RIP National Review

That magazine once stood athwart the march of progress yelling, "Stop!" Now, it seems, that they are standing athwart the march of history and yelling, "Stop! Wait for me!" First, let us acknowledge soem fo the good that National Review has done:

For decades, National Review has performed a hygienic function on the right, defining the bounds of respectable conservatism, marking it off from unreasoned, bigoted or conspiratorial worldviews. It acted as a virus check, targeting ideas which in fact were Trojan horses for dangerous radicalism — whether racial, religious or ideological. On several occasions, that magazine used its power for good, excluding from its pages apologists for ultra-nationalism, eugenics, racism, anti-Semitism and paranoid anti-government hysteria.

Now, for the bad, and I expect it to eventually get ugly.

I do not have the time for a full fisking of this piece. It does not rise to the level of an honorable surrender. Four points stand out, however:

1. Steorts writes that
   

   "Civil marriage was instituted, let us concede, to safeguard the interests of children by endorsing and protecting the kind of stable, committed relationships that produce them and are suited to their upbringing. But there is no way to know in advance which couples can or will have children."

   If this is the reason for the government's having instituted civil recognition of marriages, and such has failed, then the correct solution of to cease insisting on such civil recognition. Abolish the death tax, or allow joint ownership of property, and allow up to two people to file taxes jointly (better still, get rid of the IRS entirely), etc., and call a failure a failure and remove it rather than expanding it.
   
   
2. Later in the article, he states that "Many traditionalists do deny that same-sex couples have any reason to adhere to traditional marital standards. This denial is usually based on the idea that their relationships have no value to begin with." Here he is not merely arguing that we should surrender on a lost cultural front, but is in fact insisting that the view that such relationships between sodomites are inherently bad. Implication--those of us who continue to recognize sin as sin are to be cast out. To whit: "In their ideological absolutism, many traditionalists today stand in the way of such a synthesis. Their position on same-sex marriage is tragic, in that they have taken a stand against burgeoning social endorsement of commitment and sexual exclusivity as ends in themselves." This misses a large part of the point of why sexual exclusivity and commitment matters to begin with. Morally, the answer is evident, but beyond the religious aspects of morality, there is this: the point of exclusivity and commitment is to foster a healthy relationship between two people, to foster a healthy intimacy. Homosexual relationship lack this, because the two do not become "one flesh," neither in the spiritual-religious moral sense nor the strictly physical, biological, anatomical, and physiological sense.
   
3. There is one point which he gets partially correct, namely:
   

   "There is something that traditionalists could do to make their views seem less cruel and arbitrary: They could return to Christianity’s original, austere understanding of the purpose of sex. The early Christians hotly debated whether marriage even between a man and a woman should be endorsed; many thought celibacy was to be preferred. And even though marriage was finally recognized as a sacrament, the mainstream of the early Church did not think of marriage and sex as a way of expressing love and affection at all, but rather regarded procreation as its sole purpose."

   Ignore the part where he puts an implicit opposition between a sacramental view of marriage and the early Church's view of it. This diagnosis is in part correct in that if we Christians would abide by our marital vows--including, notably, openness to life (which precludes contraception) and closedness to the false idea of dissolving marriages with divorce, then so-called "gay marriage" would likely not be such an issue.
   
4. He attempts to throw a bone towards traditionalists (and Christians) by stating that there is a difference between opposition to homosexual relationships and racism, between opposing "gay marriage" and supporting racial segregation. There is, after all, a choice involved in engaging in homosexual activity. But then, he writes
   

   "But one can push that point only so far, given the reality of congenital sexual orientation, i.e., the fact that, for many people if not for all, the kind of emotional and physical attraction that precedes sexual intimacy is by nature limited to or predominately directed toward members of a particular sex. What traditionalists must in honesty be said to reject is, if not a deep aspect of personal identity per se, then the expression of a deep aspect of personal identity. And the significance of that rejection is often minimized in ways so glib and irrelevant as to suggest that those who offer them refuse to grapple seriously with the issue — for example, their facile observation that there are many people who, for whatever reason, are unable to achieve romantic fulfillment (as if being unable to achieve it were the same thing as being told not to try), and their facile observation that “we are all sinners” (as if what counts as a sin were not in question here)."

   In other words, we who call a sin a sin ought to just keep our mouths shut, because anything we say will always sound hollow or "glib" or callous. Perhaps it will, and that's unfortunate. We can always improve in the tactfulness and charitableness departments. But ceasing to proclaim some aspect of truth because it hurts someone's feelings? That seems like a bit of an overcompensation in the other direction. And, of course, it also can lend itself to severe curtailing of free speech and freedom of religion, if acted upon.

This is all disappointing, but not unexpected.

A UNC Professor's Workload

I see that the North Carolina General Assembly is considering legislation which would require a 4/4 load of all professors in the UNC system. That's 4 courses in the fall, and 4 more in the spring (one would hope that they consider how many credit hours each course is worth, and that they factor for "special courses" like labs).

To put this into some perspective, I work at a mostly 4-year university (we offer a few masters degrees, and one or two Ph.D.'s) whose focus is supposed to be teaching. My load is 4/4. Starting out, this is a heavy load. I am then required to do service to the university (code for doing a bit of extra work outside of teaching and research), plus some research to get tenure. If I do not get tenure, then I get one "grace" year and then get fired.

This is  a pretty heavy load, all things considered. This year I was a visiting professor, meaning that I conducted next to no research. I have been on campus every day between 8:30 and 9:00, and have gone home closer to 7 than 6 most nights. I also come in to work on some Saturdays for a few hours, but as the semester is finally winding down, I am getting to have more weekends to spend time with family. My research starts back up this summer, and unless I teach during the summer, I don't get paid (even if I do work full weeks here on research). I am expecting longer days in the fall semester as a consequence.

I also spent 8 years getting a Ph.D., with my typical work week exceeding 90 hours for the last year and a half or so (and usually over 60 in the years prior to that), while being paid barely enough to make ends meet. My salary now as a professor is well south of 70k per year for all of this, and I live thousands of miles from my family because this is the job which was available. I happen to really like my job, so these are not all complaints, only observations.

My thoughts on the matter are that universities should consider allowing two paths to tenure. The first is the research path, in which the classroom teaching load is lighter (a 2/2 or 3/3 load seems about reasonable), but in which more quality publications are required; this path makes more sense at Ph.D. granting institutions (which should be on the whole less common). The second is a teaching path, in which the professor has a full 4/4 and research is more akin to a hobby, an "extra" thing which he is allowed to do but not expected to do.

There can also be a change in how tenure and promotion are awarded: begin by promoting to associate professor after 5 years or so, then grant tenure after another 5 years, and finally promotion to full professor another 5-10 years after that (increment size may vary). The requirements for each promotion might be thought to vary somewhat, too, for example by allowing either a very light teaching load to start out along with ht research, or allowing a very light research load but a full teaching load. After all, classes do actually get easier the second time around,  and the third, and so on. But that first time around, they can be a lot more work than you'd guess, and for a young professor who is just starting out, there are many different classes which he will see "first time around."

Bottom line: I have no problem with requiring a 4/4 load out of people (I have such a load right now), or even with requiring this plus research and service (in small quantities). That is, provided that it be made possible to fit all of this activity into the same 40 hour work week that the people who are passing the laws often enjoy, or at least that such work weeks become attainable in short order. A 4/4 is also much easier when you've taught through all courses 2 or 3 times, but if there's also a full research and service (and in many cases, administrative) schedule in place to boot, then those 4 courses are going to start to look very static after the second or third time through.

