Memorial Day, Veterans Day - don't confuse them

Flags at Arlington National Cemetery for Memorial Day

As a retired Army officer, I tend to get pretty exercised at the widespread notion in the media and public commemorations of Memorial Day that this day is set aside to honor living veterans. It's not. That's done on Nov. 11, Veterans Day.

Memorial Day is to honor and give thanks for the service, dedication and sacrifice of members of the American armed forces who gave their lives in the service of their country. We also honor those who survived their service but have died since.

Which is to say that Memorial Day is set aside to honor the memory of dead, not thank the living.

Memorial Day as we know it grew from diverse strands of decorating the graves of Civil War dead, begun in various towns just after the war ended. One tradition says that Southern women, mainly widows and bereaved mothers, began laying flowers on graves of Confederate dead before the war ended. Many people today think that this tradition continued as a separate Southern practice called Decoration Day, while it was the North that practiced Memorial Day.

While not exactly wrong, it's not altogether true. Beginning with a proclamation by Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, Memorial Day was first widespread observed in 1868 to honor the dead of the Civil War. Graves of both Union and Confederate dead at Arlington Cemetery were decorated with flowers.

By 1890, all the states of the former northern Union recognized the day, but it still honored only Civil War dead. Southern states did not join in observing this day, continuing to honor Confederate dead on other dates (not uniform across the South). People generally think that this day was called Decoration Day, but I cannot find any citation to confirm it. (The old CSA memorializing of Confederate dead is still on the books of many Old South states; it is June 3 here in Tennessee.)

After World War I, the dead of that war were added to the honor roll of Memorial Day, then almost immediately the dead of all American wars. At that, the Southern states joined in and there has been a unified observance since.

Memorial Day was generally an observance by the several states until President Lyndon B. Johnson issued a proclamation in 1966 designating May 30 as national Memorial Day. There the day remained until Congress passed legislation in 1971 called the National Holiday Act. The Act made Memorial Day and most other federal holidays always occur on a Monday. Whether this served to strip the day of its solemn meaning I'll leave it to you to evaluate.

Unlike Veterans Day, Nov. 11, Memorial Day is a unique American holiday. The other English-speaking nations observe Nov. 11, the date World War I ended, just as we do. However, the observance is called Remembrance Day in Canada, Australia, Bermuda and some other lands of the former British Empire. New Zealand observes Nov. 11 in a low key way, the main observance being ANZAC Day, April 25. In the United Kingdom Nov. 11 is also commemorated in a low-key manner, the main observance being the second Sunday of November, called Remembrance Sunday.

In these nations, commemorations accomplish in one day what Memorial Day and Veterans Day do in America.

Cool pic of the day

An amateur astronomer has taken the photo of a lifetime - the space shuttle transiting between the sun and the earth.



That is definitely the cool pic of the day. More here.

"Money doesn't bring you happiness . . ."

Four wealthy Yorkshiremen vacationing on the French Riviera reminisce about how happy they were when they were dirt poor:



Now, Conor Clarke, writing from England, asks, "What Makes Us Happy? Not Jobs.."

Joshua Shenk's Atlantic essay on happiness has gotten plenty of response (see David Brooks in yesterday morning's New York Times), but one thing that I find striking about the piece is how little focus there is on material gains as the right route to happiness. When the doctor in charge of the Grant Study lists the factors that predict happy aging -- education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, maintaining a healthy weight and employing "mature adaptations" -- there is no mention of career success or even career stability. Relationships matter; incomes don't. This comports pretty well with my general understanding of self-reported happiness studies and gives me a chance to print my second favorite graph in the history of economics:

Clarke points out that though this graph portrays Britain, the same results are found around the world. Even though Britons' (and Americans') material circumstances have been improving, often quite substantially and rapidly for the last 50 years or so, we do not claim to be happier now than we did back then.

