Disagreeing With Dennis

I like Dennis Prager. He has a radio talk show out of LA that I am fortunate enough to hear in San Diego. He is calm, rational, a passionate conservative, endorses my favorite cigar shop but unfortunately this time, is wrong. To what am I referring? In this morning's San Diego Tribune Mr. Prager has an editorial piece titled "To GOP disaffected: Stay angry, but vote 'smart' and Republican anyway". Now I do not disagree with everything he says, but Mr. Prager creates a false dicotomy in his article by presuming that the only alternative to voting Republican is to vote Democrat. For smaller-government folks like me there are alternatives such as the Libertarian Party, for more socially conservative (yes, believe it or not there are those more conservative than the Republicans), there is the Constitution Party, and even for those who are really contemporary liberal in California I suggest you look at the Peace and Freedom Party or at a national level the Green Party. Now where I agree with Mr. Prager is that disaffected Republicans shouldn't vote Democrat. That would send the WRONG message to the National Republican politicos as well as making Democrats think that people actually support their ideas. Those of us whole fall under the Goldwater/Reagan brand of Republicanism don't and it would be wrong for us to vote Democrat simply to spank those Repulbican politicians in DC. If you are for smaller government, help the Libertarians. If you really are more theocratic, seriously consider parties such as the Constitution Party. As Ryan Sager points out in his excellent book The Elephant in the Room, both branches of the old "fusionism" have been abandoned by the current cabal of "big government conservatives" currently occupying the halls of power. Now granted, if enough of us did switch to third parties this election cycle Democrats would be the ultimate winners, but there HAS to be some way to tell the ruling Republicans that enough is enough and that WE WANT OUR PARTY BACK!

Does He Expect Us To Believe This?

I fear that Christianity has become infected by the liberal virus. What do I mean? Well, it is well known that the liberal elite consider evangelicals to be stupid, weak willed, and easily led. It appears that this same feeling is now among the evangelical elite. Consider the recent shenanigans of evangelist and former president of the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) Ted Haggard. Now let's face it, people in places of power are mighty tempting targets for their opponents so it is not beyond the pale of belief that someone was "gunning" for him and started spreading stories about his hidden trysts with a gay prostitute. But, if they were not true, simple denial and demand for evidence should suffice. However, me thinks that "Rev" Haggard protests too much in his attempt to follow former President Clinton's "I smoked but didn't inhale" defense. I mean, really, does Ted Haggard actually think that the people who follow his ministry and the the people he associated with as head of the NAE believe that he:

Bought meth because he was curious about it, then threw it away.

Went to visit a male prostitute for a massage and didn't engage in sex.

Of course, what is as embarassing is how the politicos are playing it, chalking it up to some conspiracy because it is close to election time and using it to hurt either (1) the gay-related initiative in Colorado, (2) Rebpulicans in general (they don't need help in doing that, thanks Mr. Foley), and (3) George Bush himself since he calls himself evangelical.

Is this the best we conservatives can do (please note I call my self conservative, NOT Republican as I no longer believe they two are close enough to be properly interchangeable)? Are we really so stupid to believe Haggard's story AND the Republican response? I pray we aren't.

In Case There Was Any Doubt

Well, I just took the famous "World's Smallest Political Quiz" and like everything else in my life I fall on a boundary, but it was not unexpected:

ACCORDING TO YOUR ANSWERS,

You fall exactly on the border of two political philosophies...

CONSERVATIVE

LIBERTARIAN

CONSERVATIVES tend to favor economic freedom, but frequently
support laws to restrict personal behavior that violates "traditional
values." They oppose excessive government control of business,
while endorsing government action to defend morality and the
traditional family structure. Conservatives usually support a strong
military, oppose bureaucracy and high taxes, favor a free-market
economy, and endorse strong law enforcement.

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal
and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government;
one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion
and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual
responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes,
promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the
free market, and defend civil liberties.

So now it's official... I'm Superman.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 85% Green Lantern 75% Spider-Man 75% Iron Man 70% The Flash 60% Supergirl 57% Robin 54% Batman 50% Wonder Woman 47% Hulk 45% Catwoman 40%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

To Whom Much Is Given...

I'm a very upset conservative Republican. So much so that I am casting aside what little protection they provide against the wacko Democrats and am really hoping they get walloped this election cycle. This batch, is a word, sucks. Why do they suck? Simply because they violate something I was taught as a child by very conservative, commonsense oriented parents, that you should live your life according to the very Biblical principle of "To whoever much is given, of him will much be required" (Luke 12:48). Growing up, this principle was also a very Republican principle. In 1994 the Republicans gained control of Congress. This should have brought in a golden age of Republican principles of care, rational compassion, and liberty. But we find out that Washington is stronger than principles. Witness the fact that Republicans fell prey to the same problem that overtook what was once a principled Democrat party, they moved from a party of ideas and principles to a party concerned only with keeping power. SHAME! And no, this isn't just about Foley, but Foley is a symptom of the greater disease. Delay, Abramson, Cunningham, etc. have all showed that there is a cancer in the GOP that needs to be excised. And don't you dare give me the "Well, the Democrats are just as bad if not worse" excuse, that doesn't cut it... my ethics is neither relative nor situational, and why should I have to settle for the lesser of two evils? So, here's to the necessary surgery that hopefully will bring back some discipline and principles, here's to losing!

Washingon and Cajones

I watched the first part of ABC's rather good The Path to 9/11 last night. Unfortunately I have to wait until Saturday to see part two since our local ABC affiliate is showing Charger's football tonight (go figure, I watch a television show for the first time in months and they make me wait almost a week to see the conclusion). A very powerful part of the film, even though it was cut from the original version, was when the United States botched the opportunity to actually get Bin Laden. Due to a lack of testicular fortitude our national security "leaders" refused to give the go-ahead to our people in the field who along with several members of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance had Osama in their sights. Ahmed Massoud, the later assassinated leader of the Northern Alliance is given the line "Are there any men left in Washington, or are they all cowards?" I have been asking myself this question over the last couple of years. Time and time again those in Washington, and particularly those in my own party of choice (Republican, just in case you haven't figured it out by now), have demonstrated a depressing lack of will or even desire to lead. What matters now is re-election and politicians on both sides of the isle have sold their souls to get get the power that comes with it, but they no longer want the responsiblity that comes with it. Within the Republican party one need simply look at the following statements to see the shift in thinking:

"Government isn't the solution, government is the problem" - Ronald Reagan

"Too often, my party has confused the need for limited government with a disdain for government itself" - George W. Bush.

Government, geeze, I find it had to even use that word because it implies some type of governing which means to exercise authority (which has been abdicated to polls and greed for power) or to exercise control (and as we have seen those in both parties exercise about as much control as drunken sailors on payday), has lost it's backbone. I have come to believe, as does Pat Buchanan, that "... Congress is an institutional coward", they allow the courts and the administration deal with the hot issues that they should deal with all for the sake of enough popularity to get re-elected.

Sadly Mr. Massoud, the answer to your question is "No".

A Lover's Squabble

It's so sad, two institutions that have been "in bed" for oh so many years having a lover's tiff. Who are they? Why, it's the Democrat Party and ABC news. For those of you who didn't know, ABC is set to air a miniseries about the "road to 9/11". While the mainstream democrats who have seen the preview have little bad to say about it, Bill Clinton and his gang are all upset with the focus being on them, which is a natural consequence of having been the governing group in the time leading up to 9/11 (for those of you who have problems with math, GW had been in office less than eight months). ABC has said that it is not a factual documentary but "a dramatization drawn from the official 9/11 commission report, personal interviews and other materials." Given this, Democrat leader Harry Reid said it was "a work of fiction" (duh... ABC publically admits it is not a documentary) and adds his voice to the Clinton chorus demanding that ABC pull the movie.

It's sad to see a lovers' quarrel. It's even more sad to see how Clinton and company think the world still revolves around them.

I'm Back!

Okay, enough time sitting on the sidelines and watching the parade. It's time to stick the foot out and trip someone. Seriously, it is amazing how a great vacation can clear up your head. Pookie and I spent two weeks in France (yes, that place, home of the "Great Satan", a place that I love). We spent time in Figeac, Albi, Carcassonne, Bordeaux, Mont St. Michel, Rouen and Paris. As much as I love the United States (and trust me, I do... I get all teary-eyed when I hear the "Star Spangled Banner"), there are just some things that you cannot do and cannot get here... like foie gras that doesn't taste like liverworst, or go to a piano recital in a 12th century church). And I just HAVE to have some admiration for a country whose productivity exceeds that of the United States while working a 35 hour week, taking two hour lunches, and getting a month of vacation!

