lloydtown
Balkin Joke
Sandra Day O'Connor rules on the 10 Commandments--upholding five, and striking down five.
One could add: she writes for a 5-4 majority. Scalia writes a withering dissent, in which he says among other things: when the Court picks and chooses in this arbitrary fashion, it demonstrates for the world to see that it is not offering a more or less plausible reading of a founding document; it is merely expressing the personal preferences of the justices who happen (for better or worse) to sit on the bench today.
O'Connor, having read Scalia's dissent, writes: it is hardly the sanest or healthiest approach to human life to cling to a rigid rule, exactly as written long ago, despite the many exigencies and changing circumstances that we face every day. It seems to us much wiser to adapt to circumstance, while keeping the deep moral truth of the rules in mind. Consistency, as Dr. Johnson said, is the hobgoblin of small minds--and it is not unknown in psychiatric wards.
Odds and ends of jobs
Preparing study questions for final examination; preparing final examination itself; writing a reference letter for a student; the usual preparation for class on Thursday.
Are there going to be some more U.S. Supreme Court decisions this week? I spent a lot of time on the new capital punishment case last week--even though we had finished with the criminal justice issues in the textbook.
I actually put a kind of table on the board to make the points in Saletan's piece in Slate: Scalia says the Court as a whole has said teens under 18 are mature enough to have an abortion, but not to be executed. That seems true; but Scalia seems to have contradicted himself the other way: teen abortion no, teen execution yes. One student stuck up his hand and made the point that several conservative defenders of Scalia have made: he is consistent in saying the states should be able to make such judgments.
By the way: O'Connor: teens are mature enough both to have an abortion and to be executed. Kennedy: too immature for either. Rehnquist: same as Scalia. Stevens: swung with "the Court," which has changed membership between Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990) and Roper v. Simmons.
Weirdest line by Scalia in his dissent: "Whether to obtain an abortion is surely a much more complex decision for a young person than whether to kill an innocent person in cold blood."
"Serving on a jury or entering into marriage also involve decisions far more sophisticated than the simple decision not to take another’s life."
So he does get into the "maturity" debate.
I've given up adding photos for now. The wonderful support folks at BlogEasy say they will send me step by step instructions.
Putin the Great?
I posted a long time ago on Putin as an ally of the U.S. Putin is anti-terrorist insofar as he has cracked down mercilessly on the Chechens. I don't know the whole story, but it is possible that the Chechen resistance to Russia took a new and nasty turn in August 1999, under the leadership of Shamel Basayev. The taking of 1200 hostages in September 2004 was some kind of new low, and many people sympathize with Putin for taking tough measures in that case.
Putin is a democrat--up to a point. He says quite reasonably that "democracy" without central control, in the post-Communist era, in some cases meant complete freedom for pirates. As law has become more established, some of these pirates wish to gain the respectability of the law without changing their ways. Better to have an autocrat who is seeking very little for himself--and that may be Putin.
The Atlantic for March confirms that Putin identifies with the best of the old czars, and this is fine with a lot of Russians. He wants to develop and draw on patriotism. He has a confessor--apparently someone who remained in the "official" Orthodox church under Communism, and who therefore accepted or even signed on to various persecutions of Christians, blasphemies and heresies. The defence of such people (as with the Grand Inquisitor, defending the Catholic Church in Dostoyevsky) is that the Church must survive somehow if it is to do any good. Russia was by quite a ways the largest Orthodox community in the world before the Russian Revolution; the slaughter of people simply because of their Christian confession may have been the largest ever.
(In my little reading on the Orthodox, it seems they have had unbelievably bad luck. The oldest and biggest Christian countries were conquered by Moslems beginning around 800 AD, and were never really converted back. By contrast, Rome was sacked by barbarians about 400, a hundred years after becoming Christian, and very shortly converted these barbarians to Christianity. Somehow the fulcrum shifted to Rome, away from Constantinople (partly an attempt to have a Christian capital different from the old pagan one. Then in the 20th century the Orthodox were killed by Communists.)
I repeated to my friend Alex, a Ukrainian Catholic whose heart, in some ways, is with the Orthodox, that Putin is apparently Orthodox. "Yes," he said, "and I'm a Buddhist." Well, I said, he has a Confessor. "Yes, another KGB thug, just like himself."
I asked Alex about this incident:
Putin is trying to increase his prestige by repairing a fracture in the Orthodox Church that occurred eight decades ago, when a group of anti-Soviet exiles established their own wing, the Orthodox Church Abroad. Putin and Father Tikhon have met with leaders of this group in New York, and a deal is pending that would reunite the church under the umbrella of the Moscow patriarchate, which already ministers to believers in former Soviet republics such as Latvia and Ukraine.
