Happy As Kings

David Brooks: No War is an Island

Concerning Gaza, it is hard, after living through the years of PLO terrorism that was hand-in-glove with Ireland's "Troubles", and Europe's terrorists, to separate one's long-standing views & biases from the shock of seeing the devastation raining down on the innocents. David Brooks seems to put the present tragedy for the people in Gaza into a perspective.

David Brooks: No War is an Island 

This whole conflict has the feel of a proxy war.

Turkey and Qatar are backing Hamas in the hopes of getting the upper hand in their regional rivalry with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Egyptians and even the Saudis are surreptitiously backing or rooting for the Israelis, in hopes that the Israeli force will weaken Hamas.

It no longer makes sense to look at the Israeli-Palestinian contest as an independent struggle. It, like every conflict in the region, has to be seen as a piece of the larger 30 Years’ War.

 

As usual, what you see probably depends on where you're standing. Wherever you're standing, the calamity for the innocent is heart-breaking.

 

Hobby Lobby's Christian values

If Hobby Lobby objects to contraception as a routine part of health insurance because they say it may violate their religious objection to abortion, why does the store stock items imported from China? If the no-contraception policy were actually a deal-breaker because of religious principles, shouldn't the company find suppliers from countries that don't force women to undergo involuntary abortions?

I understand that finding products not manufactured in China probably would result in higher-priced craft supplies, but either Hobby Lobby's anti-abortion principles apply globally and the company refuses to buy products from a country that has an official policy of a single child per family (or else), or the company's commitment to those principles is situational.  

Do the people who own Hobby Lobby only object to American abortions?

Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown

Regarding a report by a website named The Daily Caller (among many).

Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

Catholic priests have been in short supply for the military for some time. When my twins were baptized in 1981 in Munich, the priest was a contractor. Part of the problem of the lack of priests was because of decreased vocations, and part of it was a "main line denomination" decrease in the number of priests and pastors choosing to be military chaplains in the wake of the war in Vietnam.

The "arrest" part might be entering a controlled area during the shutdown when access might be severely restricted to control any misbehavior on the parts of people who aren't happy about the shutdown of the government by the House of Representatives' refusal to govern.  The members of Congress grandstanding over this issue can solve the problem easily -- do their jobs and govern instead of having a tantrum.

The restriction against "ministering" probably has to do with the legal ramifications of the contracts.

When I was a new employee in the military community civilian personnel office in Fulda, Germany in the mid-1970s, I was the only American in the office. The office was new to administering the personnel actions of American civilian workers in the community and the three people already in the office were Germans who administered the civilian personnel side for the German employees. German employees of the American Army far outnumbered American employees because of treaty agreements, for continuity reasons, and because there were no American workers to be plumbers, electricians, maintenance people, or fill many other jobs.

Anyhow, I was a GS-3, and as a probationary employee I wasn't supposed to work unsupervised. The wrinkle was, German and American holidays.  As an American employee I would be working on German holidays while my German supervisors would be at home, holidaying.

To try to solve the problem, I volunteered to work on American holidays when my immediate supervisors were at work, and to take off on German holidays while they were off.  The problem with my solution was that would mess with the needs of the American employees, and it was illegal, as in against existing pay regulations.

My American boss (in a community 50 miles away -- we were a satellite office) worked it out by having me call her on the telephone at regular intervals throughout the day (a solution that seemed to last only for the first German holiday). The contracts with the priests probably have similar regulatory restrictions.

I'm guessing the restriction on ministering would apply only to services held in chapels on military installations. Catholic service members are free to attend any Catholic church and the contractors are free to celebrate mass in their home church.

This has nothing to do with the First Amendment and seems to have everything to do with members of Congress making a mess and trying to fix it by special exception "bandages" whenever someone they favor is inconvenienced or the "bandage" would make a good Tweet.

 

Update:

The law governing whether employees can "volunteer" their services is the Antideficiency Act.  This law was not passed to deal with the current government shutdown (has any law been passed recently?), but is from 1884 (according to Wikipedia).  Yes, eighteen-eighty-four.  

According to the Antideficiency page at the GAO site, 

The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal employees from

• making or authorizing an expenditure from, or creating or authorizing an obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in the appropriation or fund unless authorized by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(A). 
• involving the government in any obligation to pay money before funds have been appropriated for that purpose, unless otherwise allowed by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(B). 
• accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342. 
• making obligations or expenditures in excess of an apportionment or reapportionment, or in excess of the amount permitted by agency regulations. 31 U.S.C. § 1517(a).