But now I'm back and promise to write you all much more regularly.

Mike

Welcome to the Mexican State of California

It's interesting... this morning I heard this on the Bill Handel Show (KFI AM640, Los Angeles). Later, over lunch, I was listening to a previously recorded show hosted by Mr. KABC and my favorite radio personality April Winchell and it was announcement of the same story at the moment it happened. What was it (if you are too lazy to click the link)? It was a story about a Mexican couple in Los Angeles who had given birth to quadruplets. The babies are doing fine, but as amazing as having quadruplets is that is not the focus. Instead, let me outline the facts and present them as exhibit A in the case against allowing unfettered illegal aliens into the country:

• The couple have been in this country for over two decades, the husband for 28 years and the wife 22 years, yet according to the article neither speak any English. Their oldest daughter speaks very limited English.


• The couple have 10 children, nine living at home. They live in a one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles.


• The family income is $400 per week, plus federal and state assistance including $700 per month for medical expenses for a child born with hydroencephalopathy.
  
  
• The wife actually had a tubal ligation after their third daughter. Because the husband wanted a son, they later had the the ligation reveresed and they had fertility drugs smuggled in from Mexico. The wife then had triplets and finally the quadruplets.

But that is not the end of the story. It seems the family of the wife had other daughters who came into the country illegally as well. One of them married a man and, seeing they couldn't make it in Los Angeles, moved to Lexington Kentucky. According to the article they are doing well today. They and their small family have accepted America as their home, learned English, learned trades, and are making more money in Lexington than they could in Los Angeles. What is quite interesting are the comments they make about life in LA. The sister says that California has become Mexico, that there are too many people, illegals they say, that depress wages for blue-collar workers. They have large families they cannot support. Their daughters start having children of their own at age 14. They have large enclaves of like-kind and feel no need to learn English or become "more American". These aren't the words of a racist white man (the common charge) but the sayings of those who lived what is happening. Yet in the name of "capitalism" far too many supporters of big business and the ruling caste of Congress seem to be willing to accept it.

Some Information on Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Well, here we are again. The American press and the liberals-with-an-agenda-but-without-information have painted the picture of "ignorant Christians" against the so-called science of the agnostic/atheist. But things are not as simple as the press would have us believe. As things stand today, in the roughly 30 years of stem cell research there have been no medical treatments come from embryonic stem cell (ESC) studies. On the other hand, adult stem cells have yielded success in no less than 72 treatments. The potential may be great, but it is at least at present an unfulfilled potential that has as of yet not delivered on its widely touted promises. However, to further investigate this "potential" it requires the destruction of "cells" that will become fully-developed human beings. So is the possible payoff worth the ethical taint that comes from killing the innocent? Many scientists have said the answer is no. As an example, consider the following quote:

“Although embryonic stem cells have the broadest differentiation potential, their use for cellular therapeutics is excluded for several reasons: the uncontrollable development of teratomas in a syngeneic transplantation model, imprinting-related developmental abnormalities, and ethical issues.” (Gesine Kögler et al., A New Human Somatic Stem Cell from Placental Cord Blood with Intrinsic Pluripotent Differentiation Potential, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol. 200, No. 2 (July 19, 2004), p. 123).

Conservatives are not against stem cell research and I am getting tired of liberals and the press trying to make that case. Restrictions on federal funding does not make stem cell research, even ESC research illegal in any way. Consider the current case in California where the state has allocated $3 billion for such research and there is nothing the federal government can do about it.

Liberals should learn to think before shooting off their mouths in an attempt to score political points by abusive ad hominem attacks.

I'm NOT Nitpicky... I'm Simply Accurate

Geeze, some days I really get slammed. I mean, I like accuracy, regardless of the area of life it falls into. The past few years I have been rather upset over the liberties that film makers take with certain movies (the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for instance, or more lately, X3), but when I voice such concerns I seem to be drowned out by the chorus of my friends who tell me that they "separate the book from the movie" and can "appreciate the director's interpretation" (or some similar drivel). They seem to think I don't understand how art is supposed to work. Well trust me, I understand, but what I understand (and care more about) is truth and accuracy. It is one thing to alter settings, switch around minor characters, mix dialogue, but it another to create a different story and try to pass it off as something that has a history. When I evaluate movies based on literature that I know, I have two simple criteria:

1. After seeing the movie, can you tell me a reasonable accurate summary that does justice to the primary source?
2. Do the characters portrayed on screen do things consistent with how the character in the text might do them given the same situation (see, I am flexible... they don't have to do exactly the same things, just act consistently with the character of the person in the text)

Now I can argue details, but for most people that isn't fun, but there are certain things that are just not right happening in movies today that really bother me. Here are a couple of "for instance" situations:

In the first LOTR movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, they have Arwen taking the injured Frodo to Rivendell while the book says it was Glorfindel. Fair enough, I can live with that (Story: "Important elf takes injured Frodo to Rivedell to heal", which is what happened). What I detest is the line they make her say, something NO TOLKIEN ELF would utter: "If you want him, come and claim him." ARGH! No, no, no. This is completely out of character for an elf in Middle Earth. Now, jump to X3, out this year. ******* MOVIE SPOILER ******** There is no way Wolverine would kill Phoenix. In fact, in the Dark Phoenix saga, he does have a chance to and he pulls his claws at the last minute. In a later conversation where the terror of Dark Phoenix (which actually isn't developed in the movie, it just appears), Wolverine pulls a "fast ball special" with Colossus and hurls Colossus at Dark Phoenix to kill her, Wolverine TELLS COLOSSUS HE (Wolverine) CANNOT KILL HER, that he had his chance and just couldn't do it so it was up to Colossus. And yet, what do they do in the movie??? Wrong, wrong, wrong! I can live with certain alterations, the problem of time and the need to compress and blend, but I just cannot stand it when they change the character. It would be impossible for anyone to tell me the basics of the Dark Phoenix saga from watching X3. And by the way, what's up with the bridge scene? Yeah, it looked cool, but there are so many ways for Magneto to have taken down the building and taken out the guards. Sheesh!

Anyway, I hope that this rambling makes sense. I can appreciate artistic license as much as anyone else, but just like with a driver's license or a gun license, that does not mean you can do just any old thing you want!

Frustrated Capitalist

It's becoming more and more difficult to support capitalism, or at least the current flavor of capitalism existing in America today. I have never really been a fan of what I call "Corporate Capitalism", the idea that big business is always good for us and whatever they want or need is what we must give them. Perhaps if they were better corporate citizens I might take a more favorable stance towards them, but given recent news over CEO pay and executive pensions I simply am disgusted. Consider the following two pieces of information:

An article recently ran in our local paper (see Yahoo!News here) stating that on average, CEOs earn 262 times the average worker's salary (CEOs about $11 million, average worker about $42,000). And if you look at the various different articles on this same topic, you will find that it seems what they actually did at the company made no difference. You can drive your company into the ground and STILL make more in a day than the average worker makes in a year. Back in the 1960s the multiple was closer to 24 or 25... have CEOs improved ten-fold over that period in time? As hourly wages are frozen or barely keeping up with inflation, the top tier take home more and more. Now not all companies are like this (consider Whole Foods which caps CEO pay at 14 times the average employee's pay, plus stock options), but enough are that I am surprised stock holders do not rise up and in a fit of disgust sell out everything they have (and given the current market, bonds might be a better short-term deal). I dunno, perhaps it was a fact of growing up poor and believing that hard work will be valued that I find myself in disbelief when I see such reports on compensation.

The second article is from the Wall Street Journal (23-June-2006) titled "Hidden Burden: As Workers' Pensions Wither, Those for Executives Flourish" (you can find a summarized version here. All you hear today is how employee pensions are a drag to business and must be jettisoned for many companies to survive. One quote from GM: "Our extensive pension and [post-employment] obligations to retirees are a competitive disadvantage for us". But the Journal, after looking at the reported numbers, states "The pension plans for its rank-and-file U.S. workers are overstuffed with cash, containing about $9 billion more than is needed to meet their obligations for years to come." At the same time, the pension obligations for executives are a liability to the company of $1.4 billion! And Lucent's employee pension actually brings in money to the company (over half of its profit comes from revenue from the employee pension). Disgusting! If you have the time, track down a copy and read it... but take your blood pressure medicine first.

I'll write more about this later, but right now I am so angry I can't see straight.

