Chappie Says Tony Scalia May Be Onto Something...

The immensely honorable Associate Justice Antonin G. Scalia has let us into a secret. In a few words, AS asked rhetorically, "“Do you think the American people would ever have ratified the Constitution if they had been told the meaning of this document shall be whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is?”  BUT, Mr. Ass. Justice, "The American people" didn't ratify the Constitution, not by a LONG shot. And this is why:

A minority of propertied white men (such as you imagine yourself to be?) ratified it with some difficulty. Many combat veterans of the Revolution were excluded because they had lost everything and couldn't meet the property test. Other combat veterans of our war of independence because they were free black men. Property test? NO women and NO members of any non-white minority had a vote nor is there any evidence in the record that any of the men who crafted that remarkable but deeply flawed reactionary document in secret during the summer of 1787 ever thought for a second about any proposition that their WIVES might be entitled to vote in approval of the document which they hoped would rule their lives going forward. And our lives?

In fact, Tony, if they had seen YOU wandering off the boat, I very much doubt you would have been allowed a vote. If, as a swarthy, penniless Sicilian peasant, you hadn't been blocked from voting, as a Roman Catholic you wouldn't have been respected and venerated either. Actually, as a Roman Catholic, you almost certainly wouldn't have BEEN here in 1787. That's right, in 1787, Catholics comprised less than 1% of the US population, perhaps 25,000 total in the country. More than the Jews but not much more. There was a synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina FIFTY YEARS before there was a Catholic church. The first Catholic bishop in the US, John Carroll of Baltimore, wasn't installed until 1790.

Your endless celebration of "originalism" or textualism as you call it ignores that there was little or no place for you originally. Your conservative Roman Catholicism was no where in the mix among the founding fathers, exactly one of whom was a fellow adherent. Doesn't this give you a queasy feeling?  But leaving all that aside, consider originalism, the notion you famously promote that is famously summed up by your 2013 meltdown where you asserted that “Words have meaning, and their meaning doesn’t change.” What sort of ignorant, bomb-throwing undergraduate nonsense is that? You know as well as the next person that the meanings of words change radically with the passage of time, right? Aren't you pulling our legs, you queer old duck? This is egregious nonsense and I don't mean "remarkably good" as "egregious" once did. But even ignoring the incontrovertible fact that meanings and usage change with time, it is equally obvious to any breathing bi-pedal that different people at the same moment in time have in mind different meanings for the same word.

Your notion of "freedom" (which I would equate with sophomoric license) is not my idea of freedom. My idea of freedom is "to have meaningful choice in as many situations as possible." No, your assertion of your notion of the utterly conservative nature of language (!) with the clear implication that everyone who voted to render the document of Sept. 17, 1787 as the law of the land had the same understanding of the meaning of said words...is applesauce. And I mean it the way you habitually use it--errant nonsense--not as the delicious concoction of cooked apples, sugar and spices that I like to make at home. You must know what I'm going on about, you hypocrite.

Worshiping the Constitution? (Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)

Facts, fact, facts, Tony...so many facts which all point to the simple fact that you, a conservative Catholic associate justice (one of SIX Catholics--out of nine justices...how did THAT happen?) do not represent the values of the Founding Fathers who in many cases voted in local ordinances discriminating against Catholics. They didn't like you or trust you or know you. Catholics in 1787 and for years afterwards were regarded as negatively in this country as Muslims (also people of the book) are today. Perhaps worse. The values of the FFs were anything but pristine and they are not the values of many if not most Americans today, people who weren't in any way represented in the vote that summer of 1787.

Besides which, the Constitution wasn't even ratified by a plebiscite of those few PWM eligible to vote, perhaps 30% of the total population.  Our defining document was ratified by state legislatures, a total of well under a thousand propertied white men out of a population of nearly four million. Democracy? I have a bridge to sell you...

Like it or not, the constitution of the People's Republic of China was ratified by a more representative group than was our own sacred founding document. There were actually women and members of minority groups involved, if only as window dressing. Facts are a bitch, Tony.

Since Tony, kindly if inadvertently, raises the gross non-representational origins of our founding document, perhaps he would go along with a call for a NEW Constitutional Convention? The first since that summer of 1787. A document that could potentially (if actually ratified) represent the actual beliefs, wishes and aspirations of people who were never dreamed of by the original drafters. I can hear the outraged screaming from all sides. Can the people, after two centuries be trusted to revise the rules under which THEY (we) and our descendants will live for the next century or two? Commie! Terrorist! Liberal!