You'd think that lawmakers would know something about the laws they're tinkering with.

Germany and homeschooling: fact-checking the Romeike situation

The reversal in May of 2012 by the Department of Homeland Security of the granting of asylum to the Romeike family from Germany is emotionally upsetting -- no one likes to see children threatened with action from a government.  Hearing about it is distressing and makes people want to do something.

• Romeike v. Holder, Case No. 12-3641  (awaiting submission, as of yesterday, 12 Mar 2013)

Yelling about Hitler (just Google Romeike v. Holder) and President Obama, though, is not constructive action.  At this point, unless the topic is WWII, using the name Hitler to make a point is political spin using hot-button words to generate even more emotion, and perhaps also to raise more donations for a legal fund.

A goodly portion of German laws probably did carry over from the laws of the Third Reich, and many of the Third Reich's laws probably carried over from the Weimar Republic. Drivers still had to stop at stop signs, people expected that others who handled cash would not embezzle, and spouses' partners probably expected that their significant others should refrain from bigamy. To make entirely new laws would require the overhaul of an entire society. Schooling laws from one era to another also probably resembled each other, but the laws were not in themselves "Nazi-era" artifacts pointed at the hearts of homeschooling families.

• Modern History Sourcebook: The Federal Republic of Germany Basic Law, 1949

Is the Basic Law American in flavor?  No.  Is it democratic?  Yes.  The Federal Republic of Germany has a representative government in a similar vein to that of the U.S.

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Claim:  The Romeike family was granted asylum by the Bush administration and the Obama administration has reversed that.

Fact: The Romeike family arrived in the U.S. from Germany in August of 2008, probably entering the country using regular passports and most likely clearing immigration as tourists would. President Obama took office in January of 2009 and a pre-hearing brief on the Romeikes is dated 16 December 2009. The decision granting asylum was issued in January 2010.

On January 26, 2010 ... Judge Lawrence O. Burman granted asylum to Uwe and Hannalore Romeike ...

... Uwe Romeike and his family arrived in Atlanta in August 2008, with little fanfare and only their suitcases.

Source:  HSLDA Court Report, March/April 2010

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Claim:  Hitler made it so German families couldn't homeschool, and the current German government won't change that.

Fact:  Organized schoolling in the lands that became Germany has a long history, and it is a source of pride.

Headline from the newspaper Ausburger Allgemeine, 23 December 2002

From Swabia and Upper Bavaria:   Without School, No Wedding

200 Years ago, Duke Max IV Joseph of Bavaria directed the compulsory schooling of children

The duke was serious about compulsory schooling, showed by how the graduation certificate was one of the keys to later life. It must be tendered if one wanted to establish a business in a trade, or if one wanted to buy a house. Also, one couldn’t marry without this certificate.

(translation)

The need for the "village helping to raise the child" runs deeply in German society. I once had a woman (a cleaning lady in the military guest house soon after we arrived) take a bottle from my year-old son's mouth to warm it under a stream of hot water in the sink. Given my knowledge now of how Germans viewed cold drinks I'm assuming she explained, as I didn't yet know any German, that the cold milk would give him a stomach ache.  Years later an older German woman on a bicycle chided me and my children's piano teacher for crossing the street on a red light that had changed while we were walking.  Apparently, we were setting a bad example for my kids who were with us.  You can also read the light-hearted account in Planet Germany about strangers' concerns for children not wearing hats:  "Of course, it is disconcerting for a first-time British mother that strangers will accost her on the street and express concern about the child's upbringing." (p. 206)

Communal concern for kids isn't seen as interference, but as a responsibility. 

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Claim:  Germany persecutes Christians

Fact:  Where to start?

• With compulsory schooling under Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse, in German) -- in the year 813 -- being rooted in the desire to "develop the understanding of Christian teaching in the people"?
• With the present language, "High" German, stemming from Luther's translation of the Bible?
• With the compulsory religion classes in school, depending on whether you're Catholic (Katholische), Protestant (Evangelische), nondenominational Christian (Freireligioese), or atheist?
  