It would be a mistake to infer, however, that material sufficiency has no relation to happiness. In 1943, Abraham Maslow promulgated his theory of human "hierarchy of needs," a tier of life conditions that Maslow said are necessary for life itself, at the bottom of the tier, and for human flourishing and happiness, moving up to higher-level needs.

At the bottom, of course, are the needs essential to live at all - food, air, water, sleep and other life-essential things. These are physiological needs shared with any other creature. Above them are human-specific (mostly) needs - safety employment, family, and so on. As the tier rises, the needs become steadily less bodily and more psychological - respect, achievement, creativity, and so forth.

Happiness, to Maslow, resulted from being able to meet the higher-level needs, which was in turn dependent upon meeting the basic type of needs. Persons chronically hungry or fearful of their safety are quite unlikely to describe themselves as happy.

Unless ...

As influential as Maslow's work was and deservedly remains, about the same time he published it a man named Viktor Frankl was developing his own theory. Frankl, though, worked as a captive of Nazi Germany, held in concentration camps, where his whole family died. Building on work he had begun before the war, he used his experiences in the camps to refine a psychotherapy built on the hypothesis that the very fundamental human needs are neither bodily ones nor material ones at all. The basic need is to have meaning and purpose in one's life. That is, Frankl turned Maslow's pyramid upside down and claimed that Maslow's higher needs are actually the most elemental.

Frankl's postwar book, Man's Search for Meaning, was named one of the 100 most influential books of the 20th century by the Library of Congress. So it is. And therein lies the key to why people on all points on the economic spectrum can say they are happy, or not.

It is simply this: Material prosperity is not a bad thing (as some of Left would have us believe), but neither is it good, in itself, to be pursued as the object of life (as some on the Right would have us believe). Things, even an abundance of them, cannot make us happy (though severe, ongoing lack of Maslow's basic needs can prevent happiness). Frankl is right: it what we make of life that makes us happy, which is why, even in the direst of physical circumstances in the Nazi camps, he was able to cling to the conviction there was meaning in his suffering. He relates another inmate's insistence that if the camps' survivor could not find meaning in life after the war, there could be no meaning to the camps. To the contrary, Frankl insisted, if there was no meaning in the camps, there could be no meaning to surviving them.

A common theme among the writers of the classics is the unhappy, if not suicidal, wealthy man. One need consider only Charles Foster Kane, subject of Orson Welles' 1941 classic, still ranked by the American Film Institute as the best American movie ever. Stupendously wealthy, surrounded by every material blessing money can buy, Kane nonetheless becomes an embittered old man who finally dies alone, as unhappy as a man can be.



What went wrong in Kane's life? As this clip shows, he suffered from self-inflicted deterioration of the relationships that should have been most important to him, the only ones that could have sustained him and provided meaning for his passion.

That is the key: relationships. And I'll take a look at that in the next installment.

Star Trek 2009 not quite a bullseye . . .

... but it's still pretty good.

I may as well jump on the Star Trek review bandwagon and post mine. I went with the fam last evening to see the new ST movie. Is it really a prequel to the other movies and the 1960s TV series? No, it's not, any more than Casino Royale, in which James Bond receives his double-oh designation, was a prequel to the other Bond flicks.

In fact, like Casino, ST 2009 hits the reset button on the franchise. Let me discuss that before I talk about the merits of the movie itself. There are some spoilers here, but get real - how can there really be spoilers when you know in advance that the movie's main intent is to show how Kirk and Co. wind up on USS Enterprise? Yes, they win (as the always do) in the fight with the bad guy and live to tell the tale. So here goes.

James T. Kirk is born in space at the beginning of the show, aboard an escape rocket fleeing the doomed USS Kelvin, captained, for 12 minutes, by Kirk's father, who sacrifices himself to save the crew. We next see Kirk at age 10, having swiped his father's antique Corvette for a joy ride while the Beastie Boy's "Sabotage" plays over all. Kirk, pursued by a cop on a flying motorcycle, drives the 'Vette off a cliff, jumping clear at the last moment.