Alex basically confirmed all this. He reminded me there is a Russian Orthodox church affiliated with this conservative "Abroad" group, right by the University of Toronto campus. (On Henry Street not far from Baldwin). This was a classic disagreement. These emigres had fled around the time of the coming of Communism, and wanted to see no compromise with it. They were disgusted with the "official" church back home for compromising--as those at home probably saw it, in order to survive. They remained quite old-fashioned. When Alex and I went to see that church, he said the sign out front talks about women sitting separately from men. Alex said some Ukrainians have been drawn to join the "Abroad" group for its orthodox Orthodoxy.
Yet Alex also sees all this as a Ukrainian. The Moscow Patriarchate would like to claim all Ukrainians, including those now officially Catholic, as part of its flock. Many Ukrainians are supporting a patriarchate at Kiev, which is not recognized by Moscow, and which is identified to a certain extent with the "Orange" nationalist movement. When the Pope travelled through there a few years ago, he visited the patriarch at Kiev, and I think basically got along with everyone.
Anyway: can Putin be trusted? I don't know. As former KGBers go, he doesn't seem to have all that much blood on his hands, and he joined the Gorbachev-Yeltsin group, even in defiance of his mentors in the KGB, at an early stage, in a high profile role. I guess we have to hope for the best.
Christian Practice and Poisonous Snakes
Partly this comes from a sequence of events in my life:
1. A few weeks ago, close to bedtime, there's a special on snakes--I think on PBS. One segment is on the "snake handlers"--Christian church-goers, concentrated in the rural South, who handle poisonous snakes as part of an "enthusiastic" church service. There's probably music, dancing, emotional preaching, even speaking in tongues--then handling the snakes. There are occasional deaths, but many believers say they have been bitten many times without being killed. (It can't just be snakes; it has to be "serpents," or poisonous snakes).
2. As I prepare my class on Religion in American Con Law, I Google "snake-handlers." It turns out they are pretty firmly in the Pentecostal tradition, and they appeal to the Gospel of Mark, Ch. 16, v. 14-18. These are apparently the last words Jesus speaks to the 11 more or less faithful apostles, after his crucifixion and resurrection.
Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. He who has faith and is baptized shall be saved, but he who has no faith shall be condemned. And these are the miracles that will ensue for those that have faith: in my name they will cast out evil spirits; they will speak in strange tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands; and if they drink poison, it will not hurt them at all. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will be well.
(This is the Rieu translation (Penguin); the Revised English says "if" believers handle snakes or drink deadly poison, but I'm pretty sure that's cheating).
So there is a scriptural authority for snake-handling--as much, perhaps, as for the Roman Catholic and Orthodox understanding of the Eucharist--that the bread actually becomes the flesh, and the wine actually becomes the blood, of Jesus. This belief is supported by John 6, 48 ff. Of the other Gospels, Matthew and Mark indicate that only in the Last Supper was this literally the case; Luke I believe makes no connection between bread and wine, on the one hand, and the flesh and blood of Christ on the other.
My main point for class was that snake-handling is against the law in many of the 50 states, and the federal courts have upheld such legislation; but the law is probably never enforced. If the local sheriff is not a snake-handler himself or herself, he or she probably thinks that everyone who does so, chooses to do so freely. Indeed all indications are that the authorities in the snake-handling congregations repeatedly warn people that this is dangerous, and they might not want to do it.
3. So what would an authentic Christian worship service look like? Faith healing, like some of the TV evangelists? Speaking in tongues? (Some of the old commentaries suggest this just means Christian missionaries will learn local languages with no trouble--an extremely useful gift in their trade). Exorcism? Taking arsenic? Snake handling? Of course some commentators have been concerned that the faithful would take this too literally--they say not all believers, but some, will have the ability to perform miracles in a way that is reminiscent of Christ himself; this will be for the benefit of those with no faith or weak faith, not for the community of the faithful assembling on the Sabbath. Again, possibly directed mainly at missionaries. (There is an episode in Acts where Paul is bitten by a snake, pulls it off, kills it, and survives--greatly impressing the local unbelievers. Perhaps that was enough of a demonstration of that particular miracle).
4. The Higher Criticism may also come to the rescue. The oldest versions of Mark don't seem to include verses 9 ff of Ch. 16.
The verses appended by a later editor clearly attempt to harmonize the ending of Mark with the endings of Matthew and Luke. Here, the editor wanted to make sure that the "Great Commission" and the post resurrection appearences were included in Mark. She or he saw their absence as a possible source of confusion- so she or he clarified by adding them in!
