text:
O Xmas Tree, O Xmas Tree!
Looking back two years, I find I mentioned this before. No matter; the myths about where Christmas trees "came from" persist.
So, follow the link to a (more or less) subtle rebuttal.
Poet, and don't know it....
"The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don't love you're dead, and if you do, they'll kill you."--Terry Eagleton
"...doesn't philosophy amount to the sum of all thinkable and unthinkable errors, ceaselessly repeated?"--Jean-Luc Marion
"The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice."--Bryan Stevenson
On the 10th of September 1962, sixteen bullets was fired into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me. That same night two girls were shot in Ruleville, Mississippi. Also Mr. Joe McDonald's house was shot in.
And June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter registration workshop; was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was traveling by the Continental Trailway bus. When we got to Winona, Mississippi, which is Montgomery County, four of the people got off to use the washroom, and two of the people - to use the restaurant - two of the people wanted to use the washroom.
The four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was ordered out. During this time I was on the bus. But when I looked through the window and saw they had rushed out I got off of the bus to see what had happened. And one of the ladies said, "It was a State Highway Patrolman and a Chief of Police ordered us out."
I got back on the bus and one of the persons had used the washroom got back on the bus, too.
As soon as I was seated on the bus, I saw when they began to get the five people in a highway patrolman's car. I stepped off of the bus to see what was happening and somebody screamed from the car that the five workers was in and said, "Get that one there." When I went to get in the car, when the man told me I was under arrest, he kicked me.
I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking room. They left some of the people in the booking room and began to place us in cells. I was placed in a cell with a young woman called Miss Ivesta Simpson. After I was placed in the cell I began to hear sounds of licks and screams, I could hear the sounds of licks and horrible screams. And I could hear somebody say, "Can you say, 'yes, sir,' nigger? Can you say 'yes, sir'?"
And they would say other horrible names.
She would say, "Yes, I can say 'yes, sir.'"
"So, well, say it."
She said, "I don't know you well enough."
They beat her, I don't know how long. And after a while she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people.
And it wasn't too long before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he asked me where I was from. I told him Ruleville and he said, "We are going to check this."
They left my cell and it wasn't too long before they came back. He said, "You are from Ruleville all right," and he used a curse word. And he said, "We are going to make you wish you was dead."
I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they had two Negro prisoners. The State Highway Patrolmen ordered the first Negro to take the blackjack.
The first Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the State Highway Patrolman, for me to lay down on a bunk bed on my face.
I laid on my face and the first Negro began to beat. I was beat by the first Negro until he was exhausted. I was holding my hands behind me at that time on my left side, because I suffered from polio when I was six years old.
After the first Negro had beat until he was exhausted, the State Highway Patrolman ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack.
The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet, and the State Highway Patrolman ordered the first Negro who had beat me to sit on my feet - to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and tell me to hush.
One white man - my dress had worked up high - he walked over and pulled my dress - I pulled my dress down and he pulled my dress back up.
I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered.
All of this is on account of we want to register, to become first-class citizens. And if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?
Over the last eight years, the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicare.The problem? Medical care works. No one could have foreseen that, apparently:
The charges are assessed retrospectively, so in most cases the money has long since been spent on salaries, medicine and supplies. After absorbing huge assessments for several years, often by borrowing at high rates, a number of hospice providers are bracing for a new round that they fear may shut their doors.
In the early days of the Medicare hospice benefit, which was designed for those with less than six months to live, nearly all patients were cancer victims, who tended to die relatively quickly and predictably once curative efforts were abandoned.Or maybe it's the idea that doctors can predict the future. Actually, it's the fact that, in 1983, most patients were cancer patients, and they didn't live long. Now it's Alzheimer's patients, who live much longer. And hospice care doesn't mean relocation to a facility; it means care for patients in their homes, palliative care to make their last years comfortable. But when they insist on stretching out those last years as long as possible, well....something has to be done.
Medicare's coverage of hospice, which began in 1983, has become one of the fastest growing components of the government's fastest growing entitlement. Spending nearly tripled from 2000 to 2005, to $8.2 billion, and nearly 40 percent of Medicare recipients now use the service.
To be eligible, patients must be certified by two doctors as having six months or less to live, assuming their illness runs a normal course. They must agree not to bill Medicare for curative procedures related to their diagnosis.
In the Wall Street Journal today (subscription required), Vanessa Furhmans wraps subrogation inside a very moving human story. Deborah Shank, a Wal-Mart worker, faced $470,000 in medical bills after getting hit by a truck. Wal-Mart's health plan paid the bills without any hitches. Shank sued the truck company. But it only had limited liability insurance. The settlement Shank won ended up in a trust to care for her now that she's confined to a nursing home.And I found that story on Forbes.com. When even the WSJ and Forbes think you're evil, well....
Wal-Mart, out $470,000, then sued Shank to recover the money it had spent. The retailer won and left her with nothing to pay for ongoing care, beyond what's paid for by government programs (Medicare, Medicaid). As the legal fight escalated Shank's son died in Iraq. While Wal-Mart appears to have a legal right to the money--as even Shank's husband concedes--the nasty situation does not necessarily paint a picture of a benevolent employer.
In 1998, Congress removed limits on the number of days that an individual could receive Medicare hospice coverage, a move that encouraged physicians to refer terminal patients.It's money that matters, you know....
But lawmakers did not remove a cap on the aggregate amount that hospice providers could be reimbursed each year, a measure designed to contain the program's cost. A hospice's total annual reimbursement cannot exceed the product of the number of patients it serves and a per-patient allowance set by the government each year ($21,410 in 2007).
If this suggestion [i.e., the genetic mental inferiority of Africans] makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. As William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant elevating "supposedly superior intellects," "eliminating the weak," "paralyzing the hope of reform," jeopardizing "the doctrine of brotherhood," and undermining "the sympathetic activities of a civilized society."Um...no. Neither my belief (it isn't an article of faith) in human dignity, nor that of William Jennings Bryant, ever rested on a literal interpretation of any book of the Bible. First, Bryant admitted at the Scopes trial that he read Genesis allegorically, not literally. More importantly, Bryant wasn't attacking Darwin's theory of evolution, he was attacking Social Darwinism. To quote Huston Smith:
Bryan was first and foremost a passionate humanitarian. He was an irrepressible evangelist for social reform, and social Darwinism (which would soon be discredited) was then in its heyday. Bryan had seen the survival-of-the-fittest theory used to defend the robber barons in America, and in Germany to justify the brutal militarism that led to World War I. This had led him to the belief that 'the Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate, the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak." (Smith, 107)Does Mr. Saletan really want to argue that evolution equips "the intelligent" to destroy the "unintelligent" if they are so inclined? Or return us to the days of the Robber Barons? Probably not; so he needs to reconsider his example of Mr. Bryant.
written as a response to the modernism and liberal theology of the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. They were written in order for ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents, etc. (see volume prefaces) to have at their disposal articles which would be useful in affirming and reaffirming the fundamental truths of Christianity in the face of ever increasing attacks against it.19th century Biblical scholarship had already dissected the Bible as a series of texts just as philologists (like Nietszche) would examine Greek and Roman writings, finding in them remnants of folklore, multiple authors (the "JEPD" authors of Torah), formulating the "Q" hypothesis, etc. The 19th century was a rich time in Biblical scholarship, and it, not Darwin, turned the religious world upside down. The Fundamentals were an attempt, as Martin Marty would say, to establish that: "there was a moment in history when a particular book, leader and original social community was perfect...." Not when the world was perfect, or knowledge was complete, but when the interpretation of a book or the beliefs and ideas of a group of believers. The focus was not on the world and the non-believers. The world, in fact, was simply not that important. As Marty points out:
The biggest mistake the casual observer makes about fundamentalisms is that people think this is the ''old-time religion.'' In fact, no religious forces are more effective at using the technical instruments of modernity. They will preach sermons against science and technology, but they will seize these instruments, which is why we see them as very modern movements.So the religious world didn't change because of Darwin's theory, and it didn't challenge religion all that much. What challenged religion was religious, not scientific, change. Again, quoting Dr. Marty:
The average person doesn't understand that Catholicism and most of Protestantism and Judaism are developing faiths -- development is built into the first generation. Islam has a loyalty to every word of the Koran, but its history has unfolded in different ways in different social climates.... In the period of the early Christians, Paul and Peter are fighting like mad in Acts already. But fundamentalists teach that there was that perfect moment, and in their selective retrieval they go back to that perfect moment. They say, ''We don't change at all,'' and people say, ''Yeah, while all the other people are compromising with modernity, these people really reach deep.'' But the hymnity, the songs, the scriptural base -- it's all a very particular interpretation, and the fundamentalist convinces us that it's always been there.When, of course, it hasn't.