So thorough is our indoctrination, our brain washing as to the unsurpassed perfection of The Document, that few Americans could even CONSIDER calling a constitutional convention. Am I wrong? But why not? Perhaps the third time would be the charm? We would have the original (actually our SECOND constitution--the Articles of Confederation were absolutely our first constitution) as our default in case we couldn't decide on a re-write of #2. Could we be that much worse off than we currently are? Yes. Could we get there without a Constitutional Convention? Absolutely.

We need a Constitution written by Americans with Tony Scalia and his ilk both in mind and participating. Let's do it!  Oh wait...Tony says this is not a good century in which to re-write the constitution?

PS. All the white people who view the coming of a time when their (our!) kind no longer comprise a majority of the American people but simply the largest minority in a nation in which no group has a quorum--white people should grasp that there will NEVER be a more advantageous time for them (us!) to call a Constitutional Convention than...yesterday.  

Chappie Has Some Odd Thoughts...

For example, consider this observation: we can pretty well say how little is too little of anything or how small is too small, but we almost never seem to be able to agree on how large is too large or how much it too much. Is this a foolish topic? I can remember the first school writing assignment I ever had that revealed the role of writing in thought. It was in 7th grade, Mrs McKeith's class, and the assignment was to write a paragraph for homework on the question, "How small is small?" My first reaction was "This is stupid!" but within moments I realized (without knowing the word) that the real topic of the question was the meaning and importance of "relative." This may have been the frst time in my life that I engaged in abstract thought of a higher sort. I was astonished and have never forgotten that assignment after more than half a century.

At that time, the extent of the cosmos was barely dreamed of.

So what is it about this large/small conundrum?

Computer renderings and actual images of a DNA molecule, as seen through an electron microscope (Enzo di Fabrizio via New Scientist)

I am particularly struck by the apparent impossibility of our putting any limits on how large we will grow? In any area or zone. Americans in particular consider any discussion of placing limits on the growth of anything as an affront to their basic freedom. One id obliged to add that both cancer and obesity are biological processes characterized by excessive, unlimited growth. Just saying...

A cogent argument says that things like population naturally limit themselves. Perhaps Malthus was getting at this? But there also seems to be a realistic lag time involved which, given the size of the entities involved, could possibly lead to catastrophe. Consider Easter Island.  Although scientists are increasingly at odds in their respective views of what happened on Easter Island after the arrival of humans, the clear implication is that the ecology of the island and it's ability to support a variety of life forms was altered permanently by the arrival of Man and his pests (rats or European diseases.)

The purpose of this line of thinking is not to demonize mankind for its success in colonizing the planet and thereby causing numerous extinctions (including proto-human extinctions), as regrettable as this may be. If I take a view that would be acceptable to a Dominionist, I would still be obliged to recognize that in the case of Easter island and in numerous other historical instances, the scale of "our" dreams and aspirations made real have had devastating consequences. But we were either unable to see disaster coming or we were unable to help ourselves once recognition had set in.

The current problem of global warming is in this vein. Interestingly, most of the opposition to crediting the reality of global warming and the mortal threat it poses to our continued presence here comes from the same primitive Christian elements who propound openly or implicitly the Dominionist ideology. Christianity is being revealed as a religion not primarily of Love but of Death. Or of love of death and a yearning for the End times. (The charming adherents of the Islamic state share this mordant fantasy with all the Flat Earthers here and there and everywhere.) Death loving given the implicit promise of Life After Death...  I you really buy that I have several rusting bridges to sell you.   It is not my desire to single out Christianity since the negative effects of human over-population and lack of self-control are most extremely demonstrated in the societies of Asia, which are decidedly non-Christian (though not without values highly similar to Christian ones...patriarchy?)

We see everywhere about us evidence that nothing succeed like excess. But where can it lead? To too much of good things and bad. To a world with too many of us in it and no place for any of us...

Chappie Sympathizes with Playmobile's Good Intentions...

I sympathize with everyone in this little story I happened upon while wasting time on-line this morning. Well, I don't have much sympathy for ME...

