1/24/2006
Semantic Smoke
NUMBER 130
Words
A good friend chides me from time to time about subscribing to and actually reading our local liberal rag, the Lexington Herald-Leader. I told him the other day that since I gave up real coffee for the decaffeinated stuff, I have relied on the morning paper to get my juices flowing.
The other day, Larry Dale Keeling, one of the liberal resident columnist hit men wrote something that caught my eye. In a column about wedge issues in the Kentucky Legislature he was going on about things like the Ten Commandments in public, Intelligent Design in the schools, and same sex marriage. Then he slipped in a new one.
He has been earning his living critiquing our Republican Governor for his somewhat ham-handed attempts to redress generations of the Democrats’ lock on State hiring. In his current budget proposal Fletcher had the gall to call for a right to work law that would allow citizens jobs without their being mugged by the unions and their money being given, without their permission, to the Democrats. Commenting on this, Keeling observed:
“Of course, in keeping with the neo-con philosophy of never calling anything by its right name, if you can make it sound better or worse by renaming it, ‘right to work’ has become ‘employee choice’ in Fletcher speak.”
If there ever was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it. For at least 33 years the pro-abortion crowd has called pro-abortion pro-choice. The H-L stylebook forbids the use of pro-abortion, and demands the use of pro-choice whenever the subject is treated in print. On the other hand, when “pro-life” comes up, the H-L generally calls it “Anti-abortion.”
For 33 years the liberals have hailed “choice” as a perfectly good word when used to obscure the destruction of over 45,000,000 babies in the womb. But today, when it is used to describe a very legitimate choice by workers, it has become a bad word—an egregious example of the semantic sneakiness of those nasty Republican neo-cons.
Both sides do this. We probably all remember President Reagan’s “Peace-Keeper Missile.” But the Democrats, generally unacquainted with shame, have been the major culprits in throwing up semantic smoke screens to protect shameful activities. Keeling’s charge above shows just how shameless they can be,
However, it may not matter much. A few days later I read in the H-L that, “More than 50% of students at four year schools (colleges) and 75% at two-year colleges lack the skills to perform complex literary tasks.” Among the things these folks cannot do is “understand the arguments of newspaper editorials.” This is probably why editorials and opinion writers rely heavily on emotions and semantic smoke and why most of the letters to the editors seem like sloppy but consistent parroting of the editorials and columns.
However, those of you who write or speak the truth into the public square should not grow weary of doing good—remember, “One word of truth outweighs the world.”
+++++++
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’”
John 14.6
Words
A good friend chides me from time to time about subscribing to and actually reading our local liberal rag, the Lexington Herald-Leader. I told him the other day that since I gave up real coffee for the decaffeinated stuff, I have relied on the morning paper to get my juices flowing.
The other day, Larry Dale Keeling, one of the liberal resident columnist hit men wrote something that caught my eye. In a column about wedge issues in the Kentucky Legislature he was going on about things like the Ten Commandments in public, Intelligent Design in the schools, and same sex marriage. Then he slipped in a new one.
He has been earning his living critiquing our Republican Governor for his somewhat ham-handed attempts to redress generations of the Democrats’ lock on State hiring. In his current budget proposal Fletcher had the gall to call for a right to work law that would allow citizens jobs without their being mugged by the unions and their money being given, without their permission, to the Democrats. Commenting on this, Keeling observed:
“Of course, in keeping with the neo-con philosophy of never calling anything by its right name, if you can make it sound better or worse by renaming it, ‘right to work’ has become ‘employee choice’ in Fletcher speak.”
If there ever was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it. For at least 33 years the pro-abortion crowd has called pro-abortion pro-choice. The H-L stylebook forbids the use of pro-abortion, and demands the use of pro-choice whenever the subject is treated in print. On the other hand, when “pro-life” comes up, the H-L generally calls it “Anti-abortion.”
For 33 years the liberals have hailed “choice” as a perfectly good word when used to obscure the destruction of over 45,000,000 babies in the womb. But today, when it is used to describe a very legitimate choice by workers, it has become a bad word—an egregious example of the semantic sneakiness of those nasty Republican neo-cons.