In an interview with Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, reported in The Sunday Times, the head of the Church of England said America's attempts to accumulate influence and control around the world were "not working".
America in Iraq had tried a "short burst of violent action" in an attempt to "clear the decks", he said.
He told Emel magazine: "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources in to administering it and normalising it.
"Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British Empire did - in India, for example.
"It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together - Iraq, for example."
Of Britain's presence in Iraq, he said: "A lot of the pressure around the invasion of Iraq was 'We've got to do something! Then we'll feel better.' That's very dangerous."
He said the modern Western definition of humanity is "clearly not working very well" and said there is something about Western modernity "which really does eat away at the soul".
But who is more representative of, more enabling of, more promoting of a Western definition of humanity than the Archbishop of Canterbury?Too true. Kind of why I posted this. Can we escape the requirements of institutional position? But can we do without institutions, either?
The real issue seems to be that he infused her with religiosity without providing her with a workable theology, an intellectual framework with which to understand, or at least abide, the central contradictions of Christianity. If God exists, she asks her father, why does he allow so much suffering? "Ah," he responds unhelpfully. "The $64,000 question."The "he" there is
a Lutheran minister who moved from parish to parish during her childhood, working for a poverty-level wage. As a minister, he was devoted to good works, helping parishioners erect a do-it-yourself church in the dead of winter and tending to the elderly and infirm. But he was also, as her meticulous, and meticulously nonjudgmental, narrative demonstrates, an awkward man, overly abstracted about his own intimacies.Now there are no small number of assumptions worked into that description, some of them perfectly legitimate, some of them, shall we say, overly-culturally determined. Ah, but how can we know the dancer from the dance. Just as the reviewer reminds us of the '70's:
(Remember when a politicized Christianity meant fighting poverty and war? It's no less a touching throwback to the 1970s than Blue Nun wine, track lighting and split ends, each of which gets an amusing mention here.)So we have to consider that any period is peculiar to itself, and it's all a matter of how you divide it up. Looking backward, for example, we might run up against the culture of medieval Europe; or, of you don't want to go quite that far back, consider the "God is Dead" movement of the '60's; which was started by theologians, not radical atheist ancestors to Hitchens and Dawkins. Surely that, too, would leave a man wondering if there was "an intellectual framework with which to understand, or at least abide, the central contradictions of Christianity." Which brings us almost immediately to the question of the "Great Separation." Because there's another book on the notable list, about that. (I'm preparing my private Christmas list, can you tell?) And we're we're back to the problem of contradiction, or, if you prefer, ambiguity. Or, if you really prefer, Kierkegaard's paradox. As Johannes de Silentio said, the "thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling--a paltry mediocrity." But on the other hand, too much of nothin' makes a man feel ill at ease. So:
Those unusual circumstances were provided by Christian theology — but not, as some recent religious apologists have argued, because the Judeo-Christian framework itself promotes rationality and tolerance. Rather, it is Christianity's own fundamental ambiguities — torn between a picture of God as both present and absent from the temporal realm, an ambivalence powerfully represented by the paradoxes of the Trinity — that made it "uniquely unstable," subject to a plurality of interpretations that became institutionalized in sectarianism, and hence to several centuries' worth of devastating upheaval.I blame the Hellenes. Which is to say this is not a new argument at all. Walter Kauffman noted in his introduction to his translation of Buber's I and Thou that separating Christianity from Greek rationalism was impossible (how do you separate the tapestry from its threads?), but a large part of the modern enterpries in theology has been the continuing effort to at least try. Which is where process theology came from (and where it's going).
In some sense, Lilla is saying that Christianity is just too philosophically interesting.
and the answer [Hobbes] gives is: because man is a frightened ignoramus. Knowing enough to be terrified of his own mortality but knowing little else about objective nature and thus understandably alarmed, man creates an omnipotent being who can be supplicated and obeyed, a conception that then ends up tormenting him with new fear. Religion, Hobbes thought, comes from a dark place in the psyche.Not so fast, says Lilla:
The religious impulse isn't merely a matter of man's cringing self-protective fear; it can also be an expansive response toward the universe, morality and freedom, and a strain of post-Enlightenment thinking, featuring thinkers of the caliber of Kant, struggled to do justice to religion's expansive aspects.So the "stillborn God" is the product of liberal theology which wants, essentially, to make man the master over the divine. An almost Greek act of hubris. Creon in Antigone could predict what happens next. But since our lives are not ruled by the dictates of playwrights, the response is more muddled, and even less easy to anticipate:
The "stillborn God" of the title is what Lilla calls the deity of liberal theology, a post-Hegelian movement, active particularly in Germany, that "wedded romantic soulfulness with the modern conviction that man attains happiness by freely developing his capacities, not by submitting them to God's authority." As the christening indicates, Lilla believes this fuzzy God to have been a dud, but, paradoxically, one that helped prepare the way for a far more fiery and apocalyptic breed of political theology.Interestingly, though the review never mentions it, this is the critique of "liberal theology" contained in Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society. Hmmm...maybe everything old really is new again. That marriage of soulfulness and modern conviction which we now call "self-actualization" is precisely what Kierkegaard was reacting against, too, even though his aim was to fully realize the "individual." Ironically, precisely what he went for is now precisely what is used to justify self-actualization and the "It's all about ME!" trend of modern American society and even modern American Christianity. Well, Neibuhr is only remembered for a short prayer he wrote for a summer worship service and almost immediately threw away, so fame and immortality are never what you mean them to be.
"Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict," said Archbishop Tutu, 76.
"God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another.
"In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality."
Criticising Dr Williams, he said: "Why doesn't he demonstrate a particular attribute of God's which is that God is a welcoming God."
He said the Anglican Church had seemed "extraordinarily homophobic" in its handling of the issue, and that he had felt "saddened" and "ashamed" of his church at the time.
Asked if he still felt ashamed, he said: "If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes.
"If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."
"It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual.
"You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred.
"It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society."
When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.Which really isn't as absurd as it sounds. First, please note, these are religious scholars, not (necessarily) theologians. And the question of "What constitutes 'religion'" is a very live one in such circles.
The title: "Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody."You might assume from this that AAR meetings are riotous and ribald affairs. But, per their website, they are usually concerned with topics like: "Studies of World Religions in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan" or "Interdisciplinary, Theoretical, and Ideological Implications of the AAR and SBL Split"; or "Chinese Scholarship on the Dunhuang Manuscripts: New Perspectives on Buddhism" or even "Spectacles of Crucifixion" (yes, I'm picking the geekiest examples I can find). So to say this topic is slightly aberrant is probably not to go too far afield. You could also say it proves Ecclesiastes right: there is nothing new under the sun.
"For a lot of people they're just sort of fun responses to religion, or fun responses to organized religion. But I think it raises real questions about how people approach religion in their lives," said Samuel Snyder, one of the three Florida graduate students who will give talks at the meeting next Monday along with Alyssa Beall of Syracuse University.
The presenters' titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. Snyder will speak about "Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster's Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion," while Gavin Van Horn's presentation is titled "Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master."Today we call it scholarship; in the Middle Ages, they called it the "Feast of Fools." Much of the antics of that occassion (memorably recreated in The Hunchback of Notre Dame) were aimed precisely at elevating the low and bringing down the high. As I've said before, we could use a bit more of that in modern society.
Using a framework developed by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, Van Horn promises in his abstract to explore how, "in a carnivalesque fashion, the Flying Spaghetti Monster elevates the low (the bodily, the material, the inorganic) to bring down the high (the sacred, the religiously dogmatic, the culturally authoritative)."
Isaiah 65:17-25
65:17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
65:18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
65:19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
65:20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
65:21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
65:22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
65:23 They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well.
65:24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
Psalm 98
98:1 O sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory.
98:2 The LORD has made known his victory; he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
98:3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
98:4 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
98:5 Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody.
98:6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD.
98:7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it.
98:8 Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy
98:9 at the presence of the LORD, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
3:6 Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.
3:7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you,
3:8 and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.
3:9 This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate.
3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
3:11 For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.
3:12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
3:13 Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
Luke 21:5-19
21:5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,
21:6 "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."
21:7 They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"
21:8 And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them.
21:9 "When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately."
21:10 Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
21:11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
21:12 "But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.
21:13 This will give you an opportunity to testify.
