Ecumenical Insanity

Saturday, March 6th

Calling Ms. Language Person

Diane Ravitch, author of the book The Language Police, had a terrific column at OpinionJournal last month about the creeping totalitarianism of, you guessed it, the language police:

So here is how New York made itself an international joke. The state's guidelines to language sensitivity, citing Rosalie Maggio's "The Bias-Free Wordfinder," says: "We may not always understand why a certain word hurts. We don't have to. It is enough that someone says, 'That language doesn't respect me.'" That is, if any word or phrase is likely to give anyone offense, no matter how far-fetched, it should be deleted.

Next the state asked: "Is it necessary to make reference to a person's age, ancestry, disability, ethnicity, nationality, physical appearance, race, religion, sex, sexuality?" Since the answer is frequently no, nearly all references to such characteristics are eliminated. Because these matters loom large in history and literature--and because they help us to understand character, life circumstances and motives--their silent removal is bound to weaken or obliterate the reader's understanding.

Like every other governmental agency concerned with testing, the New York State Education Department devised its own list of taboo words. There are the usual ones that have offended feminists for a generation, like "fireman," "authoress," "handyman" and "hostess." New York exercised its leadership by discovering bias in such words as "addict" (replace with "individual with a drug addiction"); "alumna, alumnae, alumni, alumnus" (replace with "graduate or graduates"); "American" (replace with "citizen of the United States or North America"); "cancer patient" (replace with "a patient with cancer"); "city fathers" (replace with "city leaders")....

New York identified as biased such male-based words as "masterpiece" and "mastery." Among the other words singled out for extinction were white collar, blue collar, pink collar, teenager, senior citizen, third world, uncivilized, underprivileged, unmarried, widow or widower, and yes man. The goal, naturally, is to remove words that identify people by their gender, age, race, social position or marital status.

Thus the great irony of bias and sensitivity reviewing. It began with the hope of encouraging diversity, ensuring that our educational materials would include people of different experiences and social backgrounds. It has evolved into a bureaucratic system that removes all evidence of diversity and reduces everyone to interchangeable beings whose differences we must not learn about--making nonsense of literature and history along the way.

When my wife taught school, she'd occasionally have one child complain about another, "He's lookin' at me! Tell him to stop lookin' at me!" Ms. Ravitch's work is an indication that we are becoming a society dominated by, as well as bullied by, 10-year-olds. I'm all for avoiding unnecessary offense in writing and speech, but when are people going to grow up and realize that they don't have a right to not be offended?
Athanasius on 03.06.04 @ 03:39 PM EST [link]

Potential paradise or hell?

Those who think that life on the West Bank would be akin to paradise if only the Israelis would get out need to start listening to some courageous Palestinian voices. For instance, Basem 'Eid, founder and director of the east-Jerusalem based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, wrote in the left-wing Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in January:

We all know that...gunmen threaten and spread fear among the Palestinians. Last October 22, Ghaleb al-Faroukh, 46, a Palestinian civilian, was killed by two Palestinian gunmen, while he was on his way to Sa'ir in Hebron to shop. On the following day, Majid Zein, 46, another Palestinian civilian, was also killed by three gunmen in the same area, and on October 28, another Palestinian civilian called Fakhri el-Masri was gunned down and killed by two Palestinians in Salfit near Nablus.

The question is: What Palestinian interior minister would dare punish those responsible? Would the Palestinian interior minister be killed if he imposed a penalty upon them?

In Tulkarem, the Al-Aqsa Brigades direct and manage the city's civil and security life. They threaten, beat, and kill. On October 23, 12 unemployed gunmen who joined the Al-Aqsa Brigades killed Muhammad Hilal, 22, and Samer Ofeh, 23, in the street because they were so-called collaborators.

Nablus is ruled by two armed illiterate thugs. These two people are feared by the population and control the civil life of the city. This is an example of an unacceptable situation where a city is governed by ignorant people who are experts only in spreading fear among civilians...

The emergency government has completely disregarded the security and safety issues of the Palestinian people. They have neglected security issues and ignored the political, social, and economic issues. The explosion that targeted the American convoy in Gaza on October 15 was a red light to the Palestinian people to reconstruct the security system. Who can reconstruct it now, and who can control the thugs that violate the security system?

Thanks to MEMRI for the translation.
Athanasius on 03.06.04 @ 03:38 PM EST [link]

Friday, March 5th

And now...the 60s

An Australian Anglican clergyman has broken through the time barrier. Using technology developed by the crew of the starship Enterprise, the Rev. Mike Nixon has traveled back to the 1960s and made a wonderful discovery: sex!!!

A senior Territory churchman stunned his congregation by telling them it's OK for unmarried couples to live together.

Mike Nixon, dean of the Anglican Christchurch Cathedral in Darwin, said sex before marriage--one of the church's greatest taboos--could strengthen bonds between couples.

He said society had changed greatly since the writing of the Old Testament and modern science now offered safe ways for couples to have sexual relations.

Thanks for the news update, Mike. It's true that its news from 1964, but better late than never. Nothing like a well-informed cleric, I always say.

