Bluegrass Theocon

More on praising suicide

2005-03-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

Jeff Jacoby's column details the bizarre circumstances surrounding Hunter S. Thompson's death, and more strange words of praise from the press. This from the Rocky Mountain News:

The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier. But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.

For whoever finds me (God's wisdom) finds life,
And obtains favor from the LORD;
But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul;
All those who hate me love death.
Proverbs 8:35-36

Following the Wilson/slavery flap

2005-03-04T03:24:00.000-08:00

Douglas Wilson is getting ready to publish a book that deals with slavery, and great weeping and gnashing of teeth is sure to follow.

Some of you know Wilson's books and background well; others have probably never heard of him. Wilson is a Reformed minister and author in Moscow, Idaho, and his sphere of influence includes a publishing house and college. His book Reforming Marriage is must-read for any and every married believer. Wilson hews to Scripture as precious few writers do, and he has a rare gift for expository writing.

Because these things are true, it's not surprising that Wilson challenges deeply held cultural presuppositions -- and enrages those who swear by them. Which brings us to the issue at hand.

Southern Slavery As It Was, a booklet Wilson wrote with Steve Wilkins, another Reformed minister, brought the wrath of liberal academia down on both of their heads. The booklet is now out of print, but you can read some of it here. It argued that slavery in the Old South was not the institution it's now portrayed to be; rather, that it was based on mutual affection between master and slave.

The authors also took Southern theologian Robert Dabney's line that slavery is not immoral per se -- an argument that cannot be refuted on Scriptural grounds, given the treatment of slavery in the Ten Commandments and Paul's letter to Philemon. Wilson, with Dabney, says that to call slavery immoral is to make oneself holier than God. It is nothing more or less than the Southern theologian-vs.-abolitionist argument of the 1800s.

If you want to hack off a typical modern-day academic, these are the perfect arguments -- they gore a sacred cow (the Southern slaveholder as brute, and Southern slavery as brutal) while stomping hard on the fault line between Scriptural and secular-modern reasoning.

The response was predictable: The critics screamed, hiked up their skirts and leaped onto chairs, calling Wilson a racist, an ignoramus and a fanatic. More from the critics here, here and, best of all, here (scroll down to download the paper). Incidentally, anyone who thinks Wilson is a racist hasn't read him. DO NOT miss this, and especially this.

Wilson and Wilkins were accused of plagiarizing the book Time Alone on the Cross, which argued that slavery was economically profitable and based on incentive, not the whip. (The ministers footnoted the book repeatedly, and credited it by name in the body of Southern Slavery As It Was.)

Furthermore, the Southern Poverty Law Center branded Wilkins as a member of a "hate group." (Here is its article -- an "Intelligence Report" that's almost exactly the opposite -- about the brouhaha.)

Then, late last year, a Christian school in South Carolina was pilloried for using Southern Slavery in class.

All of this is likely to resurface because Wilson says Black and Tan, "a collection of essays and excursions on Slavery, Culture War and Scripture in America," is coming soon. "The original Southern Slavery As It Was booklet is now about half its original length, and is just one chapter in the book," Wilson writes on his blog.

Well-regarded scholar Eugene Genovese is providing a blurb for the cover of Black and Tan, Wilson writes. Richard Bartholomew's blog has a good compilation of information (and a jaundiced perspective) on this.

Bartholomew concludes with several questions, but not the right one:

Has Genovese just moved further and further to the right ... Has Wilson’s new booklet toned it down ... Does Genovese now conflate the value of understanding the religious perspectives of slaveholders with actually holding the same view today? Or is Genovese just another neo-con opportunist?

Some of us are beyond sick and tired of hearing our Reformed (and yes, slave-holding) spiritual forefathers from the South disparaged. Spare us the name-calling and try asking (and answering) this one -- with facts and without hysteria for once, please:

Is Wilson's view correct?

Nanny state as nutritionist

2005-03-02T11:35:00.000-08:00

Kentucky's House and Senate just can't seem to agree on a bill to limit junk food in schools. The House was frightened by the formidable food-service workers lobby:

Then some school administrators and scores of school food service directors bombarded the House with complaints about the Senate bill.

"The food service people came out of the woodwork," said Rep. Tim Feeley, R-Crestwood. He said many had unfounded concerns that the Senate bill bans deep-fried foods, preventing them from serving such menu staples as chicken nuggets, which are "flash-fried" by food companies.

