Lift Up Your Hearts!

I don't know who David Bahnsen is, nor at the moment do I feel the urge to find out. I judge him by his words alone, which through some combination of randomness and algorithm showed up on my Facebook feed. It was when I read the last line that I knew I had to repost them.

Many are writing me to point out the things Charlie [Kirk] said or did that are worthy of critique (sometimes that I actually did critique in real time). And while I can’t really understand why the first 4 days after someone’s assassination are the days in which people feel the need to “set the record straight,” I get that it is not the case that Charlie was perfect or above reproach.

But the more I think about the stuff that drove me bonkers about Charlie, the more I wonder how much was youthful immaturity that was in the process of being worked through. Just in the last 24 months anyone paying attention to Charlie’s public life saw extraordinary maturity and growth. It is so hard for me as a 51-year old to critique the 26-year old version of Charlie without wondering what the 36-year old or 41-year old might have been like. I certainly understand we can’t know that he would evolved into a patron saint of maturity, but I believe the 31-year old was exponentially more mature than the 26-year old, and I believe that trajectory was continuing.

I also believe if my life had ended at 31, basically every single thing I’m proud of or that is worthy of mention would have NEVER HAPPENED. All of my attempts at growth, sanctification, improvement, productivity have come out in the last 20 years, not the 15 years that preceded age 31. It’s sort of humbling.

You don’t have to deify someone or pretend you agree with everything to recognize that:

A - his murder is a reprehensible tragedy,

B - he was a special talent in his work ethic, discipline, and cultural instincts, and

C - he was a work in progress, and thank God none of us peaked at 31.

Before you post about something Charlie said or did at age 27, think about your own life at 27. When I do that, it makes me want to really keep my mouth shut.

Porter had the idea for this image, and I had fun with Copilot on this. It steadfastly refused to make an image of an ostrich with a noose around its neck and a Canadian flag in the background. But it then asked what I was trying to express, and had a number of suggestions for making the point without violating its guidelines. After about 15 minutes of back and forth I was quite pleased with this. Not with the circumstances of course, but with the picture.

Although I read all of the original Harry Potter books when they first came out, I saw only a few of the films. Thanks to a friend's gift, however, we've recently been watching the early ones, and I was able to enjoy them thoroughly because it's been so long since I read the books that I can't whine about the differences.

A few days ago we viewed Goblet of Fire for the first time. You can imagine the powerful impact of the following scene. I knew I had to find it online and share it here.

I try to ignore the insane TikTok (and other platform) postings celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, figuring there's a good chance that many of them are either AI-generated or (more likely) people being paid to cause trouble. That kind of thing is real, and it's not new: political propaganda and agitation predate social media by millennia. But it's impossible to avoid it altogether without cutting oneself entirely off from the world; you don't need to stand near a forest fire to be overcome by smoke.

Tragically, there's abundant evidence that much vile sentiment does come from real people who appear to believe the horrific things they are saying, and claim without apology their First Amendment right to free speech. Real people. Real teachers even.

I hear the "freedom of speech" claim a lot, attempting to justify bad behavior, from the merely rude to the heinous. In such situations I'm compelled to point out that no, their actions are not protected as much as they hope by the First Amendment. Constitutionally, they are in most cases protected from governmental interference in their speech, though even then there are exceptions (e.g. yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater, slander/libel, and certain threats). But there is nothing that I know of that prohibits a private enterprise from saying, "Your publicly-expressed opinions are antithetical to the culture and mission of our organization and give us concern that your inability to control them will put the comfort and safety of our customers at risk. Therefore it is time to go our separate ways."

I saw that play out here locally, when Penzey's Spices pressured (and eventually laid off) the employees of our local store who did not share the corporate political positions. And it was the company's right to do so. Only the court of public opinion can prevail against that.

(The Second Amendment is similarly limited: I have the right to "bear arms" but if my local grocery store puts up a sign saying, "No guns allowed" I don't have the right to at the same time carry my pistol and fill my shopping cart. It's complicated; if the Constitution and our laws were perfectly clear, too many lawyers would be at risk of unemployment.)

