Out of control?

Our power went out Tuesday night. My son was at his dad's house-they also lost power, but a bit later. Sian and I got out the candles, ate our corn (all that I had cooked before the electricity went) and salad in the dining room, and watched the wind bend the tops of the big trees in the back near the private road. I had rarely seen a storm that fierce, nor rain that violent. When the storm subsided, we decided to take a drive around the neighborhood. We had the insane thought that we might find a place to buy ice cream. In our defense (ok, not much of a defense, officer), we were clueless as to how powerful the storm had been. I learned later that the town where we live had some of the highest wind gusts in the area... they clocked hurricane force winds of more than 70 miles an hour. It wasn't too long before we discovered that the storm damage was much greater than we thought. Tree branches had fallen throughout Glenmoore and made driving difficult, if not impossible. The fire company had gone out before us, their sirens blasting down Fairview Road. We ran into them around Little Conestoga near the creek, and were forced to turn around and drive back. If we'd been truly intelligent (if I had been truly intelligent) we would not have gone out in the first place. The next two days were spent throwing vegetables and fish into the trash, finding creative places to take showers (not that creative, don't get your hopes up) and trying to maintain some semblance of a normal routine. Blessings on the friends who took us in on Wednesday night and gave us an air conditioned, peaceful refuge. In the suburbs, we were hit hard, which makes sense when you think that there are many more trees out here in the boonies. From what I read, the storm took out a power line here and a tree there, damaging substations all over the area, which made it impossible to fix the problem at any one source. So the crews (some of them workers who volunteered to come in from neighboring states!) worked (and are perhaps still working) 16 hour days to restore power to towns like mine. Running my usual route yesterday, I noticed many trees uprooted, and branches sheared from the trunk...and I wondered: who is paying attention? What are the climatologists thinking about this tropical summer here on the East Coast? What of the heat wave seizing Europe, where few families have air-conditioning? Will we look at this summer as the beginning of the end of normal? Alternately furious and curious, I wondered what those of us with children and grandchildren could or would do to stop the seemingly inevitable incursion of global warming. The one thing I will not allow myself is hopelessness and a sense of inevitability.

Where exactly is one of the world's biggest countries?

"In the taped conversation Mr. Bush, clearly eager to get home to the White House after six days in Europe, is heard saying, apparently to a counterpart, possibly President Hu Jintao of China, who was sitting next to him, “Good job, gotta keep this thing moving — I gotta leave at 2:15 — you’ll want me out of town so to free up your security forces.” The voice that appears to be that of Mr. Hu agrees, “Ya,” and he laughs along with Mr. Bush’s trademark giggle.
But Mr. Bush sighs, and explains, “Gotta go home, got something to do.” Apparently betraying some confusion about the geography of Europe and Asia, he asks: “Where you going? Home? This is your neighborhood; it won’t take you long to get home.”
The counterpart, perhaps Mr. Hu, cannot be heard as he responds, but Mr. Bush exclaims, “You get home in 8 hours? Me too! Russia is a big country, and you’re a big country.”
A moment later, Mr. Bush can be heard saying to a waiter, “No, not Coke, Diet Coke.”
But it is around then that Mr. Blair walks by, and the president yells out, “Yeah, Blair, what are you doing? Leaving?”" New York Times, July 17
I have to admit that the first time I read the account of what George Bush said (presumably he didn't realize the microphone was on) I chuckled. There is something absurd about the idea that the leader of the world's largest democracy would not know that China wasn't near Germany, or even in the "neighborhood". Why, by the way, would he say to President Hu Jintao of China that when Bush left town that would free up his security forces.
Perhaps President Bush actually thought he was in China, not Europe.
Somehow, however, I don't find all of this too amusing. The exchange displays Bush as ignorant, bombastic, and profane-are these qualities we want in a President? In addition, his gung-ho approach to diplomacy seems obscene when hundreds of civilians a week die in Iraq, and families are being slaughtered in Lebanon, while the infrastructure of that new democracy is torn apart. Yes, I feel for the Israelis, and I understand why they felt that they had to retaliate against Hezbollah's attacks. Their citizens are also terrified, the victims of a gang of terrorists who want to run them out of the land that they fought for. Yet their overkill (literally) approach is that of an elephant trampling a mouse. And their wanton disregard for human life mocks a civilized nation's respect for the human rights of noncombatants. Have we heard President Bush express any but a token regard for the lives that are being lost in Beirut? Has he read what rwe read, as in this excerpt from another article in the Times: At the Amel Hospital, Dr. Ali Mroue took stock of what he had seen in recent days: decapitated bodies, severe burns, disfigured faces. The hospital has lost 25 patients, he said, but saved 100.
But most of all, he lamented the death of a 2-year-old girl, whom he tried desperately to save. She had severe burns on half her body, internal bleeding and her eyes were perforated, but she fought to live, he said.
“She was a mere child,” he said, as his voice cracked. “She had nothing to do with this. Maybe you can accept the death of an adult, but she had so much ahead of her.’’ The man who weeps at the death of a child can be forgiven much. A man who confuses China with Switzerland belongs on a weekday comedy show, not in most powerful seat at the world's table. Give the guy Pepsi. He deserves it.

