I Believe in the Holy Catholic Church

On Sunday, I confessed along with my brothers and sisters in church that I believed, among other things, in the "holy catholic church". Of course, being Protestant, I understood that this meant the universal church, not the Roman Catholic Church. I also understood it to mean the church, as comprised of the elect, and not the various manmade institutions referred to as "churches" or sometimes as "the church". I have never had a problem distinguishing between these two concepts and disregarding the temporal institutional form of the church when making this confession. I believe that in a spiritual sense the church is both holy and universal notwithstanding the disunity of organized Christianity.

An argument can be made that the apparent disunity of organized Christianity is a terrible witness to the world and that the appearance of disunity is confusing to seekers and a basis for claims of hypocrisy by critics. Accordingly, I agree that it is important to work toward ecumenical unity and harmony among Christian organizations.

On the other hand, I have often seen calls for unity used as a cudgel to enforce conformity to the narrowest and most confining point of view. The faction which seeks to impose its intolerant or restrictive point of view on the institution threatens schism with those who decline to adopt their point of view and then accuses them of creating disunity for failing to fall in line. For example, if I advocate an open and affirming stance toward homosexuality, then I am the one who causes disunity by refusing to go along with the homophobic faction's declaration of what is permitted belief. For them, I must confess that Jesus is Lord AND hate gay people. It is not enough to confess that Jesus is Lord. If I declare that the form of baptism is subject to a high degree of freedom, those who are otherwise inclined will decry my heresy and accuse me of creating disunity for failing to see the light as they see it. I must confess Jesus as Lord AND totally immerse adults only.

In my view, unity and conformity are two different things. If I confess Jesus as Lord, surely I have a sufficient amount of common ground with others who also confess Him as Lord to work together with them to advance the Kingdom without agreeing with them about every detail. If I love my brothers and sisters, surely I will be willing to accept a pretty wide range of points of view just as I accept a diversity of personalities and gifts. It's only when I claim to be some kind of an authority on spiritual matters and insistent on conformity that I become intolerant and divisive.

Spring Wildlife

I had my first hummingbird sighting on Good Friday, a fat female presumably stopped for a rest on her way to her territory somewhere further north. Our resident bird usually shows up between 5 May and 9 May. I spotted a male this morning but I couldn't be 100% sure that it was our regular guy.

Since the weather turned nice, I have been jogging in the park along the Saw Mill River after work. If I wait until around dusk, I find that a lot of rabbits hang out by the trail. They lie in the grass real still until I run by them and then they jump out and startle the crap out of me.

Another sign of spring has been the appearance of the great blue heron and wood ducks in our pond. Since the pit bull went to live with his Mommy in Jersey, there's nobody to challenge the waterfowl. Maybe they'll hang out more. I wouldn't mind.

I accidentally stepped on Brad the northern water snake the other day, and we both fled from one another, me cursing and him doing the snake equivalent. I was barefoot at the time, and it gave me a start.

Warm weather birds are coming back, and I've even got some bugs.

Spring has sprung. BFT.

Wealth

I was briefly interested in Ayn Rand. Then sophomore year ended, and I moved on. I was a total dweeb and unathletic, but I never had any delusions that I was secretly superior to others, and I never thought much of the whole notion that smart people or selfish people or rich people were somehow morally superior. This was especially true of wealth. I grew up in an environment where a lot of lowborn folks managed to get rich in the textile business, and it was easy to see that wealth did not do anything to improve any of them. Them as were virtuous when they were poor continued to be so, and them as were not did not appear to acquire any virtue along with their property. On the contrary, they simply became insufferable.

Old money seemed to be another matter. Some of the old wealthy families seemed to have spent their leisure time in acquiring learning and social graces and in developing a sense of obligation to the community. They didn't have the snobbery or arrogance of the newly rich, nor did they engage in ostentatious displays of their wealth. They sponsored art and beautification and educational opportunities. I barely knew their children since they all attended private schools in other towns, but I admired and respected the aristocratic adults with whom I came into contact. They did not have any illusion that they deserved or merited their status. They humbly acknowledged that it was inherited and an accident of birth.

