On and Mostly On the Mark

Memorial of St. John Bosco

Andrew Sullivan this morning has put his finger on where yesterday's Iraqi elections will fit in the arch of history:

[B]y the time of the elections, the insurgents had been able to show themselves as a real threat to the democratic experiment and to reveal their true colors - enemies of democracy, Jihadist fanatics and Baathist thugs. The election was in part a referendum on these forces. And they lost - big time.

Granted there is much work left to do, and this is only the first of the three key votes to be cast by Iraqis, with the ratification of a constitution and the election of an enduring government to follow, but I do not understand how any true, small "d" democrat could not have a touch of Mr. Sullivan's euphoria.

I think this also includes the key to unlocking the conundrum in his mostly on the mark piece in the Sunday Times:

Indeed how do you create a democracy when you do not have order? And how do you create a stable and lasting order in Iraq without democracy? It seems at times as if we are stuck in an unending cycle of chaos.

Ah, but we are not stuck. Not really. Iraq's election day was made by a societal choice before voting even opened. Its successes with relatively high voter turnout and relatively low violence are the respective political and security manifestations of a cultural action that began in the minds and hearts of millions of individual Iraqis. So long as they continue to embrace a culture of freedom (and I don't mean just political freedom), the tyranny of insurgency will stay on its current path to extinction in Iraq. Indeed, democracy and security will grow together, and be joined by an increasingly robust economy accordingly. Let us pray that it be so.

Update:

There's a quality mushroom harvest from Against the Grain (cap tip: DaveTown).

The Engine of History

Origins Part V:

So here it is. Finally, the final installment. Because it’s the final installment, I’ll just get to it. OK, I can’t do that. I was holding sending this out until I could report a victory for the Troglotyke #1's and my boys basketball team. Well, we finally delivered in a squeaker, 39-38. Woo hoo! (Good to get that monkey off our back.) Now back to it.

Recall that we’re using the example of abortion trends as the context for examining social change and exchange. Well, not only do abortion trends not track with the occupant of the White House, but there is very little with which they do correlate. The trends do not track with any political indicator, nor with any economic indicator, nor even with the trend breakdown by economic status of those women who procure abortions, where there has been very little change in the last 10 years.

Investigations have been done attempting to understand the slight decline in abortions during the 90s, including one by AGI and another by the Heritage Foundation. These studies are at least consistent with each other in that they suggest explanations of birth control implants/injections and state regulations and restrictions for abortion for the decline, respectively. However, neither gives a substantiated claim explaining the full trend even from far back as only 1990. Even if they do correctly identify the components of decline, they still only represent a response to an increasing public interest in reducing abortions and unwanted pregnancies and suggest some other, better context for understanding yearly changes in the number of legal abortions.

The only parameter that I have been able to locate that has some appreciable correlation to the abortion rate since the Roe v. Wade decision is the number of abortion facilities in the US by year. Regardless, whether this is causal, correlative, or consequential, we need to recognize that politics and economics provide lagging indicators. So then, how do we understand history?

Step back and look at how we can understand the objective world. Traditionally, there are two starting points, cosmology and human experience. A cosmological view leads to science. Science is inherently iterative in its rigor and its knowledge and action lags accordingly. Human experience, though often less rigorous, is confirmative (nearly coincident), or even anticipative, in contrast to how we can respond with science. Note that this is where revelation fits. Examining the order of personal, human experience writ large brings to light that culture is the engine of history. Not economics. Not politics. Not technology. Not society.

Closing the gap between the way things are and the way things ought to be in accordance with the truth requires first examining, then thinking and acting to create, maintain, or change culture - personally, locally, regionally, nationally, worldly, universally, etc. This is where the context of argument ought to be because at question is whether there is a fundamental uniqueness of each human. Today’s shrillness can be traced directly to the dispute that the human person possesses intrinsic value and dignity and, therefore, has rights and responsibilities re the recognition, nurturing, and protection of a person’s own dignity and the dignity of others. Choosing to do what one ought to fulfill one’s nature as a human person is the achievement of liberty in its fullest sense. Society requires a culture that embraces the truth of the human person for liberty to flourish. It is this kind of culture that leads to harmony. And what is the primary bearer and steward of such (moral) culture? Yep, the traditional family; parents and child.

Is there a link between economic policy and abortion? Absolutely. Is it causal? Absolutely not. It is this reality that betrays those who are pro-life in name only. We can debate “tactics” for reducing abortion until we’re blue in the face, but until the culture is changed there will continue to be a chasm in the body politic. And millions of additional unborn dead. Deny the family by redefining it, or by denying the inherent dignity of persons in one generation by another, and real argument dies. Or to go back to my opening essay, the culture today reduces discourse to thinly-veiled, intense indignation, usually in the form of an accusation that one party is invading, or seeking to invade, someone’s rights for the benefit of someone else’s utility. If argument is lost, then so too is personal development through our social nature harmed. Restoration requires cultural renewal--the sooner the better.

