Matt Dubay and Eminent Domain

A few months back, the conservative world was in an uproar because the Supreme Court ruled that the state has the right to take any property it wants if that land can be used to generate more revenue for the state. Matt Dubay’s lawsuit, in which he attempts to avoid paying child support on the grounds that he didn’t want a child, has an interesting resonance with that ruling.

According to CNN, “the president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, acknowledged that disputes over unintended pregnancies can be complex and bitter. ‘None of these are easy questions,’ said Gandy, a former prosecutor. ‘But most courts say it's not about what he did or didn't do or what she did or didn't do. It's about the rights of the child.’ ”

Confusion from the Leaders

Indeed? What child would that be, Ms. Gandy? According to the National Organization of Women, the decision to have sex is not a decision to have a child. There is no child at the moment of conception. There is no child, really, until birth. How can Matt Dubay be responsible for a child he didn’t create?

According to the most modern, cutting-edge definitions of sexual responsibility, pregnancy and personhood, Mr. Dubay most emphatically did not create a child nor had he anything to do with the creation of a child.

Abortion supporters insist the act of sex does not create responsibility towards a future child. If it did, no one could support abortion. Legal abortion is grounded in the idea that something which does not yet have its own existence does not yet have any rights. Thus, abortion supporters take great pains to explain why the tissue mass in the womb is not really a child.

• It doesn’t have a heartbeat (except it does by the 22nd day after conception).
• It doesn’t have brainwaves (except it does by the 42nd day).
• It can’t feel pain (except it can by the 7th week, in fact, between 20 and 30 weeks gestation, the tissue mass is more susceptible to pain than a born child).

So, to parrot the pro-choice position, how can Matt Dubay have responsibilities towards a tissue mass? Towards something smaller than your thumb? Smaller than a grain of rice? How can he have responsibilities towards a fertilized egg that doesn’t even exist until hours after he has withdrawn from the woman, withdrawn from the bedroom, gotten dressed and gone home to wash his car? Conception happens hours, sometimes days, after having sex.

Even so, life does not begin at conception, remember? One hundred years ago, fifty years ago, even a decade ago, pregnancy began at conception. Today, it begins at implantation. Today, women aren’t pregnant with children, they are pregnant with undifferentiated tissue masses, tissue masses that are nearly as marvelous a source of stem cells as menstrual blood.

Stem cells and abortion. That’s why we changed the definition of when life and pregnancy began, remember? So we could tear apart those little tissue masses and steal, ahem, borrow, excuse me, use their stem cells. What? Oh, sorry. I meant use the stem cells.

Confusion in the Logic

So, we ask again, Ms. Gandy, how can Matt Dubay have any responsibility towards a child he didn’t create? A child is created through the act of gestation, but what has that got to do with a man? Men don’t have wombs. Men don’t gestate. Remember?

This is why we can create embryos for experimentation – as long as we don’t implant them in the womb, as long as these embryos don’t gestate, it’s moral to tear them apart. Gestation is the key, remember? Not conception, not fertilization – gestation. Without gestation, it’s just potential human life. With gestation, it might become real human life.

But men don’t gestate.

Now, why would Ms. Gandy, who has vociferously supported the aforesaid line of reasoning, suddenly come to the conclusion that the act of sex creates responsibility towards a future child?

For years, we have been taught that Americans don’t understand science, and Ms. Gandy is demonstrating that ignorance in spades. Sex does not create children. Gestation does. Only women gestate. Thus, only women create children. Thus, only women have responsibilities towards children.

According to the logic of neo-science and legal abortion, men aren’t responsible for the existence of children. At all. Nada, zip, zero, nothing, goose egg, empty set.

Those are just the facts of modern biology, successfully redefined by the pro-abortion lobby and Nobel-hungry biologists. It’s just the nature of the thing, Ms. Gandy – not our fault. You insisted on the definitions. We fought against those new definitions. We lost. You won. Congratulations.

Confusion in the Ranks

Everyone who attacks Matt Dubay assumes that Mr. Dubay is somehow responsible for the existence of a child. Even abortion supporters are making this argument. But the whole concept is negated by the new science definitions, which tells us no child exists at the moment of ejaculation, nor at the moment of conception, nor even at the time of implantation, but only some later time. It is likewise negated by the new law, which tells us the woman has no responsibility toward whatever possible child might eventually exist.

So, those who argue against Matt Dubay’s claim are either (1) logically inconsistent or (2) liars out to defraud one-half of the population. And here is where the new learning concerning eminent domain ties in.

Tying It All Together

The idea that the joint act of sex creates a joint responsibility, and that this responsibility is created towards a specific person as yet unconceived and without existence, this is an old idea, an idea so old it no longer applies in this brave, new country. The courts have specifically repudiated the idea in the case of a woman who has begotten a tissue mass.

So, if the court rules against Matt Dubay, it will embrace the curious position that a child has the right to receive money from a man who had nothing to do with her existence, but does not have the right to receive life from the woman who created her.

This is perfectly in accord with the recent eminent domain decision. It doesn’t matter who owns what. What matters is this: can the state legally increase its revenues by taking property from one person and giving it to someone else? According to the Supreme Court, yes, it can. So, the state has every right to take money from any man in order to give that money to any woman with child, and thus keep both the woman and the child off state aid.

So, Matt Dubay will lose not because he had anything to do with creating a child. According to all the most advanced thinkers (which wouldn’t be us neanderthals in the pro-life movement, by the way), he had nothing to do with the creation of the child. No, Matt Dubay will lose because his wallet is subject to eminent domain.

Nonfiction

The Associated Press is taking great pains to support Dan Brown in his defense against the copyright infringement lawsuit leveled against him by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

The very well-named Jill Lawless, the AP reporter who brings us the story, tells us the suit is for copyright infringement, but doesn’t tell us why this is important. She reports on Brown’s testimony in part by saying the “courtroom [was] packed with journalists, religious skeptics and fans” – a phrase her editor somehow failed to strike for its inordinate redundancy.

For a court reporter, Lawless seems remarkably unfamiliar with the legal issues involved. For instance, she takes pains to note that Holy Blood, Holy Grail claims to be “nonfiction” while also telling us “Random House lawyers argue the ideas in dispute are so general they are not protected by copyright.” Indeed, she takes the time to directly quote Brown’s primary defense, “‘I'd never heard of it until I'd seen it mentioned in some of our other research books,’ he said…
Brown's court appearance also revealed a complex and wide-ranging research process undertaken with wife Blythe Brown, whose interest in ‘the sacred feminine,’ Brown said, led to one of The Da Vinci Code’s key themes.’”

Now, let’s take the Lawless article on the law apart piece by piece.

Baigent and Leigh claim their book is non-fiction. But they do not sue Brown for plagiarism; they sue him for copyright infringement. How can this be?

While fiction is subject to copyright law, facts are not. If I wrote a novel based on the James Bond character created by Ian Fleming, for instance, I would be violating Ian Fleming’s copyright, and his estate could sue me for copyright infringement. Fiction is copyright-protected. However, if I wrote a story about the life of William Jefferson Clinton, ex-President Clinton could not sue me for copyright infringement. I might get sued for libel (the written version of slander) if I mis-stated the facts, but that is about it. He cannot copyright the facts concerning his own life.

Now, let’s say you took existing information or discovered new factual evidence and provided a totally novel interpretation of the facts of his life, thereby completely explaining why Slick Willy has women problems and feels our pain. You wrote an outstanding article or book concerning this idea, but it failed to gain wide circulation. I saw your theory and based my biography of Clinton on your interpretation without giving you any credit. Have I violated your copyright?

