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.

Theological Illiteracy, Part One

First it was renewed interest in The Da Vinci Code because of a court case and the upcoming release of the movie, and now the bluster and confusion generated by the mainstream media over The Gospel of Judas have combined to leave me in a bit of a funk. All of this happening during the time we celebrate Easter detracts from the message we are to take from the events that happened about 2000 years ago. Add to this my shock that a country which wants to think of itself as sophisticated and literate has been taken in by a mediocre book and an ancient Gnostic document. The knowledge of history and religious thought (though apparently not religious experience) has reached such a low level that anything the media discusses really frightens me. I hope that the next few postings will in some small way provide a source for correction in how people think about these things as well as relay my own view of Easter and its significance.

The fun starts tomorrow.

Come Back Tomorrow...

I'm watching "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe"... you should too.

No Place Is Safe In NPR Land

I generally do not listen to what passes for news on National Public Radio. My moments of listening on FM 89.5 are often resticted to Car Talk, A Way with Words, and sometimes A Prarie Home Companion (yeah, I know Garrison Kiellor is more than just a bit liberal politically but he still produces a fine show). But the so-called news on NPR I tend to avoid. That's why this morning I thought listening to Only a Game would be safe (I mean, what does NPR actually know about sports? Not much if you have listened to the show). At first I thought I was in for a fun time when they went to an interview with Thomas Hackett, author of "Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling". Now for those of you who didn't know it, I used to be a big fan of professional wresting (or as my friend Gregg taught me to say, professional "wrasslin'" to distinguish it from Greco-Roman wresting... we even attempted a game based on the WWF which we called "Wrasslin'"). Boy, was I in for a shock. Now I know that they were going to bash the "red state" people who watch it, I'm used to that, but the way they went about trying to display their supposed superior intellect was appalling! The interviewer asked Mr. Hackett the following: "In a world where investment professionals don't bother to investigate Enron's fantastic claims and where a former body builder gets elected governor of California essentially on the strength of the celebrity he gained by taking steriods, it really isn't fair to characterize pro-wresting as phoney. Have I got that argument right?" Now had someone said something like that to me I would have done a pile-driver on them right then and there with their face winding up smashed into a copy of Aristotle. But Mr. Hackett, being an author who is invited to speak on an NPR show, said "Well, I mean, it's phoney in the way pretty much everything else is phoney." Huh? First off, what kind of argument is that presented by the interviewer? It certainly doesn't fit with any known valid structure. In fact, his premises are not only false (investment professionals DID investigate the claims of Enron, some saying it was all a house of cards, and while some were just greedy, some were out-and-out stupid and didn't understand what was going on), they make no sense (what the heck is he saying about Arnold, whose celebrity didn't come from taking steroids, and how does it tie into Enron). And just how do his two statements tie into whether or not professional "wrasslin'" is "real" or "phoney"? And what does Mr. Hackett mean saying everything is phoney? Is he advocating some type of solipsism? *sigh* The entire interview is like that. At one point the language they use about "The Rock" indicated they do not consider him a "real celebrity", and at another place in the show that people who believe professional wrestling is "real" are just like those who believe in religion, unwilling to give up cherished beliefs in the face of "solid facts" (it's amazing how NPR shows go out of their way to try to show those of us who have genuine beliefs in God, the Bible, and a life after death as wacky non-intellectual boobs). Now if they had wanted to indicate they don't think he is a "real athlete", they might be able to come up with an arugment based on how they define their words, but who could say with a straight face that "The Rock" isn't a celebrity?! Can't they even do a simple, straightforward interview without getting sidetracked into lefty land? I guess I have to be even MORE vigilant... and Mr. Rock, you ARE a celebrity.

Letting Someone Else Speak

Tonight I take a break from writing my own thoughts and will allow a voice from the past to speak to you. It's amazing how knowing a little history allows you to see reoccurring patterns within society and civilization as a whole and one of my greatest joys is to find quotes from great men and women of the past to address our current siutation. So, for your edification and for my own pleasure, I am happy to turn this small platform over to a great American, President Theodore Roosevelt.



