Lift Up Your Hearts!

Why the Rest Hates the West:  Understanding the Roots of Global Rage, by Meic Pearse (Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2004)

This is not a book review; not yet.  I long to write about Meic Pearse's book, but it deserves a detailed and extensive review which I cannot at the moment accomplish.  Rather than wait entirely until I can put in the requisite time and effort, however, I'm posting this placeholder, because this is an incredibly valuable book!  Its somewhat unfortunate title calls to mind the hand-wringing post-9/11 whine, "Why do they hate us?" but Why the Rest Hates the West is a serious, insightful analysis of the chasm between modern Western culture—more precisely, "anti-culture"—and the rest of the world that no one with more than a few years left on this earth can afford to ignore.

Find the book!  Read it!  Then come back here and tell me what you think.

And I'll put Li'l Writer Guy to work on the review.

When I read the story of Melissa Busekros, I wonder anew why some people are so anxious to subject our country to the authority of international governing bodies.  Fifteen-year-old Melissa was ripped from her home by German police, committed to a mental hospital, and placed in state custody, all because her parents, concerned that the chaotic environment of her school had contributed to her failure in two subjects, chose to have her tutored at home the next year.  She was (and apparently still is) cut off from contact with her parents and siblings, with the excuse that she is suffering from "school phobia" and contact with her family would exacerbate the problem.

Homeschooling is illegal in Germany.  That's bad enough for German citizens, but could be disastrous for the rest of Europe if the German philosophy gains the upper hand in European Union politics.  And should the United States decide to submit to the authority of the United Nations or another international authority, we would put ourselves at risk of similar tyranny.

When I speak against compuslory education in the United States I am told that the state needs to have ultimate authority because you can't trust some parents to do what's best for their children.  Similarly, the drive for international governance is fueled by good intentions, in the hope of replacing barbaric practices with civilized behavior.  The consequences, however, depend on who gets to define "barbaric" and "civilized."

I acknowledge that some parents are abusive, and some are ignorant.  The risk is real in allowing families to be free.  But the collective wisdom of even the most democratic government can also be ignorant and abusive, and by virtue of its scope can do much more damage.  As one moves from local, to regional, to national, to international, personal involvement is diminished at every level, and with it the chance of the humanizing mediation of love.

Do I trust all families to make the best decisions for their children?  Trust me, I don't.  (I could jail most of the country for the abuse of setting their children in front of the television for so many hours!)  But I belive the best hope for the best outcome is freedom coupled with the free exchange of information.  If I don't completely trust families, I trust governments much less; state less than local, federal less than state, and international least of all.  What's more, economic freedom allows families to flee an objectionable government for one that offers a better situation.  To move from one community to another is perhaps not too difficult; but where can we flee from this world?

I'm not holding a grudge, and have recently fallen in love with Japan and her people, but history, remembrance, and memorials are important, so it is sad to note that FDR's date which will live in infamy is mostly ignored.

Yet Ed Hayes came through, as did BC and Mallard.

Central Florida news teams were positioned to cover what they thought would be the big news of the night—the election—and had to scramble when the weather took center stage.

Have you ever stood in the ocean and had a wave suddenly break over your head? Now imagine that the wave doesn't recede, but continues to pour over you for half an hour, and you have a picture of yesterday's rainstorm. If there's been a heavier downpour in all our 20-some years here, I don't remember it.

I like weather, if I'm watching it from a safe position, and might have thoroughly enjoyed the experience if Janet had been home with me. Instead, I took the storm as a call to prayer, since she was out running errands. I'm sure I was almost as glad to hear the sound of the garage door opening as she was to be driving in. On the main highway, a truck (driving at all of maybe 35 mph) completely enveloped her little car with spray as it passed, blinding her for several seconds. Once in the neighborhood, the main street, even at the top of the hill, was flooded to the sidewalks, and visibility was nearly zero. Just after the storm passed over us, it turned vicious, spawning a tornado that divested some houses in Oviedo of their roofs.