If it weren't for these "added" verses, Mark would include no reference to anything Jesus said or did after his death and resurrection. Some of the "addition" is more or less standard advice as to what one must do in order to be a Christian--above all, believe in the Gospels and be baptized.
One student in my class said she is Pentecostal, and she has never heard of snake-handling.
Here's support for the view that the "tongues" in Mark are merely foreign languages; other passages elsewhere in the New Testament seem to refer to "charismatic" tongues.
Googling Myself
Something I don't do very often.
By putting my name in quotes, with the middle initial, I pretty much just got me--although there is one other person in there. A review of a Nancy Huston book for the Nashwaak Review--unfortunately, the article was not fact-checked.
My dissertation, some articles on my late daughter, some stuff on the course I'm teaching, and some stuff on this blog. A comment on another site about Leon Kass. A piece in the Globe and Mail on the word "suffonsified." One link to an article on "Conservatism in Canada." And that's about it.
Commenting on the Pope in NYC
NY Daily News, via the Corner.
NY Press ran an article listing supposedly funny things about the Pope's death. This other NYC publication indignantly complains, and gets some high profile New Yorkers to do so as well.
Takes me back to Sinead O'Connor. On Saturday Night Live, she sang a song which somehow involved an abortion or women's choice, and at the end she ostentatiously took out a picture of the Pope, and tore it up. The crowd booed.
A few weeks later, there was a tribute concert in honour of Bob Dylan, also in NYC. This one I saw on TV. Sinead was scheduled for a certain time, and I guess the organizers expected trouble. Kris Krisofferson came out to introduce her, and praise her courage. When she came out, she was booed to the point that she was unable to perform.
Like 9/11, there are reminders that a lot of working people in NYC are Catholics of some kind--raised, nominal, practising, or something. One lady who escaped from the Towers said: I'm not a religious person, but as I went downstairs, I kept saying the Rosary."
UPDATE: I don't know who this is, but the piece includes a brief overview of the two TV episodes. I don't think "a mixture of cheers and booing," and finishing the song at the Dylan show, is correct; I'm pretty sure she was booed off stage.
Seeking Answers on the War on Terror
In my view, neither defenders nor critics of Bush are quite capturing what is new in the Bush doctrine.
Rich Lowry:
For me, the most strategically compelling reason for the Iraq war was always that it would break-up the axis of radicalism in the Middle East and make it possible to re-orient the region around something better--an axis of decency, running from Turkey to the new Iraq to Jordan to Israel. But this geo-political case for the war was always difficult to make in political argument and it also seemed an awfully risky justification for war, since you were hoping for something of a bankshot--that the invasion of Iraq would eventually affect the political feel of the entire region. But, lo and behold, it's happening before our eyes! I never imagined it would happen so quickly. Bush gets a lot of the credit, for his stick-to-itiveness and his audacity. He has also, finally, gotten some breaks in the Middle East, with the death of Arafat and the Syrian over-reaching in Lebanon sparking the Cedar Rebellion. Yes, the Middle East could still disappoint. Perilous days still await us in Iraq. But it seems increasingly clear that the Middle East will never be the same, and that's a marvelous thing.
About all the Bush critics can say is: positive developments in different countries have different causes, many of them not derived from Bush actions; Bush himself was not pushing as hard for elections in Iraq as Sistani was; the apparently positive developments in the Middle East may lead to instability or more of a role for Hezbollah, etc. See Kevin Drum here.
Someone, I think on the Corner, summarized the Bush view going in to Iraq as something like: give the whole region a hit, and see what happens. By any sort of traditional diplomacy or just war doctrine, this seems crazy or immoral. But I think it has to be admitted that Bush has been both extraordinarily focussed, and extraordinarily flexible. Focussed in that the regimes that seem most likely to support Islamic terrorism should be made to feel they are in trouble. It may still seem a bit odd that Iraq came right after Afghanistan, but that may bear on the flexibility. The Bushies have offered a number of different pretexts for what they were doing--but they were always willing to sacrifice any pretext except for the biggest one, "security of the U.S. homeland," at any time. Similarly they were prepared to see Iraq end up as something considerably less than a full-fledged democracy, as long as it was less of a threat, more pro-American, or simply a home to a number of U.S. military bases. One could argue that in a deep sense they never cared very much about Iraqis, Kuwaitis or Saudis, and in a way that is true. Yet it also seems true that they truly believed that it is only by bringing some kind of liberation from tyranny to a lot of people, in a lot of countries, that the U.S. could achieve security for itself.