How could I resist "Dark-skinned doll wearing 'slave collar' ignites outrage"?  After reading this account of a Sacramento mom who was horrified to discover her little boy playing with a toy which required attaching a "slave collar" to a dark skinned toy pirate figure, went ballistic and called the company, Playmobile, to account on Facebook, I had a think about it. Something didn't seem right. It occurred to me that it's just possible that Mom was concerned that her little boy had come upon the leather slave collar in the nightstand of her bedroom? Holy Shmoley!  Bad joke--I apologize. But, in fact, Mom is African-American and is experiencing for the umpteenth time the history of her people seen from the perspective of corporate America. Corporate America, by the way, is white. As much as I sympathize with her, I see no easy way around this problem. Appearances can be deceiving.

Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) in Alex Haley's Roots, 1977 (David Wolper Productions)

Doesn't Playmobile get credit for making the slave collar accessory optional?  The outraged mother, who is clearly very bright, recognizes this fact but not its significance when she writes, "I suppose it's optional as to whether a kid chooses to then place said character into chains or into a prison cell at the bottom of the ship."

EXACTLY!  "Optional" means free to choose what to do. A five-year old will probably not fail this moral test. He or she might do as the mother suggests and place the dark figure in chains in the hold, but then...he will feel something about that, he will create a counter-narrative freeing the confined figure? Why not? Five years old is when we begin to recognize others who are as powerless and vulnerable as ourselves.  It's all a crap-shoot and we have to let them learn from the earliest possible moment.

No, I'm not being funny.  I know exactly what the designer intended. The applicable/removable collar permitted the child (or adult) player to MANUMIT the captive...to REMOVE the collar as would have happened when some runaways or captives were selected to join pirate crews, perhaps as slaves at first but with the chance of freedom after proving themselves.  You didn't know this? I've got news for everyone: this is exactly what happened repeatedly. Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't quite get it right...there were many African descended men in pirate crews (and working as crew on other ships) and they didn't get there the easy way. And only a few were slaves.  There is strong evidence of at least one former slave who became a pirate captain--Black Caesar. Though the account of his career on Wikipedia is unsourced and sounds very Hollywood, the fact is that at the end of the day an African pirate leader was hanged at Williamsburg Virginia in 1718. This proves something...

Removable slave collar detail (Playmobile)

No, I'm not reading too much into this. I'm reading it as I would have when I was a child and as the game's designer no doubt DID when designing it. Good guys and bad guys doing what they do. Children don't have pure minds and don't need to be protected from everything, especially not from realities which involve limitations placed on human freedom. Children all know about limitations on human freedom. This smacks of the sadly officious parents who won't let their children have toy guns or play "violent" games. No, I don't mean Ms. Lockett whose shock I understand. I mean all the "well-meaning" trolls who will jump on Playmobile for being responsible to history and human nature. Grow up, people. In her classic 1993 memoir, Love's Work, Philosopher Gilliam Rose referred to this propensity of avoidance,

"...the decision to stop small children, girls and boys, from playing with guns, pugnacious video games, or any violent toys. This brutally sincere, enlightened probity, which thinks it will stop war and aggression, in effect aggravates their propensity. This decision evinces loss of trust in the way that play (fairy stories, terrifying films) teaches the difference between fantasy and actuality. The child who is able to explore that border will feel safe in experiencing violent, inner, emotional conflict, and will acquire compassion for other people. The child who is locked away from aggressive experiment and play will be left paralyzed and terrified by its emotions, unable to face or release them..." (page 126)

Yes, perhaps it's a bit too much historical reality for a parent who is understandably ignorant of certain facts of history and wants her child to remain ignorant of certain unpleasant facts about the Past. That's the parent's choice even if its mistaken, in my view. Surely the manufacturer should advertise that the toy is "historically accurate and may upset some sensibilities."  But the mother in Sacramento should breathe a sigh of relief. At least Playmobile doesn't seem to have included certain other edgy realities in the game, realities suggested by the titles of books such as: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash: Piracy, Sexuality, and Masculine Identity by Hans Turley or B. R. Burg's 1983 classic  Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with rum, sodomy(a meaningless legal term now) or the lash if properly applied--but not for children. I sound as if I'm channeling a Seinfeld episode...not that there's anything wrong with that. As for rum, stay away from that horrid spiced stuff...

Is that EYE MAKE-UP on Jack Sparrow? (Disney)

To conclude, this episode indicates that today's parents are severely burdened by expectations of inculcating political correctness (if that's really a thing) or of just preventing their children being desensitized by our hyper-sexualized and humanly indifferent environment. I sympathize. But Playmobile did nothing wrong--quite the contrary.

