformer's messianic zeal.
...On dairy farms across the valley floor, there has been a broad reassessment of safety. Farmers are hiring safety consultants, putting their workers through safety training, installing first aid kits and posting signs.
"It makes you concerned because you think, 'Heck, he's a dairyman and I'm a dairyman, too,' " said Mark Ahlem, a young farmer in the valley.
more
Via Amptoons and Confined Space.
The people of Gustine saw one more hard, cruel stroke of fate.
Roy Hubert saw a golden opportunity. In January, in a place where dairy is king, he methodically assembled enough evidence to persuade a grand jury in nearby Merced to indict the farm's general manager and its herdsman for involuntary manslaughter and other felonies.
Just like that, both men were looking at nearly five years in prison.
...Many were baffled by what they saw as a ludicrous intrusion by the government. How could there be a crime in something like this, something that nobody ever meant to happen?
Especially when Pat Faria had not even been on the farm that day.
...Roy Hubert would have been amazed, and disappointed, by any other response.
"These are not evil people," he said. "They are not people who hurt for the sake of hurting. They are not bad people. This is good ol' Pat, good ol' volunteer fireman Pat. He feels terrible. He's devastated. I get a lot of that. Well, good. So are the widow and the mother and the father and sister and brother. Just imagine the incredible despair and anguish as you're drowning in manure."
...California stands alone in the United States in its willingness to prosecute employers who kill or harm their workers by violating safety laws.
Long before Congress created the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1970, California had its own workplace safety standards, and it is one of 21 states that run their own versions of OSHA. Its powerful labor leaders and big-city district attorneys have long been adept at using headline-grabbing workplace deaths to win ever-stronger enforcement powers for the state agency, known as Cal OSHA.
Under federal law, it is a misdemeanor to commit safety violations that kill workers. The maximum penalty is six months in jail and a $500,000 fine. But after a deadly refinery explosion in 1999, California adopted one of the nation's first laws making that same offense a felony. In California, conviction carries a sentence of up to three years in prison and a $1.5 million fine.
Every workplace death or serious injury in California is investigated with an eye to potential prosecution. That work is done by a special Cal OSHA unit, mostly former police officers, whose members are required by law to refer every death to local prosecutors if there is credible evidence of a deliberate safety violation.
Federal law sets a far more exclusive standard: only the most egregious workplace deaths--those caused by an employer's "willful" safety violations--can be referred to the Justice Department. But as The New York Times found in an eight-month examination of workplace death in the United States, in even those worst cases, the federal OSHA only rarely seeks prosecution.
It is largely the same story in the other states that run their own workplace safety programs. California has prosecuted more employers for safety violations than all of those states combined, The Times found. At the same time, its workplace death rate is substantially lower than that of the rest of the nation. [Eve's emphasis]
Still, California's record can be misleading. Most of these prosecutions take place in Los Angeles, San Francisco and a handful of other large cities whose district attorneys have the resources and political will. In dozens of small rural counties, district attorneys have been just as reluctant as the rest of the country to pursue what are often technical, time-consuming and politically sensitive prosecutions.
Roy Hubert and his small band of roving prosecutors are trying to rectify this pattern of uneven enforcement. Called the Circuit Prosecutor Project, they work from the offices of the California District Attorneys Association in Sacramento, under the direction of Gale Filter, a man who combines a prosecutor's cold-eyed pragmatism with a reformer's messianic zeal.
...On dairy farms across the valley floor, there has been a broad reassessment of safety. Farmers are hiring safety consultants, putting their workers through safety training, installing first aid kits and posting signs.
"It makes you concerned because you think, 'Heck, he's a dairyman and I'm a dairyman, too,' " said Mark Ahlem, a young farmer in the valley.
more
Via Amptoons and Confined Space.
WEARING BUT A PAPER DRESS: Comics reviews. In alphabetical order to maximize randomness.