"Many people have rejected the church's teachings as irrelevant to modern society, especially on issues of contraception and its very conservative approach to sexual relationships," he said.

Some folks reject the gospel's teaching on holiness, so of course we should just jettison that teaching. What could be simpler? Never let it be said that Mike lacks the courage of his convictions.

"The church is perceived by the world to be down on sex, even against it. This is totally wrong.

"We must see sex as one of God's greatest gifts to the human race for enjoyment, for the deepening of human relationships and--when planned--for having children.

"With modern contraceptive methods people certainly do not need to commit themselves to having children.

Because children are bothersome, smelly, time-consuming, costly, dumb, demanding, and just all-around unpleasant. Oh yeah, and they eat too much. But that shouldn't stop us from having a good time.

"It's time for the church to re-think its whole approach towards aspects of sexuality in light of what I think is God's gift to us--modern science and knowledge."

Dr. Nixon said many couples today were not marrying until their late 20s or early 30s.

He said sexual drive made staying a virgin until this age "almost unnatural."

"The sexual urge is a God-given drive to continue God's creation and it's one of the most powerful drives after thirst and hunger," he said.

But Mike--you told us that we didn't have to continue God's creation! You told us! We could just shack up and let creation take care of itself. Doncha remember, Mike?

"To put a clamp on it until you are 25 or 30, as we are asking modern people to do, is almost unnatural."

And it hurts, too.

And in a sermon recently he said unmarried couples living together were not "living in sin" but rather "growing in love."

He believes couples should live together before marrying to assess whether they are capable of living together.

"How you brush your teeth, whether you are able to cook and clean properly, whether you are considerate of the other person--these things do not come up so easily in courting situations but they come up very clearly and quickly when a couple starts living together," he said.

That's true. My wife thought I was a Neanderthal until we started living together, then she found out that I'm really a nice guy. And she wouldn't have married me until she knew how I brush my teeth (I do it with steel wool, and that gave her a bit of a turn, but she got used to it).

You know, if I tried to make stuff like this up, I'd feel like I was trapped in a Wayans brothers movie. As it is, Mike's congregation is.
Athanasius on 03.05.04 @ 09:28 PM EST [link]

Some people still don't get it

I guess if you mindlessly repeat something often enough, it becomes a habit that not even reality can disturb. That would explain this statement from the American Friends Service Committee in an article on their Web site about a speaking tour by two of their representatives who have been in Iraq lately:

Iraqis suffered for more than two decades under Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party. The thirteen years of UN-imposed economic sanctions caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, destroyed the economy and infrastructure, and dangerously isolated Iraq from the world community. A legacy of sanctions is a generation of children denied an education, robbing them of an opportunity for a richer life, a legacy which will challenge Iraq and the world for years to come.

AFSC is one of the organizations that tried for years to convince the world that sanctions were ruining Iraq, rather than Saddam Hussein. Since the invasion, of course, it has been revealed that billions of dollars of Oil-for-Food money was doled out to "friends of Saddam" in various European governments and businesses. Even by the UN's bookkeeping (which makes Arthur Anderson looks saintly), Saddam received at least $48 billion between 1996 and early 2003 that was supposed to go to provide food and medical supplies to the Iraqi people, and instead largely went to pay for various, shall we say, non-necessities. In short, sanctions weren't the problem, Saddam and his Ba'ath cronies were the problem, pure and simple, but will the AFSC ever find the honesty and humility to admit it was wrong? You see the evidence.

Under US occupation, Iraqis struggle with new violence and a lack of security unheard of in recent years. Electricity functions sporadically while 50 to 70 percent of the workforce unemployed. An estimated 9,000 to 15,000 people are in prison, many without charge, while family members search to find them and wives are left to provide for their families.

Yes, Iraqis surely were safer and more secure as long as the thugocracy was in charge. Fewer Iraqis have died in the last year as a result of terrorism than in most months in Saddam's prisons. And we'd better call in Johnny Cochran to help out the poor Ba'athists who are in jail without charges, even though chances are none of them will be put through shredders while they're there. Oh, and about the electricity--that was back to pre-war levels last August; I guess no one at AFSC reads the newspapers.

It's a pity. The AFSC once won a Nobel Peace Prize for its humanitarian work. Now it offers apologetics for dictators.
Athanasius on 03.05.04 @ 03:34 PM EST [link]

Thursday, March 4th

Nobel must have gone to his head

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa is known the world over as a man with a finely honed sense of justice, based on his experience under apartheid. Unfortunately, he doesn't always know when a situation does not resemble apartheid, and then says things like this:

But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic, as if the Palestinians were not Semitic. I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures?

People are scared in this country [the US]; to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful--very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.

I'm glad to know that Abp. Tutu isn't anti-white, even though whites as a group are insane. I do wonder about his own sanity when he compares the "Jewish lobby" with Adolf and the boys. But after all, Abp. Tutu lives in a moral universe where Israel is South Africa, those who use the democratic system to support a besieged democracy are murdering totalitarians, and he can never, ever be accused of being anti-Semitic, or even anti-Jewish. What a wonderful world...