Herein lie the first clues:

• The Vette is a 1966 model, the same year that the ST TV series debuted. The Vette is destroyed. Does this mean that the legacy is also being thrown (mostly) off a cliff? Why, yes, yes it does.
• The song symbolizes that director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are indeed sabotaging the Star trek legacy in order to sart over.

There is other proof within the storyline of the movie, but that would be giving too much away here. Suffice to say that at movie's end it is literally impossible for this movie's story future trajectory to merge with that of the TV series or the previous ST movies. We'll see how that works out. If this film's sequel is as sorry as Quantum of Solace was to Casino Royale, then the reset won't work too well.

So I suggest enjoying the movie as escapist entertainment rather than viewing it as a true prequel or another in the ST series. There are enough trekkie things in the show to establish a good connection with the series' legacy, such as a tribble sitting on Scotty's desk when he first appears, but in the end they do not matter. The movie should have been subtitled, "Starting All Over."

Leonard Nimoy's appearance as "Spock Prime" (so credited at the end) is a nice touch, as is his uttering a few lines from the older movies. It works just right. I thought it quite satisfying when he identified himself to the young Kirk by saying, "I am Spock." After the TV series was canceled, Nimoy tried to run away from it and establish a career as a serious dramatic actor. He even published a book in the mid-1970s called, I Am Not Spock. But, in the winter years of his life he has come to admit that Star Trek has defined his career (actually, he realized this long before now - the sequel to I Am Not Spock is I Am Spock, appearing 20 years later).

The Villain: Eric Bana as the destruction-bent Romulan, Nero, is excellent. He doesn't top Ricardo Montalban in Wrath of Khan, but nonetheless Nero is a worthy nemesis. And his threat is properly galactic: he wants to destroy every planet of the Federation and thanks to Spock Prime, he can (a zipped lip on that one, too).

The Enterprise crew:

Zachary Quinto as young Spock is excellent. Karl Urban as Bones is "excellent-minus," very good, but not quite as good in his part as Quinto is in his. Uhura and Spock have a thing for each other? Who knew? In the TV series it was Nurse Chapel who was enamored with Spock, IIRC, but her role long ago got beamed away. Zoe Saldana plays Uhura very well. Chekov and Sulu are presented competently, if not exactly inspiringly. Young Scotty, we learn, was a chowhound with an overdone Scottish brogue.

Ah, but what of Chris Pine, paying the major role of James T. Kirk? Sorry, bad idea. IMO, he just doesn't cut it. It's not that he acts the part of space cadet, then Enterprise officer, badly, he just doesn't act them as Kirk. You can pretty easily imagine young Spock maturing into Nimoy's Spock, and young Uhura and McCoy and the rest becoming the personalities we already know. But Pine's Kirk in unimaginable to become Shatner's Kirk.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But how is the movie as a movie? My wife, who is no sci-fi fan, enjoyed it. My eldest son, who is very familiar with the ST legacy, and my young daughter, who is not, also liked it a lot. As for me, I'll put it this way - I'll probably spring for the DVD when it comes out, but I won't pay hard-earned coin to see it in the theater again. There are times to movie seems too frantic and plot developments too forced. But it's enjoyable and pays enough tribute to the legacy to justify seeing it in theater once. So I recommend it. Overall, I give Star Trek 2009 seven out 10 NCC-1701s.

New Madrid fault earthquake risk downgraded

The Tennessee Conference's listserv email included an entry this morning on the discovery that the New Madrid fault (pronounced MAD-rid, not muh-DRID) does not pose near the risk of catastrophe that scientists heretofore believed. This is good news, for in 1811 and 1812, massive earthquakes along the New Madrid fault literally changed American history. Centered in southeast Missouri, these quakes were near the top of the most violent in historical times in North America. They created Tennessee's Reelfoot Lake and in some places caused the mighty Mississippi River to reverse course.

The earthquake of December 1811 served as the signal to American Indian tribes from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border to send war parties to Ohio to unite in battle against white settlers and US troops under the great Shawnee war leader, Tecumseh.