JM DeMatteis and Glenn Barr, Brooklyn Dreams. This is a fun and easy to read coming-of-age/family/drugs/search for God tale, but nothing more. DeMatteis has a sweet sense of humor, and the drawings are appealingly exaggerated--portraying the world the way children see it, cartoonishly. The pictures set in the past are stark black-and-white, funny, and hyper; those set in the present are awash in gray tones, subtler, adrift in the confusion of adulthood. Very nice stuff--captures the cartoony, exaggerated way the world looks to kids, who have not yet learned a sense of scale. Compassionate pictures of the narrator's parents make the clash of child/teen vs. adult perspective more obvious. Lots of moving stuff here, and lots of fun stuff, but I'm not sure it adds up to a whole heck of a lot.
BD at first seemed to be made for me. It's got the Jew vibe, the Catholic vibe, the Dostoyevsky vibe. But it keeps promising more than it delivers. (Lots of suspense--"But we don't have time for that right now..."--which goes from intriguing to really funny to shticky.) I do understand that spiritual payoffs are unusually hard to describe (this is where Creature Tech failed too, for example), but honestly, what am I to make of this kind of thing?: "But here I was--glimpsing the place in every passing heart, where so-called good and so-called evil met, where yin and yang balanced." The pictures do not illuminate this statement. So the book starts much stronger than it ends, unfortunately.
Brian Bendis, Fortune and Glory: Well, now I know that I can detest a Bendis comic.
This is the story of Bendis in Hollywood, as he tries to make a movie out of his (quite good) comic Goldfish. The pictures are nicely cartoony--gooey arms, bug-eyes--but this is the first Bendis comic to bring out my Inner Editor. I found myself growling, "Cut this. This doesn't work. Cut this. Cut this," at the page. Ordinarily, Bendis's repetitions and stuttering dialogue add to the suspense and drama of a scene. But here, since the stakes of the drama were so low (we already knew the movie doesn't get made, and even if we didn't know that, is this really super-exciting?), the dialogue style just felt like padding.
Moreover, much of the book is various people praising Bendis. Isn't this... creepy?
Don't buy this. But, also, don't take this as representative of Bendis's generally excellent work.
Ed Brubaker and Colin Wilson, Point Blank. I got this because it was the predecessor of Sleeper (which see). It's a fun, twisty covert-ops riddle, with a harsh ending--like something written by a more sadistic Chandler. Until the end, I was underimpressed--was not taken by the art, and this is ultimately just very well-done comics noir--but the ending really twists in your gut. A short sharp shock. Won't change your world, but it is worth your time.
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Sleeper: Out in the Cold. This book is much prettier than Point Blank. It's also not as smart. The premise is sweet: The only person who knows which side a deep cover agent is really working for is in a coma. In order to fulfill his purpose and maintain his identity, the agent has to somehow aid the side he's really fighting for; but how can he do that when nobody trusts him?
The characterization is also very nicely done. I especially liked the woman who sickens and dies unless she hurts other people. I like anything that challenges the too-common assumption that acting rightly always makes people feel warm and cuddled.
The pages are laid out in tightly-controlled squares. Each character is tightly framed, constrained, often placed behind bars or in even more constraining doorways or windowframes; the squares are always hierarchically ordered on the page, mirroring the hierarchy of the criminal organization the sleeper agent has infiltrated. Hardly subtle, but good-looking nonetheless. I note that for whatever reason, the pages of this book also felt heavier or glossier--more fun to turn--than usual. There's a predictable but effective sensual pleasure here.
I was seriously annoyed by one major plot element: This comic features a cabal that controls the world. That's stupid. The world is messier than that. These people need to read their Hayek--top-down control will always be worked around; there is no They that tells you what to do and what to like. There are no excuses for our lousy choices.
Apparently Sleeper is only getting better, so perhaps this cabal is ultimately revealed as fakery; but within this book it irritated me and made the protagonists look gullible. Nor was it in any way necessary to the plot, at least not so far.
Despite these criticisms, I'm pretty sure I'll be on the lookout for more Sleeper. There's always room for slick noir fun.
Bruce Baugh reviews both books at greater length, and tells you more about the plot than I did (but not in a spoilery way).
Christophe Blain, The Speed Abater. I bought this as part of the ongoing ghost-ship project. It's the story of a sailor in the French Navy and his misadventures aboard an aging ship. It is all right. The story takes a while to get off the ground, and really only startles and captures when the sailors descend into the mechanical hell that drives the ship. But the scenes amid the heat and noise of the machinery are vivid and powerful. Worth checking out if ships are your thing; otherwise probably not so much. I will say that Blain writes good argument scenes, which I respect since it's something I find difficult.
