"GETTING FIRED": Part one of the new short story. This segment is relatively normal, really, but this story is about to get very, very weird. Basic setup for the story is: German expressionists and '30s pulp-noir filmmakers team up to remake the Purgatorio. And a good time is had by some.

As usual, I'm writing too fast in order to get the draft out, so I know there are problems. Any and all criticism of this or any story, especially negative comments, are extraordinarily welcome. I am the mad doctor sculpting a new kind of life, you are the hunchbacked assistant, and your comments are the scalpel I'm requesting when I snap, "Igor! scalpel!"

PS: If you want, I will read your thing and tell you about it in return!

AT LEAST 29 CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES KILLED IN 2003. Listing of names and circumstances of death, from Fides.

"At the National Conference on Religious Work in 1954, the new Religious Affairs Bureau director Ho Zhenxiang made it clear that Christian theology itself could now be modified and altered at will by the authorities. Calling the process 'infusing Marxist-Leninist thought into the positive doctrines of religion,' Ho declared,

"'The positive values of patriotism should take the place of negative religious propaganda. We Communists can accept as reasonable certain parts of the Bible, which Christians use, but we must also pay attention to the doctrines that they preach. If we infuse those doctrines with our Marxist-Leninist thought, then they will have positive influence and can serve our cause.'

"Ho made it clear that the parts of the Bible he objected to were the Ten Commandments, anything supernatural, and anything about the days leading up to the Second Coming of Christ."
--Jesus in Beijing

"SECRET CASE": From the California Yankee "The public docket for the court in which the case originated is devoid of any mention of the case; the published court calendar for the appellate court was obliterated to omit the names of litigants; the appellate court's computer records were altered to remove from public view any information about the case; the appellate court closes its courtroom to the public and the press to hear arguments in the case; and the litigants are not allowed to talk about it.

"That is the way the government and the federal courts have dealt with Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel. The Supreme Court is now considering whether the lower courts were justified in sealing the entire record and docket without making findings supporting the sealing. ...

"...I have no sympathy for Bellahouel, if he is in fact in the U.S illegally. I am extremely concerned, however, about the degree and manner in which the government and the courts have kept the very existence of the case from us."

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MATT AND JEFF'S DIVERGENT JOURNEYS: Interesting blog written by two old friends--one studying to be an evangelical minister, the other a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Via Mark Shea.

"THE SAUDI PARADOX": Basic Foreign Affairs piece on divisions w/in Saudi govt. Via Journalista!

...The Saudi state is a fragmented entity, divided between the fiefdoms of the royal family. Among the four or five most powerful princes, two stand out: Crown Prince Abdullah and his half-brother Prince Nayef, the interior minister. Relations between these two leaders are visibly tense. In the United States, Abdullah cuts a higher profile. But at home in Saudi Arabia, Nayef, who controls the secret police, casts a longer and darker shadow. Ever since King Fahd's stroke in 1995, the question of succession has been hanging over the entire system, but neither prince has enough clout to capture the throne.

Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis. The economy cannot keep pace with population growth, the welfare state is rapidly deteriorating, and regional and sectarian resentments are rising to the fore. These problems have been exacerbated by an upsurge in radical Islamic activism. Many agree that the Saudi political system must somehow evolve, but a profound cultural schizophrenia prevents the elite from agreeing on the specifics of reform.

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THE TROUBLE THRESHOLD: "Yet, whites are not the top performing group. As the Thernstroms point out, the gap between white and Asian-American student performance is actually wider than the gap between blacks and whites, with Hispanics performing about as poorly as blacks.

"Among the most intriguing possible reasons for this disparity is an intriguing group difference in the way students measure their family's 'trouble threshold,' according to one study that the Thernstroms cite. The 'trouble threshold' is the lowest grade that students think they can receive before their parents go volcanic with anger and start clamping down on TV time, etc. In the survey by Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University social scientist, published in his 1996 book, Beyond the Classroom, most of the black and Hispanic students surveyed said they could avoid trouble at home as long as their grades stayed above C-minus.

"Most of the whites, by contrast, said their parents would give them a hard time if their children came home with anything less than a B-minus.

"By contrast, most of the Asian students, whether immigrant or native-born, said that their parents would be upset if they brought home anything less than an A-minus."

Clarence Page, via Eugene Volokh (who notes that this item is "rated S, for 'Indirectly Quotes Studies That the Author Hasn't Personally Read'").

TACITUS 2004 PREDICTIONS: He did pretty well on his 2003 predictions. Worth a look; plus some interesting posts (and the usual enormous helping of wishful thinking) in the comments section. These prediction things are probably a better test of one's political acumen and general sense of how the world works than they might at first appear.

Via Kesher Talk.

SUING OVER SUBSIDIES: The World Trade Organization's "peace clause," which prevented lawsuits over trade subsidies, expired December 31. KickAAS (Kick All Agricultural Subsidies) is on the case; and here's a piece from The Economist.

...There are certainly a lot of subsidies to shoot at. The OECD, a club of rich nations, reckons that the agricultural subsidies of its members cost consumers and taxpayers about $230 billion in 2001 alone. The European Union, the United States and Japan were to blame for about 80% of those transfers. The typical milk producer in the OECD makes half its money from selling milk, and the other half from milking its government. Rice and sugar producers do the same. ...