Yeah, you have to worry about those food-service people -- they might strangle you with a hairnet, or hit you with one of those really big spoons. Fortunately, all sides agree about a few things:

Those include banning soft-drink sales in elementary school vending machines, restricting fatty snacks in lunch lines and machines and requiring more "school-day approved" beverages at middle and high schools. Those drinks include water, 100 percent juices and milk.

A few questions come to mind: What on earth are vending machines doing in schools in the first place? How about focusing on what the kids are there to do -- learn? How about getting rid of vending machines altogether? If the answer is we can't, because we need the money they generate, how about finding a funding source that doesn't distract from your primary mission?

Ultimately, though, this is a question of authority: Where does it lie? It's none of the state government's business what kids are eating at school. The state has enough trouble handling its primary duty -- approving a budget. It should go without saying that it is poorly equipped to micromanage kids' cafeterias. That is for parents and local school boards to worry about.

As long as the state keeps hovering around playing nanny, parents will keep having a great excuse to abdicate their responsibilities. Children's nutrition (and the related issue of exercise) is just one of a host of areas in which this is true. Butt out, Frankfort, and expect parents to do their jobs. If they don't, they alone bear the blame.

Ouch!

2005-03-02T02:22:00.000-08:00

In a column on National Review Online, William F. Buckley quotes a vile passage by the illustrious gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who recently blew his brains out, then closes with this classic line:

One can be sorry that Hunter Thompson died as he did, but not sorry, surely, that he stopped writing.

Read the whole thing.

Red vs. blue at the movies

2005-02-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

The ratings report from the Oscars is in, and it looks a lot like the presidential election results: big cities follow celebrities and heed the big-media hype; the rest of the country does its own thing:

NEW YORK (AP) - With comedian Chris Rock, the Academy Awards succeeded in its effort to find a younger audience - but perhaps at the expense of the country as a whole.

A total of 41.5 million viewers tuned in Sunday to watch Million Dollar Baby take the Oscar for best picture. That's down 2 million from last year's show, which honored The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, according to Nielsen Media Research.ABC undoubtedly hoped for better, after preliminary figures released earlier Monday from the top 56 markets were the strongest they were in five years.

The drop in total viewership was an indication that this year's Oscar ceremony was more popular in the big cities than rural areas, more so than an average Academy Awards, said Larry Hyams, vice president of audience analysis and research for ABC. Oscar ratings were up from last year among viewers aged 18 to 34 - a prime target for the advertisers who pay millions of dollars for time on what is traditionally the year's highest-rated program after the Super Bowl.

It was the 12th time since 1990 that the Academy Awards drew an audience of between 40 and 46 million people, according to Nielsen. The peak during that stretch was the Titanic year of 1998 with 55.2 million, and the low point was 33 million in 2003, when Chicago won.

Imagine those numbers with The Passion of the Christ up for awards in the major categories (it was not nominated in any of them). The values gap in this country just keeps widening.

Who cares? Prediction: Not many

2005-02-27T01:16:00.000-08:00

Look for the Oscars to bomb in the ratings tonight -- perhaps a historic low. One key reason: The people's choice, The Passion of the Christ, isn't in the running for much. The films in the spotlight matter to movie critics, but not the public.

Also and incidentally: Look for the amazing story about elections in Egypt to get buried. Mainstream journalists are thanking the deities (or lack thereof) of their choice that the BTK (or was it BLT?) serial killer suspect was caught yesterday, so they wouldn't have to put Egypt on the front page. Why? Simple: It's a triumph for Bush's foreign policy.

Swill and moral equivalence

2005-02-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

The New Yorker movie critic Anthony Lane comes close to getting it half right about pornography -- too close for his own comfort, it turns out -- in his review of Inside Deep Throat. It's a documentary about the early-70s porn film that the "open-minded" embraced. (If you're this open-minded, your brain doesn't fall out -- it rots. The New York Times, according to Lane, labeled the Deep Throat fad "porno chic.") Lane concludes that such films are, ultimately, boring:

The one thing we can say for certain of “adult” entertainment is that it is never adult; in its very eagerness to fence off sexual abandonment from other forms of lived experience, it betrays its origins in the hearts of the perpetually and perspiringly adolescent.