JM DeMatteis and Glenn Barr, Brooklyn Dreams. This is a fun and easy to read coming-of-age/family/drugs/search for God tale, but nothing more. DeMatteis has a sweet sense of humor, and the drawings are appealingly exaggerated--portraying the world the way children see it, cartoonishly. The pictures set in the past are stark black-and-white, funny, and hyper; those set in the present are awash in gray tones, subtler, adrift in the confusion of adulthood. Very nice stuff--captures the cartoony, exaggerated way the world looks to kids, who have not yet learned a sense of scale. Compassionate pictures of the narrator's parents make the clash of child/teen vs. adult perspective more obvious. Lots of moving stuff here, and lots of fun stuff, but I'm not sure it adds up to a whole heck of a lot.
BD at first seemed to be made for me. It's got the Jew vibe, the Catholic vibe, the Dostoyevsky vibe. But it keeps promising more than it delivers. (Lots of suspense--"But we don't have time for that right now..."--which goes from intriguing to really funny to shticky.) I do understand that spiritual payoffs are unusually hard to describe (this is where Creature Tech failed too, for example), but honestly, what am I to make of this kind of thing?: "But here I was--glimpsing the place in every passing heart, where so-called good and so-called evil met, where yin and yang balanced." The pictures do not illuminate this statement. So the book starts much stronger than it ends, unfortunately.
Brian Bendis, Fortune and Glory: Well, now I know that I can detest a Bendis comic.
This is the story of Bendis in Hollywood, as he tries to make a movie out of his (quite good) comic Goldfish. The pictures are nicely cartoony--gooey arms, bug-eyes--but this is the first Bendis comic to bring out my Inner Editor. I found myself growling, "Cut this. This doesn't work. Cut this. Cut this," at the page. Ordinarily, Bendis's repetitions and stuttering dialogue add to the suspense and drama of a scene. But here, since the stakes of the drama were so low (we already knew the movie doesn't get made, and even if we didn't know that, is this really super-exciting?), the dialogue style just felt like padding.
Moreover, much of the book is various people praising Bendis. Isn't this... creepy?
Don't buy this. But, also, don't take this as representative of Bendis's generally excellent work.
Ed Brubaker and Colin Wilson, Point Blank. I got this because it was the predecessor of Sleeper (which see). It's a fun, twisty covert-ops riddle, with a harsh ending--like something written by a more sadistic Chandler. Until the end, I was underimpressed--was not taken by the art, and this is ultimately just very well-done comics noir--but the ending really twists in your gut. A short sharp shock. Won't change your world, but it is worth your time.
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Sleeper: Out in the Cold. This book is much prettier than Point Blank. It's also not as smart. The premise is sweet: The only person who knows which side a deep cover agent is really working for is in a coma. In order to fulfill his purpose and maintain his identity, the agent has to somehow aid the side he's really fighting for; but how can he do that when nobody trusts him?
The characterization is also very nicely done. I especially liked the woman who sickens and dies unless she hurts other people. I like anything that challenges the too-common assumption that acting rightly always makes people feel warm and cuddled.
The pages are laid out in tightly-controlled squares. Each character is tightly framed, constrained, often placed behind bars or in even more constraining doorways or windowframes; the squares are always hierarchically ordered on the page, mirroring the hierarchy of the criminal organization the sleeper agent has infiltrated. Hardly subtle, but good-looking nonetheless. I note that for whatever reason, the pages of this book also felt heavier or glossier--more fun to turn--than usual. There's a predictable but effective sensual pleasure here.
I was seriously annoyed by one major plot element: This comic features a cabal that controls the world. That's stupid. The world is messier than that. These people need to read their Hayek--top-down control will always be worked around; there is no They that tells you what to do and what to like. There are no excuses for our lousy choices.
Apparently Sleeper is only getting better, so perhaps this cabal is ultimately revealed as fakery; but within this book it irritated me and made the protagonists look gullible. Nor was it in any way necessary to the plot, at least not so far.
Despite these criticisms, I'm pretty sure I'll be on the lookout for more Sleeper. There's always room for slick noir fun.