Misleading Misreading of the Day--Matthew 5:41

I've finally encountered an actually interesting attempt to argue that people of faith should bake the cake. It hinges on the teachings in Matthew 5 about how to respond to those who wrong you:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.

The argument of the article hinges in particular on Matthew 5:41 t argue that if someone forces you to bake a cake for a "gay wedding" then your response should be to bake two. The author of the post also leaves the disclosure that she does in fact support "gay marriage," and this is one of the few arguments I have found which cannot simply be reduced to "Do this because we told you too, bigot," and so I commend her for making it. In these polarized times it is far too rare to see any attempt at making a good-faith argument as to why people should be forced to violate their consciences as the price for doing business (read: making a living for themselves).

Many of the problems of this interpretations of Matthew 5 have been addressed elsewhere. One which stands out in particular to me are the fact that there is a difference between going along with somebody you don't like, even doing something for them which you don't want to do (or permitting them to wrong you in some way); and willingly helping them to do something which you know (or at least believe) to be wrong. Another is that there is a difference between being extra kind to others, including those who want to wrong us (which is what the teaching in Matthew suggests), and helping these people to wrong us.

Christ tells us to turn the other cheek, even to become servants; but a servant is not a doormat. As one commentator notes, turning the other cheek was a very edgy teaching precisely because the expected reaction was to grovel in the dirt, quite literal to fall down at the other's feet (doormat, much?). The teaching is to not resist evil with more evil--which in turn means not participating in the other's evil and helping him to commit it. Refusing service is not in and of itself evil, and if there ever was a good reason to refuse service it is because the service is known to be for an evil end.

To go back to the (imaginative, I'll grant) misreading, the lady who wrote the post which inspired this response attempts to set the stage (with [my comments]):

To the Israelites, the Romans were evil and ungodly. They had no place ruling over God’s chosen people in God’s chosen nation. That land had been promised to Moses and his descendants when God brought them out of Egypt. Their very presence in the land was blasphemous. [There's a problem with this statement as it is. That problem is that the Temple in Jerusalem was built with an outer court for the Gentiles, which would presumably include Romans. At worst, it was an outrage that the Romans were present as conquerors--but their very presence could hardly be a blasphemy in and of itself].

One of the Roman laws stated that any man could be required to drop what he was doing and carry a Roman soldier’s equipment for him for up to a mile. In the Sermon on the Mount, with his followers gathered around him, Jesus referenced that law and told his followers what they should do in that case:

“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.” ~Matthew 5:41

Go with them two miles. That was not the advice that most of the people in the crowd that day had been hoping for. That was not the conclusion that they would have come to on their own, following this man that they hoped would lead them to victory over the Romans. That was certainly not respecting their religious beliefs [Jesus was God. He is the source of religious truth, and so He need not respect a false "religious belief." But the state is not God. The state is more akin to Caesar. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's...] — go with them two! What if their neighbors saw! What if seeing them carrying the Roman’s equipment caused other Jews to think the Roman oppression was okay? [This is a false equivalency. Part of the objection to providing services to sinful events is the possibility that doing so will lead to scandal, but at this point in time (and cultural decay) it is a very minor part indeed. The bigger problem is that this is participating in those events, and thus to some extent in the sins which they represent] What if there was other work that needed to be done — good work, charity work even, but they spent all that time carrying equipment for the evil oppressor? [Is this even an argument which has actually been made? If so, I am not aware of it. It can't be a really serious argument, since it presupposes that the subjugated person in question would otherwise be spending all of his time doing good works and acts of charity, or at the least otherwise providing for his and his family's needs. The argument in religious liberty cases is precisely that we should be allowed to turn down opportunities for doing this, not because we have something better to be doing with the time, but because it is better to do nothing at all with the time then to do something which violates our consciences.]

Ah, but therein lies the rub. There is nothing actually wrong with marching with the soldier for a mile, or two, or ten. That Christ is telling us to do this rather explicitly means that there is nothing sinful about providing aide to the soldier, even if that soldier was part of an army occupying Israel. The law in question was not particularly set up to oppress the Israelites (or any other conquered people), and there weren't in all probability soldiers going door-to-door to ask after Israelites who might object to carrying their load for a mile. Finally, the Israelite would not (or would not necessarily) know whether the soldier in question was taking his gear off to some evil purpose. Might the soldier be planning to participate in an unprovoked campaign of terror or Genocide? That seems out of character for the Romans (the phrase pax Romana is not for nothing). They would seem to be more interested in putting down uprisings (keep order) or perhaps expanding their territory than ridding their empire of their own subjects, however troublesome.

Even supposing that the Roman soldier was planning to do such a thing, merely carrying his equipment does not make the Israelite in question a willing participant in the campaign. This is true for the simple reason that the Israelite pressed into service does not know that this is what the soldier is planning to do, or that this is the purpose for which he is being pressed into service. Odds are rather against it, in any case. So at worst, the Israelite Disciple of Christ in question becomes a material participant in evil, and not a formal one (to make use a of a significant distinction delineated here). But to bake a cake for an event whose sole purpose is to give witness to an untruth, and whose major result will be the celebration of a grave sin? That seems to me to be a bit closer to providing support for that event, and thus for that sin. Such support is itself a sin, and thus must be resisted. Nor should the laws of a really free nation compel men to violate their consciences in this way. Such laws do not promote "equality" or "charity" or "tolerance/acceptance", but rather tyranny.

On Comet Landings and the Sorry State of Our Culture

Phileae Lander: I'm on a comet, Rosetta Probe!

Ok, those who know me probably figured I would eventually get around to writing about the comet landing. This is one of those truly great milestones in science, or in space exploration. I can imagine that the folks at Planetary Resources are also gleefully rubbing their hands together: one step closer to asteroid mining! This is one of those amazing feats which deserves our applause and praise, and those who pulled it off are heroes in their own right. Matt Taylor may be remembered for this achievement along with names like Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong or John Glenn, or Alexy Leonov and Yuri Gagarin. He landed a robot on a comet 300 million miles from earth, and that robot has subsequently transmitted from that comet. (Bonus: it has found some organic molecules there). So congratulations to Dr. Matt Taylor and all the other scientists who worked on this project!



I wish I could end my post there. What a great achievement for mankind! Here's something that humanity has done to be proud of.

But, of course, this achievement was a bit soured. There are always killjoys. Apparently, it's ok for women to dress like sluts but not for a man to wear a shirt portraying them dressed as such (what, you thought it was the cool laser guns that are being decried?). Look, I'm not a huge fan of the guy's shirt either, but since he just landed a probe on a comet, I think he deserves a pass. (As one wag put it, if I ever land a probe on a comet hurtling through space millions of miles from earth, you'll be lucky if I decide to wear pants). The shirt:

The shirt? This guy is the man!

That this backlash comes from feminist circles--and that it is nearly unanimous--should be telling. That the shirt actually shows images of what feminists the world over repeatedly say women should be allowed to dress like is more so:

Suddenly an activist culture railing against the social norms of how women are supposed to look had fangs out for someone defying social norms of how a scientist should look. This intolerable shirt-against-humanity, clad with images of illustrated women in super hero spandex and seductively brandishing laser blasters conjured memories of Aeon Flux or Trinity in the Matrix, or Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Madonna and Beyoncé – All feminist icons....

Try telling a feminist what they can and cannot wear to a space launch and good luck with the lawsuit.

In other words, if I woman dresses in a manner like those depicted on the shirt, she's a feminist icon and should be lauded for it, and let no man (or woman) say otherwise! But if a man wears a shirt depicting women in this way, then he must be a misogynist creep and must be denounced posthaste, whatever may be his accomplishments.

