Book Review!

Yesterday I finished The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon. Great book! In this book, Chabon aspired to combine the genres of noir police thriller, redemptive love story, and religio-political critique. He did admirably well on all three fronts. It is the story of Meyer Landsman, a faithless, self-destructive, but talented Jewish shammes (detective). He reminds me of the jilted Rick Blaine who goes on a bender when Ilsa Laszlo walks into his Casablanca gin joint. However, Meyer and his ex-wife are imagined in a parallel universe. It is 2008, but the Jews lost the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the flood of Jews heading for Palestine ended up settling for rainier pastures in the Alaskan panhandle, turning backwater Sitka into a metropolis of 3 million.

Since getting together, Alexis and I have read many of the same books as a way of keeping on the same page relationally. Let’s see: East of Eden, Gilead, Carter Beats the Devil, Pilgrim’s Regress, Wise Blood, The Violent Bear it Away, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?, The Mystery of Marriage, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and A Million Miles and a Thousand Years just to name them all. Although I recommend this for any married couple that can find books agreeable to both parties, I would have been interested in reading these books anyway. A couple of people have recently expressed surprise that I read fiction at all, I suppose because they had me pegged as a wanna-be-know-it-all who spends all his time trying to get the facts straight. Although I do have a healthy appreciation for a set of facts whittled to a fine point, I have always felt there is something more valuable, though less quantifiable, about good stories. The blunt edges of a story can’t always go straight to the heart of a matter, but can be useful for a wider variety of life-essential tasks than simply piercing falsehoods or skewering other people’s arguments. As with many things in this world, the things that most benefit us are not always the things for which we can track the benefits most easily. Neither the most important things in your life nor the most dangerous can easily be recorded as debits and credits in the ledger of your well-being.

Not only do I think this is a good book, but I would recommend it to anyone who has achieved a tenth grade reading level. It has something for everyone: action, intrigue, love, philosophy, religion, and it will help you brush up on your Yiddish. It struck me while reading it, that it could make a great movie. I just looked it up and apparently the Coen brothers think so too. The movie is in pre-production.

One thing the movie won’t be able to capture is how well Chabon crafts his metaphors. Although less-experienced writers (like myself) regularly construct sprawling, gaudy, and architecturally flawed metaphors for the sheer fun of it, Chabon attempts daring and complex turns of phrase without ever breaking the flow of the paragraph. He develops analogies that seem doomed to implosion only to shock you with how well the comparison seems to fit in once you swallow it. He is the Gaudi of the metaphor.

The great thing, though, is not just that his periphrastic pen doesn’t harm the action of the story, but that it actually enhances it. He keeps the action moving at exactly the right pace the entire novel. It’s as though he has set the cruise-control on the narrative so that no matter what he does with the steering wheel you are moving at just the right speed. In the introduction to my copy of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald was described as having “perfect pitch” in a literary sense; perhaps not the most creative or brilliant writer ever, but he knew how to tell a story. Chabon does too.

I won’t give it away here, but Chabon’s plot is a great one, with much opportunity for poetic and philosophical pondering about the position of Jews in the world, the human need for redemption, and the politics of power. Chabon fills you in on just enough of these details to let you know that he has thought about them carefully, but he doesn’t weigh the story down too much with his musings. I get the impression, however, that if I sat down with some English majors we could find all kinds of intriguing parallels, analogies, and ideas tucked away in the book.

Since every good book review seems to have some kind of negative angle on the book, I will simply say that Chabon’s picture on the dust jacket bears an eerie resemblance to a misanthropic and rodent-like person I once knew. That remains my least favorite page.

Surrender or Lose

A few weeks ago when everyone was obsessed with Cordoba House (aka - the ground zero mosque) I wrote a post explaining why I thought it wasn’t American to protest its construction. Well, I also happen to be a Christian and, despite what some protesters would say, I don’t think it is very Christian either. Protesting the Cordoba House is not Christian because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. Some Christians, like Peter, would cut Islam’s ear off only to watch it grow back anyway. It may seem Christian to fight for Christ, but as Peter learned, it isn’t. I am a Christian. I do not like Islam. I think it is a false religion. But as Christians we cannot afford to let our opposition to any particular system become an excuse for imposing our will on individuals. The New Testament is crystal clear about promoting the worship of Christ by means of winsome love and not by coercive force.