That's OK as far as it goes, which isn't anywhere near far enough. More about that another time. What's more interesting is Lane's conclusion:

You may declare yourself groovily attuned to the liberties afforded by pornography ... or you may rush to enshrine your distaste for it in frightened legislation, but you are falling into the same trap. The thousands who congratulated themselves on their ruttish bravado, simply by virtue of having seen a trashy little flick in Times Square, were no less deluded than the millions who fell away in strangulated horror at the revelation, during the Super Bowl broadcast of 2004, that Janet Jackson, in her capacity as a female mammal, possessed a nipple.

Riiiiight -- the people who applaud as sewage is pumped into the street are pretty bad -- but so are the people from the neighborhood who complain about the stench and the rats. This paragraph amounts to a disclaimer: I don't like porn -- but that doesn't mean I agree with the red-state Puritans! Lane doesn't even engage the moral questions. His can't even criticize smut on an aesthetic level alone without apologizing. It's a prime example of how low our chattering classes have sunk.

Lane also mentions Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson "standing shoulder-to-shoulder" with Deep Throat's leading (alleged) man. How did we ever put up with these people? The fact that we have made them rich speaks poorly of us.

Suicide glorified

2005-02-22T21:06:00.000-08:00

Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist, shot himself in the head. An inglorious end? It depends on whom you ask, apparently. In today's New York Times, David Carr opens his admiring piece about Thompson's work this way:

Hunter S. Thompson died on Sunday, alone with a gun in his kitchen in Woody Creek, Colo. In doing so, he added heft to a legend that came to obscure his gifts as one of journalism's most influential practitioners.

Here is Carr's conclusion:

And his suicide had its own terrible logic. A man who was so intent on generating a remarkable voice that he retyped Hemingway's novels just to understand how it was done, gave a final bit of dramatic tribute in turning a gun on himself.

Between Carr's piece and the hubbub over Million Dollar Baby, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that there is some cultural sentiment for suicide as a good idea, given the right circumstances.

(Million Dollar Baby is an Oscar-nominated Clint Eastwood film about a female boxer whose trainer helps her kill herself after she's paralyzed. Film reviewer Michael Medved caused an uproar when he rightly deplored the movie's marketing as a female version of Rocky. Medved's critics say mentioning the assisted suicide in a review ruined the surprise for readers, and they accused Medved of judging the movie on its moral and political, rather than artistic, merits.)

This is a classic case of fuzzy morals. Let there be no equivocation: Suicide breaks the sixth commandment. It is, at bottom, an act of cowardice that deserves condemnation -- not approval, and certainly not praise.

When Thompson blew his head off, he was not "adding heft to a legend" or giving "a final bit of dramatic tribute." Here is what he was doing: He was leaving a mess of brains, blood and bone for his son, Juan, to find. (Also, somebody had to clean it up.)

The only logic was that of selfishness, impure and simple -- nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.

The bishop protests too much

2005-02-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

Apparently Lexington's Episcopal bishop, Stacy Sauls, intends to keep swinging his ax until the tree falls on his head.

Sauls has already presided over the departure of two congregations from the diocese; they left because of his and his denomination's stand on the ordination of openly homosexual bishop Gene Robinson (a Lexington native).

In an address to the diocese's convention, he hit an unfortunate trifecta by: (1) throwing gas on the fire by insulting those who left (and any still in the denomination who might agree with those who left); (2) vividly illustrating the least attractive attribute of modern political and theological liberalism: intolerant "tolerance"; and (3) trumpeting a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue that is ripping his denomination and his diocese apart. It was a long harangue (if you can stand it, read the whole thing).

An inability to understand people who stand on conviction, a substitution of personal preference for objective truth, a condescending tone -- this speech has it all. It is the funereal sound of a church that will not be mourned for long after its passing.

The sharpening of days

2005-02-18T23:56:00.000-08:00

At the wrong angle the whetstone dulls the blade; held correctly, the stone hones a useful edge. Repetition can dull, or it can sharpen; so it is with the routine of predictable days.

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God...
I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor -- it is the gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25, 3:12-13

Every second, every tone of voice in every conversation, every act, every page read or written, every mile run -- in everything opportunity, chance after chance, time after time.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all,
For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Let us revel and excel in the day of small things.