"We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage."

"Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."

"It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it."

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life."

"Our country offers the most wonderful example of democratic government on a giant scale that the world has ever seen; and the peoples of the world are watching to see whether we succeed or fail... We believe in all our heartsin democracy; in the capacity of the people to govern themselves; and we are bound to succeed, for our success means not only our own triumph, but the triumph of the cause of the rights of the people throughout the world, and the uplifting of the banner of hope for all the nations of "

"We cannot do great deeds unless we are willing to do the small things that make up the sum of greatness."

"If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs... It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty, and intelligence."

"Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position. "

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic. "

A Confluence of Streams

It's been amazing the last few days. People in an uproar over the proposed U. S. House of Representatives immigration reform bill (H. R. 4437), students taking to the streets in protest. For me it has been such a horrorshow in the true sense of the word. I almost don't know where to begin!

First, I am very, very, very disappointed in our press on how it covers what is going on. It's amazing how supporters of H. R. 4437 are called "anti-immigrant" (see for example this story in the leftist (in a bad way) OC Weekly). A political rally was called "anti-immigrant" when it was anything but. For those of us who listened to what was being said, the sentiment was that yes, America is a nation owing much to immigrants, but not ILLEGAL ALIENS (*whew*, almost wrote "immigrants"). Yet they get a pass. In today's Union Tribune there is a cartoon in the editorial section showing an American flag with a magnifying glass help up to one of the stripes. There you see small stick figures spelling out "immigrants". Again, I don't hear anyone on my side of the fence (and what a strange side I have, which you would know if you have been keeping up with all my posts) say "We hate immigrants. Kick them all out!" Shame, shame, shame on you self-righteous media folks. Neutral? Just reporting the facts? Bah! I read three newspapers each day and about a dozen magazines each week (not counting what I scan on the Web) and you all sounds like you are simply taking each others' copy, shifting around a few words, slapping on a slightly different title and congratulating yourselves on how you are "informing" the masses. Please, we're not all that stupid. I have yet to read anywhere a thoughtful explanation of your arguments, only how "mean" those of us who think our country is worth protecting are and that if we someone DID remove the illegal aliens nothing in this country would get done. Boloney (or is it bologna?). Here I place as much blame on President Bush as I do the L. A. Times. The constant repetitions of "They are doing jobs that American's won't do" is a crock. Who did that work BEFORE the problem became such a large one? Those expelling that line should at least finish it with an honest appraisal such as "They are doing jobs that Americans won't do for below living wage." At least THAT statement would refect reality and not just be political spin. But then they say "Why, it would drive up prices. Lettuce would cost $5 a head" (I heard this from an illegal alien advocate on the radio). Actually, labor costs are only a tiny fraction of the total cost of food production. As for overall cost to the federal government (and a comparison of how much taxes illegal aliens pay verses how much they take out of the system) can be found here. Just to give you a sampling, here in California the state spends over $8000 per child in school. Now ask yourself this question: With a marginal state tax of 9.3% on every dollar you make over $32,000, how much do you have to pay in state taxes to support one child with the taxes you pay? And that is ignoring all of the other things the state has to try to do with the money it takes in. And as for what it does to wages, well, the impact on the market for wage earners will remain depressed. It's sad that many blue-collar jobs today are no longer sufficient to place those workers in the middle class. The affect on the low end is similar to what is happening to the upper end of salaried workers due to the effects of off-shoring.

Okay, enough on illegal immigrants. I mentioned a confluence and here it is. My other pain lately has been over education. It's amazing what has been happening with the student walkouts supposedly in opposition to H. R. 4437. I've been listening to interviews of the students who have participated in the demonstrations on several different stations and here are some observations and questions I have for you folks:

First, many students interviewed said they teachers told them to join the protest against the House resolution. Second, when asked what they were protesting, in over 30 interviews not one student could accurately say what it was in the resolution they were protesting. One particularly painful exchange was as followings:

Q: Why are you here instead of in school?
A: Because I don't want my family to get deported.
Q: When did your parents come to the United States?
A: I think it was 1975 or 1976.
Q: So you were born here?
A: Yeah.
Q: Were your brothers and sisters born here?
A: Yeah.
Q: [I thought this was quite slick] So when did your parents become U. S. citizens?
A: 1985

Geeze. Other commonly hear statements were "We have a right to be here" and "We pay taxes, we should get to stay and vote".