It seems that one of the many paradoxes of Christianity is that as the church gains political power in the world it loses its spiritual power. This is what Augustine argued in the City of God. Our citizenship is in heaven, not in the earthly city. We are aliens and strangers here. Things just seem to get really confusing when we operate out of a position of power rather than a position of service. I think that’s why Jesus told us to leave the wheat and the tares in the ground until the harvest. Pulling up the tares becomes a really tricky proposition. To do it well requires a degree of discernment about societies and individuals that we don’t even possess with regard to ourselves. It seems that once one undertakes the gnarly business of decreeing how the world should be cleaned up rather than just cleaning up one’s little corner there is no telling what one might be forced to do. Like the dictators in my last post our hubris often leads to moral bankruptcy. In pulling up the tares we must define ourselves as the wheat, pure and wholesome. That may be true in some future heavenly sense, but right now that requires us to ignore Solzhenitsyn’s realization that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.” Or if you prefer something more biblical, “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.” (Rom 3:9)

I think born-again Christians are especially susceptible to the hubris of believing they can see with God’s eyes because they can see better than they did before. They have experienced an internal shift from darkness to light, from blindness to sight. Because of this, it is sometimes hard to temper a new Christian’s overweening zeal for reform in order to keep him from annoying everyone around him. Luckily, the one doctrine that is up to the task is central to the faith. Original sin’s stain may be gone, but its habits are a tenacious reminder that our hearts still straddle both heaven and hell. That’s why a bishop/overseer/pastor “must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgement as the devil.” (1 Tim 3:6)

Governments are successful when they take this into account. In the U.S. our Constitution takes people as they are (greedy, selfish, and near-sighted) and builds a political system that suits them, rather than imagining how people could be and building a system that might just be able to make them better. So we as Christians must know ourselves as well as our founding fathers did. You will stumble if you begin exerting power over your neighbors by treating the “good” and “bad” ones differently. Instead “love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.” (Luke 6:35) Another of the paradoxes of Christianity is that we can only fight for our faith by surrendering to our enemies. So put down your signs and take up your cross.

Cartoon found here.

In Defense of Dictators

Remember when I contemplated writing a defense of brutal dictators? Well, after reading a couple of interesting articles on Zimbabwe in last week’s Economist, I think now is as good a time as any to spill. As you may or may not know, Robert Mugabe (blue tie), who has ruled Zimbabwe for 30 years by deftly blending his brutality and blame shifting with his dazzling ineptitude at governing, was defeated at the polls 2 1/2 years ago by Morgan “buy a vowel” Tsvangirai (yellow tie). In the wake of the election, after some bloody reprisals against Tsvangirai’s supporters, he and Mugabe agreed to a “power sharing” agreement, in which Mugabe retains the power and Tsvangirai gets to do all the sharing.

But this story didn’t end like I expected it to and for the last 2 years I’ve had a little cognitive dissonance up in the old cranium when Zimbabwe comes to mind. I am curious as to exactly what Morgan Tsvangirai is doing on a day to day basis and also why he is still alive. Robert Mugabe may not be the most popular leader in the world, but he has been able to utilize black Zimbabwean resentment toward white Zimbabweans (whose land Mugabe forcefully redistributed to blacks) and toward current western sanctions to maintain enough popular support to supplement the usual thuggish instruments of autocracy: intimidation, forcible detention, torture, killing, etc. I assumed that Tsvangirai must have been surviving by employing the same kind of thuggish tactics in a region of Zimbabwe under his control and by staying away from the regions that Mugabe controls.

I was wrong. In the articles I read, I found out that Tsvangirai actually joins cabinet meetings with Mugabe every Monday, “apparently without rancour.” Though he himself has been imprisoned, “beaten to a pulp,” and had his skull “broken” by Mugabe’s supporters, Tsvangirai now meets with him regularly and has even become somewhat of an apologist for Mugabe’s behavior, refusing to criticize many of his policies. Since Tsvangirai is choosing his words so carefully it is hard to know what his intentions are, but a recent quote hints at his patient strategy, while offering insight on just how difficult it can be to be a dictator, or rather to stop being a dictator. “He’s an old man who wants to let go,” says Tsvangirai. “He’s looking for an exit strategy that restores his legacy in Zimbabwe and the world.”

