I wanted to plug an amazing new album I recently ran across. The album is Excellent by L.A. hip-hop and spoken word artist Propaganda. Being part of the record label Humble Beast, his new album is available for a free download, though I would encourage any and all of you to support the artist by buying his album on iTunes.
Prodigal, Let’s Go Home {pt.2} [GUEST POST]
Yesterday, I posted Austin’s first part to this final(?) reply to a series of discussions we’ve been having on the place of suffering and Evil in the world and the Nature of God. See that post for more background and links to the previous posts. I’ll have a few disparate thoughts about this whole exchange to share with all of you next week to close us out. Here, in this post, Austin sees right through much of my thinking to get at the root assumptions behind it. He also responds to five premises to my thinking that I laid out in my own last post.
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In all that I’ve written in all of these posts, it should be obvious that I believe stories to be of the utmost value. But I have to be clear that Story, if it is a metaphor for God, is but one metaphor among many. And I thank Paul for mentioning something along these lines. I’m not quite sure that I understand Paul’s notion of Story in enough detail. There are a few things that I do think need to be critiqued, if I have understood them correctly.
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Happy Halloween, Philly!
Prodigal, Let’s Go Home {pt.1} [GUEST POST]
This is Austin’s final response to a conversation we’ve been having on the blog concerning the Nature of God and Evil in the world–I know: light stuff, right? Here are the relavant links, if you’re interested: I wrote a post mentioning God taking death onto his own self; Austin took issue with this; I replied with a full-on development of the idea that God’s Nature is like an unfolding narrative–one in which there is Evil and Death; Austin responded by critiquing some of my Bible interpretation; I then wrote two posts, one responding to his response, and one telling of my fears that I’m wrong (where I also quote the James Joyce book Austin references below, as well as list out my 5 main premises for my thoughts he responds to here). This post is Austin’s final words on this (or part 1 of those words, at least). I’ll have a few concluding thoughts next week.
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Is then the whole of life only a contradiction; can love not explain it, but only make it more difficult? That thought he could not endure; he must seek a way out. There must be something wrong with his love.
—Kierkegaard, The Expectation of Faith
I, like Paul, am one who has been deeply affected by Joyce’s story. That story, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is really the central struggle of my life: Artist or Theologian? Much in that book, including the scene that Paul elaborated in his response, continues to resonate in the sometimes hollow-feeling caverns of my mind. “I shall never swing the thurible…the oils of ordination shall never touch my head.” Those words wounded me and have stayed with me like a scar, long after their initial cut. I, too, am often much afraid.
Like Jacob, I wrestle with God. Israel indeed.
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Why even being open to attacking Iran is stupid & counter-productive [QUOTE]
Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji, imprisoned for six years for writing articles accusing Iran of ordering political assassinations (from an interview quoted in All The Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer):
The Iranian state is certainly guilty of violating manv of its citizens’ basic rights…. But a military attack is not a just or effective response…. An attack would be calamitous for the innocent people of Iran and the region…. It would foster the growth of fundamentalism in the region [and] reignite the conviction that the Judeo-Christian West, led by the United States, is assaulting the world of Islam, from Afghanistan and Palestine to Iraq and Iran…. The current U.S. military threat has given the Iranian government a freer hand in repressing Iran’s budding civil society in the name of national security, and so eclipsed democratic discourse that some Iranian reformists see themselves caught between domestic despotism and foreign invasion. Political change in Iran is necessary, but it cannot be achieved by foreign intervention….
Most Iranians, I believe, share a broad outlook on American foreign policy…. They think that Iran is valued only for its vast energy resources and its role in regional politics, and that Iranian culture and economic development, and the peace, welfare and basic rights of Iranian citizens, are largely irrelevant to American policymakers….