A shockingly large number of folks have crossed a sacred line in the glorification of cold-blooded murder. I'm not completely comfortable with the people who are exposing these obscene posts and making sure the posters' employers—and in the case of teachers, their students' parents—are made aware of them, but sometimes light needs to be shined into dark places. 

What kind of human being cheers the assassination of an innocent man? If I were a business I would seriously worry about putting such a person in a position where he could do harm to a customer he happened to dislike.

What I really don't understand is the teachers who make such posts. Have they lost their minds? I know a guy who became a teacher after serving honorably in another profession. I was sorry that I could no longer follow his interesting and often wise posts on Facebook, because one of the clear rules of his school was that teachers were to have no social media presence whatsoever. At first I thought that was harsh, but now I see the wisdom in it. Even where social media posting is not forbidden by the school, how can a teacher want to advertise that parents have entrusted their children to one who lacks the common sense—not to mention the common humanity—to refrain from exulting in violent death? Much less the violent death of someone for whom many of their students are deeply grieving?

Young people are often warned to be careful what they post online, because their future may hang in the balance. That's a lesson we all need to learn. Sometimes it's a risk we must take: speaking the truth can be costly. But as the Bible says, it's one thing to suffer for doing good, and quite another to suffer from doing evil.

Sadly, I can't stick my head in the sand and deny that hatred and horrific behavior are real. We have to acknowledge it, be aware of our surroundings, and prepare to face trouble, just as we prepare to face hurricanes, earthquakes, illness, job loss, and other challenges.

Possibly the best preparation of all would be to strengthen our relationships within our families, among our friends, and in our neighborhoods.

There are no guarantees. I can't forget the Rwandan Genocide, where neighbors raped neighbors, friends slaughtered friends, and the man standing next to you in church on Sunday might do unspeakable things to your children on Wednesday. It was a time when political, cultural, and racial lines were drawn hard and fast.

We. Must. Do. Better. "It can't happen here" is a tragic epitaph.

Where do I find hope? In God, first of all. The second is like unto it: In what I know, and whom I know, from my own experience.

We could all benefit from spending less time watching the news and scrolling through social media, and more time looking around at our families, friends, and neighbors. Of the people we really know and interact with, how many actually hold that kind of hatred in their hearts? I have many friends whose political views are sharply opposed to mine—yet by living, working, and playing together we make opportunities to observe and appreciate each other's humanity, and to prove that we have each other's backs in times of need.

That's where the most important reality lies.

I was 15 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed.

All in all, 1968 was quite the year. The assassinations of King and of Robert F. Kennedy (Sr.), race riots all over the country, the horrors of the Vietnam War, the capture by North Korea of the U.S.S. Pueblo, the Prague Spring and the subsequent crushing of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, madness on college campuses here and in Europe, the disastrous Democratic National Convention in Chicago. On the plus side, NASA's Apollo program was going strong, and the Apollo 8 mission gave mankind its first look at the far side of the moon.

I was privileged at that time to be in the class of Jim Balk, the best history teacher I ever had, and so was primed to be more aware of what was going on than usual.

Personally, 1968 was also the year of our family's world-expanding cross-country automobile trip. My father had grown up in the State of Washington, but we children had never been further west than Central Florida. Granted, it would have been even more eye-opening for me had I had not spent so much of our travel time with my eyes glued to Robert Heinlein's The Past Through Tomorrow and other books we'd picked up from my uncle as we travelled through Ohio. I am not proud of the fact that science fiction could hold my interest far longer than the amber waves of grain or the purple mountain majesties. Nonetheless, it was an amazing and important experience, as would be my first trip to Europe the following year.

Nineteen sixty-eight was the midpoint of a dark, tumultuous, and very strange time for our country. Right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lies, beauty and ashes—the world was turned upside down and shaken. Did we emerge from that era stronger and better? It was indeed followed by a few decades of apparent recovery and progress, but looking back I wonder if we were merely in the calmer eye of the hurricane. For several years now it has felt to me as if the winds of the 1960's have returned with surpassing strength.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk took me right back to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I had learned from Mr. Balk that in that tragedy, the civil rights movement lost its best hope for non-violent progress, and he was proved right. King's non-violent legacy was "honored" by rage and riots.

