Metallica Carol of the Bells

The Hottest Baby Names of 2008

Isabella and Aiden tops the list.

God and Meaning

For there to be meaning of life, you would need someone or something to have meant it. God for example, God must have had a meaning of putting us here, hence, the meaning of life.

Your statements confuse me. First, since when does meaning need to be imputed by an external agency? Why does that external agency need to be God? Why, if you want to posit God, does meaning relate to God? And what is meaning anyway? If we take the existential definition by which you mean purpose, intentionality, and significance, then I would suggest that meaning is never imputed at all-- it's derived or achieved by will or the abdication of will.

Proof That a Soul Exists

There is no knock-out proof that we have something within us that is distinct from the biochemical and electrical impulses within our brain. However, two facts possibly explain the persistence in the belief that there is a soul. (1). Given that existence is energy, the energy that makes our thoughts and personality must exist separate from our body when our body ceases to exist with the closed system that is life; and (2). the universal belief, wish, or hope among almost all cultures and through time that a soul does exist.

Social Darwinism and Creationism

Why do so many Social-Darwinists believe in Creation and so many Darwinists believe it is important to help those who are less fortunate?

Even among the robber barons of the 19th century, there was no inconsistency between philanthrophy and capitalism. Creationists were often on the forefront of opposing slavery and eugenics as well as advancing the sufferage movement. On the flip side, I see no inconsistency between helping your neighbor and the less fortunate and believing that species evolve over time. The later relates to moral choices done in one's own lifetime and within one's own circle of influence. The latter has to do with biological changes over eons. Both may be true, but they are true in different ways.

Thank You Very Much -- Maybe

I loved the musical. It's a lovely fairy tale.

But I wonder what would have happened in real life life if Scrooge had carried out his program of debt forgiveness. Bob Cratchit would be unemployed and destitute. Perhaps the bankruptcy of Marley & Scrooge would cause a run on the banks and brokerage houses in London would collapse causing yet more misery and a regional depression. Cratchit daughters Martha and Berlinda would be street-walkers and Tiny Tim would die, thanks to Ebenezer's night of delirium. But there is hope. There is always the government to bail everyone out, and so everyone lives happily ever after.

Yes, it's a lovely fairy tale.

It's Good to Be A Dog

Especially in winter.

Irresponsible Reporting by New York Times?

Here is a press release from the White House press secretary on a New York Times piece that linked the present economic crisis to President Bush's policy of loose lending to promote the "ownership society".

Most people can accept that a news story recounting recent events will be reliant on '20-20 hindsight'. Today's front-page New York Times story relies on hindsight with blinders on and one eye closed.

The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view. To prove the point, when they filed their story, NYT reporters were completely unfamiliar with the President's prime time address to the nation where he laid out in detail all of the causes of the housing and financial crises. For example, the President highlighted a factor that economists agree on: that the most significant factor leading to the housing crisis was cheap money flowing into the U.S. from the rest of the world, so that there was no natural restraint on flush lenders to push loans on Americans in risky ways. This flow of funds into the U.S. was unprecedented. And because it was unprecedented, the conditions it created presented unprecedented questions for policymakers.

In his address the President also explained in detail the failure of financial institutions to perform normal and necessary due diligence in creating, buying and selling new financial products -- a problem that almost no one saw as it was happening.

That the NYT ignored such an important economic speech to the American people and the complex causes of the crises is gross negligence.

The Times story frequently repeats a charge by the Administration's critics: a 'laissez faire' attitude toward regulation. We make no apology for understanding the concept of regulatory balance. That is, regulation should be stringent enough to protect the greater public good and safety but not overly strong so that it unnecessarily inhibits innovation, creativity and productivity gains that are the sole source of increasing Americans' standards of living. But while repeating this charge, the reporters gave glancing attention to the fact that it was this Administration that pushed for strengthened regulation and oversight, greater transparency, and housing reform.