With Leaders Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas

Mr. Kennedy's timing (and possibly more) has to be questioned here. Comments ready-made for Arab news consumption can't be expected to be helpful in pulling off a successful election this weekend. Even if you don't agree with how we got here, don't you still want to see political freedom exercised in Iraq? Perhaps this is just one of the death throes of the Democrat party, in which case the sooner the better so the party can get on with its rebirth.

2005 Watch List

Memorial of St. Angela Merici

I've been holding this for awhile. Five things I might expect to see:

1. Installation of a Shiite-dominated government that develops a constitutional model of political pluralism for Iraq.
2. Political (read: legislative) assertiveness by orthodox Christians and Jews re the five non-negotiables (abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, homosexual "marriage") in alliance with religious conservatives. (Note that "orthodox" and "conservative" are not necessarily synonymous.)
3. A "progressive" Democrat agenda framed in moral terms.
4. Capitol Hill action on the faith-based initiative, including an alternate Democrat model as they work their rehabilitation.
5. A failed (first?) attempt by several mainline Protestant denominations to divest from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

Any others?

Fun with Quizzes

Memorial of Ss. Timothy & Titus



Does this mean my engineering days are numbered?
Of course, I've never considered myself to be the stereotypical engineer.

(cap tip: Fr. Hamilton at CRM)

I also took the site's Fatal Quiz:



So what does this prove? Well, given that I'm a Midwestern, Catholic engineer of significant Polish descent, it undoubtedly means that Viking fans live longer than Packer fans.

Bad Moon Still Rising

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

When did food become medicine anyway?

Update:

Rising higher still with Oscar nominations for "Million Dollar Baby." Silver lining of the day: Fahrenheit 9/11 is shut out.

Freedom is Not a Doctrine?

That would be true if it weren't imprinted on the human soul.

Johnny Carson, RIP

Memorial of St. Francis de Sales

"SIS-BOOM-BAH!"

[tears envelope and removes paper]

"What is the sound an exploding sheep makes?"

- Carnac the Magnificent

I am a member of that last generation to come of age before Johnny Carson left the scene with his retirement from the Tonight Show in 1992. Mr. Carson was a master of being mildly amusing. Don't get me wrong; his monologues, impressions, interviews, and skits had plenty of very funny moments. But it was the fact that he was consistently amusing and polite and charming that has many of us feeling a bit sad and nostalgic today.

Part of it is also that he made it look easy, something about which we were reminded after a week of a guest host. How often did we enjoy Bill Cosby on Monday, only to be completely fed up with him by Friday? Or Garry Shandling? Or Joan Rivers? Or David Letterman? Or Jay Leno, his mildly amusing successor? Without question, Johnny Carson set the standard. I think David Letterman nailed it when he said that the rest are just pretenders.

Mr. Carson does not leave a legacy that endures in great words or monuments. Just the occasional smile and soft chuckle of a fleeting memory. But we must consider whether it would have been as easy to crawl out of the late '70's without Johnny Carson. Could we have as easily embraced another affable fellow as he moved into the White House in 1981 if we didn't already trust one in our homes every night? I have also often thought that Dan Quayle's rejoinder to Lloyd Bentsen's crack about being "no Jack Kennedy" should have been Carnac-like:

"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits."

That might have brought the house down and saved the then future Vice President a bit of grief. Finally, perhaps it is just me, but it seems a bit too coincidental that public discourse took a turn to the shrill when Mr. Carson retired. May he rest in peace.

Charitable Giving IS a Red State Thing

Regional Political Analysis of the 2004 Charity Index

When the Catalogue for Philanthropy's Generosity Index came out last November, it first metastasized across conservative blogdom as evidence of the generosity of conservatives and the stinginess of liberals when their own money is on the line. After some examination, there have been several effective counterpunches landed to the methodology of the Generosity Index. It is this that led me to create my own Charity Index, which I admit freely has some of its own flaws. But the question remains whether there are stratifications in charitable giving among the states. Despite efforts to explain away the "generosity gap" of certain states, the short answer is, "Yes."