We must do better.

Charlie Kirk believed strongly that we need to keep talking with each other, that when we stop talking, violence rushes in to fill the gap. That's why he loved going to college campuses and giving students an open mike to debate with him.

Shock and grief naturally lead to anger, but we need to get through that stage quickly, learn the lessons of 1968, and choose to honor Charlie Kirk by demonstrating and promoting the values by which he lived and worked. Charlie Kirk wasn't weak, and he did not mince words. From what I have seen—which I admit is only online and not personal—he had the same kind of strength and wit you see in the Gospel accounts of Jesus. Not many of us have either that strength or that wit, but we would do well to aim in that direction.

Okay, so there's a lot I could post (and plan to) that's more important than this, but having visited New Zealand and our lovely Kiwi friends (nearly 25 years ago now) the country, and the Maori, have a special place in my heart. Said heart was especially warmed today when I saw this video of a group of Maori performing a Haka dance at a London vigil for Charlie Kirk. I'm sorry I can't embed it here; I hope you can see it. Not that it will mean much if you haven't been to New Zealand, but maybe you can appreciate the tribute, anyway.

You can learn a bit more about Haka from the Wikipedia article.

Haka includes various forms serving different ceremonial purposes. These functions include: [emphasis mine]

• welcoming guests (haka pōwhiri)
• fare-welling and mourning the deceased (waiata tangi)
• giving advice or instructions (waiata tohutohu)
• restoring self-respect (pātere)
• intimidating adversaries (peruperu – war dance)
• and transmitting social and political messages (haka taparahi, ngeri)

When you see a crowd of people cheering or jeering on a college campus, or in the city streets, do you ever wonder how many of the people are genuinely concerned about the issue, whatever it is? How many are just curious, attracted by the crowd? How many, even of the most vocal, have simply been swept along by the excitement?

And how many have been paid to be there to create a mob and direct its energy?

This question hits home a little more for me because I've been there.

We all cheer more loudly at a sporting event when those around us are screaming their support. That's why teams have cheerleaders. We boo and insult the other team more vociferously, too, when the crowd is behaving in a way that we never would on our own.

I have been a "paid protester."

Many times, I've been part of a group that was hired for the purpose of generating excitement and enthusiasm for an event which meant absolutely nothing to me. To create, at the request of my employers, a specific atmosphere, designed to influence the emotions and actions of those around me. What's more, our whole family was involved, even the children.

And I'd do it again. 

It was harmless, even a bit enchanting. We were hired to make some guests at Disney World feel especially welcomed, as if they were famous personalities. Or to swell a stadium with enthusiastic team supporters. It was a fun outing with friends, and we were paid in Disney tickets.

I've seen the process, I know how it works, and I know how easily crowds can be manipulated.

If I had fewer scruples and more need for money, and someone offered a group of family and friends $100 each to cheer at some politician's rally, would I accept the job? I might consider it an interesting outing, even an educational moment for the kids. (Though $100 isn't even worth as much as a Disney ticket these days.)

What if I were offered money to swell the crowd at an organized protest? Or to provoke a "spontaneous" one? That would take fewer scruples and more need for money, because that's courting real danger, but I could see it happening in my younger days, when I had more time and fewer suspicions.

What if I were feeling generally miserable and angry at the world? What if I were strung out on drugs and needed money for the next fix? Would I wave a sign someone handed to me? Would I throw a brick through a store window?

My father could remember the days when spreading bribes (and threats) among voters was a common political strategy. Human nature has not in the interim changed for the better. A $100 bill is barely petty cash for a high-stakes political campaign, and influencing public perceptions can be a far more cost-effective strategy than the old-fashioned one bribe, one vote approach.

Caveat elector.