I hope they'll send me a complimentary copy of the game for my sandbox...

Chappie Gets Asked a Question: How are Gun Owners Different from Muslims?

Though I commenced to grinding my teeth upon reading the following words from a reader/friend manning a lonely outpost on the shores of Lake Michigan, once I engaged my brain I recognized that it is a fair question. The words referred to go,

"...[You, Chappie, are] pretty harsh on gun ownership in general. You lampoon gun owners as Neanderthals, wackos, and reprobates - as a general class. Yet you, above others, are adamant that all Muslims are not to be judged by the action of a fringe group of fanatics. I think you should ponder this."

 I should. Where to begin?  Well, for starters Chappie knows that gun owners are overwhelmingly no better and no worse that any other group of Americans. Yikes! Since 33% of us may be gun owners or live in homes where there are guns, GOs are larger than any religion or political party we have. Catholics are only 27%!  It is also obvious that most gun owners probably don't identify themselves as wacked out paranoids and don't act politically in accord with this narrow and bizarre (and phony) identity of GO. I say "phony" because the entire premise of Wayne La Pierre's religion is a fantasy. A lot of his support may one day prove to be a fantasy as well. I sure hope so. Until Wayne & Co (the NRA) raised the non-issue and began getting rich many years ago, there was no issue. Chicken Little had the same insight in another dimension... by the way, the NRA still provides excellent technical firearms instruction as a side dish to it's now principal purpose--the political role in service to the firearms manufacturers (lobbyist)...

Arizona couple target shooting  (Joshua Lott/Reuters)

Anyway, I'm wandering and being unnecessarily controversial. I'm a liberal and I don't want to take away anyone's guns. I want those so inclined to buy more guns (as they, as a shrinking group, seem to be doing) in the certain knowledge that no one is as endangered by their guns as they are. Studies show that firearm ownership is actually in decline. The third of American who own or live with firearms today is down from 50% in 1980. Smoking rates have similarly tumbled in these years...maybe we're smarter than we know?  The fact is that gun ownership is dangerous to one's health.

White males 65 and older (like me) are the group most likely to use their firearms to kill themselves. Holy Smokes! Nearly 20,000 Americans killed themselves with firearms in 2010. Read that sentence again. How many do you imagine did it last year? And, here's the catch: every one was either a gun owner or lived with a gun owner.  And yet GOs are worried that liberals like me want to take their guns away?  That's enough about that.

I guess this is a good time to ask if I'm lampooning or ridiculing gun owners?  Well? I can't say that I respect them as a self-identified group: quite the contrary in view of their mass delusion of increased safety. But I can't honestly say that I limit my identification of and respect for more than a tiny group of  economically motivated fanatics to the "gun owner" label.  If I lived in the country, I almost certainly would be a gun owner, too. I love to shoot a 1911 .45 as long as it belongs to someone else and they have lots of ammo. I'm not made of money!

Next let's get to the main course and compare gun owners and Muslims, ignoring the fact that in some cases the two are one and the same. First, both have some of the characteristics of a religion. Muslims have the Koran and gun owners have... well, they don't necessarily read...Wait a minute, Old Chap, that is more than a bit harsh. Stick to your purpose: a fair examination of the original charge.

I could observe that Islam is one of the world's great religions and "gun owners", as I have made clear, is an American religious cult. I think there is some validity to this characterization. Neither will listen to any criticism of their core beliefs. I'll take a pass on any need to justify this remark vis a vis Islam and pass onto a consideration of GO (not the Japanese board game but my moniker for the gun owners cult.)

Do gun owners universally revere The Shooter's Bible (107th ed.)?  I have no idea. I doubt it very much. What GO do revere and refer to constantly are the words "second amendment right". However, they NEVER actually quote the brief but specific wording of the amendment. Only their opponents do. Seriously. Odd, don't you think?  But understandable in that they probably find the reference to "well-regulated militia" off-putting and having little to do with the SCOTUS's bizarre decisions in DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.  These decisions have created the kinds of cognitive dissonance in thinking people not experienced since Dred Scott v. Standford and Plessy v. Ferguson to pick just the most famous. How about First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) which opened the door to all corporate money in politics? What did you say? Citizens Uni-?  OK, OK, I'm not here to argue the law (though I have been doing so.)  I'm making the point that many SCOTUS decisions are grossly off  (politically inspired) a great deal of the time. People left and right should agree with this observation. Let's get back to our comparison.
                                                                          