This is the thing. Regardless of why charitable contributions differ across the country--pick 'em: taxes, cost of living, demographics, etc.--it is a question of culture. Tax rates are derived from a cultural question, as is how much a house costs, or who lives next to me. There are also some who want to diminish the idea of charitable giving if it is primarily donated to religious organizations. However, the Acton Institute has noted that at least $3.4 billion a year is given in foreign aid by religious groups, or more than 30% the amount given by the US government. That's just foreign aid. The scope and the effectiveness of the works done by faith-based organizations to assist the disadvantaged in this country are well known, beyond what they have to spend on utilities and building maintenance. There is a clear-eyed reality that needs to be faced about the nature of giving in the US before related questions of national policy can be addressed, particularly when it reveals fundamentally different beliefs and methods for addressing social problems. This is a first step on that path.

Based on the 2004 Charity Index, comparing states by how they went in the 2004 presidential election shows that Bush's "red" states on average are more generous in charitable giving than Kerry's "blue" states:

Category (median rank, avg. index value, avg. charity rate)
Red (19, 19.69, 3.27%)
Blue (39, 34.97, 2.75%)


Comparing the Charitable Giving Rate of Kerry states vs. Bush states.

Now, I for one do not find the whole red/blue state thing very interesting; rather it is too simplistic. Commonwealth magazine has some extended analyses on The 10 Regions of US Politics that are more revealing, with classifications inspired by The Nine Nations of North America. I have similarly separated the US into 7 regions of interest. They were created keeping both these models in mind while trying to reasonably balance electoral votes. In fact, I have lifted some of the region names, although I do tweak their compositions.

Region (median rank, avg. index value, avg. charity rate)

Appalachia (12, 17.75, 3.24%)

Kentucky
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia

Dixie (8, 10.79, 3.51%)

Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Louisiana
Mississippi

Field & Stream (31, 27.89, 2.93%)

Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
Wisconsin

Foundry (35, 33.25, 2.82%)

Illinois
Michigan
Ohio
Pennsylvania

Frontier (22, 19.75, 3.15%)

Alaska
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Texas
Utah
Wyoming

Pacifica (31, 29.56, 2.89%)

California
Hawaii
Oregon
Washington

Yankee (46, 40.72, 2.59%)

Connecticut
Delaware
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Rhode Island
Vermont

While the Dixie and Yankee regions support the red state/blue state model for generosity, it breaks down for Pacifica and Frontier country, despite their monochromatic natures. The Field & Stream and Foundry regions are clearly a mixed bag, and even Appalachia, with its bias toward the red, has the odd ball of West Virginia. One of the things this means, of course, is that there are elements of American culture that are far more nuanced than can be reduced to binomial categories along political lines. And thank goodness for that.

2004 Charity Index

The topic of charity has now come up in twice in national discussion during the last three months. The first when the Catalogue for Philanthropy published its yearly Generosity Index. The index appears to have a primary purpose to raise the awareness of individual giving with its catchy name. The secondary purpose is to shame those in wealthier states, particularly in the Northeast, into giving more to charity, with its flawed methodology.

The second national mention of charity was, of course, following the Dec. 26th tsunami with the charges of institutional stinginess directed at wealthy nations, the United States in particular. The Acton Institute and others have since highlighted how governmental aid is a myopic view of a nation's foreign charitable giving because it neglects giving from private sources, which in the case of the US dominates the government's foreign aid and is comprised mostly of contributions by individuals.

Considering these instances, as well as the idea that charitable giving can be used as a cultural tracking indicator, and the lack of a readily accessible alternative that is not seriously flawed in accounting for charitable contributions by non-itemizers (to my knowledge anyway), has prompted the creation of this version of Charity Index. The index is determined by a four-year average of charitable giving rank among the 50 states based on income tax return data. Using data from tax returns constrains inherently the accuracy of the overall figures and is difficult to quantify. The technical details and limitations of the 2004 Charity Index can be found here. Despite its limitations, it is hoped that the Charity Index will provide an interesting tool for examining some aspects of American culture.

2004 Charity Index
Based on index value of 4-year avg. rank in % est. avg. individual charitable contributions per avg. adjusted gross income from individual tax returns 1999-2002

Rank. State (index value)

