(Let me apologize in advance if this post comes across as inflammatory - that is not my intention, nor is singling out any one person or group of people. More than anything else, I am just sort of vomiting onto the page here as I sort out my own belief systems and core motivations.)
Consistency is the goal of my life philosophy.
As I have grown in adulthood, I have come to recognize a great deal of inconsistency within people. Inconsistency in what they believe, inconsistency in how they behave, inconsistency in what they support and do not support. I see inconsistency not only in individuals, but in society at large, the things we profess and the things we do, our laws and our social and governmental hierarchies.
One of the first areas of my own life where I began to recognize this inherent inconsistency was in my religious beliefs. How could I claim to believe that the same God that I described with words like “all-loving” and “all-merciful” was also guilty of slaughtering countless Egyptian children in the Exodus story? How could I claim to respect the tenants of science and reason but also accept that the earth was once flooded entirely by a great storm – with only one man and his family surviving, and only after building a ship that any modern ship engineer could tell you would not float? How could I call the Bible the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God, knowing that it was created in the 3rd and 4th centuries by a group of old white men who brought their own human biases and agendas to the table and voted on which books belonged and which books did not belong? How could I put my faith in these bishops of the early church councils when they were the same people leading, commanding, and supporting wide-spread persecution against Jews, Pagans, and basically anyone else who was not a Christian? How could I use the Bible to support – for instance – a claim that homosexuality was a sin, when that same Bible condoned, and had been used by Christians like me to support, the institution of slavery? How could I conveniently ignore the teachings of Paul about women being required to remain silent in the church, yet accept the Pauline teaching that women should not be priests or pastors?
As I began to explore my own faith tradition, and my own beliefs and prime motivations, I began to see the depth of inconsistency within society at large and those people that I interact with and observe on a day-to-day basis.
To simplify things, let me just list some of the inconsistencies and contradictions and basic hypocrisies that I feel are plaguing our country in the present day:
1. People who would march on Washington to support what they believe is their constitutionally-mandated right to own an AK-47, but would turn around and claim to believe in an “eye for an eye” justice system, which is expressly prohibited by that same constitution.
2. People who are patently opposed to gay marriage and equal gay rights, but would express disgust and disturbance at stories of Americans who worked tirelessly to keep blacks from having equal rights with whites.
3. People who call themselves pro-life, but vigorously support the death penalty.
4. People who claim to believe in small government, but who support giving the government the most significant power on earth – the right to choose who lives or dies.
5. People whose love and concern and compassion for the rights of a clump of embryonic stem cells surpasses their love and concern and compassion for living, breathing human beings who could benefit from genetic research using those stem cells.
6. People who claim to believe in supporting, enriching, and reinforcing a concern for life, but who complain about Welfare and “socialized” medicine.
7. People who care deeply about the welfare of a baby before it is born, but who have absolutely no apparent concern whatsoever for the welfare of that baby after it has been brought into the world – certainly not concerned enough to have their precious tax dollars spent to give it food, shelter, clothes, and health insurance.
8. People who harbor prejudice – even just subconsciously – against Jews because the Jews rejected Jesus, despite the fact that Jesus, himself, was a Jew.
9. People who claim to be followers of Christ – a man who taught against the evils and perils of greed, money, and the pursuit of wealth more than just about any other single topic – and yet have no compunction about striving to make a lot of money, and then spending that money frivolously once they make it – even going to so far as to drive to church in their $50,000 SUVs, wearing expensive suits and dresses, and all the flashiest jewelry they can find.
10. People who reject Biblical teachings about women not being permitted to speak in church because those things were unique to the culture in which they were written and are no longer valid for modern life, but who turn around and use ancient 1st century Jewish prejudice to support discrimination against gays.
11. People who believe in the constitution inasmuch as it gives them the right to own a gun, but who spit all over the constitution when it demands a separation of church and state, or when it asserts that political candidates should not be subjected to any religious tests for government office.
12. People who cringe and despise militant Muslims because of their backward, violent, evil faith system, without ever recognizing or acknowledging that Christianity has enough evil, backward, violence in its own history to make 9/11 look like an attack with cream pies.
13. People who generalize all adherents to the Muslim faith by the standards of that small minority that represents militant Islam, but would be offended and indignant if someone suggested that all Christians are abortion-clinic bombers.
14. People who reject every religious tradition in the history of the world as misguided and silly mythology, but who can’t see that the same reasons for rejecting those other faith traditions are just as valid for rejecting Christianity too.
15. People who put the rights of an unborn baby over the rights of a living, breathing adult who is already alive and dealing with the struggles of life.
16. People who despise anything that stinks of socialism, and fight tooth and nail to keep liberal policies out of government, but who follow a religious tradition that began, in its infancy, as a communal society, where everyone shared their wealth and were required to give all they had to the community – and the penalty for not doing that was death, as depicted in the book of Acts.
17. People who engage in daily petitionary prayer, even though Jesus taught us to use prayer for worship and self-growth, not for enticing God to do our own will.
I could, of course, go on and on, but I have probably already gone on too long. Suffice it to say, my own personal commitment to consistency has caused me – or maybe even “allowed” me – to see so much inconsistency in other people. I look at the world around me and simply see nothing but inconsistency on top of contradiction on top of hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, I cannot change a broken world. But I can strive, personally, for consistency in the things I profess, believe, and do.
It is for this reason that I am anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, and anti-war. I believe in respecting, valuing, and supporting life, not destroying it.
I also believe, however, that the rights of living, breathing human beings trump the rights of unborn children – it is for that reason that while I am personally opposed to abortion for birth control, I support an adult’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. If we lived in a country that had universal health care, better distribution of wealth, and low poverty, I might take more of an issue with giving people the right to abortion-as-birth control. But since I recognize that the sexual urge is the most basic of the human biological urges, and since I recognize that no one deserves an 18-year sentence for giving into that biological urge despite knowing that they are not emotionally or financially prepared to have a child, and since many single mothers cannot afford to carry, birth, or raise a child because of poverty and the wealth gap, I support giving women the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, even if there is no medical necessity. Again, I believe this is consistent with my commitment to respecting, valuing, and supporting life.
Also consistent with that view is my belief in death with dignity. I believe terminally ill people should have the right to choose to end their life with a doctor’s assistance, so that they can die on their own terms with dignity, rather than suffer and waste away as a vegetable in a hospice. I can’t imagine the difficulty involved for both the sufferer and the family in such a situation, and I hope that I am never faced with such a situation, but I support giving people who are in that situation the right to die with dignity.
I am no socialist, but I do believe that a happy medium can be found somewhere between Marxist Socialism and unrestricted, no-oversight free-market capitalism. The country’s present economic predicament is a painful and blatantly obvious illustration about everything that is wrong with unrestricted free-market capitalism. I believe people should have the right to make a life for themselves and to earn money based on their own skills, abilities, talents, and work ethic, but there is something badly wrong with a society where 90% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. No one is talented, able, and skillful enough to deserve millions upon millions of dollars in compensation, when there are so many people in this country and around the world who cannot pay their bills and struggle just to put food on the table. Athletes, business people, politicians, actors, writers, singers, doctors, lawyers – you name it. None of them actually deserve the enormous amounts of money that they are paid, particularly not when poverty and homelessness are as rampant as they are in this country. I believe in valuing and elevating life; putting all the wealth into the hands of a few, at the expense of the many, is not valuing and elevating life.
I am not an economics expert, and do not claim to have all the answers to this problem, but I know that simply continuing on with an economic system that is broken and has failed us time and again is not the answer. Failing at a task, and then attempting to complete the task again using the same methods, and then doing that over and over and over again, is a sign of insanity, not determination or industry.
I am a strong proponent of universal health care. Again, because I believe in supporting and elevating life, and because I believe in the tenants of the Declaration of Independence – which guarantees that the government will provide for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for its citizens – I believe it is the duty of the government, funded by the people, to provide health insurance coverage for all Americans. This was not an issue that was faced by the founders of this country, but it is an issue that faces us today.
The United States is one of the only developed countries on earth with no universal health care system. If good, affordable health care does not fall under the government’s role to provide for “life” for its citizens, then what, exactly, does fall under that role? I have lived either without health insurance, or without good health insurance, for four years. I am fortunate that nothing serious has happened during that time. Others are not so lucky. When people get sick and pile up tens of thousands of dollars in health care costs, they frequently lose their credit, their homes, their cars, and their ability to live successfully in society. The government has a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen, and that responsibility should be carried out with a universal health care program, which would cover health care costs for people who are unable to obtain or pay for private health insurance plans.
I believe in equal rights for all people in all stages and stations of life – straight, gay, black, white, short, tall, skinny, obese, old, young, and disabled. I believe gays should have the same marriage rights as straight people. I believe black people should have the same job opportunities as white people. I believe women should make the same money for the same job as men. To me, this is supporting and valuing life. To deny, for instance, gay people the right to get married is to engage in blatant and unrepentant discrimination, and that is not elevating life, that is dragging life into the mud.
I have already said it a number of times, but it bears repeating: I believe in valuing, respecting, elevating, and enriching life. I also believe in consistency in the things I profess, the way I act, and the way I approach the world. For me, the inconsistency and hypocrisy I observe in so many others serves as a warning, and a motivation, for me to strive for consistency, and work toward doing my small part to make the world a better place in which to live.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A Christian View of the Death Penalty
Recently I have been having discussions in various places about the death penalty. Since the beginning of my adulthood, I have gone from being a supporter of the death penalty (I can remember a time when I said that capital punishment was one way in which I – a lifelong Democrat – identified more strongly with conservatives than liberals), to feeling that the death penalty should be used only in the most extreme circumstances, to being an outright opponent of capital punishment in any form for any reason. The reason I have come to this place is because of my desire for consistency in what I believe and profess. How can I commit myself to life – how can I commit myself to honoring and respecting and supporting life in every way – if I also support giving the government the right to put people to death?
My feelings about the death penalty are very simple: I do not believe that a civilized nation should give its government the power over life and death.
By no means do I believe that murders should not be forced to pay for their crime. By no means do I believe that those who take life from innocent people should be trusted to be returned to mainstream society. By no means do I believe that people should not be held accountable for choices that they make in life.
However, I also recognize that no one is born a murderer. No one wakes up one morning from a well-adjusted life and decides to go out and kill someone. People become criminals because of a complex mixture of genetics, upbringing, life experiences, and circumstances, not because they simply decide one day that they have no respect for the lives of other people. I believe that our society, plagued as it is by black and white thinking, fails to recognize this poignant fact. Anyone, I believe, is capable of murder, given the right circumstances, experiences, and influences.
Again, that does not mean that I believe people should not be held accountable for their actions. I support stiff penalties for those who commit murder. I support life imprisonment in the name of justice and in the name of making society safer. But I also support and believe strongly in a spirit of forgiveness and compassion. A few years back, when the big news story was about a man who barged into an Amish classroom and murdered several young Amish girls, I was astounded by the response – given literally within hours of the event – of the Amish community. In their shock and grief, they openly stated that they forgave the man for what he did, and members of the community – including family members of the slain children – actually visited and mourned with the family of the gunman.
Many people talk a big talk about forgiveness, but most people – Christians included – do not really strive to live the life of forgiveness that Jesus taught us to live, and that is illustrated, I believe, through the perspective that many Christians have on the death penalty. More on that later.
When someone commits a murder, no one is served by putting the perpetrator to death. Executing the murderer does not bring the victim back to life. Repaying killing with killing does not provide justice and does not provide closure. I am sure that there are studies out there that one could research, but my guess is that families of murder victims – while commonly believed to be provided closure by a death sentence against the murderer – probably do not heal emotionally any quicker than families of murder victims whose slayer does not receive the death penalty.
In addition to not providing justice, closure, or bringing back to life the person who was murdered, the death penalty also does not deter future murders. Again, if murderers were people who woke up one morning from a well-adjusted life, and decided to go out and kill someone, then knowing the consequences of that action might deter them. But that is not what motivates people to kill. People kill – as I said – because of a complex mixture of genetics, upbringing, life experiences, and circumstances.
The fact that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent is illustrated over and over and over again in murder rate statistics. There are exactly 14 U.S. states that do not have capital punishment laws. In 2007, the national murder rate was 5.6 per 100,000 people. Of the 14 states that do not engage in capital punishment, 12 of them – or 86% - were under the national average. In fact, of the nine states that had a murder rate below 2.0, six of them – or two-thirds – were states with no death penalty. Of the top 25 states for murder rates, only two are states that have no death penalty laws. That means that 92% of the states with the highest murder rates are states that also have death penalty laws. Only 8% of states with no death penalty laws are among the states with the highest murder rates. Clearly, death penalty laws do not prevent murders.
But the numbers go even farther than that. Since 1976, there have been 921 executions in the South. In that same period, there have been 67 in Western states, 127 in Midwest states, and 4 – yes four – in Northeast states. Which region do you suppose has the lowest murder rate, and which region do you suppose has the highest murder rate? If it were true that the death penalty was a substantial deterrent to murders, we would expect to see the region with the greatest number of executions also carrying the lowest murder rate. Yet the results are exactly the opposite. The Northeast, which has carried out only 4 executions in the last 32 years, has by far the lowest murder rate in the country – 4.1 in 2007. The South, on the other hand, which has executed far more people in the last 32 years than any other region, also has by far the highest murder rate in the country – 7.0 in 2007 – nearly double that of the Northeast.
Some might argue that the South has more executions simply because they have more murders. That may seem logical except that the numbers do not correspond. In 2007, the South had a murder rate that was roughly 71% higher than that of the Northeast. If the more murders/more executions argument were true, then we should expect to see execution rates in the South at approximately 71% higher than those in the Northeast. Yet in the last 32 years, the South’s execution rate has been a staggering 230% higher than the Northeast.
These numbers tell me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that putting more people to death does not in any way reduce the overall number of murders. People who commit murder are not deterred from doing so simply because of the rational knowledge that they might get arrested and be put to death if they go through with it. If a murderer were interested in such rational considerations, they probably would not be committing murder in the first place.
The death penalty only provides revenge, not justice, closure, or deterrence.
Finally, there is the issue of cost. Financial studies into the cost of capital punishment have shown over and over again that it actually costs more to keep someone on death row than to simply put them in prison for life. A recent study by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice indicates that a death row inmate costs the government an additional $90,000 per year, over those inmates who are simply incarcerated for life. They estimate that the present cost of the death penalty system is somewhere in the neighborhood of $137 million per year. A system that instead imposed only a lifetime sentence for murderers would cost roughly $12 million per year.
The cost of an average death penalty trial is nearly $500,000 higher than a trial where the maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Furthermore, appeal hearings for death penalty cases cost somewhere in the range of $100,000 more than appeals for non-death penalty crimes.
It should go without saying that those numbers are staggering.
The reasons for this cost difference are fairly obvious if you give it some thought. Inmates on death row are segregated from the general prison population. This requires separate buildings, with all the cost and overhead involved in running those buildings, as well as separate guards and prison staff. Furthermore, since the constitution requires that criminals be given due process of law, convicted murderers are entitled to the appeals process, and that process – as we all know – can be quite lengthy. It is also quite expensive, because the judges, lawyers and court personnel have to be paid for their services.
The average time spent on death row is somewhere around 12 years, and it is not uncommon for it to go beyond 20 years. Yet to argue that the appeals process takes too long would be to argue that people who are being put to death by the government should not be entitled to appeal their sentence, or be given time for new evidence to arise that might cast doubt on their conviction. And I would question the heart and core motivations of any person who is not deeply disturbed by the fact that we know that innocent people have been executed on death row. We know this, of course, because of DNA testing that has exonerated people after their execution.
Many Christians I know support the death penalty. They justify this position in a variety of ways, most commonly by saying that the Bible permitted the death penalty for certain crimes, so therefore it is okay for our society to do so as well.
Yet I always wonder if any of these people have ever considered that Jesus, himself, was a victim of the death penalty? I wonder if they have ever considered that since the Bible also permitted slavery, does that mean that slavery is permissible? A prominent theologian in the 1850’s famously stated that “What God ordained in the Old Testament, and permitted in the New, cannot be a sin.” He was talking, of course, about slavery, and was making the same argument to support slavery that some Christians use today to support the death penalty. The exact same comment, in fact, could be inserted into a Christian discussion of the death penalty, and one would never know the difference.