There would be humor in the fact that a movement which is supposedly mostly women who have supposedly moved beyond "traditional gender stereotypes" has resorted to commenting more about the man's shirt than his actual accomplishment. The conversation that these women are having is essentially this: "Can you believe what he wore to that interview?" "No, just look at that fashion faux paux." The men are mostly interested in the fact that he landed on a comet. The women are interested in the style of shirt he picked from the wardrobe this morning. I said there would be humor, but humor stops here: they have reduced this poor man to tears.

The sheer hypocrisy of the feminist movement is galling. It is also a giant leap backwards for women themselves:

On the surface, this is a shocking case of political correctness gone mad. But this shouldn’t distract us from the depressing insight it gives us into modern feminism. During a week in which comedian Dapper Laughs was banished from British television, and a petition was launched to stop pick-up artist Julien Blanc from entering the UK, the shaming of Taylor confirmed that modern feminism is forsaking women’s liberation in favour of pettily policing people’s behaviour.... 

Modern feminism, in contrast to first- and second-wave feminism, appears to be obsessed with the superficial. It focuses on how words, images and attitudes affect women, rather than trying to tackle larger social problems. This is a damaging trend, not only for feminism, but also for women themselves. Modern feminists’ focus on behaviour, its propensity for censorship and its increasingly anti-man rhetoric, is creating a dogmatic and divisive feminism that turns women into victims who need protecting from the big, bad world, rather than equipping women with the tools to tackle real issues of gender inequality.

Nor is this little temper tantrum from feminists an isolated incident. Remember the group four of young men who developed the date-rape drug-detecting nail polish for women--and the standard feminist reaction to them? The reaction which labelled this attempt to curtail date rape as just another part of the rape culture? Here's a refresher:

However, Katie Russell from Rape Crisis England & Wales was critical of the idea, saying that the charity will not support the invention.

“Whilst Undercover Color’s initiative is well meaning, on the whole,” she said, “Rape Crisis does not endorse or promote such a product or anything similar. This is for three reasons: it implies that it’s the woman’s fault and assumes responsibility on her behalf, and detracts from the real issues that arise from sexual violence.”

Or the cries of "slut-shaming!" every time somebody opines that women (and often men) should dress more modestly? Or the feminist circling the wagons around Lena Dunham over the (autobiographically admitted) molestation charges? These are all recent things. We don't have to dig back very far to find these various stories. The tale they tell suggests reveals how pointless and less-than pointless, indeed, how manipulative and shrill modern feminism has become.

The same applies to talking about a man's shirt in this instance. Too soon.

Indeed, the movement is not only full of bossy busybodies, but indeed of outright bullies. I can think of only one other movement which rivals the modern feminist for its bullying demeanor, and that is the homosexualist movement--but that is for another day. John C. Wright puts this issue of real bullying by feminists into focus:

The issue is this: The termagants, bullies, and harridan harpies who vexed this weakling to the point of tears, on the day which was his triumphant crowning achievement and should have been the happiest of his life, they are not modest Christian women objecting to a tasteless shirt, nor are they scientists worried that their profession create a dignified public appearance.
The harpies crap on the feast. That is their role. That is who they are.

They are filth, pure and simple. Don’t give them any cover or concealment by making their madness sound sane.

If you thought his shirt was tasteless, then land a flying interplanetary probe on your own comet first, jerkmouth, and you can wear a godzilla-dam mothra-flocking neon TUXEDO with saint Catherine wheel epaulettes and twin buttock rockets up the tails for your news conference, if you like. Until your accomplishments in life match his, shut your odious, oleaginous, obnoxious trap.

It was his lucky shirt. Given to him by his lady. He just did something no one else his history has ever done, ever.

Or, as Mollie Hemingway notes, we ought to start standing up to these bullying and harassing harridans:

How many times have you heard the line that feminism is simply “the radical notion that women are people”? And when was the last time you thought that sentiment even remotely expressed whatever the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is going on in feminism these days?...

Some of the people most worried about feminist bullies are women. That’s because we suffer from the image they project of women being perpetual victims. And not just perpetual victims but frail little things unable to handle cartoon images of scantily clad women. In my list of things in life that have been tough, I’d rank roughly everything before “seeing a really cool guy wearing a shirt.”

Feminist bullies are so invested in the false idea that women are oppressed that they’re giving all women a bad reputation. Women, contrary to the image perpetuated by feminist bullies, are not weak. We are strong. We can handle all sorts of things and do so every day. We live full lives with complex and meaningful relationships and we have many professional and personal accomplishments. Women and girls are able to navigate life quite well, thank you very much, and it’s actually easier when women aren’t constantly talking about how supposedly oppressed we are. We’re not. I mean, sure, everyone in life has troubles. None of those troubles, for the vast majority of women, include “seeing a dude wear a shirt while discussing how he just landed a spaceship on a literal freaking comet.”...

It’s not just women who are hurt by feminist bullies. Everyone is. That’s because human relationships are harmed in the toxic outrage culture. The very perpetuation of humanity relies on men and women getting along well. People who stoke resentment and anger between the sexes, or create false claims about women’s oppression, are making it more difficult for happy, healthy, human relationships to flourish...

Last week we saw Kim Kardashian slather her body with oil and put everything on display. Much joviality ensued. I mean, if anyone suggested that she wore something inappropriate to work, I missed it.

But we live in a culture where third-wave feminists engage in “slut walks” to send the message that nobody should be judged by what they wear. And yet if you make cartoons of the very same things these women wear on slut walks and put them on a shirt, that’s “ruining the comet landing”? That doesn’t even make sense.

A fine summary of the whole modern feminist movement: hypocrites employing double-standard to harass and bully their opponents--really, any man who looks like a target of opportunity--who no longer stand for anything good. Actually, they are less concerned with the "the radical notion that women are people" and more with the actually radical notion that men aren't.

Review of Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles Movie

I am a somewhat casual fan of Mystery Science Theater, so I have seen some fairly awful movies over the years. Most of these are technically poorly done, meaning some combination of bad camera angles, poorly synched music/mood and or timing/stunts, odd premises, large plot holes, and bad acting with even worse dialogue-writing. Most of these movies at least have the excuse of being made by C-list teams (actors, directors, writers, etc.) with low budgets: they are the type of films for which being called "B-list" is an aspiration, and to become a cult classic is the upper limit of their intended potential.

For reasons which I cannot fathom, Michael Bay is not a B-list director. Nor is Megan Fox a B-list actress, for reasons which I can fathom. And while the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie which these two have made might be billed as a summer blockbuster, it rightly belongs with the awful movies which once made Mystery Science Theater's lineup.

Normally, I would warn my readers of spoilers here, but

1. I am writing this review a little late to warn off the opening weekend crowd.
2. I am mostly inclined to warn people not to go see it.
3. There are so many plot holes that I do't think I can ruin it by revealing anything.

I won't get too much into technical details: the movie was bad enough that I will focus mostly on the plot holes and similar comments. I will say that the soundtrack is forgettable (which is true to the 1990s' movies, which really were B-list). As with those movies, there is one scene in which the turtles showcase their "musical talents"—this time it's beat-boxing in the elevator, a scene which Stephen Greydanus calls the high point of thefilm, and not inaccurately. And I suppose that I should here also acknowledge the critique that others' have had about the design of the turtles: they are too big, and their faces are wrong (they really do need snouts).

Before getting to the worst, I might as well mention some of the best parts. There are a couple of scenes which are reasonably well-done as tributes. When the turtles are returning to the sewers after taking on the Foot Clan as a group for the first time, they leap from a low rooftop into the open manhole in a scenic homage to the opening title of the 1990's cartoon. Elsewhere, Leonardo slices a pizza with his katana, serving the slices to each of his brothers and ending with a single slice landing upon Splinter's head. Also, the decision to make each of the 4 turtles unique in form was a good artist choice, in my opinion: Raphael is the large and bulky bruiser of the bunch, Donatello the lanky awkward nerd, Michaelangelo the laid back surfer dude, Leonardo the athletic team captain.