1. Utah (1.00)
2. Alabama (2.75)
3. Mississippi (3.75)
4. Wyoming (4.75)
5. Oklahoma (5.00)
6. South Carolina (5.50)
7. Arkansas (7.25)
8. Idaho (7.50)
9. Georgia (8.25)
10. North Carolina (9.75)
11. Tennessee (11.00)
12. Maryland (12.50)
13. Nebraska (13.25)
14. New York (13.50)
15. Montana (14.50)
16. Oregon (16.50)
17. Kansas (17.50)
tie. Kentucky (17.50)
19. Louisiana (19.50)
20. Missouri (22.00)
21. Florida (23.25)
22. Arizona (24.75)
23. Virginia (25.25)
24. Michigan (25.50)
tie. New Mexico (25.50)
26. Texas (25.75)
27. Delaware (26.25)
28. California (27.25)
29. Minnesota (27.50)
30. Colorado (27.75)
31. Indiana (28.75)
32. Iowa (31.00)
33. South Dakota (32.00)
34. Hawaii (34.00)
35. Ohio (34.25)
36. Pennsylvania (35.25)
37. Nevada (37.75)
38. Illinois (38.00)
tie. North Dakota (38.00)
40. Washington (40.50)
41. Wisconsin (41.00)
42. West Virginia (42.75)
43. Alaska (43.00)
44. Maine (44.00)
45. Vermont (44.75)
46. New Jersey (45.50)
47. Massachusetts (46.75)
48. Connecticut (47.00)
49. Rhode Island (48.75)
50. New Hampshire (50.00)

Technical Details for the Charity Index

Source Data:

The index is based on US federal income tax return data published by the IRS in the Statistics of Income Bulletin over a four-year period. Note that there is a two-year lag between the tax year and the year in which the IRS publishes the data, which will affect the most recent tax year used. The data used for the index are also included in other reports, including those published by the Catalogue for Philanthropy and the Urban Institute.

Limitations of the Data:

IRS data can only account for the charitable giving from itemized returns and is limited to the accuracy of reporting in those returns. Also, in 2002, for example, only 31% of individual returns were itemized. Therefore, accounting for those who do not use itemized returns requires creating an estimate, such as done by the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, where the estimate of total charitable giving by individuals in 2002 is approximately $175 billion compared to the total of approximately $140 billion reported on itemized returns, or some other, more simplified method. The percentage of itemized deductions varies considerably from state to state, which can make state comparisons problematic because of the corresponding differences in the available information on charitable giving.

Accounting for all these limits and balancing the desire for a simple, direct method for comparing individual charitable giving by state has led to the estimate described below, which is the key component of the index value used to rank states. It is recognized that there are still limitations in the absolute accuracy of the index, but that this represents a reasonable method for comparing states.

Calculating the Index Value:

The index value is determined by taking a four-year mean of charitable giving ranks among the 50 states. Using a rolling average is intended to smooth year-to-year fluctuations and regional aberrations and will help identify any potential long-term trends as the index is used going forward. The charitable giving rank for a state for a given year is based on the charity rate, an estimate of the average individual charitable contribution amount as a percentage of the average income. The average income is taken as the average adjusted gross income (AGI) from individual tax returns filed with the IRS. The estimate of the average individual charitable contribution amount is an average of two components weighted by the percentage of itemized returns. The first component is the average amount of charitable deductions taken on itemized individual tax returns. The second component applies to those returns that were not itemized and is arbitrarily taken as 15% of the national average of charitable deductions from itemized individual tax returns for that year. While arbitrary, this does yield a national estimate of individual charitable giving in the US that is comparable to the 2002 estimate by the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, for example. Thus, for Alabama, using 2002 returns:

Alabama average AGI - $38,472
Alabama average charitable deductions on itemized returns - $4,136
Alabama % itemized returns - 28%
National avg. charitable deductions on itemized returns - $3,455

Alabama est. avg. charitable contribution amount - 0.28*$4,136+0.72*0.15*$3,455=$1,536
Alabama charity rate - $1,536/$38,472=4.0%

Posting of data used in creating the current Charity Index is pending.

45 Million and Counting

Memorial of St. Vincent

Grant everlasting mercy, we beseech You, O Lord, to the souls of your servants and handmaids, that it may avail for eternity those taken unborn.

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord.
And let the perpetual shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
Amen.

President Bush's Second Inaugural Address

Memorial of St. Fabian
Memorial of St. Sebastian

In Witness to Hope, his biography of Pope John Paul II, George Weigel notes that solidarity is the primary authentic attitude toward society, in which individual freedom is deployed to serve the common good, and the community sustains and supports individuals as they grow into a truly human maturity. This, the pope maintains, is what allows man to find the fulfillment of himself in complementing others. President Bush has laid out a foreign policy that both embraces America's roots and raises a standard for solidarity under which the history of the 21st century may march.

Here are some excerpts with a flavor of solidarity that caught my fancy:

"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom."

"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

"From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time."

"Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen... Our goal... is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way."

"In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty."

"Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery."

"In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character... Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before--ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today, and forever."

"In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time."

"We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom... History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty."

"America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."

May God bless America.