(Thanks to the Blithering Idiot for the link.)
Athanasius on 03.04.04 @ 10:01 PM EST [link]

Ixnay on the romiscuitypay

The Institute on Religion and Democracy has done it again, unearthing a quote from a gay rights activist who has wandered off the reservation:

I'm also perhaps Pollyannaish enough to believe that we may, in fact, help move the state perspective on marriage by virtue of our inclusion towards a much broader, much more capacious view. I'm thinking even of the fact of monogamy, which is both one of the pillars of heterosexual marriage and perhaps its key source of trauma. Could it be that the inclusion of lesbian and gay same-sex marriage may, in fact, sort of de-center the notion of monogamy and allow the prospect that marriage need not be an exclusive sexual relationship among people? I think it's possible....I would never five years ago have defined myself as an advocate of marriage. In fact, the very institution smacked of precisely that which I lived my life in opposition to. But because it has cohered as perhaps the litmus test of civil rights now, because it carries real social benefits, and because I think it perhaps furthers the uncoupling of the state and the church in this country, which I thought was promised in our Constitution, then I'm all for it."

That's Jonathan Katz, Executive Coordinator of the Larry Kramer Initiative & Lesbian & Gay Studies, Yale University, and a man who obviously doesn't know when to shut up in the presence of reporters.
Athanasius on 03.04.04 @ 07:18 PM EST [link]

Pay attention, please

Part of the problem with a lot of reaction to The Passion is that many critics chose to simply ignore whatever inconveniently got in the way of their negative reaction. Mary Gordon, writing in the New York Times, provides an example:

It is true that the Roman flagellators are portrayed as viciously sadistic, but there are two good Romans, Pilate and Claudia, to add a counterweight to our understanding of Romanness. There is no counterweight to the portrayal of the Jews.

Pilate, of course, is not a good Roman; while he only hits Jesus once, his concern for his own hide is central, not a concern for justice. The more interesting thing is the second comment. Was Gordon in the lobby whenever Jesus' mother, Mary Magdalene, John, Simon of Cyrene appeared? During Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin, two different Jewish characters (one of whom was, I think, supposed to be Nicodemus) denounce the proceedings as unjust or worse. And the woman who offers Jesus a cup of water along the via dolorosa is also Jewish. Gordon would no doubt say that they all pale in comparison to Caiaphas, but that's simply making a choice to ignore the positive Jewish characters who are central to the story.

The Passion is much more complex than a lot of folks have given it credit for. Critics need to take a second look--this time for the stuff they missed the first time around.
Athanasius on 03.04.04 @ 04:19 PM EST [link]

Who said this?

Test your constitutional law IQ:

"Our Constitution, a sacred document—you know, our forefathers knew what they were doing. This wasn't a rough draft. And let's not try to continually do amendments to it as we move forward. I would like the states to make the decisions on what they think is right in their individual state. It shouldn't be up to the federal government."

The states rights emphasis sounds like George Wallace or Lester Maddox. The reluctance to amend sounds like a strict constructionist, certainly a constitutional conservative–Antonin Scalia, perhaps, or Robert Bork. So who said this?

Constitutional lawyer and professional bag-man Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who obviously prefers that the Constitution be amended by judges (Roe v. Wade, etc.) than by democratic process.

Thanks to Jonah Goldberg of NRO for the tip.
Athanasius on 03.04.04 @ 04:18 PM EST [link]

Moving here!

Having finally gotten tired of Blogger's limitations, I've decided to strike out on my own. EI will soon be moving to a new address:

http://www.ecumenicalinsanity.net

I'm still playing with the look, and I haven't figured out yet how to put an automatic redirect on this page to that one, so I'll be posting on both for at least a few days, if not more. But feel free to take a look at the new location and offer any comments or suggestions on look and feel that you think would be helpful.
Athanasius on 03.04.04 @ 11:31 AM EST [link]

And now, the answer to an age-old question

As a finalist in the "King of the Blogs" competition, I have the honor of answering this challenge question: "how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?"

I know that you've all been wondering this; in fact, you've spent the better part of your lives seeking the answer to this question. Among the seekers after this esoteric knowledge are certain otherwise unknown denizens of the Department of Agriculture, who in their intense need to know commissioned a $612 million study, carried out by the Universities of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and every other state where woodchucks are found. Dozens of zoologists, botanists, environmental engineers, economists, statisticians, and athletic directors spent thousands of man-hours delving into the secrets of woodchucks--what they do to have fun, how they prepare meals, who they see for dental work, where they buy their aspirin, the whole ball of wax. Finally, when the research was done, a highly classified report, running to over 12,000 pages, was deposited with the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, who of course signed off on it and passed it along to the President. The Commander-in-Chief was fascinated by the report, being a big fan of woodchucks, and ordered it distributed to every federal agency for action. Most used it for scrap paper, but the Pentagon, seeing a potential for a new weapons system, gave it to their specialists in rodent-based warfare. Fortunately for a world in need of an answer, the Pentagon leaks like a sieve, and so now it can be told. (DRUMROLL......) How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

47

Now, don't you feel better?
Athanasius on 03.04.04 @ 02:33 AM EST [link]