In college, I encountered a lot of children of wealthy merchants, and almost all of them were total douchebags. They had no shame in announcing to all and sundry that they were superior creatures by virtue of their fathers' having bought them fine cars and giving them 4 figure monthly allowances. They seemed to believe that they deserved all this largesse and that those of us who did not have wealthy merchant parents were beneath them no matter how you sliced it. This was probably the natural byproduct of filial love which these merchants expressed mainly by showering their children with property and every indulgence. They did not want their children to experience the shame or deprivation that they had been made to feel before they became wealthy through hard work and good fortune. I did not accept their assessment of my self worth, and I confess that I was often impatient and contemptuous of the princes and princesses whom I encountered in school. I pitied the parents of these ingrates. The parents seemed like such nice people for the most part, but they had turned their children into monsters.

Stuff

Of course, I mangled my Latin in the title of the previous post. Casus Belli, I meant to write. One of my own pet peeves as a language curmudgeon did not stop me from fracking that one up. When I was a young lawyer and still had secretaries to type for me, they would always change "cause of action" to "course of action" whenever it appeared in a document. It drove me crazy, but I could never get them to stop "helping" me in that way.

I heard O'Bama speak on the radio about "carnival barkers" today as he addressed the birther nonsense. What an apt expression for Donald Trump, although the man's name was not specifically mentioned. Them as subscribe to this birther hooey are either deluded dunderheads or racists for whom birtherism is an expression of their irrational hatred of O'Bama's partial blackness.

Why does the GOP want to keep the economy in the s****er? Lots of reasons. High unemployment weakens unions and worker solidarity. It puts workers more under the thumbs of the corporate interests behind the GOP. It makes people afraid, which in turn makes them stupid enough to vote for Republicans in 2012. The GOP is counting on the stupidity of the electorate and their forgetting who caused this economic mess and fiscal trouble in the first place. Also, for the evangelical Christofascist wing of the coalition, it strengthens families because people who are poor or insecure have to depend on their families simply to survive.

A part of this GOP strategy seems to me to revolve around keeping the housing market depressed. The GOP aims to get rid of federal entities that buy mortgages and replace them with private banks which will require bigger fees and downpayments and higher rates of interest. Also, they'll make it easier to get a kidney than to get a mortgage. This will really hurt an already moribund housing market and, worst of all, have an impact on me personally because I'm trying to sell my house. Frack the GOP! Frack the stupid, stupid mortgage bankers.

I'm sorry, was I raving? Forgive me. In better news, the hummingbirds are back as of Good Friday, and it's really, really spring at long last.

Causus belli

Why did the nations have to pretend that they give a rat's patootie about civilian casualties when they decided to intervene in Libya? Who is the constituency which must be deluded in this manner? In my mind, it seems preposterous for the US to blubber about innocent civilians now when it so cavalierly dismissed this as "collateral damage" when it was doing the killing. Why don't the nations simply announce that they are seizing an opportunity to overthrow a player who annoys them? The dictator of Libya has been demonized for decades, so your average hooplehead will reckon it's a fine idea to get rid of him. And why not simply set a precedent that unmitigated douchebaggery of the sort that Libya's dictator has been known for is a sufficient rationale for war once you piss off enough other players? Maybe this would make the other annoying players try to play more nicely.

Personal Economics

I have been stopping for gas almost every day as a hedge against rising prices. Already I pay more than $4.00 per gallon. My recently departed car pool companion would have been apoplectic. His pet peeve was gas prices, for which he entitrely blamed evil speculators. I don't know whom to blame. I'm pretty sure that the proprietor of the gas station isn't getting unjustly enriched and that he makes the same few cents a gallon as usual whatever the price may be. I'm thinking of buying a second, more fuel efficient car for commuting in fair weather (I used to have a Honda Civic for this purpose but this went with the ex in the divorce). My CRV gets reasonably good gas mileage but nothing close to what I need to make the 80 mile round trip cost effective. Right now, I'm spending about $15 every day to commute, and since my car pool partner died, this is all on me.