Wisdom From Lord of the Rings

The skill of the Elves can reforge the sword of Elendil – but only you can wield it.
– Elrond, to Aragorn

It's difficult not to find things that make you stop and think in The Lord of the Rings but this morning that line hit me out of left field. I was fortunate enough to work from home today and when I do I like to put something in the VCR to help break the silence. I had intended to watch the second disk of The Two Tours but what got popped in was the second disk to Fellowship of the Ring and my random button pushing stopped it right on that line. Suddenly I was hit with implications of what Elrond was telling Aragorn, and not just in Professor Tolkien's wonderful world of Middle Earth! Just as that choice was put before Aragorn it is put in front of each and every one of us today. Consider the following: Society can help create opportunities, but they cannot really make us take those opportunities and make something of them. We have to be active. The elves could repair the sword (heck, they made the sword), but they could not fight the battles that were not theirs to fight. Government can allocate all the money it wants and create as many quotas it wants, but unless those qualified take the opportunities granted to them and make something of them it comes to naught. You cannot make people go to college, succeed at studies, take certain jobs, and be successful in life unless they actually have some desire to do so. If you try to force them, or create artifical environments in which they work (that is, make the wrong weapon... not the needed "sword of Elendil", but the "salad fork of Martha Stewart", both useful but not interchangable), they will fail at their task. Not only will they fail, but they will more likely than not screw it up for those coming behind them (after all, if you went into battle who would you want to follow, someone with a sword or someone with a salad fork?). People can do things to help me, social organizations and even occasionally government can help create situations for me, it is up to me (or you in your case) to grab the pommel, to take the sword and use it as it was meant to be used.

Truth Hurts

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I'm a Christian and a conservative (and let's complete it, I am a conservative Christian), but I have gotten so disgusted with Republican pandering that I want to run out and join the ACLU in protest! The most difficult thing about this editorial cartoon is that it really is an accurate portrayal of what is happening today with our Republican "representation". Rather than deal with many of the hard issues of the day they would rather do things such as hold silly votes over the definition of marriage (which is a local issue last time I checked). Our students are being dumbed down by our educational system, we have government failures at all levels during emergencies such as what happened with Katrina, Our deficit is running out of control, people are worried about losing their jobs due to outsourcing, our infrastructure in crumbling, a sizeable percentage of our legal population is without adequate health care, a vast majority of Americans may never get to retire without living in fear, and what do we get? "Our country is threatened by homosexuals being able to marry!" and "Let's make English our national language, sort of, kinda, well, without actually doing anything to make it anything special!" "Let's proclaim smoking bad and slap a big nasty tax on cigarettes!"
I mean really, if you are going to waste our time and our (the taxpayers' monies), at least really DO something. You want to protect the sanctity of marriage? Make divorce illegal! You want English to be the established language, then make language classes required for citizenship and stop publishing documents in 140 different languages. If smoking (or fast food or whatever) is so bad, then make it illegal! Seriously, lawmakers are a joke anymore. There is no longer governance and leadership coming from our seats of power, only politics. But until we the voter population get serious as well, nothing will change. As they say in the re-enactments on television, "The names have been changed", but the stench of the policy remains.

666 Silliness

What a cool marketing ploy, releasing The Omen on June 6, 2006. Great for movie marketing, but what makes me sad is how many Christians get caught up in such silly ideas as assigning any meaning whatsoever to today's date. And of course the press has just salivating over showing what ignornate rubes we are. While at the gym this morning each television in the aerobics area was showing a different morning "news" program and every single station (four in all) had a segment within minutes of each other talking about the significance Christians applied to 666 (or 06-06-06). Unfortunately they never spoke with me.

So where does this come from? In the book of Revelation we are told:

He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666" (Rev. 13:16-18)

Well, I have yet to hear of the emergence of a world leader nor have I heard of people being forced to accept "the mark" to be able to conduct any commerce. Interesting isn't it how Scripture is pretty clear that this "mark" is the "name of the beast". Not a date (especially not June 6, 2006... why not June 6 1906, 1806, 1706, etc?) but a name, it has to be associated with the person who is called "the Beast".

How much more plain does it have to get? Personally, I think stupidity is the mark of the beast, after all, what better allies can Satan have than people who proclaim the name of Christ yet can't even interpret the plain teachings of texts like this one, discrediting those of us who struggle against such popular perceptions.

Remember... And Be Worthy

Today is Memorial Day and what more fitting quote than that of General George S. Patton:

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died, rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Yet how many of us really do thank God that such men (and women) lived, those who as Lincoln said "gave the last full measure of devotion"? And just as importantly, are we making ourselves worthy of the their sacrifice? Have you ever stopped and thought about what it really is that we ask of the young men and women in our armed services? In today's editorial section of the San Diego Union Tribune we are reminded:

The soldiers and Marines who are casualties in this war didn't make the policy. They went where their country sent them and did what it asked them to do against murderous enemies

I hope you realize that we cannot abstract this request as "the Government" told them to do this, it wasn't me. Oh, but it was you, and me, who did it, we cast our ballots, we get lazy and think in a sloppy manner and go through mental acrobatics to absolve ourselves of responsiblity, but we don't hold our "leaders" accountable in any meaningful way. The left is a shrill whose hatred of George Bush the Republican and public evangelical *gasp* makes them a parody of what political opposition should be, while the right takes the tax cuts and cares about nothing else. SHAME ON YOU BOTH! Saying "We hate all Republicans and everything they stand for" (thanks Mr. Dean for the great soundbite) or "I'm a loyal Republican" is not part of argument any sane person would make. This is your government, whether you voted for the man or not. If I cannot convince you of this, perhaps Lincoln can:

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Now go, whether you support the war or not, make yourselves worthy of these people who gave their life and limb for our country... no, for you.

I Suspected Draco... But Harry Too?

My friend Angelique passed the first link on to me today and I found the second on on my own. Depending on how sacrosanct you hold Harry Potter, you may not like them but I found them hilarious. Enjoy!

Harry Meets South Park?
Which Hogwarts Boy Is...

Problems With Statistics

If you were to look at the unemployment statistics for San Diego you would think that we were living in boom times. According to the San Diego Workforce Partnership unemployment for April 2006 was 3.7% (4.5% for the United States which, in the thinking of economics students across the country, means we are at full employment). We are constantly told that San Diego is a haven of job security. Why, if you lose your job for whatever reason you should have no problem at all finding another one. Given the numbers, that may be true, but before you decide to take out that loan against your house's equity perhaps you should look a little closer at those jobs. Our political and civic "leaders" want to tell us that we are a big draw for high paying jobs such as biotech and technology. After having lived here for seven years I am still looking for all of those high-paying high tech companies. True, we do have Qualcomm, and Intuit does have a pretty big presence here, but except for those two and Sony what we have at best are small "mom and pop" shops. While they are doing some interesting work, the salaries I have been quoted by various agencies are not all that promising. I get the same feedback from my friends working in similar technical positions. Salaries for the most part have been stagnant and new offerings at the same level of experience has been a little lower than existing positions. Not good considering the ever increasing cost of living in southern California. And as for biotech, the vast majority of companies here employ less than 100 people. While the benefits are pretty good, again the pay for most positions has stagnated or slightly declined. Now, we are losing jobs in what many have been saying is our strongest area (biotech). In today's San Diego Union Tribune business section there appeared an article titled Diagnostics plant will close; toll is 150 jobs. The parent company of Applied Biotech, a Massachusetts company by the name of Inverness Medical Innovations, is closing its plant here and moving the jobs to China. What I found stunning was the admission in the article that

... while there are no reliable figures on how many U. S. life science jobs have been lost to the practice [offshoring] the toll is beginning to be felt in San Diego.

The article discusses what happened to another San Diego biotechnology company, Discovery Partners International, that let go half of its workforce when it lost a contract with Pfizer to "a rival overseas firm". Discovery is now trying to sell most of its remaining operations with the fate of its remaining employees unclear.

Oh well, given the strength of the San Diego employment market, if I lose my high-tech job I suppose I could always be a bartender (hospitality had the highest increase in jobs created for the category "non-farm and salaried jobs). I couldn't afford my rent, my car payment, or my utilities, but our "leaders" would be happy to know that I was still employed and helping to keep that unemployment figure down.

Marcel For Today

My reading program this year includes the works of the French philosopher and playwrite Gabriel Marcel. I have found some very interesting insights from this "Christian existentialist" that, though written more than 60 years ago, are very applicable today. Consider this passage from Man Against Mass Society (it is a bit long, but please bear with me):

... this sinister ambiguity in the popular argument for equality - that those who demand the greatest equality claim to be thinking of the nation's economic strength, when in fact they may be secretly encouraging its weakness - has not really been cleared away; and that levelling down, that is to say the basest and easiest way of seeking social equality, is the principle which seems to underly most of the legal arrangements which in France weigh so heavily on our day-to-day existence.