So, what are the plot holes from which this spectacle suffers?

The mutants turtles and rat turn out to be a science experiment created by April O'Neil's father, who was working on a mutagen which could regenerate cells as use in an anti-dote. It turns out that the father's boss, Sacks (derivative of Kreng from the cartoons?) is planning to use this antidote (along with a poison) to hold New York hostage. He has placed the poison in a large container in an antennae tower on top of his building, with plans to release it into the city, followed by providing the cure at high cost. This plan is scrapped when the lab creating the mutagen is set on fire, and O'Neil's father is killed. The incident is blamed on the Foot Clan.

There are many plot holes here already. First, the turtles and Splinter are saved from this fire by April O'Neil as a little girl. She releases them into the sewer, where they will be "safe". Yet, April's father supposedly dies in this fire, to her knowledge? A little girl is able to enter the burning lab and get the turtles and the rat out, but a grown man is unable to make his escape? And for that matter, she never actually seems to notice that her father is in the burning lab. She is a young journalist with a knack for asking questions, yet she never really questions any of this part of the narrative?

It later turns out that her father actually started the fire because he had discovered his boss' plans for the mutagen. Sacks discovers this and shoots and kills him, presumably in the fire. He then fails to rescue the turtles or Splinter, despite the premise that in their blood is the last remnant of the mutagen, a remnant which is apparently duplicated by the turtles as they grow and which is apparently so stable that he is willing to capture them to drain their blood and extract the mutagen? And he fails to notice young April when she enters the burning lab and rescues the turtles, just as she fails to notice him?

Sacks spends the next 15 years trying to reproduce the mutagen, without success. And apparently, he has decided to keep the container of deadly toxins on top of his building ready to use without an existing antidote for the entire period of 15 years, thus endangering himself and the city for nothing. I know, he's the villain, he doesn't care about the safety of the city. But doesn't he at least care for his own safety, to say nothing of the soundness of a plan which requires sudden dispersal of the toxins which could potentially begin to leak out? Granted, the toxin has to be vaporized first, but under a liquid form it would still release some vapors which would presumably place everyone in the building at risk, not to mention that it places his grand plan at risk for being discovered when his employees start turning up dead with mysterious lesions all over their bodies.

So much for holes in the main premise. Now let's looks at some of the bizarre lapses of judgment throughout the movie. The Sacks and his mentor, the Shredder*, discover that the turtles are alive and well and thus deduce that the mutagen-antidote is still to be found in their blood. The therefore determine to capture the turtles and to drain their blood, and then to extract the mutagen from this blood. This, I suppose, makes some sense as a possibility, but in the movie it is treated as an absolute certainty, and treated moreover as if it is expected that the turtles themselves are producing more of the mutagen—the initial draining seems to ear out this assumption, since they obtain about a liter or so of mutagen from the three captured turtles.

Then comes the first inexplicable error: Sacks decides to drain all of the turtles' blood instantly, rather than keeping them captive for a period and thus being able to extract a larger quantity of antidote. He has no other sure method for replicating the mutagen**, of which somewhat more than a few liters would be necessary if he is to carry ouf his plan of providing it as an antidote for the city. Which brings up the second related bizarre lapse of judgement: after capturing Leonardo, Donatello, and Michaelangelo, the Shredder leaves Splinter for dead (can the mutagen not also be extracted from Splinter's blood?), and does not even bother to bring Raphael's supposed corpse along to be similarly drained of blood/mutagen.

Raphael then goes to rescue his brothers from Sacks, with the aide of April O'Neil and her erstwhile partner, driver, and cameraman, Vernon Fenwick. He thus comes face-to-face with the Shredder, who promptly mops the floor with him, pointing to the four cells containing three turtles, and stating that the fourth cell is for Raphael. Then, inexplicably, he abandons his fight with Raphael and leaves him for a second time, actually leaves the premises to go carry out his and Sacks' evil plans. Oh, and he does this without bothering to wait for his Foot Clan thugs to arrive on the scene to cage Raphael.

In the meantime, April and Vernon free the other turtles. These other three are weak from being drained of so much blood—but a quick injection of adrenaline solves that problem, and with no crash later! Thereafter, the turtles experience no ill effects from blood loss—a side effect of the mutagen, perhaps?

They then make their getaway, in pursuit of the Shredder and Sacks. Having the pick of a jeep and several hummers, and knowing that they will be largely going off-road in ice and snow down a mountain side, they pick... a semi-truck and trailer***. And, during the ensuing chase scene, Vernon takes a breakform driving tocheck out April's butt, which result in his plowing the truck through a snowbank. There are no words.

Next up is a rooftop fight between the turtles and Shredder, who is easily more than a match for them [4]. They then team up and play a version of their childhood game (bucky-buck or something like that), which inexplicably allows them to beat him and knock him off of the building. Donatello is able to stop the toxin's release, but the Shredder has meantime made it back onto the roof and cuts the supports holding up the tower with his magic claw-knife/remote-controlled projectiles. The turtles then support the entire antennae—all 5 tons of it—on their backs, while Leonardo tells them not to move. Given that the only other person on the roof at the time is the Shredder, so it seems unlikely that they will be relieved of this burden anytime soon.

And here is the last inexplicable plot-hole (of sorts) which I will note. Inexplicably, the turtles are able to stand still while the Shredder in his robo-armor attacks them. This is the same Shredder-in-robot-armor who was previously mopping the floor with them as a group (let alone one-on-one). Also, his missile-claws have apparently stopped working, because here he only punches and kicks at Leonardo for a few moments before April arrives with the container of mutagen to simultaneously save the day and become the damsel in distress.

The previews for this movie suggested that it wasn't going to be great. Heck, it's the ninja turtles, for crying out loud. I went in to it not expecting much, thinking that it didn't show much promise. It still managed to disappoint; and if the PG-13 rating isn't enough to warn parents that this is not a movie to bring the small ones too, then my say-so probably doesn't mean much, but this is definitely not a movie for small children. Actually, one wonders what audience this movie is meant for. I can think of few for which it is suitable, save possibly prison inmates whose sentences seem a little too light.

*By my best guess, the Shredder must be about 80 years old in this movie. Sacks is born at a military base in Okinawa, and then loses his father in Vietnam. The Shredder becomes his mentor/sensei/father replacement at this time. It is strongly implied that this is the early parts of the war, and that the Shredder is already a well-trained martial artist. Assuming that he was 25 years old at this point, and thus on the young side of being able to fill this role for the young Sacks, and assuming that all of this occurred in the first few years of the war, that would make the Shredder 75 now. For that matter, one wonders how it is that Splinter knows this backstory.

**For that matter, they never really bother to test it on human subjects to see how it works there. Apparently, litigation is not an issue in this world. Come to think of it, I don't think they ever test it in any way to see whether it actually cures the toxins at all.

***The trailer is empty, and the reason for the truck's presence at all is kind of vague.

[4] After all, Splinter learns ninjitsu from a thin book on the subject, and they learn it from him. Shredder, on the other hand, is an accomplished master ninja wearing a complete set of robotic body armor complete with remote-controlled magic knife blades.

Some Final Football Thoughts

These are some final thoughts, now that the college football bowls are over.