I was unaware that taxes weren't due until 18 April, so I mistakenly did my taxes on 14 April. I had expected to be royally hosed but was pleasantly surprised by how little I owed the feds and that I had actually overpaid the state. I didn't even take any specious deductions like declaring my pit bull as a business expense due to his services in securing my home office. This year I expect to be able to file as a married person and to have more exemptions as a parent, and I think that I will be able to set aside enough each quarter to cover my obligations assuming that my planned nuptials occur. There's a new commuter tax in New York that I don't really understand how to pay and report. All self employed people have to pony up to pay for the train system whether we use it or not.

My ex-wife and I let the listing on our former marital abode expire. Our real estate agent did absolutely nothing to sell the house except encourage us to lower the price every month until we would have to pay someone to take the place. Neither of us can afford to write any big checks at closing, so I reckon that I'll just live in the damned place with my new family until the housing market recovers a bit. We're not looking to make any money. We expect to take a loss of over $100,000 just so that we don't have to be entangled by continuing to own a house together, but we can't deal with being "underwater". Neither of us has any cash to throw away, and there isn't enough spite involved in the divorce to induce either of us to spend money for the sole purpose of never having to speak to one another again. The future second Mrs. Vache Folle is not keen on living in the house that I shared with the first Mrs. Vache Folle, or I would just buy my ex out and refinance.

I've been shopping for health insurance for when my new family arrives, and the prospects are unattractive. I'm probably going to have go with a policy with a huge deductible but which gets me the rates that the insurance company has negotiated with the health care providers. This will still cost me over $800 per month in premiums. If I were responsible, I'd also get life insurance and disability insurance, but I can't deal with all this right now.

My plan is to win the lottery, in which case all my economic woes will be resolved.

Nuclear Power

I suppose I am not alone in thinking more than usual about the safety of nuclear power plants. Occasionally, I drive past a group of demonstrators holding up signs with messages calling for the closure of the nearby Indian Point power plant. Given the potential for a huge catastophe, I have often wondered why such a plant would be located so close to an important population center. Why not put such plants in remote areas where the consequences of rare catastrophic failures would result in fewer casualties and less disruption to the national economy? Why not put these plants in rural parts of Texas? The local folks would benefit from the addition of high paying jobs to their communities, and if the corporations which run the plants cut corners on safety (which they inevitably will) and permit catastrophic failures they'll be sheltered from liability by the corporatist state governments which they already more or less control. Moreover, the rest of the country won't miss the contaminated areas all that much, relatively few people will be harmed, and evacuation will be relatively easy.

Thinking about Religion

I frequently drive past a few churches that feature attempts at clever or inspiring messages on their signs. The Episcopal Church now has a message that exhorts passers by to let their "hearts be broken by the things that break God's heart". I read this on the way to the dentist and meditated on it at length to distract myself from the discomfort of the cleaning I was undergoing. How am I supposed to know what breaks God's heart? In what metaphorical sense does God have a heart that can be broken? And if, as I am often told to console me in times of sorrow, heartbreaking events are manifestations of God's will, am I supposed to imagine that God's heart breaks even while His ineffable will is being carried out? I can't make sense of that sign. Over the past several months in church, our pastor has problematized "postmodernism" or at least the aspect of postmodernism that allows that various points of view can be seen as equally valid. It seems to bother our pastor that anyone (Oprah Winfrey has been called out a couple of times) might take issue with someone else for questioning "their truth". In my view, our religious views are not inconsistent with postmodernism, and I would think that pastors would embrace it. After all, modernism was the enemy of faith which is, in actuality, a premodern way of thinking. Postmodernism validates and legitimizes faith and faith based truth claims whereas modernism devalued it. Apparently, our pastor equates the certainty that the believer has in the truth of his own faith based truth claims with the kinds of allegedly objectively verifiable truth claims in which modernism gloried. I don't know what the point of all the preaching along these lines has been. We think we're right and that our beliefs are true. So what? We can't prove them to be true any more than anyone else with an entirely different set of irrational beliefs about metaphysical propositions. We'll come off like total jerks if we try. I had an interesting discussion the other day about the afterlife. My interlocutor and I both agreed that we were completely stymied about just how our immortal selves would occupy eternity. Nobody in all our religious indoctrination had ever given us a clue. What kinds of projects will we be able to undertake?

