Movie Review: Elizabeth, The Golden Age

I really enjoyed the first Elizabeth movie with Cate Blanchett as England's greatest ruler, so I went in to this movie with high expectations. I did not expect the movie to be fast-moving, but I was a little put off by just how slow it turned out to be. But the movie succeeds in its dramatic objective, and it is absolutely stunning to behold.

If you're a lover of visual elements contributing to a story, the way, for instance, Ridley Scott's movies use camera angles, set design, costumes, and location scouting to help move a story along, Elizabeth, The Golden Age will be a satisfying experience for you. If you're looking for a good war story mixed with a romance, you can do better. Both the war and the romance in the story are important elements to the story, but they aren't the real struggle going on within the title character.

The movie is set in 1587 and 1588, as Spain is agitating for war against England based on England's status as the most prominent and wealthy Protestant nation in Europe. There are two significant historical liberties taken with the movie -- the real-life personalities of Francis Walsingham and William Cecil are conflated into a single character, and some deeds of Sir Francis Drake are conflated into the backstory of Sir Walter Raleigh, whose historical life events are also subject to revision in timing for dramatic purposes.

Elizabeth is portrayed at the height of her power as queen, addressing the issues of the day and the politicians working under, with, and at cross purposes to her with the kind of comfort and authority one would expect from a great ruler. She is beautiful, wise, intelligent, and promotes religious tolerance at some risk to herself. But, she is lonely and with the benefit of her education, she knows that life has more to offer than what she sees as the gilded prison of her throne. Most of all, she wants to be loved rather than flattered, and she despairs of any man loving her for herself rather than for the power and wealth which she can dispense. She has problems -- what to do about that pesky Mary Stuart, whom she has imprisoned in a rural castle, and growing tensions with the powerful Spanish Empire and its religious zealot of a leader, King Philip.

But the real conflict is not political, it is internal. Elizabeth finds herself attracted to Walter Raleigh, a bold and handsome adventurer -- but she cannot pursue him from her throne, and sends her lady-in-waiting to woo him in her stead. This creates a love triangle that the viewer knows is doomed to end badly. It also clouds Elizabeth's vision of governance, and she and her administration fall in to a trap, which leads to war against Spain. Deliberately and with some grace and subtlety, the movie propels Elizabeth to have to choose what kind of a person she really is. Though in the end she watches the Invincible Armada burn in the English Channel, her real triumph comes within herself.

I was dissatisfied with a few elements of the movie, though. I was particularly disappointed that in her rally to her soldiers, Elizabeth did not utter the historically accurate and stirring line that should the Spanish land on English soil, they would find that England's queen had "the heart and stomach of a man." A sexist sort of comment, to be sure, but not only age-appropriate but quite bold in context. It would not have failed to have inspired bravery, and given that the line was so famous it really should have been in the movie.

Sure, I would have liked to have seen more of the naval battle between England and Spain, but I realize there were budget issues and the movie wasn't as much about the war as it was about the queen. I'm not bothered that much about the liberties with history that the screenwriters took -- the reality of the duelling spymasters at Elizabeth's court, and the rise and fall of various nobles within that court would have been far too complex and distracting for the movie's real story.

But having decided to dispense with the details of history and chronology, the writers could have taken things a few steps further than they did, and presented Elizabeth with more choices and fewer faits accompli. Despite her obvious strength as a character and as a leader, her most critical decisions (how to resolve her attraction to Raleigh; how to deal with Mary Stuart; how to deal with resistance to her rule) were too frequently made for her by others, especially as the plot developed. And while it's historically accurate to show her vacillating on the question of whether to execute Mary Stuart, it's still not only distasteful but more to the point, contrary to the image of Elizabeth as a strong ruler that the movie wanted to present.

Cate Blanchett did a fantastic job of showing Elizabeth's emotions while presented with many difficult situations. The other actors, including the rakishly handsome Clive Owen, all turn in journeyman performances. I liked Geoffrey Rush as Walsingham very much, especially with the moral ambiguities inherent in being the queen's right-hand man. The sets and costumes are astounding; in particular, Elizabeth's makeup (much noted even in her own day) is presented with care to accommodate the demands of both present-day filmmaking and historical authenticity (the real Elizabeth, probably to conceal smallpox scars, wore very heavy, very white makeup almost all the time she was in public view). The liberties taken with historical events are intelligently chosen and fulfill the movie's goals. Occasionally the lighting is bad, sometimes the characters cannot be heard clearly.