Bruce Baugh reviews both books at greater length, and tells you more about the plot than I did (but not in a spoilery way).
Christophe Blain, The Speed Abater. I bought this as part of the ongoing ghost-ship project. It's the story of a sailor in the French Navy and his misadventures aboard an aging ship. It is all right. The story takes a while to get off the ground, and really only startles and captures when the sailors descend into the mechanical hell that drives the ship. But the scenes amid the heat and noise of the machinery are vivid and powerful. Worth checking out if ships are your thing; otherwise probably not so much. I will say that Blain writes good argument scenes, which I respect since it's something I find difficult.
"SLEEP? THAT'S WHERE I'M A VIKING!" Contribute your favorite "Simpsons" lines. Yes, it's one of those threads. I love those threads.
"Even Gore Vidal has kissed more boys than me!"
"Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls."
"Even Gore Vidal has kissed more boys than me!"
"Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls."
I'm afraid of people who like Blogwatch in the Rye;
Yeah, I like it too,
But someone tell me why...
(Actually I really hated Catcher in the Rye the only time I read it, but maybe that's because my school made us read it in, I think, junior high. This cannot be the best way to read the book.)
Daniel Drezner: American tariffs and subsidies throw American candymakers out of work. Interesting stuff in comments, too. Oxblog explains why this post is important: It's easier to see the concentrated costs of free trade than the diffused benefits.
More Drezner can be found at AndrewSullivan.com, where DD is guest-blogging.
Hit & Run: Families Against Mandatory Minimums on TV! Yay!
Kesher Talk: Big list of Jewblogs. (BlogJews?) Rabbis, rebels, Reformers, and assorted whatnot.
Krubner: "This is a project that I've been meaning to get to for over a year: going over the work of Christopher Hill on this weblog, and in particular his book The World Turned Upside Down. For the next 2 weeks, with a few exceptions, posts will be about the English Revolution of the 1640s and 50s and also, in particular, the clash that arose between what might be called 'bourgeois' Protestantism, and the much more radical kind of Protestantism that flourished during the revolution.
"Rarely has any nation gone through as much spiritual turmoil as England did from 1646 to 1653. It interests me that things like atheism can become a mass event, like a mass hysteria, enveloping large chunks of the public for a year or two, before the mood passes.
"It interests me more that much of a nation might suddenly realize that they can be saved, that Jesus, perhaps, died for them. ..."
Punishment Theory: Very interesting debate thread about "faith-based prisons." Via Los Volokh.
GoogleAlert: Tells you when something new comes up when someone Googles your name. Indirectly via the Invisible Adjunct.
The PoMo English Title Generator. Instant hilarity.
Yeah, I like it too,
But someone tell me why...
(Actually I really hated Catcher in the Rye the only time I read it, but maybe that's because my school made us read it in, I think, junior high. This cannot be the best way to read the book.)
Daniel Drezner: American tariffs and subsidies throw American candymakers out of work. Interesting stuff in comments, too. Oxblog explains why this post is important: It's easier to see the concentrated costs of free trade than the diffused benefits.
More Drezner can be found at AndrewSullivan.com, where DD is guest-blogging.
Hit & Run: Families Against Mandatory Minimums on TV! Yay!
Kesher Talk: Big list of Jewblogs. (BlogJews?) Rabbis, rebels, Reformers, and assorted whatnot.
Krubner: "This is a project that I've been meaning to get to for over a year: going over the work of Christopher Hill on this weblog, and in particular his book The World Turned Upside Down. For the next 2 weeks, with a few exceptions, posts will be about the English Revolution of the 1640s and 50s and also, in particular, the clash that arose between what might be called 'bourgeois' Protestantism, and the much more radical kind of Protestantism that flourished during the revolution.
"Rarely has any nation gone through as much spiritual turmoil as England did from 1646 to 1653. It interests me that things like atheism can become a mass event, like a mass hysteria, enveloping large chunks of the public for a year or two, before the mood passes.
"It interests me more that much of a nation might suddenly realize that they can be saved, that Jesus, perhaps, died for them. ..."
Punishment Theory: Very interesting debate thread about "faith-based prisons." Via Los Volokh.
GoogleAlert: Tells you when something new comes up when someone Googles your name. Indirectly via the Invisible Adjunct.