Many Christians I know will argue that the death penalty is appropriate because of “an eye for an eye.” If you kill someone, you forfeit your own life. That’s fair; that’s justice. Here it may be appropriate to quote a Charlie Daniels Band song, which I believe sums up (albeit rather crudely) the view of many Christians quite well: “As far as I’m concerned there ain’t no excuse for the rapin’ and the killin’ and the child abuse, but I got a way to put an end to all that mess. You just take them rascals out in the swamps, put ‘em on their knees and tie ‘em to a stump, and let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest.” And then later: “You know what’s wrong with the world today, people done gone and put their Bibles away…Well the Good Book says it so I know it’s the truth, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you better watch where you go and remember where you been, that’s the way I see it, I’m a simple man.”
But does the “Good Book” actually demand an “eye for an eye” and a “tooth for a tooth” style of justice? In the Old Testament, yes. But Jesus himself, during the Sermon on the Mount, preached on that law by contradicting it! From Matthew, chapter 5 (NRSV): “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.”
As he did so many other times, Jesus took a familiar passage from the Law of Moses, and gave a new interpretation of it, contradicting common untouchable religious beliefs in the process. Who did Jesus think he was, after all, contradicting the infallible, inspired Word of God, as recorded in Holy Scripture? That same attitude, of course, is frequently taken by modern Christians when people question and reinterpret deeply-held beliefs – ideas believed by many Christians to be untouchable and infallible.
But what did Jesus have to say about the death penalty in particular? Many Christians might respond by suggesting that Jesus never really talked about capital punishment.
Yet Jesus, in fact, spoke very clearly about his opinion on the death penalty – and a one-liner from that discussion is actually a very well-known and common phrase within Christianity. From John, chapter 8 (NRSV):
What Jesus was saying here is that a sin is a sin, and no one sin is any more deserving of the death penalty (stoning) than any other. He was specifically contradicting the Jewish law which ordered stoning for a woman caught in adultery. Again, as in the case of “an eye for an eye,” Jesus was contradicting and reinterpreting the infallible, inspired Word of God – that is, the Jewish scriptures.
I hope the point is clear. Jesus did speak about the death penalty, and his words are unambiguous – only the person who has never sinned has the right to make life or death decisions about someone else who has sinned. Since no one on earth qualifies for the former, no one else should be qualified for the latter, either.
When I take this teaching together with the fact that Jesus was, himself, a victim of the death penalty, and add that together with moral teachings on compassion and forgiveness and the knowledge that no one is born a murderer, and combine that with the knowledge that the death penalty does not offer justice, closure, or deterrence, and pour on top of that the enormous additional cost of death penalty cases, and top it off with the danger of a civilized nation giving its government the right to put people to death and the knowledge that sometimes innocent people are executed, I can simply find no reason, as a Christian or an American, to support capital punishment.
My feelings about the death penalty are very simple: I do not believe that a civilized nation should give its government the power over life and death.
By no means do I believe that murders should not be forced to pay for their crime. By no means do I believe that those who take life from innocent people should be trusted to be returned to mainstream society. By no means do I believe that people should not be held accountable for choices that they make in life.
However, I also recognize that no one is born a murderer. No one wakes up one morning from a well-adjusted life and decides to go out and kill someone. People become criminals because of a complex mixture of genetics, upbringing, life experiences, and circumstances, not because they simply decide one day that they have no respect for the lives of other people. I believe that our society, plagued as it is by black and white thinking, fails to recognize this poignant fact. Anyone, I believe, is capable of murder, given the right circumstances, experiences, and influences.
Again, that does not mean that I believe people should not be held accountable for their actions. I support stiff penalties for those who commit murder. I support life imprisonment in the name of justice and in the name of making society safer. But I also support and believe strongly in a spirit of forgiveness and compassion. A few years back, when the big news story was about a man who barged into an Amish classroom and murdered several young Amish girls, I was astounded by the response – given literally within hours of the event – of the Amish community. In their shock and grief, they openly stated that they forgave the man for what he did, and members of the community – including family members of the slain children – actually visited and mourned with the family of the gunman.
Many people talk a big talk about forgiveness, but most people – Christians included – do not really strive to live the life of forgiveness that Jesus taught us to live, and that is illustrated, I believe, through the perspective that many Christians have on the death penalty. More on that later.
When someone commits a murder, no one is served by putting the perpetrator to death. Executing the murderer does not bring the victim back to life. Repaying killing with killing does not provide justice and does not provide closure. I am sure that there are studies out there that one could research, but my guess is that families of murder victims – while commonly believed to be provided closure by a death sentence against the murderer – probably do not heal emotionally any quicker than families of murder victims whose slayer does not receive the death penalty.
In addition to not providing justice, closure, or bringing back to life the person who was murdered, the death penalty also does not deter future murders. Again, if murderers were people who woke up one morning from a well-adjusted life, and decided to go out and kill someone, then knowing the consequences of that action might deter them. But that is not what motivates people to kill. People kill – as I said – because of a complex mixture of genetics, upbringing, life experiences, and circumstances.
The fact that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent is illustrated over and over and over again in murder rate statistics. There are exactly 14 U.S. states that do not have capital punishment laws. In 2007, the national murder rate was 5.6 per 100,000 people. Of the 14 states that do not engage in capital punishment, 12 of them – or 86% - were under the national average. In fact, of the nine states that had a murder rate below 2.0, six of them – or two-thirds – were states with no death penalty. Of the top 25 states for murder rates, only two are states that have no death penalty laws. That means that 92% of the states with the highest murder rates are states that also have death penalty laws. Only 8% of states with no death penalty laws are among the states with the highest murder rates. Clearly, death penalty laws do not prevent murders.
But the numbers go even farther than that. Since 1976, there have been 921 executions in the South. In that same period, there have been 67 in Western states, 127 in Midwest states, and 4 – yes four – in Northeast states. Which region do you suppose has the lowest murder rate, and which region do you suppose has the highest murder rate? If it were true that the death penalty was a substantial deterrent to murders, we would expect to see the region with the greatest number of executions also carrying the lowest murder rate. Yet the results are exactly the opposite. The Northeast, which has carried out only 4 executions in the last 32 years, has by far the lowest murder rate in the country – 4.1 in 2007. The South, on the other hand, which has executed far more people in the last 32 years than any other region, also has by far the highest murder rate in the country – 7.0 in 2007 – nearly double that of the Northeast.
Some might argue that the South has more executions simply because they have more murders. That may seem logical except that the numbers do not correspond. In 2007, the South had a murder rate that was roughly 71% higher than that of the Northeast. If the more murders/more executions argument were true, then we should expect to see execution rates in the South at approximately 71% higher than those in the Northeast. Yet in the last 32 years, the South’s execution rate has been a staggering 230% higher than the Northeast.
These numbers tell me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that putting more people to death does not in any way reduce the overall number of murders. People who commit murder are not deterred from doing so simply because of the rational knowledge that they might get arrested and be put to death if they go through with it. If a murderer were interested in such rational considerations, they probably would not be committing murder in the first place.
The death penalty only provides revenge, not justice, closure, or deterrence.
Finally, there is the issue of cost. Financial studies into the cost of capital punishment have shown over and over again that it actually costs more to keep someone on death row than to simply put them in prison for life. A recent study by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice indicates that a death row inmate costs the government an additional $90,000 per year, over those inmates who are simply incarcerated for life. They estimate that the present cost of the death penalty system is somewhere in the neighborhood of $137 million per year. A system that instead imposed only a lifetime sentence for murderers would cost roughly $12 million per year.
The cost of an average death penalty trial is nearly $500,000 higher than a trial where the maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Furthermore, appeal hearings for death penalty cases cost somewhere in the range of $100,000 more than appeals for non-death penalty crimes.
It should go without saying that those numbers are staggering.
The reasons for this cost difference are fairly obvious if you give it some thought. Inmates on death row are segregated from the general prison population. This requires separate buildings, with all the cost and overhead involved in running those buildings, as well as separate guards and prison staff. Furthermore, since the constitution requires that criminals be given due process of law, convicted murderers are entitled to the appeals process, and that process – as we all know – can be quite lengthy. It is also quite expensive, because the judges, lawyers and court personnel have to be paid for their services.
The average time spent on death row is somewhere around 12 years, and it is not uncommon for it to go beyond 20 years. Yet to argue that the appeals process takes too long would be to argue that people who are being put to death by the government should not be entitled to appeal their sentence, or be given time for new evidence to arise that might cast doubt on their conviction. And I would question the heart and core motivations of any person who is not deeply disturbed by the fact that we know that innocent people have been executed on death row. We know this, of course, because of DNA testing that has exonerated people after their execution.
Many Christians I know support the death penalty. They justify this position in a variety of ways, most commonly by saying that the Bible permitted the death penalty for certain crimes, so therefore it is okay for our society to do so as well.
Yet I always wonder if any of these people have ever considered that Jesus, himself, was a victim of the death penalty? I wonder if they have ever considered that since the Bible also permitted slavery, does that mean that slavery is permissible? A prominent theologian in the 1850’s famously stated that “What God ordained in the Old Testament, and permitted in the New, cannot be a sin.” He was talking, of course, about slavery, and was making the same argument to support slavery that some Christians use today to support the death penalty. The exact same comment, in fact, could be inserted into a Christian discussion of the death penalty, and one would never know the difference.
Many Christians I know will argue that the death penalty is appropriate because of “an eye for an eye.” If you kill someone, you forfeit your own life. That’s fair; that’s justice. Here it may be appropriate to quote a Charlie Daniels Band song, which I believe sums up (albeit rather crudely) the view of many Christians quite well: “As far as I’m concerned there ain’t no excuse for the rapin’ and the killin’ and the child abuse, but I got a way to put an end to all that mess. You just take them rascals out in the swamps, put ‘em on their knees and tie ‘em to a stump, and let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest.” And then later: “You know what’s wrong with the world today, people done gone and put their Bibles away…Well the Good Book says it so I know it’s the truth, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you better watch where you go and remember where you been, that’s the way I see it, I’m a simple man.”
But does the “Good Book” actually demand an “eye for an eye” and a “tooth for a tooth” style of justice? In the Old Testament, yes. But Jesus himself, during the Sermon on the Mount, preached on that law by contradicting it! From Matthew, chapter 5 (NRSV): “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.”
As he did so many other times, Jesus took a familiar passage from the Law of Moses, and gave a new interpretation of it, contradicting common untouchable religious beliefs in the process. Who did Jesus think he was, after all, contradicting the infallible, inspired Word of God, as recorded in Holy Scripture? That same attitude, of course, is frequently taken by modern Christians when people question and reinterpret deeply-held beliefs – ideas believed by many Christians to be untouchable and infallible.
But what did Jesus have to say about the death penalty in particular? Many Christians might respond by suggesting that Jesus never really talked about capital punishment.
Yet Jesus, in fact, spoke very clearly about his opinion on the death penalty – and a one-liner from that discussion is actually a very well-known and common phrase within Christianity. From John, chapter 8 (NRSV):
Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
What Jesus was saying here is that a sin is a sin, and no one sin is any more deserving of the death penalty (stoning) than any other. He was specifically contradicting the Jewish law which ordered stoning for a woman caught in adultery. Again, as in the case of “an eye for an eye,” Jesus was contradicting and reinterpreting the infallible, inspired Word of God – that is, the Jewish scriptures.
I hope the point is clear. Jesus did speak about the death penalty, and his words are unambiguous – only the person who has never sinned has the right to make life or death decisions about someone else who has sinned. Since no one on earth qualifies for the former, no one else should be qualified for the latter, either.
When I take this teaching together with the fact that Jesus was, himself, a victim of the death penalty, and add that together with moral teachings on compassion and forgiveness and the knowledge that no one is born a murderer, and combine that with the knowledge that the death penalty does not offer justice, closure, or deterrence, and pour on top of that the enormous additional cost of death penalty cases, and top it off with the danger of a civilized nation giving its government the right to put people to death and the knowledge that sometimes innocent people are executed, I can simply find no reason, as a Christian or an American, to support capital punishment.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
New Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination
My most loyal readers (all 0 of you), may recall my longish essay from earlier this year about the Kennedy assassination. In that essay, I concluded from my research that the evidence was overwhelming that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone when he killed JFK.
I recently saw a new documentary on the History Channel that specifically focused on the shooting that took place in Dealey Plaza on that day. The purpose was to test - apparently for the first time - whether it would have been possible for gunmen to actually shoot Kennedy from the various locations around Dealey Plaza where witnesses reported hearing gunshots.
The majority of ear witnesses that day claimed to have heard 3 or fewer shots. Subsequently, Oswald's nest in the Texas School Book Depository was discovered with three empty shell casings on the floor. However, a number of ear witnesses claimed to have heard more than three shots, and many of these people said they thought the shots came from the now infamous "grassy knoll," situated ahead and to the right of Kennedy's car. Others believed they heard shots from directly in front of the car, and to the left of the car.
The documentary in question sought to use a highly-trained marksman to actually test these various locations to see if it would have been possible for someone to take a shot at Kennedy from any of those spots. Since only two bullets are known to have hit Kennedy, and the first was unquestionably fired from behind (it entered through his back), the primary focus of this investigation was to see if the final shot - the killing head shot - might have been fired from somewhere other than Oswald's nest. This is the shot, after all, that most conspiracy theorists point to when arguing for multiple gunmen.
Any of us who have read about the Kennedy assassination, and seen movies such as Oliver Stone's "JFK," will know that one of the primary arguments about the killing head shot is that the way Kennedy's body moves when he is hit, and the way the blood and matter was splattered upon impact, point to a shot from ahead, not behind. In "JFK," Kevin Costner's character, when making his case, famously shows the Kennedy assassination footage, pausing and rewinding at the moment of the fatal shot, repeating as he does so that Kennedy's body goes "back and to the left; back and to the left." This, the movie and other conspiracy theorists argue, is evidence that the shot came from ahead of Kennedy, not behind.
There were four spots in question that the documentary makers wanted to test. The first was on the other side of Main Street, on the lower right corner of this picture. The second was from the freeway overpass. The third was from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll, and the last was from Oswald's nest on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
An identical replica of Kennedy's car was used for the staging, along with actors inside the car sitting in the precise positions and postures of the original occupants (as taken from video and photographic evidence). The car was then parked at the spot where the killing shot occurred, and the marksman then went along to each of the four locations to see if a reasonable shot could have been taken.
The marksman very quickly ruled out the first two spots - behind Main Street and along the freeway overpass. Neither of these locations provided an angle to actually hit Kennedy at the moment and location where he was hit.
The third and fourth spots - the grassy knoll and the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depostitory - did provide reasonable angles to make a shot at Kennedy.
With the evidence of geometry narrowing the possibilities down to two locations, the team set out to actually make the shots and compare the results to what happened when Kennedy was hit.
If you can take the graphic nature of the Zapruder Film, take a look at this 47-second clip, showing the moments of the assassination. It has been modified to zero in on Kennedy, and is shown in slow motion.
You will notice that Kennedy is first hit just a split second before he reappears from behind the street sign. He is clutching at his throat. A few seconds later, the killing shot occurs. Indeed, when watching the video, it appears that the front part of Kennedy's head is hit, and he slumps back and to the left. Jackie Kennedy, in fact, crawls onto the trunk of the car in an effort to retrieve a piece of skull that was blown that direction - and how could a skull fragment go backward if the shot came from behind? It is easy to see - particularly in light of witnesses who claimed to hear a shot from the grassy knoll - why so many have always held to the idea that the killing shot came from the grassy knoll in front of Kennedy's car, not from Oswald's nest behind it.
With all these facts in mind, the documentary team went out to a shooting range and built a completely geometrically-accurate replica of Dealey Plaza. Using an identical replica mock-up of Kennedy's car, and using surveying equipment to pinpoint the distances and angles, they tested what actually happened that day. The car was sitting still, but they used an industrial fan to simulate the 22-25 mph winds that would have been blowing toward the car that day. Additionally, they used a company in Australia that specializes in recreating human body parts to design a human skull equivalent to the size, shape, and density of Kennedy's skull. This head, complete with replica bone, soft tissue, and brain matter, was then attached to a dummy, and the dummy was placed into the precise posture within the car that Kennedy was in when he was hit.
