24 February 2008

The Man in the Mirror

Whenever I look in a mirror, a graying man looks back at me. He surprises me every time. I suppose it's only natural for eternal in us to rebel against our getting old.

Is the eternal in me my real soul, made by God in His Image? Or is it just the puer aeternus, the eternal child - a mere psychological holdover, the little boy in me who never grew up? Perhaps only death can part them, as it does our marriages.

Maybe my rebellion against my aging appearance is about all the things I have left undone or untried - most of which I now will never do, because I no longer can. And yet, I can still get on a bicycle and leave an out-of-shape twenty-something in the dust. Or am I just crying, in Monty Python fashion, "Not dead yet!"

Or maybe it's about the things I've left unthought. If so, and if I survive with my mind intact, aging may be a blessing. I hope to do my own research again someday, funded by my pension.

How strange life is, though. At times, I feel so connected to the boy I once was, and yet my memories of childhood are discontinuous. The most meaningful moments are all there, but the rest are lost. When I was a boy, frustrated by adult incomprehension, I swore I would never forget what it was like to be a child. But adolescence intervened, rearranged my brain, and made other things so urgent. Getting a girl, learning about love, getting an education, getting a job, growing up. As has everyone else, I have forgotten what childhood was like, and I forgot it long ago. I retain only a loose web of intensely felt fragments, a disconnected narrative.

If we are no more than our memories, then we are not very much. But if we lose our memories, we are not nothing. "Show me the face you had before your parents were born," goes the Zen koan. Perhaps we show that face when we have no memories.

The graying man in the mirror shows me that much time has passed, that youth's dreams of becoming something have become the middle-aged fantasies of a Walter Mitty. And the time remaining may be short.

But, hey thanks, glad to be here. Glad for every gray hair. I've earned each one so far, and none has come cheap. Glad to wonder, glad to experience. Grateful to God to have lived longer than the previous two generations of men on my father's side of the family. Hoping to turn into a really old fart on a bicycle over decades to come, but willing to take what I get, because none of us has the wisdom to do otherwise.

17 February 2008

Sunday Blizzard

Here's an oldie for those of you in the Frozen North:

One winter Sunday there was a blizzard so intense that only one parishoner made it to the service. The pastor met the man and suggested that since it was just going to be the two of them, that they might as well just skip it.

"Well," said the parishoner," if I was goin' to feed my flock, but only one sheep came out, I'd still sure feed it."

Ashamed, the pastor did the service, played the organ parts himself, and sang the liturgy as best he could. He preached a full length sermon, followed by a proper Eucharist.

After the service the pastor thanked the parishoner for teaching him a valuable lesson, and asked what he thought of the service.

"Well, answered the parishoner, "If only one sheep came out to be fed, I'd sure feed it, but I wouldn't give it my full load."

10 February 2008

Balanced Budget Bill Rewrite

You want a balanced US federal budget? You want it on time? I have a suggestion, modified in response to Blainn's comment. Suppose we, the people of the United States, all demanded that Congress enact and the President sign the following legislation:

Prior to the beginning of each fiscal year, Congress and the President shall complete all non-emergency appropriations for the fiscal year. Every member of Congress, their staffs, the President, the Vice President and the President's, Vice President's and the White House staff shall forfeit his or her salary for each day that any non-emergency appropriation is delayed past the start of the fiscal year. At the end of each fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office shall report to the people whether the federal budget for fiscal year just past is in deficit or in surplus. If the federal budget for the fiscal year just past is in deficit, then for the fiscal year going forward these same officials and their staffs shall forfeit a fraction of their salary equal to the federal budget deficit divided by the total federal budget for the fiscal year just past. If the federal budget is in surplus, then for the fiscal year foing forward these same officials and their staffs shall receive a fractional bonus to their salary equal to the federal budget surplus divided by the total federal budget for the fiscal year just past.


In other words, let the people who control the federal budget bear personal consequences for mismanaging it, and reap personal rewards for managing it well. (Why do I pick on the staffs? They are the ones who actually do all the work of getting the appropriations bills calculated, negotiated, recalculated, written and signed. And they are the ones who will have the most leverage with the Congress and President, who normally become rich enough to go without their salaries for a long time.) No need for artificial spending limits or borrowing caps, or limits on earmarks. Just make it personal and set them free to do the right thing.

08 February 2008

A real Balanced Budget Bill

You want a balanced US federal budget? You want it on time? I have a suggestion. Suppose we all demanded that Congress enact and the President sign the following legislation:

Congress and the President agree henceforth to enact and sign a balanced federal budget by 30 September each calendar year. Further every elected member of Congress and every member of their staffs, the President, the Vice President and every member of the President's, Vice President's and the White House staff shall forfeit his or her salary for each day that the budget is past due. If the budget is in deficit, these same officials and their staffs shall forfeit a fraction of their salary equal to the projected annual federal budget deficit divided by the total projected federal budget for the current year. If the federal budget is in surplus, these same officials and their staffs shall receive a fractional bonus to their salary equal to the projected annual federal budget surplus divided by the total projected annual federal budget for the current year.