Brazil ...is already challenging America's cotton subsidies, arguing that they violate a term in the peace clause that caps subsidies at 1992 levels. Now the clause has expired, other targets will present themselves and other countries may join the fight. WTO members will be able to challenge any subsidy reserved for a specific industry (a sugar subsidy, for example) that can be shown to cause "serious prejudice" to their interests.

Such prejudice is easy enough to prove. Richard Steinberg of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Timothy Josling of Stanford University have read the statutes and crunched the numbers. They show that America's extensive subsidies to its barley producers, for example, helped keep foreigners out of American markets. Its subsidies to corn producers helped to displace rival producers from third-country markets, such as Mexico, Canada and the Philippines. Meanwhile, by subsidising exports, the EU is depressing world butter prices by as much as a fifth, according to one economic model.

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"Where the Three Self churches [a government-sponsored Christian/quasi-Christian movement] are allowed to do what churches in most parts of the world do--counseling and encouraging for church members, visiting and praying for the sick, operating orphanages and homes for the elderly, or explaining Christianity to anyone interested in it--they generally do it very well. Much of it is accomplished through the Amity Foundation, a nonprofit institution established in 1985 to enable North American and European churches and private individuals to fund a broad variety of social and cultural programs in China, many of them administered by Three Self churches in different parts of the country. The Amity Foundation has an annual budget of $5 million, of which 25 percent comes from the U.S. and Canada, 51 percent from Europe, 15 percent from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and only 2.5 percent from China itself. Much of its support from the U.S. comes from mainline Protestant groups like the Lutheran World Federation, and the Church World Service, the global service arm of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S. ...

"As mentioned earlier, while Bibles are indeed available for sale at Three Self churches in at least seventy locations throughout the country, house church leaders repeatedly tell me that it is not possible in most places for one person to purchase several copies at a time. House church Christians wanting a Bible may have to travel a hundred miles or more in order to obtain one. In some cases, Christians have been asked to indicate their names and addresses before being allowed to purchase Bibles. Bibles are also not available in ordinary Chinese bookstores, even though copies of the Koran and of Buddhist scriptures are."
--Jesus in Beijing

MORE FODDER FOR MY ANTI-SANTA CAMPAIGN. "It is argued that, if children were told the truth, that it would take the joy and magic out of Christmas. I am living proof, however, that this is not true. I was told by my parents that Santa Claus like Superman; he wasn't real, but sometimes it was fun to pretend like he was. My childhood Christmases were as happy as any other, I suspect."

"Emmanuel [seminary], it turned out, was unique only in its verdant isolation from the rest of China. Hundreds of other seminaries dotted rural and urban commuities throughout the country. A few weeks later, I visited an underground seminary in a major city in China's southwest. It was one of four apartments being used as seminary colleges. This time, besides having to be in a van with tinted windows, I also had to duck my head down as we drove into the apartment complex. Even Chinese visitors might be closely scrutinized if they were not recognized locals, and too many unanticipated arrivals could trigger a police search at any moment."
--Jesus in Beijing

NEW QUESTION AT MARRIAGEDEBATE.COM: Is marriage a right?

Plus lots more from me and people who disagree with me.

COMICS ERRATA: Johnny Bacardi writes:

Hi, Eve--

Regarding Sleeper, while I can see how it can be interpreted as "being in charge of world events", Tao's organization is more into manipulation of world events for their own benefit, and any superiority achieved is a
side effect. The central conflict, to me, is not how Carver can fulfill his mission, but how can he get out of his predicament alive, and does he really think he deserves to, after all he's been a part of and has done. Maybe I'm
getting ahead of myself here; if you've only read the first TPB then these things are made a bit clearer.

Fave Simpsons quotes:

"I've coughed up scarier things than that"
--Grandpa Simpson

"Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try."
--Homer

"My cat's breath smells like cat food"
--Ralph Wiggums

Happy New Year, Eve! When ya gonna blogroll me?

Eve: D'oh! I wasn't clear. I didn't mean that the TAO organization (the thing the main character infiltrates) controls the world. I meant the other organization, with the creepy paradise retreat--the one where TAO kills the father so he can manipulate the son's vote. That one is specifically described as controlling world politics and culture.

In re blogrolling, it's all random, but I'll try to update it tonight.

SOLDIERS REALLY CAN HELP BUILD A CIVIL SOCIETY? Oxblog makes the case.

MIDDLE LEFT. Alice in Wonderland for the Onion age.

T.M.I.? A while ago, I realized that for years I'd been harboring a dark and suppressed anger: I resent dolphins.

Seriously.

What makes them think they're so smart?

They're like all peaceful and junk. They're like the annoying hippies who hold you in contempt because you're not as mellow and One with the Universe as they are, and also you think they should get a job.

So you can see that this Onion story would affect me adversely.

Just look at the one in the photo. I mean, don't you want to slap that smug smile right off its blue face?

Via The Rat--member of a far preferable species. They may spread disease, but at least they're not stuck up.

IN DEFENSE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM: Interview with Johan Norberg. Via Dappled Things.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: I'm going to bite the bullet (mmm, bullet) and see a doctor about my insomnia. Last night just sucked.

"You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on." Get many fine Homer Simpson quotes here.