Lift Up Your Hearts!

My Dear French Brothers and Sisters,

Fourteen years ago we stood where you stand today.  While no two experiences, much less cultures, are alike, I will venture to make a prediction:  In the midst of the horror you will experience something wonderful:  You will be a united country, with opposing factions coming together in their humanity; you will find yourselves giving and receiving unusual kindnesses; and people from all over the world will express their sympathy and support.  Strangers will reach out to strangers, as you have done with #portesouvertes.  You will be a little more friendly on the Métro, and more patient on the highways.  You will stand a little taller, work a little harder, and be a lot more grateful for the people in your lives.  You will be yourselves, only better.

Hang onto that.

If you follow in our footsteps, one day you will realize the glimpse of heaven has gone.  You will catch yourself cursing the driver who cuts you off.  In your impatience you will scream at your kids.  Facing someone who disagrees with you, you will once again see a fool or a devil instead of a human being.

Don't let go of the only good gift the terrorists have left behind.

Make no mistake:  You are, indeed, at war.  War is being made against you, and you have three choices:  You can ignore it, you can shrink into isolationism, or you can stand up to your foes.  History has shown that the first two options never work for long.  The third is costly on many fronts and doesn't always work, either, but it is where hope and honor reside.

How can we stand against such an enemy?

I admire M. Hollande's determination to act with “all the necessary [lawful] means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies.”  Timidity would only strengthen such a foe, to everyone's loss.

That is what the government can do:  the military actions, the large-scale policy decisions, the intelligence gathering and analysis.  But what is the role of a citizen?  What can everyone do to defeat the terrorists?  Here's what I think:

• When we continue to live our ordinary lives and do our ordinary work without giving in to our fears, we are fighting terrorism.  Fear is the enemy's most powerful and effective weapon.
• When we refuse to let our anger turn us against the innocent, we are fighting terrorism.  Injustice, especially toward the powerless and the hopeless, fertilizes the terrorists' recruiting ground.
• When we make an effort to become friends with those of other nations, cultures, and beliefs, we are fighting terrorism.  A faceless, dehumanized enemy is so much easier to kill.
• When we acknowledge, study, appreciate, and build up the good that is unique to our own heritage, while recognizing the same in others, we are fighting terrorism.  Our enemies would like to see every culture and belief that is not its own erased from history.  If we will not honor and protect our own cultures, history, and ancestors, who will?
• When we resist the hatred that rises within our own selves, we are fighting terrorism.  If we become like our enemies, we have handed them the victory.
• When we allow our unbearable pain to be the soil from which grow acts of kindness, attention to the needs of others, expressions of love and appreciation, and attitudes of patience and mercy, we are fighting terrorism.  Bringing good out of our sorrow removes a potent instrument of torture from the enemy's hands.
• When we can hold on to both the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove, we can fight terrorism.  Keeping the balance puts the battle on our terms, not theirs.

Know that as an American I speak as much to my own country as to yours.  We have not set the best example in grappling with our common enemy.  Work together with us and all who seek justice, freedom, and peace to find the right path.

Vive la France!

I've known the tune of La Marseillaise for as long as I can remember, along with the first two lines.

Not till two days ago did I pay attention to the rest of the French national anthem.  Here's the first, most commonly sung verse (from Wikipedia).

I'm sure the French don't usually ponder the meaning of the words any more than we think of war instead of fireworks when we sing about "the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air."  But two days ago, ferocious men—I'd rather not dignify a terrorist with the honorable title of soldier—did come right into their arms to cut the throats of their innocent loved ones.

Who prays for Europe?  Europe has it all, right?  Europe is the motherland of Western Culture, and, in many ways, of the Church.  Europe is First World, wealthy, mostly democratic.  We once belonged to a church that sponsored a missionary family in France, but as valuable as was the work they were doing, they still had to endure from others not only jokes but also serious questions about why they were wasting time and money in Western Europe instead of some place more needy.  Missionaries, humanitarian aid, and prayers should be focussed on Darkest Africa and Remotest Asia, right?

Wrong.