I think the thing we fail to consider when we criticize brutal dictators is how hard it is to retire. The bigger the target that you have painted on yourself is, the harder it is to find an exit strategy. As many an after-school special can attest, it is easy for little lies to grow into big ones. It is also true that during any leader’s rise to power, it is easy for little moral compromises to grow into big ones. Many (perhaps every) leader who gains political power has had to make deals with numerous devils to do so. The worse you are at actually governing, the more deals you have to make. These deals will often get you what you want in the short run (i.e. power), but you will be paying down the mortgage of deception, conditional friendships, and indignant enemies for the rest of your life.

Consider Mugabe: as a young man he seemed to be a righteous warrior fighting to overthrow the white minority racist rule of Ian Smith. He was a political prisoner for ten years. But as he filled the power vacuum in the wake of Southern Rhodesia’s demise he was forced to battle a Marxist faction of former allies. You can imagine the progression.

1) The desire to overthrow tyranny makes you violent.

2) The desire to replace tyranny with the “right” brand of freedom tempts you to dabble in repression and demagoguery.

3) The desire to give your newly created society a chance to succeed induces you to institutionalize repression (think Gestapo, KGB, Comité de salut public)

4) The desire to avoid reprisals against you and your allies forces you to keep your hands on the levers of power indefinitely.

I’m not going to shed any tears for the plight of poor Robert Mugabe, but I can imagine how easy it might be to get backed into a corner even when you start out as a starry-eyed reformer. Mugabe is probably among the most hideous criminals alive today and justly deserves punishment. I think it is fascinating that Morgan Tsvangirai seems to be offering him a way to avoid that punishment, offering him that elusive exit strategy in exchange for a chance at democracy in Zimbabwe. Based on this week’s news, it appears that Tsvangirai is running out of patience. We can only hope that Mugabe’s moral degeneration (or his senility) hasn’t divested him of the last shred of his former idealism.

Shake Your Money Maker

You don’t have to watch many nature shows before you learn that bees, when they find a good stash of nectar or a sweet spot for a new nest, do a little waggle dance to show their fellow colonists where to find it. If they think the new nest site is exceptionally suitable their dance becomes even more vigorous. But do all bees have the same ideas about what qualifies as prime real estate? How do the other bees know they can trust the one boogieing? What if the liberal bees in the hive are attracted to the idea of hearing every possible iteration of Dark Star and choose a spot on a particular eave where they can do so while occasionally overloading on the wafting aromas from hotboxing hippies in the driveway? Or maybe conservative bees dance a frenzied jig when they find a spot in the cigar scented ventilation duct of the Federalist Society within earshot of the gun club.

But this does seem unlikely. Perhaps culture wars are what separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. But are the culture wars really representative of our culture? If they were, I suppose that would mean that somebody could win them, but the truth is that nobody would want to live in a “liberal” world and nobody would want to live in a “conservative” world. So that means the truth lies somewhere in between them, right? Well I’m not so sure about that either. I think the culture wars have oversimplified things.

All reputable news sources attempt to provide balanced coverage, which means they try to get views from people on multiple sides of every issue. Unfortunately, we usually think it’s a job well done if there are two views, one “conservative” and the other “liberal.” So Hannity has his Colmes and Paul Krugman has his David Brooks. It seems that the media reinforces the notion that our political landscape is all about conservative vs. liberal, Republican vs. Democrat.

I think the media gives us the false (and perhaps self-fulfilling) impression that our society is a political football field where one coach is a donkey and the other is an elephant. We either join a team and play by their rules or we sit and watch the game. There are two ways in which I think this bipolar simplification is wrong-headed.