The PoMo English Title Generator. Instant hilarity.
"Among Chinese Christians themselves is the belief--indeed some Chinese Christians refer to it as a divine calling--for Christian believers from China to bring the Gospel to the Muslim world."
--David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power
--David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power
Friday, December 26, 2003
LYRICS TO "OBEDIENCE SCHOOL": I've been listening to this Brian Dewan song (listen to it here) obsessively for the past, oh, week or so. The lyrics don't seem to be online anywhere. This is what I gleaned:
When I was in obedience school,
I could make a rabbit stew.
I could fix a sewage pipe,
I could build a beaver dam.
When I moved to a rooming house,
No one told me what to do.
Now I play with bottlecaps;
I can break a drinking glass.
People tell me every day,
"Don't tell people what to do!"
Well, that's all right--I'll do it like you tell me to.
Everybody is in charge,
Cooks aplenty making broth for everyone,
Bumping into everyone.
But back when I was in obedience school,
I could fold a paper plane.
I could wear a pilgrim hat,
I could [make?] a dinner [???];
Sit beside a metronome,
Listen to an intercom,
File into a corridor,
Be made to do a jumping jack;
Sing a song of loyalty
Wearing but a paper dress;
Standing in the morning rain,
Sing a song all o'er again;
Spend the afternoon indoors
Making useful things from trash,
Learn to build a candy dish,
Eat a can of tuna fish,
Scour and scrub a basement sink,
Sweep around a skating rink.
Oh, those bygone days!
They were so peaceful and great.
When I was in obedience school,
I could make a rabbit stew.
I could fix a sewage pipe,
I could build a beaver dam.
When I moved to a rooming house,
No one told me what to do.
Now I play with bottlecaps;
I can break a drinking glass.
People tell me every day,
"Don't tell people what to do!"
Well, that's all right--I'll do it like you tell me to.
Everybody is in charge,
Cooks aplenty making broth for everyone,
Bumping into everyone.
But back when I was in obedience school,
I could fold a paper plane.
I could wear a pilgrim hat,
I could [make?] a dinner [???];
Sit beside a metronome,
Listen to an intercom,
File into a corridor,
Be made to do a jumping jack;
Sing a song of loyalty
Wearing but a paper dress;
Standing in the morning rain,
Sing a song all o'er again;
Spend the afternoon indoors
Making useful things from trash,
Learn to build a candy dish,
Eat a can of tuna fish,
Scour and scrub a basement sink,
Sweep around a skating rink.
Oh, those bygone days!
They were so peaceful and great.
MEA CUBA: Powerful meditation on Spain, Cuba, family, and Sister Death. Your dose of myrrh at Christmastide. Must-read.
Via Dappled Things.
Via Dappled Things.
PARTS OF A HOLE: Dappled Things' sermon for Christmas. Describing that feeling of insufficiency, of thirst in a salt sea, that is one of the greatest motive forces in history.
...The problem seen by the Jews and pagans is not a long-gone problem of the distant past. As long as humanity exists, there will also exist the problem of the emptiness of the human heart. What can possibly fill it? It is a problem that confronts us all.
...From the poorest peasant to the Queen upon her throne, everyone, when he sits alone and thinks about his life and ponders his place in the world, realizes that his existence is a very fragile thing and that his little joys are easily lost in an ocean of solitude and shadows. In these moments of introspection, he sees that he himself shares the problem of the ancients, that he himself can feel that same empty hole within his own heart, and this emptiness smells of death.
The meaning of Christmas is that God has understood all of this and has come into the midst of our existence -- not as some abstract presence hovering up above us all, not as some ethical rules that will produce a happier life, not as a few pretty thoughts and swollen words -- He has come in flesh and bone, this same flesh and bone that you and I share. He knows our condition because He has lived it Himself. This is Christmas. This Child that lies today upon the manger of wood, one day upon a Cross of wood will die. He was born for us, and for us He will be sacrificed.
more
CS Lewis comments on same
...The problem seen by the Jews and pagans is not a long-gone problem of the distant past. As long as humanity exists, there will also exist the problem of the emptiness of the human heart. What can possibly fill it? It is a problem that confronts us all.