The movie, while imperfect, was well worth our time and money and quite enjoyable. History afficionados should consider it a must-see. I think it would also be worth it to take young girls to see the film, because it shows a woman comfortably wielding power and addressing difficult situations with grace and intelligence -- and in the end, it is Elizabeth's identity, morality and intelligence that matter most, not her beauty, wealth, or power.

A Gay Wizard

I can't say I'm altogether surprised.

Jotting Down Case Notes at Four In The Morning

There once was a lawyer named TL,
Whose mind, while at sleep, would not quell.
He awoke in the dead of night,
About his case strategies to write,
And then decided to blog about it as well.

Analogy

Would Thomas Hutchinson have had sympathy for Philippe Pétain? I was listening to a series of lectures on the American Revolution, and when Hutchinson and his early career was compared with what he did later as Lord Governor of Massachusetts, I couldn't help thinking of Pétain. I'm not quite sure why; the analogy between the two is far from perfect. But I think maybe Hutchinson would have gone easy on the Marshal -- each man was trying to make the best of a very bad situation in which he felt overwhelmed.

A Few Good Men

When I feel like I need a “pep talk” to inspire me to do good work, I like to watch my favorite lawyer movie: A Few Good Men. The climactic scene, in which Tom Cruise cross-examines Jack Nicholson and makes him melt down, is hands-down the best courtroom scene I can think of. More dramatic than Spencer Tracy confronting Frederic March in Inherit the Wind, and in my opinion more dramatic even than the “Rule 303” scene in Breaker Morant. Better than Joe Pesci’s expert witness examination of Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, or the surprisingly effective slapstick comedy of the final cross-examination in Liar, Lair (both of which are very, very funny), and at least as moving as Gregory Peck’s advocacy in To Kill A Mockingbird. Today, though, I need no such inspiration – I’ve a full plate of work and lively challenges facing me, and another interesting day sitting as a temporary judge has been of help, too. But yes, I still want to make a witness break down, yell at me that “[I] can’t handle the truth!” and then slit his own throat so thoroughly and completely that there is no possibility of recovery.

ENDA's Game

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed out of a critical committee vote today, and the law will soon be voted on by the full House of Representatives. The critical language, supplementing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment of the individual, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation; or

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify the employees or applicants for employment of the employer in any way that would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment or otherwise adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.

I'm ashamed to note that my own Congressional representative voted against passage of the law. "Buck" McKeon, my Congressman, said in a press release, "When you strive to protect some people, you take away protections of other people ... some of us on this side are representing some of those people that feel like as good as your intentions are, you're taking away their rights in their religious beliefs and dealings on a day-to-day basis."

What are you talking about, Buck? The right of someone to fire an employee you think is gay, that's what. Conflating your "no" vote with the "principle" of "religious freedom" is dressing up prejudice against gay people in the vestments of religion, pure and simple.* It would be rather unusual for someone to be fired for, say, cheating on their spouses, skipping church on Sunday, or for blasphemy, and most people would think that firing someone from a job for doing such a thing would be an overreaching into the private life of an employee on the part of the employer.

Also interesting to note is the fact that some Democrats are opposed to the bill, because it does not include within its scope of protected classes people who have unusual "sexual identities," which means transgendered people (pre-, post-, or non-surgical). While discrimination against such people is bad, EDNA is still a step forward. What's more, as Professor Dale Carpenter argues, it would be very unusual indeed for a case of non-conformance to a "correct" gender identity would be legally distinguishable to a jury from a case of at lease perceived sexual orientation.

The real battle for passage will be in the somewhat more closely-divided Senate, probably in late November. The law probably does not have enough votes behind it to survive a Presidential veto, if the President elects to veto it. It's not clear to me whether such a veto would be in the works -- the President is not stupid, and he knows that a veto of this law would be yet another rallying cry to the Left that would affect the 2008 election. He's already given a lot of ammunition to the left by vetoing SCHIP, the unholy and expensive proposed marriage of AFDC and Medicare. Or, on the other hand, he could decide that he simply doesn't give a damn what anyone in either party thinks of him or his vetoes, and he'll just do whatever he pleases and veto the law, or not.