When the marksman made the shot that replicated a grassy knoll shot, there were several things that were wrong. First, the bullet entered the skull at a precise spot on the head's front right, passed through the brain, and exited the rear left. The point of entry showed little damage - merely a bullet-sized hole. But the rear left of the head was blown out, and brain matter and tissue sprayed all along the rear and left of the car. The bullet, in fact, imbedded in the rear seat, right in Jackie Kennedy's spot.
These are problems because none of these results match the known facts from the case. Kennedy had no wound at all on the left rear of his head. Instead, he had a small bullet hole behind his right ear, and a massive blow-out wound at the front right - which is consistent with what we observe on the video. Although lay people (read: conspiracy theorists) often do not realize it, the nature of a gunshot wound to the head is such that the entry wound is small, and the exit wound is large. While the blow-out we see on the video appears to the untrained eye to be the bullet entering Kennedy's skull, it is in fact the bullet exiting Kennedy's skull. Any forensic investigator can tell us that this is how gunshots to the head occur. Since the marksman's shot from the grassy knoll put a small hole in the front right, and a large, gaping wound in the rear left, it seems fairly apparent that the killing shot could not have come from that direction.
Added to that are the other two points - the location of the bullet after it exited Kennedy's head, and the location of the brain matter. The marksman's test showed that, based on where Jackie Kennedy was sitting when the killing shot was fired, if that shot had come from the grassy knoll, it would have exited Kennedy's head and entered Jackie Kennedy, wounding and potentially killing her, too. We know, of course, that this did not happen. What we do know, instead, is that Governor John Connelly, who was sitting in front of Kennedy, was hit by a bullet (or bullets) that passed through Kennedy's body.
Additionally, the spray of the brain matter in the test all went toward the back and left. However, while the Zapruder Film shows at least some matter going toward the back, eye-witness accounts of the interior of the car indicate that gore and blood were spattered primarily in the floor in front of Kennedy, and along his right passenger side door. These accounts come from witnesses at the hospital where Kennedy was taken - people who managed to catch a glimpse inside the car before it was cleaned. They all testified to essentially the same thing, and two of them were interviewed for the documentary in question.
Having more or less proven that the fatal head wound could not have come from the grassy knoll, the team performed one more test - a shot from the simulated 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
All the parameters were reset for this test, and the marksman took aim and fired. The bullet entered the rear right of the skull, and exited the front right of the skull. The entry wound was a small round hole, and the exit wound was a blow-out wound at the front right. The brain matter spread in all directions, including a piece of skull that flew onto the trunk of the car (as we see in the video), as well as splattering matter along the floor boards in front of Kennedy and along Kennedy's passenger door. Finally, the head is seen on the video footage to go back and to the left, despite the fact that the shot came from behind.
All of these results matched perfectly with what actually happened when Kennedy was shot. The two witnesses who personally saw the interior of the car were shown pictures of the experiment, and both agreed that the general location of the gore and brain matter was the same as what they saw inside Kennedy's car before it was cleaned out in front of the hospital that day.
Anyone who has spent time investigating this historical event will most likely already have come to the conclusion that Oswald fired all the shots. I made this conclusion in my previous essay, and I made many of the same arguments in that essay that I have outlined here (the entry wound/exit wound issue, for instance). This new documentary simply demonstrated, for the first time, that these arguments are, in fact, valid. These tests cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no shots were fired from any other direction that day, but they can prove that the only shots that actually hit Kennedy could only have come from Oswald's nest.
That fact, together with all the other overwhelming evidence (which I went into in detail in my previous essay), proves for me - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that Oswald was acting entirely alone, that he made the only shots that were fired in Dealey Plaza that day, and that he was solely responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
I recently saw a new documentary on the History Channel that specifically focused on the shooting that took place in Dealey Plaza on that day. The purpose was to test - apparently for the first time - whether it would have been possible for gunmen to actually shoot Kennedy from the various locations around Dealey Plaza where witnesses reported hearing gunshots.
The majority of ear witnesses that day claimed to have heard 3 or fewer shots. Subsequently, Oswald's nest in the Texas School Book Depository was discovered with three empty shell casings on the floor. However, a number of ear witnesses claimed to have heard more than three shots, and many of these people said they thought the shots came from the now infamous "grassy knoll," situated ahead and to the right of Kennedy's car. Others believed they heard shots from directly in front of the car, and to the left of the car.
The documentary in question sought to use a highly-trained marksman to actually test these various locations to see if it would have been possible for someone to take a shot at Kennedy from any of those spots. Since only two bullets are known to have hit Kennedy, and the first was unquestionably fired from behind (it entered through his back), the primary focus of this investigation was to see if the final shot - the killing head shot - might have been fired from somewhere other than Oswald's nest. This is the shot, after all, that most conspiracy theorists point to when arguing for multiple gunmen.
Any of us who have read about the Kennedy assassination, and seen movies such as Oliver Stone's "JFK," will know that one of the primary arguments about the killing head shot is that the way Kennedy's body moves when he is hit, and the way the blood and matter was splattered upon impact, point to a shot from ahead, not behind. In "JFK," Kevin Costner's character, when making his case, famously shows the Kennedy assassination footage, pausing and rewinding at the moment of the fatal shot, repeating as he does so that Kennedy's body goes "back and to the left; back and to the left." This, the movie and other conspiracy theorists argue, is evidence that the shot came from ahead of Kennedy, not behind.
There were four spots in question that the documentary makers wanted to test. The first was on the other side of Main Street, on the lower right corner of this picture. The second was from the freeway overpass. The third was from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll, and the last was from Oswald's nest on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
An identical replica of Kennedy's car was used for the staging, along with actors inside the car sitting in the precise positions and postures of the original occupants (as taken from video and photographic evidence). The car was then parked at the spot where the killing shot occurred, and the marksman then went along to each of the four locations to see if a reasonable shot could have been taken.
The marksman very quickly ruled out the first two spots - behind Main Street and along the freeway overpass. Neither of these locations provided an angle to actually hit Kennedy at the moment and location where he was hit.
The third and fourth spots - the grassy knoll and the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depostitory - did provide reasonable angles to make a shot at Kennedy.
With the evidence of geometry narrowing the possibilities down to two locations, the team set out to actually make the shots and compare the results to what happened when Kennedy was hit.
If you can take the graphic nature of the Zapruder Film, take a look at this 47-second clip, showing the moments of the assassination. It has been modified to zero in on Kennedy, and is shown in slow motion.
You will notice that Kennedy is first hit just a split second before he reappears from behind the street sign. He is clutching at his throat. A few seconds later, the killing shot occurs. Indeed, when watching the video, it appears that the front part of Kennedy's head is hit, and he slumps back and to the left. Jackie Kennedy, in fact, crawls onto the trunk of the car in an effort to retrieve a piece of skull that was blown that direction - and how could a skull fragment go backward if the shot came from behind? It is easy to see - particularly in light of witnesses who claimed to hear a shot from the grassy knoll - why so many have always held to the idea that the killing shot came from the grassy knoll in front of Kennedy's car, not from Oswald's nest behind it.
With all these facts in mind, the documentary team went out to a shooting range and built a completely geometrically-accurate replica of Dealey Plaza. Using an identical replica mock-up of Kennedy's car, and using surveying equipment to pinpoint the distances and angles, they tested what actually happened that day. The car was sitting still, but they used an industrial fan to simulate the 22-25 mph winds that would have been blowing toward the car that day. Additionally, they used a company in Australia that specializes in recreating human body parts to design a human skull equivalent to the size, shape, and density of Kennedy's skull. This head, complete with replica bone, soft tissue, and brain matter, was then attached to a dummy, and the dummy was placed into the precise posture within the car that Kennedy was in when he was hit.
When the marksman made the shot that replicated a grassy knoll shot, there were several things that were wrong. First, the bullet entered the skull at a precise spot on the head's front right, passed through the brain, and exited the rear left. The point of entry showed little damage - merely a bullet-sized hole. But the rear left of the head was blown out, and brain matter and tissue sprayed all along the rear and left of the car. The bullet, in fact, imbedded in the rear seat, right in Jackie Kennedy's spot.
These are problems because none of these results match the known facts from the case. Kennedy had no wound at all on the left rear of his head. Instead, he had a small bullet hole behind his right ear, and a massive blow-out wound at the front right - which is consistent with what we observe on the video. Although lay people (read: conspiracy theorists) often do not realize it, the nature of a gunshot wound to the head is such that the entry wound is small, and the exit wound is large. While the blow-out we see on the video appears to the untrained eye to be the bullet entering Kennedy's skull, it is in fact the bullet exiting Kennedy's skull. Any forensic investigator can tell us that this is how gunshots to the head occur. Since the marksman's shot from the grassy knoll put a small hole in the front right, and a large, gaping wound in the rear left, it seems fairly apparent that the killing shot could not have come from that direction.
Added to that are the other two points - the location of the bullet after it exited Kennedy's head, and the location of the brain matter. The marksman's test showed that, based on where Jackie Kennedy was sitting when the killing shot was fired, if that shot had come from the grassy knoll, it would have exited Kennedy's head and entered Jackie Kennedy, wounding and potentially killing her, too. We know, of course, that this did not happen. What we do know, instead, is that Governor John Connelly, who was sitting in front of Kennedy, was hit by a bullet (or bullets) that passed through Kennedy's body.
Additionally, the spray of the brain matter in the test all went toward the back and left. However, while the Zapruder Film shows at least some matter going toward the back, eye-witness accounts of the interior of the car indicate that gore and blood were spattered primarily in the floor in front of Kennedy, and along his right passenger side door. These accounts come from witnesses at the hospital where Kennedy was taken - people who managed to catch a glimpse inside the car before it was cleaned. They all testified to essentially the same thing, and two of them were interviewed for the documentary in question.
Having more or less proven that the fatal head wound could not have come from the grassy knoll, the team performed one more test - a shot from the simulated 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
All the parameters were reset for this test, and the marksman took aim and fired. The bullet entered the rear right of the skull, and exited the front right of the skull. The entry wound was a small round hole, and the exit wound was a blow-out wound at the front right. The brain matter spread in all directions, including a piece of skull that flew onto the trunk of the car (as we see in the video), as well as splattering matter along the floor boards in front of Kennedy and along Kennedy's passenger door. Finally, the head is seen on the video footage to go back and to the left, despite the fact that the shot came from behind.
All of these results matched perfectly with what actually happened when Kennedy was shot. The two witnesses who personally saw the interior of the car were shown pictures of the experiment, and both agreed that the general location of the gore and brain matter was the same as what they saw inside Kennedy's car before it was cleaned out in front of the hospital that day.
Anyone who has spent time investigating this historical event will most likely already have come to the conclusion that Oswald fired all the shots. I made this conclusion in my previous essay, and I made many of the same arguments in that essay that I have outlined here (the entry wound/exit wound issue, for instance). This new documentary simply demonstrated, for the first time, that these arguments are, in fact, valid. These tests cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no shots were fired from any other direction that day, but they can prove that the only shots that actually hit Kennedy could only have come from Oswald's nest.
That fact, together with all the other overwhelming evidence (which I went into in detail in my previous essay), proves for me - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that Oswald was acting entirely alone, that he made the only shots that were fired in Dealey Plaza that day, and that he was solely responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death on Black Friday
A New York Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death on Friday morning as he opened the doors to let shoppers into the store. Reports are saying that even the EMS people who were doing CPR on the guy were getting knocked around as shoppers continued to surge into the place. When the guy died, and they closed the store, people complained about having to leave, arguing that they had been waiting in line for hours.
I work part-time at Target, and had to be there at 6 a.m. when the doors opened.
It was absolute chaos. I knew, of course, that there are hardcore shoppers who want to get up in the middle of the night to go save a few dollars on a piece of cheap plastic, but I had no idea of what the sheer volume of those people would be.
When I arrived at 6 a.m., our entire parking lot (which is reasonably large) was already completely full, including the overflow lot across the main road that I have never seen a car in previously. There were cars parked all along the curbs, up in the grass, and down behind the building where the trucking lanes are.
I had to park at a neighboring strip mall and walk across to the store.
By 6:20 or 6:30, the line at the check-out lanes was stretching from one corner of the store all the way to the opposite corner of the store in the rear. There were probably 200 people just waiting to check out from one of the 14 check lanes. The doesn't count the ones who were still shopping.
There wasn't necessarily any violence or anything like that, but plenty of frustrated people, people pushing their way through the crowds, people cutting in front of you, etc., etc. No one seemed particularly festive or pleasant. Which, of course, simply begs the question of why the FUCK they are there in the wee hours of the morning in the first place.
It's a strange mob-like mentality. I wouldn't be out at a place like that even if everything on the shelves was 100% free. It's just not worth the headache and hassle. And it certainly isn't worth it to save 20 or 30 bucks on some item.
But when you look at it from a sociological perspective, I don't think it's really about the cost savings. It's simply some sort of mob mentality that causes people to go out to shop in the wee hours of the morning simply because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do. No one knows why they are so compelled to go through all that hassle just to save a few dollars, but they just do it anyway.
When gas prices were 3 and 4 bucks a gallon, local gas stations would occasionally run a special where they'd drop their prices to 1.99 or even 2.50 for a few hours. Invariably, they would have lines stretching well out into the main road, causing enormous traffic problems. People would be in line for this gas for an hour. And for what? So they could save 10 or 12 bucks on a tank of gas? Is that really going to make a difference in whether you are able to pay your bills that month? But it's not about the savings, it's just mob mentality.
That's what Black Friday is too. And this Wal-Mart fiasco illustrates it perfectly.
The world is broken.
I work part-time at Target, and had to be there at 6 a.m. when the doors opened.
It was absolute chaos. I knew, of course, that there are hardcore shoppers who want to get up in the middle of the night to go save a few dollars on a piece of cheap plastic, but I had no idea of what the sheer volume of those people would be.
When I arrived at 6 a.m., our entire parking lot (which is reasonably large) was already completely full, including the overflow lot across the main road that I have never seen a car in previously. There were cars parked all along the curbs, up in the grass, and down behind the building where the trucking lanes are.
I had to park at a neighboring strip mall and walk across to the store.
By 6:20 or 6:30, the line at the check-out lanes was stretching from one corner of the store all the way to the opposite corner of the store in the rear. There were probably 200 people just waiting to check out from one of the 14 check lanes. The doesn't count the ones who were still shopping.
There wasn't necessarily any violence or anything like that, but plenty of frustrated people, people pushing their way through the crowds, people cutting in front of you, etc., etc. No one seemed particularly festive or pleasant. Which, of course, simply begs the question of why the FUCK they are there in the wee hours of the morning in the first place.
It's a strange mob-like mentality. I wouldn't be out at a place like that even if everything on the shelves was 100% free. It's just not worth the headache and hassle. And it certainly isn't worth it to save 20 or 30 bucks on some item.
But when you look at it from a sociological perspective, I don't think it's really about the cost savings. It's simply some sort of mob mentality that causes people to go out to shop in the wee hours of the morning simply because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do. No one knows why they are so compelled to go through all that hassle just to save a few dollars, but they just do it anyway.
When gas prices were 3 and 4 bucks a gallon, local gas stations would occasionally run a special where they'd drop their prices to 1.99 or even 2.50 for a few hours. Invariably, they would have lines stretching well out into the main road, causing enormous traffic problems. People would be in line for this gas for an hour. And for what? So they could save 10 or 12 bucks on a tank of gas? Is that really going to make a difference in whether you are able to pay your bills that month? But it's not about the savings, it's just mob mentality.
That's what Black Friday is too. And this Wal-Mart fiasco illustrates it perfectly.
The world is broken.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Musings from the world of Radiology
Well, the quarter is almost over, and I only have one more week left of rotations this year. We get next week off completely from school, and then I will have a week of rotations after that, then a final on the following Monday.
At that point, I will have enough clinical and classroom hours, in addition to clinical competencies, to begin working as a student radiographer in hospitals. A student radiographer is essentially just an X-ray tech who has completed enough schooling to get a state license to practice. So I am currently in the process of applying for part-time RT jobs in the hopes of being able to land a position somewhere, so I can work in the field for the next year as I finish my studies.
I have a phone interview with Good Samaritan at 2 p.m. today.