I've been watching the Cracker Barrel brouhaha with some amusement. Not that it concerns me directly: Despite having lived here for 40 years, I haven't developed a taste for Southern cooking. Except for hush puppies, fried green tomatoes, pulled pork, and Key lime pie, oh my! Unlike several of my friends, I almost never eat at Cracker Barrel. Not that that hurts the company any: Another reason I don't go there is that they're so crowded and the wait is too dang long. So I can't imagine why their CEO decided the restaurant needed to be de-Southerned. Don't mess with success.

As the Coca-Cola Company learned 40 years ago, when they decided to change the formula of their iconic product. New Coke was an instant failure, and so was New Cracker Barrel.

Which leads me to the following speculation: Did Cracker Barrel's CEO wake up one morning and ask herself, What can we do to spruce up our bottom line? How can we make more people aware of our restaurants?" And did a sly smile spread over her face as she realized the value of offending people? It's risky—that strategy bit Bud Light rather badly—but if you do it right, you can generate a big storm, make your regular clientele remember why they love your product, and get people talking about you who had never even walked across your threshold. If the reaction to your changes is bad, you can admit your mistake and backtrack—if you do it quickly enough, people will forgive you, and may even have a greater appreciation for something they had taken for granted. And if nobody really cares about your changes, you can congratulate yourself on moving the company in the direction you want to go.

People are calling those who promoted the Cracker Barrel change idiots, or worse. But I wonder. It may turn out to have been a smart move, as long as they can convince their loyal and enthusiastic customers that they've learned their lesson and didn't really mean to insult them, their tastes, their traditions, and their ancestors.

It began as a student project by Professor Jamie Rector's class at the University of California, Berkeley. They wanted to investigate methane emissions from abandoned and sealed oil wells. What the students discovered could turn the approach to California's environmental concerns on its head.

As they researched California’s abandoned oil wells, Rector’s students discovered an abundance of natural oil seeps located above the same fields—and came to a surprising conclusion. Geologically driven, natural oil seeps are a major contributor to California’s greenhouse emissions, they say. And drilling—long seen as the problem, not the answer—might be a panacea for emissions.

Natural seeps occur when liquid oil and gas leak to the Earth’s surface, both on land and under water. California sits on actively moving tectonic plates, which create fractured reservoirs and pathways for the oil to escape. ... Waters off Southern California are rife with seeps, and oil and gas fields ... have some of the highest natural hydrocarbon seep rates in the world, emitting gases such as methane, as well as toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). But these geologically driven seeps, Rector notes, have been largely unaccounted for in assessing how oil production fields contribute to California’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“There are hundreds of studies linking oil and gas fields to greenhouse gas emissions, to cancer rates, to climate justice, to groundwater pollution and everything else,” said Rector. “And yet none of these studies ever considered the possibility that it wasn’t from equipment or production, but natural seeps above the oil fields.” ... Rector’s team calculates that natural seeps, together with orphaned wells, produce 50 times more methane emissions than oil and gas equipment leaks in Southern California.

If seeps are driving emissions above oil fields, Rector reasons, plugging abandoned wells may do little to help pollution. In fact, he posits, the only demonstrated way to reduce natural seep emissions is by depleting underlying reservoirs—that is, by drilling.

Pointing to studies showing that oil production has reduced and even eliminated seeps, he suggests California’s current regulatory environment may be counterproductive.
“The crazy thing is, by stopping oil and gas production in California, after we’ve regulated and really gotten equipment emissions way down, we may be increasing seep emissions,” Rector said. “Because these seeps come up through the oil and gas fields, and the only way to stop it is by producing oil.”

The article is much longer than these excerpts, and the situation is of course complex, both scientifically and politically, but I see it as yet another demonstration of the truth that simplistic solutions with the best of intentions often lead to harmful, unintended consequences.

It's time to bring back a post from eight years ago, which I called Leadership. It was inspired by the funeral of a man I wish I had known better.

I've never aspired to be a leader. I learned that in elementary school, when my parents and teacher were talking about "leadership qualities" and I thought, "Doesn't sound like fun to me." I don't mean I necessarily like to be a follower—mostly I like to do my own thing (child of the '60s) and other people can come along, or not, as they wish.