The story also gives kid glove treatment to Congress. While the Administration was pushing for more transparent lending rules and strengthening oversight and supervision of Fannie and Freddie, Congress for years blocked attempts at stronger regulation and blocked reform of the Federal Housing Administration. Democratic leaders brazenly encouraged Fannie and Freddie to loosen lending standards and instead encouraged the housing GSEs to play a larger and larger role in the housing market -- even while explicitly acknowledging the rising risks. And while the story notes the political contributions of some banks to Republicans, it neglects that political contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac overwhelmingly supported Democratic officials -- in particular the chairmen of the banking committees. In fact, even in the midst of what by then was a housing crisis, it took Congress nearly a full year to pass specific legislation called for by the President in the summer of 2007, especially legislation to reform oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

There are many more reporting failures in this story -- failure to consider the impact of monetary policy; ignoring the regional nature of housing markets; and ignoring the Bush Administration's historic proposal to overhaul the nation's regulatory system, for example. But then a review of these issues would wave complicated the reporters' myopic point of view that only Bush Administration policies could possibly be responsible for the housing and finance crises.

Last night, I watched C-SPAN interview Bush. Both the interview and the response to the New York Times have the same thing in common-- a refusal to accept any kind of responsibility for anything that went wrong during his stewardship as president for anything. Bush allowed that perhaps the tone of his remarks on occasion was more partisan than it should have been-- but that is it. Bush portrarys his administration and himself as buffeted and sometimes overwhelmed by events that no one could have forseen. Bush, in this incarnation, is no longer "the decider" of anything. Whatever decisions were made were the logical consequence of forces that pressed down on him. And if it appears that he is leaving a nation in disarray, Bush believes that ultimately "history"-- whatever that is-- will vindicate him. It is this combination of arrogance, stubbornness, dishonesty, and fatalism that has always marked Bush's character. And I think historians will justly place him among one of the worst presidents in this history of this country. At least Hoover kept the peace and at least Nixon opened the door to China. But this president presided over the liquidation of a trillion dollars of equity and two intelligence failures-- 9/11 and Iraq-- with the resulting blood of thousands of Americans on his hands.

The Problem of Susan

I became enthralled in Lewis' Narnia Chronicles at an early age. At the Lewis Collection at Wheaton College I once tapped the back of the wardrobe that once inspired Lewis to write his fantasy only to find that they were wooden slats.

The Problem of Susan has to do with the banishment by Aslan from Narnia of Sunsan Pevensie for her interest in "nylons and lipstick and invitations". Here is an essay discussing this.

Today's Word: Supernal

William Safire, in his column On Language in the New York Times, commented on this word as used in the most famous newspaper editorial ever written, titled "Is There a Santa Claus?".

"...the words, with one exception, are understandable to most 8-year-olds. The "hard" word is in this passage: "Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can . . . picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond."

Supernal? That adjective is not synonymous with "supernatural" or the slangy emphasizer "super-duper." Five centuries ago, Shakespeare had a character look upward to "that supernal Judge that stirs good thoughts," wth a capital J as one would capitalize G in God. Then why didn't The Sun's editorial writer use the familiar synonym "heavenly"? Because, I like to think, Frances Pharcellus Church in 1897 was also writing to adults far off in the future who might be "affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age."

Reading Without Reflecting

"To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting."

Edmund Burke

Our Annual Net-Worth

Every year at this time, I pull together all my statements to arrive at an accurate financial picture. It gives me a sense of how we are doing in the context of our life goals and balance between assets and debts. I also put together a picture for our boys as well.

I try to be conservative in determining our net-worth, which is nothing more than assets minus liablities. I use zillow.com for an estimate of the house. For an estimate of our cars, I take the purchase price and deduct $1,000 each year. I exclude the value of hobbies or furnishings. Liabilities include credit card, mortgage, and equity loan debts. Assets include the house, cars, investment and liquid accounts, and retirement funds.

Like most people, we've taken a hit this year. In fact, it is the first time I've seen a decrease in our net worth due the the deflation of housing and stock values. However, I remain confident about our financial future.

Grief is a Lonely Road

My mother died earlier this month. I'm suspicious of advice other people give on how to deal with grief, as well-meaning and as well-informed as that advice may be. Just as death is unique for each person, the response each of us gives to the death of those we love is also just as unique. It is a road that we must largely walk alone-- a dark road with no sign posts and destination.

We must discover for ourselves what works and what doesn't work for us.