Old South/ New South

I come from a family of middle-class intellectuals who didn't care a lot about material wealth, but chose to roam, picking up ideas and people instead of staying at home and raking in the bucks. My maternal grandmother and grandfather flew to Mexico and South America in the depths of the Depression, bringing back blankets, silver and a cosmopolitan attitude that has served future generations well in this global world. Hopping a flight to Europe was a treat, but not remarkable-grandma, by then a widow, came to see us when we spent a year in Italy. After all, she and grandpa had survived a shipwreck, the sinking of the Mauretania. Besides, she didn't scare easy, that one. Dad's parents journey from Russia was just as intrepid. But I suspect that though there were some things they missed about the home country, they weren't eager to return to take pictures and eat the local cuisine. My dad and mom took us to Italy for a year when I was in second grade. We lived in Bologna, where my sister and I went to a Montessori school ( my brother, who was two or three, was doted on by the Italians, who seem to love children), and I struggled to learn the fundamentals of Italian-which I never mastered. Although I don't have the money or the time to travel much, some instinct kicks in when someone offers me a chance to hit the road and learn something new...even when that place is the heart of North Carolina's furniture-selling industry! Thanks to the generosity of a friend, who needed to furnish a home she and her husband are buying, I recently came back from a couple of days in the Piedmont area. That middle area of North Carolina, between the beach and the mountains, doesn't offer the spectacular terrain of the Smokies or the beauty of the Outer Banks. Yet the stories it tells are probably as compelling in some ways. High Point is apparently the furniture capital of the US. When we drove through it that first day, we were struck immediately by the poverty surrounding the fancy furniture stores. Inside the buildings, some of the stores were empty, and outside, in the scorching Southern heat, the streets were quiet. Many businesses had moved out to the surburbs, which are growing like crazy. Apparently that area around Greensboro is still bringing in businesses, as the furniture and textile mills have outsourced manufacturing overseas. Walking through that city one evening, we strolled past the boarded-up Woolworths where the students had their famous sit-in at the lunch counter during the early Civil Rights years. Kris noticed that there appeared to be some kind of work going on inside to renovate the old store. I wondered how many Greensboro residents still remembered those days. There may be racism still beneath the placid surface, but Greensboro, Durham and Raleigh seem to be well integrated towns. And there are other benefits to living in this cosmopolitan part of the South. The cost of living is much lower than in the East. The people we met were lovely. There's a lot to be said for courtesy and warmth. I have to admit that part of me was disappointed that we didn't have time to visit any monuments or see any battlefields. With that explained, you might see why, when we visited Raleigh the last day we were there, I was hot on the trail of the "Old South." I dragged Kris to an historic house billed as a "plantation"...the plantation part had been sold years ago, but the house was lovely. Raleigh is a fascinating city, and well worth a lengthy visit sometime. We just had time to take a bus tour, and to drive by the Capitol building. As we drove by I saw a monument to "our Confederate dead" and discovered that North Carolina debated secession in that very building. Given that we didn't have a lot of excess time, we couldn't get out and visit the Capitol. I would have to be satisfied with our taste of Southern life and the statues mute testimony that, 150 years ago, that city was not as much of a civilized haven for people of all colors as it seems now. Oh, in case you are wondering what happened to the birthplace of Andrew Johnson? He was the only other President to be impeached, apparently over a debate about Reconstruction. It's been moved. It now resides near the Mordecai plantation, where it offers the visitor a hint that it is never fair to judge a man by whether he was impeached or not. In some cases, it might actually have turned out to be a badge of honor. I must learn more about President Johnson!