First and foremost: congrats to FSU. In a similar vein, congrats to Jameis Winston, who finally had his "Heisman Moment" in that game-winnng drive. And huzzah that the SEC's overblown streak is finally over. I say overblown, because realistically the streak involves LSU, Alabama, Florida, and Cam Newton Auburn: impressive (4 different dominant teams! wow!) but really, that doesn't prove that the entire SEC is dominant. Bob Stoops was right, and he proved it on the field this year by whipping Alabama. The streak is over, in any case, and good riddance.

Second, if the SEC won all those championships (as opposed to the specific team that got invited to those games), then the entire SEC also lost this one. There were chants of "S-E-C! S-E-C!" once again when Auburn went up. I think they stopped about a minute later when it became clear that FSU would score again--this in a drive which took scarcely over a minute of game time. I didn't hear chants of "A-C-C! A-C-C!" when FSU took that final lead, because the ACC didn't win that game: FSU did. Of course, the fact that the ACC went 2-0 in its BCS bowl games this year (as opposed to the SEC's 0-2 record) could be taken as a nice bit of dominance for the conference, even if their number 3 blew a 21 point lead to Texas A&M. I don't know if fans around the country were chanting "Oh and 2! Oh and 2" or "Lost the game! Lost the Game" in response to the "S-E-C! S-E-C!" chants, but it would have been warranted.

---
The final rankings looked mostly fair, though I would have ranked MSU ahead of Auburn (they went 12-1 and won their BCS game against a very good Stanford team and an good Ohio State team; Auburn went 11-2 and beat a good but an overrated Alabama team and a good Missouri team). In general, I thought that the SEC's teams largely finished ranked too high (a friend of mine once remarked that this was "typical SEC inbreeding," this in response to that aweful Alabama-LSU championship). My top 10 would be something like this:
  1. FSU
  2. MSU
  3. Auburn
  4. UCF
  5. Oklahoma
  6. Oregon
  7. South Carolina
  8. Alabama
  9. Clemson
  10. Stanford

South Carolina's argument for being ranked so highly is that they beat UCF, Clemson, and Mizzouri, but UCF had no other loses and dominated Baylor in the Fiesta bowl, whereas South Carolina got whipped by Georgia (whom Clemson beat, back when they were healthy) and lost to the Tennessee team that both Alabama and Oregon blew off the field. Also arguably Alabama could be ranked higher, but I give the edge to a healthy Oregon. Alabama, Oregon, and South Carolina (and to a lesser extent, Clemson) are realistically interchangeable on this list, but I think they should all three be ranked lower than Oklahoma, thanks to that Sugar Bowl game. UCF could arguable be ranked lower, too, thanks to that close loss to South Carolina, but they had the better record and a few quality wins of their own.

Stanford (and lower down the list, Arizona State) is problematic, because I think they would beat at least half of the teams ranked ahead of them if they met at a neutral site (in Arizona State's case, maybe a couple of the top-10 teams, provided they aren't playing in a let-down bowl). Standford certainly did beat Oregon, and soundly, and I would take them over UCF, Oklahoma, Clemson, and possibly South Carolina and Auburn. On the other hand, they seem to lose to talented teams who match their style of play, so, probably Alabama and certainly FSU and MSU would beat them, and they finished with 3 losses, which is one more than anyone else in the top 10.

---
Overrated and Underrated in the final AP Poll:
I also think that Arizona State (#21) was under-ranked, largely thanks to that frustration loss to Texas Tech (a pattern with the Pac-12 in Holiday Bowl Games). They finished 10-4 and should at least have been ranked ahead of the 10-4 USC (#19) team that they clobbered in the regular season, as well as perhaps the 10-3 UCLA (#16) team that they beat. UCF (#10) was also very underrated: their one loss was by a field goal against a South Carolina Team which finished ranked 5th; they beat #15 Louisville (that team's only loss) and #13 Baylor (one of two losses); the one real complaint against them is that most of their wins were a bit closer than they should have been.

The most over-rated teams are from the SEC. Missouri (#5) was the most overrated team: they had one good win this season (Oklahoma State), and other than that beat a 9-4 Texas A&M team and a 9-4 Vanderbilt team. Their next best win was over banged-up Georgia. The 12-2 record was good, possibly top-10 good (some people will complain that I have UCF too high, for example). I would probably rank them 11th or 12th. I suppose that to be fair, Alabama's two best wins were Texas A&M and #14 LSU, but few would complain about making them a top-10 team. And Texas A&M's best wins were Rice (!), Vanderbilt (!), and Duke (!). And it seems to me that overall, all those teams who beat Texas A&M got a lot of rankings traction out of it.

---
Moving on to other football topics, Texas hired Charlie Strong. This seems like a solid hire, though I'm curious to see what he does with his staff. I'd either retain Greg Robinson for another year in the hopes that Will Muschamp becomes available after that, or else go after Gene Chizik for defensive coordinator, though I guess defense is one of Strong's, erm, strong suits. I think that 10-3 with a win (or at least close loss) against OU would count as a reasonably successful debut, depending on injuries etc. They play UCLA out of conference next season, so between that and OU and resurgent KSU and Baylor and possibly OSU, it could be a tough slate. But give him a couple of years, and we'll see.

---
For what it is worth, Strong was not my first choice. I think he's a good choice, but of the (reasonably likely) candidates whose names were tossed out, I'd have preferred either Art Briles or Jim Harbaugh (even if that meant waiting a little longer), or Mark Dantonio. Briles said no, and I guess they decided that Harbaugh wasn't worth the wait, and Dantonio similarly said no. I was left scratching my head as names like Urban Meyer, Jimbo Fisher, Gus Malzahan, and (earlier) Nick Saban were tossed out. None of these guys was going to be a realistic choice, and even Briles and Dantonio would have been longshots (they're both happy where they are).Jim Harbaugh was also unlikely, though he hasn't exactly signed a contract extension.

GoldieBlox and the Three Mares

When I first saw the GoldieBlox "Princess Machine" ad, my initial reaction was, I'm not going to buy anything from these guys for my daughter. This is because I saw the original version with the parody of Beastie Boys "Girls". This version has disappeared, apparently because the Beastie Boys began inquiring as to why their material was used without their permission. Meanwhile, GoldieBlox reaction has been to sue Beastie Boys over this inquiry.

This is all basically in the background of my mind, actually. It's a bit classless for GoldieBlox to go about it this way, but that's not really where my complaints lay. Rather, I took exception to the parody lyrics (and their implications--I've empasized some):

Girls. You think you know what we want, girls

Pink and pretty it’s girls.

Just like the 50’s it’s girls.

You like to buy us pink toys

And everything else is for boy

And you can always get us dolls

And we’ll grow up like them... false.

It’s time to change.

We deserve to see a range.

‘Cause all our toys look just the same

And we would like to use our brains.

We are all more than princess maids.

Girls to build the spaceship,

Girls to code the new app,

Girls to grow up knowing

That they can engineer that.Girls.

That’s all we really need is Girls.

To bring us up to speed it’s Girls.

Our opportunity is Girls.

Don’t underestimate Girls.

For crying out loud, I know that these lyrics are making fun of a song about girls being treated as nothing more than "maids", though they're really also making fun of housewives, stay-at-home moms, home-makers.
Girls!
You deserve better
Girls!
Than thinly veiled whining
Girls!
About the old patriarchy
Girls!
And an imagined glass ceiling.

Note the insinuation, "That's all we really need is Girls." Boys are not needed, we can dispense with men. This may not be the intention of the company or the ad, but in a society which is saturated with this message, that is what comes across. The further insinuation that women who choose not to pursue engineering careers--or really any careers--but rather to embrace the vocation of home-maker and mother to the exclusion of other careers don't use their brains is, well, demeaning to say the least.