Some will find solace in prayer and the scriptures while yet others in toil and service and yet others in the company of others and in memories from the past. Lately, I've watched videos I took of mom up to fifteen years ago when our kids where young and thoughts of death were far from our minds. It was a pleasure to hear once again my mother's lilting laughter or her voice raised in song or see her carefree clap of her hands.

For me, dealing with grief is not so much an emotion as a choice. I choose not to let my grief effect my professional work. I choose not to let it effect my family, especially at this time of the year. I choose not to let the platitudes of people who in my mother's life had no love for her effect me as well. I choose not to be a slave to my sadness. And it is these choices that gives focus and direction as I proceed on my life's journey. The prayer of St. Francis of Assisi said it well: "O Divine Master. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

While grief is a lonely road, it is up to us whether or not we are alone. I am reminded of the great promise from the Bible "Casting all you cares on Him for He cares for you." And I'm also reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite musical Carousel, reminding me that I need never be alone no matter the circumstances.

When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At he end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone.

The Pragmatism Fallacy

Anthony Dick

The consensus forming in anticipation of Barack Obama’s ascendancy is that, with apologies to Code Pink, pragmatism is the new black.

The trouble with the new wave of pragmatists is that they do not recognize, or else they refuse to acknowledge, their own ideological underpinnings. This is not entirely their fault. Try as they might to escape the old ideological categories they decry, they face an insurmountable obstacle: It’s impossible to eschew ideology in order to “just do what works,” because any understanding of “what works” depends on the antecedent questions of what our policy goals should be and which instrumental policies are most likely to succeed in the world — both of which are heavily ideological questions.

When people praise a policy or a politician as “pragmatic,” they’re often simply praising themselves for being open-minded. They are projecting a false pretense of objectivity, premised on the conceit that they are utterly free of ideology while their opponents are mired in prejudice. In fact, a so-called pragmatist’s support for a policy indicates only two things: that he agrees with the policy’s goal, and that he believes the policy is likely to achieve the goal in an efficient way. But these are precisely the controversies at the core of every old ideological dispute: Which goals should we strive for? And what is the best way to achieve these goals? Pragmatism as a catch phrase does not displace those ideological questions, but does a great deal to obscure them. It is, to borrow from Kant, a vain delusion and a chimerical vision of mankind. Which, on second thought, might explain its popularity in the age of Hope and Change.

The Atheist Penguin

Intriguing reductionism - the penguin's view is that all reality is perceived energy.

I Am You, When I Am I

Praise of Distance

Our Christmas Letter

Each year, since we got married, we've mailed out a Christmas letter. Not too many people do that any more. But I do think it is a worthwhile exercise. I like to think of it as a summing up of the year, a look backwards over the peaks and valleys that made this year special, and also a tiny effort to impart verbal cheer in this annus horribilis. Our family like all other families has taken some hits-- the deaths of loved ones, a burglery, and a harrowing economy. But, on balance, life is good for all of us.

I heard an opinion piece on NRP Radio by a Jesuit priest who wished that he received less family-oriented cards and more religious-oriented cards, or, as he put it, less Virgin Islands and more Virgin Mary. Bah humbug. I could only think to myself that this is a man who deserves to not have a family. What kind of a monkish existence must he live to deny himself the joys and sorrows of family life?

Writing such a letter is a long process. We try to keep it to a single page-- no small task when we all live such full lives. One of my children thought the closing sentiments were "cheezy". Perhaps, but life is more than filling the belly and filling the wallet. And the best of life is cheezy, if by that we mean tending to the maudlin. I was at a mall with the family last week for Chinese and there was a strolling quartet dressed in Victorian clothes signing holiday music. Most of it was of the "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" variety-- fun and frothy but with no especially deep sentiments. At one point, they asked for a request, and they took mine: "Silent Night". They sang so movingly-- it was a moment of musical numinous. Perhaps it was the recent death of my mother or perhaps it was the memory of Christmas stretching back over the decades. But I found my eyes for a moment swimming in a heiligenschein of tears-- and I saw others around effected the same way. It's strange how such unexpected emotions can catch you by surprise.