Iranians will never forget the 1953 U.S.-supported coup that toppled the nationalist, moderate, democratic government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and ushered in a closed, dictatorial political system. Iranian society lost one of its most important historical opportunities for the establishment of a democracy [because of these past U.S. interventions].
for your soul, unplug. [casual fri]
This weekend, I’m going to go to New York. For the first time in a long time, I won’t be bringing my computer on a trip. I had no idea how tethered I was to this thing until I felt the thrill shudder through me at the thought of having a weekend with just a moleskine, my new (real) book, a Kindle, and a phone (hey, I can’t completely unplug in New York, right?).
About a year-and-a-half ago I read Tim Challie’s The Next Story about a Christian perspective on the digital explosion. He explored: How do we embrace technology rightly? How do we tend to do it wrongly? What are some temptations inherent in technology? How might we act to not let technology consume us? How do we maintain our humanity and community in the midst of it? What is a “theology” of technology?
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Hope of the Earth: a political eschatology (we can all breathe)
November 7th, we will wake up to front pages declaring with finality the results of the American Presidential Election. Most of us will see these headlines and have some sort of emotional reaction (especially those of us that stayed up as late as we could to know the results early).
Depression? Fear? Anger? Injustice? Sadness? Joy? Elation? Ecstasy? Worship? Peace?
I remember after the 2004 election when Bush beat Kerry. Going to a large, urban University dominated by idealistic and passionate liberal youth, the campus was in mourning for the rest of that week. People walked in silence, hugged one another, and I saw a good number of people crying as they resigned themselves to what they felt would be the end of every good thing they’d ever thought about this country.
This election cycle, I was certainly active–probably more so than ever before (especially on this blog, at least). I’m almost certain that I have been blocked from my fair share of Facebook feeds and removed from some feed readers in the past six months or so. I’ve been quite passionate on those few issues that have guided so much of my writing and reading.
But I haven’t lost a bit of sleep over any of that stuff. I’ve been able to enjoy good books and beers, and pipes and peers, without any discussion of politics or debates or elections.
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My 1 Domestic Policy Suggestion for the President
Earlier today, I posted my 10 suggestions for changes the President should make in our foreign policy. Now, I want to offer the one thing I’d ask to change about our domestic policy.
But first, why only one thing? Not only do I think that our legacy and history is far more shaped by foreign policy, but to me, these domestic issues are a lot less certain. I hear great arguments on all sides for all of these issues. Countries all over the world have prospered and waned in both high and low taxes, in both high and low employment, and in both bigger and smaller government. There’s simply no inherently “right” way to run a nation. And so, to me, the best thing we can change domestically is systemic rather than particular. So what’s that one thing?
Steal Britain’s brilliant idea and institute “President’s Questions” here in the States.
My 10 Realistic Foreign Policy Suggestions for the President
I said yesterday that I’m growing tired of my political arguing and whining. I realized that, in what I’ve been writing during this campaign, I’ve mostly been laying criticisms (which is easy) and not offering any real solutions (which is much harder). So as I wind down my political talk, in the interest of trying to helpful and productive, I tried to think of some realistic things that could be changed with our foreign policy.
A lot of times, people with my same criticisms and concerns can come across as pretty paranoid, conspiratorial, and anarchistic. I hope I haven’t. I’m still sleeping fine. These issues are the natural ebbs and flows that every powerful nation in history has gone through. We went through it with McCarthy and eventually corrected (mostly), but people pointing this stuff out and complaining about it is part of that corrective. I guess I’m just playing my part. Here’s hoping it does some good.
One more caveat. This list is meant to be as realistic as possible. My ideal list would be much more development-heavy, pacifistic, and non-interventionist. With that being said, here are my top 10 alternative realistic foreign policy solutions that the President could employ to put us on a healthier course:
I like answers better than questions {a reblog}
Here’s a return to some more meditative reflections on God and life by Kimberly Novosel at The Ooh La La Life. This is so true of me. It was an encouragement to be reminded. (By the way, I posted similar thoughts about a year ago in my post: “to “why?” is human, to “what” is divine“)
A year or so ago I sat down with the counselors from my church, freshly broken-hearted, folded my hands in my lap and said, “Ok, how do I heal from this?” I may as well have had a notebook and pen, poised to take rigorous notes. They looked at me for a moment and, ever so gently, pointed out that there is no checklist for sorting though emotions. Even further, they handed me a page listing the stages of grief and pointed out that they would NOT happen in order, some would last longer than others, and they would repeat an unknown number of times.
