Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 474
August 1, 2012
An Aurora victim whose life was spared
A former student wrote me after the Aurora shootings saying that a friend of his was in the theater and had been shot. He said she was from an active homeschooling family, a leader in the Colorado homeschool debate league, and a committed Christian, very much like our other students. He was distraught about it, and the parallels with our other students made the shootings disturbingly real to me.
A few days later, my student updated me about how his friend’s life was providentially, if not miraculously, spared. I’ll let NBC News tell the story:
Petra Anderson, one of 58 people injured in the Aurora movie theater attack, is lucky to be alive.
Anderson, a 22-year-old aspiring music professor, was hit by a shotgun blast during the assault that killed 12 people. Three pellets struck her arm and one rocketed through her head, but it missed the brain’s many blood vessels and key sections controlling vital functions, according to her doctor.
“If the pellet had wavered a millimeter, really in any direction from what it actually took, then she would have likely either died or been severely injured,” said Dr. Michael Rauzzino, a neurosurgeon at The Medical Center of Aurora who operated on Anderson to remove the pellet. “I would say this is definitely a miracle,” he said, while showing an MRI of Anderson’s brain.
The MRI reveals a faint trace of the pellet’s path after it entered the left side of Petra’s nose, broke through the front of her skull, and passed through her brain, before lodging in the back of her head. . . .
“It would be hard to create a path similar to this where it goes all the way from the front to the back and misses every single blood vessel, doesn’t bother any of the major structures, and leaves her able to talk and move everything and not be paralyzed or dead,” he added. “Never in my entire career have I seen a case where a bullet has traversed the entire brain like this and not caused severe damage or death.”
via Shotgun pellet’s ‘miracle’ path spared Aurora victim’s life – U.S. News.
At first the report was that she was saved by a birth defect–a channel in her brain that the pellet exactly followed–but the doctor says now that this was not the case. The pellet just went through her brain missing every blood vessel and vital structures. That’s miraculous enough. I know it’s hard to talk about such things, given the people who were not spared, but still, this is remarkable.
July 31, 2012
The St. Ambrose Hymn Writing Contest
Who says conservative Lutherans don’t like contemporary Christian music in church? We do. It’s just that we want the contemporary Christian music to be, you know, hymns, as opposed to pop ditties. And we do need new hymns. Towards addressing that need, I am happy to announce that some twenty-somethings in our congregation, St. Athanasius Lutheran Church in Vienna, Virginia, have organized a major hymn-writing competition. They have raised a $1,000 prize and have arranged for publication. For details and for just learning about what the big deal is about hymns, check out the website: St. Ambrose Hymn Writing Contest.
Here are the parameters of the contest:
The Challenge:
Many of the Gospel readings throughout the historic Church Year lack hymns which properly exposit their true sense. It is the purpose of this contest to provide profound and artistic hymns for such unaddressed pericopes (that is, a set of readings given for a certain day). Therefore, the challange of this contest is as follows: to compose a hymn which discerns and declares the meaning of the chosen lectionary texts and properly expresses the congregational response to the work of our Lord in the Word.
The Texts:
The hymn should concern itself with the following texts, with a focus on the gospel reading:
Zephaniah 1:7-16
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
The Prize:
The winner of the contest shall be awarded $1,000. The winning hymn will be publised by Liturgy Solutions, which will be granted first right-of-refusal to the hymn upon acceptance of the prize money. The author/composer royalty to be paid by Liturgy Solutions will be 50% of all receipts from sales and any other profitable uses of the hymn (public performance for profit, radio broadcast, etc.).”
So the texts the hymn is supposed to elucidate deal with the Day of the Lord, Jesus coming back like a thief in the night, and the Parable of the Talents.
Yes, I have been asked to be one of the judges, but I will show no favoritism to the tunes of Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, or other artists that I can go on and on about on this blog. (Well, if Bob Dylan enters the contest with a lectionary hymn, he might have an edge with me.)
But, seriously, you can use an existing hymn tune, if you like, or you can compose your own. The words will be key. You know those numbers at the bottom of each page in a hymnbook? 7.7.7., 8.6.8.6, 10.10.10.10. Those are the number of syllables in each line. That’s important to know in writing words to go with a particular tune.
Anyway, enter! Try it. You need not be Lutheran to win. There is a thousand dollar prize! The deadline is December 1. Maybe your hymn too will be sung in future centuries.
The Case for Early Marriage
Christians have been emphasizing abstinence, says University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus, whereas they should be emphasizing marriage. Instead, Christians are buying into the same confused ideas about marriage that the world has been assuming.