First, I would argue that to a large degree there aren’t two poles, but one pole. An anarchist, a suicide bomber, and Ralph Nader would all agree that any apparent division between Democrat and Republican is insignificant. A growing number of apathetic voters would probably agree also. They see both parties as being part of the same system, a system with utterly misplaced values. Paramount among those values, predictably, is stability. Neither party has an interest in doing too much tinkering with the system that keeps them in power. It’s like trying to argue with Maradona and Pele that soccer is a dumb sport. Their mutual antipathy for each other will melt away into jubilant friendship as they deftly coordinate a prolonged session of kicking you in the shins. Democrats and Republicans have too many common interests to really be enemies. This is why real campaign finance reform won’t happen. And now that America’s most insane common law rabbit trail has led us to a place where corporations, exercising their God-given rights as people, can fund political candidates to their heart’s content we are not likely to see many politicians elected who would want to change that.

Second, there are certain issues where it is obvious that the truth doesn’t lie in either camp or anywhere in between. For example, Democrats will expend enormous time and energy to make sure people have the right to “die with dignity.” Republicans will expend enormous time and energy to make sure that suicide is not condoned. But when I’m on my deathbed I guarantee you that my phone records will show no last minute calls to the DNC or the RNC for some help on the infinitely more important issue of what’s going to happen when the lights go out.

So when politicians take up their causes, important as they may be, we must recognize that they are partly wrong (there is truth on “both” sides) and that they may not even be addressing the most important issues. The truth does not necessarily lie on a continuum between two lies. Life is much more complicated than that, and so is our country.

So next time you watch Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann shaking their beehinds (sorry, irresistible), pay attention because you are bound to learn something. But don’t be discouraged if you’re not ready to build a hive with either of them...or anywhere in between.

Guess What?

As recently as 5,000 years ago reading wasn’t even a leisure option because, as far as we know, no symbolic writing system existed before then. With the invention of the movable type 500 years ago books proliferated and reading became so important and so widespread that we have practically sewn it into our moral code. You would leave your kids with someone who smoked before you left them with someone who admitted they didn’t like to read. And it is not just your local librarian that will look at you askance if you confess that you don’t read much. Even Jerry Seinfeld said that “a bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” Coolio, that “educated fool,” said that he always walked to school with his nose buried in a book. Joseph Brodsky took it a step further: 'There are worse crimes than burning books,” he said. “One of them is not reading them.' So Koran-burning may be bad, but people who skip the book and watch the movie or the sparknotes video...they are the real criminals. Whether you like it or not, literacy is the key that will open most of the doors you’d like to walk through in life.

So, my one-year-old daughter Miette would like to share with you a little tip to make reading more fun. It has to do with anticipation. First I should explain that Miette has not been the most responsive baby in the world. Sadly, she doesn’t seem to appreciate my charisma and charm. My attempts to entertain her with jazzy song-and-dance routines or captivating facial contortions are usually met with a vacant stare, an open mouth, and a quick dash toward mommy. Sure, I may not be the world’s greatest showman, but I have noticed something as I have experimented with Miette. Tickling her in the standard way will usually get you nowhere also. But if you are truly desperate to look at her ghoulish smile or to hear her squeal with delight you have to try something else. Hold your hand up about four feet away from her and slowly, steadily bring it toward her. She will fixate on it, anticipating what is about to happen, and when her expectations are finally fulfilled with your fingers poking her all over in the same way as before, the snaggle teeth will make a gleeful appearance and the most delightful giggle will burst from her trachea.

Perhaps some types of reading invoke a response in you like tickling does in Miette, rendering you mildly nauseous or making you want your mommy. For those dull reading situations, may I suggest a similar tactic. Start anticipating. Make predictions about characters, plot, setting, or even things like vocabulary, the author’s hubris, or who is going to die next. Make bets with yourself. If this guy makes one more misogynistic character reference I will make dinner for my wife tonight. If, by the end of this article, all evangelicals are still lumped in with James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Jim DeMint I will eat another cookie. If I ever read anything by David Sedaris that is not intellectually self-effacing and literarily brilliant I will buy myself a Porsche. You don’t have to do it quite like this, but if you don’t start a dialog within yourself about what is going on in the stuff you have to read you will never get anything out of it. If you do start an inner dialog that fosters anticipation, engagement, and awareness of what might be coming up next, you might find that even the most mundane tickling becomes a source of joy.