...From the poorest peasant to the Queen upon her throne, everyone, when he sits alone and thinks about his life and ponders his place in the world, realizes that his existence is a very fragile thing and that his little joys are easily lost in an ocean of solitude and shadows. In these moments of introspection, he sees that he himself shares the problem of the ancients, that he himself can feel that same empty hole within his own heart, and this emptiness smells of death.
The meaning of Christmas is that God has understood all of this and has come into the midst of our existence -- not as some abstract presence hovering up above us all, not as some ethical rules that will produce a happier life, not as a few pretty thoughts and swollen words -- He has come in flesh and bone, this same flesh and bone that you and I share. He knows our condition because He has lived it Himself. This is Christmas. This Child that lies today upon the manger of wood, one day upon a Cross of wood will die. He was born for us, and for us He will be sacrificed.
more
CS Lewis comments on same
SING HO! FOR THE BIBLICAL GENEALOGIES!: Mark Shea has an excellent post on, as he puts it, "Why the Biblical genealogies aren't boring."
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
HEY, MY REGISTER COLUMN ON THE MASSACHUSETTS SSM DECISION IS ONLINE! I didn't know that. (I note they declined to use my draft headline, "From the State That Brought You Harvard.")
It's not every day a court gets to stand against all of recorded history.
That's what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did Nov. 18 when, in Goodridge v. Department of Health, it ruled that marriage in Massachusetts is no longer the union of a man and a woman but the union of "two persons." The court argued that forbidding a man to marry another man constituted unlawful and irrational sex discrimination.
...The Massachusetts court is saying to citizens, "You all go ahead and vote for the laws. Then we'll tell you what you really voted for. Don't expect it to look much like what you thought you agreed to." The rule of law requires that laws be predictable and stable--that laws not be yanked out from under citizens like a carpet in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The Massachusetts court (like the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade) has ignored this principle.
The funny thing is, this bait-and-switch approach to judging may be turned against the Goodridge decision itself in the future.
...Marriage--civil marriage, not just sacramental marriage--is essentially a procreative union in two ways.
more
It's not every day a court gets to stand against all of recorded history.
That's what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did Nov. 18 when, in Goodridge v. Department of Health, it ruled that marriage in Massachusetts is no longer the union of a man and a woman but the union of "two persons." The court argued that forbidding a man to marry another man constituted unlawful and irrational sex discrimination.
...The Massachusetts court is saying to citizens, "You all go ahead and vote for the laws. Then we'll tell you what you really voted for. Don't expect it to look much like what you thought you agreed to." The rule of law requires that laws be predictable and stable--that laws not be yanked out from under citizens like a carpet in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The Massachusetts court (like the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade) has ignored this principle.
The funny thing is, this bait-and-switch approach to judging may be turned against the Goodridge decision itself in the future.
...Marriage--civil marriage, not just sacramental marriage--is essentially a procreative union in two ways.
more
HITS AND MISSES 2003: Stuff I wrote on this blog in the old year. Some of my archives are Bloggered, so this is incomplete; shrug.
January: Tradition vs. the past: "...The first and most basic point is that tradition is not about restoring some real or imagined past era. Tradition gives an institution (a nation, a debating society, a university) a persona; it makes the institution more like a person. And this is necessary in order to make the institution a possible object of human loyalties, since all our loyalties are to persons. ...
"I've also found that tradition's roots are often very odd--and that isn't a point against tradition! Tradition often develops and accumulates in a Hayekish spontaneous-order kind of way, but along the way traditions also result from jokes, accidents, and misreadings...."
In defense of free will: "First, a recent conversation with my friend Gene underlined for me the ways in which the question of freedom of the will is linked to the question of personal identity. Free will requires that there be a 'me' who chooses, rather than simply a pushing and pulling jostle of neural impulses and affects. ...
"...I tend to believe that free will is one of the philosophical questions that is far better handled in poetry and fiction than in philosophy, in part because it is such a bedrock, foundational issue...."
March: Against torture. Why was this controversial? Anyway, start here and scroll down as desired. "Better to die like a man than to live like a utilitarian."
May: Two Spenserian stanzas I wrote: "Time is regret" and "'I love you when you're less like me!'"