I don't know what effect the storm might have had on the election, but I'm sure that many people driving home from work through the deluge decided not to bother to stop at the polls on the way. I had voted earlier in the day, my usual hodgepodge procedure of voting for whoever I like best, Republican or Democrat. I suppose you could say I "won," since the election went my way on about 2/3 of the issues. However, I'm not rejoicing, since I lost on the only issue I really cared about. Seminole County had the opportunity to authorize a very small ad valorem tax for the purpose of purchasing environmentally sensitive lands and developing recreational trails and pedestrian bridges, and it failed 51% to 49%. I'm guessing too many people voted reflexively anti-tax. Not that I blame them entirely, as that is my own tendency, but in this case the cost was small and the benefits enormous; we have lost a great opportunity.

Economists are accustomed to drawing conclusions from statistical studies and aggregations of data. It's hard to reduce economic behavior to controlled, double-blind studies, and laboratory rats aren't necessarily a good model for corporate rats. So it came as no surprise to me that some Cornell University economists thought they might get a handle on the elusive cause of childhood autism by studying rainfall and the availablity of cable television. Working from the assumption that children spend more hours watching television in households that have cable TV, and in locations where high rainfall keeps them indoors, and observing significantly higher rates of autism in communities with a confluence of those conditions, the researchers suggested early television viewing as a possible trigger for autism spectrum disorders.

When I first read about the study, I was reminded of a story Peter Drucker tells, in his marvelous, autobiographical, historical commentary, Adventures of a Bystander, about an outstanding statistics teacher at the University of Minnesota.

A little bald-headed bearded man, almost a dwarf, he ran a doctoral seminar in which he projected tables and graphs onto a screen without any legend or explanation. "Look at the figures," he'd say, "and tell me what they tell you." The students would point out this irregularity in a distribution or that periodicity, this pattern or that internal contradiction, and the little man would nod, smile, argue, and get across a great deal about numbers as a grammar without even belaboring the point. Then he'd flash on the screen two series of figures that obviously belonged together; they showed a close correlation, almost one to one, over long time periods. "Clearly," all the students said, "these two series are causally related." "That's what every statistician would say," the little man responded, "but perhaps you can tell me what the relationship could be. This series," pointing to the table on the left, "is the annual herring catch off Newfoundland; and that one," pointing to the right, "is the number of illegitimate children born the same year in North Dakota."

It may be that the Cornell professors' study has produced only a "correlation" of this type. However, the really interesting story is not the report, but the reaction to it. Television promoters and viewers are digusted; parents of autistic children are offended; and the study has been mocked, ridiculed, and satirized. It is not true because it cannot be true. Let someone report a study that indicates one race or sex might be inherently predisposed to excel another in some area, and he will find he has called the Furies down upon his head. Dare to suggest that day care might be harmful to children and your research will be attacked, because such a conclusion hits us in our most vulnerable place. The famed science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, showed no patience for those who base their beliefs on faith rather than on objective science; nonetheless, I heard him say that he believed the universe to be cyclical, ever expanding and contracting, rather than a single expansion after one Big Bang, solely because he did not want to believe that the universe would ever come to an end. Modern American society does not want to believe that television might be harmful; therefore any such suggestion must be laughed out of court.

With my own anti-television bias, I must be careful to resist the temptation not to recognize the limitations of such statistical research. I will, however, state that it should not be laughed at. No one else has come up with a convincing explanation for the alarming rise in autism cases, and the researchers' ideas deserve serious consideration—especially in light of their observation that the Amish, whose distinctives include not watching TV, have unusually low rates of childhood autism. This study does not prove that allowing young children to watch television for long hours increases their risk of developing autism. But it is a possibility worth further investigation.

I mentioned local pastor Joel Hunter once before, when the Orlando Sentinel published an article he wrote on Christians and politics. Today's Sentinel mentions him again, and so will I.

Hunter has accepted the (unpaid) position of president of the Christian Coalition of America. The author of Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly With Most Conservative Christians plans to take the Coalition in a new direction, moving its headquarters from Washington, DC to Central Florida, and seeking to broaden its approach and appeal.

"There ought to be more than just gay marriage and pro-life issues, because the Bible is concerned with all of life. We need to do everything we can to relieve poverty, to heal the sick and to protect the Earth."