  Lehrplan Katholische Religion 2010
  Lehrplan Evangelische Religion 2010
  Lehrplan Freireligioese Religion Sek. I (and Sek. II)  
  Lehrplan Ethik 2010  
  (taken from the Teaching Plan, linked above, for the state of Hesse in college prep schools)
  
  
• With taxes used to support churches? 
• With the legal religious holidays, all of which are Christian? (document of school holidays and school vacation schedules for the various states; vacations are staggered so that everyone isn't off at the same time -- schoolkids and workers -- clogging the already busy highways into gridlock)
• With the network of religiously-oriented schools (in this case, those in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg)?

Is the German expression of being Christian identical to the American expression of it?  Of course not. In the U.S. the various versions of Christian expression differ, so why wouldn't there be dissimilarities between countries?  Whose "Christianity" is the right one?  

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Claim:  The Romeikes will be thrown in jail after leaving the U.S.

Fact: Deportation is not extradition.

Theoretically, the family could still move to any country they want.  Deportation means they must leave the U.S., not that they will be extradited to Germany. 

• Extradition in International Law (Google Books)
  
   Theoretically there should be no confusion between extradition and deportation.  They are clearly distinct in purpose.  The object of extradition is to restore a fugitive criminal to the jurisdiction of a State which has a lawful claim to try or punish him for an offence. ... Deportation, on the other hand, is the means by which a State rids itself of an undesired alien.  Its purpose is achieved as soon as the alien has departed from its territory; the ultimate destination of a deportee is of no significance in this respect.

 

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Is homeschooling a perilous undertaking in Germany?  It can be, and probably is more so since the American campaign to demonize Germany for their constitutionally legal laws -- the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany is not identical to the constitution of the United States of America, but it is a constitution.  Americans seeking to change the German constitution are probably as welcome in Germany as any constitution-changers are in the U.S.

Any change in the compulsory schooling laws of the various German states will have to come from within the culture of Germany and not as a result of exporting American culture.  Foreign shouting about schooling laws will probably have as much effect on the average German voter as the rantings and flag-burnings by angry young Muslim men do on Joe Six-Pack, soccer moms, or helicopter parents.  

The Romeike family could have moved to another country within the European Union with fewer long-term uncertainties for their children.  If they had moved to Austria, the language would have remained reasonably the same (perhaps the difference between Brooklyn and Alabama?), and they would have been able to continue homeschooling.  The Neubronners moved to France (3rd paragraph; translate here).  Jonas Himmelstrand of Sweden fled to Finland.  

Why did someone think that the Romeikes moving to the U.S., specifically to claim asylum, was a better idea than moving within the E.U.?  Was the purpose for the Romeike family to merely be able to homeschool, or were they to serve as a symbol within the U.S., as a rallying point here?  Is this situation about generating fears for American homeschooling?  Whatever the reason for suggesting that they come to the U.S. and helping them move here, they're in the thick of it.

I wish the Romeike family good things in whatever comes. They look like nice people who want only what's best for their children and they remind me of the Germany I miss.  I hope they find someplace to live where they won't need special conditional permission to continue homeschooling their children.

Religious Civil Rights: Why Have the Washington Times and the Air Force Academy Savaged Them?

 Last week, a Washington Times editorial, "Air Force witchcraft," tried denigrating adherents of earth-centered religions by referencing a timely quote from Julius Caesar.

The religions of the barbaric tribes of Europe faded away as the Roman conquest brought civilization to the region. ... "They have likenesses of immense size, the limbs of which are composed of wicker, that they fill with living men," wrote Julius Caesar, describing a Druid ceremony. "After these are set on fire, the men inside perish in the flames."

 This appeal to ancient authority prompts me to rhetorically ask whether adherents of Christianity ever committed atrocities -- perhaps inquisitions, or religious wars, or genocide of civilizations new-to-Europeans? (I suppose Jewish atrocities are the ones in the Tanakh/Old Testament in which the Israelites wiped out neighboring tribes) Some might say, "Those things happened long ago. They don't happen now."  Children in Nigeria disagree. 

Another inaccuracy in the Times editorial is the statement:

All of the actual Wiccans and Druids died out hundreds of years ago.

 The thrown-together thinking behind the "actual" sentence is shown by the anachronistic mixing of Druids and Wiccans.  Druids were iron-age Celts; Wicca is a modern development; witches in the popular conception -- since the word is one synonym for Wiccan -- are, to my mind, mythological along with sorceresses and wizards.  In the here and now, some people do call themselves Druids, but as these neo-Druids are building websites and sending out home study courses, they've hardly died out.