The commercial itself was really not too bad, though. With the lyrics removed, it's actually pretty well-done, and exactly the kind of thing I'd like to do with my children when they are old enough to appreciate it:




Well, other than perhaps the fact that all three girls look very bored with their pretty-princess show. That kind of thing would probably bore some girls. Others really like it--and it's not a matter of just "gender-socializing" or some other psycho-babble nonsense. Indeed, my (rather progressive) sister once commented to me that her daughters had socialized themselves to like the whole Cinderella/Disney-princess/dolls thing. Actually, the look of the three girls at the beginning is less bored than angry, which I suppose fits the attitude of feminists the world over.

It's just unfortunate that the approach to this is, "We don't need boys!" which reads a lot like "Up with womyn, down with men!" in our cultural milieu. Similarly with the attitude that traditional "girl toys" (and by extension, feminine gender roles) do not require a functioning brain. There are no "mere" housewives, and nobody is "just a mother."

Anyway, my children currently consist of a baby daughter. She's not old enough to play with these kinds of things (they tend to present a choking hazard at her age), but I have big plans for science/engineering exploration with her (her mother, on the other hand, plans to do the same with music). The fact that this company felt the need to turn me off to its products would seem to be rather unfortunate for them, and it unfortunate for us too. I like the idea of my little girls getting into engineering and science (more fun for me, too!), but not at the expense of their femininity. Certainly, not at the price of having some chip on her shoulder against the men in her field, if she does some day decide to go the STE route. To be blunt, that's a true mark of equality between the sexes: when women can enter the field without having a chip of their shoulders against their male colleagues--and when men can look at these women as partners and not merely rivals. Ads like the one first put forth by GoldieBlox do not help to accomplish this.

Rant: Obamacare and Schadenfreude

Jonah Goldberg's latest at National Review is a delight to read. Some will say that we are rejoicing over others' suffering. I am not rejoicing over the suffering of those who have seen their premium skyrocket and their policies get cancelled. Granted, a large number (a majority, perhaps?) can certainly be said to have brought it on themselves--they did, after all, vote to re-elect Barack Obama to the Presidency and a Democratic Party majority in the Senate. Lesson learned? Perhaps, perhaps not. We'll see what 2014 brings.

But no, this set of just deserts is not the cause of conservative glee. I'm certainly sorry even for those who were duped into voting for Obama, and even for those who continue to insist that it still wasn't a mistake to re-elect him. I don;t want them to suffer, I just want them to not be in power, since they generally make bad decisions which the rest of us have to live with.

Here is the real source of conservative glee in all of this:

As a matter of public policy and fiscal health, this is a mixed bag. It’s good that poor sick people without insurance coverage are getting something. On the other side of the scale, we have the fact that the country is racing toward entitlement-fueled bankruptcy. So if you can overlook that, yippee!

But as a political and ideological matter, this is beyond fantastic. For years we’ve been told that Democrats were more “reality-based,” that “facts have a liberal bias,” in the words of Paul Krugman, and that if they could just have their way, they could fix all of our problems. No one represented this arrogant promise more than Barack Obama himself. But, with an irony so rich it would be made of Corinthian leather if it was a car seat, the only way he could get his signature legislation passed was to baldly and brazenly lie about it, over and over and over again. He created a rhetorical cloud castle where no one would lose his insurance, every family would save thousands of dollars, and millions of the uninsured would suddenly get coverage. Anyone who doubted this was called a fool or a liar, or even a racist. It was, in the parlance of liberalism, a “false choice” to assert that Obamacare couldn’t be a floor wax and a dessert topping.

It is indeed a very Christian sentiment, "How the haughty are brought low" (Isaiah 2:17, 5:15; Luke 1:52). And I can think of few people in living memory more haughty than President Obama, and to a lesser extent his enablers and their supporters. How many times during the "#Shutdown" were we told that Republicans just wanted to take Obamacare hostage by delaying it? That they should be made to kneel like good subjects before the throne of Barack Almighty, kiss his ring, and beg his forgiveness for opposing the Obamacare Bill?

And now, scarcely a month and a half later, all we are hearing from the Democrats in Congress is that we need some sort of delay for Obamacare. Suddenly they're suggesting that maybe we should hold off on the whole thing until it myriad "bugs"--a euphemism for the various unfortunate features and predictable if unintentional bad effects--can be fixed. That very suggestion was actually called "racist" when Republicans were making it.

My suggestion is that we scrap the whole damn thing, starting with the worthless and tyrannical HHS mandate, and nearly equally tyrannical though apparently Constitutional individual mandate. If we're going to require everyone to have healthcare insurance, we could at least be sensible in what we require the healthcare plans to cover--big and unexpected costs, emergency services (for true emergencies), perhaps a check-up/physical once per year. The rest should be at best optional. And if we're going to admit that the purpose the Obamacare is to subsidize debauchery and hedonism for Millenials (and beyond), that we should scrap the whole thing. It really is reasonable and fair to make people dig into their "beer money" to buy their own contraceptives, whether at $9/month (the actual cost) or $18k over 4 years (the claimed cost).

Then there's the fact that many American have lost their insurance--the insurance that they largely chose for themselves--to Obamacare in spite of the president's "promise" (really an outright lie) to the contrary:


The president and his administration have doubled down on this lie by first claiming that he "misspoke" when he made this promise, that he had never really made this promise. When he realized that people have a tough time believing that he misspoke when he uttered nearly the exact same phrase 36 times (or probably more), he switched to claiming that the insurance lost was "substandard." This apparently means that it didn't cover contraception and maternity leave for 70 year old men. That contraception coverage is crucial--why else would the penalty for not covering contraception/sterilization/some abortions be steeper than not providing any healthcare at all ($100/employee/day = ~36,500/employee/year for the former and $2000/employee/year for the latter)?

But in the meantime, it is certainly entertaining to sit back and watch our haughty president and his arrogant supporters squirm a bit. And not just because they have been lying repeatedly to the American people for the last several years.

A Few Good Links (vol 10): Shutdown Theater Edition

The (partial) Shutdown lingers as Democrats continue to refuse to make any compromises or concession, or to really negotiate in any way with the Republicans. Republicans, for their art, seem interested only in blocking Obamacare, (which would be a great victory if accomplished), and have done little to suggest that they will take any other concessions.

Who wins a shutdown showdown? Only time will tell.

1. A D.C. Bartender has a novel idea for a progressive pricing system for beer.
2. Many of the things being shutdown--while being technically "nonessential--are also completely unnecessary, meaning that there is no reason for them to shutdown. A few are even things which are not own, operated, or funded by the federal government, and many more are things which local (state, etc.) governments have offered to run during the shutdown. Some of the most ridiculous includes the fact that there are often more "enforcement agents" (federal park rangers) being placed on duty to prevent people from viewing certain attraction than would normally have been on duty to begin with.





"The public may visit the World War II Memorial 24 hours a day. Rangers are on duty to answer questions from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily and to provide" (from the WWII memorial Website, before it was closed down).



3. Obama's favorite golf course on federal lands will remain open. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, Obama will golf while DC is shut down. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has been telling government employees (e.g. park rangers, etc) to make the shutdown as difficult as possible. Perhaps this is why the feds are closing down popular attractions/memorials/etc while leaving lesser-known ones open. President Obama--not the House, not even the Senate, but Obama and his administration--is apparently picking and choosing what gets closed and what stays open during the #Shutdown. So while we might blame the shutdown on the Republicans in the House (for starting it by refusing to compromise on Obamacare), or the Democrats in the Senate (for keeping it going by also refusing to compromise on much of anything), it's worth noting that Obama is the one who is deciding to make the shutdown as painful as possible. And that is really the big difference between this shutdown, and the previous 17 which occurred under previous Administrations/Congresses since 1976.
4. Some of the more heavy-handed tactics of the Shutdown Theater are drawing comparisons to the Gestapo. Yikes!
5. It's bad when feds (under orders from Obama's Administration) decide to not only block off parks and trails, but to block off roadside areas from which monuments (like Mount Rushmore) can be viewed or photographed.
   