I started working at Target in August, and the new quarter began in mid-September. Since that time, I've only had 4 days completely off of work. I basically work 7 days a week between classes, clinicals, and Target. Since I'm off school next week, however, I'll have a few days off because I'm also off work from Target on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We are going up to Cincinnati for those 3 days for Thanksgiving. I have to be back for work at Target at 6 a.m. on Friday. That should be a barrel of laughs. The weekends have already started being zoo-like at Target, and since I am one of the better employees, they always put me in the Toys section, since that's the busiest. I can't imagine what it will be like the day after Thanksgiving.
I did two clinical rotations this quarter, one at Kentucky Clinic - which is the orthopedic and diagnostic clinic appended to UK Hospital - and the other at St. Joseph-Berea hospital, which is part of the St. Joe network.
I really loved it at Kentucky Clinic. It was busy and challenging, and they do all the diagnostic exams for Kentucky's basketball and football teams. So I saw several prominent athletes while I was there. I also got my first taste of trauma radiography, as we had several patients who had been in horrific motorcycle wrecks. One patient literally had pretty much every major bone in her body broken. Both legs, both arms, shoulders, wrists, pelvis, etc. She was lucky to be alive.
Another patient I saw there had a severely broken pelvis and femur from a motorcycle accident, and when she came in, she was quite delirious on pain medication. We weren't able to really communicate with her, but it was obvious that she was hot, because she kept throwing off her gown, which was more or less just covering her like a blanket. She was completely naked underneath, and we ended up just having to X-ray her with her laying there on the bed in the buff. That was definitely an interesting experience. There were two other techs - both women - in the room with me at the time.
Berea took me some time to get used to, but I managed to find a way to fit in there with the staff. I don't think I would want to work at a small hospital like that, but it has been okay, and there are a few people there that I really enjoy laughing with. Most of the staff are older than me and have been working in this field for a long time, so they have been a good help in terms of teaching me tricks and techniques. I haven't seen too much there that is off-the-wall, although we did have one patient come in with the tip of his finger sliced off. The paramedic came in with the finger in a bag of water. I've also gotten to observe and assist with a number of fluoro cases, including a barium enema - which I had never seen before. That involves injecting contrast through a rectal tip into the colon in order to view it fluroscopically. As the tech, I'll pretty much be the one who has to insert the tip, and we've already been taught how to do it, practicing on dummy rear-ends in class. I didn't tip the patient in question at the hospital, but I watched the other tech do it, and aside from being a very awkward thing to do, it doesn't look like it's very hard. The worst thing, from what I understand, is when the patient is unable to hold the contrast in, and it either leaks or explodes - as the case may be - out of the rectum, and the tech is left to clean up the mess. Fun times.
Fortunately, those kinds of exams are not nearly as common now as they once were. They've been replaced by things like CT and ultrasound. They do a lot of CT's at the hospital, so I've gotten to observe those quite a bit and assit with patients. I want to eventually get certified in CT, and possibly MRI, because the pay scale is higher for both those modalities. From what I can tell of CT, it appears to be quite simple. Mostly just computer work, although you do have to frequently start I.V.'s. That's something I've already practiced and been taught to do as well, although I haven't actually done one yet on a real patient - only volunteers at school.
I'm looking forward to doing a rotation next quarter at UK hospital on the second shift. UK is one of (I think) only two Level 1 Trauma Centers in Kentucky, so needless to say, they are very busy and see just about everything imaginable there. I've heard stories of X-raying corpses for autopsies (although I've been told they don't do autopsies at UK anymore) and X-raying detached body parts. One tech told me how she was doing a clinical at UK and got an order in for a forearm in the ER. She went down to the patient's room, expecting to do a basic forearm X-ray, and when she got to the room it was, literally, a forearm. And nothing else. The patient had already been taken to surgery and they were wanting an X-ray of the detached arm in order to try to reattach it. The arm was sitting there in a bucket of ice.
I know that's disturbing and bothersome, but I'm kind of excited about getting to experience all the realities of a Level 1 trauma center. A lot of people say they don't like it, but I think that it will be something I enjoy. One thing I have not liked about some of the places I have been clinically is that everything is so routine, and there is frequently a lot of downtime. I want to work somewhere where there's always something new and unexpected happening, and it is always busy. Maybe I'll do my rotation there and hate it, but I expect to really enjoy it. There's a reason that medical dramas are always popular on T.V. - it's because working in an E.R. is unique and exciting, and there is a lot of drama involved with that kind of work. You see things on a day-by-day and week-by-week basis that most people never see in their lifetime (if they're lucky!).
So that's pretty much that. Here's to hoping that something positive comes out of this phone interview I have in half an hour.
At that point, I will have enough clinical and classroom hours, in addition to clinical competencies, to begin working as a student radiographer in hospitals. A student radiographer is essentially just an X-ray tech who has completed enough schooling to get a state license to practice. So I am currently in the process of applying for part-time RT jobs in the hopes of being able to land a position somewhere, so I can work in the field for the next year as I finish my studies.
I have a phone interview with Good Samaritan at 2 p.m. today.
I started working at Target in August, and the new quarter began in mid-September. Since that time, I've only had 4 days completely off of work. I basically work 7 days a week between classes, clinicals, and Target. Since I'm off school next week, however, I'll have a few days off because I'm also off work from Target on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We are going up to Cincinnati for those 3 days for Thanksgiving. I have to be back for work at Target at 6 a.m. on Friday. That should be a barrel of laughs. The weekends have already started being zoo-like at Target, and since I am one of the better employees, they always put me in the Toys section, since that's the busiest. I can't imagine what it will be like the day after Thanksgiving.
I did two clinical rotations this quarter, one at Kentucky Clinic - which is the orthopedic and diagnostic clinic appended to UK Hospital - and the other at St. Joseph-Berea hospital, which is part of the St. Joe network.
I really loved it at Kentucky Clinic. It was busy and challenging, and they do all the diagnostic exams for Kentucky's basketball and football teams. So I saw several prominent athletes while I was there. I also got my first taste of trauma radiography, as we had several patients who had been in horrific motorcycle wrecks. One patient literally had pretty much every major bone in her body broken. Both legs, both arms, shoulders, wrists, pelvis, etc. She was lucky to be alive.
Another patient I saw there had a severely broken pelvis and femur from a motorcycle accident, and when she came in, she was quite delirious on pain medication. We weren't able to really communicate with her, but it was obvious that she was hot, because she kept throwing off her gown, which was more or less just covering her like a blanket. She was completely naked underneath, and we ended up just having to X-ray her with her laying there on the bed in the buff. That was definitely an interesting experience. There were two other techs - both women - in the room with me at the time.
Berea took me some time to get used to, but I managed to find a way to fit in there with the staff. I don't think I would want to work at a small hospital like that, but it has been okay, and there are a few people there that I really enjoy laughing with. Most of the staff are older than me and have been working in this field for a long time, so they have been a good help in terms of teaching me tricks and techniques. I haven't seen too much there that is off-the-wall, although we did have one patient come in with the tip of his finger sliced off. The paramedic came in with the finger in a bag of water. I've also gotten to observe and assist with a number of fluoro cases, including a barium enema - which I had never seen before. That involves injecting contrast through a rectal tip into the colon in order to view it fluroscopically. As the tech, I'll pretty much be the one who has to insert the tip, and we've already been taught how to do it, practicing on dummy rear-ends in class. I didn't tip the patient in question at the hospital, but I watched the other tech do it, and aside from being a very awkward thing to do, it doesn't look like it's very hard. The worst thing, from what I understand, is when the patient is unable to hold the contrast in, and it either leaks or explodes - as the case may be - out of the rectum, and the tech is left to clean up the mess. Fun times.
Fortunately, those kinds of exams are not nearly as common now as they once were. They've been replaced by things like CT and ultrasound. They do a lot of CT's at the hospital, so I've gotten to observe those quite a bit and assit with patients. I want to eventually get certified in CT, and possibly MRI, because the pay scale is higher for both those modalities. From what I can tell of CT, it appears to be quite simple. Mostly just computer work, although you do have to frequently start I.V.'s. That's something I've already practiced and been taught to do as well, although I haven't actually done one yet on a real patient - only volunteers at school.
I'm looking forward to doing a rotation next quarter at UK hospital on the second shift. UK is one of (I think) only two Level 1 Trauma Centers in Kentucky, so needless to say, they are very busy and see just about everything imaginable there. I've heard stories of X-raying corpses for autopsies (although I've been told they don't do autopsies at UK anymore) and X-raying detached body parts. One tech told me how she was doing a clinical at UK and got an order in for a forearm in the ER. She went down to the patient's room, expecting to do a basic forearm X-ray, and when she got to the room it was, literally, a forearm. And nothing else. The patient had already been taken to surgery and they were wanting an X-ray of the detached arm in order to try to reattach it. The arm was sitting there in a bucket of ice.
I know that's disturbing and bothersome, but I'm kind of excited about getting to experience all the realities of a Level 1 trauma center. A lot of people say they don't like it, but I think that it will be something I enjoy. One thing I have not liked about some of the places I have been clinically is that everything is so routine, and there is frequently a lot of downtime. I want to work somewhere where there's always something new and unexpected happening, and it is always busy. Maybe I'll do my rotation there and hate it, but I expect to really enjoy it. There's a reason that medical dramas are always popular on T.V. - it's because working in an E.R. is unique and exciting, and there is a lot of drama involved with that kind of work. You see things on a day-by-day and week-by-week basis that most people never see in their lifetime (if they're lucky!).
So that's pretty much that. Here's to hoping that something positive comes out of this phone interview I have in half an hour.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Gillispie Wildcats: Back in the Saddle Again
Remember this blog post from March? Blame the Fans. In it, I called Billy Gillispie a "travesty" and berated the fans of the University of Kentucky for running Tubby Smith out of town. I later recanted a bit from that position, but I continued in my assertion that Gillispie's first year was a let down and a failure.
"Just wait until next year when he's got his own recruits," everyone assured me.
Last year, Gillispie's Wildcats lost their second game of the season to a no-name program called Gardner-Webb. This year, they were playing VMI in their first game - VMI, a team who went 14-15 last year, and according to the commentators of the game, the school has not won its first game of the season in "years."
Well, the Gillispie Wildcats blew it again. Down by 21 in the first half, 10 at halftime, and as many as 23 in the second half, they ended up losing by about 7 or 8 points. They gave up 111 points to this team. ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN POINTS!!! Granted, they made a remarkable comeback in the second half and actually took the lead for a few seconds with about 4 minutes left, but that's where their steam gave out. That was also the only time in the entire game that they actually had a lead.
The whole game was just sloppy, with poor defense, streaky and inconsistent shooting, and an insane number of turnovers. Kentucky had 23, I believe, in the first half alone.
It's significant to point out that VMI has not beaten a major conference team in about 5 years. 5 years.
Welcome to Gillispie ChokeBall, Year Two. Maybe we just need to wait until his THIRD year, right?
"Just wait until next year when he's got his own recruits," everyone assured me.
Last year, Gillispie's Wildcats lost their second game of the season to a no-name program called Gardner-Webb. This year, they were playing VMI in their first game - VMI, a team who went 14-15 last year, and according to the commentators of the game, the school has not won its first game of the season in "years."
Well, the Gillispie Wildcats blew it again. Down by 21 in the first half, 10 at halftime, and as many as 23 in the second half, they ended up losing by about 7 or 8 points. They gave up 111 points to this team. ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN POINTS!!! Granted, they made a remarkable comeback in the second half and actually took the lead for a few seconds with about 4 minutes left, but that's where their steam gave out. That was also the only time in the entire game that they actually had a lead.
The whole game was just sloppy, with poor defense, streaky and inconsistent shooting, and an insane number of turnovers. Kentucky had 23, I believe, in the first half alone.
It's significant to point out that VMI has not beaten a major conference team in about 5 years. 5 years.
Welcome to Gillispie ChokeBall, Year Two. Maybe we just need to wait until his THIRD year, right?
The 2008 Presidential Campaign
The 2008 presidential campaign is now officially part of the history books, and I wanted to take some time to write some reflections and thoughts.
I was intimately involved in this campaign probably more than in any other election year of my adulthood. I became a “poll junkie,” following the polls on a daily basis starting at the end of August, all the way up through election day. Since I felt very strongly about my candidate of choice – Barack Obama – following the polls was a way that I was able to soothe my fears about another Republican presidential victory. I still distinctly remember the depression and gloominess I felt after Bush won in 2000 and 2004, and I dreaded going through that again this year. Since the polls were generally in Obama’s favor throughout the election season, following them made me feel better. Needless to say, I was happy to discover that they ended up being quite accurate in predicting the winner of the election.
In hindsight, I can say that I knew Obama had a significantly good chance of winning the election as far back as mid-September. At that time, Obama already held a lead in enough states to win the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency. He had held those states, in fact, since the time I started following the polls in August. I knew by mid-September, however, that Obama would very likely win the election because of how McCain’s “post-convention bump” played out.
In every presidential election, the candidates generally see a boost in the polls following their respective conventions. This is due primarily to the media attention surrounding each convention. If a candidate does not see a statistically significant boost in the polls following his/her convention, the proverbial shit begins to hit the fan. An insignificant post-convention bump – or worse, no bump at all – is equivalent to a flatline on an EKG machine.
Obama got the kind of post-convention bump that would be expected, so I felt good about that. However, I was troubled, initially, when McCain’s post-convention bump proved to be quite significant – more so than Obama’s had been. McCain’s ratings went up by 6 or 7 percentage points, and in several national polls, McCain actually took a 1-2% lead over Obama – the first time that McCain had led in national polls. This significant boost in the polls was no doubt related to his unprecedented choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate – people were interested in finding out what she was all about, so the media attention was quite large. As a result, McCain’s polling numbers shot up.
However, while it’s true that most candidates see a bump in their favor following their convention, that bump always levels out after a few weeks. 2008 was no different, and within several weeks of the Republican National Convention (which took place about a week after the Democratic National Convention), McCain’s numbers came back down and Obama regained the lead in most national polls.
Despite all of this, however, I knew that Obama had a significant chance of winning simply because of how McCain’s post-convention boost played out. Even at the height of his bump – in mid-September – McCain never overtook Obama’s lead in any of the states that Obama had already been leading in. Recall my earlier statement that as early as August Obama already had enough states polling in his favor to win the electoral vote. Even when McCain’s post-convention bump was at its pinnacle, and he was leading in most national polls, none of those Obama states flipped to McCain. Obama’s lead narrowed in several of those states, but none actually flipped into McCain’s corner. Essentially, McCain’s post-convention bump was felt most strongly in states that were already in McCain’s corner. That was the reason why McCain’s national numbers went up – he simply increased his lead in the states where he was already leading.
When I observed this in the polls, I knew that Obama had a very good chance of winning. If McCain couldn’t flip any blue states to red, even with his significant post-convention bump, then he was going to have a very hard time winning the election. I began saying that unless Obama faltered in the debates, or unless some unforeseen scandal broke in the last weeks of the campaign, Obama was going to win.
A lot of people were worried in the last few weeks about battleground states and the so-called Bradley Effect. The battleground states this year comprised Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Florida (depending on which pundit you were listening to, this list might have been slightly expanded or contracted). However, I felt fairly confident that two of those states were not actually battleground states – Indiana and Pennsylvania. Although Indiana flipped from red to blue in the fallout of the economic crisis, I believed that those numbers were anomalous, and that Indiana would end up going easily for McCain – I predicted a 3 or 4 point victory for McCain there. That proved to be the only state that I was dead wrong about. Indiana, as we know now, went with Obama by about 25,000 votes. That’s statistically very small, but still a far cry from the 3-4 percentage point win that I expected McCain to have.
Pennsylvania was the other battleground state that I did not believe was a battleground state, and I was proven correct on that assumption. Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania was consistently in the 9-10 point range, and never fell significantly below that. I still don’t fully understand why McCain spent so much time, effort, and money there. I suppose he believed that he absolutely had to win Pennsylvania, so it didn’t matter what the polls said – he had to try. But I never believed that he had any chance at all of winning Pennsylvania, and that proved to be true: Obama won the state by about 700,000 votes, or 11 percentage points – which is exactly what the polls had predicted all along.