Anyway, here is our letter for this year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, 2008

Be near me, Lord Jesus
I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever and love me I pray
Bless all the dear Children in Thy tender care
And fit us for Heaven to live with Thee there.

Dear Family and Friends,

Coping with our parent’s declining health has been one of the biggest challenges in this difficult year. On December 1st, Philip’s Mom, Lucinda, went to Heaven after a long illness. Philip was with his 90 year-old mother in April and also in the remaining days of her life. Dad, who had his 92nd birthday in June, has his own apartment at Calvary Fellowship Homes in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Through it all, we have also experienced God’s grace as well as joy in abundance.

Here are some glimpses of those fun moments that will live on in our memory.

In March, we visited Maui in recognition of Nancy’s milestone birthday. The 50th state seemed most appropriate. We enjoyed whale watching from a black sand beach, seeing the giant sea turtles while snorkeling, and marveling at the scenery while we drove the winding Road to Hana. A highlight of our trip was a helicopter ride over the island, where we saw waterfalls, whales, and an aerial view of the volcano.

Our new kitchen is a dream come true and the result of years of saving and planning. Our remodel also included our master bathroom and desert landscaping. It took several months, and we felt fortunate to be able to live in our condo a mile away while contractors were renovating our home.
In October, we took a seven day cruise on the Disney Magic in the Caribbean. Special moments of this trip included enjoying key lime pie in Key West. Nancy had fun driving our family through the sites in Cozumel, Mexico. We all liked the shows and activities on board that made this trip magical. Zach especially enjoyed The Stack, the teenager’s hangout, while Ben liked the beach games at Castaway Cay, Disney’s island.

Philip continues working at Boeing, supporting the Apache helicopter. He likes taking bike rides with Nancy and has fun gardening in the back yard.

Nancy continues to work in the Scottsdale Unified School District. However, she graduated from the classroom into the office as the “ambassador of first impressions” at Cochise Elementary School. It was fun to get together with sisters Kristin and Kara in Las Vegas in July. In December, Nancy traveled to Chicago for a surprise party to celebrate Kara's 40th birthday.

Zach, age 14, is six feet three inches tall—taller than both his parents! As a freshman at Chaparral High School, Zach carries a full load with marching band and honors classes. He is also a soccer referee on Saturdays.

Ben, age 12, enjoys playing with his wave and having fun with his friends. He also likes computer games and being a pen pal with his cousin Liam O’Shea, who lives in Chicago.

During these times, the familiar carol “Away in the Manager” reminds us that God's steadying hand gives us the confidence and the calmness to face the future with faith, hope, and love.

I love Thee, Lord Jesus
Look down from the sky
And stay by my side,
'Til morning is nigh.

We wish you the wonder of a starlit night, the warmth of firelight, and the magic of a Christmas morning. May all that He is fill your hearts with joy this Christmas and always!

A Wartime President

In the interview, Bush said he did not regret his wartime decisions.

"I was a wartime President and war is very exhausting. War is hard for a country. And, you know, I made the decision that we were going to win."

How To Make Your Computer Run Faster

Most geeks make this more difficult than it needs to be. Perhaps to bill hours, they talk about all kinds of stuff-- downloading programs, running regedits, updating permissions, and changing keys. Whatever marginal gains can be accomplished are outweighed by the damage you can do to your system if you make a mistake.

Here is a simple step-by-step that will make your system go faster.

1. Unplug your modem for 15 seconds at the outlet and then plug it in again.
2. Remove spyware by running free programs such as Ad-Aware and Spybot.
2. From Start -> Programs -> Accessories --> System Tools, run the following programs in this order:

Disk Cleanup
Scan Disk
Disk Defragmenter

4. Reboot.

Your PC should be faster.

Bush Dodges A Shoe

It won't just be at airports when we will have to remove our shoes. At every presidential press conference, the secret service will have everyone take off their shoes and, if that doesn't work, go sun-kissed naked. Ugly journalists need not apply.

This episode is a fitting coda to Bush's foreign adventurism, and it's possible that the shoes that were hurled with such disgust for an instant popped his bubble of denial.