Did You Hear About the Tornado in Brooklyn!?!

Extra! Extra! We interrupt this series of political posts about religion to bring you a political post about the media. I know I promised some religious thoughts on Cordoba House, but I must digress because I was struck by how the media blew up this whole Koran-burning thing into a full-blown circus last week. I mean why on earth does anyone know the name Terry Jones right now? Well, the short answer is that it is the media’s fault. The long answer is that it is your fault.

Before I start this little diatribe I would like to assure you all that I am a huge fan of having a free press. Huge fan. Hooray for a free press! That being said, there are those little quirks she has that are hard to ignore. The biggest one stems from the fact that the news media has to make her way in the world by holding our attention. To do so she has to put on make-up and make herself attractive, so to speak. I think women (my wife in particular) are beautiful and I think the free press is beautiful, but I have to admit that when they dress themselves up I take a bit more notice.

To some degree that’s okay - presenting yourself well is important. I mean, who wants to watch the news if the camera is out of focus or the news anchor is incoherent? And who would want to hang out with my wife if she let snot drip down her face and ate party streamers like our baby girl? But the trouble is that often when we start to focus on appearances, we unleash a flood of competitive cosmetology. I’m not saying we should throw all our eyeliner and lipstick in the garbage, but we should be wary of the fact that our society is forcing women (and men to some degree) to buy cosmetics not as simple adornment, but as war paint in a brutal competition for sexual partners, job opportunities, and attention. (The global cosmetics industry now generates $170 billion dollars per year, enough to give every person on the planet $20 each Christmas.) No matter how much my wife or the media dress themselves up, their real beauty and true value is something that make-up can sometimes obscure rather than enhance.

But what does this have to do with Terry Jones?

Everything. Let’s start where his fame started: on the local news. At its best, the local news investigates and reports on issues that affect us at a not-so-national level. It gives us useful information about trends, changes, and corruption that are provincial and might not otherwise be brought to light. But at its worst, local news is a cloying prostitute who tries to lure you in with attractive stories like car wrecks, shootings, and fires, and other sensationalism that minimally affects our lives except that it gives us something to talk about in awkward social settings. Incidentally, it seems like lots of things that pop up in awkward conversations (you know, weather and sports) figure prominently on the local news.

But national news seems to have the same problem, especially on radio and TV. The topics may be more cosmopolitan and the stories more consequential, but it is really hard to find much variety. Instead, we hear over and over again about the oil spill, Cordoba House, Afghanistan, and Terry Jones. It just gets so boring so fast. But we must be asking for it because media outlets don’t make money unless those snakecharmers get us to take a second glance. Even public radio is a victim of this. They too must fight to expand their viewership if they want to prove their relevance and earn more donations.

In this case of Terry Jones the media isn’t covering the story, they are making the story. Like north shore surfers they battle for position to ride the next sensational story. The way it must have happened for Terry Jones was like this: some producer on a major network, perhaps during a lull in real news, decided to air a story on some guy who doesn’t like a particular book. It turns out that some people on the other side of the world really like this book and were so pissed off about it that they started rioting. Suddenly an event that was supposed to attract the attention of 40 people in a small town congregation has attracted the attention of the whole world. Soon every newsroom executive realized that if they didn’t publish a story on Terry Jones people would click over to the other news station or that loyal Tribune readers would pick up a copy of the Times and maybe make the switch because they have to have all the “important” topics fresh in their mind when they hit the breakroom. No one wants to make awkward situations even more awkward because their newspaper hasn’t told them about the Terry Jones incident. So news outlets, like 13-year old cd collectors, can afford to omit the important, but they can never afford to omit the popular.

The problem is that we have lots of offensive people in our country. Terry Jones probably isn’t even in the top 10%. Are we really supposed to collectively denounce all of the potentially offensive things that people in our country do so that people in other countries don’t hate us for it? If the mainstream media could dare to leave back page stories on the back page, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the rest of the world getting the wrong impression. Proof of the media’s error came about midway through the Terry Jones circus. He said he would consider halting his planned Koran burning if the president called to chat with him. In a sense he tried to call the media’s bluff. I’m pretty sure he is still waiting by the phone. The media said he was important. The President said, no, he’s not. Obama can’t call this guy because thousands of other yahoos will pull stunts like this just to get B.O. on the phone (they should just wipe it under their arms).