Church music that whacks you upside the head

2005-02-16T00:36:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like the Psalms to put a little steel in your spine. Churches that don't sing them -- I mean entire Psalms, not just snippets, and not just the "nice" ones, either -- are starving their people. If songs were food, praise choruses would be cream puffs; a good percentage of hymns would be vegetarian stir-fry; and the Psalms would be an inch-thick, foot-long hunk of Grade A beefsteak.

We closed our service Sunday with Psalm 94:1-15 (to the tune of Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken -- feel free to sing along at home):

God of vengeance, O Jehovah, God of vengeance O shine forth!
Rise up, O You Judge of nations! Render to the proud their worth.
O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked boast?
Arrogant the words they pour out, ill men all, a taunting host.

They, Jehovah, crush Your people and your heritage distress.
They kill sojourner and widow, murder they the fatherless.
And they say, "Jehovah sees not; Jacob's God does not have eyes."
Understand, O stupid people! When, o fools, will you be wise?

Who the ear made, does He hear not? Who formed eyes, does He not see?
Who warns nations, does He smite not? Who men teaches, knows not He?
And the thoughts of men the Lord sees, knows that but a breath are they.
Blessed the man whom You chastise Lord, whom you teach to know your way.

Give him rest from days of trouble, till the wicked be o'erthrown.
Our Lord will not leave His people, will abandon not His own.
When to every verdict given justice shall come back again,
Everyone whose heart is upright will see righteous judgment then.

MAN did that get the adrenaline pumping.

My family sings Psalms from The Book of Psalms for Singing from Crown & Covenant Publications during family worship. We don't do a great job of memorizing them, but we're making progress. The most recent addition to our repertoire is Psalm 3 (to the tune of Amazing Grace). Here's a cringe-inducing verse from that Psalm:

Arise, O Lord, save me, my God
You punish all my foes;
You smite the face of wicked men
Their teeth break with your blows.

Stick that in the worship package between Lord I Lift Your Name on High and Let My Words Be Few some Sunday!

So tonight I'm tucking the little theocons into bed, and the 4-year-old boy says, "Daddy, where are the blows. Are they right here?" (He's pointing at his gums.) It took me awhile to figure out what he was talking about, but then we discussed what the verse means. His brother, an almost-6-year-old, summed it up: "God is so strong that when he hits you, your teeth break." Now that's some good theology!

'Death' lives on, and on, and on

2005-02-15T23:47:00.000-08:00

Anybody who's a little tired of the hoopla surrounding Arthur Miller's demise can find an antidote here. While we're at it, how about an alternate take on Susan Sontag, another leftist icon who died recently.

Call me anti-intellectual, but I'll take a good plumber any day.

They don't say 'em like this anymore

2005-02-14T22:22:00.000-08:00

One of the (many) mainstream media criticisms of Gods and Generals was its wordiness, but I for one wish people still talked this way:

"In the Army of the Shenandoah, you were the First Brigade! In the Army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade! In the Second Corps of this Army, you are the First Brigade! You are the First Brigade in the affections of your general, and I hope by your future deeds and bearing you will be handed down to posterity as the First Brigade in our second War of Independence."
-- from Stonewall Jackson's farewell to the brigade that bore his name

Got to thinking about this while reading Stonewall in the Valley by Robert G. Tanner, about Jackson's Yankee-whipping Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862. At the battle of Front Royal, Stonewall ordered Col. Bradley Tyler Johnson's First Maryland Infantry to the front. Old Jack didn't know the regiment was in a state of mutiny -- many of the Marylanders thought their enlistments were up, and they were under guard for refusing to serve. Here's how Tanner relates what happened next:

"The 1860s were an age of fiery rhetoric; commanders often delivered an oration before battle. A prewar lawyer, Johnson had faced his share of juries and so gathered his men for a harangue. Johnson read the order and vowed to return it with an endorsement that the regiment refused to face the foe. In rapid fashion he touted the themes of state pride, individual dishonor, the ignominy of refusing to face the enemy, and the wrath of parents, sisters, and sweethearts.

'You will wander over the face of the earth with the brand of 'coward,' 'traitor,' indelibly imprinted upon your foreheads, and in the end sink into a dishonored grave, unwept for, uncared for, leaving behind as a heritage to your posterity the scorn and contempt of every honest man and virtuous woman in the land.'