21:14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance;
21:15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.
21:16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.
21:17 You will be hated by all because of my name.
21:18 But not a hair of your head will perish.
21:19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.
"In the sojourning of this carnal life each man carries his own heart and every heart is closed to every other heart."--Augustine
The story my daughter read in her class involved a young girl who was determined to follow the motto, "What Would Jesus Do?" When the high school bully mocked her, she took it mutely. When he peeled her woolen scarf off her neck outside school, she offered no resistance. When he went further and took her coat, she stood shivering the cold, but did nothing. Finally, the story ended with her luring her tormentor onto the ice of a frozen pond. She was trying to emulate Jesus' admonition to Simon, to prove she had enough faith to walk on water, even though warning signs around the pond said the ice was too thin. Not too thin for her slight frame, as it turned out, but too thin for the weight of the bully, who fell through but was able to catch himself by his elbows. Immersed in the freezing water, he couldn't get himself free without help, and his gang of hangers-on ran way rather than risk themselves, which left only his victim, standing safely in the middle of the pond, pondering what she should do. "What Would Jesus Do?" had been her motto but, after all, as she said to herself in the story's final words, "I'm only human."
Not the kind of story you ordinarily associate with these scriptures; not the kind of story you ordinarily associate with a question of faith. But then again, faith is usually a matter of what's in it for us; seldom is it a matter of what's in it for others. Perhaps that's one problem with our thinking about faith, with thinking about what faith is. But that isn't the problem in this story. The problem in this story, is about who faith is for. And here's the question that story raises: is faith for you? Or for your place in a community?
Not a question we are accustomed to asking. We prefer to think of ourselves as free agents, independent contractors, responsible only to ourselves and only responsible not to impose ourselves too much upon others. In that context "WWJD?" becomes: "How can I best acquit myself so that I will think well of myself when I think back on this moment?" That's the trap the young girl sets for herself in that story. She doesn't think of what the bully is doing, only of what it means to her. She doesn't think of what Jesus would do, only of how she can avoid the response she so obviously wants to make. And when turning the other cheek becomes too much of an effort for her, when she can't postpone her desire for a reckoning any longer, she tosses humility aside and goes straight for temptation. What would Jesus do? Remind us that the way is narrow, and the way is hard; and that none of us walk it alone.
Nowhere in the story, as my daughter recounted it, was there any indication that this young girl was a member of a believing community. She had obviously absorbed some lessons from some group, but her role in that group was to go and do likewise, all on her own. And there her troubles began.
As I mentioned earlier, nowhere in this Gospel passage when he warns of the wars and rumors of wars, of the calamities and catastrophes that are to come, nowhere in that advice does Jesus say: "So be ready then to choose sides, and to take up a position against evil." What he counsels is not struggle but passivity. "This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict." Which sounds fairly powerful, until you reflect that what will be given to you is words, is wisdom, something so powerful your opponent won't be able to contradict it. Of course, they may still torment you, torture you, put you in jail or even execute you; but you'll win the argument! And which one is the lesson of the Gospel: that you finally prevail, and evil is defeated? Or that your heart is open to every other heart, and that you finally know that you do not have to carry your heart alone?
The only true answer to the question "What Would Jesus Do?" is: get crucified. Jesus would be so faithful to God (as Jesus was fully human) and Jesus would be so powerless (as Jesus was fully God) as to only submit to the power of evil, never to raise power against it. Jesus would only do what Jesus had to do, to become the Crucified God. He would not be a demi-god, like Herakles, performing acts of power so important and noble even the gods had to honor him. He would not perform miracles to show God's power was supreme in Creation. Even John's gospel, beloved of conservative Christians and evangelicals, calls the miracles "signs," and constantly undercuts them by presenting them not as proof of Jesus' divinity, but as a diversion, a distraction, a false trail that will not lead to revelation. What Would Jesus Do? Call disciples, create a community, teach them by word and example his faithfulness, in hopes of sharing it with them, so they would remain faithful to God and to each other in the time of famine and plagues and earthquakes and great portents in heaven. Or even just bullies.
But you can't do that alone; just as you can't know God alone. I got into this discussion with a friend once, in seminary. A true-blue Protestant who had converted to Christianity through evangelicalism, she was quite convinced of the centrality of the relationship of God to the individual, without any mediator such as saints or the church. What I couldn't quite get her to understand was that it was the church, the body of believers, the clouds of witness, through time and across time, who had preserved the message and the gospels and the interpretations so they could be presented to her. What I tried to argue was that no one is born knowing God, that some community of believers has to bring God to us, each one of us. That isn't an exclusionary statement, simply an obvious one. If Kierkegaard was right and Christianity is conviction, a confession, then no one is born "Christian." And no one can know anything of Christianity, or of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jesus, unless one is told; unless there is a faith community. So the lesson is simple: without a community, what faith do you have?
Faith in yourself, ultimately. Faith that you have the will to discern, on your own, what Jesus would do; and faith that you then have the will to do just as Jesus would do. But that is an impossible burden. That is the burden of a lonely heart, of a heart you carry on your own and keep closed to every other human heart. That will lead you to stand on the thin ice and lure your tormenter there, and then stand tormented about what you really want to do: save him? or watch him suffer? That is what faith outside a community leads you to.
But is faith inside a community any easier? No. No, it is not easy at all. But it is faithfulness, to carry the burden of others as well as the burden of yourself. The goal of faith, as Christians define it, is not to know God in your own thoughts, but to know God in the experience of other people. So even the Desert Fathers did not retreat to the mountains, did not abandon all human contact and disappear from human society; so even monks and nuns live in community, carry out the tasks of faith by living together. Faith, in Christian terms, is about living for others; living for others whether or not your faith is known to those others.
But that is a dry and empty exercise, if you try to do it alone. That is a fruitless and thankless task, if you try to be faithful all on your own in a world that doesn't recognize anything about your faith and what it asks of you. Faith alone soon turns either into an excuse for retribution or a private scorecard used to measure yourself against others. Faith lived by the individual alone is "too much of nothing," and it soon decays into faithlessness, no matter how faithful you think you are. Because faith that is not lived with others and in others who share your faith, is faith lived for you. It is faith in yourself, and when the time of trial comes, you are not ready to receive the words you need. For God is not known in the solitary confines of the human heart: God is known in the faces and hands and eyes and ears and mouths of people: people of faith, and people of no faith. "Christ before me, Christ beside me...Christ to comfort and restore me....Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger" is not just a prayer for protection, it is also a confession of the true nature of faith and faithfulness.
So in Isaiah God speaks of making a new people, and in Thessalonians Paul warns, not against associating with non-believers, but associating with lazy believers. The struggle of the human heart is constant, and the only comfort in the struggle is knowing that the struggle goes on in God, in the community of faith, among believers. The comfort is knowing that the struggle to open your heart to all the closed hearts around you is one shared by those in faith with you, that when you share your faithfulness you don't do it alone, and your strength doesn't come from your will alone. Will is not faith, and it will not preserve you against the challenge to what you believe. Standing alone is weakness, not strength. What would Jesus do? Find a group who shared his beliefs, and open his heart to them; and from them, in them, with them, open his heart to the world; not as an act of will, but as an act of faith. And then you will see "the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the LORD." Which is what you are looking for, after all; not your victory, but the victory of God.
Huffington Post: What is it like to be in the middle of a campaign-related media frenzy?I learned this as a pastor: once you are a public figure, no matter how small the fishbowl, your entire life is up for scrutiny, examination, and wild gossip. I can't imagine what has been said about me among my last congregation in the past 6 years (diminishingly less, I know), but this points up one of the worst sins of the Intertubes, one I have complained about before. Still, there is more to this waitress than complaints about her 15 minutes of fame, viz:
Esterday: It is nuts. Even going on the web for anything. There was a website in Cedar Rapids that said I had committed suicide. I understand that whoever wrote this meant it as a joke, but I have family in Cedar Rapids and I know people in Cedar Rapids and my mother committed suicide. So it wasn't a joke to me... It's taking it to an extreme and I guess in America now that's what people like and it's a shame that the media ran with this.
Does the press have misplaced priorities?Studs Terkel couldn't have put it better. The said fact is, of course, we used to have politicians who talked about these things, as I mention below. But today? Even among Democrats? Fuggedaboutit! And as for mentioning her in Clinton's stump speech, too easily do politicians forget other people are not public figures, free for the taking:
In this country, look at how many homeless people there are. There are millions. There are people just like me. I'm not the only parent who has had to raise two kids and barely makes $20,000 a year... This is supposed to be the United States of America, the strongest nation in the world, and we can't even provide places for our homeless. The media should be focusing on that.