Not at all. I am a plagiarist, but I haven’t violated your copyright because you have no copyright on facts either. All you’ve done is come up with a new theory that covers the facts – and I stole it without accreditation. But I don’t need to accredit you. After all, I could have looked at the facts myself and independently arrived at the same conclusion through simple logical analysis, and you would have a hard time proving otherwise.

In any case, while I may be dead guilty of plagiarism, and you may well be able to prove it, the most you can do is (justifiably) ruin my sterling reputation by proving I’m a plagiarist. You can’t recover monetary damages from me for plagiarism because plagiarism is only a crime when I’m stealing fictional material or lifting direct and lengthy quotes from your factual material without in any way acknowledging that you wrote it.

Plagiarism is not a crime if I’m stealing facts. It may not be wise, but it isn’t a crime. That’s why journalists get fired for plagiarism, but they rarely get sued for it, while novelists and playwrights sue for plagiarism but only as the basis for proving copyright infringement. Inventions can be copyrighted. Facts cannot be copyrighted.

Baigent and Leigh aren’t suing for plagiarism. They are suing for copyright infringement. They do not allege that Brown lifted whole passages of their book verbatim. Instead, they are suing on the basis that Brown stole their "jigsaw puzzle," the fictional facts upon which he built a fictional plot.

Random House, the publisher of both novels, implicitly acknowledges this. Note, Random House doesn’t argue that the suit should be thrown out because Baigent and Leigh are meticulous researchers who had not an ounce of fiction in their work, thus copyright law doesn’t apply. Instead, Random House argues that the ideas are so generally in use they cannot be copyrighted.

If copyright existed during the life of the Brothers Grimm, a similar defense would have been used. "Your Honor, while it is true that the Brothers Grimm used the character of the stepmother who is secretly a wicked witch in many of their tales, the idea is so general to works of this type that the plaintiff who is suing our esteemed authors cannot be said to have originated the idea.” It’s fiction, Judge, but it’s fiction that is so common everyone has used it.

And, lest anyone read the one-sentence summary of the Random House defense and begin to suspect, the reporter-ette then goes on to re-emphasize that Brown, Baigent and Leigh engaged in research, dammit! After all, Brown’s wife, a learned art historian, is so professional that she couldn’t get any of the art history right. Indeed, she couldn’t even get Leonardo’s name right (no art historian calls him ‘da Vinci’, since that refers to the geographical region he comes from, it is not properly part of his name). Indeed, Brown’s historical and theological research was so complex and time-consuming that essentially every aspect of it was wrong by the time it got into his novel.

Random House, Baigent, Leigh, and Brown are all interested in conducting and concluding this copyright infringement lawsuit without anyone realizing that the very fact of the lawsuit demonstrates the whole thing is an advertising setup for the May 19, 2006 movie release. Brown’s novel is three years old. It couldn’t get on Drudge or CNN without it. Reporters, aka religious skeptics and therefore Dan Brown fans, undoubtedly know this. However, they also know what sells papers, so they aren’t going to give us the facts either.

In short, the Brown-Baigent-Leigh lawsuit is like a Stalinist show trial, but the only thing that gets murdered in this one is the truth.

Outsourcing Parenthood

Outsourcing Parenthood

“Let’s have a child!"

“How are we going to do that, big man? I got spayed and you got neutered long before we got married, remember? We would have to get the operations reversed, and reversals aren’t always successful. Besides, you know I don’t have the time to deal with doctor’s appointments, labor, delivery, recovery and all the rest. The merger is coming up in the next year, and it’s my job to get it done!”

“Don’t worry about the pregnancy. We could get Sally to carry the child for us. She would be a great surrogate mother. She’s always exercising, she eats right and she loves being pregnant. Besides, you still ovulate. We could harvest your eggs.”

“I suppose that’s true. But the follicle stimulation is really not that safe, and it would take almost as much time out of my office schedule as pre-natal visits would.”

“Don’t worry about that. We can get your sister to donate an egg. She’s always short of cash – this is a good way for her to earn some income. And we keep the money in the family.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea! But isn’t it kind of incestuous to have your sperm fertilizing my sister’s ovum?”

“Well, we could contract that out too – she’s got a live-in boyfriend, doesn’t she? He’s a nice guy, pretty good IQ, handsome. He’ll be a good gene source.”

“Oh… but my sister isn’t. Remember how diabetes and Alzheimer’s runs in our family?”

“Oh, right… Hey, well, that’s not a problem either. We could get a nucleus from Beth.”

“Your secretary?”

“Sure – her family is disgustingly healthy. Yes, she’s 60, but her genes aren’t. And she’s very interested in this new reproductive technology. She’s often said she would love to try something like this. It would be a new adventure for her.”

“Yes, I do like her. Alright, this sounds like a plan. Sally for the surrogate, my sister for the egg, her boyfriend for the sperm and Beth for the nucleus. And once we have the child, there’s that great pre-pre-kindergarten down on Elm Street. They operate from 6 am to midnight, so neither one of us would have to worry about working late at the office. We could pick him up whenever convenient. And now that the governor is making funds available for this kind of thing, it won’t cost us a dime to place him there.”

“Him? You already have a gender picked out?”

“Well, sure, why not? We just keep trying until we get what we want – a blond-haired boy, tall with piercing blue eyes. I mean, they’ve got doctors who do just kind of thing now, don’t they?”

“Yes, they do. It’s a little more expensive, but we have always gotten the best for ourselves, haven’t we? That’s what we deserve, after all.”

“Oh, but I just had a terrible thought. The Elm Street daycare only takes children a year old or older. I mean, sure, once our boy is a year old, we will have all kinds of schools, daycare, after-school, before-school and weekend stuff to keep him busy until it’s time for him to go to college, but what will we do for that first year? Remember the merger? I can’t give that up. It’s crucial.”

“Hmmm… You’re right. We have to keep our priorities straight. How about the family next door? I bet they would take care of the kid for the first year.”

“You mean those fundamentalist Catholics with the homeschooling mother?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I don’t know. It feels creepy. I mean, they’ll probably try to brainwash the poor boy with all kinds of weird ideas.”

“Yeah, but he’ll be out of there by the time he’s a year old. Honey, he’ll be in pre-pre-kindergarten by the time he can talk. From that point on, he will be with people who think like we do.”

“Well, that’s true. And if they cause us the slightest bit of trouble, we can always call Child Protective Services on them… Alright, you get the checkbook, I’ll get the phone book. Let’s start making babies!”

A Child Is Born

It's a BOY!
(actually, we knew that going in...)

Benjamin Dominic Kellmeyer was born this morning at 8:03 am, 6 pounds, 14 ounces, 19 inches long. Mother and child are resting comfortably at the moment.

All your prayers are greatly appreciated. Baby boy is not very skilled at this whole breast-feeding thing, so if you could pray for success in this direction, I know Veronica would much appreciate it.

I would write more, but I'm short on sleep and food at the moment.
I hope to catch up a bit on the blog soon.

Mortal Sin at EWTN

I recently sent my new book, Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, to EWTN for a possible inclusion on Doug Kecks' BookMarks program.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I've never actually watched any EWTN program, nor have I heard more than a literal handful of their radio shows. We don't own a television, and the radio - when it is on - is generally tuned to classical music. Still, many Catholics swear by EWTN, so it is a useful place to make a Catholic offering known.

Now, Designed to Fail has been very well-received by reviewers, so imagine my surprise when I discovered the book had been turned down for theological reasons.

"Hmmm..." thought I to myself, thought I, "I wonder what on earth the problem could be. Perhaps they felt I treated America's nineteenth-century bishops a bit too harshly. But that seems odd. The analysis of the Americanist heresy is drawn from a Magisterial document they carry on their own website. Similarly, the discussion of Edgardo Mortrara's situation is based on the testimony he gives about himself, testimony also available on the EWTN website. What on earth could it be?"