The other battleground states went primarily for Obama. The only battleground he lost was Missouri, and he only lost there by about 5,000 votes, or a few tenths of a percentage point. In fact, Missouri has not yet been officially called. They are doing recounts there, and it will not be made official until November 18th. I had predicted a Missouri win for Obama, so I was wrong on that one as well, however, I knew that no matter who won, it would be very close. The same was true for North Carolina – I predicted a McCain win there, but knew it would be close regardless. Overall, I accurately predicted 47 of the 50 states, and only seriously missed on one (the aforementioned Indiana).
The Missouri situation is an interesting one because Missouri has traditionally had the best “record” in presidential elections among the 50 states. From 1904 to 2004 – a period of 100 years – Missouri only went with the losing candidate one time, that being in 1956. And in that year, Adlai Stevenson won Missouri by about 2/10ths of 1 percent over Harry Truman – about the same amount that McCain won in this year’s election. So Missouri has now missed twice in the last 100 years, and both times the election there has been won by just a hair. What is perhaps more significant is that Missouri has voted for every Democratic president in U.S. history – until this year. Obama will be the first Democratic president who did not carry Missouri. Similarly, every single time in U.S. history that Missouri has voted for a Republican, that Republican has won the White House. McCain becomes the first Republican to carry Missouri but not win the presidency.
As for the aforementioned Bradley Effect, I accurately predicted (yay me) that it would not have any impact on the election. The Bradley Effect is a political theory that centers on latent racism. It came into being as a result of a 1982 gubernatorial election in California. In that year, a black candidate named Tom Bradley was leading in the California governor’s race by about 9 points going into election day. However, Bradley ended up losing the election by a very slim margin. One of the theories put forth to explain this unexpected loss was that people told pollsters they would vote for Bradley – a black candidate – when in reality they had no intention of actually voting for him. Presumably these voters lied to pollsters because they did not want to seem racist.
From the time that I first heard about this theory, I dismissed it. There were several reasons for this. First, I was not convinced that latent racism was truly the reason Bradley had lost that election. Perhaps there were other issues that simply caused people to change their minds in the final few days before the election. Perhaps voter turnout among those who supported Bradley was lower than expected. Perhaps polling simply wasn’t as accurate in 1982 as it is today. Secondly, I did not believe that racism – even if it did play a role in the California gubernatorial election of 1982 – would play such a significant role in a 2008 presidential election. In 1982, the country was less than 30 years removed from the segregation era. The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 was only 18 years old. Racism was still much more prominent in that time period than it is today. That’s not to say that racism isn’t still alive and well, but it had a much more prominent place in society at that time than it does now. I simply could not believe that any significant portion of the American public would tell pollsters they were voting for Obama, when in fact they intended to vote for McCain. There was no justifiable reason to assume that any significant portion of the voting public would lie about their choice simply because of latent racism. Many racists are not ashamed to say they wouldn’t vote for a black candidate, and even those who wouldn’t openly admit to being racist would simply come up with other reasons to explain why they supported the white candidate.
And, of course, as it turned out, the Bradley Effect had no “effect” at all. In fact, depending on which polls you followed, Obama actually did even better than many polls predicted. For instance, in Tennessee – where the poll averages showed McCain with a 20-25% lead – McCain ended up winning by only a 15% margin. That’s still a significant victory, but nowhere near what the polls implied. The Bradley Effect simply does not exist.
One final note on the electoral vote:
There are two states that split up their electoral votes – Maine and Nebraska. Instead of giving all their electoral votes to whoever wins the state, they split their electoral votes by district. Thus, if a candidate loses the general election in these states, but manages to win in one district or another, that candidate will get the one electoral vote that goes for that district. However, this had actually never occurred prior to 2008 – no one had ever won the general election in either state without also winning all the electoral districts. This year, however, both candidates had campaigned in these states in an effort to “steal” one of the electoral votes, should the national electoral race end in a tie. Nebraska was solidly red, and Maine was solidly blue, but both states had districts that were either more liberal or more conservative than the remainder of the state. As it turned out, Obama managed to achieve his goal in Nebraska – while the state itself went solidly for McCain, the Omaha electoral district (which is the only true “urban” district in the state) went for Obama. Thus, Obama actually won one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes. Considering the conservative slant of the state at large, it is likely that the state legislature may change its rules in the wake of losing an electoral vote to Obama. Maine, as predicted, went completely blue, and McCain did not win any of its electoral votes.
This election has certainly made history in a variety of ways. We all know that Obama has become the first black person ever elected to the presidency of the United States. However, even if Obama were white, this would still be an election year for the ages. Consider the following historic-making aspects of this election – which I have come up with just off the top of my head:
1. The first black person ever nominated for the presidency by a major party.
2. The first black person ever elected to the presidency.
3. The first female candidate on the Republican presidential ticket.
4. The first major party primary that came down to a choice between either a black person or a woman.
5. The first electoral vote “split” in a state that splits its electoral votes (Nebraska).
6. The most money ever raised in a presidential campaign.
7. Only the second time in 100 years that Missouri has voted for the losing candidate.
8. The first time ever that a Democrat has won the White House without carrying Missouri.
9. The first time ever that a Republican has carried Missouri and not won the presidency.
10. The first time Kentucky has chosen the wrong candidate in a presidential election since 1960.
11. The first time a Democrat has won 50% or more of the popular vote since 1976.
12. The first time since 1968 that neither candidate was a sitting president or a sitting vice-president.
13. The first time since 1952 that neither candidate had ever been on a previous presidential ticket.
14. The first Alaskan on a major party ticket.
Those are 13 different ways – just off the top of my head – that this election has made history. Those of us who experienced it – regardless of who we voted for – are privileged to have lived through such a history-making campaign. Without question, the 2008 presidential campaign will be one that is studied and evaluated for years to come. The election of America’s first black president will make 2008 a year that future generations of schoolchildren will be forced to memorize in their history and social studies classes.
It was truly an election for the history books.
I was intimately involved in this campaign probably more than in any other election year of my adulthood. I became a “poll junkie,” following the polls on a daily basis starting at the end of August, all the way up through election day. Since I felt very strongly about my candidate of choice – Barack Obama – following the polls was a way that I was able to soothe my fears about another Republican presidential victory. I still distinctly remember the depression and gloominess I felt after Bush won in 2000 and 2004, and I dreaded going through that again this year. Since the polls were generally in Obama’s favor throughout the election season, following them made me feel better. Needless to say, I was happy to discover that they ended up being quite accurate in predicting the winner of the election.
In hindsight, I can say that I knew Obama had a significantly good chance of winning the election as far back as mid-September. At that time, Obama already held a lead in enough states to win the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency. He had held those states, in fact, since the time I started following the polls in August. I knew by mid-September, however, that Obama would very likely win the election because of how McCain’s “post-convention bump” played out.
In every presidential election, the candidates generally see a boost in the polls following their respective conventions. This is due primarily to the media attention surrounding each convention. If a candidate does not see a statistically significant boost in the polls following his/her convention, the proverbial shit begins to hit the fan. An insignificant post-convention bump – or worse, no bump at all – is equivalent to a flatline on an EKG machine.
Obama got the kind of post-convention bump that would be expected, so I felt good about that. However, I was troubled, initially, when McCain’s post-convention bump proved to be quite significant – more so than Obama’s had been. McCain’s ratings went up by 6 or 7 percentage points, and in several national polls, McCain actually took a 1-2% lead over Obama – the first time that McCain had led in national polls. This significant boost in the polls was no doubt related to his unprecedented choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate – people were interested in finding out what she was all about, so the media attention was quite large. As a result, McCain’s polling numbers shot up.
However, while it’s true that most candidates see a bump in their favor following their convention, that bump always levels out after a few weeks. 2008 was no different, and within several weeks of the Republican National Convention (which took place about a week after the Democratic National Convention), McCain’s numbers came back down and Obama regained the lead in most national polls.
Despite all of this, however, I knew that Obama had a significant chance of winning simply because of how McCain’s post-convention boost played out. Even at the height of his bump – in mid-September – McCain never overtook Obama’s lead in any of the states that Obama had already been leading in. Recall my earlier statement that as early as August Obama already had enough states polling in his favor to win the electoral vote. Even when McCain’s post-convention bump was at its pinnacle, and he was leading in most national polls, none of those Obama states flipped to McCain. Obama’s lead narrowed in several of those states, but none actually flipped into McCain’s corner. Essentially, McCain’s post-convention bump was felt most strongly in states that were already in McCain’s corner. That was the reason why McCain’s national numbers went up – he simply increased his lead in the states where he was already leading.
When I observed this in the polls, I knew that Obama had a very good chance of winning. If McCain couldn’t flip any blue states to red, even with his significant post-convention bump, then he was going to have a very hard time winning the election. I began saying that unless Obama faltered in the debates, or unless some unforeseen scandal broke in the last weeks of the campaign, Obama was going to win.
A lot of people were worried in the last few weeks about battleground states and the so-called Bradley Effect. The battleground states this year comprised Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Florida (depending on which pundit you were listening to, this list might have been slightly expanded or contracted). However, I felt fairly confident that two of those states were not actually battleground states – Indiana and Pennsylvania. Although Indiana flipped from red to blue in the fallout of the economic crisis, I believed that those numbers were anomalous, and that Indiana would end up going easily for McCain – I predicted a 3 or 4 point victory for McCain there. That proved to be the only state that I was dead wrong about. Indiana, as we know now, went with Obama by about 25,000 votes. That’s statistically very small, but still a far cry from the 3-4 percentage point win that I expected McCain to have.
Pennsylvania was the other battleground state that I did not believe was a battleground state, and I was proven correct on that assumption. Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania was consistently in the 9-10 point range, and never fell significantly below that. I still don’t fully understand why McCain spent so much time, effort, and money there. I suppose he believed that he absolutely had to win Pennsylvania, so it didn’t matter what the polls said – he had to try. But I never believed that he had any chance at all of winning Pennsylvania, and that proved to be true: Obama won the state by about 700,000 votes, or 11 percentage points – which is exactly what the polls had predicted all along.
The other battleground states went primarily for Obama. The only battleground he lost was Missouri, and he only lost there by about 5,000 votes, or a few tenths of a percentage point. In fact, Missouri has not yet been officially called. They are doing recounts there, and it will not be made official until November 18th. I had predicted a Missouri win for Obama, so I was wrong on that one as well, however, I knew that no matter who won, it would be very close. The same was true for North Carolina – I predicted a McCain win there, but knew it would be close regardless. Overall, I accurately predicted 47 of the 50 states, and only seriously missed on one (the aforementioned Indiana).
The Missouri situation is an interesting one because Missouri has traditionally had the best “record” in presidential elections among the 50 states. From 1904 to 2004 – a period of 100 years – Missouri only went with the losing candidate one time, that being in 1956. And in that year, Adlai Stevenson won Missouri by about 2/10ths of 1 percent over Harry Truman – about the same amount that McCain won in this year’s election. So Missouri has now missed twice in the last 100 years, and both times the election there has been won by just a hair. What is perhaps more significant is that Missouri has voted for every Democratic president in U.S. history – until this year. Obama will be the first Democratic president who did not carry Missouri. Similarly, every single time in U.S. history that Missouri has voted for a Republican, that Republican has won the White House. McCain becomes the first Republican to carry Missouri but not win the presidency.
As for the aforementioned Bradley Effect, I accurately predicted (yay me) that it would not have any impact on the election. The Bradley Effect is a political theory that centers on latent racism. It came into being as a result of a 1982 gubernatorial election in California. In that year, a black candidate named Tom Bradley was leading in the California governor’s race by about 9 points going into election day. However, Bradley ended up losing the election by a very slim margin. One of the theories put forth to explain this unexpected loss was that people told pollsters they would vote for Bradley – a black candidate – when in reality they had no intention of actually voting for him. Presumably these voters lied to pollsters because they did not want to seem racist.
From the time that I first heard about this theory, I dismissed it. There were several reasons for this. First, I was not convinced that latent racism was truly the reason Bradley had lost that election. Perhaps there were other issues that simply caused people to change their minds in the final few days before the election. Perhaps voter turnout among those who supported Bradley was lower than expected. Perhaps polling simply wasn’t as accurate in 1982 as it is today. Secondly, I did not believe that racism – even if it did play a role in the California gubernatorial election of 1982 – would play such a significant role in a 2008 presidential election. In 1982, the country was less than 30 years removed from the segregation era. The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 was only 18 years old. Racism was still much more prominent in that time period than it is today. That’s not to say that racism isn’t still alive and well, but it had a much more prominent place in society at that time than it does now. I simply could not believe that any significant portion of the American public would tell pollsters they were voting for Obama, when in fact they intended to vote for McCain. There was no justifiable reason to assume that any significant portion of the voting public would lie about their choice simply because of latent racism. Many racists are not ashamed to say they wouldn’t vote for a black candidate, and even those who wouldn’t openly admit to being racist would simply come up with other reasons to explain why they supported the white candidate.
And, of course, as it turned out, the Bradley Effect had no “effect” at all. In fact, depending on which polls you followed, Obama actually did even better than many polls predicted. For instance, in Tennessee – where the poll averages showed McCain with a 20-25% lead – McCain ended up winning by only a 15% margin. That’s still a significant victory, but nowhere near what the polls implied. The Bradley Effect simply does not exist.
One final note on the electoral vote:
There are two states that split up their electoral votes – Maine and Nebraska. Instead of giving all their electoral votes to whoever wins the state, they split their electoral votes by district. Thus, if a candidate loses the general election in these states, but manages to win in one district or another, that candidate will get the one electoral vote that goes for that district. However, this had actually never occurred prior to 2008 – no one had ever won the general election in either state without also winning all the electoral districts. This year, however, both candidates had campaigned in these states in an effort to “steal” one of the electoral votes, should the national electoral race end in a tie. Nebraska was solidly red, and Maine was solidly blue, but both states had districts that were either more liberal or more conservative than the remainder of the state. As it turned out, Obama managed to achieve his goal in Nebraska – while the state itself went solidly for McCain, the Omaha electoral district (which is the only true “urban” district in the state) went for Obama. Thus, Obama actually won one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes. Considering the conservative slant of the state at large, it is likely that the state legislature may change its rules in the wake of losing an electoral vote to Obama. Maine, as predicted, went completely blue, and McCain did not win any of its electoral votes.
This election has certainly made history in a variety of ways. We all know that Obama has become the first black person ever elected to the presidency of the United States. However, even if Obama were white, this would still be an election year for the ages. Consider the following historic-making aspects of this election – which I have come up with just off the top of my head:
1. The first black person ever nominated for the presidency by a major party.
2. The first black person ever elected to the presidency.
3. The first female candidate on the Republican presidential ticket.
4. The first major party primary that came down to a choice between either a black person or a woman.
5. The first electoral vote “split” in a state that splits its electoral votes (Nebraska).
6. The most money ever raised in a presidential campaign.
7. Only the second time in 100 years that Missouri has voted for the losing candidate.
8. The first time ever that a Democrat has won the White House without carrying Missouri.
9. The first time ever that a Republican has carried Missouri and not won the presidency.
10. The first time Kentucky has chosen the wrong candidate in a presidential election since 1960.
11. The first time a Democrat has won 50% or more of the popular vote since 1976.
12. The first time since 1968 that neither candidate was a sitting president or a sitting vice-president.
13. The first time since 1952 that neither candidate had ever been on a previous presidential ticket.
14. The first Alaskan on a major party ticket.
Those are 13 different ways – just off the top of my head – that this election has made history. Those of us who experienced it – regardless of who we voted for – are privileged to have lived through such a history-making campaign. Without question, the 2008 presidential campaign will be one that is studied and evaluated for years to come. The election of America’s first black president will make 2008 a year that future generations of schoolchildren will be forced to memorize in their history and social studies classes.
It was truly an election for the history books.
Friday, November 07, 2008
A few comments about the "issues"
1) Abortion: I am anti-abortion and pro-choice. I support a woman's right to have an abortion if that's what she chooses to do, but I would never personally encourage a woman to have an abortion for birth control reasons. I suport a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy that has put her own life or health in danger, or in cases where the fetus is malformed or has serious genetic anomolies.