In other words, make the people who set the budget bear personal consequences for mismanaging it. (Why do I pick on the staffs? They are the ones who actually do all the work of getting the budget calculated, negotiated, recalculated, written and signed. And they are the ones who will have the most leverage with the Congress and President, who normally become rich enough to go without their salaries for a long time.) No need for artificial spending limits or borrowing caps. Just make it personal and set them free to do the right thing. Stay tuned - I'm trying to work one up for health care.

07 February 2008

Feminist Follies

God Bless NPR for finding a segment of the Democrats who are just as put out by Tuesday's results as the Conservative Republicans! And that segment would be... Feminists! At least those feminists for whom the symbolic value of a woman as President is so great that it trumps all other values. They feel betrayed by Obama and those who support him. They talk as if anyone, well any man, who opposes Hillary for the Democratic nomination is somehow anti-feminist.

Oh, come now. Her being a woman is just about the only thing about Hillary Clinton that I like. I'm a feminist, but not so much so that any woman will do. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is that kind of feminist.

06 February 2008

Conservative Meltdown!

Tune into Right Wing Radio and whew! Conservative Meltdown! Conservatives of the economic, social, and religious persuasions are throwing a tantrum, because suddenly they have been confronted with the idea that they do not necessarily own, control, or comprise a clear majority of the Republican Party. They remind me of the Sunnis, who were misled into thinking that they were the majority of people in Iraq. The liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein and the Baath (toxic mix of Pan-Arab Nationalism and Neo-Nazism) Party was not nearly as shocking to the Sunnis as the realization that they really didn't have the numbers to call the shots in any kind of reasonably democratic Iraq.

Well, get over it. In this anomalous year nobody from the so-called Conservative "base" is running for the Republican nomination. (Sorry, Huckabee may be a minister, and may be socially conservative, but he didn't make it around the fiscal conservative marker while he was Governor of Arkansas.) This allowed moderately conservative Republicans to be heard, for the first time since Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." Just deal with it, people.

Of the four front runners, Obama, McCain, and Romney all seem to be decent, honest people (for politicians). I can't apply those adjectives to Hillary Clinton because of the way her campaign has tried to play both sides of the race card against Obama (just to cite the most recent outrage from a list that goes back two decades). Hillary's strength is that she has been around and knows politics, but her weakeness is that half the electorate viscerally hates her and her husband. She will be divisive merely by being President, regardless of what she intends, says, or does. We don't need four to eight more years of partisanship. Obama's strength is his potential to quell the partisan bickering in Congress with his personal charm. McCain may be able to quell the partisan bickering with his willingness to compromise, something notoriously lacking on both sides of the Congressional aisle. And McCain may appear the most scary to Ameria's enemies. Romney's strength is his ability to explain economics to Congress and the American people. And the economy will loom large not only in this election year, but for years to come.

On the other hand, I've started reading the Book of Mormon. Between appearances of the ubiquitous phrase, "And it came to pass," it is revealed that there are only two churches: the church of the Lamb of God (I assume the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and the church of the devil (I assume everybody else, including Protestants like me). I wonder how I'll feel about working for a government led by president who believes I'm going to hell. Or have I been doing that already? [added note: see Blainn's coment.]

01 February 2008

Abu Laith al-Libi

We announce the marriage of Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan, to the dark-eyed hounds of hell. The Times Online has an informative article.

Sorry to be so bloodthirsty and disrespectful, but al-Libi was bloodthirsty and disrespectful. He sacrificed unwilling victims to his personal idolatrous vision of who God is, and what God's will is for him to do. He makes better history than news, and until today, the news he made was bad.

Let me take this opportunity to remind you that the world is at war so long as al-Qaeda and its benighted Islamofacist soul-mates can draw enough of a following to play on the world stage. I figure that the social movement they represent will take about 70 years to die out. It will be killed by the adolescent rebellion of the teenagers against their Islamofacist parents. "You can go on fighting your jihad," they will say, "but we will build something for our children. We will build up, rather than break down. We will create, rather than destroy."

Until then each engagement, like Iraq, is not a war in itself. It is only a battle in the larger war. And while one can argue that going into Iraq was a mistake, it will be a worse mistake to pull out before the Iraqis are ready for us to do so. It would be another betrayal of a whole people, and another sign to the Islamofacists that we cannot prevail against their insurgency. That would make them bolder. And since there would be no Americans for them to kill in Iraq, they would have to try harder to kill Americans and Europeans in our homelands.

Hillary Clinton knows that she has to talk like she understands this to get elected. Barak Obama thinks he has to talk like he doesn't understand this to get elected. Mitt Romney talks like he hasn't thought about this yet. And John McCain actually does understand this. So if terrorism were the only issue, I know who I'd pick. But it's not the only issue.

Nevertheless, another Islamofacist has been cured of his lead deficiency. Amen to that.