Sen. Clinton talked about you - following this incident - in some of her speeches about women earning minimum wage and you seemed upset about it.Another lesson learned as a pastor: never mention anyone's personal story, no matter how public it actually is, from the pulpit. Everyone will know who you are talking about, and the person in question won't appreciate the attention. Of course, that's an obvious lesson in a church, a very closed community. What's disturbing is when a politician doesn't recognize that, despite the fact its 300 million people, each one is still an individual, and this is still a "village." And the waitress's conclusion?
To all the politicians, if you talk to somebody and maybe their life interests you, don't just go down the road then and use them as part of your speech to get votes. I was never even asked that day if I'm a Democrat or a Republican or whatever. I was never asked whom I was behind. And then to go down and be called up that night [in a speech by Clinton], was I angry about it? Yes I was. Don't get me wrong they called me a few days later to ask if they could use me in the speech. And they sent me a release form, but they were already using me. So what the hell, I signed it.
Does this change the way you are approaching the presidential election?I'm reminded of the newsreel pictures of Bobby Kennedy in the movie "Bobby," (and yes, if you follow that link, we are still honoring swagger and bluster; read that speech by RFK and try to imagine any Democrat giving the same speech today.) RFK walking among the working poor of Applachia, RFK addressing groups of people on city streets in inner-city America. It's because of his assassination, among other things, that politicians don't do that kind of thing anymore. But we are all the poorer for it.
I've been an independent all my life. My mom was a Democrat and my father a Republican. I just sat back and watched them argue and stayed in the middle. But I'm not going to vote for Hillary. That is a definite. No one could pay me enough money. My opinion of her has changed drastically. The more I read and find out about her it changes more and more to the negative. I don't believe she can help out the working women of this world because I don't believe she gets it.
Sometimes, in other words, you have to compromise some of your principles in order to uphold others. The alternative is to let a small group of intransigent bullies dominate the system. This, it seems to me, is the problem that advocates of transformative politics have to answer. How is it exactly that politics are going to be transformed while the goons thoroughly control the place?There was a link in the original back to the blog of yours truly. I pity the persons following that link and trying to understand what it means. Let me clarify:
Some of my friends and colleagues have decided that the sacrifice of principle simply isn't worth it. Try to gain power, and you're dancing with the devil, they warn.
Perhaps. But the flip side to that equation is that without power, nothing can be done to protect the innocent, much less redirect a predatory political system.
I'm a stickler on this point: power only and ever and always serves the ends of power. If God is not about the power of powerlessness, then Paul and I are agreed that the crucifixion was pointless, and all we're really waiting for is for God to get around to making us all believers, whether we like it or not.My "principle" is in that first sentence. The rest is theology, and my sure conviction that the basiliea tou theou is about the race to the bottom, the race to be the servant, not the master; the race to give up power, not to attain it for whatever good purpose may be intended. Because it is my firm belief and experience that power only and ever serves the ends of power, and whoever wields it, for whatever reason, is mistaken in thinking the control it. Power serves its own ends, and it uses you as it used the person before you, and will use the person after you. It uses you only to make power effective. Does this create some sort of anthropic principle for power, give it anthropomorphism it does not deserve? Perhaps; but we cannot understand the world except for the anthropic stance of how we experience it, so I consider that a small objection indeed, in light of the larger truth it reveals.
But if God is about the power of powerlessness, then even taking up power in God's name is contrary to God's purpose. And a basiliea tou theou where the first are always last, and the last first, is a place with no political power at all.
There is no power without resistance. Power needs resistance not only to be powerful, but if it is going to exist at all. Without resistance power has no force. It is a blow against empty air, a fierce punch into darkness that meets no opposition. So power manufactures its own resistance, creates its own opponent.It may well be there is far less difference between Pastor Dan and I than appears. After all, this discussion touches on the question of responsibility, which he claims makes him responsible for others against the power of those he identifies as bullies. There, again, I would disagree. It's a point I've made before: That which you most oppose, you most come to resemble. This is the problem with identifying yourself as opposition to whatever you consider evil. You stop identifying with your core, and start setting your boundaries against what you are not; and at precisely that point what you are not starts to define you. At that point the struggle against evil is endless, because evil is whatever you are not; and you can always find something you are not, something you are sure you must eradicate. But in seeking to eradicate that, you are seeking to eradicate yourself, because what you are not is what defines you.
Thomas Merton, writing about the desert fathers who fled collapsing civilization to live in the Egyptian deserts in the 4th century, said that there are times when it is every man and woman for him- or her-self, when the best you can do is to grab a piece of flotsam and hold on in the flood that is coming. Sometimes, in other words, the most Christian thing you can do is to save yourself, so that you can provide a witness to the world that will arise from the destruction. It may be we are in one of those times, again.And in such times, it is not what you oppose which should define you.
In the fiction of "Deliverance," Ed's sanity and bravery eventually save the day when he climbs out of the gorge. What I wonder is whether in the real-world crisis of Iraq there is enough sanity and bravery in Washington to deliver us from the evil that's been created in Iraq. Unfortunately it doesn't look that way. Whether we listen to the Republicans or the Democrats, the woman candidate for president or the men, all the major contenders remain reluctant to challenge the ersatz standards of strength set by the Bush administration. Sure, they snipe at each other, but none want to appear weak on national security. So we're left with "Law, what law? Plan, what plan?" And we continue to float down the river as if without a paddle, unable and unwilling to climb out, with much more violence and in all probability worse humiliations yet to come.Read the beginning, too. It's worth it.
A Genetic Fallacy is a line of "reasoning" in which a perceived defect in the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence that discredits the claim or thing itself. It is also a line of reasoning in which the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence for the claim or thing. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:This one, of course, is a favorite across the intertubes, and beloced of "gotcha!" journalists everywhere:
1. The origin of a claim or thing is presented.
2. The claim is true(or false) or the thing is supported (or discredited).
This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions. This type of "argument" has the following form:There is even a fallcy for "High Broderism." Indeed there is nothing new under the sun:
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
3. Therefore X is false.
The fact that a person makes inconsistent claims does not make any particular claim he makes false (although of any pair of inconsistent claims only one can be true - but both can be false). Also, the fact that a person's claims are not consistent with his actions might indicate that the person is a hypocrite but this does not prove his claims are false.
This fallacy is committed when it is assumed that the middle position between two extremes must be correct simply because it is the middle position. this sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
1. Position A and B are two extreme positions.
2. C is a position that rests in the middle between A and B.
3. Therefore C is the correct position.
This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because it does not follow that a position is correct just because it lies in the middle of two extremes
Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of "reasoning" typically has the following form.The Gambler's Fallacy was new to me, but somehow it sounds strangely familiar, especially in political circles:
1. Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).
2. Claim C (the conclusion) is true.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim. This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases: "X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true."
Some cases of question begging are fairly blatant, while others can be extremely subtle.
The Gambler's Fallacy is committed when a person assumes that a departure from what occurs on average or in the long term will be corrected in the short term. The form of the fallacy is as follows:Of course, the favorite of this Administration is the false dilemma:
1. X has happened.
2. X departs from what is expected to occur on average or over the long term.
3. Therefore, X will come to an end soon.
There are two common ways this fallacy is committed. In both cases a person is assuming that some result must be "due" simply because what has previously happened departs from what would be expected on average or over the long term.
A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":False dilemma is meant to lead you to only one conclusion, because the alternative is so clearly unacceptable. So we must fight them over there, or we will fight the "terrorists" over here.
1. Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
2. Claim Y is false.
3. Therefore claim X is true.
This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because if both claims could be false, then it cannot be inferred that one is true because the other is false.
A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person's circumstances (such as the person's religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.). The fallacy has the following forms:Well, obviously, the only conclusion can be that Bill is wrong....
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B asserts that A makes claim X because it is in A's interest to claim X.
3. Therefore claim X is false.
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on A's circumstances.
3. Therefore X is false.
A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy because a person's interests and circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person's interests will provide them with motives to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own. It is also the case that a person's circumstances (religion, political affiliation, etc.) do not affect the truth or falsity of the claim. This is made quite clear by the following example: "Bill claims that 1+1=2. But he is a Republican, so his claim is false."