I e-mailed, asking around at EWTN. This is the conversation that ensued. Only names have been omitted so as to spare the EWTN participants in the conversatuion their much-deserved opprobrium:

EWTN: "Unfortunately, theology has turned this book down."

ME: "Where would I get the theology report so I can discover what the problems are?"

EWTN: "one of the concerns was advising people to through out their tv sets" (sic)

ME: " LOL! Well, they can still listen to EWTN on the radio... I assume you're not being serious, right? "

EWTN: "you assume wrong ... sorry"

ME: "I assume they interpret Vatican Council II as meaning that it is a mortal sin not to watch television?Oh, ... I'm afraid EWTN is going to get SKEWERED on the blogs for this one! I'll be working on a press release ASAP. Thanks for the information!"

EWTN: "So this is not a private communication?"

ME: "EWTN has turned down a book that I submitted to them. If someone were to call EWTN and ask for the EWTN opinion on the book, EWTN would reply that it has theological problems, right? If EWTN is willing to tell people what they think about a book, then why can't I tell people what EWTN thinks about the book?"

EWTN: silence....

Later that morning, I called EWTN to confirm the situation. I was actually laughing at the absurdity of the thing when they answered the phone.

This is the conversation we had:
EWTN: "Actually, we don't tell anyone what is wrong with a book. We just say we don't carry it."
ME: "Well, why on earth wouldn't you say what the problems were? Shouldn't people be told exactly where the difficulties lie, so they can identify similar problems in other works? Shouldn't the author know exactly where the difficulties lie, so he can correct the problems?"

EWTN: "We don't give out imprimaturs. We aren't the Church. There are a lot of reasons not to carry a book - tone, style, etc."

ME: "Yes, but in this instance, you found a 'theological' problem - you apparently think it is a violation of Vatican II's decree on communications, Inter Mirifica, for a family to throw out their television set or for anyone to tell a family to do so."

EWTN: "I don't know what the theology department meant by that. Perhaps it was a joke. Besides, none of your books have ever been carried by EWTN, have they?"

ME: "True. My first book, Scriptural Catholicism, now Bible Basics, was rejected by Deacon Steltemeier on the grounds that it was useless - no one would want such an apologetics text. In the same communication, he also asked if he could keep the review copy I sent him as he thought it would be marvelous assistance to him for composing his homilies. The next book I sent, Sex and the Sacred City, was turned down by EWTN but was subsequently picked up by Dr. Peter Kreeft, who wrote a rave review for it, called it one of the best books of 2005, and uses it in his classes at Boston College. Now this."

EWTN: "Well, Boston College is barely Catholic. Certainly something that is in use there would not necessarily be appropriate here."

ME: "Boston College does indeed have serious problems, but I've never heard anyone say that Peter Kreeft's classes were only nominally Catholic."

EWTN: "Peter is a personal friend of mine. I know Peter. I have the highest regard for Peter. But a college textbook is not necessarily the best thing for EWTN's audience."

We conversed for a few more minutes in this fashion, and then I said goodbye and gently cradled the phone, shaking my head.

I directed a letter to their theology department. This was the only reply I received:
"Thanks for your note. Sorry that I don't know the particulars of Theology's review. Don't know if you caught Fr. Groeschel's Sunday Night Live program last night, but he touched on this very same topic of Catholic education in America. Most interesting."

Nothing more has been communicated.

As far as I know, this is the offending section of the book, Chapter 14:
"So, get rid of your TV. Throw it out. What? Why yes, EWTN has quite a good set of programs. Oh, certainly I agree, the sports channel is mostly innocuous. Yes, it is absolutely wonderful that you have blocked MTV. I applaud the fact that you have restricted broadcast television viewing.
That’s great. I’m proud of you.
Now throw it out.
Television advertisements teach one thing: you don’t have enough. Whatever “enough” might be, you don’t have it and you won’t be happy until you get it, so you must go out and buy it. That is television’s only lesson, it is the lesson that runs through every other lesson. Just as the curriculum of the compulsory school is contraception, so the television curriculum is the curriculum of the needy, the incomplete, the whining child. You wouldn’t let a used car salesman live rent-free in the spare bedroom. Why let this thing live rent-free in your living room?
If you must have it, cut the cable, rip off the antennas and operate solely on the DVD and VCR players. Don’t permit your children to even be aware that broadcast or cable television exists until they have at least received the sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and First Eucharist. They need grace to handle the stuff broadcast and cable have in store for them."


It's a mortal sin not to watch television.
I am a sinner.
Go thou, and do likewise.

It Ain't Natural

As most people know, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been a hot-bed of activity in support of intelligent design theory. Take for example, their biology department. The entire staff of the biology department insists, and has insisted for quite some time, that what we see happening in the world is not natural, rather, it is the result of actions taken by an intelligence not properly part of nature or the natural world.

Similarly, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is a strong supporter of intelligent design theory. Just one year ago, on February 19,2005, the AAAS released a report that insisted supernatural phenomena were having long-term, serious impacts on the world we inhabit.

The Environmental Defense Fund, following even earlier findings by the Pew Charitable Trust , now recognizes that there is a force stronger than nature at work in the world, and warns that we must be willing to deal with this fact.

Only one thing remains to be clarified: why do these and like-minded organizations insist intelligent design is the only accurate way of describing the environment while simultaneously holding that intelligent design is junk science?

As Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould both famously pointed out, evolutionary theory made it possible for an atheist to reasonably deny the existence of God and of the supernatural. If they are correct about evolutionary theory, man is simply one more animal - no more, no less. We are only marginally better than the great apes in terms of technology, and certainly not morally superior to them in any respect worth noting.

In short, man is just part of nature.

But global warming? Ahh… that’s not natural. It is unnatural, it is contra-natural, it is a violation of the natural rhythms of the world. And, as everyone knows, global warming is caused by dolphins.

Hmm?? Oh, wait, scratch that… global warming is caused by man.

And there's the rub. If Man is just an animal whose actions are completely explained by natural processes,

AND man acts to cause global warming,

THEN global warming is natural.

Dawkins and other evolutionists imply that mankind’s ability to create houses, computers and similar things is merely an expression of genes – no more unusual than bees building a beehive or mollusks building shells to inhabit.

If Dawkins, et. al., are correct, then global warming is a perfectly natural phenomenon that none of us should worry our pretty little heads about. After all, according to this theory, an SUV is just as natural as a beaver dam. Just as a beaver dam may cause some local flooding, so the SUVs may cause some global warming, but each is a thoroughly natural event. If evolution has no teleology, no purpose, then there is no good or bad and the destruction of diverse habitats caused by global warming is neither good nor bad.

If, on the other hand, we insist that global warming is not natural, then who is causing it? A non-natural event can only be caused by something that is not part of nature. Since everyone seems to think man is the cause of global warming (even the most religious among us fail to blame God for this particular problem), the claim that this warming is not natural is thereby identical to the statement that man is not natural.

In fact, it is worse than this. If Non-natural Man is capable of controlling and impacting nature with powers and abilities for beyond that proper to nature, then he must be - dare we say it? - supernatural.

Even worse, if evolution is a natural process, then man is beyond the power of mere evolution and his presence here cannot be explained by evolution.

So, if global warming is not natural, man must be (a) supernatural, and (b) the result of a process greater than evolution, a supernatural process of some kind.

The positivists and the materialists are always asking for a proof for God’s existence. They don’t realize that they have not only already provided the proof, they insist on it. As a matter of Christian charity, we should take them at their word.

Why Cartoons Matter

When it comes to riots, Muslims certainly know how to do it up right. As Muslims torched embassies over the weekend, the crowds resembled nothing so much as the draft-card incendiaries and bra-burners of the 1960’s. There’s a good reason for that.

