The Mosque

Okay, so I'm a pretty conservative guy. But in regard to all the latest hullabaloo over the Mosque/Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero, I am taking a position not identified with "Conservatives". That is, I do not oppose this concept. It does not mean that I like it. Doing the right thing often means doing those things we do not like. There is something known as the First Amendment that should be remembered in this debate. If the government can tell Muslims they can't have a mosque somewhere why should it bother me? Because who will be left when the government says we can't have a church somewhere. After World War II, Martin Niemoller said:

When the Nazis came for the communists,I remained silent;I was not a communist.When they locked up the social democrats,I remained silent;I was not a social democrat.When they came for the trade unionists,I did not speak out;I was not a trade unionist.When they came for the Jews,I remained silent;I wasn't a Jew.When they came for me,there was no one left to speak out.

In A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More has this conversation with William Roper regarding the law:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

I believe this is a political football and a dangerous one at that. Have we become so short-sighted that we have no idea of the long-term implications of this? We need to think this through for our own well-being.

I Wish I Wrote That!

There are two basic kinds of history- studies, which academic historians mainly deal in, and stories, which the writers and teachers of narrative history tell. And history as a story is great drama. Viewing it as a series of dramatic scenes involving people, you can travel back in time and set down anywhere in any age and something fascinating and dramatic is happening. Somebody is doing something utterly riveting and probably doing it to somebody else. History, taught and written as drama in all of its nuances, is irresistible, more engaging than any book of fiction ever written. Edward Bellamy, the nineteenth century American author, wrote that "on no other stage are the scenes shifted with a swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the hour strikes."

History is a fantastic story about people. It has every element of dramatic fiction. It has tension and conflict. It has plot and subplot and counterplot. It has drama. It casts lights and shadows into all the corners of human conduct. It is a page turner, and what makes it better than fiction is the fact that it is a fact- it is true. It really happened.

Willa Cather, the twentieth century American novelist, said that the history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. That is indeed what history is all about. It is what the Civil War boils down to. It is a story that begins- and ends- in the hearts of those who lived it. And passing it down the ages is akin to what Sara Pryor, a Confederate woman writing after the war, said of passing one thought from heart to heart- it is like passing "a bit of flame" from one age to another.

If somebody detested history in school it was because it was not taught as a great story, as drama- as a bit of flame- passing from heart to heart. Stephen Ambrose, who wrote history with verve and insight, said once in an interview: "Academic history has lost the power of the narrative. It's lost its audience. And they don't even know it.; Their audience is the eighteen, nineteen-year old American. And those kids come into the classroom, and look up at you and say, "Tell us about our heroes and what did they do?" And they don't get any answer from academic historians. And as a consequence the kids don't take history courses. And as a consequence of that, history departments go down in size. And the aggrieved professors never figure out why."


Ambrose, an academic historian who did figure out why, tried to tell the others, "Look, you've got to tell them about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson [or in Ambrose's case about Lewis and Clark or the hero-soldiers of World War II] then, after that, you can get into the role of women, demographic statistics and stuff like that. But you've got to tell them what it was really like at Valley Forge. And how tough Washington's decision was dealing with the Hessians. You have to give them the foundations of what this country is all about."

What history is all about is people. What Ambrose said of Washington and Jefferson must also be said of the heroes of the Civil War. History that grips the imagination is the history that tells about people and what happened to them in their particular moment in history- history told as a whopping good story.

John C. Waugh. 20 Good Reasons to Study the Civil War. (pp. 85-87)

Grab the Beer, Pop the Chute...

...or, one day I will get around to Edmund Ross.
Steven Slater is the hot topic of the day. He is the real life Howard Beale. For those of you, Beale was the crazy anchorman in the movie Network. Played by Peter Finch, he is best known for uttering the phrase, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." This led to a ratings spike, but when they came back down, Beale was assassinated on live television.
For those of you who don't know, Slater is the JetBlue flight attendant who after asking a passenger to sit down ("until the aircraft comes to a complete halt") was cursed at. He may have even been struck by a bag being removed from the overhead ("remember articles may have shifted during the flight"). Evidently this was Slater's "mad as hell moment." He returned to the front of the plabe, got on the intercom, let loose a profanity laced tirade, grabbed a couple of beers, poppped the emergency chute ("remove shoes and other sharp objects"), and went home. Was Johnny Paycheck's Take this Job and Shove It playing on the radio?
In the Irony department, the other story of note was a woman who wanted Chicken McNuggets before 10:30 am. When informed it was too early, she went ballistic. Striking the attendant and breaking the glass, all caught on tape.
What has happened to Society? It appears we have become spoiled brats. I am a teacher and I see this type of behavior all too often. Students send you an email, and when you don't respond fast enough to suit them, they send a second. I am not talking days but hours, single digit hours. The requests go on ad infinitum.
There is a great little book called The Tyranny of Email by John Freeman that covers this aspect in more detail but I believe it is only symptomatic of a much greater problem. We have become flat out rude. Have you ever been parked between two SUV's and tried to back out? You carefully begin to move so that an approaching vehicle has time to slow down. What do they do? They honk at you and keep right on going. Makes you wonder how they treat blind people.

Where Were You When...?

I remember like it was only yesterday. Actually it was one o'clock this morning. The Texas Rangers had just beaten the Seattle Mariners. It was the post game show. They interrupted with a live news flash that the war was over. No, wrong memory. The auction was over and the Ryan-Greenberg group had won. The prize? The Texas Rangers Professional Baseball Club. How American is that? Nolan Ryan, Hall of Fame pitcher for four teams, now has an ownership stake in one of those teams. And how apropo that it came on the anniversary of one of the great moments of his storied career. No, not the seven no-hitters. Not the 5,000th strikeout or the 300th win. I'm referring to the Fracas in Texas, Dr. K's KO, the Donnybrook in Arlington, Ryan-Ventura, when Robin Ventura charged the mound and Nolan Ryan, in the words of Tony Kornheiser, gave him multiple noogies to the head.
Last night, that image kept running through my head, only Mark Cuban was playing the role of Robin Ventura.
What does it mean for the Texas Rangers? Hopefully, no more questions about the ownership situation. Now that distraction is out of the way. I believe this little mini-slump of the past few days can be correlated to the uncertainty. Now, hopefully, that is behind them. Maybe this is next year.