Okay, this is for you who claim to be teachers... if you ARE telling kids to protest, for heaven's sake at least tell them some FACTS so they don't come across as idiots when asked. Not one interviewed could tell the questioners what the H. R. meant nor how laws get made in this country. These are high school students and college students, haven't they learned anything (or, given the state of education these days, I might rightfully ask if they have been taught anything)? Of course, this makes the assumption they really are they to protest something. From the description of the atmosphere it sounded as if the vast majority were simply there to skip school. Let's not forget the exchange between L. A. Mayor Villaraigosa and the protesting students where after explaining how he supported them said that their voices had been heard, he stands with them, and now it was time to return to school the students chanted "Hell no, we won't go!"

Really? I wonder if they will at least get to claim their part in the protect under "Civic Participation" in their applications to Harvard. But of course, this just might get them in...

Jesus Christ, Illegal Alien?

I almost succumbed to the California mindset and titled this post "Jesus Christ, Illegal Immigrant". Luckily my solid conservative genes kicked in and I caught myself. When the ruckus started a few years ago and I began to notice that the press was substituting the words "undocumented immigrant" for "illegal alien" I took a pledge then and there to always say "illegal alien". Now, about four years of left-leaning media saturation almost brought me down. The fact that most media outlets have dropped the "illegal" aspect made me think that I would be okay in changing "alien" for "immigrant". Subtle. Of course, the Devil took on the form of what the Scriptures call the most subtle of animals (Genesis 3:1 for you KJVers, or you can use other translations of the Hebrew such as "cunning" if you prefer say ESV). Now, being the conservative that I am I believe in standing for the American version of "God, King, and Country" but I still get a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach when politicians try to pepper their speeches with religious references because, let's face it, most have at best a facile understanding of the Bible. Hence the latest speech given by Mrs Clinton (or is it Ms Clinton, or Ms Rodham? I can't keep these kinds of things straight) on the issue of the recent U. S. House of Representatives bill concerning the status illegal aliens, where the junior senator from New York made the astonishing statement that would make criminals of the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus Himself! I have read the speech and tried to create logic diagrams of her "argument" and for the life of me I just don't see it. Thinking I may have missed something in the actual historical context I search through my rather extensive theological holdings and could find nothing that placed either the story of the Good Samaritan or anything of the facts surrounding the life of Christ into the current framework of the illegal alien debate. Now I know Bill Clinton did the same thing with some of his various invocation of religious imagery, but at least the man sounded like he meant it. If you listened to her give the speech you know what I mean... a complete lack of emotion or even the slightest hint of conviction in what she was saying displayed with her voice. While this does not take away from any argument, I think a speaker should at least convey something of the passion they feel when speaking on such a charged topic.

Will politicians on both sides of the spectrum PLEASE stop trying to bolster their support by the intonation of Biblical references? I distrust more than half of the so-called trained clergy out there, what makes politicians with no theological training believe that I am going to think "Why, they must be alright on this issue, they said 'Jesus' in their speech!" Perhaps this is what most Americans do these days... if so, God help us! I have the same words for the self-important actors attempting to speak with authority on political topics as I do for politicians using religion... "Shut up already!"

Our Annual *NOT* Sideways Trip

Now that the car is unloaded, dinner finished (an excellent home-made pasta dish) and about half a bottle of Nebbiolo down it's time to catch the blog up to date. Long before the movie Sideways Pookie and I have made an annual trip up the coast to do some wine tasting. While we have done the Napa/Sonoma rounds, I think I enjoy the wineries in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties more than the more celebrated places further north. Over two days we visited 10 wineries and tasted a little over 80 wines (and even a couple of beers... it was Saint Patrick's Day weekend after all).