Tecumseh, accompanied by his brother Lowawluwaysica, had been forming his battle coalition and alliances for many years. Lowawluwaysica had a reputation for prophecy and finally changed his name to Tenskwatawa, "One With Open [speaking] Mouth," better to reflect it. Under his and Tecumseh's urging, many Indian tribes became staunch rejectionists of Euro ways and accommodation with whites. In their long-range travels, they told the tribes that they would receive a signal all at the same time, both in the heavens and under the earth.

In March 1811, a bright comet appeared. Tecumseh interpreted it as a sign that his time to lead the combined tribes against the whites was near. Tecumseh had actually been born the same night that a large shooting star streaked through the sky. "Tecumseh" is of Algonquin origin and means, "Goes from place to place" (I have also seen it translated as "panther across the sky").

Then in December of the same year a mighty earthquake shook the eastern half of North America. So powerful it rang church bells in Philadelphia, it was the signal Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa had promised.

With nothing moving faster than a horse in those days, the battle alliance among the tribes did not form exactly quickly. In 1812, the United States became embroiled in its second war with the British, who initially worked well with Tecumseh. Their relationship soured, however, when Maj. Gen Henry Proctor took command in the west. Proctor was not nearly as an astute tactician or strategist as Tecumseh. The result was the Battle of the Thames in October 1813, in Ontario, Canada, in which Tecumseh was killed.

Tecumseh is the most highly-regarded and historically respected person ever to have been an enemy of the United States. During times of peace, he enjoyed excellent relations with white military and civilians alike. He was fluent in English and was regarded universally as a true gentleman, a man of his word and entirely civilized in manner and demeanor. He was fierce and relentless in war, but never cruel, and he never took vengeance against captives. For many decades after his death, the United States heaped honors upon his memory and name. The US Navy named a warship Tecumseh in 1863; three more would follow. The Canadians have also given his memory many honors.

Tecumseh's body was never recovered. There are reliable reports that he had predicted he would fall in the battle and that, knowing what the US troops would do to his body, he shed all the trappings of generalship and went to battle dressed as an ordinary warrior. He told his close guard that if he fell, one of them would have to come immediately to prod his body with a charmed implement, after which he would return to life and lead the Indians to victory. However, the warrior who was running to Tecumseh's body to do so was shot to death en route. At that, the Indian army immediately dissipated.

Just after the battle, the American troops made a concerted effort to find Tecumseh's body, but almost no one knew what he looked like. They also expected his body to be clad in the symbols of a supreme war leader. Reports are that frontiersman Simon Kenton, employed by the US troops as a guide, was tasked to identify the body since Kenton had personally known Tecumseh for many years. Kenton did locate Tecumseh's remains but deliberately passed the corpse by, then found a body dressed as a lesser war leader and said it was Tecumseh. Immediately, US troops set upon this body and abused it in a sickening manner, stripping flesh to cure into leather and confiscating weapons and regalia. Today, only the elders of the Shawnee tribe know where Tecumseh's body was finally interred.

Now back to the New Madrid fault.

Scientists have spent long hours and many years attempting to predict the next big earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, but a study published in the March edition of the journal Science suggests that all the hype may be for nothing. ...

Utilizing data acquired over an eight year period from GPS antennas mounted in strategic locations throughout the earthquake zone, research teams from both Purdue and Northwestern found that the fault system was moving about 0.2 millimeters, the width of a fishing wire, per year. Calais said that sizeable earthquakes could only be expected when there was at least 2 millimeters of movement or more.

“There must be enough movement to accumulate strain for a big earthquake to take place and that just isn’t happening here,” Calais said.

As Clarksville is definitely inside the danger zone of a large earthquake from the fault, this is good news.

Endnote: Most references to Tecumseh refer to him as a "chief." However, Tecumseh, a Shawnee, was never a chief. Chiefs were elected by the Shawnee. Although the Shawnees held Tecumseh's skills as a war leader in high regard, most Shawnees rejected his program of strict rejection of accommodation with the encroaching whites. Tecumseh himself never claimed the title of chief.