Substitute American for France and we have a pretty accurage picture of those who scream "Equality" the loudest. Rather than really trying to help raise people up, hold them to certain standards, the current point of view is to lower the bar.

This is all part of a broader "degradation" that Marcel addresses in this marvelous work that seems to speak across the decades to me. As I read more I promise to share them with you, if for no other reason to show you that not all Frenchmen are bad.

Immigration This Time Around

Over and over again we are told by President Bush that "America is a nation of immigrants". While this statement is true as far as it goes, we must understand that this time it's a bit different. If we only stop and think about the various waves of immigration prior to the current time of debate we can easily see the following important differences that the supposed defenders of our American ideals and American way of life, for what ever reason, seem to miss (greed is my bet, what's yours?):

• Virtually all previous waves of immigration have been from distant shores. The original settlers of the late 17th century were mainly northern Europeans. The second wave of immigrants coming in the late 19th century and early 20th century were mainly southern Europeans, the Irish, the Poles, and the Asians. Coming here meant separation from your "mother country" to begin a new life. You really had to try to assimilate, and since the migration here was largely controlled (there are only so many steamers crossing the Atlantic and Pacific) it was, for the most part, successful. This is not the case with the current immigration problem with Mexico. Not only is it continuous, but with the United States sharing a border, there is no real reason to separate yourself from your place of origin. Let's face it, with our porous border illegal aliens can move back and forth pretty much as they wish. I would bet that if there was a large body of water separating the two countries rather than what currently exists (almost nothing), the assimilation issue would go away within a couple of generations. But what we have is a continuous influx of new Mexican arrivals which diminishes the need for assimilation into the culture. And let's face it, in their greed American businesses are not helping. As Victor Davis Hanson so bluntly puts it in his book Mexifornia

A Pole once accepted that she would perpetually stumble through the Cleveland phone book if she kept speaking Polish; a Mexican accepts as a given that Pacific Bell will double the size of its directory assistance just to accommodate her Spanish.


• According to various polls (such as this Zogby poll) and the expressed thoughts of organizations in this country such as The National Council of La Raza and Mecha, the majority Mexican citizens believe that the American Southwest "rightfully belongs to Mexico". Their attitude is, "This place is ours, not yours, so we have every right to come here when we want regardless of whatever laws you pass." Where in the other mass movements to the United States have we see this attitude so prevalent?



• The proximity of the United States plus the attitude of the majority of Mexicans give the Mexican government a great incentive to keep this up. After all, if the poorest people keep leaving the country then the government will have little incentive to deal with the problems of their countrymen (and lets not forget all the money that is sent back... that sum is supposedly the second largest source of revenue for Mexico). It's interesting that we have Latinos protesting here when our own government makes the slightest whisper of any inclination towards a desire of doing anything about the issue of illegal immigration, yet there seems to be no protests by Latinos in Mexico against how that government treats its poor. To see just how important it is to the Mexican government to keep this social pressure valve open you need only consider the recent rumblings within the Mexican government about using any means to prevent the United States from reinforcing its border protection. What we do on our side of the border is really none of their business, but they make it their business because of the benefits they gain.

So if I can figure this out without the aid of thousands of analysts and millions of dollars in strategic studies about the issue why can't Washington?

Real Republicans

I am starting to think that nearly all Republicans in Washington are RINOs (Republican In Name Only). After the disaster with immigration, we now get the following report about Congress and the budget. In case you hadn't heard, Congress passed a 2.7 TRILLION DOLLAR "budget" in which Congress itself estimates will have a 348 BILLION DOLLAR deficit! And to make matters worse, it will probably be more because they allocated half of the current amount going to efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

First, the lie:

House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, addressed conservatives' concerns about deficits saying, "With revenues rising and holding the line on spending we can in fact balance the budget in the next four or five years."

Tell me Mr Boehner, how is having a 348 BILLION DOLLAR deficit "holding the line" when you did unrealistic allocations for things you know will cost more? Please, don't lie to me. I would respect you more if you simply admitted you and your kind (both Democrats and the supposed Republican politicians) are addicted to money and the power of the office.

Now the scare:

With U.S. government debt rapidly escalating, the budget authorizes a $653 billion increase in borrowing authority next year to total $9.62 trillion.

I am at a loss as how to comment on this one. Although I studied mathematics through the Ph.D. I have no real concept of 9.62 trillion dollars.

And finally, to the man I voted for twice:

Earlier in the day, President George W. Bush signed into law a $70-billion tax-cut bill...

Mr. President, with all due respect, you cannot cut taxes like a Libertarian and allow spending like a Democrat. It just simply will not work.

Where are the real Republicans? My father's family has been Republican for generations. The way I understood the Republican approach to government was to make it small, efficient and as non-intrusive as possible into the lives of the individual, with an emphasis not on leveling downby creating a false sense of equality but removing roadblocks to allow individuals the freedom necessary to live their lives in a way meaningful to them. Lately this isn't what I see coming from Washington.

Please Say It Ain't So

Holy cow. As if my faith in the rational powers of people these days isn't low enough, out comes this story about the results of a poll stating

People are now twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children after reading the Dan Brown blockbuster and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.

In an poll conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB), 60% of people who read Mr. Brown's book believe that Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene (of course, it is almost as frightening that they reported 30% of those who hadn't read the book believe it as well). It stuns me that solid historical evidence to the contrary can be overthrown by a novel (and to be honest, aside from the bad history, philosophy and theology, a not very well written novel). Are people really so intellectually lazy and so yearning for titillating scandal that they will believe this rubbish? Mr. Brown, you must be so proud. When are you starting your own religion? Once Tom Cruise is "clear" of those pesky alien spirits he may be shopping around for another one.

Why Bush Is Wrong On Immigration

One way to judge someone's comments is to look at those who agree and those who disagree with them. In an AP story today we are given the following quote of support for President Bush's "proposal" provided to us in last night's speech:

"The president gets it," added Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

For some chilling news about what our legislators in the upper house have proposed, check out this report from the Heritage Foundation.

How Low In The Poll Can He Go?

Well, I just listened to President Bush's speech on immigration and the question that immediately came to mind was "Is it possible to drop to a single digit approval rating?" If you missed the audio version you can read the text here. It's amazing that you can be all over the map and yet find a way to tick off everyone.

In his speech the President listed five points to show where he stood on the issue of illegal immigration:

First, the United States must secure its borders. Okay, sounds good, but how? Well, he wants to increase the number of Border Patrol agents by 6,000 (from the current 12,000 to 18,000) by 2008. That's not bad, but the numbers I have heard batted around by immigration experts says we need closer to 25,000 border agents, so the President's number is too small (I wonder if he is getting his intel from Rumsfeld?). In the interim, he plans on sending 6,000 National Guard men and women to "assist the Border Patrol by operating surveillance systems analyzing intelligence installing fences and vehicle barriers building patrol roads and providing training. Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities..." But were many of these activities being done by the Border Patrol? If not, if it really doesn't free up those agents to chase down illegals, how will it really help close up the holes in the border? In limited ways, but not directly.

Second, the President says we "must create a temporary worker program". His reasons are that illegal aliens will do anything to get here, that we need them for our economy, and "it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their families while respecting the law." I read this, reread the text in the speech and still cannot see why we "must" do this. Immigrants here illegally are not honest immigrants, they broke the law in coming here, they obvious do not repect the law. As for our economy needing them, I simply ask "why?" I have yet to hear a solid reason for this and President Bush doesn't provide one.

Third, we need to hold employers responsible for the people they hire. At least President Bush admits it is against the law to hire illegal aliens, but he softens it a bit and says that the reason is because verification is difficult and he proposes that the solution is a secure identification card. But this is just plain silly. He says "Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees, because of the widespread problem of document fraud." Really? Every job I have had since graduating college involved a background check including my having to prove that I was eligible to work in the U.S. So if the problem is so bad, why have I had to do that? If documentation is so difficult why stop at immigrants, why not provide them for citizens (whoever they are... if it is so tough to check then we all are suspect... well, at least you are, I know I am a citizen *grin*).

Fourth, we are given a lesson in social dynamics and told that we have to accept the fact that there are illegal immigrants already here. Here is what he says:

They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

But what he proposes is just that, to make those who are here unlawfully and magically make them lawful. So if they are no longer here unlawfully the hurdle to citizenship that President Bush raised is dropped. And while I cam sympathetic to those the president says have "deep roots" here, that does not negate the fact that they are here illegally!