Revisiting Roe

Memorial of St. Anthony of Egypt
Happy Belated Birthday to Troglotyke #5

Tonight Hannity & Colmes had an exclusive interview that revealed that Norma McCorvey (Roe of Roe v. Wade) will seek to have the decision vacated. Resetting the judicial landscape to before the decision, of course, would not be the end. It is necessary, but not sufficient, to secure justice for the helpless and innocent because, in the main, it is a cultural question, rather than a political one. If waving a political wand were all that is necessary, then the gifts of Martin Luther King, Jr. would not have been needed after the Civil War; put simply, politics lags. An acknowledged political solution ultimately will mark the end of the matter, and a vacated decision will not be it. Nevertheless, let's pray that the government moves this way now for the benefit of the nation.

Ben Stein's Example

It amazes me if there's been something going around the internet that doesn't cross my screen in a timely fashion. Here, apparently, is such a case that I received from my mother today: Ben Stein's final Monday at Morton's article for E! Online. There is an old saw that charity begins at home. So too does culture; its development, its maintenance, and its renewal. The first step of any of these begins with a self-awareness of where things are vs. where we think they ought to be. Here's a sample for those who learn by example.

Next Stop Social Security, Please Fasten Your Seatbelts

Memorial of St. Hilary

Inauguration Day is just a week away now, and the "thinly-veiled indignation" is on the rise for the Social Security Reform "debate." Now that the Administration's blitz has started, it'll be good 'n' intense soon.

Here's the mushroom harvest:

The Note has been tracking the goings on for the last couple of weeks and has observed:

One news cycle past and there are three things we can say about the current debate on the President's "plan" to remake Social Security:

1. The commentariat on the left is working overdrive on the "there is no crisis" theme.
2. It is increasingly easy to find Republicans on background (and deeper) who express skepticism about the game and the candle.
3. And/but no one should misunderestimate the vast sales job that is about to take place.

The objections from the President's opponents began reasonably enough, with the consistent exception of Paul Krugman. However, the cracks are now beginning to show, as evidenced by Harold Meyerson's recent piece ("President of Fabricated Crises," Washington Post, 1/12/05, p. A21):

... When historians look back at the Bush presidency, they're more likely to note that what sets Bush apart is not the crises he managed, but the crises he fabricated. The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency. To attain goals he had set for himself before he took office... he concocted crises where there were none.

And there's more:

With crisis concoction as its central task... this presidency, more than any I can think of, has relied on the classic tools of propaganda... We've had plenty of presidents, Richard Nixon most notoriously, who divided the media into friendly and enemy camps. I can't think of one, however, so fundamentally invested in the spread of disinformation--and so fundamentally indifferent in the spread of disinformation--as Bush.

I hope that this doesn't mark the beginning of the end of real argument on this. As for how to achieve something meaningful, David Brooks ("Let Congress Lead," NY Times, 1/8/05) is on to something:

The president's role - at the Inauguration and the State of the Union address and after - will be to educate the country about the problem and lay out some parameters. He doesn't need to say what the legislation should look like. That's too wonky. He should talk about what the country should look like. Social Security is more than accounting; it's values... This is a time to trust the legislative process. Social Security has a better chance of passage if Congress leads.

Should we end up with a pair of monologues passing in the night, rather than the debate that ought to happen, ultimately it will be because of the conflict of first principles between a New Deal sacred cow and the ownership society. What's interesting is that the sacred cow didn't use to be a cow at all, i.e., Social Security in the beginning was a fairly conservative notion, particularly by today's standards, but has long since been co-opted and corrupted. Here's to hoping we can fire up the grill of real reform.

Milestone

Congratulations to the Ragemonkeys on their 100,000th visitor after less than a year.

Housekeeping

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

I will be cleaning a few things up, particularly on the sidebar, for the next few days, not to mention that Troglotykes 1 & 2 have major school projects that need to be wrapped up this week, so things will be light for a few days.

Susan Sontag, RIP

Memorial of St. Raymond of Penafort

"I believe... that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated cr-p."

--- Kevin Costner as Crash Davis in Bull Durham

I somehow missed Ms. Sontag's passing in the tsunami's aftermath while I was visiting Lake Superior's North Shore on vacation after Christmas. I must admit that I am not terribly familiar with much of her work. In fact, my exposure to her fiction writing is limited to the quote above. On the other hand, I have read some of her essays, and while there are very few things on which we would have agreed, there were some things to admire in her work.