Though Islam is the great proselytizing religion of the current day, most Muslims are born Muslims just as is true with the members of all religions. We are generally born what we are and some few choose to change. The same is true of political affiliation as well. Are most gun owners BORN gun owners? Don't know (can't know) but I am sure that a great many are. Many inherit firearms. There are said to be 300,000,000 in the US. Nonetheless, it is certain that the ranks of GOs have been swelled  significantly by political efforts over the past 35 years. It would be very interesting to know the numbers on these things. The crusade to "preserve" gun ownership (really handgun ownership until the rise of the military-style assault rifle) against a liberal "plot to disarm America" has come along since Chappie was a little chap. Back in those days, guns were non-controversial. There were probably a lot more people hunting then, too.  Then came Wayne LaPierre (the same age as Chappie!) but that's another story....

Islam is as legitimate and worthy of respect as any of the world's great religions are. Or disrespect if militant atheism is your thing. But said religions are life systems with long histories. The GO is a cult and will probably not become a religion (though a merger with The Church of Scientology might increase the chances...), no matter how beautiful many people find the objects of their veneration.

Smith & Wesson 1911 .45 automatic (photographer unknown)

To conclude, I would agree with my original interlocutor that the members of no group "be judged by the action of a fringe group of fanatics." It was never my intention to give that impression. I would suggest that each individual consider his or her alliances and whether they conform with their deep beliefs and best interests. Islam is in crisis and most Muslims know it. I want my fellow citizen gun owners to consider only how the presence of firearms in their homes and in their lives serves their actual security and health.

Chappie will be considering some approaches to the maintenance of a healthy "gun culture" in a future posting if he discovers that he actually gives a damn....

Chappie Says Mass Murderers OVERWHELMINGLY Were Not Criminals Until They Started Shooting People...

Chappie shakes his head every time he hears the little NRA wind-up puppets reciting the old saw that once the gun laws have taken away all "our" guns, only the criminals will have guns.  Or was it "outlaws"? "Outlaw" is an absurd word like "warrior" favored by absurd people who preen themselves in a comic book version of reality. Such inane words ALWAYS follow every mass shooting in our country because these slaughters are, sadly, terribly reassuring to some people.

     REALLY?

What is actually the most common cause of a fatal firearms accident?

For adults, the most common fatal accident is caused by a falling gun that discharges; most commonly an exposed hammer firearm with no hammer block.

 

OOOoops.

 

However, at the moment, my focus is narrow. It mimics the mental range of the gun lovers: simple words for simple souls. So, gun lovers out there, tell me if I get it right: when the guns of all the good people have been taken away, only bad people will have guns, right? Good or bad, law abiding or criminal?

It dawned on me a long time ago that I have never heard of a single mass murder perpetrated by a criminal. That's right. All the massacres I have ever heard of were carried out by people who would have been identified (up to the moment they climbed a tower or walked into the post office, the McDonald's, the elementary school and opened fire) as law-abiding (if not necessarily admired) and sometimes well-liked, normal people?  That's right: normal. You know: postal workers, physicists, college and high school students, junior high school students, international students, Army doctors, nurses, lots of unemployed people and people with children?  Forget the airline pilots: they have a weapon WAY better than any gun around... There are very few women and few people of colors other than white. No robbers, burglars, forgers, drug pushers, kiddie pornographers, pimps or corporate executives. That's all. That's my point. No need to read further.

       Charles Joseph Whitman ( U. S. Marine, Eagle Scout)  

                                                              

A criminal means someone convicted of a crime, a convicted felon, someone associated by society as engaged in crime of some sort (eg. "white-collar criminal".) Though a few of the shooters have had past encounters with the legal system, I have yet to come across one who was obviously and by conviction, a criminal. It may be that criminals of the common type are not interested in murdering large numbers of strangers. They have better things to do.

The murderers BECAME criminals by the very act of abusing their (usually) legal possession of arsenals of weapons. Obviously no one knew they were going to BECOME criminals with a single act of cruelty, cowardly in the sense that they do avoid armed people and tend to kill themselves in cowardly terror when the police, dumbfounded and usually inept, arrive. Their families and friends usually proclaim themselves to have been taken aback by events. I believe most of them. These killers are few and far between, and we are seldom expecting them. We are NEVER prepared.