Among both Christians and non-Christians, the marriage age has been rising, from an average in 1970 of 21 for women and 23 for men to today’s 26 for women and 28 for men. “That’s five additional, long years of peak sexual interest and fertility,” he remarks. The fertility point is often neglected. “Women’s fertility is more or less fixed, yet Americans are increasingly ignoring it during their 20s, only to beg and pray to reclaim it in their 30s and 40s.”
He also deals with objections to early marriage. For example, the higher divorce rate among those who marry in their teens. He isn’t arguing for that. He sees the optimum age as being in the early 20s. But he also suggests how Christians are uniquely positioned to make early marriages work.
Read Regnerus’s article, which eludes simple excerpting: The Case for Early Marriage | Christianity Today.
A summer reading project
About one of my students:
Evan Johnson boarded the Washington, D.C. metro train at 5:15 a.m., surrounded by sleepy, somber commuters. One girl on his left read The Hunger Games on her Kindle, while the girl in front of him read the same novel in paperback.
Ear buds in, rocking with the speeding metro, they were oblivious to the fact that “they were both entering the same fantasy world, while only a few feet apart,” Johnson said. “I often wondered what might happen if people simply looked around at other readers and discussed what they were reading.”
Anyone discussing books with Johnson might feel a little inadequate. When he stepped on that commuter train last year, Johnson, 20, was speeding his way through his 40th book of the summer.
Between May 16 and August 12, 2011, Johnson read one book a day – 94 books and 19,276 pages, an average of 217 pages per day. On some days he finished two books.
As a sophomore at Patrick Henry College, Johnson’s professors constantly gave him reading suggestions. His classmates often rolled their eyes and ignored similar suggestions, too busy with homework and essays to imagine recreational reading. But Johnson began to compile a reading list, jotting down dozens of titles during the semester. He vowed he would read them when he had an opportunity.
That summer, Johnson accepted an internship in Washington and moved to a new apartment in Falls Church, Va. Away from the distractions and requirements of school, he had the time he needed to start working through his list.
After counting the number of books he wanted to read, Johnson realized he would have to finish a book a day in order to make a good dent in the list. He set a goal, and committed his summer to reaching it.
Throughout the summer, the local library provided Johnson with 20 books via inter-library loan. The librarian’s eyes widened with surprise when he returned an 800-page, two-volume set of The Count of Monte Cristo after only three days. Johnson’s titles were rather eclectic, with authors ranging from Chinese Christian Watchman Nee to U.S. Marine David J. Danelo.
Every day, Johnson woke at 4 a.m. He ate a ham and cheese omelet, walked two miles to the metro, and caught the 5:15 a.m. train. He would set his laptop bag across his knees, pull out a book and read.
People at the bus stop often asked Johnson how he had time to read. He wondered how they could spend their commute doing nothing or playing “Angry Birds.”
“Reading taught me just how much time is often wasted everyday,” Johnson said. “People talk about how wasteful Americans are with stuff, water, money, et cetera. I also would add that we are incredibly wasteful with time.”
via The summer of books | World on Campus: news for college students from a Christian perspective..
The full article at the link (free registration required) gives his book list, an eclectic–that is to say, a liberal arts–assortment of titles on all kinds of topics. (He even included one by me!)
July 30, 2012
It’s the likability, stupid
The economy is in the toilet, unemployment is over 8%, our foreign policy is a mess, and President Obama’s approval ratings are dismal. And yet, polls show him still running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney, if not a little bit ahead. How can that be?
You might recall my theory–articulated, for example, here, in which I predict an Obama victory– that in our postmodern times the majority of the American people vote for a candidate not primarily because of ideology, policy ideas, nor issues of any kind. Such appeals to objectivity and even to pragmatism are the stuff of modernism. In a postmodern democracy, the main factor is which candidate voters “like” the best. That is, the candidate voters consider to have the most pleasant personality.
Consider the winners over the last few decades: Obama vs. McCain; Bush II vs. Kerry; Bush II vs. Gore; Clinton vs. Dole; Clinton vs. Bush I; Bush I vs. Dukakis; Reagan vs. Mondale; Reagan vs. Carter. Doesn’t my theory hold? Now before that, the theory doesn’t apply, since in those modernist days Carter could beat the more likeable Ford, and Nixon could beat the more likable McGovern and Humphrey. Of course, not everyone agrees in whom they like, but this also explains the antipathies that also are factors in elections: Lots of people just cannot stand George W. Bush, a visceral feeling that goes far beyond rational assessment, associated with feelings about privileged rich kids, frat-boys, and smug right-wing Texans. Obama’s cerebral, detached, professorial personality makes some people dislike him while making others like him.