Much remains to be seen, but it sounds like a positive change.

Today's Orlando Sentinel has a good essay on Christian involvement in political issues by Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland Community Church. We visited Northand a few times, including when they were still meeting in a partially-coverted roller skating rink. ("I knew him when....") For many reasons it's not the church for us, but there's no doubt they do good work.

A few points from the article:

• [B]etween the liberal's panic of a Christian lockstep toward theocracy on the left, and the fundamentalist's paranoia about America's persecution of Christians on the right, a growing number of conservative Christians believe we can be more constructive in our political involvement. Intent on dousing the fire in the morning, many of us see a need for more positive approaches and expansion to more oft-mentioned biblical issues.


• [W]e must change our tone. Fear and anger get immediate, but usually destructive, results. Ideas compete; radicals attack. Let's stick to discussions of solutions rather than accusations of those who disagree with us.


• [W]e must desire more than political gain (and be linked to biblical values rather than a political party). Winning at the ballot box can mask the need to be more personally responsible for our neighbor.


• [W]e must quit slinging slogans and propose our biblical ideals in an intellectually credible way....Governments don't need more special-interest lobbyists; they need more groups that can work with them in creating solutions.


• Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). In this country, our government ("Caesar") doesn't just expect taxes; it expects participation—input, service, and political involvement from every citizen, including the Christians. Public service should be a normal part of every Christian's spiritual responsibility.

Let me make clear up front that I'm glad our grandchildren are on schedule for most of the currently-recommended childhood vaccinations. I can be pleased with that because their parents have taken the time to research the issues, and decide which vaccines they think are worth the risk, and which are not, and are willing to pay the extra costs—in money and time—to spread the vaccinations out rather than subject their children to the assault on the immune system caused by receiving many vaccines on the same day. Moreover, the children are breastfed, which helps their immune systems deal with the vaccines.

Vaccines have prevented much suffering and death, and they do work; witness the frightening polio outbreaks in Africa when immunication efforts were hindered by Muslim clerics skeptical of both the vaccines and the good will of the vaccinators. But they are far from risk-free, and the government and the medical community are doing parents a disservice by pushing vaccinations as if they were entirely safe and absolutely essential for their children's health.

"Informed consent" does not mean handing your patient a long form, full of legal and medical terms, to sign on the day of vaccination, along with another sheet describing possible side effects. It means addressing the issue far in advance, with both pros and cons, admitting controversy and uncertainty, and pointing the parents to sources of further information.

Parents, too, have the responsibility of seeking out information on their own, to be better prepared to discuss the issue with their physicians. My doctor may have forgotten more about medicine than I'll ever know, but no doctor knows everything, and the best ones are always open to new information, carefully and respectfully presented.

Above all, avoid jumping on bandwagons. Don't vaccinate just because your doctor expects you to, and don't avoid vaccination just because that's what your friends are doing. Just as there are risks to vaccinating, and actions we can take to mitigate those risks, there are also risks to not vaccinating, and precautions that can help protect the unvaccinated child. One helpful, and reasonably balanced, resource is Aviva Jill Romm's Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives.

One of the hazards of being unvaccinated is catching a "childhood disease" later in life, when the body is often less able to handle it. One example made the news today, in this WebMD report on an outbreak of measles in 2005, the largest in the United States in a decade. A 17-year-old girl caught the disease in Romania and passed it to members of her church when she returned. Thirty-two of the 34 who caught the disease had never been vaccinated.

The story fails its readers by not reporting how the measles sufferers fared. Do the parents regret their decision not to vaccinate? I had measles as a child, and it was a relatively minor affair, easier for me than chicken pox, which itched like crazy. There can be serious complications, however; were there any in this epidemic, or was it relatively mild? That's important information.

Because 20 of the cases were homeschooled children, Amy Parker of the Centers for Disease Control stresses the importance of promoting immunization among homeschoolers. If she means educating people about the risks and benefits of vaccination, I'm all for it. But buried in the article is this chilling statement:

Proof of measles vaccination is required for children entering school, but West Virginia is the only state in the U.S. with a similar requirement for homeschooled kids.