But a man at our church, who died not long ago, is making me rethink the idea of leadership. I barely knew him, but our choir sang for his funeral, and what I learned about him then made me wish I had found a way to cultivate his friendship.

He was accomplished enough for 10 people. He graduated in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Princeton. He was a marine, serving in World War II and Korea. He followed that up by working for the CIA, earning the highest possible award for valor. For three years he endured Communist prison camp in Cuba. His civilian life achievements and community activities are too numerous to mention.

And they played bagpipes at his funeral.

Most amazing of all for someone so distinguished, everyone who knew him remarked about his humility. Churches talk a lot about "servant leadership" but apparently this man actually embodied it. He was, indeed, a "humble servant."

And yet....

The other thing said about him was that people did things the way he thought they ought to be done. He was humble, he was gentle, he was soft-spoken—but you didn't cross him. Somehow, he induced people to see things his way without pushing them around, without exerting his power—which is real power, indeed.

What might the world be like with more leaders like that?

There are a lot of things about the good ol' days that I don't miss—smoking on airplanes is at the top of the list—but recently I was gloriously reminded of one of the benefits that we took for granted at the time: good showers.

I don't think anyone born after 1990 has any idea what a good shower feels like. For almost 25 years it has taken me twice as long as previously to take a shower, because the flow from today's emasculated nozzles is so weak. Maybe if you've stood under a waterfall, or a tropical rainstorm, you have an idea of the joy of a shower free from unnecessary regulation, but it's pure bliss after all this wimpy stuff, let me tell you.

As I stood under the shower, the thought crossed my mind: I know President Trump has a lot of more important things to think about, but I sure wish he'd get rid of the shower head restrictions.

I thought it was just a useless wish. But like my similar dreams that companies would get rid of the junk that fills much of our food, or that someone would take seriously the catastrophic rise in allergies, autism, ADHD, and other afflictions that have replaced measles, mumps, and chicken pox as parental concerns. But at last, we as a country are attempting to address those and other long-time concerns of mine, so I though maybe shower heads had a chance.

Lo and behold, today I learned that President Trump has already rescinded—not the original 1992 regulation of showerheads, which I would have preferred, but at least the subsequent re-interpretations of the rules that were considerably more onerous. I'll celebrate victories when I see them.

There are many ways to conserve resources. One size fits all rarely works well. I'll take shorter, more powerful showers; you're welcome to take longer, wimpier ones.

Maybe it's time to stimulate the economy by buying new showerheads. As long as they're made in America.

Make showers great again!

Based on the last time I read through our Constitution, I'd say the Babylon Bee is spot on here: Democrats Outraged After Court Rules Commander-In-Chief Of Armed Forces Can Command Armed Forces. (Article II, Section 2) The headline says it all, but here's an excerpt from the article:

Democratic leaders said that the ruling was a clear and present threat to American democracy and they feared for the future of a country where the person in charge of things could actually be in charge of things.

"This is an extremely dangerous precedent for the court to set," said Senator Cory Booker. "There is no way that the president should be allowed to exercise his constitutional authority to tell the U.S. Armed Forces what to do, as though he were somehow their highest-ranking commanding officer. These activist judges are trying to make Trump out to be some type of president or something."

At publishing time, Democrats were so outraged by Trump's overreach that they threatened to impeach the president for acting as the president.

I'll admit it is somewhat amusing, if also disturbing, that our natural tendency is to assume that an action—be it legislation, court ruling, or presidential initiative—must be unconstitutional because we disagree with it.

In this we all embody the quote attributed to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall: "The Constitution is what I say it is." (As far as I can tell, he didn't actually use those words, but they are a pretty accurate précis of his more nuanced position.)

I highly recommend reading the entire U. S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights and other Amendments, at least once a year, to keep it fresh in our minds. For such a monumental document, it is surprisingly short, and takes only about half an hour to read through.

When I was young, stories for children about sports had one theme in common: sportsmanship. In fact, that was the main reason given for the existence and importance of sports: taming the instincts of aggression and domination into tools for the betterment of all areas of society, including the protection of women and children. A coach's job was to build a winning team, sure, but his most important job was to build boys into men. With minor modifications, that works as well for girls and women.