The driving motive has been self-interest, driven by fear and anger--a desire to make Americans at home safer. The almost fantastic claim is: greater security can be achieved, but only by transforming a significant part of the world, if not the whole world. I'll have to find some links, but there are statements, including Bush's this year, that Americans cannot be free unless the whole world is free. The execution, more sober than the grandest policy statements, but still partly based on wishful thinking, is in fact intended to transform the Middle East. And that seems to be working.
It's still possible to argue that a nutty group of ideologues gained unprecedented influence, and partly by luck, they are succeeding much more than "realists" are likely to predict. But the ideologues have probably learned from recent history. I told my class recently that the world can change dramatically, and I still remember the fall of Communism in Europe--once it started, it all happened very fast, as if a house of cards simply collapsed. (Some of the students were nice enough to point out that they are too young to remember this).
The neo-cons will argue that the fall of Communism didn't "just happen"--some pushing from Reagan helped. In a more bipartisan spirit, one might mention the Helsinki Accord, and the different ways in which it was pushed by Carter and Reagan. So in the wake of 9/11, the neo-cons wanted to push again, and see what happened.
It is still a bit awkward to describe the Bushies as correct in their predictions, when they seem to have been taken by surprise by everything that has happened, good and bad.
1. In Afghanistan, the warlords returning to their unpredictable and unreliable ways--including allowing many al Qaeda activists to escape, apparently because of bribes that were paid.
2. The fact that al Qaeda has been able to survive and grow--perhaps partly because Musharraf is only half-heartedly pursuing them in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
3. The quickness of the success of the "strictly military" operation in Iraq.
4. The looting/collapse of law and order.
5. The strength and spread of the insurgency.
6. The difficulty in recruiting and training Iraqi police and military.
7. The role and power of the Grand Ayatollah Sistani.
8. The relative uselessness of U.S. heroes: Adnan Pachachi, who was Bush's guest at the 2004 State of the Union, and was unable to win even a seat for himself in the recent election; Iyad Allawi, Interim Prime Minister, who did much worse than he expected; and Ahmed Chalabi, who has lost out in his campaign to be the prime minister-delegate on behalf of the largest Shiite group.
9. Sistani dictating that: even though the U.S. military presence will be required for some time, elections couldn't be postponed.
10. Positive results of elections--including the increasing visibility of Iraqi security forces.
11. The cost of all this for the U.S. to achieve goals that may or may not directly benefit Americans in their homeland.
UPDATE: I was thinking of Gerard Baker in the Times of London:
Ignoring, fortunately, the assault from clever world opinion on America’s motives, its credibility and its ambitions, the Bush Administration set out not only to eliminate immediate threats but also to remake the Middle East. In the last month, the pace of progress has accelerated, and from Beirut to Kabul.
[snip]
But what was clear to the bold foreign policy strategists in Washington was that the status quo that existed before September 11 could no longer be tolerated. Much of the Muslim world represented decay and stagnation, and bred anger and resentment. That was the root cause of the terrorism that had attacked America with increasing ferocity between 1969 and 2001.
Baker is also the source of the quote I referred to:
As a foreign policy thinker close to the Administration put it to me, in the weeks before the Iraq war two years ago: “Shake it and see. That’s what we are going to do.” The US couldn’t be certain of the outcome, but it could be sure that whatever happened would be better than the status quo.
Link via The Corner (also Instapundit, who liked the Monty Python reference).
Finally, some photos
Richard and I commute on the same bus, and work in the same building. I was delighted to learn he took pictures as a hobby, and was willing to offer some for this site.
I am actually located in Newmarket, on the Holland River which flows north into Lake Simcoe. There is a real Lloydtown, and it is a bit west of here, on another branch of the Holland River. Richard lives a bit north, in the valley of the Nottawasage River, which takes a very winding path into Georgian Bay.
Sunrise on a ridge east of Alliston, just off Highway 89.
Part of the morning rush hour going through some fog in a
valley between Cookstown and Alliston (most going to the Honda plant in
Alliston)
UPDATE: Sorry, I obviously haven't figured this out yet.
UPDATE 2: I'm getting there, but I've got some learning to do.
Photos courtesy of
www.photosbyrichard.ca
Charles and Camilla
I probably shouldn't post on the royal wedding at all. I certainly have reason to be grateful that I won't stoop to the level of Ann Althouse, who has pointed out that Charles' taste apparently runs to horse-faced women--as well as to horses themselves. I won't refer to the Royal Family as "those bloody Germans," as John Derbyshire says his father did. I won't ask why, if Britain had to be stuck with Germans for a royal family, it had to be the dullest and most plodding bunch of Germans anyone has ever encountered. Margaret supposedly had brains and a sense of humour--but it was her duty to hide it, so she was apparently drunk pretty well all the time.