Time will tell. But I can't think of any reason in the world that pretty much any employer would have a legitimate interest in discriminating against gay people, and so I hope that ENDA becomes the law of the land.

* Religion is often used to provide cover for what otherwise would be obviously morally unacceptable conduct, but that's not what this post is about.

Obscenity: I Know It When I See It

Carl’s Jr. (known as Hardee’s in non-Western parts of the country) has unveiled its new breakfast burrito, to the jeers of at least one nutritionist who calls it “food porn.”  Weighing in at nine hundred and twenty (920) calories, it stuffs two omelets, bacon, sausage, ham, cheese, sausage gravy, and hash browns into a large flour tortilla.  The Country Breakfast Burrito has sixty grams of fat – and for less than five dollars in most markets, you can get it in a combo meal with coffee and deep-fried hash brown “rounds.”  I hope that the restaurants keep defibrillators handy.  Cardiologists across the nation should be buying stock in this company, especially while it’s cheap.

A Pox On Both Their Houses Already

James Carville recently predicted that Jeb Bush would be the Republican nominee for President. Too bold a prediction for 2008; I don’t see that happening now, but I could see Jeb stepping up to the plate the next time around, after the bad taste left over from the mess his brother has got us into will have faded from memory. So consider this vision of a future political history – one day someone might compile a chart that looks like this:

Winners of United States Presidential Elections:

1988 George H.W. Bush
1992 Bill Clinton
1996 Bill Clinton
2000 George W. Bush
2004 George W. Bush
2008 Hillary Rodham Clinton
2012 Hillary Rodham Clinton
2016 Jeb Bush
2020 Jeb Bush
2024 Chelsea Clinton
2028 Chelsea Clinton
2032 George P. Bush
2036 George P. Bush

This is fanciful, but not so beyond the realm of realistic speculation if the potential support Jeb Bush enjoys is strong enough to carry him to the White House.

If this chronology comes true, Chelsea Clinton would be 44 years old upon taking office (her dad was 46 when he swore the oath), and George P. would be 56. Chelsea Clinton is currently a management consultant with McKinsey, George P. Bush (Jeb’s oldest son) is an attorney and in training to become a reserve naval intelligence officer; both are beginning lucrative careers that could lead down the path of politics with ease. And it’s possible that by the time 2040 rolls around, new generations of Bushes and Clintons will have been born and moved in to politics. It’s a little depressing to think that two entire generations could grow up only knowing members of two families with any experience running the country, like so many members of the houses of York and Lancaster vying for power.

UPDATE: I'm apparently not the only one to think of this ridiculous but distinctly possible scenario.

Prayer, Stoicism, Moral Duties, and Happiness

Deus, dona mihi serenitatem accipere res quae non possum mutare, fortitudinem mutare res quae possum, atque sapientiam differentiam cognoscere

In English, this means “God, give me the grace to accept with serenity that which cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” I came across this sentiment – interestingly, recast in the light of Hindu theology – earlier today, and promoted as one of the primary keys to personal happiness. The Hindu commentor suggests that by focusing on one’s moral imperatives rather than on the outcome of fulfilling those imperatives, personal happiness can be increased. I generally agree with that sentiment and while I don’t always practice it, I’m generally happier when I’m able to. An interesting comment by a Christian was made in response to this idea. He cited 2 Samuel 12:15-23 as an illustration of how this sentiment is found in the Bible.

Here’s the back story: David is King of Israel; he fell in love with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriel the Hittite, one of his great warriors. In order to make Bathsheba his own wife, he ordered Uriah to the front of a battle, where he was certain to be killed, and in fact Uriah was killed. David then married her (note that he had other wives at the time) and they had a son. But even though David observed all the legal and social niceties like waiting until the widow’s customary forty days of mourning had passed, Jehovah saw what was really going on (being omniscient and all), was quite displeased with King David’s conduct, and took action on His displeasure:

…And so the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bare unto David, and it was very sick. David therefore besought GOD for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead?” But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.” Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, “What thing is this that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread.” And David said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, ‘Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