"Our body of experience shows a friendly approach is most successful" in interrogation, Nance says. SERE's historical memory goes back to the French and Indian Wars in understanding torture methods that captured U.S. troops might face and devising strategies to resist them. He relates the story of Hans Joachim Scharff, a master Luftwaffe interrogator who spurned abusive techniques used by the Gestapo (also, interestingly, termed "enhanced interrogation") in favor of rapport-building. Scharff's legendary success is still studied by U.S. interrogators. Unfortunately, he says, "after Guantanamo, I thought, how can anyone at SERE ever teach the Geneva Conventions again?"And then Ahmed Raza Kasuri, senior legal adviser to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, without a trace of irony, tells NPR that Musharaff, like America after 9/11, has had to destroy democratic institutions in order to save them. He cites detentions without charge, torture, and all the illegal actions of the Bush Administration as an excuse for what Musharaff has done. So I'm thinking of this:
The "new paradigm" of the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
A trove of accumulated institutional familiarity with torture led to a slide that Nance shares, from an old (and unclassified) SERE PowerPoint presentation to trainees. It asks outright, "Why Is Torture The Worst Interrogation Method?" The first answer: "Produces Unreliable Information."
Nance remarks, "Two centuries of knowledge were thrown out the window" when the administration decided after 9/11 that, to use Cofer Black's famous phrase, "the gloves come off." What administration officials mistakenly thought, Nance says, is that "these were actually gloves, not empirical data. Dude, it's not a glove. It's a fact. But they thought it was one more tool in the tool box."
The result, Nance says, is that al-Qaeda now has, essentially, its own SERE school in U.S. detention facilities, as released detainees have given numerous accounts of their interrogations. What's more, he warns that the world is about to see an uptick in the use of torture as "cops in Bogota, everyone" now believes that the U.S. has lent torture its imprimatur -- or, at least, isn't in a credible position to criticize foreign countries' human rights abuses.
5:18 Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness, not light;Justice, indeed. It tends to come whether we like it or not; and it tends not to be what we like, or what we imagined it would be.
5:19 as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake.
5:20 Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
5:21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
5:22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.
5:23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
5:24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
[God]secures justice for the fatherless and the widow, and he shows love towards the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must show love towards the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt. (10:19)The reminder that the Israelites were "aliens in Egypt recurs in chapter 16, chapter 24 and chapter 26. It is a solemn reminder that they were strangers once, and could be again. The echoes of the experience of the Exile are unmistakable. And the fate of the individual and the nation are undeniably bound to how the aliens among them are treated:
You must not keep back the wages of a man who is poor and needy, whether a countryman or an alien living in your country in one of your settlements. Pay him his wages on the same day before sunset, for he is poor and relies on them; otherwise he may appel to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 24:14-15.Not exactly an exclusionary text, either, when an alien, one who is not a son or daughter of Abraham, can appeal to the God of Abraham against one of the "chosen."
Then you must solemnly recite before the Lord your God: 'My father was a homeless Aramean who went down to Egypt and lived there with a small band of people, but there it became a great, powerful, and large nation. The Egyptians treates us harshly and humiliated us; the imposed cruel slavery on us. We cried to the Lord the God of our fathers for help, and he listened to us, and, when he saw our misery and hardship and oppression, the Lord led us out of Egypt with a strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying deeds,a nd with signs and portents." 26:5b-8Imagine that language being recited by people who had returned to Jerusalem after life in Babylon. "Deuteronomy" is Greek, not Hebrew. The title comes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, and literally translated yields "Twin" or "Second" law. The concept is known to American lawyers, where the English and later American common law principles are gathered together in a "Restatement" of the law of Torts, for example. That text, then, is the restatement of the law of Moses after the Exile; after the return to Jerusalem, to the process of rebuilding a country on the foundations of the word of God. The Exile was a shattering experience. It was the very reality of God seemingly abandoning the people and their covenant and the promise to Abraham. It was quite literally the loss of everything, a loss only restored by Cyrus of Persia. Keep all of that in mind, and consider this:
"I don't know much about [waterboarding], but I know we're dealing with terrorists who do some very awful things to people," [Army General Russell Honore] said after Friday morning's speech to about 900 students at Flat Rock Middle School in Tyrone. "I know enough about [waterboarding] that the intent is not to kill anybody. We know that terrorists that we deal with, they have no law that they abide by. They have no code, they kill indiscriminately, like they did on 9/11."The first response, of course, should be: if you don't know anything about waterboarding, you should keep your mouth shut. Four retired high ranking military officers do know something about waterboarding, and they've declared it reprehensible:
Two retired generals and two retired admirals have written a letter (pdf) to Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating that "waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances. To suggest otherwise — or even to give credence to such a suggestion — represents both an affront to the law and to the core values of our nation."But set that aside, and consider the "ticking bomb" scenario Gen. Honore refers to. Some in the military blame the popularity of that scenario on "24," but it's an old theme in American movies. Anybody remember that scene from the first "Dirty Harry" movie, where Eastwood drives a knife into the killer's leg and tortures him until he reveals where the victim has been buried alive? Harry finds the victim, already dead; and the murderer is released, because Harry tortured him. Which brings us to the fundamental question: what's the difference between a "terrorist" and a "criminal"?
"If we picked up a prisoner that could tell us where the next 9/11 plot was, we could sit there and treat him nice, and that may not work," he said. "We could sit there and give him water and we could be politically correct.So far, the answer has been: criminals are "white," terrorists are foreigners. If anyone can name an individual arrested or detained since 9/11/01 as a "terrorist" who was not of non-European (i.e., "Caucasian") appearance without resorting to Google, I'd be surprised. I can only think of the Australian who was detained in Gitmo and finally released. Other than that, every alleged terrorist or detainee I know of in no way resembles Timothy McVeigh, at least in appearance. Serial killers and gang members and plain, ordinary mean and sociopathic and drunk people continue to kill other Americans at an alarming rate, and yet no one advocates going "Dirty Harry" on them for any reason. They are, even more than the "terrorists" we are told constantly to fear, killing our sons and daughters. The only difference is, we don't send our sons and daughters into their countries and knowingly put them in harm's way. But here is an Army general, one with political ambitions based on his performance in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, advocating a completely lawless approach to a criminal problem. And the only distinction between criminals in the US and terrorists, is that the latter are always and uniformly assumed to be not only foreigners, but non-whites.
"But if we have to use sources and methods that get information that not only save American lives, but save other people's lives or could prevent a major catastrophe from happening, I think the American people can decide [whether to allow waterboarding]."
"As long as we're responsible for hunting those SOBs down, finding them and preventing them from killing our sons and daughters," Honore said, "I think we've got an obligation to do what the hell we've got to do to make sure we get the mission done."
I AM voting today to support Michael B. Mukasey for attorney general for one critical reason: the Department of Justice — once the crown jewel among our government institutions — is a shambles and is in desperate need of a strong leader, committed to depoliticizing the agency's operations.Translation: Michael Mukasey rides a white horse, wears a black mask, and shoots silver bullets. All that's missing is a sidekick named "Tonto."
The department has been devastated under the Bush administration. Outstanding United States attorneys have been dismissed without cause; career civil-rights lawyers have been driven out in droves; people appear to have been prosecuted for political reasons; young lawyers have been rejected because they were not conservative ideologues; and politics has been allowed to infect decision-making.So now, we shouldn't let politics decide for us; instead, we should decide this issue on the basis of...politics! Irony! Here, however, is the linchpin of the argument: Mukasey is a stand-up guy:
Most important, Judge Mukasey has demonstrated his fidelity to the rule of law, saying that if he believed the president were violating the law he would resign.Now pay careful attention here, because this is where the game turns into three card monte, and Schumer assures you that you can win:
Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. All the work we did to pressure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign would be undone in a moment.Okay, there's the rock, there's the hard place. The Senate really has no choice, see. But it's okay, Mukasey is a stand-up guy!
Judge Mukasey's refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering — and I hope we will soon pass — a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law.Leave aside the fact that last sentence can only charitably be described as damning with faint praise. First, let's examine the question of which is more important: the Justice Department, or the integrity of the justice system. Four retired military officers say it's the latter:
On Friday, he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it — not even under some theory of inherent authority granted by Article II of the Constitution, as Vice President Cheney might argue. Nor would the president be able to evade a clear pronouncement on the subject from the courts. Judge Mukasey also pledged to enforce such a law.
From a Bush nominee, this is no small commitment.