The fact is that anyone who owns a firearm is a POTENTIAL criminal (as is anyone who does not own a firearm.)  There's no indication that possessing firearms inclines one more to become a criminal. But when the gun owner goes criminal, the consequences for the rest of us are out-sized. We see, routinely now, how different the destruction is when it comes from the firearms owner.  Keep in mind the thousands of suicides who use their own or their family members' firearms to destroy themselves every year. Thank Heaven for small favors. Alas, too many of them choose to settle accounts with those they dislike before blowing out their own brains. Or, finding themselves unable to settle their own hash, force policemen to do it.

Will I become a criminal someday?  Who knows?  However, my non-ownership of any firearms means that I will have to go to much greater lengths if I want to loose Hell on my neighbors. My 

wrist-rocket© slingshot does make me a minor force to be reckoned with, but I wouldn't be able to turn the slingshot on myself and take the coward's way out.

Fifteen years ago I testified as a prosecution witness in a capital triple murder case in Alameda County, CA Superior Court. During cross examination, the defense attorney asked me if I owned any firearms. I replied that I did not. He then asked me why I owned no firearms. I only had a second to consider my reply, but it was easy: because, I said, I'm afraid I might shoot someone.  The judge had to use his gavel to quell the laughter in the court. But even he was smiling. Is that really so funny?

Chappie Says Kim Davis Needs a Corner Office

As any of the well-informed but mildly misguided folks who would be reading Chappie's blathering (That's YOU!) would obviously know, Kim Davis is the former nonentity in Kentucky who has become a darling of some members of the Religious Fundament (ie. her neighbors and kin in Morehead--specifically members of her Solid Rock Apostolic Church) for her unyielding stance against "gay marriage" and her defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.  Ms. Davis has also become an entity via her blatantly illegal and cynical manipulation of the sympathies of her cognitively challenged co-coreligionist minions.

Lest I should sound dismissive of the Solid Rock sect, a look at their web site will show that they are a sophisticated movement unimpressed with the "mystery" of The Trinity which the Roman Catholics having been dining out on forever AND have at least one terrific music video of a rousing choral number (Follow the link and check out the video of "Nothing is Impossible.") called presumably "Through YOU, I can do anything!" (which at first hearing I recoiled at what I thought was "Screw you, I can do anything...")  Actually, I am inclined to wonder if Kim Davis, a relatively new convert (2011), who left her life of multiple marriages and god knows what sins to cleave to this sect's version of the gospel, didn't mishear it, as well. "Screw you, I can do anything!" does seem to sum up her current interpretation of her public/divine mandate. Alas, her confederates seem to agree:

OOOps.  Wrong image....(Image credit: NASA)

Protesting respectfully on a hot day (AP photo)

Actor Rob Lowe's twin, Jethro, is a Davis supporter along with Louis CK's twin, Lars CK (WLWT5-NBC)

          

Kim Davis is, according the the Wikipedia, the highest paid public official in her county. She is a Democrat but we don't want to talk about that now. Joseph Goebbels was a Christian, after all. She is, in fact, the inheritor (via election--not Election!) of her mother's former position, to which KD ascended in January of this year after serving 24 years as a deputy to her mom. One of her children is currently serving as one of Ms. Davis's deputies. Anyone notice a tendency here, Jeb?  But not to worry--rampant nepotism and cronyism, two of the delights of small town life, are not my topic today. Today I'm urging common sense and preaching from the Gospel.

There is an excellent piece on the need for Ms. Davis to actually read the Good Book in The New Yorker.  This article demonstrates a couple of interesting insights into the scriptural world of Ms. Davis and the Hard Rockers. For one thing, they tend to choose their Ur verses from the old testament and ignore the Gospels themselves. The second part follows from the first and true of all literalist religious traditions: the Bible contradicts itself more exhaustively than Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky interview. All religious texts of sufficient length or from a sufficiently wide range of sources do the same. This is why people who claim they derive their moral compass and operating instructions exclusively and dogmatically from any of the world's good books tend to chase their own tails and bite off portions of their own bodies.

Ms. Davis seems to be such a person. I am inclined to ask her how she understands the text of the New Testament's Acts 5:29 ("We must obey God rather than any human authority.") and if she understands its context (it referred to the Roman occupiers--not an elected government--an election that chose Ms Davis for one!) I would also like to ask her if she uses Wen? Sorry, off topic--what does she think of  the famous line found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto god that which is God's"? The fact that it's in three gospels leads me to guess that He actually said it whereas this stuff in Acts is...well, what is Acts, anyway? Enough of my pseudo theological ramblings. I'll render unto those of the cloth with seminary training that which they know how to speak of...