While many commentators are discussing the similarities between the most recent Muslim unrest and the 1938 Kristallnacht event, there are other connections that are at least as important. In order to see what is going on now, we have to remember what happened then.

Kristallnacht
When a seventeen-year old Parisian Jew, upset at his uncle’s deportation from Germany, assassinated one of the members of the German embassy in France, Goehring used the event to justify Kristallnacht, the 1938 German pogrom against the Jews.

While everyone remembers the rioting, few remember the purpose behind it: Goehring meant to use Kristallnacht as an excuse to seize goods and materials from every Jewish businessman in the country. Kristallnacht allowed the Nazi government to re-locate literally billions of marks, both in cash and goods, into government coffers.

Seen in this light, Kristallnacht was essentially the same eminent domain process recently approved by the US Supreme Court, although marvelously expanded and focussed entirely on a single group of people. Indeed, Goehring explicitly insisted the situation was an economic one. He intended to remove Jews from the German economy.

In 1938, Germany had been a fully integrated nation for less than seventy years. Prior to the 1871 unification under Bismark (accomplished only by the waging of the Franco-Prussian war), German territory was divided into literally thousands of fiefdoms – in 1781, there were 1,781 separate governments ruling over various pieces of the territory we now call Germany.

Seventy years later, the union had not fully quashed those earlier rival fiefdoms. Even on the eve of World War II, Hitler worried that Bavaria would defect to Italy – everyone knew Bavarians paid more attention to Catholic Rome than to Protestant Prussian Berlin.

While anti-Semitism was real, it was also a tool, a way to unite Germans against a common enemy, a way to maintain national vision and purpose among disparate people. Indeed, anti-Semitism served a very similar role in Poland, a country that had been completely wiped out of existence and only reconstituted at the close of World War I.

Year of the Barricades
Fast forward to 1968. The world-wide baby boom had created a late-60’s world-wide population heavily weighted towards the under-25 age group. The skew was more accentuated than normal because the war had already killed off a large proportion of what would otherwise have been mature adults.

This unusually high disparity between the population of old and young, matched for the first time with a factory school model that eliminated most of the traditional one-on-one mentoring mature adults had historically used to temper the impetuosity of youth, resulted in a world-wide explosion of that same youthful impetuosity. In 1968, riots broke out across the industrialized world.

No matter what country you looked at, violent demonstrations were in full force. Poland, France, Spain, Britain, Japan, America – each one rocked repeatedly as the youth streamed out into the streets at the slightest provocation.

The Muslim Riots
There was in 1938 Germany a very popular joke: “The Aryan is blond like Hitler, slim like Goehring, and tall like Goebbels.” Anyone who looked at Hitler’s dark hair, Goehring’s corpulence or Goebbels’ height could instantly see that none of the people in government lived what they promoted. Still, the myth of the ideal Aryan gave a divided people something to cling to.

Now, according to Muslim theology, faith and state are a single entity, a combined unity stronger than even medieval Christendom ever envisaged. And that’s the match to the fuel.

Today’s Muslims simultaneously face two problems, each of which was enough to cause enormously violent responses in European and American societies.

Like 1930’s Germany, the vision modern Islam has of itself is nowhere to be found. Instead, the reality is rife with dissension. Muslim populations are split both theologically and geographically. Despite the common Quran and the Hajj, there is no common Muslim identity. The two elements of common book and common journey, elements meant to maintain Muslim unity, are beginning to fracture under the load.

As competing groups each seek to make their vision the guiding one, each has to do something that is louder, purer, stronger than the last. Thus, images of Mohammed that had never caused issue before now become lightning rods. Whether this is by accident or design is not particularly relevant. The images couldn’t have been used as lightning rods unless they spoke to an inherent fear within the Muslim community of incipient apostasy.

The Meaning of the Riots
The Muslim fight is not ultimately against the Danes and their cartoons any more than Hitler’s fight was ultimately against the Jews. Certainly Hitler killed millions of Jews, but he did so as a means to an end – he wanted a united Germany, a united vision of Germany, and anti-Semitism was his preferred method for accomplishing that vision.

His anti-Semitism worked precisely because Germans already had an inchoate sense that they were not united, that something was keeping them apart. Rather than blame themselves, rather than blame their history or their vision, they blamed the Jews. It was a convenient story that resonated with an unstable population that wasn’t given to introspection.

And that describes modern Islam in a nutshell. Muslim countries are the only countries that have positive population growth. They have more young people per capita than any other population in the world. Historically, this has never been a problem as long as the economy has something for the youth to do.

Unfortunately, Islam is composed mostly of dictatorial, soviet-style economies that are not strong enough to handle the influx of young workers. As the West has demonstrated time and time again, well-educated youth are more likely to riot than poorly educated youth. Something must be done to keep the young from rioting against their elders, a la 1968.

The West, especially the United States, solves the problem by maintaining an inferior educational system and a hedonistic culture. The strong emotions of youth are kept uninformed, unguided. They are also channeled towards mindlessly numbing entertainment. Bread and circuses worked for the Romans. It works for us. We create eunuchs.

The Muslims took a different approach. They solve their problem through a similarly inferior educational system, the madras schools. However, they have a long history of experience with eunuchs, and are aware of the problems inherent to that system. Today, they choose a different path.

Not only does the madras system of schools keep the youth ignorant of all things except the Quran, it creates strong hostility against all things non-Muslim. Thus, the riotous youth, insofar as they become riotous, are already predisposed to point out towards the rest of the world instead of in towards the despots that rule them. Instead of creating eunuchs, they create xenophobes. For them, anti-Semitism is merely the particular instance of a larger worldview.

This is why cartoons that were published in September become an issue in February. This is why the Muslim who abhors pictures or drawings of persons is willing to smile into the cameras and watch himself on television. This is why all the signs are in English, and why all the Danish flags appeared as if from nowhere.

Even as the orthodox Muslim watches his own image on Islamic television, he knows he is blond like Hitler, slim like Goehring and tall like Goebbels. But that doesn’t matter. The burning is a carthartic balm to the nagging concern that the faith which is Islam, the faith which is his identity, is somehow crumbling into ash and dust. If a few Danes must be knifed, or a few priests must be shot in order to maintain that soothing self-image, well then, so be it. Mohammed assassinated those who questioned his image. It is just.

That's Reassuring

First
It seems the Irish bishops and the principals of Irish schools have read Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, and have taken it to heart. They are beginning to argue that all sacramental preparation be taken out of the schools and be done exclusively at home by the parents.

This is, of course, the central argument of DTF. [shameless plug] If you want a more complete demonstration of the case than the article provides, buy the book! [/shameless plug]


Second
Google, the organization that has recently been lecturing the world about how important it is to be transparent with information, is now refusing to take part in hearings about its business with China.

We all know - because Google, MSN, and Yahoo tell us so - that providing limited information is better than providing nothing at all.

This rule seems to apply to everything except Congressional inquiries, where it is better to provide nothing at all than it is to provide limited information.

Perhaps computer geeks are under the impression that China, being made up of Godless communists, might still be saved, while Congress, being made up of American politicians, is past hope. Yet another example of why despair is a mortal sin...

Now What Do I Do?

Here's a poser.

A few months back, I wrote a series of essays on the connections between science and religion. In one of those essays, I pointed out that the phrase, "reality exists" is an essentially Christian religious concept which is specifically repudiated by Buddhists and at least one major school of Hinduism.

In the following months, I received a fair amount of criticism for that essay, most deriving from Buddhists and Hindus who refused to accept that their faith repudiated science.

Now, I discover that my article has become part of the curriculum at an on-line Buddhist university (although it is interesting that they cut out the first three paragraphs).

http://www.eng.mbu.ac.th/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=79

The question is, should I be upset that they took the whole article without asking me first, or pleased that they vindicated my position? I am opting for the latter, but with a bemused shake of the head...