I guess I wasn’t their first type-A.
It’s true though, there is no path through the sometimes dense and dark forrest of the things we struggle with in life, whatever they may be. Not even a winding path – no path at all. You have…
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Thoughts on the final debate {#4} [GUEST POST]
Last night was the Presidential foreign policy debate. It was completely uneventful. Today, I was going to post my musings on the final debate of this Presidential election (as I have for Debates 1, 2, and 3) . But, I realized last night I’m tired of the politics. Believe it or not, I am. Prepare for my comments on this stuff to become fewer from now through election day. I’ve pretty much said what I need to say. So, instead, I wanted to post the take-aways of a friend of mine, Nikita Hamilton, a Ph.D. student in Communications at USC’s Annenberg School. But first, I’ll only make three quick observations:
- Iran does not pose an imminent, existential threat to either America or Israel (and Israel knows it). The sanctions, instead, are killing Iranians and making them more angry with the U.S. rather than spurring on some revolution there. The world’s saber-rattling only spurs on Iran’s nuclear protectionism. Of course they want a bomb! They are more at existential risk from others in the world than anyone is from them. Also, even if they got a nuclear weapon: what would they do with it? They know that the second it’s employed, they would be “wiped off the map”. It’s defensive. And we’ve created the environment where they feel like they need to be that way.
- Romney’s final statement (which he repeated twice–no accident under pressure here) that “American is the hope of the earth”. Says more about the naiveté, hollowness, and failure of our nation’s foreign policy than anything the two of them have said in this entire campaign.
- My roommate pointed out (and Wikipedia confirmed) that in high-end ties with diagonal stripes, you can tell where the tie was made based on the direction of the stripes. In the first, domestic policy debate, Romney wore an American-made tie. In this foreign policy debate, he wore a European tie (see picture above). That Romney may have actually put this much thought into this says a lot about him.
Okay, on to Nikita’s comments!
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Foreign Policy Debate: this is what Obama is doing around the world in our name
Here’s an article from Daily Mail about some legal challenges brought against American military officials for their drone activity in Pakistan. One key stat:
American Drone activities just in Pakistan have been confirmed to have killed 881 civilians, but only 41 terrorists.
Some things to notice about that statistic: (1) this is only from Pakistan. We’ve also been doing drone strikes in both Yemen and Afghanistan (and probably Libya here soon), with even more atrocious effects (especially in Yemen); (2) there were a few thousand total deaths, but these were the only absolutely beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt confirmed “statuses” of the victims–the number of civilians is probably still higher; and (3) these are only deaths due to drone strikes. In Iraq and elsewhere, many additional civilian deaths have come about through other means.
For all my “I’m going to vote for Obama because of social justice issues”. Take note: if you add these numbers to the other civilian death numbers in other countries, Obama’s policies have killed far more impoverished people around the world than he has helped here (and he got the Nobel Peace prize!).
This story came out two days ago, and I can’t find a single reference to this information in any other major American news outlet (a friend on Facebook said he heard something on NPR a couple of months ago, though I think he was referring to a different special report they had done). This is what makes our reputation in the world, this is what creates new terrorists–not “our freedoms”, and this is what will define our history–not tax law. And so, for all those criticizing me for voting third-party: yes, yes. Let’s try and change things through the existing political parties. We have plenty of time. I’m sure the rest of the world (including these victims’ families) will be fine with us waiting. (More debate-prep here)
In other news, unmanned aerial drones are now surveilling Americans around the country. How long before they’re armed? Yeah, we’ve got plenty of time to try and choose between two guys who both support this.