After waking up a little after 4 AM on Friday, we hopped in the car and headed to our destination, the wineries around Los Olivos. Our first stop was at Bridlewood Winery, one of the most beautiful properties in the area. Truth be told, over the years I have found their wines inconsistent. This year's tastings though found all they presented very solid, enjoyable wines. We left with several bottles of the 2002 Estate Syrah and their Vinter's Selection Viognier. Next up was my personal favorite, Brander Vineyards. One of the original vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley, Brander had never let me down with their product and this year proved no exception. They have just released their wonderful Cuvee Natalie as well as their well regarded 2005 Sauvignon Blanc. I was also happily taken with their 2004 Merlot. I used to hate Merlots, but that was before I tasted those of the central coast. To me, most Merlots are watery and have no "legs". My first trip to central coast showed me there was hope for these and I was taken enough with Brander's that I bought a few bottles of it (so if you like Merlot, come on over). We added to our Brander list a couple of bottles of Cuvee Nicolas and we were ready to go (that completed our first case). We asked Nancy for some place off the beaten path to try and she said we should try Beckmen Vineyards. We took her advice and slowly, carefully made our way to Beckmen (amazing how fast wine tasting affects you when you haven't eaten for almost 6 hours). Beckmen's practices bio-dynamic farming and they have several maps in the tasting room to show you how they put their philosophy into practice. Their wines tend to be "Rhone style" which I truly enjoy. We came away with a few bottles of their tasty 2004 Grenache and a wonderfully blended 2004 Cuvee Le Bec. By this time we really needed something to soak up the wine. The choice was to go to the restaurant featured in Sideways (NOT!, though the food really is fantastic I just could not stand to hear one more "Oh it's just like in 'Sideways'" comment) or to a fine little dining spot just around the corner from Los Olivos cafe, this one NOT featured in Sideways, Patrick's Side Street Cafe. Their open face prime sandwich really hit the spot and after about an hour slowly savoring a fine lunch we were ready to go back out into the vineyards. We went by the tasting room of Fess Parker Winery where last time we got to spend a few minutes in the presence of Fess Parker himself (hey, if you grew up on Disney's Davy Crockett it would be a big deal to you too), and finally got to our last desination, Gainey Vineyard. Gainey has one of the best spots in the central coast to relax with a glass of wine and are known for their events held throughout the year. This year presented us with some difficult decisions on what to buy (we were running out of room and we still had Paso Robles to go), but after much agonizing we wound up with their bright Sauvignon Blanc and their just newly released Riesling (so new it's not up yet on their Web site).

By this time we had tasted about 45 wines and felt it was time to head to the hotel. After a nice little 90 minute nap it was time for dinner. We dressed and decided to head into Santa Barbara. Unfortunately CHP had different plans. It seems there was a car jacking in SLO resulting in a 70 mile chase down the 101 resulting the death of the car jacker. CHP had closed off 101, so we decided not to be reverse snobs and head to The Hitching Post where we were treated to a choice steak dinner and another sampling of local wines (as was stated in the movie this place does have its own label). After salad, soup, duck, steak, and a healthy slice of key lime pie (and a smattering of their own wine) it was time to head back to the hotel and tuck in for the night. Unfortunately for me, I discovered the new Doctor Who series on Sci-Fi and was mesmerized by it (in case you don't know, my home does not have television coming to it... a conscious decision made many years ago). I am not quite sure what I think about it yet, will probably have to wait and buy the series and watch it before making my decision. Only after watch the first two episodes was I able to fall asleep.