And, before you put it out, they aren't necessarily really stealing. After all, if reality doesn't exist, they didn't steal anything, so my protestation to the contrary would fall on non-existent ears, as it were...

Dreams of Democracy

"The whole of the international community has the responsibility to accept the outcome of any fair and democratic election," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "But in this case Hamas has a clear responsibility to understand that with democracy goes a rejection of violence."

"Television is the most perfect democracy," Aaron Brown, former CNN 'Newsnight' anchor said. "You sit there with your remote control and vote."

The delicious juxtaposition of those quotes is irresistible. What if the population of a country wants violence? What if they specifically elect men or women because those men and women promise to bring violence to their neighbors or to those groups perceived as the enemy?

Now this is not meant as a defense of Hamas. Regular readers know that my love for the redundancy that is “militant Islam” is virtually non-existent. Still, there is a certain irony in the fact that Islam’s democracies are not necessarily superior to Islam’s dictatorships. For Muslims, as for the rest of us, we get the leaders and the culture we want. We always have.

This is a point that too many simply ignore, even when it is brought forcibly forward, as with the recent Palestinian elections. I remember being in one graduate sociology class in which the professor and the students seemed quite oblivious to the fact. During the course of the class, both professor and students lamented the draconian measures undertaken by some medieval towns in order to avoid plague and similar illnesses, and spoke at great length on the degradation of the citizenry.

When I pointed out that the citizens must have found the measures acceptable, else they would have rose up in rebellion, the room responded with shocked silence. No one had ever considered the fact that no leader is stronger than the vision he successfully imbues in the people he leads. Even the strongest man can be overcome by four or five other men who decide they have had enough. More than one Caesar has discovered that his Praetorian guard could also be his executioners. The members of the sociology class never considered that many townspeople were willing to pay quite a high price to avoid the painful deaths of themselves or their families from (microbial) agents they believed were bent on their destruction.

This week, George Bush and Jack Straw both have the look of a sociology professor facing a new idea.

Americans may not commit suicide by blowing themselves up at bus stops, but as Americans, we must remember this country was founded on the ideas of ancient Rome. And Cicero, one of Rome’s most celebrated orators, ended every speech with the same phrase, “Carthage must be destroyed!” The party line was successful – Carthage was so thoroughly destroyed that today we don’t even know what language they spoke.

Hitler did not gain power through a putsch. His party was voted into office as part of a coalition government. Enough Germans wanted him. The same can be said of Bill Clinton, FDR, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain. Democracy or dictatorship, the people always get the government we want.

As long as the leader has a vision which enough people subscribe to – and “enough” doesn’t have to be a majority – that vision will be enacted.

That’s why our visions are more important than our realities. That’s why the war over culture matters as much or more than the war fought with bullets. The Palestinian people don't need democracy. They need a new vision. If all they have is Islam, there will never be peace.

Don't Be Evil - Unless It's Profitable

For those who may not be aware, Google’s company motto is “Don’t Be Evil.” As more than one commentator has pointed out, the sentiment is laudable, even if their conception of evil is not entirely clear.

Take a very specific example. A few months ago, after having heard a lot about it, I signed my Bridegroom Press website and my blog into Google's AdSense program. Unfortunately, while the blog was accepted, Bridegroom Press was rejected. It contained objectionable content, according to Google. I found this rather amusing.

You see, the Bridegroom Press site contains only two things: articles (such as the one you are reading now) and Catholic books and CDs. The only difference between the blog site and the Bridegroom Press site is the presence of the books and CDs. The articles are identical: the two sites mirror each other in article content.

I pondered over what Google might have found objectionable. Given the wrong frame of mind, someone might find the title of my Scripture study on the infancy narratives, The Flesh of God, to be on the verge of blasphemy. Certainly I have had at least one bookstore refuse to carry my book on John Paul II's Theology of the Body, Sex and the Sacred City. They said their clientele would not buy anything with the word “sex” in the title. Or perhaps the reviewer was a big proponent of parochial schools, and therefore took offense at Designed to Fail, Catholic Education in America. It's hard to know, really. All I know is my site is not worthy of AdSense, although my essays on Blogger apparently are.

In fact, the reason is certainly much easier to discover than I make out. No matter how much revenue Bridegroom Press might generate for Google, it won’t begin to approach the amount of revenue that Blogger generates. Thus, Google doesn’t bother to review any Blogger feed – the revenue stream is too large to risk offending the Blogger community.

But Bridegroom Press? That’s a different story. Articles on a stand-alone site that speak out against homosexuality and homosexual marriage, contraception, abortion and similar topics won’t generate enough money to justify Google’s risk. If they allow their ads to become associated with the site’s contents, if someone discovers it and objects loudly enough, Google might face media scorn.

This example is relevant precisely because Google has joined Yahoo and MSN in deciding to censor itself in order to enter the Chinese market.

Google America doesn’t much like those who fight against the expansion of homosexual rights and the killing of children in the womb. Google China will not only refuse to permit discussion of China’s infanticide policy, it will also refuse to allow Chinese computers access to anything that the murderers currently running China deem unfit for public discussion.

Google America fights the US government’s attempt to get a list of key words that would help fight child porn. Google China, “will base its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.”

A few years ago, Pepsi’s slogan, "Come alive! You're in the Pepsi generation", was reportedly rendered into Chinese as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.” One wonders if “Don’t Be Evil” translates as “Follow the Money.”

That explains it

If you've ever wondered why Planned Parenthood snagged the Democratic party and not the Republican party, this article explains it clearly:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/01/24/bat.brains.ap/index.html

Book Publishing

In the last few days, I’ve had many people ask me about the publishing business – how does one get started, how hard is it, how lucrative is it, etc. This is a short primer on how it works.

Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing
The primary difference between a traditional publisher and a self-publisher is who supplies the money to print and market the books. With a traditional publisher, the author sells them the sole right to reproduce and sell a book in exchange for a royalty (typically 10-12%) from book sales. A well-known author might get an advance, but most first-time authors don’t.
While every publishing house has staff cover design and typeset teams, it is the very rare publishing house that runs its own printing press. Ironically, most of the publishing houses today do only book layout. They don’t consider the actual book production a core part of the business, so they contract that work out to the cheapest printer they can find. Book publishers are, then, essentially glorified distributors, i.e., they are warehouses with good to great marketing departments and good to great layout design teams.
Few authors know or care much about layout design or marketing, so this works well if you happen to be in that group and are happy with 10% of the sale.
But what if you prefer to do it on your own?

The Choice
As I’ve noted earlier, most people see the self-published author as an egocentric incompetent. After all, if such an author were good, he would have been accepted by someone’s marketing department, that is, he would have a publishing-house patron. Since he doesn’t have a patron, he must be lousy. QED.
I could go through a list of excellent best-selling books that were self-published, or list recent best-selling books that were execrable, but there’s little point. Egocentric incompetence is rife in every industry, whether you are paying for someone else’s version or just doing it yourself, so it hardly matters if the charge is true or not. From the author’s perspective, there is only one question: which will bring more income?
When you sign away your manuscript to a publisher, depending on the contract, you lose most to all control over it for a set period of time. Even assuming they make no serious changes, your book will not see the light of day for at least a year after begin accepted. It takes that long for the marketing department and the layout team to agree on a cover design and a marketing plan.
But, going with a publishing house means you have a lot of marketing muscle behind you.
Maybe.
You see, every publishing house rejects 95% of the manuscripts it gets. Of the five percent it publishes, it doesn’t have the money to market each one equally well. So, it picks whichever one it thinks is most likely to succeed and pushes that one hard. The rest don’t get much attention. If you don’t like the odds, this is how you self-publish.