As is often the case, a great many, her fellow writers in particular, hyperbolize the virtues of an influential author. Ms. Sontag's case is no exception. There is no question that she was influential and provocative. Her response in the aftermath of September 11th is case and point as it shifted the context for how the left would stand in opposition to President Bush. That she was serious, dedicated, and probing, as described on NCRonline.org, is also not in doubt. It would not surprise me that her well-publicized quest for the truth was sincere. What puzzles me is similar to the question I face occasionally; the one that goes like "How can you seem intelligent and be (pick one: Catholic, conservative, Republican, etc.)?" or "How can you seem intelligent and yet be so blind to the truth?" In her case, how can someone as intelligent as Ms. Sontag, and as interested in the truth, not find The Truth?

Be that as it may, what I appreciated about her was not the content of her work, nor the way she lived her life, but her craftsmanship as a writer. Her blending of style and structure and content are models any aspiring writer would do well to study. She walked the fine line between being challenging and being merley self-indulgent to great effect. I hope, as I do for everyone, that she embraced enough Truth by the end of her wanderings to rest in peace.

A Little Present

Memorial of Bl. Andre Bessette
The Epiphany of the Lord (traditional)

For the twelfth day of Christmas, I give you some Chesterton. Merry Christmas!

THE WISE MEN

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all the labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
And we know all things but truth.

We have gone round and round the hill
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And serve the made gods, naming still
The furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly ... it has hailed and snowed...
With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
(... We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone...)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.

Scoreboard is Scoreboard

Memorial of St. John Neumann

Origins Part IV:

In the same reply as the “actions and words” comment was the question, “other than sign legislation banning partial-birth abortions, what had w done?” For what it’s worth, let me give the direct answer right away so that it’s not hanging over our heads, while also limiting the context of discussion to just the abortion issue. Keep in mind my point is to use the comment as a starting point for developing toward something else, so my ultimate point isn’t really going to be about abortion.

George W. Bush and his Administration have:

Action - Signed the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act into law, as mentioned.

Action - Reinstated the Mexico City Policy that prevents federal tax dollars from being given to agencies that promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries.

Action - Signed the Born-alive Infants Protection Act into law, which guarantees that every infant born alive enjoys full legal rights under federal law, including those that survive an abortion.

Action - Opposed in the UN efforts to establish an international “right” to abortion.

Action - Denied funding to the United Nations Population Fund based on its support of China’s coercive abortion policies.

Action - Nominated, or appointed, pro-lifers to crucial positions in the executive
branch, including the Attorney General.

Action - Nominated pro-lifers to the Appeals Court, including Priscilla Owen, William Pryor, Charles Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, Janice Rogers Brown, and Miguel Estrada.

Action - Lobbied in favor of a US ban on the cloning of human embryos (including a “clone and kill” provision), the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (later named for Laci Peterson), and the Child Custody Act (making it a federal crime to take a minor across state lines to avoid a state parental notification law).

Action - Lobbied against amendments and provisions overturning the Mexico City Policy, allowing federal employees’ health insurance plans to cover abortion, allowing abortions within the federal prison system, and repealing the law prohibiting military personnel and their dependents from obtaining privately funded abortions at military hospitals overseas.

That seems like quite a few actions, and it’s an incomplete list. But what of them?

Now, the impetus for the question appears to be consistent with that of some recent authors who paradoxically assert that pro-lifers would better be able to advance their goals of reducing the number of abortions by supporting politicians, particularly presidential candidates, who support abortion rights. One can recall that President Clinton once claimed he desired that abortion be legal, safe, and rare. The implicit assertion, of course, is that if abortion were to be made illegal, or restricted, it would then be unsafe and un-rare.

The argument can be summarized:

By Mark W. Roche, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame, “During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, the number of legal abortions increased by more than 5 percent; during the eight years of the Clinton presidency, the number dropped by 36 percent. The overall abortion rate (calculated as the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) was more or less stable during the Reagan years, but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 percent.”

And by Glen Harold Stassen, Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary and allegedly trained in statistics, “When President Bush took office, the nation’s abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s… Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in… 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction. How could this be…? First, two-thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child… Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate… Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children.”

OK, now I am first going to respond as someone who majored in mathematics with an emphasis in statistics, received an engineering degree from an elite institution that emphasizes understanding statistical effects as part of its training, completed the equivalent of 1-2 years of post-graduate training in statistics, and practiced the use of statistical methods for nearly 20 years in industry.

Messrs. Roche and Stassen have employed what is known in industrial parlance as “Time Magazine statistics,” not unlike the folk who say things like “Today’s high temperature of 78 degrees shattered the old record high of 77 degrees.” Their statements of data analysis are true, as far as they go, based on the source data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (an affiliate/partner/whatever of Planned Parenthood) and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). The abortion numbers do change as they describe, and the reasons given by women for aborting do reflect the polling data. However, they are guilty of selective data mining and confusing correlation with causation; sins that, if un-repented, eventually would have bounced them from every undergraduate probability and statistics course that I took. More specifically, they have, I suspect, intentionally ignored data, empirical and analytical, that would make their conclusion appear less sensational, or at least not support their established positions nearly as well.