The fifth point, while a nice sentiment, doesn't say much except that the president acknowledges that in America we speak English:

The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.

Nice sentiment... why doesn't he push through something declaring English as the official language of the United States? Symbolic, yes, but at least it is more than just words in a speech that are tied to nothing.

So there ya go. Does it make sense to you? It sure doesn't to me. If anything it shows me just how out of touch the guy I voted for really is on this issue.

Lowering The Bar in California Education

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman suspended the California high school exit exam stating "There is evidence in the record that shows that students in economically challenged communities have not had an equal opportunity to learn the materials tested." (here) I was shocked, stunned... students who after 12 years of elementary and secondary education had not had the opportunity to learn the material tested? Why, this must be some intense, demanding test covering the minutia of all aspects of knowledge that had the most remote possiblity of being presented to such students! I decided to do what I bet most people arguing the issue have not done, I read what the California Department of Education (CADEd) Website said about the exit exam.

The purpose of the exam, as stated on the CADEd Website:

The primary purpose of the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) is to significantly improve pupil achievement in public high schools and to ensure that pupils who graduate from public high schools can demonstrate grade level competency in reading, writing, and mathematics... The CAHSEE has two parts: English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics.

Okay, not so bad. They want to improve achievement and ensure that high school graduates can actually work at "grade level" in the "3 Rs". But what stunned me is the bar they placed for the acceptable "grade level competency". According to the site, The ELA part addresses state content standards through grade ten... The mathematics part of the CAHSEE addresses state standards in grades six and seven and Algebra I. Tenth grade language arts and eighth grade math is the "grade level competency" expected for a California high school graduate? That is appalling! Of course, in California the fact that people pass the exam in hearlded as outstanding news. According to California Superintendent of Public Schools Jack O'Connell "Nearly 90 percent of this year’s seniors have passed the California High School Exit Exam. This shows that students are acquiring the necessary knowledge and our high schools are focused on making sure students who graduate have the essential mathematics and English-language skills they will need to survive in the workplace or college."

So what does this really say about the beliefs of Judge Freedman and the plaintiff's attorney Arturo Gonzalez? If you have been following the case, quite a bit. For starters:

Feelings trump achievement.

Race and economic status trump hard work and endurance.

Being a credentialed teacher trumps being a competent teacher.

Throwing money at a problem always fixes it.

Standards are discriminatory (the bugaboo of the times).

And who loses?

The students (both those who have taken it... tough, as well as those who now do not have to because you now know that these people don't care about you).

The teachers (those of you who put in long hours and work hard to try to help children learn, you can stop now, it apparently isn't a value people like Freedman and Arturo deem a worthy goal).

The parents (at least you can now stop nagging your children to do better in school, they are guaranteed to graduate by simply showing up).

Anyone with a California high school diploma (oh well, at least you have spare toilet paper).

The California taxpayer (NICE investment in the future isn't it... say, since we aren't going teach these people, can we fire the teachers and at least fix the darned roads?).

Ah, what a way to start the week... let's see if President Bush's speech tonight tops this.

Didn't I just Say This?

Perhaps I can sue for some cash. The business section of the 10-May-2006 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune lead with an article by Kevin Hall that looks like a business writer's version of my previous post. The article, titled For many, outlook not so rosy shows two sets of graphs constrasting how The Economy Is Stronger...Yet Many Americans Don't Feel It. Okay, so I didn't provide charts in my posting. The analysis is boils down to the same concepts of how while experts all agree that U.S. economic growth is above norms, American's aren't celebrating. Jared Bernsstein of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington puts it quite well: "The gap between the economy from 40,000 feet and on the ground level just seems to get wider with every report." But I already told you that didn't I. You can find the article here.

Existential Economics

Pundants, pollsters, and economists appear confused. Why, they ask, don't people feel better about their current economic situation? Why according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment is at a new low (4.7%), payroll employment is up, productivity is up, and we are told in financial news that the market [well, really the Dow] is at a six year high. Why, everyone should be giddly! But you know something, we're not, and it's not just the problem with Iraq and Iran (or for me, the soon to be outlawed fois gras *sob*), there really is something about the economy that is bothering people and it bewilders the big brains for politico-economic think tanks. Well, I am here to shed some light on it for those overeducated folks. You see, what happened is, you followed the path of philosophy... your methods became too far removed from reality to be of any use. Back around the time of Socrates there was an idea that the mind, body, and soul moved in concert. Becaue of this, Socrates thought that people should development their thinking and since thinking (philosophy?) affected the other two areas of man's existence it would help determine how best to live. But somewhere along the way philosophy seems to have gotten off track and began to become detatched from how the "average" person lives. Saddly, there appeared no gadfly to help bring it back down from its lofty heights into the realm of the living, no thinker who was invited to parties by the social and academic elite who after hearing a boring and irrelevant speech would simply say "So what?" This was one of the major points of the existentialist movement (if you can really call it that). We are individuals, leading individual lives, forming relationships with other individuals... somehow mainstream academic philosophy forget that. This same shift from thinking about a person to thinking about people to thinking about thinking in philosophy's case shows the path to irrelevance taken by economics. You see, to tell me that I should feel good that the national unemployment rate is a low 4.7% is an attempt to deindividualize me (is there such a word?). Yet it doesn't make sense to tell me that I should feel economically secure because surgeons, college professors, fry cooks, and even other IT people in aggregate are well employed. You are trying to lump me, Mike, into some amorphous body and try say that I am just like everyone else. Shoot, even if my own company is doing well that is no guarantee that I will be able to report to work tomorrow. Perhaps some low-evel executive somewhere will come up the insane notion that we need one less person doing what I do and by making everyone else in my group work harder the company can save money. The same goes for other macro numbers such as the rise of the Dow. For me, and I would guess for the majority of the people out there, my livelihood does not closely track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, for if it did my pay would be about 70% higher than it was back in 2000. What matters to me isn't that shares of Intel are trading higher, but whether or not my income is sufficient to cover my bills, whether or not I am saving enough for retirement or vacation, whether or not I can cover a sudden economic shock like needing a new set of tires or having to pay $4.00 per gallon for gas over an extended period of time. You see, people in college are taught two braod brances of economics: macroeconomics (say, national or sector level) and microeconomics (say, factory level), but they are not taught what matters to most people, personal economics. So, I propose that we create a new branch for the academics, existential economics, the economics of me (*well, okay, perhaps not me, how about the individual. Unless something like this occurrs, our political leaders, who looks to pollsters and think tanks for advice, will drift only farther away from reality as experienced by the majority of America.

My Day Without A... Huh?

It started out as "Day Without An Illegal Alien", then "Day Without An Undocumented Immigrant", then "Day Without An Immigrant", and finally, thanks for our wonderful California Assembly it became "Great American Boycott". Supposedly it was to show us the "economic might" of the (illegal) immigrants but expanded to show support for (illegal) immigrants. I listened to reports all day long and I learned the following:

• Supporters of the march know virtually nothing about history.
  
• Supporters of the march know virtually nothing about logic.
  
• Supporters of the march, on the whole, know nothing about the current political climate in Washington.
  
• Supporters of the march, on the whole, know nothing about economics.
  
• School age supporters, on the whole, were there simply to skip school and party.
  
• The greatest negative economic impact was in the heavily hispanic populated areas.
  

In thinking about my "Day Without An (Illegal Alien/)Immigrant - Great American Boycott", the only impact I experienced was positive... my normal morning and evening commute was about 30% shorter than normal (shaved off about 10 minutes normal commute time each way). Let's see... I got up at 5:30AM to go to my gym (which was open and full), stopped in at my grocer (open, busy, and fully stocked), bought my morning paper at "my" 7-11 (open, stocked, full of customers), listened to my morning programs on the radio (normal programming) as I ate breakfast and got ready for work, drove to work (roads about 70% normal capacity, wonderful traffic flow), arrived at work (parking lot nearly full), worked the morning, had lunch with my friend Andrew at our regular watering hole (normal capacity, fully staffed), went back to work, drove home (again, nice traffic flow), had dinner with Pookie, watched a DVD, did a little homework, went to sleep. Impact... NONE.