This story is intended to serve as a model of behavior for people to draw lessons from to guide their own lives. And a poor one at that – David strikes me as behaving in a morally deficient fashion here. His son was sick and dying and refusing to eat. Of course, David was upset by this. But what did he do about it? He didn’t stop being the king while this was going on. Were there no doctors in all of Israel, no one who knew what to do with a sick infant that the king could send to tend to his dying son? Instead of acting to heal the child, David fasted and prayed. Perhaps the doctor wouldn’t have done any good anyway, Bronze Age medicine being what it was, but he could have at least tried. It seems to me that at best, David lacked the wisdom to tell the difference between that which he could change and that which he could not. (Yes, I do think that many Christian Scientists are morally in the wrong for refusing medical care, particularly for their children, because of their spiritual beliefs. Faith healing and prayer is roughly as successful at healing people as providing no treatment at all; when it’s reasonably within your power to provide healing, you probably should do it.) David, as far as I can tell, stood by and did nothing while his son died. This is quite simply not a model of good moral behavior.

The story goes on that after washing up and getting some grub, David consoles Bathsheba by having sex with her again. But that’s not really the point, is it? The point, I suppose, is to accept that despite the tragedy of the loss of the son, David was still alive and he had to accept his loss and move on. The story does a fine job of expressing that point – to such a degree that David recovers from his grief and enters acceptance of his loss with inhuman speed.

UPDATE: It has been privately pointed out to me that not every story in the Bible is intended to be a model of good moral behavior. Fair enough. But it still seems to me that David is being held up as a wise or good man here for his acceptance of his son's death and resumption of his life and his duties, and to that extent the story is, at minimum, highly ambiguous morally. It is also pointed out that since the point of the story is the lesson of acceptance, perhaps the author of the story chose to omit details about the doctors; after all, the story doesn't say that David refused to send medical help. Again, I'm not blind to the point of the story; but the sending of doctors would seem to have been about the highest moral imperative here, and if David is going to be illustrated as a paragon of conduct in one sense, it seems odd that the author of the story would have omitted David's discharge of his moral duty if he really had done it.

Go Rockies

It's damn near impossible, even for a Dodger fan like me, to not be impressed by the Colorado Rockies. They've improbably come up from the basement of the NL west, won 21 of their last 22 games to scrape in to the playoffs, and swept the Phillies and the D-Backs in the post-season. This is an incredible run anytime (that's one loss in the last month) but if you're going to peak, yeah, this is kind of the time to do it. They'll rest until at least Saturday, depending on how long the Cleveland-Boston series in the ALCS takes. But I'll be pulling for Todd Helton (a longtime favorite on my fantasy baseball teams) and his Rockies in the World Series whether they play the BoSox or the Indians. How can you not root for a team like that?

A Series Of Lists

Items unintentionally lost or destroyed in the move:

1. One (1) bottle of rare, high-quality Ukranian vodka
2. Two (2) plexiglass-framed prints
3. One (1) glass-framed movie poster
4. One (1) picture frame for original picture (picture undamaged)
5. Two (2) joint bolts for sectional couch
6. Eleven (11) eggs

Items already, or likely to soon be, intentionally discarded:

1. Extra television
2. Bachelor-era couch
3. Set of dishes (plates, bowls, and a few service items)
4. Old toaster oven
5. Old coffee maker
6. Quite a lot of old clothes

Items acquired to assist with move:

1. Two (2) 13' folding ladders
2. New coffee maker
3. New toaster oven
4. 232 feet of ceiling trim
5. Lots of paint, wood stain, and stain-stripping chemical goop
6. Hand sander
7. Dual-axis mitre saw
8. Four (4) light fixtures (2 installed so far)
9. Vent sleeve and water hookups for laundry

Items likely to be acquired soon, finances permitting:

1. Upgraded dishwasher
2. Updated microwave
3. Upgraded range
4. Upgraded blinds and window treatments
5. Lawn mower

It's amazing that, after having to move so much stuff, we still need more -- and we still need to get rid of more. Diogenes was right: when you own a lot of things, your things wind up owning you.