Business and Book Layout

• Go to your local courthouse and register as a business, either sole proprietor or corporation, as you desire.
• Buy a block of ISBN numbers from Bowker. A book without an ISBN number will not be carried in most bookstores, and bookstore sales will account for roughly 80-95% of total sales for any book. They are sold in blocks of ten for about $300, more for larger blocks. There are no smaller blocks.
• Assign your book an ISBN number off the list you bought and get an EAN bar-code for your book. Don’t buy the barcode from Bowker. They are hideously expensive. Note – don’t use the UPC bar-code. Books have their own bar-code system. The bar codes can be purchased very inexpensively ($10 each) from places like Bar Code Graphics. Make sure your bar code includes the retail price of the book. Many bookstore chains won’t carry a book that doesn’t have the ISBN on the bottom back cover with the price included in the bar code.
• Five years ago, professional book printers would only accept files in Quark or Pagemaker. Things change. Today, Quark and Indesign CS 2 (Pagemaker’s successor) are both still desirable for the cover, but Acrobat PDFs are generally used for text. The files are smaller and cleaner to work with. This means if you have access to a program that generates a PDF from your Microsoft Word document, you don’t have to buy an expensive layout program for your text. Indeed, some printers will even accept PDF files for your cover. Even better, some websites generate free PDF files for you, given a Word document. So, actually formatting the documents for the printer can be quite inexpensive, if you want to cut costs and can find a good, free PDF website.
• If you want to use a desktop publishing program, I strongly recommend InDesign CS 2. It is incredibly powerful and relatively inexpensive, and will run rings around anything you can do in Word. Don’t buy it new. Go to Ebay, buy an old version of Indesign or Pagemaker, then buy the upgrades to get the latest version. Software upgrades are always cheaper than new. That will cut your software cost in half, at least.
• There are lots of tricks to cover design, and I won’t go into them here, but the cover sells the book. It needs to be loud and splashy, with a LARGE title. Walmart won’t carry a book unless the title can be easily read from at least ten feet away. They probably won’t carry the book in any case, but at least give yourself a fighting chance. Also, don’t use Times as the typeface on your cover – use something at least a little unusual.
• To figure out where to place things, how the title and copyright page should look, etc., just look at the books you already have and copy them. No need to re-invent the wheel.
• Price several printers and make them compete for the price. They will bid against each other. The price of the book depends on many factors; most of it is bound up in page count. Having a full-color cover is not really any more expensive than having a single-color cover – it adds only a few cents to the cost of the book, and repays itself many times over in sales value.

Printing
You have two choices: print-on-demand (POD) or traditional printer.
The advantages of POD:

• Relatively inexpensive start-up cost: Setting up a book at Lightning Source costs on the order of $200 to $300. With a traditional print run, you will spend at least two to three thousand on book production.
• No inventory. With POD, you order only as many books as you think you can afford to buy or can sell – a couple dozen is a perfectly reasonable POD run. Thus, with POD, if your book turns out to be a clunker, you don’t have a garage-full of books to get rid of. And I do mean a garage full. Even a short book – 100 pages – in a 5000-book run will use 40 boxes measuring 12x18x8, each weighing 36 pounds. If you print with a traditional printer, you better have somewhere to store the boxes. And your street had better be able to handle a semi-trailer, because that’s how they arrive. Either that, or you meet them in the local Walmart parking lot with a U-Haul…
• Some PODs hook directly into distribution channels. Lightning Source, for instance, is one of the cheapest PODs out there. Since LS is a division of Ingram, every book you publish with them automatically goes into Ingram’s catalog, which is one of the largest book catalogues in America. Having Ingram as a distributor is no small thing, and is tough for a small publisher to do any other way.
• There are a lot of POD printers who offer more services than LS. Authorhouse, Lulu.com, and literally dozens of others will take care of cover design and certain aspects of marketing for you. I've never used these so I've no comment on them. There are a lot of horror stories, so buyer beware.

The advantages of a traditional printer:

• While the setup and up-front cost is high (and no, they won’t give you credit if you are printing with them the first time – it’s half up-front, the rest on the counter in order to release the book for delivery), the per-cost book is quite low. A book that might cost two dollars each to print through a traditional printer will cost well over five dollars per book through Lightning Source, and Lightning Source is pretty inexpensive as POD goes.
• Since a bookstore needs a minimum 40% discount off the retail price, it is nearly impossible to get a book into a bookstore except through a traditional print run or through a POD that hooks into a major distribution channel as part of the contract. Clearly, if you are your own distributor, you maximize up-front profits. However, many bookstores won’t work with you because you aren’t a well-known distributor.

Sales
Finally, you need to get your book into bookstores. That means getting a list of every bookstore in your market niche and cold-calling, e-mailing or postcard-mailing them about your work. Call up radio stations and invite yourself on interviews. Write up news releases and send them to magazines and newspapers. Coordinate book signings at your local bookstore. Think of organizations that could use your book and pitch it to them. Give away lots of copies to decision makers.
Being a great writer is not difficult – there are a lot of great writers. There are also a lot of mediocre writers with great marketers behind them. Great marketing sells at least as many books as great writing. After all, when was the last time you bought a really lousy book and actually returned it? Most of us just sell the clunkers at garage sales.
Speaking of garage sales, most bookstores have a return policy of one year. That means they can return any unsold books to you at the end of twelve months, for credit. If you have a high return rate, this is obviously a problem. The biggest book publishers typically have a twenty percent return rate.
I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had a return rate of one-tenth of one percent. But then again, I’m just an amateur, and not really qualified to compete with the professionals. As one friend remarked, my return rate either means I am a phenomenal writer or I am seriously underselling the market. I prefer the former explanation, but, given my marketing skills (or lack therof) am willing to accept the latter.
So, there you go. You can publish a book for well under $700; around $1000 if you want to lay out the money for the publishing software.

The Marriage of Christ

As the Da Vinci Code movie approaches, Catholics will be asked what seems a difficult question to answer: why couldn't Jesus have been married?

I've heard many answers to this question, but none are close enough to a sound-bite to work very well. Perhaps this might serve:

Jesus told the Sadducees, "At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven" (Matthew 22:30). Where God is, there is heaven. Jesus, both God and man, would not marry any individual human person in the human sense precisely because such an act would mean the person He married had, indeed, be given in marriage in heaven.

Thus, affirming that Jesus could marry in the human sense indicates He lied when He spoke to the Sadducees. Worse, such an affirmation denies His divinity.

Note how many Protestant preachers have no particular problem with Jesus marrying...

A Morality Tale

I am friends with a married couple - Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

I like Mr. Smith a lot. We've been friends for as long as I can remember, we always hung out together, drank together, played cards together. But when Mrs. Smith came along, I found I didn't much like her.

Now, I would like to spend time with Mr. Smith, but I don't want to spend time with Mrs. Smith.

She annoys me.

I have three choices on how to deal with the situation so I don't have to interact with Mrs. Smith yet can have as much fun with Mr. Smith as I want.

Choice 1:
I can wait until Mrs. Smith leaves the house, then go over and visit with Mr. until such time as she returns, when I will bid a fond farewell until next time.

Choice 2:
I can go over to the Smith house to visit, but slip a mickey into Mrs. Smith's drink so that she falls asleep shortly after I arrive. That way, Mr. Smith and I can have a marvelous time until she wakes up, when again, I will bid adieu.

Choice 3:
I can kill Mrs. Smith. Then I don't have to deal with her ever.

Questions:
From a moral perspective, does it matter which I choose?
If Mrs. Smith was your wife, would you have a preference in how I handled her?



Moral
Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the twin gifts of pleasure and fecundity, respectively.
Choice 1: NFP. I just wait until fecundity leaves.
Choice 2: Temporary chemical and physical barriers. I drug or bind up fecundity so it can't interfere with me.
Choice 3: Permanent sterilization.