Saturday morning took up up 101 to Paso Robles. We went first to the only "big" winery on our trip, Meridian Vineyards. As luck would have it, we arrived during the 14th annual Paso Robles Zinfandel Festival, so in addition to their normal tasting they were offering barrel draws of their new Zins along with some scrumpy chocolates. After tasting some excellent wines and chocolates, we left with a few bottles of their limited release Paso Robles Syrah (some of their last bottles) and their just released limited edition 2004 Sangiovese. We next went to a very nice property that specializes in Italian style wines, the Arciero Family Estates, home of EOS wines. This is one of the most "butch" wineries, where else can you see a formula one racing car on the tasting grounds. We tasted some nice Italian style wines and walked off with some bottles of their 2004 Vin Rose and a fantastic blend under their Novella label called Synergy. From here it was just a short hop, skip, and slightly erratic drive to my favorite Italian style wine maker, Martin Weyrich where we dined on some delicious free BBQ while tasting some fantastic wines. By the time we were done we left with a case that included the aforementioned Nebbiolo and a "you gotta get some" Insieme, a great blend of seven different grapes in lip-smackin' proportion. After getting quite full on smoked meat and some of the finest red wine I had that day, we jumped across the 101 to Grey Wolf Cellars. Unfortunately we met up with our first wine tour bus and had to suffer several drunk people. Luckily, having to navigate through the inebriated masses didn't take away from the nice wines and BBQ tri-tip we tasted. After about 30 minutes we came away with a few bottles of their well-balanced 2003 Meritage and their 2003 Roussanne. We figured we had time for one more winery and we decided to try the "Dam [sic] fine wines" of Castoro Cellars. Unfortunately we encountered the largest congregation of wine tasting tours (perhaps due to the fact that their tasting sheet allowed 15 wines for sampling). We tried 13 (including a nice little port), but left with two very nice fruit-forward wines, a Petite Sirah and a fantastic little wine they call Primitivo.

By now it was back to the hotel in Buellton. After a quick stop in SLO, we went back to the hotel and took a short nap. That night we had dinner at a nice little restaurant. By now we were full of wine so we sampled their beers (simple but nice) and after a filling dinner retired back to the hotel.

That takes us up to this morning. After a long but uneventful drive back to San Diego and spending an hour at the gym, I now see that my glass wine, like my evening entry, is at an end. Now, I just have to think up how to get all of you over here to try them out...

Edyamuhkation

Ripped from the headlines of today's San Diego Tribune: CSU freshmen fail proficiency goal. According to the article more than half the freshmen in the state's largest public university system were academically unprepared this year. In fact, only 45% were "fully prepared" in both math and English. At Cal State San Marcos, of the 659 freshmen admitted in fall 2004, 63% needed remedial education in either math or English or both! Notice what this says, that 63% of those admitted, that is, they got in. Even though they were not prepared in the two most fundamental subjects they were allowed to enter the Cal State system. My question to you dear readers is "Why?" I just do not see the justification. Let me be frank, a college education is not due anyone but is something that must be earned. Yes, I will admit that I am a bit of an elitist but I don't see a problem with being one. I believe in earned privilege, that is, if you meet the criteria you are allowed to attend. I didn't grow up with any of the advantages that even most of the poor in San Diego have. Neither of my parents went to college. I went to the same rural high school they attended in the Missouri section of the Ozarks (yes, I am a hillbilly). The first house I remember didn't have running water and you could see the ground between the cracks in the floor. We didn't have a city paper, didn't have a town library (the elementary school library consisted of six book carts, one for each grade and even that was inaccessible 4 months out of the year). Growing up we probably had less than 20 books in the house (and several of those were different translations of the Bible). There was no Electric Company or Sesame Street and certainly no Discovery Channel or History Channel (heck, no cable television, we got CBS and NBC and on stormy days we picked up an ABC signal bounce). I was the first person in our extended family to go to college (my sister was the second). Not only did we go, we excelled (my sister graduated with a 4.0 majoring in business administration while I completed work in the areas of mathematics and computer science through the doctoral level). Our parents never pushed us to go to college, they couldn't economically support us, but they did emotionally and spiritually support us. I worked two and sometimes three jobs to put myself through the various colleges I attended. So please people, stop with the excuses.

It's interesting how people cry that our educational system needs more money, that we have too few teachers for so many students. Let's see, if 55% are not prepared perhaps that is one place to start looking. Just for fun take a class schedule, turn to the math and English offerings, and count the number of sections offered that are below the minimum level for college credit. Compare that number with the total number of sections offered for all courses that count toward a major in those areas (you may get quite a shock). Just think of the money and hours that are poured into classes whose sole purpose is to prepare students to take college-level classes (which I thought was one of the purposes of high school for those intending to go to college).