 Another indicator of sloppy thinking by the article's writer is by referring to "actual Wiccans and Druids."  What is an "actual" Wiccan, or an "actual" Druid?  Would an "actual" Druid's physical existence be biologically equivalent to the body of a believer of a mainstream religion, or is there a difference between "actual" people and those who merely believe?  To me, the labeling of Wiccans and Druids as "actual" indicates the writer thinks that genetic Harry Potteresque wizards exist(ed), which brings up a pretty theological question:  Since most religions gain members by thoughtful teaching/conversion, do "actual" members of a religious group have their religion in their DNA?  If that were true, wouldn't an identifiable DNA marker for a specific religion lend more legitimacy to the status of "actual" believers?  (possibly? [see final paragraph])

 Metaphysics aside, how are secular authorities supposed to treat religion?  Should only the adherents of large-group religions be respected?  If that is how things should be, should secular authorities ignore minority-religions, or perhaps ban them? What is an appropriate secular treatment of group members with religious beliefs?

 Again from the Times article:

This is a space cadets can use to perform rituals if they happen to be witches, warlocks and tree-worshipers. ...

The Air Force is not alone in pandering.

 I'll overlook the Freudian "space cadets," although it gave me a laugh, but "pandering" is impossible to misconstrue.  One definition of pander is to receive special treatment. In a modern, tolerant country is it "pandering" to allow people to worship as they choose? 

The Times writer continues with the special treatment theme:

These neo-Pagan worshippers now have a federally supplied space they can call their own in the hills of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Why not?  The famous Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel is also "federally supplied," so why can't the minority-belief worshippers have a space in the hills?  Who is injured by either facility?

In the United States, practicing your religion is not a privilege, it's a right.  Which brings me to USAF Academy grad, Mikey Weinstein:

Religious Civil Rights: Why Have the Washington Times and the Air Force Academy Savaged Them?, 9 May 2011, Truthout

Shame, shame, shame on the Times for failing to recognize that, while the First Commandment might indeed say that "you cannot have any other Gods but Me," the First Amendment's clarion call is quite simply, "Oh yes you can!"

 The "clarion call" is echoed in the booklet, "Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups" published by the U.S. Army.  (link to text: here)

 The United States is not a theocracy.  The Constitution (the one the cadets will swear to uphold when they become Air Force officers) says so.  What Julius Caesar thought, is of no civic consequence.

Spiritually speaking: Japan’s earthquake as a sign of Apocalypse Soon

Anyone can be 'published'

A Yahoo writer wrote that God means the earthquake-tsunami in Japan to be a sign about Jesus returning to earth.  The person used three disaster dates, allegedly with 11 in them (World Trade Center, Haiti and Japan), and a Bible verse numbered 11 that includes the word "earthquakes."  The writer got one of the dates wrong (the Haitian earthquake was on a 12th, which eliminates one of the 11s) and chose only a single '11-verse' out of 260 possible '11-verses' throughout the New Testament.

As disasters go, the writer failed to include the recent flooding in Australia (31 December), and the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand (22 February).

Stacking the Bible

Biblically, John is left out of the earthquake prediction business, but in the book of Luke, the earthquake verse is 11.  In the book of Matthew, it's number 7.  In Mark, the earth quakes verse 8. If sending coded messages by natural disaster is the way the Almighty communicates with people, does this mean that when the Holy Spirit was guiding the hands of those who divvied up the Greek writings into chapters and verses for Bibles that the Holy Spirit was hedging the Holy Spirit's bets for staging disasters?  [insert coy tone] "I'm coming!"

With earthquake verses having different numbers, did the Holy Spirit choose the 7th, 8th or 11th of … of what?  Wouldn't the likely dating be in Jewish months?  Since time-counting by lunar cycles does not synchronize with solar cycles - lunar calendars slip 'ahead' of the solar calendar we're accustomed to use - was the Holy Spirit thinking ahead?  Is this why the Holy Spirit went with synchronizing New Testament verses with dates using Western months long before people who would be Western needed months?  The Holy Spirit was also savvy about figuring in the calendrical changes convenient for catastrophes, such as the time the calendar "lost" eleven days.