As I said before, I am shifting in my thoughts about mankind. As I listened to the reports coming in from the mainstream press and listening to the speeches of the activists I kept sputtering "But... but... non sequitur... hasty generalization... invalid form... strawman arugment...", but alas, it didn't matter. People don't want to reason through things. In our French class there is an older man who is the same way. I had to leave while he polluted the air with biased, unfounded opinion about Christianity. Aleks apparently tried to engage him after he attacked one of our classmates (this happened while I was venting outside), but Aleks said he wouldn't listen, he had absolutely no intention of engaging in conversation, just like the people I heard on the radio. Two more examples of why Aristotle's definition of man was off base. *sigh*

Philosophy, Movies and Me

As I get older I feel a shift occurring in my underlying philosophy. I used to be a hard-core, rationalistic, "Enlightenment-based" philosopher. Knowledge, logic, science... those were the keys to advancing mankind as a collective concept (though still a Christian, but salvation is noncorporate, its influence being through the conversion of individuals who, acting in concert, become "salt", but I never bought into the idea of theonomy). The last couple of years, through observation of society and intense reflection, has brought a change. I find myself moving more and more in the direction of a type of Christian existentialism (or perhaps as Marcel would day, a Christian "neo-Socratic" direction). I now think Aristotle was wrong in his Metaphysics to define man as a rational animal. I think that while we as a species have the capacity to be rational, mankind for the most part has chucked that idea right out of the ontological window. I find more and more that people actually recoil when faced with any type of logical argument, their only rejoinder coming as a variation of "How can you say that, you hurt my/his/her/their feelings!" During my lifetime this type of irrationalism began picking up steam in the 1990s and has finally swamped the boat. Now I refuse to agree with the atheistic existentialists that life is absurd, that it has no meaning, but I am ready to yield up a part of my world, the part that believes society is basically rational and will do the "right thing" when faced with a difficult choice. I now no longer believe that. I'll talk more about the philosophy involved later, but I want to briefly mention two recent movies that have touched me and hopefully demonstrate some of this shift I am facing.

The first movie is Sophie Scholl, The Final Days. If you don't know the story I strongly suggest you read some of the pages about the White Rose group. In short, in 1943 a small group of students in Munich came together and began publishing leaflets protesting the atrocities of Herr Hitler against both the German people and against mankind in general, even though if they were caught they would be tried as traitors and put to death. To borrow from the aformentioned site about the White Rose:

The members of The White Rose worked day and night, cranking a hand-operated duplicating machine thousands of times to create the leaflets which were each stuffed into envelopes, stamped and mailed from various major cities in Southern Germany. Recipients were chosen from telephone directories and were generally scholars, medics and pub-owners (which seemed to puzzle the Gestapo -- but who better to spread the word or post a leaflet!). While Hans and Alex alone drafted the first four leaflets, they counted on Christoph Probst to comment and criticize. Jürgen edited the third and fourth leaflets and traveled to Berlin with the dangerous documents. Willi contributed to the fifth leaflet and did a generous amount of leg-work, getting supplies and trying to recruit support outside of Munich. Sophie worked hard at getting stamps and paper (one couldn't buy too many stamps at one place without arousing suspicion) and also managed the group's funds. Kurt Huber contributed to the fifth leaflet and solely drafted the sixth (and final) leaflet, while Hans was apprehended with a rough-draft of a seventh leaflet written by Christoph Probst. All members traveled throughout Southern Germany (and beyond) to mail stacks of leaflets from undetectable locations. Hundreds of leaflets were also left at the University of Munich, carefully hand-delivered in the middle of the night.

They were caught and the film takes you through the trial of Sophie, Hans, and Christoph (they were arrested Feb 18, 1943, tried, and executed on Feb 22, 1943). As I sat in the theatre listening to their words I was struck with the following question: "What ideals do I have worth dying for?" Now that is extreme and thank God we don't actually face such decisions in our current society. I am free to express my beliefs and opinions without having the threat of the guillotine, but for what beliefs am I willing to face such an end? I bitch about our government but I still pay my taxes, I don't join any protest groups (I used to think the Republican party was a protest against the atrocities of big government but that is DEFINITELY no longer the case). I don't take to the streets to try to rally people to any of my so-called causes. I risk nothing for what I claim to believe. Instead I act as just another little drone in the cogs of American social machinery. Seeing that movie was like a slap in the face. Yet how quickly the sting seems to pass... Before leaving this movie I do want to comment on one Christian-related moment (Sophie was portrayed as a Christian and a right good one from what we see). Just moments before her execution she is allowed to see her parents. Her mother tells her "Sophie, remember Jesus Christ". Sophie replies something to the effect of "Mother, you remember Him too". Brilliant! It's one thing to tell a Christian facing death to remember all the promises of God, but with this instantation of life about over it's somewhat easy (that doesn't sound right but I hope you understand what I am saying... if not, write me), but for the people who have to live on after their loved one is gone, THEY are they ones who need the comfort that comes from true faith. For the Christian who passes from this existence, they are in the presense of God, no longer in need of anything. Those left here on earth are in even greater need of His grace and comfort. I thought this was a wonderful moment in the film.

The second movie that hit me is Thank You For Smoking. Here, Aaron Eckhard plays tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor. This movie is one of the best examples of moral relativism and semantic holism that I have seen since the British classics of Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch and Yes, Minister's episode "The Whisky Priest" (emphasis on the bit about Humphrey being a moral vaccum). Ah, I can hear you ask "What is semantic holism?" Simply put (and with some gloss), semantic holism is the idea from philosophical linguistics that truth value in language is only possibly within a larger context of language. Any individual phrase can have any truth value you want (or put another way, a sentence in isolation has no truth value). Nick Naylor relies on this thinking, that you can make any sentence mean what you want my sifting your context at any given time, in some remarkable ways. What surprised me is that I have heard his arguments before with respect to many different "debates". Logic and rationality are irrelevant as long as I get what I want. The more I reflected on this, the more I saw it in our society and the more depressed I became. IS there any such thing as truth anymore (now before you get too shocked, I do believe in Truth, but I am trying to speak for society)? Is winning really more important than being right? Are you better off being a "moral vacuum" than actually believing in anything? And if so, where will this take us? I am afraid that if this really is true then we as a society will suffer the same fate Jim Hacker predicts for Sir Humphrey: "If you believe that, Humphrey, then when you die, you will go to Hell."

Theological Illiteracy, More Da Vinci Code Silliness

I could spend weeks writing posts on what's wrong within Dan Brown's The Da vinci Code (TDC) but being merciful I'll finish up today with a few more big blunders made by Mr. Brown in his statement of "fact". Our last few postings addressed the Gnostics and the supposed manipulation by Constantine to exclude certain "facts" from the canon. Let's look at another commonly batted about conspiracy player, the Priory of Sion. Here are a few "facts" we are told regarding this organization by Mr. Brown:

• It is one of the oldest surviving secret societies on earth (p.113).


• The Priory learned of hidden documents that told the "true" story of Christ's bloodline (p. 158)


• The existence of the Priory was firmly established when documents were found in the National Library of France in Paris, naming the names of the "Grand Masters of the Priory" which included Botticelli, Newton, and da Vinci (pp. 206, 326).


• The Knights Templar was founded by the Priory and given the mission of finding the documents regarding Jesus and Mary Magdalene's progeny. (p. 158)


• Pope Clement V decided something had to be done to stop the Knights Templar and cospired with France's King Philip IV. Secret orders were supposed issued by Philip to all his soliders all across Europe to be opened simultaneously on October 13, 1307. The orders were to round up and kill all of the knights (p.159, 160).

Okay, that's enough. I could spend pages writing just on these points, but I'll spare you. Let's hit the highlights to see how these "facts" stack up against reality. I'll break the discussion into two broad groupings, The Priory of Sion and The Knights Templar.

The Priory of Sion

There have been at least three organizations called The Priory of Sion. The first was a catholic monastic order founded in Jerusalem in about 1100. This order ceased to exist around 1600 when it was absorbed into the Jesuit order. The other two occurrances are linked to the Frenchman Pierre Plantard who, in 1956 along with three friends formed a social club called the Priory of Sion. This club disolved within a year, only to resurrected by Plantard in the 1960s and used as a mechanism to show himself an occult master and a descendant of the holy, royal bloodline of Christ. But what about the "secret documents" that show the long history of the the Priory's existence and the listings of names of its Grand Masters? Documents planted by Plantard and his associates. For example, papers with titles such as "A Geneaology of the Merovingian Kings" and "The Secret Records of Henri Lobineau" (this one repeatedly named in TDC), were distributed around France and "discovered" to show support of Plantard's claims. Fascinating if they were real, but they have all been shown to be fakes (a pretty good summary can be found here and here. So it appears there is no actual historical evidence for a Priory of Sion as described by Mr. Brown.