However, I cannot support late term abortions, because even though some of these procedures can be performed humanely (as opposed to, say, partial birth abortion), I see no reason why a woman in the 7th month or later should not have already made up her mind about whether or not to abort. My personal opinion is that the fetus becomes a viable human being when it reaches the stage where it could live outside it's mother's body. To me, aborting a baby after that time is akin to murder. Even in cases of medical necessity, there is no reason why the baby could not be taken intact by C-section, as opposed to aborted in the womb. The baby could then be put up for adoption. I could only support late term abortions in rare cases where the medical situation made C-section impossible, and the mother's life or health was in danger from the pregnancy or labor.
In cases of rape and incest, I support a woman terminating such a prenancy.
2) Healthcare: Strongly related to the abortion issue is the issue of healthcare. 40 million Americans (about 15%) don't have any health insurance at all. Twice that many are underinsured, making the total of underinsured and uninsured people in this country near the 50% mark, or 1 in 2. Mothers unquestionably will sometimes choose abortion simply because they can't afford the doctor bills. If we are going to have a consistent view in this country of the sanctity of life, we MUST do something about our healthcare crisis. Part of the government's constitutionally-mandated responsiblities is to provide for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for its citizens. If ensuring that all Americans have affordable access to good medical care does not fall under the umbrella of "life," then I don't know what does.
It is significant to point out that the United States is the only major developed, industrialized country on earth with no federal health insurance plan. Other countries that have put such a plan in place have not descended into socialism, and the doctors and nurses and healthcare workers have not been sent to the poor house because they can't make money anymore. Suggesting that a federal health insurance option is like "socialized medicine" is not only a case of political spin, it's an outright lie. People who can afford good private health insurance should be able to continue to get that. Those who can't should have the option to have federal health insurance. Such a plan would require strong checks and balances and strong oversight to ensure it wasn't taken advantage of to the degredation of hardworking people.
3) Death Penalty: I am opposed to the death penalty, because I believe that our country should be focusing on the sanctity of life, not ending life. With it being known beyond a shadow of a doubt that innocent people have been executed, and knowing that there is no way to ever know with absolute certainty that a person committed a crime they have been concvited of, I do not believe any government should have the power to put people to death. But even if we could somehow be 100% certain that a criminal had committed a certain crime, I still would not support the death penalty, because I do not believe that any civilized government should have the power to kill people, for any reason. The country should be focused more on ending poverty, and thereby reducing crime, rather than worrying about which criminals to put to death. Countries - such as Japan - which have extremely low poverty rates, also have extremely low crime rates, and very little murder. There's a lesson to be learned there.
And that doesn't even address the issue of the huge state expense associated with all the judicial processes that are involved in death penalty cases. It's far more expensive to keep someone on death row than to simply incarcerate them for life. Taxes could probably be lowered across the board just by eliminating the death penalty (that's probably an overstatement, but you get the point).
4) Homosexuality: I don't believe homosexuality is a sin, but I do believe it is a "sin" to discriminate against homosexuals by disallowing them the same rights as married people. Marriage ceremonies in churches are just that - ceremonies. They are not legally binding. The thing that makes a marriage legally binding is the civil union - the certificate of marriage that the government gives you. Religious views on homosexuality should have no bearing on the government's choice about who can and can't have a civil union. Denying gays the right to get legally married is simple discrimination. And amending the constituion - either of a specific state or the U.S. constituion - to deny gay marriage is simply a case of legalizing discriminatory practices. Whether a constitution is amended or not, denying gays the same rights as straights is discriminatory. It can't be anything else.
Christians who are opposed to gay marriage need to recognize that "marriage" is a government contract, not a holy union. The church is what makes it a holy union, but that's only if the couple wants to have a ceremony in a church. There is certainy nothing requiring two people to have a church ceremony. Suggesting gays can't get married would be like saying atheists can't get married. Homosexuals are living in sin, so they can't have a holy union, and atheists don't believe in God, so they can't have a holy union either. But do I hear any Christians suggesting atheists shouldn't be allowed to have a government conract of marriage? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous. But it's no less ridiculous than saying two gay people can't get married.
Just because a Christian may not approve of the choices gays make, does not give those Christians the right to discriminate against gays, any more than they have a right to discriminate against atheists, Jews, Muslims, or Rastafarians. Those people aren't going to have a marriage ceremony in a Christian church either, but they still are going to have a government certificate of marriage. Why should gays be excluded from that? It's simple discrimination.
5) God: I believe in God, and I follow and attempt to emulate the life and teachings of Jesus as they were remembered and creatively told in the New Testament. I do not, however, believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. I believe it is a significantly human text, describing ways in which ancient Jews attempted to connect and unify with God. What I take from the New Testament are the teachings about love, compassion, kindness, and humility, and the warnings against greed and selfishness. I believe the overpowering message of the New Testament is about abundant life in the here and now, more so than about anything that happens after death.
It's those warnings against greed and selfishness that I think far too many Chrisitans either ignore outright, or only give blithe lipservice to. Jesus talked about greed and money more than just about any other topic. He warned continually about the dangers of greed, and made it clear that anyone who pursues wealth and material possessions is not living in union with God. You can't serve both God and money, Jesus is recorded as saying. That's why I find it ironic when I pass churches on Sunday morning and see them filled with luxury automobiles, decorated with fancy statues and expensive ornamentations, and populated largely by upper middle class people in expensive clothes. Our entire social system is built on the pursuit of wealth - something Jesus assured us was a direct road toward disunity with God. Far too many Christians conveniently ignore that.
We like to think that we are living a Christ-like life (and I include myself in this), but most all of us are actually deeply involved in the pursuit of wealth, and this keeps us from really living like Jesus told us to live.
And if we're living in pursuit of wealth, then we are living in sin, and therefore is it reasonable to say we're any different than the abortion doctors and homosexuals? Jesus never mentioned abortion or homosexuality, but he sure did talk a lot about greed and money.
However, I cannot support late term abortions, because even though some of these procedures can be performed humanely (as opposed to, say, partial birth abortion), I see no reason why a woman in the 7th month or later should not have already made up her mind about whether or not to abort. My personal opinion is that the fetus becomes a viable human being when it reaches the stage where it could live outside it's mother's body. To me, aborting a baby after that time is akin to murder. Even in cases of medical necessity, there is no reason why the baby could not be taken intact by C-section, as opposed to aborted in the womb. The baby could then be put up for adoption. I could only support late term abortions in rare cases where the medical situation made C-section impossible, and the mother's life or health was in danger from the pregnancy or labor.
In cases of rape and incest, I support a woman terminating such a prenancy.
2) Healthcare: Strongly related to the abortion issue is the issue of healthcare. 40 million Americans (about 15%) don't have any health insurance at all. Twice that many are underinsured, making the total of underinsured and uninsured people in this country near the 50% mark, or 1 in 2. Mothers unquestionably will sometimes choose abortion simply because they can't afford the doctor bills. If we are going to have a consistent view in this country of the sanctity of life, we MUST do something about our healthcare crisis. Part of the government's constitutionally-mandated responsiblities is to provide for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for its citizens. If ensuring that all Americans have affordable access to good medical care does not fall under the umbrella of "life," then I don't know what does.
It is significant to point out that the United States is the only major developed, industrialized country on earth with no federal health insurance plan. Other countries that have put such a plan in place have not descended into socialism, and the doctors and nurses and healthcare workers have not been sent to the poor house because they can't make money anymore. Suggesting that a federal health insurance option is like "socialized medicine" is not only a case of political spin, it's an outright lie. People who can afford good private health insurance should be able to continue to get that. Those who can't should have the option to have federal health insurance. Such a plan would require strong checks and balances and strong oversight to ensure it wasn't taken advantage of to the degredation of hardworking people.
3) Death Penalty: I am opposed to the death penalty, because I believe that our country should be focusing on the sanctity of life, not ending life. With it being known beyond a shadow of a doubt that innocent people have been executed, and knowing that there is no way to ever know with absolute certainty that a person committed a crime they have been concvited of, I do not believe any government should have the power to put people to death. But even if we could somehow be 100% certain that a criminal had committed a certain crime, I still would not support the death penalty, because I do not believe that any civilized government should have the power to kill people, for any reason. The country should be focused more on ending poverty, and thereby reducing crime, rather than worrying about which criminals to put to death. Countries - such as Japan - which have extremely low poverty rates, also have extremely low crime rates, and very little murder. There's a lesson to be learned there.
And that doesn't even address the issue of the huge state expense associated with all the judicial processes that are involved in death penalty cases. It's far more expensive to keep someone on death row than to simply incarcerate them for life. Taxes could probably be lowered across the board just by eliminating the death penalty (that's probably an overstatement, but you get the point).
4) Homosexuality: I don't believe homosexuality is a sin, but I do believe it is a "sin" to discriminate against homosexuals by disallowing them the same rights as married people. Marriage ceremonies in churches are just that - ceremonies. They are not legally binding. The thing that makes a marriage legally binding is the civil union - the certificate of marriage that the government gives you. Religious views on homosexuality should have no bearing on the government's choice about who can and can't have a civil union. Denying gays the right to get legally married is simple discrimination. And amending the constituion - either of a specific state or the U.S. constituion - to deny gay marriage is simply a case of legalizing discriminatory practices. Whether a constitution is amended or not, denying gays the same rights as straights is discriminatory. It can't be anything else.
Christians who are opposed to gay marriage need to recognize that "marriage" is a government contract, not a holy union. The church is what makes it a holy union, but that's only if the couple wants to have a ceremony in a church. There is certainy nothing requiring two people to have a church ceremony. Suggesting gays can't get married would be like saying atheists can't get married. Homosexuals are living in sin, so they can't have a holy union, and atheists don't believe in God, so they can't have a holy union either. But do I hear any Christians suggesting atheists shouldn't be allowed to have a government conract of marriage? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous. But it's no less ridiculous than saying two gay people can't get married.
Just because a Christian may not approve of the choices gays make, does not give those Christians the right to discriminate against gays, any more than they have a right to discriminate against atheists, Jews, Muslims, or Rastafarians. Those people aren't going to have a marriage ceremony in a Christian church either, but they still are going to have a government certificate of marriage. Why should gays be excluded from that? It's simple discrimination.
5) God: I believe in God, and I follow and attempt to emulate the life and teachings of Jesus as they were remembered and creatively told in the New Testament. I do not, however, believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. I believe it is a significantly human text, describing ways in which ancient Jews attempted to connect and unify with God. What I take from the New Testament are the teachings about love, compassion, kindness, and humility, and the warnings against greed and selfishness. I believe the overpowering message of the New Testament is about abundant life in the here and now, more so than about anything that happens after death.
It's those warnings against greed and selfishness that I think far too many Chrisitans either ignore outright, or only give blithe lipservice to. Jesus talked about greed and money more than just about any other topic. He warned continually about the dangers of greed, and made it clear that anyone who pursues wealth and material possessions is not living in union with God. You can't serve both God and money, Jesus is recorded as saying. That's why I find it ironic when I pass churches on Sunday morning and see them filled with luxury automobiles, decorated with fancy statues and expensive ornamentations, and populated largely by upper middle class people in expensive clothes. Our entire social system is built on the pursuit of wealth - something Jesus assured us was a direct road toward disunity with God. Far too many Christians conveniently ignore that.
We like to think that we are living a Christ-like life (and I include myself in this), but most all of us are actually deeply involved in the pursuit of wealth, and this keeps us from really living like Jesus told us to live.
And if we're living in pursuit of wealth, then we are living in sin, and therefore is it reasonable to say we're any different than the abortion doctors and homosexuals? Jesus never mentioned abortion or homosexuality, but he sure did talk a lot about greed and money.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Gospels: History, Liturgy, or Both?
I’m reading yet another fantastic book by Bishop Spong called “Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes.”
I’m familiar with a lot of the material in this book, because he has referenced it, and built on it, in subsequent books that I have already read.
Essentially, this is the book that outlines Spong’s view on how and why the Gospels were written. He argues that the basis of the Gospels was the Jewish technique of midrash – describing events creatively through the lens of the cultural past.
I’ve just finished the chapter on the Gospel of Mark, and it really is fascinating how much evidence he compiles to suggest that Mark’s Gospel was intended to be a liturgical text to be used in worship services, rather than a historical biography describing historically literal events. Some history may be in there – and traditionalists could even argue that it is all historically true – but regardless of one’s perspective on that point, it cannot be denied that the story itself was structured liturgically up against the Jewish liturgical calendar. The evidence really is overwhelming.
Spong starts off by discussing the background of the Christian church in the 1st century – how it started off as Jewish movement within the synagogue, and then eventually moved into Gentile areas and by the end of the 1st century became primarily a Gentile religion – leading its adherents to misinterpret and overlook the distinctly Jewish nature of the Christian writings. He talks about how the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. really spelled the end of the “Jewish” days of Christianity, and set up the fierce battles between Christian and Jew that have plagued the West ever since, and caused Christianity to lose its Jewish origins.
He then spends a chapter talking about the Jewish liturgical calendar as it was followed during the time of Jesus. He notes that the liturgical year started with the Passover in March/April, then went through the summer and fall months with a series of festivals (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, etc), and ultimately through the winter months with Hanukah and Purim, etc., and finally ending the following year just before Passover started again. These festivals, and the intervening weeks between them, were followed week-by-week with chronological readings of the Torah. Starting at Passover in Genesis, the synagogues would read the entire Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) over the course of the year, roughly five of our modern chapters per week. This would cause the synagogues to be reading pertinent stories from the Torah during each of their major holy days/festivals throughout the year. This, then, formed the basis for the liturgical calendar of the Jews.
When one, then, turns to Mark, you can see Mark rewriting the Jewish liturgical calendar for Jewish Christians, replacing stories and figures from the Old Testament with Jesus and the figures and stories surrounding him.
Thus, Mark begins his gospel at the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah. This festival was celebrated as the coming of God into Jerusalem from the “unclean” desert, and marked by the blowing of the ram’s horn among other things. Similarly, Mark’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist – a “voice crying in the wilderness” “preparing a way for the Lord,” followed by Jesus coming out of the Galilean backwater preaching and teaching the coming Kingdom of God.
From there, Mark’s Gospel continues the chronological move through the Jewish liturgical calendar, with stories and accounts matching together with Yom Kippur, then Tabernacles, and finally Hanukah. Hanukah, for instance, celebrates the return of God’s light to the Temple under the Maccabees, and the spot in Mark’s Gospel that falls into the Jewish liturgical calendar during this time is the story of the transfiguration, which recalls ancient Jewish figures like Moses and Elijah, and describes Jesus as shining with God’s light – a light too bright to look at. God’s light, then, had now settled on Jesus.
In the weeks before Passover, the Jewish liturgy generally began to delve into teachings on the end of times and signs of the end of times. This corresponded to texts in Deuteronomy – at the end of the liturgical calendar. At this same spot in Mark, there is an entire chapter devoted to Jesus talking about the end of times. Following that, the Jews begin the Passover celebration, and at this same time in Mark’s Gospel, the Passion of Jesus begins – during Passover. And Mark, of course, depicts Jesus as the new Passover sacrifice, dying on the cross at the precise moment (sundown on Friday) that the Jews would have been slaughtering their Passover lamb. Mark’s entire Passion story, in fact, is a liturgy meant to go together with the 24 hours from sundown Thursday to sundown Friday – a solemn time of prayer and reflection in the synagogue in preparation for the Passover celebration. Thus, Mark describes the entire 24 hour sequence during that time, writing stories to function as liturgy for Jewish Christians on that day in the Jewish calendar.
So what we have in Mark is a liturgy for Jewish Christians to follow which goes along with the synagogue liturgy they would already have been familiar with. But it simply replaces common Jewish stories and readings with the story of Jesus, tying Jesus in midrashically to those old stories. It starts in Chapter 1 at Rosh Hashanah, and goes through Passover. Thus, it completes about 6 months of the liturgical year – roughly September/October to March/April.
I won’t go into how Matthew did the same thing as Mark, but I will note that Matthew clearly recognized that Mark was incomplete, and thus Matthew’s Gospel actually follows the entire liturgical calendar year, Passover to Passover.
Spong, of course, includes a lot of textual detail that I haven’t gone into here, but as I said, his evidence is very thorough and very overwhelming. There is almost no question that the Jewish liturgical calendar was at the forefront of the minds of the Gospel writers – to suggest it was just an “accident” is absurd. It’s very clear that they were writing texts to be used as replacements for the traditional synagogue liturgy. This, of course, sheds a whole new light on how the Gospels should be read and understood. One can still choose, if they want, to assume all the events are real stories and that God ordained that Jesus’s life should be played out that way. The only compromise that a literalist would need to make would be on the issue of chronology – the stories can’t possibly represent chronological events. But then again, anyone who has read the Gospels knows that they disagree on the chronology of events anyway (John, for instance, has the cleansing of the Temple early in Jesus’s life, whereas the others all put it as one of his last actions prior to his arrest).