Both sides do this. We probably all remember President Reagan’s “Peace-Keeper Missile.” But the Democrats, generally unacquainted with shame, have been the major culprits in throwing up semantic smoke screens to protect shameful activities. Keeling’s charge above shows just how shameless they can be,
However, it may not matter much. A few days later I read in the H-L that, “More than 50% of students at four year schools (colleges) and 75% at two-year colleges lack the skills to perform complex literary tasks.” Among the things these folks cannot do is “understand the arguments of newspaper editorials.” This is probably why editorials and opinion writers rely heavily on emotions and semantic smoke and why most of the letters to the editors seem like sloppy but consistent parroting of the editorials and columns.
However, those of you who write or speak the truth into the public square should not grow weary of doing good—remember, “One word of truth outweighs the world.”
+++++++
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’”
John 14.6
1/16/2006
Alito v. The Culture of Death
NUMBER 129
Alito v. The Culture of Death
Thirty-three years ago on January 22, 1973, The Supreme Court of the United States of America declared open season on babies in the womb.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
Roe invalidated a 19th century Texas statute prohibiting abortion except in cases where necessary to preserve maternal life on the basis that the right of privacy secured by the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes a fundamental right of a woman to decide "whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."
The opinion written by Justice Blackmun said this:
“To summarize and repeat:
1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
At the same time a companion case was decided that has been used to define the Court’s understanding of what the “preservation of the life or health of the mother” meant in Roe:
"[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors -- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age -- relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health." Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 192 (1973).
These two decisions effectively provided an absolute legal right to an abortion for any reason and at any time. In case there was any doubt of the woman’s absolute right to a dead baby, another case removed it:
Planned Parenthood vs. Casey 505 U.S. 833(1992), at 851
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life.”
The effect of this decision was to propound a universal moral right not to recognize the universal moral laws on which all rights depend. It is a liberty of infinite width and zero depth.
Last week, being retired and free, I watched almost all of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. This was a critical appointment where an avowed strict constructionist conservative would be replacing the woman who was responsible for the “undue burden” test (she cooked up for Casey) that has torpedoed every State attempt to limit or regulate absolute abortion on demand.
Let me give you a very brief summary of the hearings as I observed them.
Day One: Eighteen Senators, one after the other, leaped onto their hobby horses and pranced around the hearing room, bloviating mightily all the way. On the Right they were urging a fair, civil, proper hearing of Alito’s record and qualifications. On the Left they were whooping and hollering and working themselves up to a crucifixion, a burning at the stake, or at least a stoning.
Days Two through Four: During 18 hours of intense questioning, the Judge answered 759 questions and declined to answer 43. Most of these 43 were blatant attempts to extract a promise not to overturn Roe or not to allow President Bush to use modern technology to identify, track or capture the homicidal Sons of Allah bent on destroying Western Civilization and turning the clock back to the 14th century.
Those on the Left spent their time beating a few dead horses to the point where they were tender enough to throw to the ACLU Jackals and Feminist Hyenas yipping and yapping around the edges of the hearings.
Those on the Right spent a lot of their time trying to bring the same dead horses back to life before they starting stinking and smelling up the next Congressional elections.
The Left made Mrs. Alito cry at one point with their frontal attempts to destroy Alito’s reputation and credibility but they never laid a hand on the Judge. He answered all the questions honestly, capably, and accurately, without a note or a word from helpers. With 15 years on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, he remembered every case well enough to explain and refute the Left’s distortions, misinterpretations and erroneous conclusions about the most obscure of the cases.
What struck me about these hearings is the frantic desperation of Kennedy-Schumer-Durbin-Leahy and friends. What was especially ludicrous was to watch Ted Kennedy assume the moral high ground and accuse Alito of imaginary moral and ethical failures that would disqualify him for service on the Supreme Court. This is the same spoiled trust baby who got kicked out of Harvard for cheating--the same United States senator who got drunk, drove a young female campaign worker to her death, then chose not report it to authorities until the next day, and then, only after calling his lawyer, concocting an alibi and developing a strategy to contain the political fallout.