So it’s the media’s fault, right? Nope. It’s ours. We vote with our remote controls and our mouse clicks and we are obviously voting for vapid stories usually tied to one or another culture war: things that are really easy to get our minds around and form an opinion on. The news media is not just making itself pretty for us, but it is doing whatever it takes to hold our attention, which means that the news media often must take entertaining more seriously than investigating and give us all the latest grown-up gossip rather than giving us useful information.

Perhaps I have been a bit too harsh. Despite all its faults, the news media can and often does take a higher road even when we don’t follow them with our mouses and remotes. Rather than dressing up their gossip to make it look newsworthy, they can redefine beauty with a dose of moxie, poise, compassion, self-examination, humanity, and humility: the same things that make my wife so beautiful. Rather than finding ways to get me to consume their product, they can find ways to make me a better person.

So next time you are in the breakroom ask your coworker if they think Lee Kuan Yew has created something in Singapore that could inform American democracy. You are bound to get an entirely blank stare. (I don’t even know how to pronounce his name.) We are all woefully under-informed about topics like that, but perhaps you and your coworker could pledge to find out what you think about it and meet regularly to think it through together. While you are finding out, your mouse clicks and magazine purchases will imperceptibly, but gradually, move the news media toward the higher road.

Real Estate Reconquista

A few nights ago my wife and I got in a fight. Well, it was more of a heated discussion. Usually I have no trouble seeing both sides of an issue. I sometimes get frustrated because I wish there were more things I was sure of in this world. When I listen to the news I often sympathize even with the most unsympathetic characters. Sadly, I even have a defense for democracy-suppressing dictators. Perhaps I will dare to share that defense with you some day if you promise not to hate me.

Anyway, on the particular issue that my wife and I were discussing I don’t understand the counter-argument at all. No, it wasn’t about cleaning the bathroom more than once a month or tending to the baby just because she happens to have chosen a particular moment to wail inconsolably. But my wife, operating under the customary assumption that I am wrong, took up the counter-argument, partly by asking me some honest questions and partly just to play devil’s advocate. She’s really good at advocating for him. Anyway, I’m going to present my argument here. If you goad her, perhaps you can get her to give a response to whatever I’m about to write on her blog, but I doubt that will happen because her blog isn’t as pugnacious as mine.

So the issue is Cordoba House. As you may or may not know an Imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf has a vision for an Islamic community center a couple of blocks from ground zero. Some see this as normal real estate development and some see this as an insensitive gesture akin to rubbing salt in America’s deepest collective wound. In May, when a community board committee approved the project, conservative bloggers (the most popular of whom is named Pamela Geller) called for protests which have lasted to the present day. Polls indicate that a majority of Americans oppose the building of Cordoba House so politicians are all choosing their words carefully, but luckily I don’t have to choose my words carefully because nobody reads this. It is frightening to think that perhaps I have lost touch with the majority and turned into the left-wing radical that my mom always hoped I would be. But since when was it left-wing to let somebody build a religious center wherever they want?

I should preface my argument by saying that I empathize with people who suffered unspeakable loss because of what happened on 9/11 and are subsequently angry and suspicious of Islam. I can only try to understand what you have been through. But other than the understandable visceral response that some feel, I would urge the protesters not to let their grief impede the cause of liberty. Two wrongs will not make anything right.

I believe that there are religious overtones here (thank you Terry Jones) that I may address in a subsequent post, but for now I will limit my argument to the cultural/political arena. I will mostly respond to this statement by Newt Gingrich because a friend of a friend recently posted it on Facebook saying it was the most persuasive and historically accurate argument against allowing the Cordoba House to be built.