The minority of Shawnees who allied with Tecumseh completely broke with him after the disastrous result of Battle of Tippecanoe in November 1811. Tecumseh was not present for this battle; it was initiated by Tenskwatawa, who led Shawnee warriors to attack US troops who were trying to recruit neighboring Indian tribes to ally with them. The battle's failure caused Tecumseh to lose faith in his brother, whose influence as a prophetic figure was permanently diminished thereafter.

The best biography of Tecumseh is, in my opinion, Allan W. Eckert's volume, A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh. I also recommend his earlier book on the life of Simon Kenton, The Frontiersmen: A Narrative, a history of the opening of the Ohio River valley. 

The latter book includes the untrue story that Tecumseh became enamored with a settler girl named Rebecca Galloway, promising that if she married him he would adopt the ways of the whites and live as a white for the  rest of his life. Ultimately, they parted by mutual agreement. However, Eckert explains in Sorrow why this story is untrue, even though he had accepted it as historical in Frontiersman. Even so, the legend still has wide currency.

Why do we love Susan Boyle?

Susan Boyle is a an unemployed 47-year-old from obscurity, now with tens of millions of Youtube hits of her appearance on Britain's Got Talent.

In the off chance you haven't seen it, don't delay. Click the play symbol below and be transported.



Now, why has she become such an international phenom? Sure, she sings extremely well, But let's face it, not exceptionally well. Sarah Brightman need not look over her shoulder.

I think Sarah Boyle resonates because she has come into prominence at exactly the right time and context for her. In the past several months the masters of the universe have not only fallen from grace, they have fallen, period. In both Britain and in the US, the elites - financial, business and political - have proven to have feet of clay and have tumbled from their exalted heights. It doesn't matter, within this context, that we should have known all along that they were and are only human. They had both claimed from above and had been granted from below their pedestals.

When they fell, where did that leave you and me? What of the ordinary people, who live ordinary lives? The folk who just go to work every day, try to save for retirement while educating their kids, maybe get to Disney World every few years, and for many months have suffered a tightness of the gut, wondering whether they'll still have a job at the end of the month?

You know, the men and women whose equity assets got slashed and burned when the masters of the universe overreached and the economy tanked? Is there a comeback?

Susan Boyle says yes. Forty-seven, jobless, never married, living the kind of life that Henry David Thoreau would have said was one of "quiet desperation." By her age, the brass ring is not even in sight for most of us. Within our grasp? You must be kidding. We're just trying to get our kids through college, get another year or three out of the clunker and hope home prices recover before we're upside down down on our mortgages.

But take a shot at the top? At forty-seven? Sorry, we missed that elevator long ago.

Then walks Susan Boyle naked onto the international media stage. Not naked as in unclothed, of course, but naked in vulnerability, naked of armor, naked to scorn, naked to ridicule. Naked to derision, which she in fact got at first, though the traditionally reserved Brits choked it down for the most part. A target with no protection.

You, Susan Boyle, are an ordinary woman. What do you think you are doing here? You are one of the little people. If you were destined for stardom, it would have happened twenty-five years ago. But today? At 47? Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

There is no way to misunderstand that such is exactly what judges Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell (how well we of the colonies know Simon!) were thinking.

It cannot be overlooked here that Susan Boyle is, shall we say, physically unprepossessing. Her ordinary looks (ordinary? nay, actual homeliness) only reinforced the initial perception that she was a lightweight in the talent department, though not exactly light of weight, if you get my drift.

And then she sang.

And the ordinary Everywoman triumphed.

And everyone knew it within seconds.

They rose from their seats, clapping and shouting in surprise, joyous, celebratory surprise.

Because she was one of them, singing to them, singing for them. Singing about them.

Singing about their lives: her choice of songs can't be dismissed. Of course, she chose one that would best showcase the abilities of her voice as well as hide its limitations. But there are dozens of songs that could have done that, maybe hundreds.