If Roe were to be overturned, it would simply return the matter of abortion to the States and the people where it properly belongs. It would no doubt limit and regulate abortion much more closely, but it would not be the end of the world—except that no-holds-barred world where over 45,000,000 babies have been murdered in the womb, 95% or more of them for little more than convenience.
The Left seemed on the edge of madness in this hearing. If they are foolish enough to try a filibuster in the Senate, we will know they have gone over the edge. I found myself wondering what might happen next. Should Justice Ginsburg or Justice Souter retire from the Court before President Bush finishes his second term, what stronger weapons could the left bring to the battle? Perhaps they might round up some of the old “Friends of Bill” to quietly disappear the appointee prior to the hearings.
Whatever happens, I suggest prayers are in order for those who govern us.
+++++++
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears A Who
Alito v. The Culture of Death
Thirty-three years ago on January 22, 1973, The Supreme Court of the United States of America declared open season on babies in the womb.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
Roe invalidated a 19th century Texas statute prohibiting abortion except in cases where necessary to preserve maternal life on the basis that the right of privacy secured by the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes a fundamental right of a woman to decide "whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."
The opinion written by Justice Blackmun said this:
“To summarize and repeat:
1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
At the same time a companion case was decided that has been used to define the Court’s understanding of what the “preservation of the life or health of the mother” meant in Roe:
"[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors -- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age -- relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health." Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 192 (1973).
These two decisions effectively provided an absolute legal right to an abortion for any reason and at any time. In case there was any doubt of the woman’s absolute right to a dead baby, another case removed it:
Planned Parenthood vs. Casey 505 U.S. 833(1992), at 851
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life.”
The effect of this decision was to propound a universal moral right not to recognize the universal moral laws on which all rights depend. It is a liberty of infinite width and zero depth.
Last week, being retired and free, I watched almost all of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. This was a critical appointment where an avowed strict constructionist conservative would be replacing the woman who was responsible for the “undue burden” test (she cooked up for Casey) that has torpedoed every State attempt to limit or regulate absolute abortion on demand.
Let me give you a very brief summary of the hearings as I observed them.
Day One: Eighteen Senators, one after the other, leaped onto their hobby horses and pranced around the hearing room, bloviating mightily all the way. On the Right they were urging a fair, civil, proper hearing of Alito’s record and qualifications. On the Left they were whooping and hollering and working themselves up to a crucifixion, a burning at the stake, or at least a stoning.
Days Two through Four: During 18 hours of intense questioning, the Judge answered 759 questions and declined to answer 43. Most of these 43 were blatant attempts to extract a promise not to overturn Roe or not to allow President Bush to use modern technology to identify, track or capture the homicidal Sons of Allah bent on destroying Western Civilization and turning the clock back to the 14th century.
Those on the Left spent their time beating a few dead horses to the point where they were tender enough to throw to the ACLU Jackals and Feminist Hyenas yipping and yapping around the edges of the hearings.
Those on the Right spent a lot of their time trying to bring the same dead horses back to life before they starting stinking and smelling up the next Congressional elections.
The Left made Mrs. Alito cry at one point with their frontal attempts to destroy Alito’s reputation and credibility but they never laid a hand on the Judge. He answered all the questions honestly, capably, and accurately, without a note or a word from helpers. With 15 years on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, he remembered every case well enough to explain and refute the Left’s distortions, misinterpretations and erroneous conclusions about the most obscure of the cases.
What struck me about these hearings is the frantic desperation of Kennedy-Schumer-Durbin-Leahy and friends. What was especially ludicrous was to watch Ted Kennedy assume the moral high ground and accuse Alito of imaginary moral and ethical failures that would disqualify him for service on the Supreme Court. This is the same spoiled trust baby who got kicked out of Harvard for cheating--the same United States senator who got drunk, drove a young female campaign worker to her death, then chose not report it to authorities until the next day, and then, only after calling his lawyer, concocting an alibi and developing a strategy to contain the political fallout.