My theory in the past has been somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but now there is actually data to support it! From Karen Tumulty, writing in the Washington Post:
If you believe the polls, it would appear there is one big factor standing in the way of Mitt Romney being elected president: Americans don’t like him as well as they do Barack Obama.
That was confirmed again in a new USA Today-Gallup survey in which respondents gave Romney higher marks on the economic issues, which voters say they care most about this year. But President Obama crushed Romney — 60 percent to 30 percent — on the question of which of the two was more likable.
In April, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found an even larger gap, with 64 percent of those surveyed describing Obama as the friendlier, more likable candidate, and only 26 percent saying that about Romney. . . .
In every presidential election for the past two decades, the candidate viewed as more likable was the one who won.
via Romney’s problem: Americans don’t like him as much as Obama, polls say – The Washington Post.
Romney is just hopeless when it comes to social graces. He goes to England for the Olympics and instead of the glad-handing pleasantries that are called for on such an occasion insults his hosts by worrying about security and labor problems and wondering if the country is ready to put on the show. Never mind that the British people have been expressing the same concerns, but this is just a social awkwardness that Romney keeps showing.
It has become campaign dogma that “It’s the economy, stupid,” and there is evidence that economic conditions are the major factor in the elections, above. I hope that’s the case, that the American people will look to objective considerations of some kind, but I wonder if they will. Then again, the likability of Obama as compared to Romney might be a close call.
Pro-conservative taxes
Liberals use the tax code as a social-engineering device to shape people’s behavior in order to manipulate society as they see best. Bruce Walker asks, tongue mostly in cheek, why don’t conservatives do that?
If conservatives simply threatened to tax politically unpopular leftist behavior, that might well be enough to get the left to accept the premise that federal tax law should not be used to punish behavior.
The Supreme Court has determined that abortion is a right, but so is drinking an extra-large soda or smoking a cigar. Abortion, though legal, is not popular, and polls have consistently shown that more Americans think that abortion is immoral than moral. Taxing patients for abortions might not be a popular tax, but what about taxing abortionists? Impose a transaction tax per abortion which is high enough so that few, if any, doctors could make money murdering unborn babies.
If abortion is unpopular, pornography is extraordinarily unpopular with Americans. The Supreme Court has made it very difficult — indeed, almost impossible — to ban pornography, but nothing would prevent a 200% federal sales tax on all films, magazines, or other published materials which involve nudity and appeals to prurient interests. Draining the profit from pornography would make it much less common in society.
Taxes per transactions could also be imposed upon body-piercing, out-of-wedlock births, acts of prostitution, and countless other socially corrosive activities which may be legal (or at least not a federal offense, as in the case of prostitution) but which the rest of society pays for and which ought to be just as subject to taxes intended to discourage bad behavior as taxes on gasoline, cigarettes, and alcohol.
The blind Olympics archer
Are you following the exploits of the archer in the Olympics who is legally blind?
South Korean archer Im Dong-hyun sees only blurred colors and lines when he peers toward the target about 76 yards away, arrow at the ready. It doesn’t stop the legally blind Olympian from hitting the grapefruit-sized yellow center – again and again and again.
Im set the first world record of the London Olympics on Friday, breaking his own mark in the 72-arrow event and helping South Korea set a team record in the opening round. He broke the record he set in Turkey in May by three points with a score of 699, hours before the opening ceremony of the 2012 Games.
“This is just the first round, so I will not get too excited by it,” said Im, who has 10 percent vision in his left eye and 20 percent in his right.
He combined with Kim Bub-min and Oh Jin-hyek, breaking the record for 216 arrows with a score of 2,087. That was 18 better than the mark South Korea set in May.
The 26-year-old Im does not wear glasses in competition, saying he relies on distinguishing between the bright colors of the target. He won gold in the team event at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.
via News from The Associated Press.
July 27, 2012
You can watch EVERY Olympics event
Are you psyched up about the Olympics, which starts this weekend, with the opening ceremonies getting underway tonight? They sort of snuck up on me. I get more and more interested as the games go on. This year the television and online coverage will be unprecedented. In fact, it will be total.