This should frighten every homeschooler in the country. Requiring immunizations for admission to public schools is understandable, as long as certain exemptions are allowed, because of problems inherent in the confining of large populations to small spaces for long periods of time. But what is the concern that causes the West Virginia government to want to impose immunization on homeschoolers as well? If it's the fear that a homeschooler taking a public school class might pass a disease on to fellow students, how can that occur if the rest of the students have been vaccinated?

It appears the source is actually worse than that, and should frighten everyone, not just homeschoolers. There are those in the West Virginia government (and elsewhere!) who believe the primary responsibilities and rights when it comes to raising children belong not to the parents, but to the state. If the state decides universal vaccination is desirable, parents should have no choice but to go along.

The Internet is a wonderful tool for finding information; it is less useful when it comes to updates to that information. In 2004 the West Virginia legislature attempted to pass a bill expanding the immuization requirements and exacting severe penalties for noncompliance. Whether the bill succeeded or not I was unable to determine. If it did, it was apparently weakened, because the requriements I found through the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources mandate fewer vaccines and impose smaller penalties. Nonetheless, it's chilling enough. State Code 16-3-4 deals with "compulsory immunization of school children" but apparently they mean all children of "school age," not just children in the public schools.

Any parent or guardian who refuses to permit his or her child to be immunized against diphtheria, polio, rubeola, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough, who cannot give satisfactory proof that the child or person has been immunized against diphtheria, polio, rubeola, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough previously, or a certificate from a reputable physician showing that immunization for any or all is impossible or improper, or sufficient reason why any or all immunizations should not be done, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and except as herein otherwise provided, shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars for each offense.

Unlike every other state except Mississippi, West Virginia makes no provision for religious or philosophical exemptions to its immunization laws.

UPDATE:  Please see the first comment, below.

You didn't think our political culture could go any lower? In a reminder that we have made no forward progress since 1999, when David Howard of Washington, DC was forced to resign his city government job because he used the word "niggardly," Massachusetts' Governor Mitt Romney has apologized for referring to the disastrous Big Dig project as a "tar baby."

I tend to be overly sensitive to hurtful language. I dislike "humor" that gets its laughs from insult or mockery, and I hate it when people hurt each other and call it jest. Words spoken in anger, whether directed at me or at others, sting like a whiplash. The Bible says it well: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." (Ephesians 4:29)

But today's hypersensitivity to "incorrect" speech, where people choose to be insulted where no offense could possibly have been meant or implied, is frightening. Surely most of it is based on ignorance. Not everyone's vocabulary includes the meaning and origins of the word "niggardly," and we can no longer assume that Americans know the Br'er Rabbit stories, once part of our common culture. With their origins in Africa, developed by southern African-Americans, popularized by Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus stories) and Walt Disney (Song of the South), these stories should not have been lost. But Disney will not even release Song of the South on DVD for fear of controversy. Perhaps if they had, more people would have appreciated Romney's reference, which says so much more than calling the Big Dig a "sticky situation."

From someone who has heard the expression "tar baby" used as a racial slur, or who has been so hurt by the word "nigger" that "niggardly" brings pain merely by the association of sounds, an initial reaction of anger is understandable. But the apology went the wrong way. Once the context and meaning are understood, the one who misinterpreted should apologize to the one his anger wronged.

Literacy should never have to apologize to ignorance. Explain, yes. And educate. But not apologize.

When Larry Summers, then President of Harvard, dared suggest that genetic differences between men and women might, in general, predispose them to greater abilities in different fields, I had no problem with that. When he was pilloried and forced to resign, I was appalled (though not surprised) at the continuing evidence that liberals aren't necessarily liberal, those who call loudest for tolerance aren't tolerant, and "academic freedom" is an oxymoron. If the presence of a Y chromosome instead of an X can make differences that are visible and obvious, to insist that it can't possibly make more subtle differences, and to forbid inquiry into the matter, is as bad as the Catholic Church in Medieval times. Worse, because I don't think the Church ever claimed to be open-minded.