If Roe were to be overturned, it would simply return the matter of abortion to the States and the people where it properly belongs. It would no doubt limit and regulate abortion much more closely, but it would not be the end of the world—except that no-holds-barred world where over 45,000,000 babies have been murdered in the womb, 95% or more of them for little more than convenience.
The Left seemed on the edge of madness in this hearing. If they are foolish enough to try a filibuster in the Senate, we will know they have gone over the edge. I found myself wondering what might happen next. Should Justice Ginsburg or Justice Souter retire from the Court before President Bush finishes his second term, what stronger weapons could the left bring to the battle? Perhaps they might round up some of the old “Friends of Bill” to quietly disappear the appointee prior to the hearings.
Whatever happens, I suggest prayers are in order for those who govern us.
+++++++
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears A Who
1/11/2006
AMONG THE HALLOWS
NUMBER 128
The Hallows
The success of The Chronicles of Narnia in the theaters over Christmas has moved me to dig out a poem you may have read before if you have been with me from the beginning. I have always appreciated C.S. Lewis, and learned from him. So raise your glass with me to all those writers whose imaginations have enriched our understanding of the Kingdom of God. Take a walk among the hallows and listen for the silent thunder of the Lord of Hosts.
AMONG THE HALLOWS
"Ordinariness, in a word, opens out into mystery, and the thing that men are supposed to do with mystery is to hallow it, for it all belongs to the Holy One." Tom Howard
Beyond the veil of ordinary things,
The door, the room, the meal, the work, the play,
There press in on every side…
Mighty Mysteries, Ineffable Immensities,
Heavenly Places, Spiritual Forces,
Rulers, Powers, Princes, Glorious Habitations
Incandescent Vistas, Consuming Fires, Unbearable Splendors,
Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels, Angels,
Eternity Incomprehensible,
Unapproachable Light,
Shekinah,
Glory,
The sounds of…
Celestial Dancing
Myriad Hallelujahs
Trumpets
Flutes
Timbrels
Lyres
Harps
Bagpipes
Tambourines
Cymbals
Silent Thunder,
Echoes of…
Camelot
Narnia
Perelandra
Middle Earth
The New Jerusalem…
We walk among the hallows
In the presence of the unseen
That would ravish and terrify us
Were the veil stripped away.
We are the poorer for our eyes
That often seeing, do not see,
Our ears that often hearing, do not hear,
Our hearts that all too often stop
On the surface of
The ordinary things.
12/02
JS
The Hallows
The success of The Chronicles of Narnia in the theaters over Christmas has moved me to dig out a poem you may have read before if you have been with me from the beginning. I have always appreciated C.S. Lewis, and learned from him. So raise your glass with me to all those writers whose imaginations have enriched our understanding of the Kingdom of God. Take a walk among the hallows and listen for the silent thunder of the Lord of Hosts.
AMONG THE HALLOWS
"Ordinariness, in a word, opens out into mystery, and the thing that men are supposed to do with mystery is to hallow it, for it all belongs to the Holy One." Tom Howard
Beyond the veil of ordinary things,
The door, the room, the meal, the work, the play,
There press in on every side…
Mighty Mysteries, Ineffable Immensities,
Heavenly Places, Spiritual Forces,
Rulers, Powers, Princes, Glorious Habitations
Incandescent Vistas, Consuming Fires, Unbearable Splendors,
Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels, Angels,
Eternity Incomprehensible,
Unapproachable Light,
Shekinah,
Glory,
The sounds of…
Celestial Dancing
Myriad Hallelujahs
Trumpets
Flutes
Timbrels
Lyres
Harps
Bagpipes
Tambourines
Cymbals
Silent Thunder,
Echoes of…
Camelot
Narnia
Perelandra
Middle Earth
The New Jerusalem…
We walk among the hallows
In the presence of the unseen
That would ravish and terrify us
Were the veil stripped away.
We are the poorer for our eyes
That often seeing, do not see,
Our ears that often hearing, do not hear,
Our hearts that all too often stop
On the surface of
The ordinary things.
12/02
JS
1/03/2006
DIVERSITY
NUMBER 127
Fruit of Diversity?