Go read the lyrics to "I Dreamed a Dream." The beginning:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine untasted.

The ending:

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living,
So different now from what it seemed...
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...

The song is a capsule of the Ordinaries' lives of the past fifteen years. It is not an inspiring song, but depressing. The words are of dreams broken and hopes shattered. So why did it lift us up and offer not only solace, but inspiration?

Because Susan Boyle in her person gives lie to the words she was singing. The masters of the universe have fallen, but we're still here. And we will triumph.

How low can it go? I don't mean the Dow!

Click on image for larger view

No, this is not a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has been doing pretty well (relatively speaking) for most of this week. This is a chart of the aggregate, global intensity of hurricanes since 1974. This chart is from Climate Audit website, where we learn that, "Global hurricane activity has decreased to the lowest level in 30 years." Click image for a larger view. The chart displays data using "a well-accepted metric called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index or ACE for short."

Remember when the "consensus" was that global warming would make hurricanes worse? For example,

According to the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), it is “more likely than not” (better than even odds) that there is a human contribution to the observed trend of hurricane intensification since the 1970s. In the future, “it is likely [better than 2 to 1 odds] that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical [sea surface temperatures].”

And again:

The Effect of Global Warming

Two factors that contribute to more intense tropical cyclones-ocean heat content and water vapor-have both increased over the past several decades. This is primarily due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests, which have significantly elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere. CO2 and other heat-trapping gases act like an insulating blanket that warms the land and ocean and increases evaporation.

Finally:

[A]re storms getting stronger, and if so, what's causing it? According to a new paper in Nature, the answer is yes — and global warming seems to be the culprit.

But now the consensus has evaporated. Last month the NOAA announced,

“There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”

Original NOAA paper here. To be accurate, the paper focuses on the dollar amounts of hurricane-induced damages rather than the meteorological intensity, but it does specifically rebut the notion that global warming has increased intensities and this increased losses. In fact, hurricane intensities have actually decreased since the mid-19th century:


So why the record low intensities? Climate Audit explains:

During the past 2 years +, the Earth's climate has cooled under the effects of a dramatic La Nina episode. The Pacific Ocean basin typically sees much weaker hurricanes that indeed have shorter lifecycles and therefore — less ACE . Conversely, due to well-researched upper-atmospheric flow (e.g. vertical shear) configurations favorable to Atlantic hurricane development and intensification, La Nina falls tend to favor very active seasons in the Atlantic (word of warning for 2009). ... Through March 12, 2009, the Southern Hemisphere ACE is about half of what's expected in a normal year, with a multitude of very weak, short-lived hurricanes. All of these numbers tell a very simple story: just as there are active periods of hurricane activity around the globe, there are inactive periods, now for almost 3 years.

And I'll give them the last word:

Under global warming scenarios, hurricane intensity is expected to increase (on the order of a few percent), but MANY questions remain as to how much, where, and when. This science is very far from settled. ... The perceptible (and perhaps measurable) impact of global warming on hurricanes in today's climate is arguably a pittance compared to the reorganization and modulation of hurricane formation locations and preferred tracks/intensification corridors dominated by ENSO (and other natural climate factors). Moreover, our understanding of the complicated role of hurricanes with and role in climate is nebulous to be charitable. We must increase our understanding of the current climate's hurricane activity.

200 Foot Drop of Doom!

Did a quick overnight trip to Atlanta last weekend to spend a day at Six Flags Over Georgia. March 7 happened to be the opening day of 2009. Wasn't supposed to be, though. The original opening was scheduled to have been a week before, but it was canceled because of the global warming winter storms that moved through.

Here's a POV video I took aboard the Acrophobia thrill ride - a vertical-drop ride 200 feet tall. Best to click on the HQ button at the bottom of the screen after you click the "play" arrow.

O Sinnerman, where will you run to?