So, here’s my argument. It is not pro-American to protest the center because America was founded on the principal of religious freedom. I feel like that should be the end of the argument, but it appears that more needs to be said on this. In essence, Gingrich’s essay argues that Cordoba House is a deliberate insult to Americans and that our toleration of it would be shamefully timid, passive, and historically ignorant. So how should we respond to this “Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization?” Newt obviously thinks we should respond with force, by imposing our will on would-be mosque builders. I disagree. I would rather that America responded with dignity, by rising above the situation. Even if Cordoba House is a deliberate slap in America’s face, if we love America we should help her choose her battles wisely. Rather than responding like a petulant playground bully, we should be like a wise and seasoned teacher. If some kid comes up and smacks me in the face on the playground, sure, I would like to twist his little arm until something goes snap, but that’s not what grown-ups do. Discretion really is the better part of valor, even in the culture wars. So if American political ideals are really better than Islamic political ideals then we should demonstrate it, by allowing freedoms even if Saudi Arabia would deny them to us.

So, aside from taking a collective breath and counting to ten, we should remind Newt that culturally we are anything but timid and passive right now. We are occupying other countries, actively trying to spread democracy, and militarily all but untouchable. I’m not arguing that these things are wrong. But I am saying that whether or not we are walking softly in this world we are carrying an enormous stick. We spend $700 billion on defense every year, almost as much as the rest of the world combined. (By the way, that is over $2,000 per person per year, $6 per day) The point is that we can afford to be the grown-ups here. In fact, we can’t afford not to. The world is watching and wants to know if our ideals are really something worth fighting and dying for in their own countries. All the military might in the world will not buy you a single friend, but if that military might defends an area of the globe that truly values liberty, everyone’s liberty, then people will take notice.

True Lies

It is only we who play badly who love the game itself. - G.K. Chesterton

Well, I made it halfway through The Birth of Britain, the Winston Churchill book I promised to read. The main thing I find refreshing about it is that it is the work of an amateur with nary a footnote. Now I have nothing against footnotes, but they tend to give readers a false sense of security. I think it’s exciting when someone has the temerity to write without them, like a 12-year-old going commando on a school day. I also like amateur historians because they love stories and they love to tell stories. Professional historians love to interrupt the people telling stories with shrewd corrections. You can guess which ones are more fun to have over for dinner.

Because they like stories, amateur historians (and all other good storytellers) occasionally tell lies. Churchill admits it on page 202. It was told for centuries that Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, tracked down his mistress Rosamund in a maze at Woodstock (palace not concert) when she happened upon a silken thread. Deep in the bower, Eleanor dispatched Rosamund by giving her the dreadful choice between a dagger and a cup of poison. Ah, sweet revenge! But it sounds just a little too poetic to be true, doesn’t it? You’re right, it was made up by those overzealous Elizabethan poets. Yet Churchill complains that “tireless investigators have undermined this excellent tale, but it certainly should find its place in any history worthy of the name.” Really? Shouldn’t history be all about weeding out these fanciful tales? Churchill willingly admits that, as far as history goes, he values imagination as highly as fact accumulation and I admit that I want to kiss him for saying it (and also for saving the free world from Nazism).

Why, you ask? Well, I’ve always thought that historians are too quick to dismiss compelling stories for being factually false, though on some deeper level they are psychologically meaningful and maybe even “true.” I mean, sure, Rosamund may not have met her end thus, but perhaps this story is the perfect expression of what Eleanor actually wanted, or what we would have wanted in her place. Consider: Eleanor’s attention is miraculously drawn to the tiniest of clues to lead her to the perfect place to fulfill her deepest desire. Not only does she get what she wants, but in a sense she gets divine approval for her action because a red carpet is rolled out to lead her there. The story may not be literally true, but like a good myth, it hints at unexplored truths about the human psyche.

Professional historians often try to figure out what drives people to do what they did. Usually they can summarize their hypothesis of someones’ motivations in two or three sentences without ever using any phrases like “his eyes were limpid blue pools of desire” or “realizing her terrible mistake, she was paralyzed with a quaking fear of death.” Instead they will make a series of qualified and usually materialistic guesses about, say, why Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine in the first place. He married her to acquire her lands. He married her to spite Louis VII. They might even say he married her because she was a remarkable woman. But they will never say anything real about the sense of boyish wonder he probably felt when this female heir to vast tracts of land in France flashed the first flirtatious smile in his direction or sighed as she snuggled up to him in bed after they conceived Richard the Lionheart. Of course there isn’t much evidence for these details so it’s hard to blame these professional historians for focusing on the bigger picture items. But it seems like professional historians might be perpetually missing something important by sticking to the facts without envisioning and evoking the dramatic details.