Can no politician do enough to lose your vote?
Dan Carlin Debate Prep: the only thing you need to listen to
Tonight is the last debate before the November election. The topic is foreign policy. I’ve said so many times before (especially in this series of posts), that foreign policy (and it’s domestic implications) is the most important issue to me in this election.
Now, people disagree with me on this, and I won’t pretend to have the historical perspective and political knowledge to be an authority everyone should listen to.
But, there is someone else I would trust as that authority: Dan Carlin.
Perhaps the biggest influence on my political thinking, Carlin’s political podcast (he also has an amazing history show) is the one I’ve been listening to for the longest time. He’s a total political junkie with so much historical perspective to offer to his commentary, it gives you great comfort to know there’s at least someone out there with his mind applied to these issues.
[audio http://traffic.libsyn.com/dancarlin/cswdcc39.mp3|width=580]If you have a half-hour to spare, he has this podcast (also above), which he posted the day after the last debate. It contains some of his reactions to that debate, plus his thoughts on the foreign policy issues surrounding the next one, some imminent issues that would be easy for Romney to exploit (and yet he doesn’t), and the impact of these issues on our society today. It’s one of the best of his podcasts ever, and I want to share it with you all.
Really, honestly, it’s just 30ish minutes long. Please listen to it before watching tomorrow’s debate, and especially listen to it before voting. (If you’re absolutely short on time, the real meat begins at around 9:54. Have fun.)
[image credit: DonkeyHotey/flickr]
Weekend Photo Challenge: Silhouette (Autumn edition)
This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Silhouette“. For this challenge, I was able to choose I picture that’s very important to me. Like I said in my previous Photo Challenge post, photography editing is still relatively new to me; but for many years now, the desire to simply take beautiful pictures has been a consistent interest.
This was certainly true for me during my time in Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University. Richmond is a beautiful city, but not in the grandiose way that usually marks the beauty of other American cities. No, Richmond’s beauty is far more subtle, and you find it most clearly exhibited in quiet corners and places that only residents would truly know. In fact, my first Photo Challenge picture was in this vein.
This picture was taken at the very beginning of the fall of 2005. It was my first Richmond Autumn as a resident: having conquered freshman year, there were now no more dorms or still learning the city. I had an apartment near campus and could honestly call Richmond home. The evening of this picture, I stepped outside and found myself captured by the oncoming sunset. I jumped in my car and raced to my favorite in spot in Richmond: Church Hill.
This hill looks out over the entire city (not unlike another hill that plays prominently in my life).This is the hill from which the original founders of the city laid the grid-lines for the streets. The “Church” on this hill from whence it derives its name is St. John’s Church, the very Church from which Patrick Henry proclaimed “give me liberty, or give me death!”.
I made it to Church Hill just in time to take some beautiful pictures of one of the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw in Richmond. It was one of my favorite introvert moments and captured so well the essence of my favorite times of solitude: me awash in beauty.
It was also the beginning of Autumn in Richmond, and I couldn’t help but draw my attention to the trees that were just about to peak in their transition towards death. I took this picture trying to capture the harmony and dissonance that exists when Nature is at the climax of its beauty; when darkness and death lay mere moments away.
Sorry to wax poetic, but this picture captures my own hope for my death and mortality. Even though I fear death so much, my hope is that my own death would exist in what this picture represents: the height of beauty awaiting sunrise, and awaiting spring. It’s appropriate that Henry’s words echoed from these heights, for it’s precisely in this place–and in this moment–that I precisely find liberty in death.
See my past Weekly Photo Challenges here.
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Happy 24th Birthday to my little brother Matthew & his attempted beard.
This is a post I put up every year on October 20th, my brother’s birthday. It’s an essay I wrote a few years’ back during an intense time of doubt and skepticism when I realized just how much a sustaining force he was in my life. I still love him to death. Oh, and I usually accompany these posts with an unflattering picture. In love. Here’s the essay:
the long way home 