Two retired generals and two retired admirals have written a letter (pdf) to Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating that "waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances. To suggest otherwise — or even to give credence to such a suggestion — represents both an affront to the law and to the core values of our nation."But it's okay, because Mukasey is a stand-up guy! He's promised to enforce a law Congress hasn't passed. Of course, elided in that analysis is the small fact that the President would undoubtedly veto any such law, and since the Congress has yet to override any Presidential veto, it's not very likely Judge Mukasey is going to find himself in the position of having to enforce such a law. But hey, he's a stand-up guy!


text:
Indicative Rate * AU$75 to AU$230
Staying in the heart of Australia's premier holiday destination, Cairns Queens Court presents a convenient location as you prepare yourself for the breathtaking Great Barrier Reef, Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation region.
Consisting of 81 rooms, Cairns Queens Court offers a wide choice of accommodation styles at exceptional value. From Budget two and a half to four Star and Studio rooms. Disabled rooms are also available on request (subject to availability).
A central swimming pool and bar compliment the facilities. A complimentary, light continental breakfast is available daily with hot breakfast available at surcharge.
Cairns Queens Court is centrally located close to Cairns City Centre, Cairns Esplanade, and Cairns Central Shopping Centre.
Queens Court offers a perfect location from which to explore the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage listed rainforest.
Tours to the Great Barrier Reef, Green Island, Fitzroy Island, Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation, Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail can be arranged through their reception team.
Staff are knowledgeable on all tours and happy to advise which attractions and tours are available to make your stay more enjoyable. Bookings can be made at the hotel with tour operators.
At Queens Court you can be assured of a welcoming stay.
The Family Room comprises two interconnecting bedrooms with private bathroom to sleep up to four people. The master bedroom has a queen bed, LCD flat screen television, direct dial telephone, clock radio, refrigerator, tea and coffee facilities, a room safe and wireless internet connection. Connected to second bedroom with two single beds. This room also has television, refrigerator and tea and coffee making facilities.
All family rooms include daily light continental breakfast and wifi.
Rates given are for three people, extra person charge applies for fourth person, as per rate chart.
Comfortable and affordable accommodation in Cairns for the budget conscious traveller. Rooms have twin bedding (two single beds), or double bedding. Rooms are air conditioned, television, tea and coffee facilities, a room safe, telephone, clock radio, and fridge. Complimentary light continental breakfast and Wifi are included in the tariff.
Studio Self-Contained Suites will give you a little more independence and comfort with a full kitchen and dining table. They are spacious, featuring queen and single bedding or king split and single bedding. A studio sleeps up to three people.
Studio Suites feature high speed broadband internet, kitchenette with cook top and microwave, cooking utensils, crockery and cutlery, dining table and chairs, individual split air conditioning, ceiling fans, clock radio, room telephone with voicemail. Ensuite with full bathroom amenities, hair dryer
The Studio Self Contained Suites are serviced daily and include a light continental buffet breakfast and free wifi
The comfortably appointed Standard rooms are just right for the holiday maker or business traveller. With a private bathroom and a little extra comfort; there is a desk, wireless internet, microwave and refrigerator. A room safe, clock radio, television and telephone. All Standard rooms include daily a light continental breakfast and wi-fi.
Deluxe, spacious and luxurious Premier Suites offer exceptional comfort. With more space and more facilities; luxury bathroom, and balcony, Austar cable television, ADSL Broadband internet and more. Premier Suites feature ceiling fans, balconies, individual split air-conditioning, microwave, and tea and coffee facilities. Rates include continental buffet breakfast and free wifi, rooms are serviced daily.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).

subset: commoncrawl


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Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience Tuesday that Microsoft is working on Office for iPad with a touch interface.
Ballmer was at a Gartner even in Florida when he mentioned that the iPad app would appear shortly after the Windows version of Office appears with a touch first user interface, according to The Verge. However, Ballmer did say that the touch-based interface is "in progress" but didn't give a launch date.
Previously Microsoft released an Office version for the iPhone which required an Office 365 subscription, but was not for use with the iPad.
U.S. & World
Microsoft is apparently now aware of the need for its software to be available across devices, especially because of the rise of Apple devices in corporate America. With so many iPads in the office, it's necessary for Microsoft to cater to that device and it needs touch-based technology to do so. Unfortunately, we don't know when that will actually happen.
It would be nice to be able to use Word or Excel on an iPad, but there are other apps that mimic them. The longer Microsoft takes to create the software, the more money it loses.


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Send questions and comments to firstname.lastname@example.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: I noticed that there are back-to-back new episodes of Modern Family this Wednesday night leading up to the premiere of the new musical drama series Nashville, while Suburgatory won't have its season premiere episode until the following week! Why did the TPTB at ABC felt the need to air two new episodes of Modern Family instead of premiering the second season of Suburgatory after MF and before Nashville? Was it because the network believes that two new episodes of MF running back-to-back together can make a more powerful lead-in to the series premiere of Nashville ratings-wise than Suburgatory, or is the network just that plain lazy with their programming schedule? — Chris B
Matt Roush: Odds are you already know the answer to this question, but it gives me an extra chance to plug the most promising new pilot of the fall season. Which would be Nashville, starring the great Connie Britton, an hour of TV so enjoyable I'm happy to see it get any advantage, which includes ABC deciding to double-down on Modern Family this Wednesday to provide Nashville the strongest lead-in possible. Lazy is the last word I'd use to describe this strategy (and I'm sure the last word the Modern Family producers would use as well, having to crank out yet another episode this early in the season to meet this need). Modern Family is the closest thing ABC has to a ratings powerhouse, and if this helps boost the sampling on Nashville, I'm all for it. The difficulty of ABC finding a suitable comedy to hold on to Modern Family's large and broad audience has been well documented, and for all of its virtues, Suburgatory is much more niche in its appeal. So for me, this is a potential win-win. And for Suburgatory fans, the good news is that while you might have to wait an extra week for the sophomore season to begin, that might mean one less week of repeats later in the run.
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Question: I am curious about why NBC is trying to distance itself from its sophisticated comedies and replace them with what is essentially the same thing (although mostly unwatchable). I have seen every episode of Community, Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock, and like most fans am baffled by the meager ratings, but I also get it's a business and they simply do not rate. NBC has made it very clear over the last few months they want to detach from these shows and go broader, but really, these so-called replacements are just awful. Go On and The New Normal are overly familiar copies of better shows, Guys With Kids seems like it was a dusted-off 1997 NBC sitcom and Animal Practice is just painful, very painful. The problem here, though, is other than the should-be-on-TV Land GWK, they are the same style and tone as the shows NBC is desperate to get away from. What's the point? They are the same sophisticated style that NBC apparently wants to get away from but executed far, far worse. What do we need to do to save Community and inject it back on Thursdays to replace the "retooled" but getting worse Up All Night (sorry Christina Applegate, failure No. 3). And can NBC retract the pink slips for The Office and 30 Rock pink slips? They are past their prime, but I'll take those in a heartbeat over this dreck they are servicing now.
And while I applaud the networks' investment in comedies this season, I haven't found one yet that qualifies as watchable. Partners and The Neighbors should join GWK on the 1997 schedule, and Ben and Kate and The Mindy Project can't use comedy in their description since they are not funny. It took forever for the comedy genre to come back in force, and over the last few years we have got sparklers like Modern Family, The Middle, Happy Endings, Raising Hope and New Girl, but these poor, very dated shows are sending it back into oblivion. — Chris C
Matt Roush: As I've often said, nothing in TV is more subjective than what's funny in comedy, and while I take your point that NBC hasn't moved far enough from the sameness that dug such a deep pit for its Thursday night once-upon-a-time must-see lineup, not every single-camera comedy falls under that category. It's pretty clear that Animal Practice and Guys With Kids are instant duds, attempts to swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction — dumbing down, if you will — but it's probably smart for NBC to give Go On and particularly (for me) The New Normal time to grow and gain traction. It's true that Go On often seems an uneasy blend of Community and Dear John, but I'm not sure how The New Normal classifies as a "familiar copy of a better show" (that would be Partners). Normal has improved greatly from the overdone pilot, and while its not perfect in its mix of sentimentality and barbed outrageousness, at least the show acts like it's living in today's world and isn't afraid to tackle the big issues. I would also take issue with such an easy dismissal of the new Fox comedies, and am pleased they've picked up more episodes of both. It's true nothing busted out of the gate this fall the way New Girl or Modern Family did in their respective seasons, and comedy development was the biggest disappointment for me overall in this fall lineup, but some of these comedies give me some hope that they could become keepers.