I remember that a mentor of mine, Alex Kettles, once said “Look around you. There’s a drama behind every face.” I always found that a compelling and humanizing approach to life. People tend to hide most of their inner drama from the rest of the world. Sometimes they even hide it from themselves, but it’s there nonetheless and for most of us it is the most interesting thing about living.

If amateur historians tell lies because they play up the drama more than the facts warrant, then professional historians tell lies because they play down the drama. I don’t blame them for doing this because they are trying to be precise. But rarely do I read them and think I have tasted the world they are describing. I’ve had the taste described to me, but I haven’t tasted it. It’s like describing a good microbrew to someone. You can explain Total Domination until you are blue in the face, but if a person has never had a beer then you might as well put a PBR in their hand and start from there.

So I say Homer may be more true than Hobsbawm. The movie Blow may tell you more about George Jung than Wikipedia. And Shakespeare probably knows as much about King Lear as anybody.

Familiarity Finally Stops Breeding

Recently, while cleaning out the last remnants of my wife’s stuff in the dark recesses of her mother’s house, I ran across Winston Churchill’s four volume roller coaster through British history titled A History of the English Speaking Peoples. Needless to say, something (or more precisely four somethings) that moments earlier I didn’t know we owned I suddenly couldn’t imagine my life without. Books have this amazing power over me that I’m trying to overcome for the sake of my friends the next time we move. The funny thing about the books I own is that I rarely read them. They are kind of like Mt. Tabor Park, which is right up the street. Why would I go there? What’s the point? I could go there anytime. I wouldn’t want to get bored of the place, after all. So books languish on my shelves and in boxes, condemned to a life of lonely immobility because the interesting title or famous author’s name printed on the spine casts a spell on me, rendering me unable to send it along to someone who might read it.

The good news is that I’m beginning to struggle upstream against this pernicious tendency. I realized as I stood there, stroking one of the majestic volumes, that all that was necessary to break its spell on me was that I read it. So I strapped on my tennis shoes and headed up to Tabor for some exercise...metaphorically of course.

Midlife Crisis

I’ve blogged before, but this blog could be a matter of life and death.

No, I’m not the victim of some bizarre extortion plot dreamt up by an eccentric European art dealer. But I am the victim of my own laziness. I am coming to the realization that if I don’t write out my thoughts regularly, carefully, and systematically, my ability to think and communicate may atrophy beyond the point of no return.

Let me explain. Like most people I have a number of eclectic and seemingly unrelated interests: world history, science, sports, music, current events, etc. I spend a lot of time exposing myself to a wide range of information. But, I’m not very good at putting it all together usefully so that I can be a better citizen, husband, father, teacher, and conversationalist. For example, if I’m with friends talking about how Barack Obama is doing as president I can point to a few pieces of major legislation, his war policy, and the uber-significant Obama pirate graph, but when I mention that I approve of the job he’s doing more and more as the country grows more distrustful I can’t explain why very cogently, I guess because I haven’t really thought about it that much. Meanwhile some other bozo takes over the conversation and starts parroting back what they “learned” on Fox News or MSNBC. While I sulk away into the other room to get more chips and spicy guacamole I try to comfort myself with the thought that at least I’m approaching the topic honestly, and trying to form my own opinions. But the sad truth is that my opinions are too grossly under-developed to be unveiled in polite society.

This blog is my attempt to clean up the inchoate jumble of detritus suspended in my brain and turn it into something useful, pretty, or artistic, kind of like the giant fish sculpture I saw at Nye Beach last week made from hundreds of pieces of plastic that had washed ashore. In other words, I hope to extract myself occasionally from the muddy ooze of information inundating me and THINK about it. Ideally this thinking/writing process will cause me to pull together several bits of information to form a new way of verbalizing something important.