   "I don't want to be a whipping post." (Timothy D. Easley/AP)

                                          

So, from the Faith side of things, I was very impressed with a blog entry from Pastor Jonathan Davis (no relation to Kim) of Urbanna, VA at Baptist News Global .  Pastor Davis cites the Christian tradition begun by Tertullian, who urged believers to avoid membership or service in institutions that could act negatively on their faith. Alas, for Kim Davis, she pulls down $80K a year in a dirt poor part of the country, so the call of Tertulliam is faint and unpersuasive. Pastor Davis then comes at the problem with real effect by citing the example of TRUE & HONORABLE sworn officers of the government (like county clerks--she took an oath!) known as military chaplains. He says this of the chaplain's role"

Military chaplains have known this for centuries. They exist to provide care and support for people in their own tradition (i.e., Protestant, Catholic, Islam, and Judaism) but must facilitate the free expression of worship for those outside their tradition. This means that a Christian chaplain does not have to lead an Islamic worship service, but they must help ensure that adherents to Islam are able to practice their religion freely. One of the key functions of military chaplains is ensuring First Amendment free exercise of religion for all military personnel, no matter their values and no matter their faith.

In the world of military chaplaincy, part of ensuring religious liberty for all involves not forcing one’s faith on others. County clerks should operate with the same understanding, or in my opinion, explore a career change. If Kim Davis valued religious liberty, she would either do her job, or find another one.

Thank you, Pastor Davis.  And you, Kim Davis, get thee to a corner office and sin no more.

Chappie Says of Matt Damon's "Merit"...Shmerit!

I don't know what has happened to me. All my enthusiasm of six months ago...?  Ou sont les boules de neige de d'antan?  Yes, Chappie knows a little French and stuff. I'm going to keep it short as I jump back and forth from first person to third in some silly attempt to manage my altered ego.  Each post will usually be about one thing, one discrete observation. Anyone who knows Chappie knows what a tall order this is: to stay on topic and finish the thought?  Wow.

My question today concerns notions of "merit" nurtured and broadly and thoughtlessly applied by privileged people of every hue.  I am inspired by the brouhaha caused (rightfully so) by comments (and the manner in which he made them) uttered by Matt Damon on an episode of a reality show, Project Greenlight, which he apparently produces with his brainiac friend and fellow Harvard man, Ben Affleck. (See, I'm already going off topic with a swipe a BA who really has no obvious place in this discussion except that he should have spoken up and said what I am about to say.)  Matt Damon clearly interrupted producer Effie Brown, like Damon a Hollywood veteran, but unlike Damon a woman of color. Ms. Brown was making a interesting point when she was cut off and  (I hate to say it) put in Matt Damon's idea of her place.  She behaved with dignity and panache throughout.  Damon acted like some one correcting another person's spelling or grammar. Since I do this often, I know how obnoxious and basically unhelpful it can be.

(US Magazine)

                                                                                                             

Speaking as a sometimes clueless life-long privileged white man himself, Chappie must say that he really got it for once in this instance...  and yes, I still like Matt Damon. But I'm appalled at his lack of discernment regarding words and the notions they embody. Maybe that's what happens when you have your own show? Ms Brown, by virtue of her response to Damon, is the one who really interests me, however.

The public kerfuffle, which has not been quelled by Damon's reply, an expression of regret for hurting feelings but not a retraction or apology for his statements, is and was caused by his assertion that diversity should manifest itself in the casting of the actors (the visible portion) and not in the casting of "the show" which seems to mean the creative and crafts people--the writer/director component (the invisible/power portion.) At the same time that this seems like a lame distinction to draw (and one which revels the surprising shallowness of Damon's vision), it is really beside the point. Damon says at the conclusion that the issue is, "about giving someone this job based entirely on merit and leaving all other factors out of it," he said. "It's just strictly a film-making competition." Is that like "only" a film-making competition?