But whether you take the stories literally or not, it’s clear that the Gospels were written as liturgy, not just simple biographies.
I’m familiar with a lot of the material in this book, because he has referenced it, and built on it, in subsequent books that I have already read.
Essentially, this is the book that outlines Spong’s view on how and why the Gospels were written. He argues that the basis of the Gospels was the Jewish technique of midrash – describing events creatively through the lens of the cultural past.
I’ve just finished the chapter on the Gospel of Mark, and it really is fascinating how much evidence he compiles to suggest that Mark’s Gospel was intended to be a liturgical text to be used in worship services, rather than a historical biography describing historically literal events. Some history may be in there – and traditionalists could even argue that it is all historically true – but regardless of one’s perspective on that point, it cannot be denied that the story itself was structured liturgically up against the Jewish liturgical calendar. The evidence really is overwhelming.
Spong starts off by discussing the background of the Christian church in the 1st century – how it started off as Jewish movement within the synagogue, and then eventually moved into Gentile areas and by the end of the 1st century became primarily a Gentile religion – leading its adherents to misinterpret and overlook the distinctly Jewish nature of the Christian writings. He talks about how the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. really spelled the end of the “Jewish” days of Christianity, and set up the fierce battles between Christian and Jew that have plagued the West ever since, and caused Christianity to lose its Jewish origins.
He then spends a chapter talking about the Jewish liturgical calendar as it was followed during the time of Jesus. He notes that the liturgical year started with the Passover in March/April, then went through the summer and fall months with a series of festivals (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, etc), and ultimately through the winter months with Hanukah and Purim, etc., and finally ending the following year just before Passover started again. These festivals, and the intervening weeks between them, were followed week-by-week with chronological readings of the Torah. Starting at Passover in Genesis, the synagogues would read the entire Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) over the course of the year, roughly five of our modern chapters per week. This would cause the synagogues to be reading pertinent stories from the Torah during each of their major holy days/festivals throughout the year. This, then, formed the basis for the liturgical calendar of the Jews.
When one, then, turns to Mark, you can see Mark rewriting the Jewish liturgical calendar for Jewish Christians, replacing stories and figures from the Old Testament with Jesus and the figures and stories surrounding him.
Thus, Mark begins his gospel at the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah. This festival was celebrated as the coming of God into Jerusalem from the “unclean” desert, and marked by the blowing of the ram’s horn among other things. Similarly, Mark’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist – a “voice crying in the wilderness” “preparing a way for the Lord,” followed by Jesus coming out of the Galilean backwater preaching and teaching the coming Kingdom of God.
From there, Mark’s Gospel continues the chronological move through the Jewish liturgical calendar, with stories and accounts matching together with Yom Kippur, then Tabernacles, and finally Hanukah. Hanukah, for instance, celebrates the return of God’s light to the Temple under the Maccabees, and the spot in Mark’s Gospel that falls into the Jewish liturgical calendar during this time is the story of the transfiguration, which recalls ancient Jewish figures like Moses and Elijah, and describes Jesus as shining with God’s light – a light too bright to look at. God’s light, then, had now settled on Jesus.
In the weeks before Passover, the Jewish liturgy generally began to delve into teachings on the end of times and signs of the end of times. This corresponded to texts in Deuteronomy – at the end of the liturgical calendar. At this same spot in Mark, there is an entire chapter devoted to Jesus talking about the end of times. Following that, the Jews begin the Passover celebration, and at this same time in Mark’s Gospel, the Passion of Jesus begins – during Passover. And Mark, of course, depicts Jesus as the new Passover sacrifice, dying on the cross at the precise moment (sundown on Friday) that the Jews would have been slaughtering their Passover lamb. Mark’s entire Passion story, in fact, is a liturgy meant to go together with the 24 hours from sundown Thursday to sundown Friday – a solemn time of prayer and reflection in the synagogue in preparation for the Passover celebration. Thus, Mark describes the entire 24 hour sequence during that time, writing stories to function as liturgy for Jewish Christians on that day in the Jewish calendar.
So what we have in Mark is a liturgy for Jewish Christians to follow which goes along with the synagogue liturgy they would already have been familiar with. But it simply replaces common Jewish stories and readings with the story of Jesus, tying Jesus in midrashically to those old stories. It starts in Chapter 1 at Rosh Hashanah, and goes through Passover. Thus, it completes about 6 months of the liturgical year – roughly September/October to March/April.
I won’t go into how Matthew did the same thing as Mark, but I will note that Matthew clearly recognized that Mark was incomplete, and thus Matthew’s Gospel actually follows the entire liturgical calendar year, Passover to Passover.
Spong, of course, includes a lot of textual detail that I haven’t gone into here, but as I said, his evidence is very thorough and very overwhelming. There is almost no question that the Jewish liturgical calendar was at the forefront of the minds of the Gospel writers – to suggest it was just an “accident” is absurd. It’s very clear that they were writing texts to be used as replacements for the traditional synagogue liturgy. This, of course, sheds a whole new light on how the Gospels should be read and understood. One can still choose, if they want, to assume all the events are real stories and that God ordained that Jesus’s life should be played out that way. The only compromise that a literalist would need to make would be on the issue of chronology – the stories can’t possibly represent chronological events. But then again, anyone who has read the Gospels knows that they disagree on the chronology of events anyway (John, for instance, has the cleansing of the Temple early in Jesus’s life, whereas the others all put it as one of his last actions prior to his arrest).
But whether you take the stories literally or not, it’s clear that the Gospels were written as liturgy, not just simple biographies.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Too Busy to Blog
I know all my many, many adoring fans are wondering where I have been for the last few weeks, but I have just been too busy to do much in the way of blogging - or even think much about it, frankly.
I'm working part-time at Target, doing clinicals 3 days a week, and also have classes. Essentially, I don't have any days off unless I ask for them from Target a few weeks in advance. For instance, in the last 21 days, I've had exactly 2 days off - those were last weekend. And one of those days I actually called in; I wasn't scheduled off. As of right now, I don't have any days off in the foreseeable future. I'll be either working, doing clinicals, or going to class - or a combination of the three - every day until at least the start of November.
I'm doing my clinical rotation at Kentucky Clinic, which is part of UK, and I really am enjoying it. I really like and get along well with the people I work with, and I enjoy the work. It's more challenging and varied than the other places I have been. The equipment is state of the art - direct capture digital equipment with no cassettes - the images are captured digitally and sent straight to the computer screen. Since Kentucky Clinic is part of UK, we regularly X-ray UK athletes; I've already X-rayed both UK football and basketball players (federal privacy laws, of course, deny me the opportunity to tell you who).
I'm still pulling, obviously, for Obama, and have been comforted in the last few weeks by his continued strengthening in the polls, and McCain's inability to do anything to stop his own slide. The polls for the debate this weeks showed, yet again, that Obama won the debate, meaning McCain didn't do anything to help stop his slide. As the state-by-state polling is right now, Obama may win in a landslide. He currently has 249 electoral votes from states that are "strongly" in his camp - "strongly" meaning 9 points or higher over McCain in the polls. Add another 37 or so to that from the states that are "leaning" in his direction - "leaning" meaning 5 points to 8.9 points over McCain. Finally, add another 70 or 80 from the "swing states" that Obama has marginal leads in currently - 1 to 4.9 points - and that gives Obama some 360 electoral votes - far more than he needs to win. In fact, just conting the "strong" Obama states right now - states where his lead is 9 points or higher (states that he almost certainly is going to win) - he has 249 electoral votes. That means he only has to pick up 21 more - and he currently has 120 more polling in his favor. What are the chances that he loses all 120 of those?
My biggest fear right now is that the polls will either be skewed somehow, or that Democrats, thinking Obama is going to easily win, will not turn out to vote. Of course, that works both ways - Republicans, believing McCain has no chance, may not turn out either. Still, the voter turnout, at this point, is what worries me the most.
I've ordered pizza for lunch - wife and kids are out shopping with the mother-in-law - and I have to work at 3:30.
Shalom.
I'm working part-time at Target, doing clinicals 3 days a week, and also have classes. Essentially, I don't have any days off unless I ask for them from Target a few weeks in advance. For instance, in the last 21 days, I've had exactly 2 days off - those were last weekend. And one of those days I actually called in; I wasn't scheduled off. As of right now, I don't have any days off in the foreseeable future. I'll be either working, doing clinicals, or going to class - or a combination of the three - every day until at least the start of November.
I'm doing my clinical rotation at Kentucky Clinic, which is part of UK, and I really am enjoying it. I really like and get along well with the people I work with, and I enjoy the work. It's more challenging and varied than the other places I have been. The equipment is state of the art - direct capture digital equipment with no cassettes - the images are captured digitally and sent straight to the computer screen. Since Kentucky Clinic is part of UK, we regularly X-ray UK athletes; I've already X-rayed both UK football and basketball players (federal privacy laws, of course, deny me the opportunity to tell you who).
I'm still pulling, obviously, for Obama, and have been comforted in the last few weeks by his continued strengthening in the polls, and McCain's inability to do anything to stop his own slide. The polls for the debate this weeks showed, yet again, that Obama won the debate, meaning McCain didn't do anything to help stop his slide. As the state-by-state polling is right now, Obama may win in a landslide. He currently has 249 electoral votes from states that are "strongly" in his camp - "strongly" meaning 9 points or higher over McCain in the polls. Add another 37 or so to that from the states that are "leaning" in his direction - "leaning" meaning 5 points to 8.9 points over McCain. Finally, add another 70 or 80 from the "swing states" that Obama has marginal leads in currently - 1 to 4.9 points - and that gives Obama some 360 electoral votes - far more than he needs to win. In fact, just conting the "strong" Obama states right now - states where his lead is 9 points or higher (states that he almost certainly is going to win) - he has 249 electoral votes. That means he only has to pick up 21 more - and he currently has 120 more polling in his favor. What are the chances that he loses all 120 of those?
My biggest fear right now is that the polls will either be skewed somehow, or that Democrats, thinking Obama is going to easily win, will not turn out to vote. Of course, that works both ways - Republicans, believing McCain has no chance, may not turn out either. Still, the voter turnout, at this point, is what worries me the most.
I've ordered pizza for lunch - wife and kids are out shopping with the mother-in-law - and I have to work at 3:30.
Shalom.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Fuck the Cubs
I'm done with the Cubs. I've been a fan since at least the age of 9, but I am absolutely done with them this time. 2003 was painful, when they blew a 3-1 game lead in the NLCS, but this hurts a lot worse.
They had the best record in the NL, and had the best record in the majors for a lot of the season, and this was their year of destiny - exactly 100 years since their last World Series victory. It was a season of hope and change and vindication.
And they threw it all away.
Outscored 26-5 in a 3-game series. Their worst 3-game series all season, without question. They played like a cellar team, not like a team that had the best record in the NL.
Fuck the Cubs. I am done. I no longer consider myself a fan of the Chicago Cubs. They can suck my liberal dick.
They had the best record in the NL, and had the best record in the majors for a lot of the season, and this was their year of destiny - exactly 100 years since their last World Series victory. It was a season of hope and change and vindication.
And they threw it all away.
Outscored 26-5 in a 3-game series. Their worst 3-game series all season, without question. They played like a cellar team, not like a team that had the best record in the NL.
Fuck the Cubs. I am done. I no longer consider myself a fan of the Chicago Cubs. They can suck my liberal dick.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Family of God
I've been reading through Paul's letters in the New Testament, and I've come across a passage that I guess I have read before, but not in a very long time.
1 Corinthians 7:12-14 (NRSV): To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
Paul's theology was Calvinistic (or, more accurately, Calvin's theology was Pauline). Paul believed that Christians were predestined by God for salvation. They were the chosen ones; God had set them aside before the beginning of time for salvation. Those who were condemned from the beginning of time were condemned not because God is a monster, but because he wanted to demonstrate how merciful he was to those he had chosen - after all, he could have placed THEM in the condemned camp. Paul says this very explicitly in several places, including 1 Corinthians and especially Romans.
Paul also believed that Christ's return ushering in the kingdom of God on earth was going to happen in his own generation. Later in this same passage, he urges people to simply stay in whatever social place they are in - there is no reason to change jobs, get divorced, move away, become free if you are a slave, etc., because God is coming soon. This is a common and repeated theme in Paul's writings. Later New Testament writers even addressed this issue by encouraging their followers to keep the faith, even though Jesus was taking his good easy time with returning in glory.
In the passage quoted above, Paul is making it clear that people who are predestined - chosen by God for salvation - are of a special breed. Therefore, their children cannot be condemned...a predestined person's offspring are also predestined and saved simply by virtue of being born of the loins of a predestined person. It's the same idea that says the child of a king is also royalty, simply by virtue of being born to a king. It's all one big family, for Paul. Again, this is made explicit in both 1 Corinthians and Romans.
Therefore, in order for a child to remain the holy offspring of a Christan parent, BOTH the child's parents must be part of God's kingdom. A child can't be half saved and half condemned. Therefore, if a Christian marries a non-Christian, the non-Christian partner is saved by his/her marriage to the Christian. In that way, the family of God remains intact. Paul urges Christians not to divorce their unbelieving partners because the non-believer is saved as long as they remain married to a believer. If they get divorced, then eternity in God's kingdom is lost for that person. And since God's kingdom was coming soon, as far as Paul was concerned, he was urging these sorts of mixed religion couples to stay together, for the sake of eternity for themselves and their offspring.
The ramifications of this Pauline theology are twofold. First, anyone married to a Christian is saved, whether they themselves are a Christian or not. Second, anyone who is the CHILD of Christian parents is also saved (or a Christian and a non-Christian parent, provided the parents stay together).
If we take this out to its full conclusion, pretty much everyone who is from European descent is saved because all of us can trace our family lines back to parents or grandparents who were Christians. I'd be willing to bet there's not anyone alive today of European descent that doesn't have Christians in their direct line. Even if not your own parents, then probably THEIR parents (meaning they were holy by default), or their grandparents' parents.
The "holy" gene, for Paul, is passed on from generation to generation.
The words for "holy" in that passage, by the way, are the Greek words "hagios" and "hagiazo" (the second being derived from the first). Both words essentially meant "sanctified," "holy," or "purified," and when the word is used by NT writers, it is used in the sense of being consecrated or dedicated to God. That is, it literally meant "saved."
If someone is a Bible literalist, they must accept that Paul, inspired by God, teaches that anyone married to, or descended from, a Christian is saved by default.
The first argument against this, I believe, will be Paul's phrase: "To the rest I say - I, and not the Lord - that if any believer..." Paul was speaking on his own here, not necessarily through God.
But Bible literalists already accept that the words of the Bible - ALL the words of the Bible - are inspired by God and are, literally, the words of God. Paul may have been making his own theological point here, but he was inspired by God in his writing, so what he wrote MUST, by definition, be true. If one wants to make a concession here, then where else should we be making consessions and saying that this passage or that passage isn't actually the Word of God? Bible literalists, by definition, can't make concessions. If you are a Bible literalists, you must accept that most every North and South American, and most every European - Christian or not - is saved. Not to mention many people in other continents of the world who have Christian parents or ancestors. Otherwise, you are disagreeing - not with me - but with Paul.
1 Corinthians 7:12-14 (NRSV): To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
Paul's theology was Calvinistic (or, more accurately, Calvin's theology was Pauline). Paul believed that Christians were predestined by God for salvation. They were the chosen ones; God had set them aside before the beginning of time for salvation. Those who were condemned from the beginning of time were condemned not because God is a monster, but because he wanted to demonstrate how merciful he was to those he had chosen - after all, he could have placed THEM in the condemned camp. Paul says this very explicitly in several places, including 1 Corinthians and especially Romans.
Paul also believed that Christ's return ushering in the kingdom of God on earth was going to happen in his own generation. Later in this same passage, he urges people to simply stay in whatever social place they are in - there is no reason to change jobs, get divorced, move away, become free if you are a slave, etc., because God is coming soon. This is a common and repeated theme in Paul's writings. Later New Testament writers even addressed this issue by encouraging their followers to keep the faith, even though Jesus was taking his good easy time with returning in glory.