Now do you see the difference?

BTW, I stole this story from a friend of mine who thought it up a few years back when he was teaching NFP.

Democrat's Fundamentals

Jimmy Carter, when asked to describe the fundamental Christian basis of the Democrat's political philosophy, had this to say:

I define fundamentalism as a group of invariably male leaders who consider themselves superior to other believers. The fundamentalists believe they have a special relationship with God. Therefore their beliefs are inherently correct, being those of God, and anyone who disagrees with them are first of all wrong, and second inferior, and in extreme cases even subhuman. Also, fundamentalists don't relish any challenge to their positions ... It makes a great exhibition of rigidity and superiority and exclusion.

At least, I'm pretty sure he was talking about his political party....

Taking It On Faith

A few days ago, two elders of the Mormon Church appeared on my doorstep. As is my wont, I ushered them inside and we began to discuss matters. In the course of the conversation, they displayed a peculiarly American misunderstanding of a critically important issue, an issue that has literally formed, or misinformed, the American worldview. Indeed, the issue is plastered in the headlines today as Dr. Hwang’s celebrated cloning accomplishments crumble into dust. The issue is, of course, faith.

For the scientist, faith is a humbug, a mental illusion with no basis in physical reality. For many in the Christian world, faith is only real when it is blind; for them, faith is real because the evidence has not been seen. As is readily apparent, the difference between these two world-views is thin indeed. Both take as a given the idea that faith is not based on physical facts.

Indeed, they even present the same evidence to prove their point: Jesus told doubting Thomas, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." (John 20:29) while Paul told the Hebrews, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Using their common position as the base, both sides fight strenuously over the worth of faith. Evolution, intelligent design, even the events of history are up for grabs. Indeed, even as you read this, an atheist in Italy is getting free publicity for his new book by suing a Catholic priest for preaching Christ and Him crucified. The atheist has convinced a judge to compel the priest to prove that Jesus actually existed. The conviction that faith cannot produce such evidence lies at the heart of the suit.

But, as in most matters Scriptural, things are not quite as simple as they seem. Neither side recalls that the Hebrews were warned repeatedly to “take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children's children.” (Deuteronomy 4:9) Similarly, no one remembers Paul’s warning: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; for you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

John’s commentary on faith was most clear - and is most ignored - of them all, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life. For the life was manifested: and we have seen and do bear witness and declare unto you the life eternal, which was with the Father and hath appeared to us. That which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you: that you also may have fellowship with us and our fellowship may be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you, that you may rejoice and your joy may be full.” (1 John 1:1-4)

In short, both the Old and New Testaments demonstrate that faith is most certainly not blind, that faith is most certainly based on physical evidence. Indeed, if it were not for the existence of this physical evidence, faith would be useless.

Despite opinions to the contrary, John’s Gospel doesn’t discount the need for evidence, rather, it insists that the apostles, the witnesses to the evidence, are trustworthy. “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed [your witness].” Similarly Paul’s letter to the Hebrews points out that faith is based, not in a lack of evidence, but in the evidence of a thing which has no physical counterpart – trust. Paul’s central point is not, “Don’t worry your heads about physical evidence,” rather, he intends to answer one question: is God worthy of trust?

Trust in the persons of the apostles or the persons of God: this is a question about reality, but not the physical reality of an object, rather, the moral reality of the person.

If we take the scientist’s definition, if we assume that the only things worthy of our trust are the things that can be measured and replicated, then both the writing of history and the interest in current events are, in the scientific sense, religious pursuits. After all, none of us actually see most of the events described in the newspaper, radio, television or internet. Certainly none of us saw the vast majority of events described in the history texts. In neither case can we replicate those events. Taken critically, we have no more reason to believe there was a French Revolution than there was a Christ – the “witnesses” might all be colluding in an enormous lie for purposes of their own.

Indeed, given this reasoning, I have no basis for believing there is even a Rome or a Paris, though I have visited both. After all, I did not measure those cities in any repeatable way, and I have never returned to them, so I can’t say with scientific certainty they were actually there. No peer-reviewed scientific journal has verified their existence.

Just as Russian minister Grigori Potemkin reputedly constructed facades of villages in the Crimea in order to impress Empress Catherine II of Russia or as three British citizens discovered in the recent Space Cadet hoax, perhaps someone just created it all in order to laugh at my credulity. How do we know we aren’t living in the Matrix?

Many people assume that science revolves around the testing of the physical environment we inhabit, but that’s not strictly true. Whether we speak of apostolic review or scientific peer review, the issue at stake is the same. It is not a question of whether the physical evidence is trustworthy. It is a question of whether the persons who report the physical evidence are trustworthy.

If we live in the Matrix, then someone constructed it. If Rome doesn’t really exist, then it’s a put-up job. If we aren’t really in space – although our senses give us many reasons to think we are – then someone is pulling a fast one on us.

Scientists take as a given that there is no hoax – the physical material they work with every day is actually reality. In order to exclude the possibility of being hoaxed, there can be only two possibilities. Either (1) there is no person creating the data that feeds our senses, there is only the data or (2) the person who does provide the data that feeds our senses is trustworthy, he is not out to hoax us but to inform us about something.

But that creates a problem. Science has never created a physical instrument to reliably test the trustworthiness of any person alive, whether man or god. We must either choose to trust someone or choose not to. Scientists develop trust in one another’s skill as scientists in the same way everyone develops trust in each other and in God – they look at the results.

When Dr. Hwang first reported his results, those results were taken on faith. As far as Hwang was concerned, blessed was the scientist who did not see or question the results, but still believed. For quite some time, most of his compatriots in the field were blessed beyond compare. Hwang’s work fell apart primarily because the people who knew him best began quietly casting aspersions on his work. What had earlier been accepted was now critically re-examined. He proved untrustworthy in the end. Scientists who entertain agnosticism or outright atheism, have at some point in their lives put God in the dock and found Him untrustworthy as well.

Faith is directed towards persons, not towards physical objects. In order to have faith in physical reality, we must either assume there is no one behind the physical reality or we must assume total trust in the one who is behind it. Either way, we are taking something on faith, and what we take on faith is precisely the evidence of things not seen. That’s true whether the faith-filled person is an atheist or an apostle. Faith is not blind, if only because persons are the object of faith, and persons are always known through how they reveal themselves.

A Short Note

My apologies for the long silence on the blog. I generally try to write at least one column a week, but events have prevented that for the last week or so.

The hosting provider for my business web site crashed their e-mail servers and destroyed several years worth of work. They have no backups. Thus, I've spent the last week recovering files and moving them to a new hosting provider who should be much more reliable.

Unfortunately, as a result of this loss, we've lost most of the ability to communicate with our customer base. As a former network admin, it never occured to me that there might be network administrators who didn't make regular backups. Certainly any hosting provider for hundreds of business web sites would not fail to do so! Thus, I foolishly trusted the "professionals" to maintain several of our most important e-mail lists. These were all lost.

As a result of the server crash, we've lost our ability to communicate with the subscribers to the free e-mail services Through the Fathers' Eyes and Today's Lesson. If you were signed up and haven't been getting e-mails lately, this is why.

If you would like to sign up (again) for one or both of these e-mail lists, please do so now through the links above. As the descriptions indicate, both are concise e-mails that don't fill up your box. Through the Fathers' Eyes comes out once a week, Today's Lesson comes out once a day. Only list moderaters can post, and we post no more than what is indicated here.

With any luck, another article for the blog will appear by Monday. The new website is almost complete and ready for business. Everything should be in hand in the next couple of business days.

Quagmire

It’s official. New York City has become a quagmire. It’s been almost six hours since the transit strike began and no resolution has been reached. Top U.S. officials are seriously concerned.