No place, era, or person is beyond the need of fervent, effectual prayer.  Hubris thinks that which stands tall cannot be toppled; complacence is blind to enemies without and decay within;  envy forgets the lesson of Richard Cory.

Europe is facing a grave economic crisis in the financial insolvency and insupportable policies of Greece (with other countries not far behind).  This is no less of a potential catastrophe than it was before it was swept from the headlines by the waves of desperate refugees flooding Europe from their terrorist-ravaged homes-that-are-no-longer-home in the Middle East.

European leaders, the Church in Europe, and all European citizens need the the wisdom of the serpent as well as the harmlessness of the dove.  They need open hearts to welcome, comfort, and support those who have lost so much.  They need open eyes to discern those who would use the humanitarian crisis as an opportunity to infect European countries with the ideals and weapons of terrorism.  They need wisdom to receive a foreign culture without losing their own unique identities.

In short, they need our prayers.

Today is the commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt.  I will set aside any worries over small details like calendar changes, and big details like historical accuracy, because Shakespeare's Henry V is a wonderful play, and his St. Crispin's Day speech one of the most inspiring and uplifting of all time.  Kenneth Branagh does it best.

Would you be this cool if you found an eight-foot king cobra under your dryer?

Mike Kennedy's cobra escaped a month ago.  Intense efforts on the part of many to find it came up empty.

Last night Cynthia Mullvain was putting clothes in her dryer when she heard a hiss.

Did she panic?  Throw a fit?  No, but she did call for wildlife officials to come investigate.

They retrieved the missing cobra, which was officially identified by its microchip—not that king cobras are so routinely found in Ocoee, Florida that there was any doubt.

Ms. Mullvain is not suing—someone, anyone, everyone—for pain and distress.  She didn't whine to the media about how scared she was, and how no one should have to go through such an experience.  She didn't demand that the cobra be killed or not returned to Mr. Kennedy.  She's happy to have him go back home, as long as his enclosure is secured.

I think Cynthia Mullvain is one cool lady and reacted just the way a good citizen should have.

Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.  Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil.  And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.  Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.  And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

This parable of Jesus is well-known to Christians, and at least it used to be familiar to the wider world as well.  Usually it is given a strictly spiritual interpretation; indeed, Jesus himself appears to endorse that in his explanation.  (All quotations are from the book of Mark, English Standard Version.)

The sower sows the word.  And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.  And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.  And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.  And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word,  but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.  But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

And yet, as I was reading this chapter the other day, it occurred to me that the parable has a much wider application, which of course doesn't surprise me, as great truths usually apply in many situations.  Nor do I claim my thoughts to be original; I'm sure many others have seen the same things.  But they were new to me, and I want to write them down.

How often this plays out in my life!  Here's one example:

I read a new book or article, hear a lecture or the words of a friend.  I might react in any of those four ways.  Sometimes an idea may be too foreign, or too objectionable, or I may have strong prejudices against the writer or speaker, and I reject it immediately.  For good or for ill, I give it no place in my thoughts.  At other times—all too often—I respond to an idea with great enthusiasm, but do not do the work necessary to truly understand it, so when someone—especially someone I care about and/or respect—opposes it, I can't defend the idea, and soon drop it.  Frequently the idea makes it through the above obstacles, and I fully intend to apply it in my life, but I get busy with everyday living ("cares of the world"), worry about the cost in money or time ("deceitfulness of riches"), or don't give it priority ("desires for other things") and nothing comes of it.  Only if I make an idea my own, give it time and attention, and above all act upon it, will it actually make a difference in my life.

It's also applicable to blogging:  I have thousands—tens of thousands—of ideas for blog posts.  There's hardly an idea or event that comes my way that doesn't present itself as a possible subject.  Li'l Writer Guy (I haven't mentioned him in a while, but he's still around) immediately starts turning it over for possibilities.  But many ideas are rejected out of hand as inappropriate; others get dropped when I realize they're not as interesting as I had thought; and most of the rest get dumped into the "blog post ideas" bucket never to see the light of day again, choked out by higher priorities.  Only a few of the seeds get the soil preparation and care they need to make it into print.