Farther Along

All week I've been turning to the old hymn Farther Along. My dear friend died suddenly on Saturday, and he was a decent and loving man with three little children. He's gone, and the world is worse for it, but Newt Gingrich lives on. Countless other worthless douchebags continue to take up space and waste air and resources while Dan is lost to us. It makes no sense, and I am left only with the deeply unsatisfying idea that one day God's purposes will be revealed and will be understood. Or maybe not. Maybe I need to be content with the idea that God has a plan, that it involved the tragic and premature death of a great guy, and that I will never ever understand it. I don't suppose that I need to understand it. Maybe there is no divine plan at work here. Maybe it's simply the senseless tragedy that it seems to be and that part of being a sane human is reconciling ourselves to the fact that the universe is unfair. What is the difference among these three stances as a practical matter? None that I can see right now. They each involve resignation to some ineffable and irresistible forces. There's no sense in being angry at the universe or God or whatever one deems the author of these events.

Foreign Policy Double Standards

Does it bother me that the US does one thing in Libya and something else inconsistent in similar situations in other countries? Not a bit. That's because I realize that the US is a sovereign state answerable to nobody except more powerful states. The US does what it does in Libya for a variety of reasons having everything to do with its perceived interests at the moment and in a particular geopolitical context and nothing at all to do with the stated purpose of protecting civilians from being killed. When it has suited the US to kill civilians, it has done so with gusto. Certainly, the US doesn't stand for the proposition that the murder of noncombatants is always something which warrants international interference. Had any nation sought to interfere with the US when it killed civilians, this would have been met with resistance. It has also stood idly by while millions of civilians were slaughtered on many occasions when it felt that it had nothing to gain from intervening. Perhaps if Libya maufactured teddy bears instead of producing oil, the US would be less inclined to meddle in the Civil War there. The humanitarian rationale for interference is just a rationale for public consumption.

Corporations

I have encountered many folks who declare themselves libertarians who seem dismayed at my approval of regulation of corporations. How can I call myself a libertarian if I don't support unfettered corporate action? In my view, a corporation is a creature of the state. A collection of businessmen approaches the state and receives from it a license to do business with limited liability and with the ability to concentrate capital and power beyond what any ordinary subject of the state could hope to amass without the help and blessing of the state. Moreover, they seek to do this with almost no transparency. If you go to the state seeking these kinds of concessions and special privileges, I reckon that the state can impose any conditions on this that it pleases. And to the extent that these conditions accidentally protect me and other folks from predation and the abuse of power by the various syndicates, then I'm doubly behind them. Frankly, I'd just as soon have only the state (and its myriad annoying subdivisions) to deal with.

TV

Reruns of Firefly can be seen on the Science Channel on Sunday evenings at 10:00. Occasionally, I suppose in an effort to justify the show's airing on an educational channel, Doctor Kaku comes on and makes some comment. Last Sunday, he talked about wormholes and exceeding light speed in "Serenity", Captain Reynold's ship on the show. I don't think "Serenity" has FTL capabilities, but I reckon it doesn't matter as long as more people get to see this outstanding series. Does the History Channel ever have any actual history any more? Every time I tune in, the show is about Nostradamus or space aliens or some such nonsense. I haven't watched enough to know for sure that I'm right, but I can't imagine that you can make a whole series about people with shitty jobs. Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men and Deadliest Catch sound like good premises for documentaries but not entire series. Just sayin'. I still haven't seen any Real Housewives or Kardashians, but I have actually watched an entire episode of Ru Paul's Drag Race. For me, The Biggest Loser is must see TV. Lately, the show has been way less about the interpersonal drama after hours and more about fitness. I've learned a lot about diet and exercise from this show. Also, I just love watching the trainers torture fat people. Tosh.0 and The Soup keep me abreast of popular culture. Since Keith Olbermann quit, I haven't really watched the news (except the occasional Last Word) other than The Daily Show. I listen to NPR and the BBC religiously. I've been watching Deadwood again. I like the Al Swearingen credo: I want to trade to advantage and come once a day. I don't hate the sitcom Modern Family. Otherwise, I've been watching movies and science and nature documentaries when I bother to watch TV.