   "Blocking access to trails and programs at South Dakota’s most popular attraction was one thing, but state officials didn’t expect Congress’ budget stalemate to shut down a view of Mount Rushmore....
   
   Jim Hagen, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tourism, said the situation is hurting people from out-of-state and international visitors who are in South Dakota to visit the monument.
   
   “They won’t even let you pull off on the side of the road,” Hagen said. “I just don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.”... "
   
   "Daugaard offered to keep Mount Rushmore open using state resources, Dusty Johnson noted. The National Park Service declined."
   

   I wonder if they'll close down or block off federal roads next.
6. Surprisingly, the White House is actually having to go on the defensive, as is Harry Reid. This is good. Reid has refused to make any kind of reasonable concessions, and Obama has done his darnedest to inflict the maximum amount of suffering throughout this shutdown. Some will argue that Obama is not trying to inflict any suffering, that he's just following the rules. These people are gullible, though not surprising (he had to win election and then re-election somehow). Before Obama's press secretary took this approach, there was another set of people who argued that Obama was attempting to take actions which would compel the Republicans to act--this is a shrinking minority of people, though I may have one foot in this camp. The Third set of people, and I certainly count myself among them, note that this has all the feel of a national temper tantrum on Obama's part. There's also the fact that the government shutdown is intended to make people squeal for more government.
7. Also, can anyone imagine the hay that the Democratic Party and their stooges in the media would make if it had been a Republican (rather than Obama's puppet Senator Reid) who said that he doesn't want to save the children with cancer? It would be headlined in the mainstream press, rather than on Fox or in the Daily Mail. The headlines would not read, for example "Come on, No. Harry Reid Doesn't Hate Kids with Cancer" if Reid were a Republican. Rather, that sound bite would be played again and again, with any context buried far down near (but not at) the bottom of the story. Whatever happened to "if it helps save just one child's life?"
8. Much of the government continues to run during this shutdown:
   

   "This week’s “shutdown” of government, for example, suffers (at least for those of us curious to see it reduced to Somali levels) from the awkward fact that the overwhelming majority of the government is not shut down at all. Indeed, much of it cannot be shut down. Which is the real problem facing America. “Mandatory spending” (Social Security, Medicare, et al) is authorized in perpetuity – or, at any rate, until total societal collapse. If you throw in the interest payments on the debt, that means two-thirds of the federal budget is beyond the control of Congress’s so-called federal budget process. That’s why you’re reading government “shutdown” stories about the Panda Cam at the Washington Zoo and the first lady’s ghost-Tweeters being furloughed."

9. Mark Steyn offers some levity with his Song of the National Park Service.
10. It seems that there's always a lot more "moderate" Republicans than moderate Democrats. Hence, it is almost always the Republicans who compromise and cave.
11. Meanwhile, the (leftist) "Open Borders" rally on public land (the National Mall) will be allowed to go forward during the shutdown.
12. If we can have an open borders rally, why not a trucker rally to close down DC? Ace has already used this, but what the heck:
    


13. More levity, this time from the Onion.
14. So what has the GOP-controlled House been up to during this shutdown? They have tried and tried to restore some funding to the government, and have even passed some legislation which is unquestionably reasonable (such as laws which remove Obamacare exemptions from members of Congress, though unfortunately not from the Preseident and his staff). Hey, if it's good enough for us, it's good enough for them. Almost all of this has been blocked by the Democrat-controlled Senate (and been threatened with veto from Obama), including (incidentally) the removal of the exemptions.
15. Speaking of Obamacare, there are apparently even long line to actually sign up for it, with very few "success" stories.And even some groups which initially supported Obamacare (e.g. unions) are protesting it now that they are getting to see what it actually contains:
    

    

    Obama has his own reasons for stalling or otherwise delaying parts of Obamacare, and for selectively exempting certain companies, parties, and people. For some reason, that privilege doesn't extend to Congress in general and the House (from which all budgets must originate as per the Constitution) in particular.

16. The shutdown really isn't that bad (some levity). Actually, I post a lot of the "negative" aspects of it, not only to point out what a spiteful and petty little man Obama is, but also to remind myself why we would want the government to start back up again.
17. Priests face arrest for volunteering to offer Mass (etc) to troops (and this without any compensation at all). Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that Obama is an enemy of the Church.
18. The Senate Chaplain is none-too-thrilled about the shutdown, and in particular about the Senate's (and Obama's) part in it.

I may return to a few of these points later as time permits. I've been pretty busy lately, and don't foresee any slackening of my schedule.

Bottom of the Barrel

The other guy has already written up his reflection on Joseph Bottom's interminably pointless Commonweal piece. Rock bottom, indeed. It's not just the despair and "weariness" of the piece, which really was "weary and wearisome" (as somebody who was not fired from First Things so aptly put it). There have been many criticisms leveled at it, though I think that Emily Stimpson's summary of them should suffice from hitting each one in turn:

Around the 1,000 word mark, however, I realized this piece was more worthy of skimming than reading. That’s the point where he fell into the heresy of Americanism, noting that “We are now at the point where, I believe, American Catholics should accept state recognition of same-sex marriage simply because they are Americans.”
Right. 

That tidbit of heretical wisdom and just about every other shortcoming of the essay is being roundly criticized elsewhere on the Catholic internet. I don’t disagree with a one of those criticisms. The essay was interminably long, rambling, self-indulgent, shoddily reasoned, and woefully deficient in its grasp of first principles—of what really matters.

I feel a little sorry for him, because from reading the comments around the internet, it would seem that he doesn't have many friends left in this fight. As Mark Shea put it, "I come back to work today and FB is teeming with flutterings about Jody Bottum and Miley Cyrus. And for the same reasons." On the other side, Bottom knows that his gay friend isn't going to be mollified: the "homosexualists" who are pushing this campaign don't want to stop at winning on marriage, but rather are engaged in a scorched-earth campaign in which surrender isn't an option save on the terms presented Germany after the first World War.

The attitude of those driving this campaign, of those to whom Bottom is surrendering, is encapsulated in this early comment on Ross Douthat's post about the whole affair (my empahsis added):

Listen closely, and you can almost hear the angels tap dancing on the head of a pin. Douthat analyses an analysis of church doctrine, trying to find relevance for a worldview that Oscar Wilde may have been stuck with, but that today doesn't seem to be worth the electronic ink spilled to discuss it. Gay people are real, and religion isn't. The happiness of gay people is worth more than all the hateful hypocrisy the Church has ever uttered. If the love homosexuals feel for each other can rattle the foundations of the Church, then the Church deserves to crumble. We're constantly hearing about the Church denying the full participation of women, demeaning gay people, shielding pedophiles and inserting nonsensical dogma into public policy. It's embarrassing, and it needs to stop.

Left unsaid is how, exactly, it will be "made to stop" (and also, since the person writing it is not a faithful Catholic, how, exactly, it can be "embarrassing"), but the final solution isn't going to be pretty. And if this essay encourages the Bottom-Feeders who would seek to destroy the Catholic Church, I can only imagine the kind of damage done by lines like this:

Mostly when people today toss out a reference to “natural law”, they really mean “biology.” To be crass, they mean “those parts don’t fit together.” If they’re Catholic or Mormon, they might toss in “and they can’t make a baby“. Let me tell you who is convinced by this argument: exactly no one, including, usually, the person making it.... 