Yet as fast as Harvard tried to distance itself from Summers' heresy, there are more serious worms in its own apple.

Ben Barres is an M.D./Ph.D. professor of neurobiology at Stanford University. What makes his comments on sexual discrimination in science and academia especially insightful is that until 10 years ago, he was Barbara Barres. As a man, he suddenly found himself receiving much more respect than he had as a woman, at least among people who don't know his history. Even in such a hotbed of liberalism as Cambridge, Massachusetts, both MIT and Harvard failed the test. When Barbara was the only person in a class full of men to solve a difficult math problem, her professor suggested that her boyfriend had solved it for her. At Harvard the situation was even more interesting, because Barbara became Ben in the middle of her/his graduate studies. One faculty member (who apparently knew neither Barbara nor Ben very well) remarked, "Ben Barres gave such a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's.

It matters not a bit to me if there are differences between groups of people considered en masse, because everyone deserves to be treated as an individual. Insurance companies have some justification for considering a person in terms of his inclusion in broad classes (male, Asian, non-smoker, overweight, etc.) because that is what makes insurance work. The rest of us have no excuse, and the educational system especially; from preschool to Harvard, should be looking at individuals, not stereotypes.

The sad thing is, I'm not surprised.

During the 18 months we lived near Boston we heard a lot about the Big Dig, experienced plenty of inconvenience thanks to the Big Dig, and heard much political grumbling about cost overruns, delays, and incompetence. We didn't actually see much work being done on the project, however, and it was hard not to wonder if there was some politcal/union stranglehold on the project. Accustomed as we were to Florida roads projects, in which a "crew working" sign is usually followed by a crew working—day, night, weekends, holidays, whatever it takes to get the job done—it was shocking to see the massive construction project lying fallow so much of the time. But apparently such lack of haste did not reflect a commitment to doing the job right.

Will yesterday's partial collapse, in which a concrete slab fell from a tunnel roof onto a hapless motorist, finally cause someone to examine the entire political system that bred such tragedy? It's only the latest in a decades-long series of problems, so I doubt it.

Which is too bad. I fell in love with Boston, and Massachusetts in general, during our stay. There is much about that part of the country that I miss terribly. But the Big Debacle seems only to be a sign, not an abberation. The rest of the country—Massachusetts included—mocks Florida's politics and its voting problems, but as one who has lived and voted in both places, I can say without a doubt that democracy is alive and well in Florida, while the political process in Massachusetts sometimes felt like a tunnel with a crumbling roof.

A friend alerted me to a Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal column by Peggy Noonan, in which she reveals her impression that our society is fundamentally broken, a trolley off the tracks and hurtling toward an unknown destination, and her concern that few people are willing to think about the problems, much less take action. My friend added this: "No one wants to talk about the cracks in the bridge when you're walking over it." Naturally, I had to comment.

There are many reasons people won't talk about the cracks in the bridge, one of which is that our lives are too frantic. A deadly waterfall may be waiting for us downstream, but it takes all our energy and effort just to keep our boats upright in the rapids right now. Another is a shutdown from overstimulation. All news stories, from the tragic to the trivial, are presented by hyperventilating news anchors desperate to keep us from changing channels. Everything is of critical importance; every event is a crisis. And when everything is special, nothing is.

I used to be more negative about how much worse the world is than it was, until I realized I was cutting the feet out from under our children. This is their world, and they aren't negative about it; they think it's full of opportunity and promise. Realizing how bad things have become is a privilege and a sign of age.

Actually, I see lots of reason to hope, if, and it is a big if, we can hang on to our freedoms. We must allow nonconformity, permit people to take risks, and encourage innovative thinking. I am greatly encouraged by people I've seen who have said, "STOP!" to the world as it is, families who sacrifice much to gain more. Two parent, single income families. People who ride bikes and take public transportation by choice. Homeschoolers. Large families with small, homestead farms. Women who have rediscovered the joys of non-institutionalized childbirth. Men who turn down promotions to preserve family time. Families who dare turn off the television and eat dinner together. I speak only from my own experience—you can think of many more examples.