Looking at the last 30 years of legalized abortion, one feature of the yearly abortion counts is that they are remarkably consistent around the average of 1.4 million. In fact, the only years that are either abnormally high, or low, with respect to the mean number of abortions, are the first two years (statistically low). That said, there are four distinctive patterns that do exist (a.k.a. trends) in the number of abortions reported by year.

Trends in number of abortions per year:

1973 - 1980: steadily increasing (0.9 - 1.6 million)
1980 - 1990: essentially flat (about 1.6 million)
1990 - 1998: steadily decreasing (1.6 million - 1.3 million)
1998 - present: essentially flat (about 1.3 million)

Taking population size into account by looking at the yearly abortion rate per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 from 1973 to 2000 (last year data available) still tells a similar story.

Trends in yearly abortion rates:

1973 - 1980: steadily increasing (16 up to 29)
1980 - 1990: slightly decreasing (29 down to 27)
1990 - 1995: steadily decreasing (27 down to 23)
1995 - 2000: slightly decreasing (23 down to 21)

What we can conclude so far is:

• In general, there has been little change in abortions per year since about 1976.
• There have been four trends that exist within this larger context.
• The abortion trends do not synchronize with changes in the presidency.
• The abortion trend of Bush’s first term continues that of Clinton’s second term.

So, doesn’t this support an assertion that Bush hasn’t really delivered anything and those interested in a Culture of Life should focus on other issues? What about why women have abortions? Both good questions, which we’ll consider next time.

Next up: The Engine of History

Pick Your Poison 1 (Final)

Thanks to all of you who played. I had fun, I hope you did too.

The Question:
The subject line of my original e-mail, "Out of the Cave," refers to three persons.

A. Who are the three?
B. How does the reference apply to each person?

The Hints:
1. The three people are approximately equally distributed in time over a span of ~950 years.

2. The first and third persons (chronologically) have works that can be purchased on Amazon.com

3. The third person is the first truly Western counterpart to St. Anthony of the Desert (aka St. Anthony the Great to our Orthodox friends).

4. The cave reference is very literal for the second and third persons.

The Rules:
You may use UNLIMITED entries. One point will be awarded for each of the correct answers to A and to B, for a total of six points. First one to six points takes first placee. Second one to six points takes the runner-up, etc. If no one gets six points by the deadline, then the person with the most points wins, with the time of receipt being the tie-breaker; person with the second-most points is the runner-up, with the time of receipt being the tie-breaker, etc. If one person obtains six points, then the contest will remain open until a second person reaches six points, or the deadline passes, whichever comes first, with the person with the second-most points being the runner-up. I will respond to each entry (privately) and notify you which parts are correct and which are incorrect. I might even give private clues to those who respond. Therefore, guessing is encouraged.

The Answers (with the winner's references):
1. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave from The Republic:

"… humans are ignorant, trapped in the depths and not even aware of their own limited perspective. The rare individual escapes the limitations of that cave and, through a long, tortuous intellectual journey, discovers a higher realm, a true reality, with a final, almost mystical awareness of Goodness as the origin of everything that exists. Such a person is then the best equipped to govern in society, having a knowledge of what is ultimately most worthwhile in life and not just a knowledge of techniques; but that person will be frequently misunderstood by those ordinary folks back in the cave who haven't shared in the intellectual insight."

2. Jesus Christ was born in a cave:

About 150 we find St. Justin Martyr referring (Dial., lxxviii) to the Savior's birth as having taken place in a cave near the village of Bethlehem; such cave stables are not rare in Palestine. (Cf. Massie in Hast., Dict. of the Bible, III, 234; Expository Times, May, 1903, 384; Bonaccorsi, "Il Natale", Rome, 1903, 16-20.) The tradition of the birth in a cave was widely accepted, as we see from Origen's words about a century later: "In Bethlehem the cave is pointed out where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and the rumor is in those places and among foreigners of the Faith that indeed Jesus was born in this cave". (Contra Celsum, I, li.)

3. St. Benedict lived in a cave:

All alone he set out for a more solitary place. Upon arriving at a wild and rocky place known as Subiaco Benedict met a monk named Romanus. With the help of Romanus he spent the next three years as a hermit living in a cave. A practice then among those seeking Christian perfection was to look for a holy spiritual guide to instruct them in the ways of holiness, what we might today call a "spiritual father." As news spread about a holy hermit living in a cave disciples flocked to Subiaco. Soon under Benedict's guidance several small monasteries sprang up. Eventually Benedict again set out for a solitary place. He found it on top of Monte Cassino where he built two chapels. But soon disciples were gathering around him again. This time Benedict put them all under the same roof and the enormous and famous monastery on Monte Cassino began to take shape.