Listening critically to the emergents

I drove by a lot of congregations in my quest to find the right one for my family. I was looking for some very specific qualities in a church: a contemporary service, an orthodox but non-ideological bent (I am fed up with church dogfights), some form of eucharistic observance, and a pastor who isn't power hungry. I don't think I'm alone in having, to put it crassly, a shopping list.. As idiosyncratic as is my story, in some ways it exemplifies the plight of modern mainline denominations. After all, it is people like me, and people a lot younger, that American churches are trying to reach. Folks like me who have been burned by church politics, or men and women (and teens) who have never been involved in church at all, because it's never had much to say to them. They want a safe place to ask questions. They want a service that is both meaningful and relevant. They would like to be able to trust the leaders of these congreations. And they want to be part of a group that makes a real difference in the world, and doesn't just talk about doing it. It may be that the new generation of Protestant leaders gets this. If they do, it's in part because of the work of people like Brian McClaren and Rob Bell. McClaren, a pastor of a church outside Washington, DC and author of books like "The Church on the Other Side" (should be required reading for church planters) is one of the leaders of the so-called "emergent church" movement. Bell, who is much younger, is the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church outside of Grand Rapids. This summer he, his wife and two sons are touring the country with his own unique way of getting an old message across to new generations. Here's part of the recent story on Bell in the NYT: "At the Logan Square Auditorium here one recent night, Rob Bell arrived in a rock band tour bus and strode past posters for Cheap Sex, a punk band performing at the hall later this summer. Following a T-shirted bouncer through the sold-out crowd of about 450, Mr. Bell hopped onto the stage.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and earth," he began, without introduction. "Now, it's a very old book."
This, Mr. Bell believes, is what church can look like. For the hall's bartenders, it was the start of a slow night.
Mr. Bell, 35, is the pastor and founder of Mars Hill Bible Church, an independent evangelical congregation in Grandville, Mich., outside Grand Rapids. The church has a weekly attendance of 10,000 and meets in a former mall.
His performance here was the first in a monthlong tour of 21 cities — joined by one roadie, a whiteboard and his wife and two sons — taking him to venues usually presenting rock bands. His 100-minute talk, billed as "Everything Is Spiritual," features no music or film clips, no sound other than his voice and the squeak of his marker, filling the board with Hebrew characters, diagrams, biblical interpretation and numbers.
He wore black pants and shirt, and spoke with the awed enthusiasm of someone describing a U2 concert, moving from a gee-whiz discussion of physics to questions of how God might move in other dimensions, like those discovered by mathematical string theorists.
"When you get to the subatomic level, everything we know about the basic makeup of the universe falls apart," he told the audience. "They use phrases like 'we don't know.' So high-end quantum physicists are starting to sound like ancient Jewish poets."
For Mr. Bell, who in past summers has spoken at giant Christian music festivals, the tour is an opportunity to talk at length to an audience that may not already be in the evangelical tent, about ideas too discursive for sermons.
"I just thought, What are the places my brother and I like to go to?" he explained. "And it's nightclubs and places where bands play. That's where people go to hear ideas in our culture."
The Chicago audience had come from throughout the Midwest to see a figure many knew from the new media of evangelical outreach. Though Mr. Bell does not preach on Christian television and radio, his innovative series of short films called Nooma (a phonetic spelling of the Greek "pneuma," or "spirit") has sold more than 500,000 DVD's in four years, and podcasts of his sermons are downloaded by 30,000 to 56,000 people a week. His book, "Velvet Elvis," which combines memoir with an exploration of the Jewish traditions in the New Testament, has sold 116,000 copies in hardcover since last July.
"Rob Bell is a central figure for his generation and for the way that evangelicals are likely to do church in the next 20 years," said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today magazine. "He occupies a centrist place that is very appealing, committed to the basic evangelical doctrines but incredibly creative in his reinterpretive style." Even those of us who love liturgy, mysticism and tradition need to be paying attention to the Rob Bells and Brian McLarens. They've pilfered some of the best of the Catholic tradition (presence and mystery and communion) and spiced it up with hip cultural vocabulary , while rooting it in a very traditional understanding of the Good News. I don't know if high end physicists are sounding like Jewish poets. But I do believe that unless find creative ways to honor the hunger of new generations, we in the mainline churches will soon be guarding museums instead of the faith.

Why parents don't sleep :-)