The Rev. Richard Hall explains this photo:

Visitors to a Liverpool art gallery are being shaken by the sight of a new statue of Jesus. Called "The Cleansing of the Temple," I don't suppose it is meant to represent "Gentle Jesus meek and mild," but reactions have been even more extreme than the artist intended. Some are convinced the statue is evil and recoil in terror. Others fall to their knees in prayer. Some say they see sparks coming from the statues eyes.

Gerard Van Der Leun quotes the lyrics of 16 Horsepowers' song, "Sinnerman."

O sinnerman where will you run to
O sinnerman where will you run to
O sinnerman where will you run to
All on that day?
Run to the mountain
The mountain won't hide you
Run to the sea
The sea will not have you
And run to your grave
Your grave will not hold you.
All on that day

Gerard explains,

Many years ago, I was flipping through the pages of a newsmagazine and came upon a photograph of the machete-hacked corpse of a child floating like some half-chewed chunk of jetsam in a backwater of Lake Victoria. This was during what we now think of, because we have to think of it as something distinct from our normal run-of-the-mill massacres, as the Rwanda genocide.
It was a crystal clear photograph showcasing an act of genocide like any other, only the meaningless details changed: children, machetes, an African lake. As a professional in the pornography of violence, the photographer had gotten in close. The child's eyes could be seen. They were without pupils, a dead fish-belly white; the white of clotted milk. ...
The child was long since buried or left to dissolve as mere carrion. What had disturbed me was only the abstraction of a child snagged out of the world with photographic film, transmitted across the oceans via orbiting satellites. printed up on sheets of flimsy paper, and delivered to me and millions of others on a weekly basis.... to what purpose?
To. What. Purpose.
Because I needed to know? What did I know? That we are, each and every one of us, capable of the darkest evil? This much I'd known long before I'd known it.
Did I see it because I needed more confirmation? I'd long been confirmed. And yet the image stuck in my mind, not as an obsession, but as an unbidden harbinger. And in time, I came to know it's purpose.
It's purpose was to teach me to hate God. ...

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that we to judge thee have in hate pretended? By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted! (Johann Heermann) Gerard continues,

Childhood leukemia? God's on the job.
A close friend is shot-gunned on 14th street in a mugging? God's there pulling the trigger.
Yet another mass grave in yet another subdivision of Hell in Europe, Africa, the Middle East? God's working the back-hoe.
It's all a tough and dirty job and nobody but God has the moral clarity to do it. ... A real Professional. To top it all off He had billions of fools convinced of His mercy and His goodness. They were ready to tell you that "God so loved the world. ..."

But, O sinnerman where will you run to
O sinnerman where will you run to
O sinnerman where will you run to
All on that day?

There wasn't any kind of great switcheroo where my hatred was replaced with love and the peace that passeth all understanding. It wasn't a replacement, but it was a departure. I did not forget the photograph. I would never forget the photograph. But I did let go of the idea that the evil it embodied was an Act of God. It took me a long time, a lot of hate, and a very simple song before I understood that every act of evil is an Act of Man.

Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered; the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered. For our atonement, while we nothing heeded, God interceded.
There was a day when Jesus was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, where he said,

"This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day." ... And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father." Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.

O sinnerman where will you run to ...
Run to the mountain
The mountain wont hide you
Run to the sea
The sea will not have you
And run to your grave
Your grave will not hold you.

So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life."

The Hebrew Scriptures say that the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai:

"Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me."

But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to
Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went
aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.

Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose
that the ship threatened to break up.

O sinnerman where will you run to
O sinnerman where will you run to
O sinnerman where will you run to?

Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. ... The sea was getting rougher and rougher.

So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

"Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the LORD, "O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased."

Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard ... .

O sinnerman where will you run to?
Run to the sea
The sea will not have you
And run to your grave
Your grave will not hold you
all on that day.

Where can we run to? The Psalmist asked that question: "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?"