I mailed this envelope on December 5th and it came back the day before Christmas. Our local postman looked at it today December 27th) and tells me that it is within the weight, thickness and labeling requirements and he would have mailed it just as I did.
Apparently there is a mailperson somewhere in the system who does not know what a quarter inch is and is not able to recognize English when it is staring him in the face.
I will spare you a rant on evils of giving preferential treatment in hiring based on almost everything but competence--you all know the drill. But I will observe that possibly things are getting worse.
We have been sending this kind of letter to Uganda for over four years now, to the same address, with essentially the same label, weighed on the same scale. This is the first time one of our letters has encountered this kind of incompetence. I will leave it to you to decide whether this is good news or bad news, a fluke or a trend.
I generally have high regard for the people of the United States Postal Service, but I have no regard at all for the Government’s obsession with gender, ethnicity and quotas in their attempt to create not only equal opportunities but equal outcomes in the market place. It appears the dumbing down of America is proceeding apace, due in no small degree to the Multiculturalist Nanny State’s busy efforts to level the playing field so much that there are no longer any winners and losers, not even a score to be kept (except the affirmative action statistics).
Perhaps it would be good to make a subversive New Year’s Resolution this year—to heed the admonition of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 9.10: “Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, for there's neither work to do nor thoughts to think in the company of the dead, where you're most certainly headed.”
There was a medieval stone carver who was often chided for his perfectionism. He insisted that the gargoyles he carved be perfect. Any slip of his chisel or flaw discovered in the stone was enough to discard the piece and start fresh. “Your gargoyles are hundreds of feet in the air,” they said, “no one can see them from the street below well enough to notice.”
The stone carver just smiled and said, “I know, but God can see them.” You see, he was not carving a stone gargoyle; he was building a great Cathedral for God.
I have been known to grumble when my wife calls me to help wash the windows. She always wants to do this job too soon and too well. But the fact is, I tend to think of it as scrubbing dirt off glass--she thinks of it as keeping a home.
So perhaps this year when I am called to help wash windows, I will “grab it and do it heartily.”
Fruit of Diversity?
I mailed this envelope on December 5th and it came back the day before Christmas. Our local postman looked at it today December 27th) and tells me that it is within the weight, thickness and labeling requirements and he would have mailed it just as I did.
Apparently there is a mailperson somewhere in the system who does not know what a quarter inch is and is not able to recognize English when it is staring him in the face.
I will spare you a rant on evils of giving preferential treatment in hiring based on almost everything but competence--you all know the drill. But I will observe that possibly things are getting worse.
We have been sending this kind of letter to Uganda for over four years now, to the same address, with essentially the same label, weighed on the same scale. This is the first time one of our letters has encountered this kind of incompetence. I will leave it to you to decide whether this is good news or bad news, a fluke or a trend.
I generally have high regard for the people of the United States Postal Service, but I have no regard at all for the Government’s obsession with gender, ethnicity and quotas in their attempt to create not only equal opportunities but equal outcomes in the market place. It appears the dumbing down of America is proceeding apace, due in no small degree to the Multiculturalist Nanny State’s busy efforts to level the playing field so much that there are no longer any winners and losers, not even a score to be kept (except the affirmative action statistics).
Perhaps it would be good to make a subversive New Year’s Resolution this year—to heed the admonition of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 9.10: “Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, for there's neither work to do nor thoughts to think in the company of the dead, where you're most certainly headed.”
There was a medieval stone carver who was often chided for his perfectionism. He insisted that the gargoyles he carved be perfect. Any slip of his chisel or flaw discovered in the stone was enough to discard the piece and start fresh. “Your gargoyles are hundreds of feet in the air,” they said, “no one can see them from the street below well enough to notice.”
The stone carver just smiled and said, “I know, but God can see them.” You see, he was not carving a stone gargoyle; he was building a great Cathedral for God.
I have been known to grumble when my wife calls me to help wash the windows. She always wants to do this job too soon and too well. But the fact is, I tend to think of it as scrubbing dirt off glass--she thinks of it as keeping a home.
So perhaps this year when I am called to help wash windows, I will “grab it and do it heartily.”