Core Mission

Lately I've heard some politicians on the TV talk about the "core mission" of the federal government. So far, I've heard its said that some program or other is not part of the core mission but so far I haven't heard anyone expound on what is the core mission of the United States government. Based on what the United States does with its money, I'd have to surmise that the core missions are two: to maintain a bloated military on the one hand and to maintain a population of old people in relative health and comfort on the other. Are these missions connected?

Libya

I'm not sure what the military intervention in Libya means. Does it mean that the UN aims to intervene in all civil wars where there is a high risk of civilian casualties? Or just the ones where the member nations would like to see the civil war succeed? Or just the ones where lucrative oil contracts are up for grabs?

Purpose

It would be a lot easier to evaluate whether state action was appropriate or effective if the state had a known purpose. If you assume that the state's actions are efficient and appropriate and then work back to the purpose, then you get a hodgepodge. Under that analysis, the purpose of the state appears to be (a) to perpetuate its own existence; (b) to provide employment for bureaucrats; (c) to maintain the existing power structure; and (d) a million other seemingly unrelated and conflicting purposes.

In my opinion, the state should devote itself to the overarching human project of taking control of all matter and energy in the entire universe and turning it to the benefit of mankind. Citizens should demand notning less than individual immortality, total leisure, and unlimited resources at their disposal. A primary sub-goal on the way to achieving these aims should be to get us off this planet before we destroy it or some cataclysm befalls it. Anything that doesn't promote the primary goal is a waste of time and energy and resources.

What Have I Been Up To?

When the first Mrs Vache Folle left me, I had to start working a lot more hours to make up for losing her income. I ended up with the house payments. That cut into my blogging time and my time for keeping abreast of events. Then I began a frenzy of skirt chasing, and that took most of the rest of my time. Also, I needed time and space to get used to my new situation.

Last August, I met a lovely woman on line and began an intense correspondence. I fell head over heels in love. She is perfect for me in every way except one: she happens to live 7 time zones away in Ukraine. I flew to Ukraine and spent some pleasant weeks with the woman of my dreams in Yalta on the Black Sea. I ended up asking her to marry me and applying for a fiancee visa for her and her daughter. Since then we have corresponded or spoken daily, and we met again last month in Prague. We are now waiting for some federal bureaucrat to look at the visa application (it has been 13 weeks since I filed it). If we are lucky and our application is processed in the average time, we will be united in August and will get married. I will also have a teenaged stepchild.

That's what I've been up to. Work and travel and courtship.

I have opinions about stuff

What with all that's gone wrong in Japan, I keep expecting Godzilla to make an appearance. Maybe he could help with that atomic power plant, but he'd probably just destroy more stuff.

The romantic in me would love to see America help the Libyan revolt succeed, but I am otherwise glad to see that America now has a government that is cautious and thoughtful about the use of military power. It is perhaps ironic that the foolhardy use of military power by an administration devoted to its unfettered use has effectively fettered the government for years to come and endangered national security far more than the threats which the Bush administration imagined.