I just also happen to agree with Joseph Bottum, that the fight over gay civil marriage is not the good fight we should be fighting....Attempting to stop legalized gay civil marriage because of the “grave threat” it poses seems disingenuous, not just to gay people but to everyone. Even to me. Where was the united effort to stop legalized no-fault divorce? Or contraception? We didn’t fight those civil battles. Why are we fighting this one? 

With friends like these, who needs enemies? The first commenter out the gate takes her to task on this one:

"Where was the united effort to stop legalized no-fault divorce? Or contraception? We didn’t fight those civil battles. Why are we fighting this one?"

It's before my conversion too, but I would never say "we" as if no one fought in my absence. You seem to be saying that "we" should not fight now, and just wait until the disordered society is thoroughly disordered. How can you say there was no "we" fighting before and now ask the current "we" why we are fighting?

She's joined by the next one:

The battle against contraception and against no-fault divorce was barely fought and completely lost before I was even born. Why should the failures of the previous generation force me to throw up my hands on the only live issue on which I can articulate a unitive-procreative view of marriage as opposed to a contractual-emotional model? If everyone thinks that marriage must include same-sex couples, they can't admit the first model. Our recitince to argue against this hurts our chances of re-opening the issues of divorce and contraception.

My sentiments exactly. And it's more than a little annoying to have my sincerity (collectively) called into question by turncoats and people who have all but admitted that they don't know what they're talking about. That our parents' and grandparents' generations largely drove the culture to the edge of the cliff on the whole marriage issue so that we have been teetering on the brink (at best) is no excuse for us to insist on finishing the job. Why is it that with these people, it's always an either/or?

Either we can love our spouses and raise our children rightly (Alexander's suggestion, which is itself not bad advice) or we can fight against gay "marriage" in the political realm; I just don't buy it. It's little different from arguing that pro-lifers don't care about children once they're born: it's not only false, but actually disingenuous. The gay "marriage" equivalent is now apparently "pro family people only care about the marriage until the man and woman say 'I do.'"

I can understand that some people are too weary to fight what they see as a loosing fight, too tired to run a losing race, and thus want to bow out. I can even understand the desire to punt on this issue, the supposedly "bad fight" of the Christian right (the "good fight" being against abortion). But if you plan on punting, it would be nice to at least make sure you're personally punting on this issue rather than kicking the people who are willing to attempt the fourth down. It seems (to hide behind the same word as Alexander uses) as if these people not only never cared about this fight, but frankly never wanted Christians to win it. I've known too many people who seemed quick to criticize the Church, in particular through criticizing particular individuals, while pretending to be on the Church's side, only to show their true colors by actively rooting for the fight to be lost. I don't know if Alexander and Bottom are such people, but their writings on the subject sure seem to fit the model.

And while I suspect that neither Bottom nor Alexander wants to see the church take it in the, er, teeth on this issue, they sure seem quick to surrender without attempting to negotiate some sort of exit strategy. We're fighting an opponent whose basic strategy is scorched earth. We haven't yet seen whether our opponents in this particular battle of the culture war will take prisoners and treat them with mercy, but the outlook on the likelihood of that is rather grim.

If the rest of this rant is born of frustration, I should add something in charity to the end. If you want to give up on this fight, and focus on some other fight, or look into some other avenue, look to evangelize the culture, or whatever because the engagement with this dirty bit of politics is not to your liking, then please: at least have the courtesy do do so without stabbing the rest of us in the back. Make a clean break, and by all means be honest, but try to do so without calling the integrity and honesty of the rest of us into question. You may have spent the last few years fighting for something that you didn't believe in, but some of us really do think that this is a fight worth winning, or (barring that), worth losing. Don't go throwing us under the bus for the sake of getting better treatment from the would-be cultural victors.

Quote of the Day: On Justice and Mercy

Father Dwight Longenecker has a interesting post-combo (for lack of a better term) about "Peace and Justice" Catholics and "Purity and Piety Catholics." I think the point of the post is to be irenic, to reconcile both the "conservative" and the "liberal" Catholics. It's practically a work of mercy to do this, and I think he gets some things right and some things wrong:

The left is wrong and the right is wrong and the left is right and the right is right.

Peace and justice Catholics are right to take a prophetic stance against corporate greed, governments that engage in unjust war, the destruction of the environment, racism and any form of injustice. They are right to stand up for the poor, the marginalized and those on the margins of society. They are wrong, however, when they foster dissent in the church and turn a blind eye to the moral teachings and the authority of the Catholic church. 

Too often when the Peace and Justice Catholics demand peace they really mean the appeasement of evil. Too often they mistake pacifism for peace. Similarly, they too often they call for justice for some oppressed group, but never think that justice would also judge their moral laxity. Why don’t the Peace and Justice Catholics demand justice for the millions of unborn babies that have been slaughtered? 

On the other side, the Piety and Purity conservatives are all for “family values”. They are opposed to same sex marriage, contraception, abortion and divorce. However they are too often silent about the injustice in our society. I’m shocked at the anti-semitism and subtle racism I sometimes hear within their ranks. I’m worried when their conservative family values are equated with a jingoistic, uncritical American patriotism and militarism. Why are the silent about the assault on the environment, the plight of immigrants and the widening wealth disparity in the developed world? Why do we hear so little about their involvement in the fight against hunger and solidarity with the poor? Why are they so often dismissive and hateful of everyone not like themselves?

He then goes on to say that we should all strive to be "Justice and Mercy" Catholics, a point I agree with. But. It seems like in the hurry to try and appeal to both sides, these kinds of posts often alienate a lot of people. My main beef is that while he picks on two sides which do exist, one of these two sides has a lot more representatives than the other.

His "silly caricature" of the liberal Catholics actually does describe many of the liberal Catholics I know. They say that it's important to care about the poor and downtrodden, and place primary concern on "social justice," then decide that social justice is best applied to calling for open borders and in-state tuition for "undocumented immigrants" and greater government social spending (a few of the better ones do, to their credit, volunteer in food pantries and soup kitchens and the like). And perhaps just as often, while they call of the government to spend more and more to accomplish less and less in the name of their faith, they openly oppose any attempts to regulate abortions, and (even more commonly) actively support the so-called "gay agenda" up to and including spending their time calling those of us who support traditional marriage bigots (I once was called this by a liberal Catholic friend for saying that I thought the sacrament of Holy Matrimony could only be received by a man and a woman regardless of what society as a whole does).

On the other hand, I find that his "silly caricature" of the "Piety and Purity" (conservative) Catholics really is mostly a caricature. I know one or two Catholics who are like this, but most of the conservative Catholics I know still do care about (and even volunteer to help) the poor and downtrodden, even if we exclude the poorest and most downtrodden of all (the unborn, and for that matter women in "crisis pregnancies"). Perhaps it is because I don't frequent the Latin Mass.

It seems to me that there is a second problem, related to the first. Suppose we grant the caricatures (e.g. that the "Purity and Piety" crowd is surly and grumpy and looks down on others, that the "Peace and Justice" crowd openly undermines Church authority, gleefully subverts the Church's doctrines, and actively flaunts the Church's moral teachings). Which is worse? The former is bad, I'll grant, in that it turns people off to the Church. But the latter is worse, in that it turns people off to the Church while saying that the Church is not something which is worth heeding even in principle. It muddies the waters, so that those who want to figure out what the Church really does teach are left confused.

I agree with Fr Longenecker, though, that both camps have room for improvement, and I like the "Justice and Mercy" idea, though I think that a better summary would be to say that the conservatives want justice without mercy, and the liberals want mercy without justice.