Jonah surely did not think he could escape God. He instead sought to disqualify himself from carrying out God's command by running away from what God wanted him to do. Is that the escape we try to make, too? To run away from our God-commanded responsibilities? Why on earth do we think we can succeed? Not even the grave can hide us when the Lord comes again.

The prophet Malachi had words to say about that:

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire ...

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the children of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that they may give offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

O sinnerman where will you run to?
Run to the mountain
The mountain won't hide you
Run to the sea
The sea will not have you
And run to your grave
Your grave will not hold you all on that day.
Run to the Lord.
When you gonna stop running?
When you gonna cease fleeing?
When you gonna stop hiding?
When you gonna start heeding?
O sinnerman, Jesus is calling!
O sinnerman, Jesus does see you!
O sinnerman, Jesus is coming,
all on that day!

O sinnerman where will you run to?
Run to the Lord!

For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation, thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation; thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion, for my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee, think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, not my deserving.

Update: I should point out that "Sinnerman" is not original to 16 Horsepower but goes back quite a bit. As Gerard says, it's a spiritual, though whether it goes back to the antebellum South I do not know. As well, the lyrics tend to vary a little from singer to singer. Here is 16 Horsepower's version; there are many others. (It was even used as a theme song in the movie, "The Thomas Crown Affair.")

"Never impute to malice . . ."

"... what can be explained by incompetence."

As widely reported, President Barack Obama repated a rare moment of US history yesterday by taking the oath of office a second time. The oath he took of the 20th was bungled by Chief Justice John Roberts in administering it, causing the inauguree to botch the order of the words. So 31 hours later, Justice Roberts re-administered the oath to Obama at Obama's request, made "[o]ut of an abundance of caution," according to White House Counsel Greg Craig (news link).



So what's the problem? None with the oath or any possible question that the new president is properly sworn in. It's a done deal. But today some news media are in vapors that media access to the second oath was sharply restricted. No broadcast media were even notified of the event, no photographers were allowed except for the White House photog, who took the only photo extant of the second oath-taking, and only a couple or so print reporters were brought in. One of them turned on his digital recorder and captured the only audio of the occasion.

Now personally, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, the verbatim second taking of the oath was duly witnessed by outside-the-White-House figures who can attest to its verity, not least of whom is Justice Roberts himself, and that's all that citizen-I think needed to be done.

But some media are fanning themselves because this president had explicitly promised "transparency" in his administration and his own actions. Being excluded from the second oath, they claim that already the promise of transparency has gone a-glimmering. And so President Obama is not living up to his promises, blah blah blah.

Having many years of direct experience in media relations at the national level, I can assure you that while Satan's realm "hath no fury like a woman scorned," a woman scorned is Mother Theresa compared to reporters excluded. So their claws come out and their fangs are revealed. The snit is on!

Personally, pooling coverage was fine, but I think that omitting TV and radio from the event was a bad idea. This was not an intentional snub of the media, it was a White House PR team that is still so new it hasn't learned to operate smoothly or well. It will get better. The media should chill. Their ommission wasn't from malice, it was was from incompetence. If the WH-PR team stays incompetent, then in another two or three months it will deserve the media shredding it will get. But not yet, not for this.

Revealing a song within

What would you hear if you found a stethoscope like this?



It really cuts to the heart of the matter.

An Israel-Hamas Primer

Robert O. Freedman, Ph.D., is professor of political science at Baltimore Hebrew University, and Visiting Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He was the editor of 14 books on Israel and the Middle East, including Israel in the Begin Era (1982), Israel Under Rabin (1995), The Middle East and the Peace Process(1998), Israel’s First Fifty Years (2000) and The Middle East Enters the 21st Century (2002).

A past president of the Association for Israel Studies, Dr. Freedman has served as a commentator on National Public Radio, the BBC and the Voice of America, and is a consultant to the US State Department and the CIA.

At the site of Middle East Strategy at Harvard, Dr. Freedman has published, "Israel’s strike on Gaza: a primer." Very readable, concise and well worth the time.