It's fun for me to see Bible passages in a different light.  And maybe useful, too.  Recently I've been trying to decipher inscriptions on gravestone photos, and have found photo-editing software to be helpful.  Seeing them literally in a different light can sometimes cause what was murky to pop out with clarity.

The Pope is getting all the publicity, but he isn't the only head of state visting a city of historic importance these days.  Last week King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain came to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States.  St. Augustine is celebrating its 450th anniversary, having been founded by the Spanish on September 8, 1565.

I'll bet the Spanish monarchs, cheered as they were by adoring crowds, didn't make nearly as much of a mess of the city as the visit of Pope Francis is expected to do to Philadelphia.

When I saw this poster at our library I did a double take, and had to record it.  We have a friend who trains assistance dogs, and I'd always thought of them as animals that did for people what the people could not do:  being eyes for the blind, ears for the deaf, or hands for those with limited use of their own.  So how, I wondered, does a dog help those who can't read?  Our friend would tell you that her dogs are very clever, but not even she will claim that they can read.

Well, it turns out that it's not reading assistance these dogs are giving, but reading education assistance.  So I'm guessing that it's our educational system that's handicapped here.  There's a video below that explains the program, in which children who are academically or socially impaired get the opportunity to read out loud to specially-trained dogs.  As our librarian explained, "The dogs never judge; they just listen."  I'll make no judgements about the program itself, which apparently has been quite successful.  If it helps kids and doesn't cost a boatload of tax money, go for it.  I will, however, vent a little about a society and a system that apparently make such interventions necessary.

How have we managed to make such a hash of learning to read?  Children are born smart.  Every normal child learns to speak a language (or two, or three, or seventeen) before he ever sets foot in a school.  Indeed, he learns the very concept of language.  If his parents are Deaf, he learns to sign as well.  He learns all this with no formal lessons, no studying, no special programs, no certified teachers, no expensive curricula.  Humans are as well-designed for reading as for speaking; how is it that we have made reading so difficult to learn?

Do these children have no parents to read to?  No siblings?  Are they too busy and impatient?  Do they have no pets of their own?  Not even a stuffed animal?  I'm guessing the sad answer in too many cases is yes.

The "reassurances" near the end of the video sent chills down my spine.  These aren't just ordinary pets; all dogs and handlers are "professionally screened, trained, and tested."  "Teams wear identifying shirts, bandanas, and badges."  The animals are specially treated against allergens before interacting with children.  And of course, they are all insured.  What kind of a world have we created?

I wonder how much of the benefit the children receive comes from the physical affection given and received with the dog.  That's a good thing, but it's tragic that the children are no longer allowed to exchange that affection with their teachers and human volunteers.  And each other, for that matter.

Hmm.  Maybe we should expand the program.  Who wouldn't benefit from a chance to interact with an affectionate, well-trained dog?  I'm thinking workplace stress-relief programs.  Microsoft and Google, are you listening?

Frankly, he didn't look like the kind of man I'd bother to speak to at a gas station just off I-95 in Virginia.  Grizzled, rather the worse for wear, probably living a hardscrabble life—at least judging by appearances.  But there was a Confederate flag in his truck's front license plate holder, and it made me smile.

I'm a Northerner by birth and upbringing, and even though I've lived almost half my life in Florida—well, from Central Florida you actually have to travel north to get to the South.  So I have my full share of prejudices, and there are days when encountering such a man might have scared me.  But today, as we passed together through the convenience store doors, I remarked, "I've never been a fan of the Confederate flag, but I've always been a fan of the underdog, and today your truck made me smile.  Thank you." The man gave me a gentle smile of his own, and a kindly (maybe even relieved) twinkle touched his eyes as he responded simply, "thank you."

I may not live in the True South, but multicultural Central Florida has helped me lose at least a little bit of my uneducated and frankly self-righteous and snooty attitude towards its people.  And to appreciate that neither side in the Civil War had a monopoly on righteousness, self-sacrifice, and courage; that atrocities are carried out under the flags of many nations and many causes; that thinking you have the right to deride someone for his ancestors only means you haven't looked closely enough at your own; and that attempting to erase history is the mark of a totalitarian state.