Last night's comedy of errors began about an hour after I went to sleep. Naturally, I'd crept into bed later than I meant to. That's often true for parents, because we don't want the coda to our evening to be cleaning up the kitchen, packing the kid's lunches, and brushing our teeth. Why not have a little fun buying gardening tools online or watching reruns on the Discovery Channel (I hope your life is more exciting)? About an hour after I'd finally fallen asleep, Sian appeared at my door. Apparently a beetle had gone into her bed, crept onto her blanket, and was now deceased. I hate touching bugs, but, in the hierarchy of parent and child, this job usually falls to the serf (the one who has to get up first and needs their sleep the most). Bleary-eyed, I stumbled to my feet, armed myself with a paper towel, and disposed of not one, but two dead insects in her room. Ordering her to sleep, without delay, I went back to bed. As I was finally about to slip back into slumber, she reappeared. Still resistant to what I sensed would be the natural outcome of these apparitions, I told her to read until she was tired. Mirabile dictu, she picked up a book on her required summer reading list, and went back to bed. An hour after that, I was once again awakened. "Mom, I've been reading, and I still can't sleep." At this point I gave in, and allowed her to curl up on my bed. Why the parent's bed has such a mystical attraction for children is beyond me, but I was reasonably confident that we'd both get a couple of hours of shut-eye before the alarm went off. However, at this point, my son opened the door. The poor kid hadn't gotten a word out before I said irately that there was no way he was sleeping in my bed, Sian was here already and I needed to get some rest. "I'm so sorry, I just wanted to use the bathroom," he apologized (why he needs to use my bathroom when he's got a perfectly good one across the hall is another mystery). Colin returned to his room, Sian went to sleep, and silence reigned. I decided to get up and make sure things in the household were organized (who knows why? I was now wide awake) before I, too, tried to capture a few moments of rest. Opening the door to the bedroom, I hit the cat on the head. Attracted by all of opening and shutting doors, she had awakened and decided that she, too, had a need for attention. Fortunately, she didn't appear to hold it against me. So here I am, in the afternooon, finally wide awake. Only three and a half more hours before the darlings return. I wonder what pleasures tonight will bring!

Why parents don't sleep :-)

Last night's comedy of errors began about an hour after I went to sleep. Naturally, I'd crept into bed later than I meant to. That's often true for parents, because we don't want the coda to our evening to be cleaning up the kitchen, packing the kid's lunches, and brushing our teeth. Why not have a little fun buying gardening tools online or watching reruns on the Discovery Channel (I hope your life is more exciting)? About an hour after I'd finally fallen asleep, Sian appeared at my door. Apparently a beetle had gone into her bed, crept onto her blanket, and was now deceased. I hate touching bugs, but, in the hierarchy of parent and child, this job usually falls to the serf (the one who has to get up first and needs their sleep the most). Bleary-eyed, I stumbled to my feet, armed myself with a paper towel, and disposed of not one, but two dead insects in her room. Ordering her to sleep, without delay, I went back to bed. As I was finally about to slip back into slumber, she reappeared. Still resistant to what I sensed would be the natural outcome of these apparitions, I told her to read until she was tired. Mirabile dictu, she picked up a book on her required summer reading list, and went back to bed. An hour after that, I was once again awakened. "Mom, I've been reading, and I still can't sleep." At this point I gave in, and allowed her to curl up on my bed. Why the parent's bed has such a mystical attraction for children is beyond me, but I was reasonably confident that we'd both get a couple of hours of shut-eye before the alarm went off. However, at this point, my son opened the door. The poor kid hadn't gotten a word out before I said irately that there was no way he was sleeping in my bed, Sian was here already and I needed to get some rest. "I'm so sorry, I just wanted to use the bathroom," he apologized (why he needs to use my bathroom when he's got a perfectly good one across the hall is another mystery). Colin returned to his room, Sian went to sleep, and silence reigned. I decided to get up and make sure things in the household were organized (who knows why? I was now wide awake) before I, too, tried to capture a few moments of rest. Opening the door to the bedroom, I hit the cat on the head. Attracted by all of opening and shutting doors, she had awakened and decided that she, too, had a need for attention. Fortunately, she didn't appear to hold it against me. So here I am, in the afternooon, finally wide awake. Only three and a half more hours before the darlings return. I wonder what pleasures tonight will bring!

Judicial Balderdash

Whoever thought that this Supreme Court would make Justice Anthony Kennedy, with his nuanced and restrained decisions, look like a liberal? As Adam Cohen so convincingly demonstates (case by case) in the article below from the New York Times, John Roberts, who just finished his first term as Chief Justice, apparently likes judicial modesty mostly when it suits his conservative temperament. The gall of conservatives who rail against "judicial activism" is astonishing. But liberals who critique this type of conservative rhetoric have little reason to feel above it all. The "lefties" on the court-Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg, also tend to come up with arguments that resemble those of the liberal political establishment (to which they presumably belong-Justice Souter being the mystery man here). As one who was disgusted with the Supreme Courts intervention in the 2000 election, I would like to be able to argue with a clear conscience that the Supreme Court should be, as the third branch of government, above partisanship. But since it clearly isn't (anyone wish to defend the Warren Court as non-partisan?), and since right now I don't want it be, I just cheer everytime they restrain the overreaching of an Administration which apparently has little respect for its own defenders in Congress and almost none for anybody else. Purity is a nicety that can be saved for the next administration.