Question: I always enjoy reading the insights you offer on all things TV! I wanted to ask your opinion on Gyp Rosetti, Boardwalk Empire's new nemesis for Nucky. To point, I think the folks behind the show have done an excellent job of making the viewer feel like they are actually in the early 1920s, sitting amongst a variety of interesting characters that one might expect to encounter in that time and place working under those circumstances. I have enjoyed Bobby Cannavale's work over the years, but the Rosetti character seems way over the top. I understand the show wants the character to seem dangerous and imposing, but this particular character has such an inferiority complex and inability to contain his emotions that it seems hard to believe that he could be (or become) a crime boss that could rival or pose a threat to Nucky, Rothstein and the rest of the characters on the show. We have witnessed him brutally kill two men who simply made innocuous comments. He seems more cartoonish than anything else and not the type of smart and calculating sort that could match wits with Nucky, the authorities and other baddies on the show. What are your thoughts? — Kevin
Matt Roush: Couldn't agree more. This season in particular, I'm finding Boardwalk more a show to admire for its look than to embrace for its content, ending up much less than the sum of its disparate parts so far. The character of Gyp Rosetti is especially disappointing in this regard, apparently having been invented so as to make the hollow-souled Nucky seem less despicable. (Meanwhile, Margaret's crusade for women's causes feels like a politically correct and rather desperate attempt to keep her relevant to the main story.) In the magazine a few weeks ago, I compared Gyp's torching of the Tabor Heights sheriff to a similarly fiery death on Sons of Anarchy, when Tig's daughter was set aflame as payback for Pope's daughter's death. In Sons, this horrific act of retribution felt earned by what had come before, with even more tragic consequences to follow. In Boardwark, Gyp's act felt more predictable, a throwaway moment of casual brutality from an antagonist I also described as cartoonish, "packing heat that's only skin deep." This is no reflection on Bobby Cannavale, who's a terrific and versatile actor (witness his fine work last season on Nurse Jackie). Here, he's just coming off as another goon.
Question: You are undoubtedly being deluged by Glee mail after "The Break Up" episode, and while my question is about Glee, it more an observation about the character of Blaine. His cheating on Kurt would seem so uncharacteristic, but when I think back to this character's introduction, I am struck by how much the writers have changed him up. In Season 2, we meet Blaine as a junior in high school (so a year older then Kurt), very sure of who he is and his sexuality and as a mentor to Kurt. And that characterization stays through Season 2. And then in Season 3, he is now a year younger then Kurt and no longer the sure, solid young man seen in Season 2. And now his actions in "The Break Up" seem to continue what some have said is a character assassination. I think that may be going too far, but do you think that the writers have deliberately changed the character of Blaine or is this just a sign of the often unevenness of Glee's writing and development of secondary characters? Or are Blaine's actions just supposed to represent the stupid things teenagers do? — Chris
Matt Roush: I admit I was thrown for a loop when Glee decided that Kurt would graduate ahead of Blaine, who always felt — and looked and acted — older, more mature and worldly to me. (If they ever declared he was a junior, then changed their minds, I guess I missed that memo.) That aside, I was not at all taken aback by what happened in the "Break Up" storyline, although I'm curious who the guy was who texted Blaine, luring him into his indiscretion. They had already made it very clear that Blaine felt shut out, ignored and hurt by Kurt having moved on to a fabulous new cosmopolitan life at Vogue.com (the fantasy element of Glee being alive and well), but I guess I would have bought the story even more if it had been Saint Kurt who strayed, given his circumstances. For Blaine to fall from grace is not character "assassination," it's character development. Long-distance relationships, especially among the very young, rarely turn out well in shows like this (and often in life), and Glee dramatized that about as well as I've seen anyone do it lately, including in song. I thought the episode was pretty much a home run.
Question: I actually dig ABC's Last Resort a lot, and I hope it stays on throughout the whole year. What do you think? I know it is far-fetched, but it is never dull and keeps my attention! — Mike
Matt Roush: I have yet to write a discouraging word about Last Resort (which gets a full review in this week's magazine, so check that out), including last week's second episode, which went further over the top and gave many critics understandable pause. Even then, I enjoyed its energy and action, and appreciate how different it is from normal network fare. Like you, I hope ABC sticks with something this exotic and adventurous for the full season, and at least one of the arguments in its favor is that in the first week, it had a noticeable spike when DVR ratings were factored in, and the concentration of male viewers (not exactly an ABC staple most nights) is also above-par, which could make it more attractive from a sales point of view. But from a purely creative perspective, I'm as gung-ho as when I first saw the trailer at upfronts last May and then the pilot shortly thereafter.
Question: I was wondering if you had heard anything about dates for the next season of Top Shot. Everything I've found was very vague. And on a completely different train of thought, to what do you account for this season of Covert Affairs being amazing versus last season's lackluster run? Did they hire new writers? Or just re-focus the show? I was just wondering what your thoughts were. — Catherine
Matt Roush: When it comes to cable scheduling, you often just have to be patient. There will be a new season of Top Shot, sometime in 2013 (probably early in the year), but History hasn't announced the dates yet. With Covert Affairs, which I'm happy to remind everyone will return with new episodes next Tuesday to finish out the season, it's not new writers or producers but a re-energized focus on a more sustained storyline and less episodic case-of-the-week structure that made it so much more gripping. Several of the USA Network shows benefited from this approach this summer, including the second season of Suits.
Question: While watching Ben and Kate, I thought I was in The Twilight Zone, because I thought I saw a younger blonder version of Catherine Tate, and a guy doing an Ed Helms impersonation. Is that just me? I really like the show, but the comparisons have thrown me off a bit. — Dan
Matt Roush: OK, I get the Catherine Tate analogy with Lucy Punch's bawdy character (though I find her performance quite original), and I suppose you're seeing traces of Ed Helms in Nat Faxon's boy-child Ben? That never occurred to me, and I'm pretty sure neither of these actors are aiming for a vibe that would have you dwelling on anyone else's work. Maybe you're just a little oversaturated with comedy — and I'm not sure referencing the current cast of The Office is doing anyone any favors.
Question: Please give Dancing With the Stars a jeer for having Bristol Palin on the show again. With all the divisive Red State/Blue State political anger in our country, the polarizing Palins are unwelcome, especially with a national election a month away. I'm sure you know that Bristol cheated her way to third place in Season 10, thanks to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Every week the ballot box was stuffed and much better dancers were eliminated. Sarah promised girls that if they went to her web site they would find Justin Bieber's phone number. When the girls called the number, they didn't know they were voting for Bristol. Can nothing be fair and fun anymore? The ratings for DWTS are dropping because the public is fed up with ratings tricks. It will serve ABC right if Bristol wins the big prize dancing to "Jump the Shark." — Mary Ann
Matt Roush: I'm sure I don't know about the conspiracy theories regarding the voting on this show, then or now, and I don't particularly want to get in the middle of this sort of mudslinging in this forum. But I will tell you why I also deplore Bristol Palin's inclusion in the show this season. She is not and likely never will be a star, and barely qualifies as a reality star (witness the quick fade of her Lifetime series), and while she might be thought of as a "fan favorite" given how far she went (if not developed as a dancer) during her season, this seems to me particularly cynical casting, to which this show doesn't need to stoop. And after her whiny-pouty attitude on display in this week's episode, I'm sure we're hardly alone in wishing they'd taken a pass on her this season. Still, I wouldn't attribute the ratings drop this season to her alone. An "all-star" season sounded pretty good on paper, but what I've seen so far has been lacking in the drama of past years because so many of the celebrities are already dancing near or at the top of their game. There's no arc, no real suspense or (until some of the elaborate routines this week) surprise, so it's mostly just falling flat. Maybe the eliminations will get more interesting as past champs face each other in the bottom three, but getting there has been a letdown. Airing against the irresistible blind auditions of The Voice didn't help, either, but those are over, so let's see what happens next.
Question: With only three episodes in, I am surprised by how quickly my opinion of Revolution has changed. After the premiere, I was excited and looking forward to whatever happened next, but two episodes later I find that my interest has decreased drastically. It's as if the show has moved too fast and is focusing too much on storyline twists but has forgotten to let us get to know the characters first. As a fan of both Lost and Fringe, I love a good twist, but I feel like we need to think we know the characters involved for those twists to matter. If in the second episode of Fringe we had learned Peter wasn't Walter's son, that revelation would not have had much power because we the viewers hadn't come to care for the characters. Revolution has not given us a chance to know or care for these characters, and because of this I find myself disinterested in their struggles. So what is your opinion of Revolution three episodes in? — Amanda
Matt Roush: Even in the pilot episode, which set up the premise fairly well, there was a noticeable lack of compellingly drawn and fleshed-out characters (and among the younger cast, actors), and you make a good point that driving the plot along won't matter if we essentially don't care about who these things are happening to. The real problem here may be that what happened in the 15 years between the opening blackout and the current narrative is a more interesting story, and maybe the time jump was too extreme. The good news is that Revolution will get at least a full season to figure this out, and the building blocks are here for a fairly entertaining escapist adventure, even if it may never hit the fantastic heights of Lost and Fringe.