The brouhaha that has erupted over Confederate flags and monuments to Confederate soldiers made me realize that our country is not as far from the iconoclasm of Daesh (a.k.a. ISIS) as we'd like to think.  It makes me grateful for one man and his truck, refusing to bow to the forces that would obliterate his past.  One does not learn from history by forgetting it.

And so, bizarre as it might seem, the Confederate flag brought me a little closer to another human being today, one who I would otherwise have treated as beyond the pale.  And so I salute that old Virginian, and sing with Robert Burns,

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That Man to Man the warld o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.

Side note:  Immersion in the works of George MacDonald has been of great assistance in understanding and appreciating Burns.

Here's the whole poem, and a translation.

And for your listening and viewing pleasure, the whole song, with pictures of Scotland. 

On a radio interview the other day, I heard a woman say an extraordinary thing:  I don't believe in sin.

Her statement was received as casually as it was tossed out, but I have been thinking about it ever since.  It reminds me of the billboard that used to greet me as I entered the highway near here:  God is not angry.  That message was sponsored by a church, and I understand where they're coming from.  When your parents are mad, do you like to spend time with them, or do you prefer to lie low?  My first reaction, however, was that if God isn't angry about some of the things his creatures are doing to each other, he has no business being God.

Oh, if only declaring that we don't believe in sin would make it go away!  I wanted to grab the woman by the scruff of the neck and force her to face the victims of child abuse, human trafficking, Mexican drug lords, Joseph Kony, Stalin, ISIS ... and tell me again that she doesn't believe in sin.  If there is no sin, would she even be right to feel aggrieved that I had grabbed her by the scruff of the neck?

My airplane dinner was very good, as airplane dinners go, so I don't mean to complain.  But I couldn't help noticing that the first ingredient on a wedge of cheese labeled "Swiss cheese" was cheddar.  Swiss cheese was there, too, several items later—after water.  What's particularly odd is that of all the amazing cheeses readily available here in Switzerland, chedder is not one of them.

And then there was this bottle of Alpine Spring water, "bottled at the source"...

... in Tennessee.

As I sit here, typing away at the edge of the Alps themselves, I can assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are nowhere near Tennessee.

If our laws concerning product labelling allow this, why should I trust any label at all?

Yes, there is something good to be found in television.  The signal-to-noise ratio may be terrible, but there's good, too, and today's Memorial Day post was inspired by two shows I saw parts of recently.  If the people I honor today didn't give their lives in service to their country, they certainly gave much of their lives to that service.

The first honored the WASPS of World War II, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, whose courageous story, and our country's shameful response, has finally been told.  For too long the first female American military pilots were not only denied veteran's benefits but treated as if their service had never existed.  The battle for recognition was a long, slow process, though it kicked into high gear when the military began touting a much-later set of women as the first.  You know that an injustice has been done when a cause for which conservative Senator Barry Goldwater fought so strenuously was later acknowledged as right by President Barack Obama.  You can see the trailer at this link; I haven't managed to embed it here.  Nor does it work for me in Firefox, but it did in Chrome.

The second show mentioned the Hump pilots, also of World War II, and the gratitude the Chinese people still feel towards them.  Naturally I thought of Colonel William Bryan Westfall, Hump pilot and veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  I never met him, as he died before his grandson married our daughter, but I'm grateful to him, for his remarkable military service—and for his family legacy.

Happy Memorial Day to all, and Whit Monday as well, for those of you privileged to live where that holiday is honored, even if its meaning, like that of Memorial Day, is often lost except as an excuse to celebrate.

Disclaimer:  I don't know who Matt Walsh is, although a quick search revealed that he is making enough waves that there's a website called whatismattwalshwrongabouttoday.com.  That's okay; if people feel the need to attack him, he's probably doing something right, and in any case, he gets this one really, really right: “You’re a stay-at-home mom? What do you DO all day?”  (H/T Jon)  This husband's homage to his wife was inspired by conversations like the following:

“So is your wife staying at home permanently?”

“Permanently? Well, for the foreseeable future she will be raising the kids full time, yes.”