The Queen's Bench and Global Warming

The Queen’s Bench in Britain issued a ruling recently regarding Nobel Prize winner Al Gore’s landmark documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  Of particular interest is the manner in which the court addressed “scientific errors” in the movie, although the opinion is generally about whether the movie is too “political” to be taught in British state schools without a counter-balance of an opposing viewpoint being given equal time.  The entire opinion can be read here, and it explains, in language I can understand (that is to say, within the structure of a legal analysis), the scientific controversies underlying the movie.  From the opinion, it seems to me that 1) the film is indeed quite political in nature, and 2) the scientific disputes with the film, while significant, do not seem to attack the core premise of global industrialization correlating significantly with global climate change.  I’m the first to argue that logically, correlation does not imply causation.  As a student of history, I know well that there have been generations-long periods of global warming – and cooling – in the past which do not seem to have had industrial causes.  All the same, the opinion convinces me that while there may not be as comprehensive a scientific consensus on the issue as there is on (for instance) evolution or particle physics, there is enough data to justify political action intended to control what’s going in to the atmosphere.

I Am Not An Electrician...

And I am not a plumber and I am not a carpenter and I am not a painter. I am a homeowner (again) and that makes me by necessity all of these things. This weekend, I’ve had to re-wire lamps and stereos, replace and troubleshoot washing machine and dryer hookups, paint crown trim, and a whole host of other things for the new house. What’s more, I don’t think I’ve been working as hard as my wife, who has been putting stuff away as fast as I can get it to the house, and who did a lot more of the painting than me.

I am also not a mover, but I got to try my hand at that, too. We hired a couple guys to move the big stuff, and they were a big help. It took two trips with a 14’ U-haul truck, but fortunately Soffit House is only a mile away from our former house, and after five hours all the furniture and other large things had been moved. Yesterday, my buddy helped out with a couple carloads of stuff, and we were finished getting everything over before dark last night, including our food, which was good because it meant we could eat something other than fast food again.

I am also not a dogcatcher. I thought I had shut the gate to the backyard after taking out the trash last night, but apparently I didn’t do a very good job of it, and the gate was open this morning when The Wife let the dogs out for their morning constitutional. And that meant that it was time for the doggies to go boldly forth and explore, where No Dog Had Gone Before. She caught on to what was happening pretty quickly, but in the dark of the early morning, she couldn’t see the dogs and it was anyone’s guess where they had gone.

I am not a happy early riser. But there I was in my pajamas at not yet five o’clock in the morning, calling out my dogs’ names to every blind corner in my new neighborhood. The neighbors undoubtedly think their new neighbor is some sort of crazed Buddhist botanist wandering the streets shouting for “Karma” and “Sassafras.” We saw that the sun had come up, but didn’t enjoy the dawn – we were panicked, looking for our missing doggies. It got to be nearly eight o’clock, The Wife was late for work, and I finally made the call that someone would either catch them and call the number on the tags, or they would be caught by Animal Control and we’d get a big ticket, or they’d be just plain gone. On that glum note, we went to work.

Now, I am a lawyer, but I was a rather distracted one during a client meeting as I was trying to set aside the “Lost Dogs” poster I had created to try and think about my client’s problems. Immediately after a client interview today, a guy called my cell phone and said he had Karma but couldn’t get “the other dog” to come to him. I flew out of the office, and met the guy and his friends at his house – which was about a quarter-mile from Soffit House, but across a very busy street – and collected Karma. He pointed out where he’d last seen Sassy, and sure enough, there she was, and she came when I called her. The dogs were very thirsty but otherwise unhurt. The guy initially refused my offer of a reward, but when I characterized it as, “Have a pizza on me,” he took it and I was pleased to offer it.

Finally, I am not a gardener. But, even before we can replace and stain the cabinet doors, and finish the painting and the trim, I’ll need to buy a lawn mower because the lawn is starting to look a little bit shaggy. And I'll need to set up some chain-link fence to further confine the dogs to an area they can't get out of should I fail to close the side yard gate properly again.

Ah, the joys of home ownership.

House Anxiety: A Haiku

Must move Saturday

yet the remodeling is

vastly incomplete

How Much Does That Traffic Light Cost?

In Palmdale, California, it seems that upgrading one intersection from a four-way stop to a four-way traffic light costs taxpayers $815,000.  (Now is the appropriate time to let out a long, low whistle.)

I've Felt Like This Too

Rick Moran resents that his political party has been hijacked.  I understand how he feels completely, and that’s why I keep reading his blog.

To Proselytize or Not To Proselytize?