Of course you may say that Peggy Noonan is speaking of a larger arena, of presidents and world events, of large-scale cultural problems. And there's every possibility that her concerns may be the tsunami that sweeps away the families and the farms. But I believe that if we are to survive this crazy trolley ride, it won't be governments, schools, or megachurches that hold back disaster, but individuals and families taking a stand.

I would restate Neil Postman's excellent advice from The Disappearance of Childhood, given in response to the question, "Is the individual powerless to resist what is happening?"

Mallard Fillmore hits the nail on the head again. One can as easily subsitute "president" for "congressperson."

The Real War Against America, by Brett Kingstone (Specialty Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL, 2005)

Our local library has a subscription to Ancestry.com, the genealogical research site. Unfortunately the response time is slow, and one day a couple of months ago I was working near enough the “New Releases” shelf to do some browsing during the otherwise interminable wait between entering my request and the return of the results.

The bright cover of Brett Kingstone’s book caught my eye. I was not impressed by the title, which sounded Limbaugh-esque and evoked images of conspiracy theorists. I brought the book home, thinking Porter might enjoy it, but did not expect to read it myself. It didn’t sound like my kind of book.

Never judge a book by its title.

Porter picked up The Real War Against America in the evening and hardly came up for air until he finished it several hours later. It was obviously compelling, but why would I want to read a book that caused my husband to come to bed, spluttering with anger, at three in the morning?

But read it I did, and if I knew better than to read till nearly dawn, I did find it hard to put down. The tale of Super Vision’s struggle against international piracy takes place (mostly) in Orlando, and it was delightful to recognize familiar places, events, and people. Of the story itself I had heard nothing previously, perhaps because much of the action took place while we were in Boston. Nor were we prepared to find the name of a friend pop up in the middle of the book, a friend who though mentioned only briefly was close enough to the events to assure us that this is no right-wing propaganda piece but a true story, no matter how much it reads like a made-for-TV action movie.

Brett Kingstone’s entrepreneurial adventures started in a dorm room and eventually grew into the Super Vision company. If you’ve never heard of Super Vision, you’ve certainly seen their fiber optic lighting products, from Disney World and Times Square to the Moscow airport, from children’s toys to gigantic signs, from swimming pools to Christmas trees. You have seen Super Vision’s products, I say—and you have probably also seen the Chinese counterfeit products that nearly destroyed the company, the visible result of an unbelievably brazen scheme involving common thugs, company traitors, crooked bankers and lawyers, a bureaucratic legal system that favors the criminal over the victim, and an evil Chinese businessman who might have leapt full grown from Ian Fleming’s head.

I had never given much thought to intellectual property theft, beyond making a reasonable effort to respect copyrights. Nor have I had much experience with the American legal system. But just as Hurricane Katrina convinced me that the quality of local government really matters, and that nothing is an adequate substitute for personal effort and preparedness, this tale of untruth, injustice, and perversion of the American way has opened my eyes to a threat as dangerous as any scheme of Osama bin Laden's. Without economic freedom, few other freedoms can stand. And when legal victories are ultimately won by those who, like the “house” in a casino, have the funds to drag out the process until they bankrupt their opponents, what hope is there for justice?

Justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. (Isaiah 59:14-15)

I don't normally read the sports page, but Porter called my attention to last Friday's Orlando Sentinel, and an outrageous statement by David Stern, Commissioner of the National Basketball Association. The Orlando Magic, our own NBA franchise, is currently trying to shake down the city for still more financial incentives not to pack up and go where the bribes might be greater.

What Stern said was this: "If a city builds a symphony hall, there is a cultural benefit to the city, despite the fact that the hall is not likely to make money. The same can be said for having an NBA franchise."

No matter what one thinks about the relative cultural merits of art and sport, the fallacy is unmistakable.

When the top Magic basketball player earns no more than the Orlando Philharmonic's principal oboist; when the team owes its survival to dedicated volunteers, generous donors, and massive fund-raising efforts; when our basketball team becomes a bona fide non-profit organization; then and only then will I consider seriously their claim to public funding.

My letter to the same effect was published in the Sentinel this morning.