“Yeah, mine is 14 now. But I’ve had a career the whole time as well. I can’t imagine being a stay at home mom. I would get so antsy. [Giggles] What does she DO all day?”

“Oh, just absolutely everything. What do you do all day?”

“…Me? Ha! I WORK!”

“My wife never stops working. Meanwhile, it’s the middle of the afternoon and we’re both at a coffee shop. I’m sure my wife would love to have time to sit down and drink a coffee. It’s nice to get a break, isn’t it?”

The conversation ended less amicably than it began.

Walsh's whole commentary is worth reading.  Here are some snippets.

Look, I don’t cast aspersions on women who work outside of the home. I understand that many of them are forced into it because they are single mothers, or because one income simply isn’t enough to meet the financial needs of their family. Or they just choose to work because that’s what they want to do. Fine. I also understand that most “professional” women aren’t rude, pompous and smug, like the two I met recently. ... But I don’t want to sing Kumbaya right now. I want to kick our backwards, materialistic society in the shins and say, “GET YOUR FREAKING HEAD ON STRAIGHT, SOCIETY.”

In making his point, the author fails to mention that there are other essential professions (sometimes lacking in respect), and that any legitimate work done with excellence and integrity has value, often great value. Cut him (and me) some slack: it doesn't change the truth of what he says. Our society has elevated employment, almost any employment, over work that does not bring in a paycheck, especially if the non-paying work involves home and family, like rearing children or caring for elderly parents.

It’s true — being a mom isn’t a “job.” A job is something you do for part of the day and then stop doing. You get a paycheck. You have unions and benefits and break rooms. I’ve had many jobs; it’s nothing spectacular or mystical. I don’t quite understand why we’ve elevated “the workforce” to this hallowed status. Where do we get our idea of it? The Communist Manifesto? Having a job is necessary for some — it is for me — but it isn’t liberating or empowering. Whatever your job is — you are expendable. You are a number. You are a calculation. You are a servant. You can be replaced, and you will be replaced eventually. Am I being harsh? No, I’m being someone who has a job. I’m being real. ... If your mother quit her role as mother, entire lives would be turned upside down; society would suffer greatly. The ripples of that tragedy would be felt for generations. If she quit her job as a computer analyst, she’d be replaced in four days and nobody would care.

Having been both computer analyst and mother, I can attest to what he says.  Guess which career garnered the most admiration and accolades?

Of course not all women can be at home full time. It’s one thing to acknowledge that; it’s quite another to paint it as the ideal. To call it the ideal, is to claim that children IDEALLY would spend LESS time around their mothers. This is madness. Pure madness. It isn’t ideal, and it isn’t neutral. The more time a mother can spend raising her kids, the better. The better for them, the better for their souls, the better for the community, the better for humanity. Period.

The following may be my favorite paragraph of the whole article.

Finally, it’s probably true that stay at home moms have some down time. People who work outside the home have down time, too. In fact, there are many, many jobs that consist primarily of down time, with little spurts of menial activity strewn throughout. In any case, I’m not looking to get into a fight about who is “busier.” We seem to value our time so little, that we find our worth based on how little of it we have. In other words, we’ve idolized “being busy,” and confused it with being “important.” You can be busy but unimportant, just as you can be important but not busy. I don’t know who is busiest, and I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I think it’s safe to say that none of us are as busy as we think we are; and however busy we actually are, it’s more than we need to be.

I think I'll change my advice to those who are asked the condescending and offensive question, "What do you DO all day?"  And I'd apply it to almost any profession, not just motherhood—no one from the outside can really know what it takes to do another's job.  First, I'd quote Elbert Hubbard:  Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.  Then I'd suggest this as a response:

That's a trade secret, and revealing it is against the rules of our Guild.

In the first comment to Saturday's Pi(e) post, Kathy Lewis asked about the math legacy of my mother (the one who introduced Kathy to strawberry-rhubarb pie).  This inspired the genealogist in me to answer the question visually.  (Click image to enlarge.  Family members, please send me corrections as needed.)