In the passage quoted above, Paul is making it clear that people who are predestined - chosen by God for salvation - are of a special breed. Therefore, their children cannot be condemned...a predestined person's offspring are also predestined and saved simply by virtue of being born of the loins of a predestined person. It's the same idea that says the child of a king is also royalty, simply by virtue of being born to a king. It's all one big family, for Paul. Again, this is made explicit in both 1 Corinthians and Romans.
Therefore, in order for a child to remain the holy offspring of a Christan parent, BOTH the child's parents must be part of God's kingdom. A child can't be half saved and half condemned. Therefore, if a Christian marries a non-Christian, the non-Christian partner is saved by his/her marriage to the Christian. In that way, the family of God remains intact. Paul urges Christians not to divorce their unbelieving partners because the non-believer is saved as long as they remain married to a believer. If they get divorced, then eternity in God's kingdom is lost for that person. And since God's kingdom was coming soon, as far as Paul was concerned, he was urging these sorts of mixed religion couples to stay together, for the sake of eternity for themselves and their offspring.
The ramifications of this Pauline theology are twofold. First, anyone married to a Christian is saved, whether they themselves are a Christian or not. Second, anyone who is the CHILD of Christian parents is also saved (or a Christian and a non-Christian parent, provided the parents stay together).
If we take this out to its full conclusion, pretty much everyone who is from European descent is saved because all of us can trace our family lines back to parents or grandparents who were Christians. I'd be willing to bet there's not anyone alive today of European descent that doesn't have Christians in their direct line. Even if not your own parents, then probably THEIR parents (meaning they were holy by default), or their grandparents' parents.
The "holy" gene, for Paul, is passed on from generation to generation.
The words for "holy" in that passage, by the way, are the Greek words "hagios" and "hagiazo" (the second being derived from the first). Both words essentially meant "sanctified," "holy," or "purified," and when the word is used by NT writers, it is used in the sense of being consecrated or dedicated to God. That is, it literally meant "saved."
If someone is a Bible literalist, they must accept that Paul, inspired by God, teaches that anyone married to, or descended from, a Christian is saved by default.
The first argument against this, I believe, will be Paul's phrase: "To the rest I say - I, and not the Lord - that if any believer..." Paul was speaking on his own here, not necessarily through God.
But Bible literalists already accept that the words of the Bible - ALL the words of the Bible - are inspired by God and are, literally, the words of God. Paul may have been making his own theological point here, but he was inspired by God in his writing, so what he wrote MUST, by definition, be true. If one wants to make a concession here, then where else should we be making consessions and saying that this passage or that passage isn't actually the Word of God? Bible literalists, by definition, can't make concessions. If you are a Bible literalists, you must accept that most every North and South American, and most every European - Christian or not - is saved. Not to mention many people in other continents of the world who have Christian parents or ancestors. Otherwise, you are disagreeing - not with me - but with Paul.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
How Much Oil Is Left?
A couple of commonly asked questions, with answers.
How much oil is left in the Arctic?
No one knows for sure how much oil is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The estimates have changed over time. The estimates range anywhere from 5 billion (minimum) to 16 billion barrels (maximum). The U.S. uses about 7 billion barrels every year.
Drilling in the ANWR? It's putting a band-aid on a grenade wound.
If anyone thinks that the ANWR will eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, or even dramaticallly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, they simply don't understand the facts.
Has someone said for sure when the world's total oil supply will run out? Is it in our lifetime? 50 years from now? Maybe 500?
According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, there are about 1.3 trillion barrels of oil left in the world right now.
According to OPEC, the world uses about 31 billion barrels of oil every year. That number will go up 35.4 billion by 2015, 37 billion by 2020, and 41 billion by 2030. Thus, over the next 21 years, the world will average about 36 billion barrels of oil each year.
Thus, barring any new major oil discoveries, the world's oil supply will be effectively gone in 36 years.
Ending our dependence on foreign oil? Band-aid. Grenade wound.
We absolutely MUST start focusing RIGHT NOW on finding alternative fuel sources.
Which candidate has vowed to find alternative fuel sources within 10 years? Obama.
Which candidate hasn't said a word about doing anything other than continuing to drill for oil that is going to run out? McCain.
And while McCain has been opposed to drilling in the ANWR on environmental grounds, he said a few months ago that he would "look at the issue again," and he has since chosen a strong pro-ANWR-drilling supporter as his running mate.
Back in July, before being chosen as Veep, Palin was quoted as saying that she intended to do her best to "convince" McCain to change his mind about drilling in the ANWR. How much more will she work to "convince" him now that she's his running mate?
And why would Palin be so strongly behind drilling in the ANWR? Oh, I dunno, maybe because Alaskans get money directly into their pockets from oil revenues on the northern slope. Every citizen of Alaska gets several thousand dollars each year as part of "profit sharing" from oil drilling. OF COURSE they think we should drill in the ANWR! In the rest of the world, we call this "profiteering."
As for how much oil is left in the world, my numbers above assume that every last drop can be profitably extracted. In fact, the profitable nature of the oil would end LONG before we actually got to that last barrel. This means, of course, that the oil will run out even quicker - maybe within 25 or 30 years.
The "profit" issue is one reason that drilling in the ANWR has only recently become a hot topic. It's been discussed for many years, but because oil prices were so low, it would not have been profitable for oil companies to extract the oil. It would have cost them more per barrel to extract it than what they could sell it for. Now that oil prices are so high, the oil companies know they can make an absolute BUNDLE on the ANWR oil, so (big surprise) now the oil companies want the concession to drill in the ANWR.
And the politicians who have the oil companies in their back pocket are suddenly pushing for ANWR drilling and acting like the ANWR is going to solve all our problems.
Band-aid. Grenade. Profiteering.
Those are the only three words anyone needs to know when it comes to the ANWR and to the red herring of "ending our dependence on foreign oil."
How much oil is left in the Arctic?
No one knows for sure how much oil is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The estimates have changed over time. The estimates range anywhere from 5 billion (minimum) to 16 billion barrels (maximum). The U.S. uses about 7 billion barrels every year.
Drilling in the ANWR? It's putting a band-aid on a grenade wound.
If anyone thinks that the ANWR will eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, or even dramaticallly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, they simply don't understand the facts.
Has someone said for sure when the world's total oil supply will run out? Is it in our lifetime? 50 years from now? Maybe 500?
According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, there are about 1.3 trillion barrels of oil left in the world right now.
According to OPEC, the world uses about 31 billion barrels of oil every year. That number will go up 35.4 billion by 2015, 37 billion by 2020, and 41 billion by 2030. Thus, over the next 21 years, the world will average about 36 billion barrels of oil each year.
Thus, barring any new major oil discoveries, the world's oil supply will be effectively gone in 36 years.
Ending our dependence on foreign oil? Band-aid. Grenade wound.
We absolutely MUST start focusing RIGHT NOW on finding alternative fuel sources.
Which candidate has vowed to find alternative fuel sources within 10 years? Obama.
Which candidate hasn't said a word about doing anything other than continuing to drill for oil that is going to run out? McCain.
And while McCain has been opposed to drilling in the ANWR on environmental grounds, he said a few months ago that he would "look at the issue again," and he has since chosen a strong pro-ANWR-drilling supporter as his running mate.
Back in July, before being chosen as Veep, Palin was quoted as saying that she intended to do her best to "convince" McCain to change his mind about drilling in the ANWR. How much more will she work to "convince" him now that she's his running mate?
And why would Palin be so strongly behind drilling in the ANWR? Oh, I dunno, maybe because Alaskans get money directly into their pockets from oil revenues on the northern slope. Every citizen of Alaska gets several thousand dollars each year as part of "profit sharing" from oil drilling. OF COURSE they think we should drill in the ANWR! In the rest of the world, we call this "profiteering."
As for how much oil is left in the world, my numbers above assume that every last drop can be profitably extracted. In fact, the profitable nature of the oil would end LONG before we actually got to that last barrel. This means, of course, that the oil will run out even quicker - maybe within 25 or 30 years.
The "profit" issue is one reason that drilling in the ANWR has only recently become a hot topic. It's been discussed for many years, but because oil prices were so low, it would not have been profitable for oil companies to extract the oil. It would have cost them more per barrel to extract it than what they could sell it for. Now that oil prices are so high, the oil companies know they can make an absolute BUNDLE on the ANWR oil, so (big surprise) now the oil companies want the concession to drill in the ANWR.
And the politicians who have the oil companies in their back pocket are suddenly pushing for ANWR drilling and acting like the ANWR is going to solve all our problems.
Band-aid. Grenade. Profiteering.
Those are the only three words anyone needs to know when it comes to the ANWR and to the red herring of "ending our dependence on foreign oil."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Caribou Barbie
CARIBOU BARBIE AND GRANDPA JOHN
New from Mattel!
Log Cabin Republican playset sold separately.
Why Obama Should Be Elected
This is short and sweet, and is not even my own creation. This was a comment posted by a friend of mine from the Internet, "Drewsifer," in a politics thread on the Rush messageboard. It says all that needs to be said:
"The way I see it, we are a deeply divided nation. We have gone through 8 years of an administration that has made this divide even greater. Our economy is in poor shape. Our standing in the world has been greatly diminished. Over half the country feels disenfranchised by their government. Do you think that the election of another Republican administration that has vowed to continue many of the same policies that got us to this point will do anything to make this state of affairs better? America works best when each side of the political spectrum is given their periodic day in the sun in order to keep things in balance. It's our turn to drive."
"The way I see it, we are a deeply divided nation. We have gone through 8 years of an administration that has made this divide even greater. Our economy is in poor shape. Our standing in the world has been greatly diminished. Over half the country feels disenfranchised by their government. Do you think that the election of another Republican administration that has vowed to continue many of the same policies that got us to this point will do anything to make this state of affairs better? America works best when each side of the political spectrum is given their periodic day in the sun in order to keep things in balance. It's our turn to drive."
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Palin and the Alaska Independence Party
According to ABCNews, Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party during the 1990's, and even attended an event they sponsored in 1994.
The Alaska Independence Party is a group who wants Alaska to secede from the United States and form its own independent country.
I'm not sure the extent to which Palin was involved with this organization, but it appears that she was a member, and did attend events. This has been confirmed by ABCNews through the chairman of the AIP, Lynette Clark.
Here's a link to the article: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/members-of-frin.html
McCain's choice for VP is becoming more and more difficult to believe. Was this woman vetted at all?
I wonder how Republicans would react if Obama's running mate was shown to have been a member of a group advocating secession from the United States?
The Alaska Independence Party is a group who wants Alaska to secede from the United States and form its own independent country.
I'm not sure the extent to which Palin was involved with this organization, but it appears that she was a member, and did attend events. This has been confirmed by ABCNews through the chairman of the AIP, Lynette Clark.
Here's a link to the article: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/members-of-frin.html
McCain's choice for VP is becoming more and more difficult to believe. Was this woman vetted at all?
I wonder how Republicans would react if Obama's running mate was shown to have been a member of a group advocating secession from the United States?
Monday, September 01, 2008
Sarah Palin's Pregnancy
A lot of rumors have been flying around the Internet blogosphere this weekend regarding rumors that Sarah Palin's 5-month-old son isn't actually her son, but her grandson - the child of her 16-year-old daughter. These rumors have been supported by a variety of circumstantial evidence - most notably the fact that Palin didn't appear pregnant, even as late as 6 or 7 months into the pregnancy, pictures of her daughter with a "paunch" taken around the same time, her daughter's timely excusal from school for 4-5 months because of supposedly having mono, and Palin's inexplicable decision to give a speech in Texas, then fly all the way back to Alaska, then drive to a rural hospital in Wasilla, all after her water had broken - a total of some 15 hours. In addition to that, the hospital where the baby was born, apparently, has no record of a baby by that name being born there that day.
While this is interesting and compelling circumstantial evidence, it appears to just be a smear campaign. I've seen some pictures, apparently, from late in Palin's term, where she DOES appear to be showing (although it cannot be denied that she was strangely flat-tummied as late as 7 months into the pregnancy). I suppose if there is any substance or truth to this rumor, it will eventually come out.
Be that as it may, I think an important facet of Palin's personality has been revealed by these stories. Namely, that she made a remarkably poor and selfish decision in choosing to return all the way to Alaska to have her child, when she was already going into labor in Texas.
She was there, in Texas, giving a political speech, and was about 8 months pregnant. Her water broke, and she began leaking fluid. She decided, however, to go ahead with the speech (even though any doctor will tell you that you absolutely MUST get to the hospital immediately upon the breaking of your water). Then, after the speech, instead of going to a Dallas-area hospital, she boarded a plane for an 8- or 9-hour flight back to Anchorage, including a stop-over in Seattle. After arriving in Anchorage, she still didn't go to the hospital, but instead drove to Wasilla, where she finally gave birth something like 15 hours after her water broke.
It doesn't take an OB/GYN to tell you that this was a remarkably bad decision. Not only did it put her own health in danger (particularly considering that she - at 44 - is in a "high risk" category already), but it also put her unborn child in unecessary danger - especially since she already knew the child had Down's syndrome.
Supporters of Palin might suggest that it shows what a "tough" woman she is, but I believe it shows what a foolish and self-centered woman she is. What reasons could she possibly have had for waiting? Obviously she wanted to give that speech. Obviously, too, she wanted to give birth in the hospital of her choice. Not very good reasons for putting your own health, and the health of your child, in jeopardy.
Would any average woman do what she did? If you were going into pre-term labor, a month early, at 44, with a Down's syndrome baby, would you wait 15 hours before going to the hospital, including getting on a plane for an 8-hour trip? Furthermore, if you DID do such a thing, wouldn't it be reasonable to say you were acting selfishly, rashly, and without good judgment?
There are many reasons to be uncomfortable with the selection of Palin as a VP candidate - the primary of which is her profound inexperience. This situation simply adds another black mark to her record - a record that has very little of quality to someone who is not a gun-toting, pro-life, anti-environmentalist.
While this is interesting and compelling circumstantial evidence, it appears to just be a smear campaign. I've seen some pictures, apparently, from late in Palin's term, where she DOES appear to be showing (although it cannot be denied that she was strangely flat-tummied as late as 7 months into the pregnancy). I suppose if there is any substance or truth to this rumor, it will eventually come out.
Be that as it may, I think an important facet of Palin's personality has been revealed by these stories. Namely, that she made a remarkably poor and selfish decision in choosing to return all the way to Alaska to have her child, when she was already going into labor in Texas.
She was there, in Texas, giving a political speech, and was about 8 months pregnant. Her water broke, and she began leaking fluid. She decided, however, to go ahead with the speech (even though any doctor will tell you that you absolutely MUST get to the hospital immediately upon the breaking of your water). Then, after the speech, instead of going to a Dallas-area hospital, she boarded a plane for an 8- or 9-hour flight back to Anchorage, including a stop-over in Seattle. After arriving in Anchorage, she still didn't go to the hospital, but instead drove to Wasilla, where she finally gave birth something like 15 hours after her water broke.
It doesn't take an OB/GYN to tell you that this was a remarkably bad decision. Not only did it put her own health in danger (particularly considering that she - at 44 - is in a "high risk" category already), but it also put her unborn child in unecessary danger - especially since she already knew the child had Down's syndrome.
Supporters of Palin might suggest that it shows what a "tough" woman she is, but I believe it shows what a foolish and self-centered woman she is. What reasons could she possibly have had for waiting? Obviously she wanted to give that speech. Obviously, too, she wanted to give birth in the hospital of her choice. Not very good reasons for putting your own health, and the health of your child, in jeopardy.
Would any average woman do what she did? If you were going into pre-term labor, a month early, at 44, with a Down's syndrome baby, would you wait 15 hours before going to the hospital, including getting on a plane for an 8-hour trip? Furthermore, if you DID do such a thing, wouldn't it be reasonable to say you were acting selfishly, rashly, and without good judgment?
There are many reasons to be uncomfortable with the selection of Palin as a VP candidate - the primary of which is her profound inexperience. This situation simply adds another black mark to her record - a record that has very little of quality to someone who is not a gun-toting, pro-life, anti-environmentalist.
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