“New York City is simply a luxury America can no longer afford,” commented Hillary Clinton. “We’re pouring millions of dollars each year into this region in police, fire and medical protection and now this. We need an exit strategy. Besides, I don't think they are going to vote me into office twice. Even New Yorkers aren't THAT stupid. Well, not enough of them, anyway.”

Political strategist Howard Dean concurred. “This is a nightmare. We’ve spent hours and hours negotiating – I can’t count hour many hours, at least not without taking off my shoes. And can you believe it? We still haven’t got it resolved! Mr. President, get us out of there!”

“The refugees pouring across the border into Massachusetts are incredible. We’re running out of espresso and the President refuses to open our strategic latte reserves,” fumed Senator Edward “Teddy Bear” Kennedy. “We need to seal our borders! Now! Before those damned foreigners buy up all the Maker's Mark!”

Meanwhile, the impact reverberated across the nation.

“Oh yes, the transit strike,” commented a pedestrian in St. Louis, “What is that, anyway?”

“I heard New York City had a transit strike,” responded one public high school student, “but I don’t think the U.S. should get involved in the problems of foreign countries.”

“I was in New York during the Gulf War,” a veteran reminisced, “It’s a hell-hole. No American in his right mind would want to live there.”

“Well, of course New York has transit strikes!” replied one irate West Coast resident, “Next thing you know, them Muslims will be burning cars and things! They aren't civilized like us! I don't think they even have Tivo over there!”

Meanwhile, President Bush insisted that America stay the course, “You have to remember the history of New York City. It’s the home of Tammany Hall, the Rockefellers, Rudolph Giuliani and the UN. Thoughtful people understand that New York City has never had a free election. Neither has Chicago, for that matter. But we can’t cut and run now.”

The press instant poll discovered that the statement sent the Presidents' approval rating plummeting. "Why not cut and run? Who the hell needs that damned city, anyway?" replied one Los Angeles gang-banger, "can't they get some other country to annex it? Like Boston?"

There are darker rumors on the horizon, however. CBS News reports that some of the city's boroughs may have acquired nuclear weapons. Marlene Mapes is hot on the story of a mysterious group involved in something called “The Manhattan Project.” She promises to present memos from members of the organization demonstrating that they are, in fact, developing an atomic bomb. Well-informed journalists believe the delivery system is cleverly disguised as a church. It is thought to be targeting journalists.

“The religious extreme – pardon the redundancy – well, they are always trying to kill us,” said Mapes. “No, not' us Americans,' I mean ‘us journalists.’ We are the only truth-tellers in this society, you know, and that makes us extremely dangerous."

"What?!? I am TOO dangerous! Have you ever seen me try to split a board with my bare hands? Well, I can you know. But not right now. But I could if I wanted to. Has anyone seen my hat? It's the crinkly tinfoil one."

"Anyway, you need to listen to me and turn that damned Internet off. We are very serious about truth, especially in times when truth is hard to come by. That’s why we don’t just report the news, we create it.... Turn it off! OFF! Turn the PC OFF! .... AND listen to me! LISTEN! I'm dangerous! You better listen or else!”

As for New York City?

“Blow it up,” replied Dan Rather, “What the hell do I care? I’m retired.”

Amnesia

Mark Twain liked to say that history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. If that is true, what do we do with a generation that prefers free verse?

This thought arises from the recent e-mails generated by my essays on Christmas Past, available here and here. While many people of various philosophical persuasions wrote to thank me for the essays, a few were scandalized. They argued that this review of history worked at cross-purposes with the laudable Christian endeavor to salvage Christmas from impending oblivion. Silence on this history, they argued, would best help the Christian cause.

In times past, the common history of a community was kept by the story-tellers: Homer, Thucydides, the prophets of old, the bards and the wandering minstrels of the Middle Ages. Whether through oral or written tradition, the culture resonated with men who told the story of where we came from so that none would forget who we are. Times change. So do cultures.

Americans are no longer very good at history. Our culture is built around our economy, and our economy is future-oriented. No one wants us to fixate on what we have now or what we had before, except insofar as it compares badly with what we could soon have. A culture built on marketing, as any relentlessly capitalist culture must be, is relentlessly future-oriented. It is also relentlessly unwilling to consider that the future holds only one certainty: death.

As a result, Americans are caught in a continual twilight of illusion wherein we don’t recall our past nor do we dwell on the realities that awaits us. Rather, we try to construct a temporary shelter against the coming storm by amassing our goods in rows around us, creating the illusion that we are safe, or soon will be if only that last product is purchased.

This loss of historical sense, this loss of contact with reality, must eventually destroy any culture it permeates.

The Memory Hole: Example One
Everyone knows the Civil War was fought the twin issues of slavery and states’ rights, but how many Americans know the Revolutionary War was fought to stop corporations? As Thom Hartman points out, the revolt over the Tea Tax was not a revolt over the fact that the tax had been raised, but rather, over the fact that it had been lowered.

The new, lower tea tax allowed a multi-national corporation, the East India Company, to flood the American market with cheap tea, thereby driving small mom-and-pop tea shops into bankruptcy. In that respect, the Boston Tea Party was akin to an attack on the local Super-Walmart, the Founding Fathers were dedicated in part to destroying the ability of corporations to operate on American soil. Do any of today’s commentators, liberal or conservative, mention this? Aren’t these facts relevant to any discussion of the Founders’ original intent?

The Memory Hole: Example Two

Or what of the way America and Britain invented the science of eugenics, and thereby invented Hitler? It is a matter of historical fact that virtually every major eugenicist prior to 1930 was either British or American: Galton, Davenport, Sanger, Stopes – it is a roll-call of the some of the most prominent people America and Britain produced.

America was the first country to institute mandatory involuntary sterilization of “defectives,” the first country to ban marriage between whites and blacks. Eugenics was one of the few things Theodore Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler agreed on. Yale was the home of the American Eugenics Society and Harvard graduates traveled to 1930’s Germany to help them draft laws modeled on the sterilization and anti-miscegenation laws of Protestant America.

Everyone knows Hitler was a eugenicist, but who remembers that Neville Chamberlain, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a member of the 1935 English Eugenics Society or that Marshal Pétain, who led the Vichy government in France, was a member of the French eugenic society in the 1930s? As for the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were all ardent eugenicists, while Herbert Hoover was, in 1921, on the committee that sponsored the Second International Congress of Eugenics in New York.
In short, every American president from 1901 through 1945 agreed with Hitler on the importance of eugenics. Is it any wonder that International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the organization started by American Margaret Sanger, spent the first seventeen years of its existence rent-free in the headquarters of the English Eugenics Society and was a member of that organization in 1977? Americans lambaste the Germans for their past inhumanities, but we taught them how to think eugenically.

The Memory Hole: Example Three
And let’s talk about thinking. America’s modern mass compulsory school system actually created riots and armed insurrection in many parts of the country when it was first instituted. Why? Because parents recognized even then that it was inferior to the one-room schoolhouse and homeschooling. Parents recognized even then that it was an attack upon the family. They understood that it degraded learning and separated children from adults, thereby stunting every child’s growth. But not a word of this leaks out into the grade school, high school or even most college texts. No one remembers it. Why not? Wouldn’t the roots of this conflict have some bearing on today’s education conversation?
John Henry Cardinal Newman, the famous theologian and historian who converted to Catholicism through his thorough study of Church history once remarked, “knowledge of history is the death of Protestantism.” Protestantism, corporate America, modern education – each in its own way encourages amnesia. The facts of history are dangerous things. They call to mind ways of thinking, ways of living, that are inimical to the modern American way of life.

So, we can forget and argue endlessly, pointlessly.
Or we can remember.
Choose.