"George, why the long face?"
"I can't stop thinkin' 'bout Iraq, baby."
"You mean the death and destruction and botched reconstruction and faulty intelligence?"
"No, no. I mean that sumbitch that whipped his shoes at me. Why'd he do it, darlin'? Why?"
"Oh, who knows why those people do half the things they do? It's over now. You're back home and you never have to set foot out of the country again."
"Thank God for that. It's scary out there. Those people are savages. They don't appreciate what I done for 'em."
"I know, dear. Very ungracious of them."
"Why do they hate me? What'd I do?"
"Oh, they're just jealous dear. They probably have Air Force One envy."
"Well, I'll tell ya what. I appreciate coming back home, because I know you're always there for me, Condi... Er...uh..."
"What??!!"
"No, no...I meant, uh, Laura! That's you! Laura..."
[Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap!]
"Damn, baby, how many shoes you got?"
"I got a lot of 'em, pal. I got a LOT of 'em!!! Now hold still and quit movin your head!"

But, in all seriousness, it's clear that security dropped the ball. And one or two one or two well-paid people who should have known better need to be fired.

The president was in a land where terrorists with long memories have no compunction in taking their own life to make a political point. What if that wasn't a shoe but a grenade? There also is a failure of imagination. I'm reminded of Clint Eastwood in his 1993 move In the Line of Fire, in which he played a guilt-ridden secret service agent resolved not to make the same mistakes he made when Kennedy was assassinated early in his career. The assailant put together a plastic gun that passed through the metal detectors. The mundane can become sinister, where a soda straw can morph into a blowgun and party balloons can hold poison gas. Books, pens, cameras, and cell phones can either turn into weapons or mask weapons. Weapons of opportunity include flag poles, furniture, jewelry stick pins, and weapons on other security personnel. Planted weapons are also a threat, such as was used by Michael Corleone in the move The Godfather to kill the corrupt Captain McCluskey. And, given the complacency that we saw by the secret service, perhaps they should memorize this snippet of dialogue from that movie.

Michael: I have to go to the bathroom. Is that all right?
Capt. McCluskey : You gotta go, you gotta go.
Capt. McCluskey : [Michael stands and Sollozzo starts to frisk him] I frisked him, he's clean. Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo : Don't take too long. [Michael goes to the bathroom]
Capt. McCluskey : I frisked a thousand young punks.

Even in countries with little freedom, assassinations occur. Both Lenin and Hitler narrowly missed such attempts. While complete security is not realistic, especially in a democracy, the secret service can do a better job about thinking about and preventing the unthinkable. Political leaders also have a responsibility in removing to the extent possible the pre-conditions that foster emotions that can boil into such hatred.

Special Deal For A Spring Training Fan

Your ad, titled "2 bed/2 bath Resort Condo *Special Deal For A SpringTraining Fan*," has been posted as follows: http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/vac/960269911.html (vacation rentals)

It's time to get out of the cold and take advantage of our spacious 2 bed/2 bath resort condo during the Catcus League season. It's located in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona (which boasts more than 350 days ofsunshine and blue skies each year). Scottsdale is acclaimed for its world class golf courses, breathtaking sunsets, and sizzling nightlife. During the month of March, you'll enjoy baseball played by more than 12 teams that represent the Cactus League. You'll be just minutes away from an array of wonderful restaurants and shopping. The Scottsdale Links Resort is conveniently located a short distance from the 101 freeway. We are not able to use our condo this year, so act quickly to take advantage of this budget friendly offer.

For more information concerning the Scottsdale Links Resort, please click on the link below:

http://www.luxurysuites.com/scottsdaleLinksResort.html\?_oskwdid=3301325

For any questions on renting this vacation property, please contact Nancy at (480) 951-2686.

Rush and Colin

I get the feeling that General Powell got under Rush's skin.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Spider fun.

Caroline Schlossberg's Aspiration

JFK's daughter sees political office as her birthright. Maybe she ought to try school board, or city council, or county commissioners court before deciding she belongs in the US Senate. Even her dad started in the US House and paid his dues.