And I argue that those who hate Bush v. Gore should also oppose Roe v. Wade. Start here and scroll for my (attempted) rebuttal of Prof. Jack Balkin's theory of "high" vs. "low" politics in Constitutional jurisprudence.
And addiction as ritual.
June: What my wisdom teeth have to do with abortion and "women's right to know" laws.
And a pro-life reading list for people who want to know why I, and many people I know, stopped supporting legal abortion.
October: My review of "Carnival of Souls." This is a short piece but I really like it--I do think it gets at the reasons CoS is one of the best horror movies ever.
Rene Magritte, Master of Horror. "Belgium is an absence of identity."
A round-up link to October's same-sex marriage post series.
December: Superfast, allusive descriptions of great comics you might like. Comparisons between media: comics to movies, comics to novels, comics to paintings, whatever.
January: Tradition vs. the past: "...The first and most basic point is that tradition is not about restoring some real or imagined past era. Tradition gives an institution (a nation, a debating society, a university) a persona; it makes the institution more like a person. And this is necessary in order to make the institution a possible object of human loyalties, since all our loyalties are to persons. ...
"I've also found that tradition's roots are often very odd--and that isn't a point against tradition! Tradition often develops and accumulates in a Hayekish spontaneous-order kind of way, but along the way traditions also result from jokes, accidents, and misreadings...."
In defense of free will: "First, a recent conversation with my friend Gene underlined for me the ways in which the question of freedom of the will is linked to the question of personal identity. Free will requires that there be a 'me' who chooses, rather than simply a pushing and pulling jostle of neural impulses and affects. ...
"...I tend to believe that free will is one of the philosophical questions that is far better handled in poetry and fiction than in philosophy, in part because it is such a bedrock, foundational issue...."
March: Against torture. Why was this controversial? Anyway, start here and scroll down as desired. "Better to die like a man than to live like a utilitarian."
May: Two Spenserian stanzas I wrote: "Time is regret" and "'I love you when you're less like me!'"
And I argue that those who hate Bush v. Gore should also oppose Roe v. Wade. Start here and scroll for my (attempted) rebuttal of Prof. Jack Balkin's theory of "high" vs. "low" politics in Constitutional jurisprudence.
And addiction as ritual.
June: What my wisdom teeth have to do with abortion and "women's right to know" laws.
And a pro-life reading list for people who want to know why I, and many people I know, stopped supporting legal abortion.
October: My review of "Carnival of Souls." This is a short piece but I really like it--I do think it gets at the reasons CoS is one of the best horror movies ever.
Rene Magritte, Master of Horror. "Belgium is an absence of identity."
A round-up link to October's same-sex marriage post series.
December: Superfast, allusive descriptions of great comics you might like. Comparisons between media: comics to movies, comics to novels, comics to paintings, whatever.
"In the sixties, if you tell someone that you are a practitioner of advertising, you will still be treated as though you had said you were in burglary, but morality has changed. The increased scale of your operations will lend you respectability. Who, except possibly the Postmaster General, would refuse to shake hands with one of the Great Train Robbers?"
--The Naked Civil Servant
--The Naked Civil Servant
DEATH ON THE JOB: Via Amptoons I find Confined Space, a blog devoted to workplace safety and health. You should go there now for the NYTimes pieces at the top of the page: "A Trench Caves In, A Young Worker Is Dead. Is It a Crime?" and "US Rarely Seeks Charges for Deaths in Workplace." Sad, angering, and gripping stories.
A while back, I did a chunk of research and several interviews on various OSHA reform proposals, for a "news analysis" story that never quite jelled. I generally prefer market-based solutions--for reasons including a) market solutions tend to be suppler and better able to respond to changing conditions and practices; and b) governmental, top-down regulatory solutions are often hijacked--is the phrase I'm looking for "regulatory capture"?--as the biggest players write the regulations to favor themselves and disfavor smaller competitors. So I read some libertarian-oriented analyses of OSHA (though I don't think any were dogmatically, or "rigorously" if you prefer, libertarian) and also spoke with various scholars about proposed regulatory tweaks meant to give the governmental structures some of the flexibility of market structures. E.g. attempts to make workplace regulations focus more on outcomes rather than on processes (= "reduce death and injury at your workplace by X amount or X percent by time T--we don't care how you do it, just do it--here's a guide to best practices if you need ideas, but basically, just get your deaths and injuries down"). Many of these sounded like good ideas, but none seemed sufficient. This is an area where I'm not especially libertarian, though I'll note that I'm far from an expert here--not even an "insta-expert" of the faking-it-in-the-service-of-journalism kind.