The Knights Templar

The Knights Templar were founded as a military religious order around 1100 by Hugh des Payens and Godfrey of Sainte-Omer, two French knights, not the Priory. The move against the Knights was initiated by King Philip IV, not Pope Clement. Philip wanted the lands and the wealth that had been accumulated by the knights and it was Philip who ordered his soldiers to take the knights into custody in a mass arrest on October 13, 1307, not the Pope as TDC states. The knights were rounded up and placed on trial by Philip. Many were found guilty of "charges" and executed, but it was not carried out ala Emperor Palpatine's "Order 66" against the Jedi! In fact, a few months before this, Philip forced about 70 knights to "confess" their sins to the Pope. Clement opened investigations against the Knights Templar but at the trials held throughout Europe the various knights were found innocent... except for those France, the seat of Philip's power, where he secured the execution of 54 knights in 1310, not 1307. In 1312 Clement decided to dissolve the Order of the Knights Templar. The knights were allowed to join other military orders or to retire. Many chose to join the Order of Hospitallers and continued to live and work within the Catholic Church.

So what can we say about TDC and Mr. Brown's "facts"? Let's ignore interpretation for now, but just on simple matters of documented historical facts (dates, places, people) many of what are stated as facts in TDC are just flat out wrong. What Brown is relying on is (1) people enjoy conspiracy theories and (2) people are ignorant of history, particularly religious history and are too lazy to check out things for themselves. And if he cannot get historically documented facts right, what does that say about his interpretation of his facts? If nothing else, it should be enough to give us pause before accepting the allegations as true.

Next up, the last I have to say in this series, the "newly discovered" Gospel of Judas.

Theological Illiteracy, Addressing The Da Vinci Code

The last post in this string was the bridge. We looked briefly at how books made it into the Christian canon (The Bible), the Gnostics, since Mr. Brown's book The Da Vinci Code (TDC) brought him up, poor ol' Constantine. Last time we addressed some of the tired old charges brought against Constantine and his supposed machinations in keeping certain things from Scripture (which were brought up yet again in TDC). We'll continue for a post or two on other alligations TDC makes and hopefully show you that what Mr. Brown calls "Facts" should be not taken just on his "authority".

In addressing the numerous errors in TDC it is difficult to being. We can talk about some his trivial errors such as stating that there are 666 panes of glass in the pyramid entrance to the Louvre (p. 21) when the actual number is 673. While it makes for a fascinating allegation (though the equating of the number of panes of glass on the Pei addition to the Bible's "Mark of the Beast" takes some real stretching), Brown is simply wrong. Surely, if anything should be a "Fact" it should be something as easily checked as this. But alas, it is not to be. But as fascinating as it is, this discrepancy between story and reality is minor and has no hard implication other than to case a rather dim conspiratorial shadow. We're interested in the serious ones such as those we discussed in relation to Constantine in the pervious post. Let's take a look at a couple more:

On p.309 of TDC Brwon writes "The Jewish Tetragrammaton YHWH - the scared name of God - in fact deried from Jehova, an androgenous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah." What is Brown up to here? Well, one of the accusations against Christianity is that we tried to do away with any connection of the feminine with the divine. Now, in this passage from his book Brown does get one thing correct, the Tetragrammaton was used in Jewish writings because they thought that base man using the name of God would profane it, so they used four Hebrew letters which we would translate Y-H-W-H. As to what they actually stood for, we do not know. What we do know is that YHWH goes back much, much farther than Jehovah, since we can trace its origin to the Middle Ages while YHWH can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And just where did the word Jehova come from? It isn't from the fusion of the words Brown states, but rather from Jewish scribes called the Masoretes working in the Middle Ages, who used the vowels from the word adonai interspered amoung the "Latinized" YHWH. So what we got was something that could be pronouned in public readings, J-a-H-o-V-a-H. If you want to conjure up a plot to hide the feminine nature of the divine, you need look somewhere else.

To show Mr. Brown's linguistic ineptitude, let's look at one more passage today (and it happens to involve our old friend Constantine): "Anyone who chose the forbidden gospels over Constantine's version was deemed a heretic. The word 'heretic' derives from that moment in history. The latin word haereticus means 'choice.' Those who 'chose' the original history of Christ were the world's first heretics" (TDC p.234). Oh my. I honestly don't know where he gets this stuff. In linguistic reality, the word for "heretic" goes back farther than Constantine (early fourth century). Paul himself used the greek word hairesis and its variants in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:19 and Titus 3:10 (both somewhere around AD 60-ish). Of course, if you only read titles, you can find it in the writings of Irenaeus (Irenaeus Against Heresies, circa AD 180) and Tertullian (Prescription Against Heretics around the late second centruy).

And folks, this is just the beginning...

Theological Illiteracy, Part Four

Whenever conspiracy theories about the Bible are discussed one name always seems to pop up, that of Constantine. Mr. Brown's The da Vinci Code (TDC) is no different. For example, here is a sampling of Mr. Brown has to say regarding Constantine:

(1) "The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine... He was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too week to protest" (pp 231 - 232).

(2) Constantine "commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. the earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up and burned" (p. 234).

But Mr. Brown's characters are quik to tell us all was not lost at the hands of the evil Constantine...

(3) [Some of the gospels Consantine tried to destroy] "managed to survive. The Dead Sea scrolls fond in the 1950s... and the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi.. These are... the earliest Christian records" (pp. 234, 245).

Alas, while the conspiracy to silence the Gnostic records by Constantine are not new, it appears few people have actually looked at the true historical record. Constantine (274 - 337) was not a lifelong pagan, but converted to Christianity. Even after his conversion Constantine was a tolerant emperor, allowing people to worship as they saw fit (see his Edict of Milan). As for his being too weak to protest being baptized, there is not one shred of historical evidence to this fact. What was known was that he was baptized in 337 and until several days later he wore "the white robes of a neophyte". This postponement of baptism was because of the seriousness with which one entered into baptism. The prevailing theological concept was that of baptismal regeneration, that baptism washed away sins and that it could be applied only once. Thus the desire to put it off to a time as close to death as possible was not unheard of.

Now what about that nonsense of Constantine "collating the Bible"? For starters, the Old Testament had been compiled before the birth of Jesus. The formation of the New Testament began around the end of the first century, about 200 years before Constantine. In fact, the official list of books to make up the current 27 books in the New Testament was not confirmed until the Council of Hippo in 393, over half a century after Constantine! To complicate matters, the final confirmation for the Eastern Orthodox Church did not occur until about AD 500! Amazing, isn't it. Now, what Constantine did do is to request 50 copies of the the books listed by Eusebius in his History of the Church.

Somehow, in all of this, supporters of conspiracy theories want to say that the books comprising the Bible were somehow altered/embellished by Constantine. But there is no historical evidence showing that any of the accepted Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were embellished by Constantine or any of the scholars under him. And how can anyone seriously say that the Gospels in the Bible were changed to hide Christ's human traits. Christians since the first centrury have believed that Christ was both 100% human and 100% divine and human traits are shows throughout the gospels (such as hunger and fatigue in Luke 4:2 and 8:23). Ah, but what about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library, were they not even earlier gospels that were suppressed for fear of changing what people believe? Of course not. The Dead Sea Scrolls contained no gospels of any kind. The manuscripts were pre-Christian Jewish writings, containing portions of the Old Testament, some secular documents, and even some accounting records! As for the Nag Hammadi writings, they do contain gospels of Gnostic origin, but they were not records of "earliest Christian writing" but data to around AD 250 - 300. These Coptic writings were based on Greek writings that scholars date back to the mid-100s at the earliest, about 70 years after the last of the synoptic Gospels was written.

Hopefully this gives you a feel for the type of sloppy "scholarship" that will pop up over and over in TDC. It appears that, for Mr Brown, there is littler difference between "fact" and fiction.

Theological Illiteracy, Part Three

Tonight boys and girls we look at (in somewhat short form) the big topic of Gnosticism. Much of what appears in The Da Vinci Code (TDC) and comes into play in the more recent Gospel of Judas (GoJ) is related to this topic and a proper understanding is required.