Oklahoma sports columnist Mel Bracht reports that NBC and its affiliates will broadcast 5,535 hours of coverage. Compare that to 161 hours in the 1992 Barcelona games. The Olympics will be on NBC, NBC Sports Network, CNBC, MSNBC, and Bravo. (Check the link below for what each network will concentrate on.)
But most impressive will be NBCOlympics.com. This site, for the first time ever, will livestream EVERY Olympics event. And if you get your internet service bundled with a cable or satellite TV service, this access will be FREE.
NBC Universal to offer record 5,535 hours of Olympics coverage | NewsOK.com.
Individuals and the Obamacare mandate
Discussion about the Obamacare contraception/abortifacient insurance mandate has centered on the religious liberty of church-related institutions. But what about the religious liberty of pro-life individuals who own businesses? That, in fact, is the case before the courts that might have a ruling today. (I’m on the road so I might have trouble monitoring it. If anyone hears about a ruling, mention it in a comment.) Here are details about that case, with a rather chilling statement about how the Obama administration sees religious liberty:
Hercules Industries is a Colorado based corporation that makes heating and air conditioning equipment. Hercules is a family-owned business. Its owners, the Newland brothers — William (pictured), Paul and James — and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, take their Catholic faith seriously. The business provides good jobs for 265 people and Hercules Industries tries hard to be a good member of the community. The siblings who operate the business have always assumed that they had the right to live according to their faith, like other businesses across our nation.
In those parts of New York City that have a high percentage of residents who are Orthodox or Hassidic Jews, businesses close when the sun sets on Friday and stay closed until sunset on Saturday, in observance of the Sabbath. Kosher butchers do not sell pork and Kosher delis do not make pork sandwiches. This sort of religious freedom is not peripheral to religious Americans of all professions. It is central to their idea of the American dream.
This is consistent with what the Newlands believe. The health benefits packages that Hercules Industries provides to its employees is very generous, but it does not include sterilization, artificial contraception or abortifacients. Individuals who work for the company are free, of course, to obtain these at their own expense or to secure insurance coverage outside the company health plan that covers those types of expenses.
The Newlands have brought suit against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for regulations she has promulgated that require that any company employing more than 50 people must include those medical procedures and drugs in the health plan. The Hercules Industry lawsuit states:
The Catholic Church teaches that abortifacient drugs, contraception and sterilization are intrinsic evils. Consequently, the Newlands believe that it would be immoral and sinful for them to intentionally participate in, pay for, facilitate or otherwise support abortifacient drugs, contraception, sterilization, and related education and counseling as would be required by the Mandate, through their inclusion in health insurance coverage they offer at Hercules.
The Obama administration has resisted the Hercules lawsuit by claiming that the company is secular, and therefore entitled to no First Amendment protection, with the Department of Justice telling the court:
The First Amendment Complaint does not allege that the company is affiliated with a formally religious entity such as a church, nor does it allege that the company employs persons of a particular faith. In short, Hercules Industries is plainly a for-profit, secular employer. By definition, a secular employer does not engage in any “exercise of religion.” It is well established that a corporation and its owners are wholly separate entities, and the Court should not permit the Newlands to eliminate that legal separation to impose their personal religious beliefs on the corporate entity or its employees.
UPDATE: The court issued an injunction against the government penalizing the company. Click here for details.
Government persecution of Chick-fil-A
Michael Barone summarizes a number of pundits criticizing the mayors of Boston and now Chicago for seeking to deny business licenses to Chick-fil-A because its owners don’t believe in gay marriage.
Their point is simple, and based on Supreme Court rulings: it’s wrong and unconstitutional under the First Amendment for government to deny business licenses because of an applicant’s speech and beliefs. As the Globe rightly notes, “If the mayor of a conservative town tried to keep out gay-friendly Starbucks or Apple, it would be an outrage.”
As a conservative on most issues and a supporter of same-sex marriage, I find it fascinating that liberal politicians are so ready to clamp down on others’ speech. It’s certainly permissible to refuse to patronize a restaurant because you dislike the owner’s beliefs and to encourage, by means short of violence or intimidation, others to do so. It’s also kind of foolish and in my view would be a waste of time to have to research owners’ or managers’ political views before going somewhere to eat. But for public officials to penalize people because of their expressed beliefs—well, I wouldn’t go as far as blogger Elizabeth Scalia does when she titles a blogpost “this is how fascism works,” but it’s pretty nasty stuff.
via Liberal officials penalizing free speech | WashingtonExaminer.com.
UPDATE: The Boston mayor has backed down from his effort.