One of the most powerful reasons that atheism has become so prominently featured in public debate recently has been a series of high-profile books and other media efforts by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennert, and Christopher Hitchens that are openly critical of religion and which, by extension, urge people to adopt an atheistic world view.  I’ve always thought the idea of an “atheist evangelist” is a little bit silly; after all, an evangelist proselytizes because his religion has told him to do so and atheism is, by definition, the absence of any religion. 

 

Today, indirectly responding to the astonishing bigotry of Ann Coulter, Prof. Ilya Somin points out that an atheist is not compelled to adopt any particular moral world view; the forces that impel the atheist to oppose injustice and immorality are themselves moral forces and the only thing distinguishing the atheist from the theist in that regard is that the atheist will not accept as a starting point to moral reasoning the arbitrary dictates of a religious text.  So, there is no moral imperative or any other integral part of being an atheist that impels an atheist to seek to ‘convert’ others to that particular world view.  Moreover, Prof. Somin suggests that atheists are relatively weak compared with other more politically-organized and popular religions, and proselytizing might tend to anger or upset those who disagree with atheists – and therefore if atheists are to proselytize at any point, they must wait until they enjoy more political currency than they do at present.

 

I agree with his first point, but I disagree with the second.  While we yet have rights in this nation, we should exercise and enjoy them.  That there may be some political price to pay for the exercise of one’s rights is part of the picture, yes, but if we allow our rights to lay fallow, they will eventually evaporate.  And many big ideas that are well-accepted now began as very unpopular ideas – for instance, the idea of a floating index for currency (rather than a gold or silver standard); the complete abolition of slavery; and even within the world of religion, the idea of Protestant Christianity in the face of a supremely powerful Catholic Church.  There is no reason that atheism should remain as unpopular as it is now, unless atheists are afraid to identify themselves and speak up for themselves, and therefore cede the field of political and social relevance to religionists.

 

The reason atheists should not evangelize is that there is no reward for doing so.  Atheism is not an organized belief structure.  There is no “church of atheism.”  Yes, there are some prominent people who are public with their world views, but they do not always agree with one another about exactly what it means to be an atheist (Sam Harris, for instance, sees value in meditative experiences such as that offered by Zen Buddhism, while Richard Dawkins does not) and the social implications of atheism are different from place to place and time to time.  Atheism offers no cosmic protection racket (“Believe in and follow the teachings of [insert name of appropriate deity here] and go to eternal paradise; disbelieve and suffer eternal damnation”) and disbelieving in a deity does not impose any kind of a logical, moral, or even emotional duty on the part of the disbeliever to attempt to convince others to also disbelieve.

 

Atheists should, I think, not proselytize their world view – but they should also speak up for themselves about it.  You, Loyal Reader, may never become an atheist yourself no matter what I say.  Your belief is not the result of anything logical or based upon substantial evidence; consequently, it doesn’t matter what evidence or logic I offer to you.  And that doesn’t make it bad – I can’t offer you any logic or substantial belief to explain why I love my wife.  But I do love my wife and that is an experience and a facet of my world view that is not subject to evidence or logic.  If your faith in God is the same way, I can understand that.  But even so, I can demonstrate to you by both word and deed that I live a happy, interesting, meaningful, and morally upright life without religion.  You either will or will not realize that this demonstrates that religion is distinguishable from happiness, morality, or meaning, and if you do so, you either will or will not internalize and act upon that understanding.  I can’t do that for you, and I don’t think I should try.

Nobel Laurelate Al Gore

I find Vice President Al Gore’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work publicizing global warming and related environmental problems, to not sit well with me. I’m not alone in this. I have two problems with the award.

First, the award is supposed to go to people (or, more recently, institutions) that promote the idea of peace in the sense of preventing or ending wars and other kinds of political violence. If there is a relationship between environmental problems and political violence, it is indirect at best.

Second, the bulk of what Gore has presented as part of his campaign has been based on science that is not well-accepted as very likely to be correct; there is not yet the same kind of consensus on the issues of causation and reparability of environmental change as there is in other areas of science. The Nobel Peace Prize shouldn’t be given for a scientific achievement, much less one of questionable credibility. Gore and the scientists he works with seem to be right in terms of broad strokes (the Earth is warming up and there are serious problems that will arise out of that) might be right, but it’s one thing to observe a phenomenon and another to explain it. I’m not as convinced of the theories of causation, and the proposed “solutions,” that are part of Gore’s message.