Remember in 1992 when the presidential candidates of the Democratic Party were described as the Seven Dwarves? The crop of GOP contenders for 2012 makes the '92 Democratic hopefuls seem like titans in comparison. I predict that the GOP will nominate a former governor who is not obviously insane but that he will have to pander to the Tea Party crazies so much to get the nomination that he will scare the s**t out of the general electorate. Maybe the GOP should take a pass on 2012 and go ahead and nominate a total bats**t teabagger and get it out of their system. That way, none of their legitimate, non-crazy candidates will be tainted by the Tea Bag craze of the moment and will still be in good shape for 2016. Between now and then the GOP could work either to get the Tea Bag nuts under control or at least distance itself from their more loony elements.

Wouldn't it be nice if we Americans could follow in the footsteps of Czechoslovakia and break up amicably? I'm tired of having my government influenced by people in Oklahoma and Wyoming and Texas and those other backward places that would just as soon be ruled by the Christianist equivalent of the Taliban. I think I'd be better off if I lived in a smaller country comprised of the states of the Northeast from the Potomac up. That way, we could pursue our dream of being more European (a lot of us have actually been to Europe and like a lot of what we have seen) while the slack jawed yahoos in the other states could do whatever idiotic thing they wanted. We'd also get to keep more of our money instead of having it redistributed to the red states.

I hate reality TV, except for the Biggest Loser, the show where some sadistic personal trainers torture morbidly obese contestants. That's entertainment! I watch it while I'm on the elliptical at the gym. If I had nothing else to do but diet and exercise like the contestants on The Biggest Loser, I'd be thin. I used to like the nanny shows, but I got tired of the endless parade of stupid, lazy parents and became frightened for civilization.

Lamar Alexander

On The Last Word the other day, I saw a clip of Lamar Alexander comparing concerns about nuclear power plant safety in the wake of the problems in Japan with concerns about automobiles in the wake of a car crash. The analogy might have been apt if a car crash could potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people and wreck the economy. I conclude that (a) Lamar Alexander is a moron; (b) Lamar Alexander's remarks were directed at morons; or (c) both of the foregoing.

Master of the Obvious

I'm pretty sure that everyone with any sense at all has already said this a few times, but let me add my voice to the chorus of those who reckon that anyone who really cared about the deficit would have opposed extending the Bush tax cuts, at least with respect to the wealthiest taxpayers. Eliminating that part of the tax cuts would not have had a significant impact on the economy, and it would have helped to close the budget gap. If you pushed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy, then you should just shut up now about the deficit. You are not credible. You are simply pandering to your imbecilic, misinformed base.

Bonds Between Teachers and Students

Occasionally, I find myself agreeing with David Brooks. The other day on NPR, he was talking about his most recent book in which, apparently, he has discovered that emotions and our nature as a social animal matter. He talked about the need to apply this fact to policymaking. For example, he seemed to suggest that the emotional bonds among teachers and students are important considerations. I spoke aloud to my car radio, alternating between "hear, hear" and "d'uh".

In my own experience, whenever I felt that my teacher genuinely cared about me, even loved me, it made all the difference in the world. Like my peers, I was sensitive to indifference and hostility, and the benefit that I derived from school was vastly greater when I had teachers with whom I felt an emotional bond. These were the sort of teachers who continued to manifest an interest in me long after I had left their grade assignment.

If we accept the premise that these emotional bonds between teachers and students matter, I wonder why we insist for the most part in having teachers assigned to a single grade where they are limited (except for failures) to having students for a single academic year. Wouldn't it make more sense to have teachers follow their students for several years through three or four grade levels? That way, deeper bonds could develop, and teachers could really get to know their students and their families. In the current system, teachers barely get to know the children (and vice versa) before they lose them and start over with a batch of strangers. And children are confronted with the unknown every September. We're squandering the hugely important emotional factor.

Of course, it would be hellish to be stuck with a hostile or indifferent teacher for 3 or 4 years at a stretch or for a teacher to be saddled with a class of dolts. Presumably, a school district which adopted an approach which promoted bonding would also arrange to weed out teachers who didn't develop bonds with the kids. And maybe longitudinal exposure to a group of children would help indifferent teachers to form attachments with their pupils.