Today we have a win-at-any-cost mentality that poisons sports, politics, and every other area of life. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that people would be judged by the content of their character loses its soul when character no longer matters.

I don't understand how people can live with themselves whose victory comes from not playing by the same rules as their opponents.

I don't follow Matt Walsh's podcasts, but that's for lack of time, not lack of respect. I find him intelligent and well-spoken, and sometimes quote him here. Not that I always agree with him—he nearly lost me when I found out that he thinks raw milk is disgusting. I was almost one of the 14,000+ people who called him out on that, but decided instead that each of us has a right to be wrong, and let him alone.   

Why have I included him in my Heroes category? Because we need heroes at every level. Maybe Matt Walsh didn't run into a burning building to save a child, but he just took an important stand against the undefined but powerful mob that will use any excuse and any tactic to bring down those who dare disagree with whatever narrative they are currently imposing. I have no problem with calling someone out for saying or doing something that troubles me, but the demand for an apology and public groveling, which is almost always a part of the process, is not only wrong, but a dangerous abuse of power.

I consider it a heroic act to stand up to that kind of pressure. It's not easy. I remember, with shame, the times in my life when I've apologized for things I still believe were not only not wrong, but actively the right thing to do. And yet, shameful though I think my groveling was, I'm not apologizing for apologizing under duress, because the threats were not to me but to my children. The memory, however, makes me all the more inclined to respect people who, as Walsh put it, decline to take part.

In this video, Walsh addresses the firestorm that erupted when he refused to take down an image that someone else posted in a critical response to one of his X posts. Walsh, the mob insists, knowingly and approvingly posted a swastika, because he didn't censor his critic's image.

Now that I know where it is, I find it impossible not to see the swastika in question. But until it was pointed out, I didn't see it at all. I have no problem believing that Walsh didn't either. But once noted, why not take it down? The better question is, why should it be taken down? Even if it had been in plain sight, a normal swastika, while it would have been fine for Walsh to delete an image that someone else had imposed on his X feed, it is wrong for anyone to pressure him to do so. The swastika has been around for millennia and originally meant well-being. This mob would have had us burn our antique Oriental rug because it included these ancient symbols in its design.

Just because someone has reused a historic symbol for other purposes, that doesn't mean it's right to cave in to the misappropriation. Even if I'm the last person in the world to do so, I will still use "gay" to mean "lighthearted," use masculine pronouns as neutral when appropriate, and continue to cringe every time I hear "they" and "them" used as if they were singular. (This means I am cringing frequently while listening to the lastest New International Version of the Bible—not a salubrious situation.) I also insist on singing the old words to familiar hymns rather than the abominations featured in modern hymnals. Take that, "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!"

This attack on Walsh makes me want to post an image of a swastika loud and clear on my blog, maybe in the company of my nasty-looking image of the COVID-19 virus. However, even if it may sometimes be necessary to fight a bear, it's stupid to poke one unnecessarily, so my more rational side beat down my gut reaction in this case.

The really interesting part of all this is the image itself—which I reserve for a subsequent post. I'll try enabling comments, just in case someone else notices the issue with the picture before I write about it. Please be respectful and refrain from using the comment section for arguments.

Florida has become the second state (after Utah) to ban the addition of fluoride to community water systems, for which I am very grateful. I prefer to have governmental decisions made at the lowest practical level, but I prefer even more not to have to choose between buying bottled water and drinking tap water with greater-than-natural levels of fluoride. I already get plenty, perhaps too much, from other sources, from toothpaste to topical fluoride to my frequent cups of tea. There may be dental benefits to consuming fluoride, but ingesting it ought to be a personal choice, not something forced upon all customers of the community water supply.

I let my opinion be known at the city level, with no success, despite the good examples of neighboring cities. So I was thrilled to learn yesterday that our legislature had passed, and Governor DeSantis signed, a bill eliminating added fluoride in our water systems.

There may have been a time when adding fluoride to the water supply was important, but with the substance so readily available in other ways, there's no excuse for forcing it on the general population.

Thanks, Florida!