July 9, 2006
Editorial Observer
What Chief Justice Roberts Forgot in His First Term: Judicial Modesty
By ADAM COHEN
At the confirmation hearings for John Roberts, there were two theories about what kind of a chief justice he would be. His critics maintained that he was an extreme conservative whose politics would drive his legal rulings. Judge Roberts, on the other hand, insisted that he was "not an ideologue," and that his judicial philosophy was to be "modest," which he defined as recognizing that judges should "decide the cases before them" and not try to legislate or "execute the laws."
Judicial modesty is an intriguing idea, with appeal across the political spectrum. For all the talk of liberal activist judges, anyone who is paying attention knows that conservative judges are every bit as activist as liberal ones; they just act for different reasons. A truly modest chief justice could be more deferential to the decisions of the democratically elected branches of government, both liberal and conservative, and perhaps even usher in a new, post-ideological era on the court.
That is not, however, how Chief Justice Roberts voted in his first term. He was modest in some cases, certainly, but generally ones in which criminal defendants, Democrats and other parties conservatives dislike were asking for something. When real estate developers, wealthy campaign contributors and other powerful parties wanted help, he was more inclined to support judicial action, even if it meant trampling on Congress and the states.
The term's major environmental ruling was a striking case in point. A developer sued when the Army Corps of Engineers denied him a permit to build on what it determined to be protected wetlands. The corps is under the Defense Department, ultimately part of an elected branch, and it was interpreting the Clean Water Act, passed by the other elected branch. Courts are supposed to give an enormous amount of deference to agencies' interpretations of the statutes they are charged with enforcing.
But Chief Justice Roberts did not defer. He joined a stridently anti-environmentalist opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia that sided with the developer and mocked the corps's interpretation of the law — an interpretation four justices agreed with — as "beyond parody." The opinion also complained that the corps's approach was too costly. Justice John Paul Stevens dryly noted that whether benefits outweighed costs was a policy question that "should not be answered by appointed judges."
In an opinion on assisted suicide, Chief Justice Roberts was again a conservative activist. The case involved Attorney General John Ashcroft's attempt to invoke an irrelevant federal statute to block Oregon's assisted suicide law, which the state's voters had adopted by referendum. Even though it meant overruling the voters, intruding on state sovereignty and mangling the words of a federal statute, Chief Justice Roberts dissented to support Mr. Ashcroft's position.
Chief Justice Roberts voted against another democratically enacted, progressive law when the court struck down Vermont's strict limits on campaign contributions. He joined an opinion that not only held that the law violated the First Amendment, but also engaged in the kind of fine judicial line-drawing — in this case, about the precise dollar limits the Constitution allows states to impose — that is often considered a hallmark of judicial activism.
One of the court's most nakedly activist undertakings in recent years is the series of hoops it has forced Congress to jump through when it passes laws that apply to the states. Judge John Noonan Jr., a federal appeals court judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has complained that the justices have set themselves up as the overseers of Congress. But Chief Justice Roberts voted to put up yet another hoop, requiring Congress to put the states on "clear notice" — whatever that means — before requiring them to pay for expert witnesses in lawsuits involving special education. It is a made-up rule that shows little respect for the people's representatives.
These cases make Chief Justice Roberts seem like a raging judicial activist. But in cases where conservative actions were being challenged, he was quite the opposite. When a whistle-blower in the Los Angeles district attorney's office claimed he was demoted for speaking out, Chief Justice Roberts could find no First Amendment injury. When Democrats challenged Republicans' partisan gerrymandering of Texas's Congressional districts, he could find no basis for interceding.
The Roberts court's first term was not radically conservative, but only because Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing justice, steered it on a centrist path. If Chief Justice Roberts — who voted with Justice Scalia a remarkable 88 percent of the time in nonunanimous cases — had commanded a majority, it would have been an ideologically driven court that was both highly conservative and just about as activist as it needed to be to get the results it wanted.
Chief Justice Roberts still probably views himself as judicially modest, and in some ways he may be. He has been reasonably respectful of precedent, notably when he provided a fifth vote to uphold Buckley v. Valeo, a critically important campaign finance decision that is under attack from the right. He has also been inclined to decide cases narrowly, rather than to issue sweeping judicial pronouncements. But at his confirmation hearings, he defined judicial modesty as not usurping the legislative and executive roles.
His approach to his new job is no doubt still evolving, which could be a good thing. The respect for the elected branches that he invoked while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee is hardly a perfect judicial philosophy, especially today, when we need the court to resist the president's dangerous view of his own power. Still, that principled approach would do more for the court and the nation than the predictable arch-conservatism the chief justice's opinions have shown so far.