Can't you just see the H.S. scratching His Head as he 'did the math' for that one so that after 2001, all natural catastrophes would fall on the 11th of each month?

I would think that in a court of law that these 11-connections wouldn't qualify even as circumstantial evidence.

 

Probability and science

That devastating events happen on similarly-numbered days is coincidence.  As a non-mathematician, non-statistician, non-probability figurer-outer (no clue as to what that person's job title is), I'm guessing the odds of events happening on similarly-numbered days is roughly 1-in-30.  Year after year, decade after decade, century after century we code events as happening on roughly one of more or less 30 days per month.

Over millennia, with 'stuff' happening all the time, it is likely that there will be significant events that fall on the 'same day,' but since 2001, if it has an 11 in it (instead of 10 for the hurricane of 1780, or 8 for the Chicago fire, or 31 for the Johnstown flood or the Galveston hurricane, or 18 for the San Francisco earthquake, or 25 for the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, or 1 for a Mississippi River flood and an Aleutian tsunami, or 3 for Hurricane Diane, or 9 for the Rapid Creek flood in South Dakota, or 17 for another San Francisco earthquake that people watching the World Series saw on television) we all see the numerical equivalent of Tarot's Death card.

 

Back to the Bible

Now even if you take these connections seriously, what is it that you're actually serious about?

• In Luke, since that was the Yahoo Writer's choice of verse, it appears to be the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  We would file that under "old news." 
• In Mark, it's not so clear.  Could be the temple, could be Jesus' return. 
• Matthew is equally unclear.

What is clear, though, is who, in this cast of characters, is going to 'know.'

Go to Mark, chapter 13. Skip down from the earthquake verse, number eight, to verse 32.  We'll leave aside verses 30 and 31 about that generation not passing before all the earthquakes, wars and nations rising against each other, that was about 100 generations ago, and we're here, not them. Mark 13:32 states in English (depending on your translation), "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Only the Father, not Jesus the Son, not Luke the disciple, and definitely not the Yahoo Writer.  Since the Father apparently keeps his lip zipped, no HeaveniLeaks that I've noticed, can we stop with the scare stuff?

 

What's the point?

I can't tell what the Yahoo writer means by writing what s/he did.  Warning? Threat? What?  What's the point?  The Earth has been seismically active throughout its life.  It's going to stay that way because of plate tectonics and magma. Scientists have documented at least 27 earthquakes of the magnitude of the Japan catastrophe since the 'time of Jesus' (as that's when the destruction was first promised).

As people try to find some small comfort in which to wrap themselves against the effects of the power of nature, and our helplessness against much of it, this person seems to revel in the idea of divine global catastrophe. Isn't it enough for the Yahoo Writer that tens of thousands of people are dead, drowned in terror as the deep crashed over them, suffocating their screams as the fouled nightmare water rolled them like ants being washed away by a stream from a gardener's hose?

Not only do I not understand that way of looking at things, I don't want to understand it.

Lydia Schatz, via Salon

The Pearls are not "normalized" in the homeschooling circles I'm part of ...

Godly discipline turned deadly, 22 Feb 2010, Salon.com

Because they did not want to admit that a 'normal' home-schooling mom could abuse her child to death, they did not want to admit that a book that has been normalized in home-schooling circles was a factor in the death, ...

 

G. Washington: Letter to Hebrew Congregation at Newport

Letter to Hebrew Congregation at Newport

...

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

...

cdesign proponentsists

See the blog post Intelligent Design = Creationism at Pharyngula.

The 'words,' "cdesign proponentsists" were found in a draft of Of Pandas and People.  According to a Wikipedia entry,

FTE founder Jon Buell claims that the word creationism was a "placeholder term" whose definition "changed to include a religious context after the draft was written, so the writers changed the word." [15] However, the proof that intelligent design was creationism re-labeled played a significant part in the Kitzmiller trial, and "cdesign proponentsists" has been described as "the missing link between creationism and intelligent design."

Trinity joke

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday, so the Trinity was the focus of Bill Tammeus's column today in the Kansas City Star.  Mr. Tammeus cracked me up over my breakfast by ending his column with a Trinity joke.

Explain the Trinity and remain humble

Jesus said, “Who do people say that I am?” His disciples replied, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah or another of the prophets.”

Jesus replied, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as his rationality and then, by an act of his will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only because Scripture speaks of a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.”

And Jesus answered, saying, “What?”