In Gore’s defense, it’s possible that the Nobel Committee decided that no one has really done much to effectively resolve political violence in the past year or so, so they might as well make some other kind of political statement.

Turns Out, It Really Is Intentional

You sometimes wonder whether talking heads say offensive things intentionally or whether gaffes pop out of them more or less at random.

For instance, I could be persuaded that Bill O'Reilly suggesting that a little boy saw an upside to being kidnapped from his parents and repeatedly raped was a statement made out of ignorance rather than malice; it's possible that, at the time O'Reilly said those things it was not entirely certain whether the abducted child had simply been held or whether his kidnapper was molesting him.

But it's something else entirely when someone points out, "Dude, you just put your foot right in it," and gives the person in question a chance to retract or apologize. When the person in question not only repeats but then inflates their originally offensive statements, that's evidence that the statement is a real look into the person's intentions. So when Anne Coulter said that America would be a better place if everyone were Christian, the host of the program (Donny Deutsch, who is Jewish) gave Coulter that out. She didn't take it and instead proceeded to dig further:

"No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say."

"Wow, you didn't really say that, did you," Deutsch said.

"Yeah, no,” Coulter replied. “That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners.

Deutsch said he was personally offended.

"No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be," [Coulter replied]. "I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews."

There's more; go ahead and read the whole thing. It's astonishing, and it's about as conclusive proof as I need to be satisfied that this "opinion leader" is really, honestly, maliciously a bigot. Coulter may not necessarily be off the mark when she says that "liberals prefer invective to engagement" but she's hardly in a position to cast that stone in the first place.

It would be easy to dismiss Coulter as an irrelevant "shock-jock" of public debate, a political pornographer and nothing more. But it matters because she is an opinion leader, a lightning rod for the issues we discuss. Somehow, she's been put in a position where she and a few other elites like her pose the questions that the rest of us answer and debate amongst ourselves. Having one of those questions be, "Should we all be Christian?" means "Should we get rid of all the Jews and Hindus?" and from there it's only a very short step to "Should we all be Baptist Christians?" and the theological and ideological narrowing process only continues from there. And that's a very unhealthy debate to be having.

DIY Blues, Part II

Why is it that every project involved in getting this house into move-in condition takes twice as long and costs twice as much as we had originally budgeted?  That weekend we were out of the house because of the check is really costing us now in terms of time, which in turn costs us more in terms of money.  We’re trying to do the job right, and early, since we intend to be in this house for a long time and the improvements are for our enjoyment as well as to enhance the value of the house.  Our pre-move projects are:

 

1.  Paint the entire interior of the house (except for the ceilings).  This is mostly done, thanks to my mother-in-law and my wife (I did some of this, too, but not nearly as much as they).  Uncompleted portions are above the kitchen soffit, the vault above the hallway, and the vault above the master shower.  Also, the WC in the master suite is still builder-white, but I don’t think painting that is a real high priority.

 

2.  Place crown moulding on the ceiling and walls of the front rooms and the master suite.  We got the moulding at Lowe’s last night – and I had to rent a truck to get it to the house, because Lowe’s won’t cut the moulding to size.  “The chop saw is only for plywood,” I was told, as if the chop saw wouldn’t work on moulding.  Tonight’s project will be painting 232 feet of moulding.  Good times.

 

3.  Strip and re-stain all of the the kitchen cabinetry.  This has proven to be immensely more work than we had originally calculated on.  We’ve burned through one hand sander and at least two different kinds of chemical stripper.  We finally gave up and are having new unfinished cabinet doors made, and are waiting for estimates on those from various vendors.

 

4.  Replace the old tacky blinds with nice-looking window covers.  We had the blinds guy out to the house last night, and found out that the blinds we were looking at would cost a total of about three times what I’d hoped to spend.  So we’ll do one room at a time and live with the tacky old blinds in some of the other rooms for a few months until we can afford to replace all the blinds.

 

We’re also looking for a few art pieces to put on the walls.  Because of the color choices and some of our preferences, one thing that I’d really like would be a Japanese calligraphy – preferably on rice paper or something else that looked nice.  The Wife would also like to replace our furniture, but we are going to be out of dough as it is, so that’s going to have to wait.  She also needs a new computer; her desktop tower is more than five years old and has recently manifested some performance issues.  So there’s no shortage of things to spend the bucks on.