Some of the bombast, likely the part about sweethearts, worked. Those under arrest called for their arms and were released to get them..." (p.258-259)

We could do with a whole lot less cynicism and sarcasm, and a whole lot more earnestness and inspiration.

By the way, rush out and rent Gods and Generals. It's excellent, no less so for being three hours long. Just for laughs, check out the ink-stained wretches' use of language on this review site. Gods and Generals got The Passion of the Christ-like treatment from the mainstream media for its sympathetic portrayal of Confederates. In their hysteria, the critics revealed a great deal about themselves. Roger Ebert nailed it when he said it was a movie for people who don't like movies, but that was the only thing he got right. He even called Robert E. Lee a "non-believer." Can we get a fact-check on Aisle 5?

A six-hour director's cut of G&G exists. Apparently its release is in question (search for "director's" to get down the page to the relevant entry), although select audiences have seen it. Please, Mr. Maxwell and/or Mr. Turner, give the rest of us a chance!

BTW: Mrs. Theocon has a fever, and at least one of the junior theocons is feeling poorly; we've avoided seasonal sickness so far, but we appear to be going down! All prayers appreciated.

The state of higher education

2005-02-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

Fellow taxpayers, let's hear it for tenure at the University of Kentucky political science department!

Physical courage

2005-02-13T16:06:00.000-08:00

We're surveying the New Testament in Sunday school, and today we covered Paul's first missionary journey. I've commonly written off John Mark as a wimp for bailing out (Acts 13:13), but after this morning's teaching I'm empathizing, instead. Consider what it must have been like to travel with Paul. This is from 1 Corinthians 11:

²³Are they ministers of Christ?--I speak as a fool--I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. ²⁴From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. ²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; ²⁶in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; ²⁷in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness-- ²⁸besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.

To sum up: It's dangerous to get where we're going, and if we manage to live through the trip, it's going to be more dangerous. When he reached a city, Paul headed straight for the synagogue, where he taught the Gospel. He might as well have visited a Hamas meeting to extol Zionism. Paul walked into the danger of violence every time. What is more, he knew what was going to happen -- after all, he had once endorsed the murder and jailing of believers.

Imagine a modern big-name Christian speaker taking a tour during which he can count on a hostile reception and a beating at every stop. It didn't faze Paul. The man had guts. Do we?

Biting the watchdog

2005-02-12T02:03:00.000-08:00

Unless you're a member of the working press (or a blogger who closely monitors the press), it might be difficult for you to appreciate the magnitude of tonight's announcement that CNN news executive Eason Jordan has resigned.

Jordan, as you probably wouldn't know if you get your news exclusively from the traditional sources (TV and newspapers), made some ill-advised comments at an international forum, claiming that U.S. troops had assassinated journalists during the war in Iraq.

The story frothed online for more than a week before any papers picked up on it, and even then they did a mediocre job. Captain Ed has an excellent recap.

Still and all -- despite the lackluster mainstream media effort (compare this feeble effort by the New York Times to what you found on the site above) -- Jordan is gone, and it is the latest evidence of a stunning switch in the balance of power. Consider these words from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's speech at Harvard in 1978 :

The press too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word press to include all media). But what sort of use does it make of this freedom?

Here again, the main concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no moral responsibility for deformation or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist have to his readers, or to history? If they have misled public opinion or the government by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, do we know of any cases of public recognition and rectification of such mistakes by the same journalist or the same newspaper? No, it does not happen, because it would damage sales. A nation may be the victim of such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. One may safely assume that he will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance.

Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be rectified, they will stay on in the readers' memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one's nation's defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "everyone is entitled to know everything." But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. It stops at sensational formulas.

Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the communist East a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted Western journalists their power, for how long a time and with what prerogatives?

There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the East where the press is rigorously unified: one gradually discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole. It is a fashion; there are generally accepted patterns of judgment and there may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Enormous freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership because newspapers mostly give enough stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and the general trend.

Read those boldfaced statements, and consider how the blogosphere has reversed them. There are now, thanks to the bloggers (and the rest of the new media, including talk radio), consequences for distortion (hello, Dan Rather). The journalist can no longer "get away with it." The hasty, the superficial and the misleading are more likely than ever to be exposed and corrected. The press is accountable to its readers (and viewers) in a forum that has the leverage to attack its credibility and therefore its bottom line.

This check and balance is long overdue, and it is amazing to watch.