Don't like the answers? You can make up your own game and enjoy the power rush.

Rats! We Don't "Need" No Stinkin' Playoffs!

Memorial of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

After the Fiesta and Sugar Bowls it appears that the BCS may have gotten it right for tonight's national championship game. The down side is that there likely will be less controversy this year. Oswald Sobrino has buzzed by one of my pet themes, that discord is not inherently an evil. One of the joys of college football is the uncertainty that makes every week important. Similarly, there can be grace in the persuasion of honest debate; having a mind open to reason. I guess we'll have to wait until next year, unless the powers that be mess it up with a playoff system.

Boomer! Sooner! Go OU!

Update:

Unfortunately for Sooner fans, there is no question about the national champion, nor about the Heisman winner. I guess we'll have to wait until next year, but it's gonna be tough with 3/4 of the starters departing.

End of the World?

My grandmother used to say that such developments between Catholics and Lutherans are signs of the Apocalypse. No kidding.

Opportunity Lost (Letter to the Editor)

Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

Here is a counterpoint I sent today to the Minneapolis StarTribune. Can anybody spot the irony? For those who can't, here's a clue from Oswald Sobrino's Catholic Analysis.


That the StarTribune found issue with President Bush’s handling of the tsunami disaster surprises no one. Both the content and tone of Thursday’s editorial, “The Stingy US,” make it easy to imagine that had the President done exactly as suggested, a different editorial would have been written to take him to task for drawing attention to himself when he could have shown compassion and respect for foreign leaders and citizens by working behind the scenes to coordinate help from the US government and only issuing statements through senior staffers. History has shown repeatedly that in the face of disaster the US provides monetary and logistical aid, as well as infrastructure development, on par with the all the other countries of the world combined. To assert after a few days that something other than that will occur to address this crisis is preposterous. Moreover, among other things, the StarTribune staff, along with a number of international types, continues to think that the US government and the American nation are synonymous and that generosity is limited to what government does. Such is the myopic focus on realpolitik that a real opportunity was missed.

One thing that all Minnesotans ought to have, or at least used to have, is a sense that we are all in this together. This is not limited to Minnesota, of course, but was, and is, true for all the heartland and, since 9/11, much of the country. When it comes to charitable giving, however, according to 2002 tax returns, Minnesota is very much in the middle of the pack of states; OK, but not great. Their seems to be a growing notion that “I gave at the (tax) office.” Here is where the influence as the local newspaper of record could have been better spent.

Contrary to what we usually see from the StarTribune’s “perspective,” social life is driven by culture, not politics. The attitude of solidarity toward society has long been a hallmark of people from the Midwest. Good politics serves this attitude. The deployment of individual freedom to serve the common good, while the community supports and sustains individuals qua individuals, is at the core of Minnesota’s reputations for hospitality and progressiveness.

An editorial that exhorted the people of Minnesota to recognize our connection to the people of Asia would have been in line with the (fading?) legacy of Minnesota Nice. It could have thanked those who immediately acted to help. It also could have legitimately criticized President Bush for not using his own bully pulpit to call more aggressively on Americans to contribute as individuals and list some specific ways how, something the president did not do until his weekly radio address on Saturday. This includes not only donating money and goods, but doing something that anybody can do regardless of means, praying for the victims. Instead we get the hand-wringing “disappointment” that is fitting of NY Times wannabes about what color suit the president wears during a press conference. What a waste.


Here is a different reply, from Rich Galen at Mullings, to the stinginess charge.

Giving Aid

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

It has been a week since the tsunami ravaged the coasts of the Indian Ocean. With each passing the day the familiarity and realized scope of the devestation and human tragedy increases, as the awe and disbelief fades. At this time we are reminded by the devotion of the Magi that we are called in solidarity to respond as individuals. This can be complicated by the distances that separate us, but we can and should respond in at least two ways: prayer with fasting and financial giving.

The world's attention will fade in time, here's a novena prayer to St. Jude for the victims of the tsunami to extend that time:

O most holy apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, people honor and invoke you universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, for I am so helpless and alone. Please help to bring me visible and speedy assistance. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly that the victims of the tsunami may have peace and comfort, and that I may praise God with you always.

Other novena prayers can be found at stjudenovena.org.

Here's a few places to contribute financial aid, if you haven't already:
Catholic Relief Services
Salvation Army
American Red Cross
Direct Relief International