Question: I'm really enjoying Revolution but keep seeing references to characters from Stephen King's The Stand. Grace says "Randall" is here. Total bad guy from The Stand. Miles uses the aliases Stu Redman and Frannie for him and Charlie. Our heroes from The Stand. Aaron mentions a kid named Underwood that bullied him. All right, different first name (Billy vs. Larry), but last name the same. Why all the references? Are there others, will there be more? Are the writers just fans or is there a connection? — Terri
Matt Roush: The Stu Redman/Frannie aliases were the most obvious giveaway yet that the producers are obviously huge fans of The Stand, one of King's most influential works, which in many ways set the bar for this kind of post-apocalyptic/adventure quest type of story. From the start, I've been likening this show to King in its tone and in some of its particulars, including how specific the characters are in their longing for things we hold near and dear, like iPhones and iPods. I don't know what's ahead (and if I did, I wouldn't share here), but I'd be surprised if this is the last we've heard of this sort of thing. Now if the show somehow starts moving its compass west to Las Vegas, that might be taking the homage a bit far.
Question: Mondays for CBS has been tanking, and I'm really bummed that Hawaii Five-0 is getting affected. It's a great action-packed character-driven show. Based on the numbers so far, it's not up to par with CBS procedurals' standards, so I'm kind of worried. But then people have been saying that it's not in danger (at least for this season) because of its syndication deal with TNT. All I know is that it paid a lot to have the rights to air H50 episodes. How does that whole thing work out, really? And how is it a "safe" sign for the show? — Clarisse
Matt Roush: Just as critical a key to the show's potential longevity is the fact that it's an in-house CBS production, which means the company profits directly from this sort of cable syndication sale. If the numbers continue to go south for Hawaii Five-0 on Mondays, the next logical step — and the programmers at this network are nothing if not logical — is to move it to a less key and competitive night and time period, say Fridays (which could be among the factors that could hasten the demise of long-on-the-bubble CSI: NY or the DOA Made in Jersey). If CBS finds a way to keep the show profitable without causing too much damage to its lineup, then I wouldn't worry.
That's all for now. Keep sending your comments and questions to email@example.com, and in the meantime, follow me on Twitter!


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Suicide Silence: Death of vocalist Mitch Lucker 'devastating'
Fans were in mourning over the death of Mitch Lucker, a vocalist for the heavy metal band Suicide Silence who was killed in a motorcycle accident in Huntington Beach.
The band posted a statement on its Facebook page Thursday morning reading, "There's no easy way to say this. Mitch passed away earlier this morning from injuries sustained during a motorcycle accident. This is completely devastating to all of us and we offer our deepest condolences to his family. He will be forever in our hearts."
Lucker, 28, who lived in Huntington Beach, was riding his black 2013 Harley-Davidson south on Main Street about 8:55 p.m. Wednesday when he hit a light pole near the intersection of 13th Street. According to a release from the department, Lucker apparently lost control of his vehicle and was thrown from it after hitting the pole.
The motorcycle continued moving forward after Lucker was ejected and collided with a pickup truck that was traveling north on Main. The driver of the truck was not injured.
Lucker, who was treated at the scene by paramedics, died shortly after 6 a.m. at UC Irvine Medical Center, according to the Orange County coroner's office.
The band has released three albums — 2007's "The Cleansing," 2009's "No Time to Bleed" and last year's "The Black Crown" — and is described on the website of its record label, Century Media, as "the defining modern death metal band for a new generation."
On the site, Lucker is quoted describing the band's hardcore musical approach.
"This record just attacks, attacks, attacks," he says of the "Black Crown" album. "You're jumping up and down, or you're smashing something, or you're stomping something. It's simply unrelenting."
Lucker is at least the second heavy metal star to die in Huntington Beach in recent years; Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, the drummer of Avenged Sevenfold, succumbed to a drug overdose at his home in 2009.
Police urged anyone who witnessed the motorcycle collision to call (714) 536-5666.
1 dead, 1 wounded in Baldwin Park shooting
USC shooting: 'I didn't know if it was real or a Halloween gun'1 charged, 1 sought in Monterey Park sea cucumber, ginseng thefts
-- Michael Miller, Times Community News


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"Nature abhors a vacuum." Absinthe was unavailable in most of the world for nearly 100 years, and this vacuum led to many half-truths and complete myths about absinthe. Here are the myths I hear about most frequently:
1. "Drink absinthe and you'll see the green fairy." Usually with an encouragement to drink more to see more fairies.
NOT TRUE. The most powerful ingredient in absinthe is the alcohol: drink a lot of absinthe and you may see pink elephants, or perhaps the pavement/sidewalk at very close quarters. Yes, there is a chemical called thujone in absinthe (there's even more in sage apparently), but you'd have to drink so much absinthe to get any meaningful effect, you'd die of alcohol poisoning first. So maybe you'd get to see angels, if you think you're headed for Heaven (failing that, then devils).
2. "Absinthe should be enjoyed by burning an absinthe-soaked sugar lump which is then added to the absinthe to set fire to that." Or a variation of this. Clearly a great way to have fun ...
NOT TRUE. There is no record of burning sugar lumps and absinthe prior to the 1990's. Burning sugar adds a caramelised taste to the absinthe, which spoils the taste of a well-made absinthe; setting fire to the absinthe also burns off a lot of the alcohol, which is a major part of the cost you've just paid. There is no historical basis for this abuse of absinthe. No impressionist painter set fire to his absinthe just before pouring it down his throat.
3. "Real absinthe only comes from the Czech Republic," or "You cannot buy real absinthe in the USA" or similar.
NOT TRUE. Absinthe was born in Switzerland; during the 19th century most absinthe was made in Switzerland or France. And today most of the absinthe available in the USA is real absinthe, whether made in France, Switzerland or the USA. Sadly in Europe and a few other countries, many of the absinthes available are little more than wormwood-flavoured, artificially-coloured vodka, but it is heartening to see some good absinthe coming out of the Czech Republic now.
4. "Real absinthe is bright green, like the fairy, and so we add artificial colouring to make it green." Well, maybe no manufacturer actually says it like that, but some of them encourage this myth by selling artificially coloured absinthe.
So, NOT TRUE. If an absinthe is unnaturally green, it's a manufacturing short-cut, and probably a sign of other short-cuts in the process.
Finally, and this is really something I hear almost every time I do an absinthe event ....
5. "Van Gogh cut off his ear because of absinthe."
NOT TRUE. He spent most of his day breathing in paint fumes, and it is probable that these caused much more harm than absinthe.
Given the recent fuss about the Sour Toe Cocktail, I am tempted, however, to consider a Van Gogh's Ear cocktail ....
There are other myths I hear from time to time, but the five myths above can be traced to manufacturers or vendors of lower quality "absinthes," who do not sell their products through legal channels (especially in the USA). They have a vested interest in promoting these myths. Buyer, beware!
So how should you enjoy absinthe?
Read more about the myths and about some of the surprising truths behind absinthe in my 10 Key Facts series.


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You know those museums that are really quiet and you can't touch anything? These are definitely not those museums. Take the Boston Children's Museum. It's one-of-a-kind, world-renowned center for enrichment. But the kids don't care about that. They just like that it's as fun as a barrel of monkeys. The Museum of Science has scary dinosaurs, loud electric bursts, and an Imax screen the size of a basketball court, and it's still extremely educational. The Kidspace at Mass MoCA has really mind-blowing art, including some uniquely interactive work. At the Discovery Museums in Acton, kids can bounce a ball three stories high or engineer their own train track. Of course, if your family loves those quiet museums, we have plenty of those too.
Watch a video on Edith Wharton's The Mount in Lenox.
Children's Museum, Boston
New Bedford Whaling Museum
Eric Carle Museum, Amherst
Museum of Science, Boston
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Rebecca Nurse Homestead
Experience life in rural Salem Village on 27 beautiful acres! The 1678 home of Rebecca Nurse and her family has been period... more+ 9 saves
Rebecca Nurse Homestead
149 Pine St.
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