If we combine the information in this report with all those letters to the editor of people crying about our precious high school students being required to pass an exit exam to obtain their high school diploma (and for those of you not in California this simply amounts to the student showing they can adequately demonstrate eight grade math skills and show proficiency in English equivalent to that taught in the tenth grade) we get a sorry picture of what education is in our state. God help us.

Another Quiz

Actually, I have been told this before by other people.


You scored as Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones is an archaeologist/adventurer with an unquenchable love for danger and excitement. He travels the globe in search of historical relics. He loves travel, excitement, and a good archaeological discovery. He hates Nazis and snakes, perhaps to the same degree. He always brings along his trusty whip and fedora. He's tough, cool, and dedicated. He relies on both brains and brawn to get him out of trouble and into it.

Indiana Jones		78%
Neo, the "One"		67%
Lara Croft		63%
William Wallace		63%
James Bond, Agent 007		58%
Batman, the Dark Knight		54%
Captain Jack Sparrow		54%
El Zorro		50%
Maximus		46%
The Amazing Spider-Man		46%
The Terminator		38%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
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Ramblings On Abortion, Final Thoughts

Well, it's time to finish (for now) my thoughts on the topic of abortion. I have yet to find any arguments that undo my initial logical construction showing how abortion is murder. It's simply a matter of logic. However, logic takes you only so far in real life. In my library I have a series of lectures by Professor Ronald Nash on philosophy and Christian apologetics. In a section addressing the logical problems that evil proposes to the Christian world view, after showing how many of the problems can be refuted using the tools of logic, Professor Nash says something to the effect of "When you are personally faced with problems of enormous evil in the world, you shouldn't turn to a philosopher to help you through it." What he means is that when you are emotionally distressed, knowing that a logical syllogism can "explain" the "why" doesn't do anything for the honest heart-wrenching feelings that you are experiencing. In the first three postings I leaned very hard on the logic and scientific facts that, to my mind show abortion to be wrong. These would not help me in dealing with say a rape victim who is contemplating an abortion. What that person needs is someone who will listen, who will show compassion and honestly try to help her and her family in this situation. That being said, we must make sure that we do not completely throw out logic to make way for emotion. Yes, someone was violated, a terrible act, but it does not follow that the wrong of rape can be countered with the wrong of murder (that in and of itself would take several postings, but to boil it down to what I am sure everyone has heard, "Two wrongs don't make a right"). As for the general argument pro-abortionists make of a woman's "right" to choose to have an abortion (the "It's my body, I can do with it as I so choose" position), how any anyone hold that position when it comes to taking the life of another human being? Privacy arguments do not help here either since wrongs done in private do not become rights. Your right to act for your own benefit ends at least at the point it places the life of another at risk, yet this is exactly the situation for elective abortion. Cases of rape and incest are one thing, but simply wanting to end a life just because you don't want the child is the weakest reason to have abortion.

Work and Fulfillment

My current "business related" book is John Maxwell's The 360 Degree Leader. In it Maxwell shows how 99% of all leadership in most organizations takes place in the middle, not the top, and how people in the middle who want to be considered leaders have to "lead up", "lead across", and "lead down" (interesting how people only view leadership as from the top down). A section I want to share is entitled "How to be fulfilled in the middle of the pack". The short answer is "learn to see the big picture", but rather than just leave it like that Maxwell gives the following hints:

Develop strong relationships with key people. "It's more important to get along with people than to get ahread of them"

Define a win in terms of teamwork. Here Maxwell quotes former basketball coach John Wooden "The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team."

Engage in continual communications. This includes communicating UP the chain as well as down.

Gain experience and maturity. "Maturity doesn't come with age. It begins with the acceptance of responsibility."

Put the team above your personal success. Leadership is about helping others to win.

Interestingly enough, this looks pretty much how a good familial relationship should be run. You and your partner/wife/husband/children are a team, a single unit. The strength of that unit rests in the relationships you have one with another. You win as a family, not just as individuals (second person plural pronoun here folks). As part of a family you have responsibilities to the other members in the family. Hmmm... looks like Maxwell provides not just good business advice, but he makes a pretty good "Dr. Laura" as well.