Would Caroline Kennedy be a contender for the New York's Senator's seat if she was merely Caroline Bouvier or Caroline Schlossberg? Of course not. But that is also true of every politician who has advanced on the coat-tails of his kin. George Walker would have never been elected president but George Walker Bush was elected. And I don't think a politician needs to pay his dues on the school board before he becomes a senator or a president. That, after all, was Jimmy Carter's path. At the end of the day, if you don't like who is in office, you can make your voice heard with your vote. That's the American way: Vox populi, vox dei.

How Smart People Lose Their Shirt

According to the Wall Street Journal, the following people are among those who have been hit by the massive Madoff Ponzi scam-- using principle from current investors to pay high returns to earlier investors.

New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon, GMAC LLC Chairman J. Ezra Merkin and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman were among the dozens of seemingly sophisticated investors who placed money on what could prove to be history's largest financial scam.

How could it be that the cream of the financial elite allowed themselves to be duped to as much as $50 billion? Part of the explanation lies in how Madoff found his marks.

Mr. Madoff tapped social networks in Dallas, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis. In Minnesota, he attracted investors from Hillcrest Golf Club of St. Paul and Oak Ridge Country Club in Hopkins, investors say.

Madoff exploited tribal ties and his stature within those communities gave him deep wells of of capital. The industrial giants and socialites who came to him with him with fists full of money did so with the faith, hope, and love of sheep to the slaughter. Some of their motivation was avarice-- they had inside information that this money maven could give them two percent more on their money than anyone else. But who was that "anyone else"? Some of them where mainline banking and investing establishments that have since collapsed.

So what is the ground of our trust when it comes to making financial decisions? The economist John Maynard Keynes wrestled with that question. How, he asked, do rational people act under conditions of uncertainty and disquietude? His answer: people embrace "conventions"-- giving them the ilusioin that they are doing the right thing. "A sound banker," Keynes said, "when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way." To understand the dynamic of this scam, it is to realize that investors were acting consistently with their ontological assumptions-- that past is prologue, that some people and institutions can be trusted, that some kinds of aberrant information can be disregarded, and so on. The effect is that investors turn into lemmings. Investing behavior is reinforced by the investing behavior of their uncles and aunts and their friends and family. In the crowd, there is safety and sanity, and thus the crowd must always be right.

But a contrarian strategy-- the crowd is never or seldom right-- is no winning strategy. Some stocks go to zero, after all. The economy generally and the stock market in particular is act of nature, more akin to the galloping of the wilderbeast over the savannah or the ebb and flow of tides. And trend following is often the correct approach as turns in trends can only be predicted by tea leaf readers. Thus, we should expect housing, stock, and oil prices to trend down and gold, tuition, and health costs to go up for as far as the eye can see. Furthermore, there is no sure way that we can determine a turning point in these trends.

For this reason, buy and hold strategies, as counter-intuitive as they may seem, do turn out to be a winning long-term strategy. But that is only based on the assumption that the future will be like the past. Also, concentration rather than diversification can be a long term winning strategy as well as an unmitigated catastrophe. It is within this realm of uncertainty the Madoff investors wrote their million dollar checks.

So what can we do to avoid the mistakes they made? First, we must realize that investment decisions arise not so much from rational thoughts as from subconscious desires-- for community, for affirmation, sometimes even the desire for self-punishment and so on. We must then try to shun those idols as alluring though they may be. And that can only be done through honest, critical thinking and accountability-based behavior. The questions we ask will give us the answers we need.

Betty Page, Christian

Betty Page, the risque pin-up girl with the black bangs who gained fame in the 1950s and later served with the Billy Graham Evangelical ministries in obscurity, has died at the age of 85.




How strange it is that the seven years she spent as a photogenic Jezebel overshadows the five decades she spent serving Jesus. And yet I wonder if her former life so really contradicts her latter life with her irrepresible joie de vivre. And as the years went on, her inner beauty-- the desire to serve others and understand herself and God-- exceeded her outer beauty that she so radiated in the prime of her life.

Page's early cheesecake photographs in my view has the same intrinsic evil as cherry cobbler pie. It's all good-natured fun. But in her few interviews, Betty has expressed regret for some of those pictures and she was astonished that her iconic image took on a life of its own.