My point (and I do have one) is that, wonk proposals and counterproposals aside, this should change: "[Even companies that willfully violated the law and killed workers] face lighter sanctions than those who deliberately break environmental or financial laws.
"For those 2,197 deaths, employers faced $106 million in civil OSHA fines and jail sentences totaling less than 30 years, The Times found. Twenty of those years were from one case, a chicken-plant fire in North Carolina that killed 25 workers in 1991."
A while back, I did a chunk of research and several interviews on various OSHA reform proposals, for a "news analysis" story that never quite jelled. I generally prefer market-based solutions--for reasons including a) market solutions tend to be suppler and better able to respond to changing conditions and practices; and b) governmental, top-down regulatory solutions are often hijacked--is the phrase I'm looking for "regulatory capture"?--as the biggest players write the regulations to favor themselves and disfavor smaller competitors. So I read some libertarian-oriented analyses of OSHA (though I don't think any were dogmatically, or "rigorously" if you prefer, libertarian) and also spoke with various scholars about proposed regulatory tweaks meant to give the governmental structures some of the flexibility of market structures. E.g. attempts to make workplace regulations focus more on outcomes rather than on processes (= "reduce death and injury at your workplace by X amount or X percent by time T--we don't care how you do it, just do it--here's a guide to best practices if you need ideas, but basically, just get your deaths and injuries down"). Many of these sounded like good ideas, but none seemed sufficient. This is an area where I'm not especially libertarian, though I'll note that I'm far from an expert here--not even an "insta-expert" of the faking-it-in-the-service-of-journalism kind.
My point (and I do have one) is that, wonk proposals and counterproposals aside, this should change: "[Even companies that willfully violated the law and killed workers] face lighter sanctions than those who deliberately break environmental or financial laws.
"For those 2,197 deaths, employers faced $106 million in civil OSHA fines and jail sentences totaling less than 30 years, The Times found. Twenty of those years were from one case, a chicken-plant fire in North Carolina that killed 25 workers in 1991."
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear blogwatch...
Charles Murtaugh is back, with much LOTR-ness and biotech-talk--and even two posts that combine both!
Oxblog: Ways to fight terror by spending your Christmas money. It's the American way!
Unqualified Offerings: Qualifying (ha ha) claims (linked on this very blog, and coming from such notable hawks as the New York Times editorial board) that Libya's announced end to its WMD programs is a consequence of the Iraq war. More on the invasion of Iraq/disarmament of Libya connection, working both sides of the street, from CalPundit. I'll note only that you needn't believe Libya's announcement is a huge shocking about-face to think the invasion of Iraq gave Gaddafi a big push to move faster.
Speaking of UO: In case you missed that fine blog's post on why you should be leery of the memo alleging a Saddam/Atta/Nidal terrorists R us link, here's the Newsweek story claiming that the memo is likely a fake. Sorry I forgot to post this earlier.
And last... ImplosionWorld, "Where Demolition Comes Alive." Via Mark Shea.
Charles Murtaugh is back, with much LOTR-ness and biotech-talk--and even two posts that combine both!
Oxblog: Ways to fight terror by spending your Christmas money. It's the American way!
Unqualified Offerings: Qualifying (ha ha) claims (linked on this very blog, and coming from such notable hawks as the New York Times editorial board) that Libya's announced end to its WMD programs is a consequence of the Iraq war. More on the invasion of Iraq/disarmament of Libya connection, working both sides of the street, from CalPundit. I'll note only that you needn't believe Libya's announcement is a huge shocking about-face to think the invasion of Iraq gave Gaddafi a big push to move faster.
Speaking of UO: In case you missed that fine blog's post on why you should be leery of the memo alleging a Saddam/Atta/Nidal terrorists R us link, here's the Newsweek story claiming that the memo is likely a fake. Sorry I forgot to post this earlier.
And last... ImplosionWorld, "Where Demolition Comes Alive." Via Mark Shea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)