Fun With Quizes

My friend Chris just sent me a fun little quiz to take. I thought I would share the results:

You scored as Babylon 5 (Babylon 5). The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn't matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you'll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone.

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)		81%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)		81%
Enterprise D (Star Trek)		81%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)		75%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)		69%
Moya (Farscape)		63%
Serenity (Firefly)		63%
FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)		56%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)		50%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)		50%
SG-1 (Stargate)		44%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)		31%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
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Ramblings On Abortion, Part Three

Okay, where were we? Oh yes, examining the key question to the abortion debate and the options avaiable (or, to sound fancy, applying our epistemology to the ontology of the fetus). So, if the fetus is an innocent human being, then based on the syllogism displayed in the first posting on abortion we must conclude that abortion is murder and if our moral values place murder in the "naughty" column then it must be avoided at all costs. So let's take a look at this idea of the fetus as a human being (I am assuming that people do not have a problem with me dropping the "innocent" part for now, so if you do please email me so we can discuss it).

In Roe v Wade the Supreme Court, in thinking it was taking a neutral position, said that they were not going to address whether or not the fetus was a human being. What is amazing to me is that these supposedly sharp folks couldn't see (or perhaps didn't want to see) that they really did. By allowing abortion, they in effect said that human life does not begin at conception, that the fetus is not a human being and thus can be removed/extracted/aborted/killed. I have never understood how people cannot see that just because they claim neutrality it does not mean they are neutral. Let me be as clear and as blunt as possible: Human life begins at conception. Period. Done. Next topic. What, you don't accept my word that it is? You want me to provide an argument for something that I see is as clear as crystal? (Hey, calm down, just being a little facetious). For me, the case of a fetus being a human being can be made on the following facts:

Fact: Let's look at a little basic genetics. Each human being has, to the best of our knowledge, a unique set of 46 chromosomes contining the genetic code for that person (forgive the mix of "human being" with "person", I know some people have problems with this but I promise to address it in a later post). If you stayed awake in class, you recall that 23 of come from the father's sperm and 23 come from the ovum and they combine to create a new and unique zygote. This tiny little creature has all of the genetic information that a fully developed person has. This isn't simply a blob of tissue, it is a completely new creature.

Fact: Because it is a new creature, the fetus in the mother's womb cannot be considered "part" of the mother. In fact, if you follow this line of thinking (that the fetus is simply part of the mother's body) then you get some startling conclusions, such as, the mother has will have four legs, four arms, two heads, and in about half of the cases both a penis and a vagina. When you also take into consideration that often the bloodtype of the fetus is different from the mother as well as the fact that fertilized ova maintain their characteristics regardless of where they incubate (a fertilized ovum from a black couple that is implanted in a white woman will become a black baby), it is pretty clear to see that the fetus isn't simply an extention of the mother.

Fact: The development requirements for a fetus as the same as those of a baby (or for a human at any stage of development): food, water, air, and time. This leads to certain problematic issues for those who want to maintain that the difference between a fetus and "human being" is one of development, for going down that path we have to conclude that we are NEVER really human beings since there is always some level of development occurring.

The conclusion is pretty easy to make: The union of a sperm with an ovum causes the creation of new human being. This human being, which at the time of union we call a zygote, if given time, air, and nourishment will be born (even though I disagree with this usage I will call this) a baby. Given time, air, and nourishment this baby will grow into a toddler, then a teenage (the argument against being a human being is stronger here than at conception IMHO), then an adult, etc. Aha! (you might say "This fetus is only a 'potential' human being"... but let's think seriously about this folks, even a potential human being must be an actual something in order to be a potential human being. What is it? Let's not confuse development and function with ontology. There are no "potential human beings" just as there are no "potential cats". All human beings are actual. We might be potential NBA stars (like my nephew Justin) or potential CEOs (me, me, me), but it's the functioning that is potential, the "being" is actual. If you disagree, write me, for even I your humble blogger have the potential to be mistaken.