After she became a Christian in 1957, Betty attended three Bible schools and later tried to become a missionary to Africa. She was active in a number of Billy Graham crusades and also volunteered in outreach activities, such as for unwed mothers.

Brittany Holberg

The capital punishment question attracts extremes of opinion and passion. Some view it as state-sponsored violence differing only in means to what the criminal perpetrated. Because it is an irreversible punishment, such punishment allows no room for the ambiguity of the justice of the verdict. In the United States, innocent people have died under the rule of the law. On the other hand, because this punishment is final, there is no recidivism. In the United States, prisoners have escaped or have been paroled only to kill again.

There is a difference of opinion as to whether capital punishment has deterrence value and as to whether to cost to the state would be less than lifetime incarceration (because of the cost of the appeals). Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of capital punishment is the moral argument-- it reflects the community's abhorance at crimes so heinous that the only just punishment is death.

I'm generally opposed to the capital punishment, because it seems to be biased against males, blacks, poor people, ugly people, and Texans. However, it's hard not to feel compassion for the families and friends who are the victims of such criminals. And perhaps I would share their passion if someone I loved was a victim of a capital crime.

To put a face on this difficult question, consider a current death row inmate #986588.







Brittany Holberg was a 23 year-old brunette who "robbed and murdered an 80 year old white male in his home. The victim was struck with a hammer and stabbed nearly 60 times. The weapons used were: a paring knife, a butcher knife, a grapefruit knife, and a fork. A lamp pole had been shoved more than 5 inches down the victim's throat." "She didn't just kill A.B. Towery," Randall County District Attorney James Farren told jurors. "She butchered him. She slaughtered him."

Here are the facts as stated in an opinion upholding her death penalty.

At approximately 4:30 p.m., November 13, 1996, in Randall County, 80-year-old A. B. Towery, Sr., purchased groceries at an Albertson's store and then walked back to his apartment. As he neared his home,Towery was approached by Holberg - a 23-year-old prostitute and drug addict - who asked to use his telephone. Towery consented, and the two proceeded into his apartment. Once inside, Holberg asked Towery for money, but he refused. Holberg then tried to take Towery's money by force, and the two struggled. In the course of the struggle, Holberg grabbed several objects (a cast iron skillet, a steam iron, a hammer, a paring knife, a butcher knife, and two forks) and used them to beat and stab Towery, fatally injuring him. After Towery fell to the floor,dying, Holberg shoved the base of a lamp five inches down his throat, choking him and hastening his death. Holberg then searched Towery's pants pockets, found his wallet, and took $1,400 in cash. After showering and changing into some of Towery's clothes, Holberg left. She spent the evening using Towery's money to buy cocaine, which she snorted with a friend. Towery sustained 58 stab wounds and numerous blunt force injuries.

In 2003, Holberg was interviewed by Ms. magazine about her life. She had married as a teenager and in 1993 gave birth to daughter Mackenzie, who now lives with her father in Tulsa . At the age of 20, Brittany moved back to Amarillo, her hometown, andsubsequently fell in with a bad crowd. She became hooked on drugs andbecame a sex worker to support herself. In a Dallas Morning Star account, Brittany Holberg was described as a woman who was exposed todrugs at home when she was 13 or 14 years old, and had married beforeshe completed high school. After the dissolution of her marriage, she became addicted to drugs and confessed to scamming prescriptionmedication from dentists with her aunt. Holberg was caught with drugs and was released from state custody after completion of a substanceabuse felony punishment program on September 1, 1996. Holberg had also once been gang raped, severely beaten and cut with a knife; she was hospitalized after the incident.

The day after her jury came in with their lethal sentence, Brittany was transported to the death row at Gatesville: "I can't even explain to you, she sighs, what it s like to have someone say, 'you are sentenced to die.' It's words. You feel helpless, numb. It's almost as if your emotions shut you down." For weeks, Brittany lay catatonic in her cell, staring at the wall, not quite believing where she'd landed. Eventually, I made myself get up. I learned how to stop focusing on where I was, whether it was right or wrong, because all that doesn't matter. The desire to live was what mattered, not the reality of her surroundings. "I don't dwell everyday on the fact that I'm on death row," she tells me. "I would go mad if I sat here everyday and thought to myself, 'The State of Texas wants to kill me. They want to put a needle in my arm and they want to kill me.' So I have learned to take every day one little step at a time."