Math-related fields clearly run in the family, by marriage as well as by blood.  Some other facts of note:

• Most of the grandchildren (and all of the great-grandchildren, not shown in the chart) have not yet graduated from college.  Their intended fields, where known, are shown in italics.  One is very close to graduation, so I've left him unitalicised.
• In each generation from my parents through my children, there's been an even split between mathematics and engineering.  However, with the next generation at nine and counting, I doubt that trend will continue.
• The other fields don't come out of nowhere:  both of my parents had a vast range of interests.
• With one short-term exception in a time of need, every woman represented here clearly recognized motherhood as her primary and most important vocation, forsaking the money and prestige that come with outside employment to be able to attend full time to childrearing and making a good home.  Every family must make its own choice between one good and another; this is not a judgement on other people's choices.  Nonetheless, homemaking and motherhood as careers are seriously undervalued these days, so it's worth noting when such a cluster of women all choose to focus their considerable intelligence and education on the next generation.  As daughter, wife, mother, aunt, and grandmother, I'm grateful for the choices these families (fathers as much as mothers) have made.
• Engineering is a long-time family heritage.  My father's father (born 1896) was a mechanical engineer, and the first chairman of that department at Washington State University.  His father (born 1854) was a civil engineer.

My nephews introduced me to Top Gear, the BBC show that achieved the astounding feat of making me thoroughly enjoy a show about ... automobiles.

Now the BBC has suspended co-host Jeremy Clarkson after a dust-up with a producer.  Clarkson is no stranger to controversy and has been "warned" about previous behavior.  This was apparently just the last straw for the folks at the BBC.  From the Wikipedia article linked above:

Top Gear has often been criticised for content inside programmes....  Incidents and content ranging from (but not limited to) remarks considered by some viewers to be offensive, promoting irresponsible driving, ridiculing environmental issues, Germans, Mexicans, and Poles, and alleged homophobia have generated complaints.  British comedian and guest of the programme Steve Coogan has criticised the programme, accusing it of lazy, adolescent humour and "casual racism".

Yep, Top Gear can be offensive.  The show where they drive from Miami through the Deep South wasn't funny to me, as it was clear they were going out of their way to promote negative stereotypes about Americans, Floridians, and Southerners.  (Few Floridians, except perhaps those in the Panhandle, consider themselves true Southerners.)  Who in his right mind would drive through Florida in the summer, in a car without air conditioning, and be surprised that he was hot?  And keep harping about it?  What disappointed me the most—though I had suspected it from watching other shows—was that much of the action was clearly staged.  I was certain in this case, because I know something about Florida.  Had I been as knowledgeable about the sites of their other road trips, I'm sure I would have had similar complaints.

Most offensive of all was their attempt to get a 1960's-era Ku Klux Klan response as they drove through Alabama, or maybe it was Mississippi, I don't remember.  They decorated their cars with signs and banners designed to offend their hosts, from in-your-face promotion of homosexuality, to insults to the region's dominant religion and to NASCAR.  (And no, despite some evidence to the contrary, the last two are not the same thing.)  Failing to get the desired, hateful response (they were mostly ignored), they went well off the main roads, and pushed harder, finally provoking a reaction—though I'm not entirely sure that wasn't staged as well.

So yes, sometimes parts of the show are over the top.  And much of the humor is puerile.  But that's the nature of the show.  That's part of what attracts the viewers.  They like the humor and the down-to-earth nature of the characters.  I still enjoy Top Gear—I especially enjoy sharing it with my nephews—and I'm more easily offended than most when it comes to rudeness.  The show is entertaining and informative despite its faults.  And here's the problem I have with its producers:  They know what sells, what the audience likes; they hire a man like Jeremy Clarkson who can pull it off; and when a little heat comes their way, they make him the scapegoat.  They hire someone with rough edges, then self-righteously distance themselves from his lack of polish.  It's like buying an axe and complaining that you hurt yourself trying to shave with it.

Why would I defend rude behavior?  Partly because of the show's good qualities.  Partly because Clarkson's offenses are minor compared with what others get away with.  (Think talk radio, for one thing.)  But mostly because the self-righteous hypocrisy of the BBC's thought police just sickens me.