(Time, Inc)

                                                                                                         

This entire argument about merit and how it is allocated and rewarded can be disposed of (put into proper focus) if one addresses the issue of what merit (as in an imagined meritocracy) IS and how merit is determined. Actually, I am not going to address these two questions because even they don't really matter. The point is that, in a given context, someone decides what merit references and then they decide how to discern this "merit" in any candidates who apply. What everyone knows is that there are few instances when ONE candidate clearly and decisively outstrips all others and earns the top spot. There is always a choice to be made. We all know in our beady little hearts [sic!] that at the top of the range of all degrees of merit, there is a special place where a small number of candidates vie for number one. These are the finalists, the one's from among whom the winner is chosen--any of them by definition is qualified and who is to say will not do a creditable job? So whither merit? Another way of putting this is to say that the existence of an abstract "number one" prior to the decision being made is usually a fantasy. At the very least, a meaningful #1 is a distillation of outstanding performance over time.

"The Fight" 1971

                                                                                                             

Number one is determined by results, not by the original selection of finalists ("among the very best"). Most "next big things" fall flat on their faces. Sure, there have been a few who were clearly The Greatest, but even Muhammad Ali was beaten in the ring after he had survived his four year bout with the US government (which he won when the U.S.Supreme Court overturned his conviction for draft evasion 8-0.) Joe Frazier, Ali's smokin' nemesis, was not chopped liver: he was a fighter of the same stature and pugilistic character as Ali but without quite the gravitas, the naked heroism. Without Joe Frazier's part, we would think much less of The Champ and remember him as only one of the best. 

The highest merit always exists along a continuum of shifting positions, and anyone who gets far enough to be positioned along that continuum is of merit and potentially as good as any other and capable of equal or better results. And no one knows who it will be, despite the arrogance of prognosticators and universal geniuses and masters of the universe. Muhammad Ali only beat Frazier 2 out of 3 and it might easily have gone the other way. Similarly, anyone who gained a place in Damon's Greenlight competition is surely as capable as any other of producing excellent film art. Establishing merit is only the first stage of the selection process. It is followed by ideal fitness and special qualities. These are not my subject today...

  January 28, 1974

                                                                                                       

Even Ali, who is widely regarded as the greatest ever, was not the greatest at every moment. Merit and accomplishment is also partly a matter of longevity and endurance once basic skills are assured.

The Thrilla in Manila, 1975

                                                                                               

Damon's comments reveal the obvious fact that, when he is being lazy, he thinks of merit the way most people do--as a tangible and measurable and finely discernible substance which can be given an exact position in placed in a meaningful hierarchy. The Ten Hottest Bond Girls! Yeah, Baby... When Damon says the issue is, "about giving someone this job based entirely on merit and leaving all other factors out of it," he is overlooking the obvious fact that ALL the contestants in his show have been pre-selected to assure their basic merit. Merit, as measured by graduate degrees, resumes and charm, is a given. But might not "all other factors" have something to be with merit? Remember Howard Gardener's theory of multiple intelligences? Damon ignores the fact that merit is a complex and incomplete notion in the least complex of situations, and that a social art project like film is hardly lacking in complexity. Flipping a coin might be considered as viable a way of making the final choice as any other because Matt and Ben don't come close to knowing the secret of making a sure-fire successful film. Both have made stinkers and will again (but part of their merit as producers is the experience of having made terrible movies and having learned from the experience.) Luck is just another word for the depth of our ignorance and incapacity. And so it goes.

But still, we really DO fool ourselves into believing that we somehow know what is best in all manner of instances and situations--we ALL do it every day and it is not because of our privilege or lack thereof but because we are human beings and don't think very well at the best of times. Does anyone really believe that the valedictorian is the smartest person in the class? Or that the president is the most qualified and capable person in the land, or that the best novel you have ever read or film you have viewed is in any meaningful sense "best"?  "Favorite" is a barely meaningful concept--"best" is poppycock. 

What the occupants of these positions of respect and influence (the contestants in the final draw) have in common is that they all come from a ZONE of quality and capability, and there are a number of occupants in that zone and ANY of those occupants on a given day might come across as the best.  Let's give up on the dumb fanaticism that insists that the things we like, approve of or feel comfortable with are more than "some of the best." Surely that's enough. Merit...shmerit. Flip a coin now and then!


Donald Trump will tell us that he is The Best. I really believe he will. Clearly The Best People are in his corner! He probably already has made this claim. Perhaps the coming spectacle of Trump and his followers and their discombobulation will get a critical mass of humans thinking about these destructive ways we have of NOT thinking when we think we are thinking? Or something...




[ My efforts to learn the identities of the photographers, the best sports shutter-men of all time, who made the three astonishing boxing images above has not yet borne fruit, but I am still on the hunt...]