One TV special indicated that the Queen herself might have a sense of humour. Two Anglican Bishops or Archbishops told the same story, from different periods of time. The Bishop or whoever is working in the royal palace. He knows the Queen is nearby, and to his amazement she comes to see him as the day draws to a close. Would you like a drink? she asks.
Nonplussed, in both cases the churchman agreed. She led him to the liquor cabinet/serving stand, or whatever. What will you have? she asked. Just name it, I'll get it for you myself. Totally flabbergasted, one of them ordered sherry, the other a G and T.
Churchman holds drink in hand. Queen has none. A lot of "thank you very much your majesty" or "ma'am" or whatever. And then she says something like: please go ahead. But aren't you going to have something, your majesty? "I can't; I've given up alcohol for Lent."
I don't know, I think it's funny.
Two comments: The Royal Family and their advisers have apparently concluded that in the old days having a mistress was much more acceptable than screwing around with the traditions of marriage, but now it is the other way around. (It's tempting to say things are more Victorian, or American, or something). The only way for Charles and Camilla to be invited a lot of places as a couple is to be married somehow. But because of all the legal issues, it has to be low key. They announced it would be in Windsor Castle, and the Queen would be there. (They can't have a church wedding, because her husband is still alive; but the church will "bless their union," or something, after a civil ceremony). Now it turns out the Castle isn't licensed for weddings (the welfare state rears its head?) and the much more modest town hall or Guildhall, which is licensed, is forced to admit the public to a civil ceremony. Now no Queen.
In Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, the creepy Canadian capitalist wants to marry an aristocratic young woman, to achieve one kind of distinction that has so far eluded him. He wants a big formal wedding--the way only those European toffs know how to do it. "Nothing hole and corner." Unfortunately, because he has not divorced his wife, "hole and corner," in some incredibly obscure place, with virtually no guests, as if shrouded in deep shame, is exactly how it must be and is. Same here.
Secondly. a joke from the Royal Canadian Air Farce, which is intermittently funny.Charles is supposedly being interviewed. "When did you realize there were problems with your marriage." "On our wedding night." "Oh, how sad--the very first night. And what was the first real sign of trouble?" Well, my wife said 'Get out! Get out of this bed!' "Oh dear, your wife asked you to get out of the conjugal bed?" "No, she didn't say it to me--she said it to mother's Corgis!"
A few minutes later, after other topics have been covered. "So things are as they should be between yourself and Mrs. Parker-Bowles?" "Oh yes, things are wonderful. God she loves those Corgis!"
Colleen Jones, Curling Star
I don't watch a lot of curling, but I do watch some since our son curls as his major extra-curricular activity. Curling started in Scotland (it needs the Robin Williams treatment on how it was invented by a crazy/drunk Scotsman), but I think of it now as almost distinctively Canadian--yet another cold-weather sport.
Colleen Jones of Nova Scotia has skipped a team to the women's national championship four times in a row, and six times in total. She has won the world's twice. On the women's side in Canada, unlike the men's, the previous year's champion is automatically in the nationals, playing as "Team Canada." Other teams have to go through often gruelling provincial championships, as all the men's teams do. So Canadians have seen a lot of Colleen on TV. Her day job, incidentally, is doing the weather or something on CBC TV--possibly only in the Maritimes, in any case something I don't watch.
She is famous for her fierce competitiveness on the ice. (I have no doubt she is a very nice person otherwise). When she is delivering a rock herself, she adopts what some call her "Cruella de Ville" face, and she is a bit of a screamer. Female champions receive gold jewellery, and Colleen has a habit of wearing all the gold she has won in the past--even on the ice. There's maybe a Nora Desmond side to her.
This year, she didn't make it to the finals--the game which is on right now. As she was eliminated by her opponent's last shot yesterday, she broke down in tears, and this was on a lot of TV news in Canada. More remarkably, the nearby semi-final game came to a halt, and the whole crowd paid her homage. The slightly nasty muttering you hear is that not everyone is sorry to see her eliminated, but she obviously deserves recognition for her achievements.
She had remarkable success when she was very young--maybe almost too easily. Then it was years before she was back on top--somehow a much more impressive accomplishment.
I'm going to try to find some pictures.
This is more or less Cruella de Ville.
Colleen uses a much more demure or professional shot for her gigs as a motivational speaker.
UPDATE: It turns out Colleen does weather and sports on the national morning show on CBC TV. Thanks, Richard.
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