Those of you who have read the New Testament (NT) know that the apostle Paul met early in his career churches who were deviating from the "gospel once delivered". Nowhere more evident is this than what must have been happening at Corinth. Here, a "spiritual aristocracy" developed, those in it seemed to be inclined to pride themselves on the possession of "special knowledge" and having greater, deeper "experiences" than the more run-of-the-mill Christian. These people were often dualists, believing that the spirit is everything and the body (and anything else material) as evil. At Colossae in Asia Minor Paul met with those who were creating a new belief system resulting from a blending of Christianity, heterodox Judaism, and some of the currently existing "mystery cults". Both of these types of beliefs, that Paul felt needed correcting, belong to the more broad category of belief systems known as Gnosticism. This term, often applied to rival sects that appear to have broken away from the early church between A.D. 80 and 150, is from the Greek work for knowledge (gnosis). These sects claimed to possess a special "knowledge" which transcends the simple faith of the Church. Part of this special knowledge was the dualistic bent of spirit=good, matter=evil, extending to the belieft of not one true God, but two Gods. The first God is all spirit and it is he who created the second (evil) god responsible for creating the material world. Many Gnostics denied the divinity of Christ because for them it was impossible for the divine to exist in the material world while other believed that the material body of Christ was simply an illusion which those "in the know" could understand and move up to a higher spiritual plane. As you can see, these views fly in the face of what was being taught in the early Church and thus writing containing such teachings could be be considered part of the canon. To quote from Early Christian Writings:

There are numerous references to the Gnostics in second century proto-orthodox literature. Most of what we know about them is from the polemic thrown at them by the early Church Fathers. They are alluded to in the Bible in the pastorals (spurious Paulines of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus), for example 1 Tm 1:4 and 1 Tm 6:20, and possibly the entirety of Jude. Ignatius of Antioch writes against them as well as Docetism, a doctrine closely related to Gnosticism that stated that Christ was pure spirit and had only a phantom body. Second Clement is a document aimed at refuting early second century Gnosticism. Marcion was the most famous of the Gnostics, and he established a "canon" of the Pauline epistles (minus the pastorals) and a "mutilated" Luke (presumably considered so because it lacked proof-texts such as Lk 22:43-44). Justin Martyr mentioned him c. 150 CE, and Irenaeus and Tertullian wrote against him extensively in the late second century (in Against Heresy and Against Marcion, respectively).

Besides Marcion, other important Gnostics were Basilides and Valentinus. Some Gnostic documents are the Gospel of Truth, the Letter to Rheginus, Treatise on the Three Natures, Apocalypse of Adam, the Gospel of Matthias, Gospel of Philip, Acts of Peter, and Acts of Thomas...

The Gnostics were prolific writers, but from the start their views were contrary to what we know about Christian doctrine in the pre-Gnostic time. Their writings are also lacked in many of the other areas used in evaluating the canon such as apostolic origin, internal claims of speaking for God, veridicality, etc and were not included in what was eventually called "The Bible"... but more on that next time.

Theological Illiteracy, Part Two

The last week has brought considerable discussion on the topic of Christian scripture. Unfortunately the vast majority of it is worthless for anyone actually trying to learn anything about the Bible. Using the twin vehicles of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (TDC) and the newly translated (but not lost) Gospel of Judas (GoJ), popular media has played up the questioning of the foundations of Christian belief. Unfortunately, most Christians know so little about what they claim to believe that they either look foolish when questioned or have shamefully bought into some if not all of the claims. So, in an effort to provide a little free education, let's take a look at some of the issues raised and what, according to scholars, do we know and what is speculation.

In this first posting, we'll begin with the process of canonization. Both TDC and those hyping the GoJ try to raise doubts on the message recorded in the Bible. The basic charge is that there was "secret information" deliberately kept out for (usually) political reasons. That early Christians hide this information to make their "product" the most attractive (or the only one available). But was this really the situation?

Canonization is the process by which the Bible was received in its final form. The word canon comes from the Greek kanon meaning "a rod or ruler" and literally is the measuring rod against which claims are compared. The Bible has 66 recoginzed books in the combined Old and New Testaments. The big question is "Why these 66 and why not xxx?" In determining which texts are considered part of the canon, the early Church applied five basic criteria:

• Is the book authoritative, that is, does it claim to be from God?
  
• Was it written by a prophet or a declared servant of God?
  
• Is the book factual, that is, does it relay true information?
  
• Does the book have a life-transforming impact upon the reader?
  
• Did the early groups of Christians for whom the book was written
  recognize the book as the word of God?
  

Now why was there a need to create such an assembly of writing? There were at least two reasons that combined in the early years of the Church for such a process to happen:

• Political: Events such as the Dioletian persecutions around AD 302 - 305, ordering for the buring of all Christian writings prompted a need for a collection and distribution of the "true" writings.
  
• Theological: First, which writings were to be acceptable for public readings during worship? Second, as early as AD 140 different listings of canonical writings were being circulated, some by leaders of questionable theology.
  

Now initially, not all of the books of the Bible were accepted without question as belonging to the cannon. From here out we'll focus just on the New Testament since that is the focus of TDC and the GoJ. The basic groups that various writings fell into were:

• Homologoumena: The books accepted by all of the early Church Fathers.
  
• Pseudepigrapha ("false writings"): Books rejected by all of the Church Fathers.
  
• Antilegomena: Books disputed (according to Eusebius [about AD 260 - 340] there were seven: Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation).
  

So, where do we focus? If we accept Eusebius the text such as the GoJ is not part of the antilegomena, and obviously did not make it into the homologoumena (else we would be reading it in our ol' KJV/ESV/NIV already), so it would seem to fall into the class of "false writings", the pseudopigrapha. This was a HUGE class including the repeated brought up Gospel of Thomas. There were several so-called gospels in this list including Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of the Egyptians, and Protoevangelium of James to list just a few. Virtually no Church Father or council pronounced any of these books canonical. Not to say everything in them is false, but their interest is at best historical and not factual. What these books seemed to have in common was their contents consisted of Gnostic, Docetic, or ascetic errors of doctrine. This gets to a very important point... both TDC and GoJ rely heavily on a Gnostic "understanding" of the Bible (and that is being gracious to TDC). Briefly, the Gnostics were a sect claiming special knowledge into the divine mysteries, often denying the physical for the spiritual (and most of their writings denied the Incarnation since the "ultimate spiritual" could not be part of the physical) while the Docetists believed in the deity of Christ but denied his humanity. The ascetic Monophysites denied the dual nature of Christ and said that He was a fusion of the two into one nature. At best there books were revered by some cult, but never considered essential to the Christian faith except by those in the club who had the special "spiritual decoder ring".

Okay, now that your eyes are glazed over and I see that little bit of drool slipping out of the corner of your mouth, I'll rest for tonight. Tomorrow we will return to the canonical process, then march into the fun topics of examining TDC and GoJ directly.

Illegal Alien Day of Action

I know, this is off the stated topic for the next few days, but driving to work this morning really got me ticked off. Today is supposedly a "Day of Action" to protest the House Resolution and to make the "demands of the [illegal] immigrant known to our [sic] representatives." I added the commentary because it was difficult to dodge San Diego morning traffic and keep complete quotes in my head, so I remembered the context so you would get a flavor for what I heard. Don't these people know they won this round? Congress is in recess (where I think it should be placed permanently so the rest of us can get on with our lives) without passing ANYTHING! Nothing has changed. No one has been made a felon, no one is getting deported, no firms hiring illegal aliens are being singled out for braking the law... NOTHING IS DIFFERENT THAN IT WAS LAST WEEK, LAST MONTH, OR LAST YEAR! Don't these people know how a law is enacted in this country? Sheesh! OF course, in America we seem to no longer think, only feel, so it is more important to make your opponents feel badly about their position than it is to actually make them think about it.

I listened to the Bill Handel Show (not the most conservative of morning shows) and what I heard was disturbing. What amazed me was an article they discussed from the L. A. Times talking about the effects of the illegal alien situation upon Black America and how many within that community are losing out on entry level jobs to illegals. One person in the article said they were not hired because the hiring manager at the fast food restaurant told the person he couldn't use him if he didn't speak Spanish. I then flipped to CNN Headline news (actually KASH 1700 which does stock market and financial news in the afternoons in San Diego) only to hear the following conversation between reporters, one in studio and one at a protest:

Reporter 1 (in the studio): Has anyone there said that there was a proposal in Washington they could live with?

Peporter 2 (at the protest): No, they have said that none of the proposals are acceptable... They say that what they want are their representatives to listen to their demands. They say that they know the only avenue they have to representation is through the immigrants who are here legally...

Excuse me... those that are here legally, that are CITIZENS, have representatives. What right do they think they have to representation?

Just one more thing of note... this weekend I actually heard a speak at a protest say "You [sic] know who was the first illegal immigrants to the United States? The pilgrims, that's who." The crowd cheered, either not realizing the stupidity of that remark... or they didn't care because it made them feel good. And in case you don't know what's wrong with that statement, stop and think... first, you can't be illegal without there being a law to break and second, which came first, the pilgrims or the United States.

God help us all.