Less sympathetically is this posting from someone who who in prison with Holberg.

"This letter is about a death row inmate Pam Perillo who was exonorated from death row and had her sentence commuted to life in prison plus 30 years! She was on death row for 19 years and spent a few with Brittany and Darlie. I was on bench warrent with Pam Perillo went she went back to harris county jail for her new trial. These girls are all a sham trying to get out of a really bad situation, and then Brittney who was Pam Perillo's lover in the death row. Her letter were all the same, how she missed her lover Pam. Pam got off death row, and the things I experienced with her in the jail cell at the Harris County jail is like a real movie.

I was in protective custody and that is why I was with Pam and protective custody is where death row inmates reside on bench warrent. Pam did drugs in the jail, had sex, with guards as well as inmates, and then she uses the minstries for money to support herself while in the jail for commissary, and then the minstries come to visit them,and the personality changes from dyke to Christian girl, all in the name of commissary and these minstries fall for it, and she would laugh all the way to commissary. I was there for a property crime, I did my time and because of people like Pam Perillo and Darlie and Brittney, I learned I was not like them and didn't want to be like them, I just wish the public could lift away the sympathy they show these girls who are all murders, and liars and stop supporting them,you should check out the bank balances on those death row inmates,they are loaded, they make a business out of their celeberty status,they do, and they clean up from the minstries and the public who get mesmorized by these girls! Stop it, they are killers and manipulators and all of you are buying into it, and they are living a good life in prison with all the money the sympathy gets them. Please wise up! Brittaney stuck a light pole from one of those lamps that touch the celing and to the floor, she stuck that pole down that man's throat,and Darliee, she stabbed those babies as they laid at her side and never even gave it a thought as they gurgled their last breath or cried out for mommy, what are you doing to us, why are you killing me!

STOP HELPING SUPPORT THESE GIRLS, STOP WRITING TO THEM...LET THEM ROT LIKE DYING CHILDREN IN THEIR GRAVES."

So there you have it. Brittany Holberg-- the scared parentless girl, the scammer, the killer. Juries represent the moral sense of their community and perhaps their decision is what it must be. But I do want to suggest the legal and human complexity of such decisions that relate to capital crime and punishment.

Why the Economy Has Collapsed

Joseph E. Stiglitz , a Nobel Prize–winning economist and a professor at Columbia University, wrote an insightful analysis of key mistakes that were made by policy-makers under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II and one national delusion that led us to where we are in our economy. Anyone who thinks that our current predicament is merely the natural order of things needs to read this article. Here are some excerpts.

Was there any single decision which, had it been reversed, would havechanged the course of history? Every decision-including decisions not to do something, as many of our bad economic decisions have been-is a consequence of prior decisions, an interlinked web stretching from the distant past into the future. You'll hear some on the right point to certain actions by the government itself-such as the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to make mortgage money available in low-income neighborhoods. (Defaults on C.R.A. lending were actuallymuch lower than on other lending.) There has been much finger-pointingat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two huge mortgage lenders, which were originally government-owned. But in fact they came late to the subprimegame, and their problem was similar to that of the private sector: their C.E.O.'s had the same perverse incentive to indulge in gambling.

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: abelief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, "I have found a flaw." Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, "In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working." "Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan said. The embrace by America-and much of the rest of the world-of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

Camille Paglia's Preemptive Military Action

I stopped short while reading Camille Paglia's scattershot ramblings on Salon with this paragraph, combining pedestrian insights with half-truths and unsupported claims.

The slaughter of the Hertzbergs and other Jews at Chabad House should be a wake-up call to Western liberals who believe that jihadism can be defeated through reason and happy talk. Only other Muslims can launch the stringent internal reform necessary to stomp this barbaric extremism out. But the events in Mumbai confirmed my opinion about the looming problem of a nuclear Iran: While I oppose all American military operations and bases in the Mideast, I continue to believe that Israel, whose security is directly threatened, has every right to take preemptive military action against Iran.

I agree that only Muslims can create the conditions and force the reforms to prevent the Mumbai-like attacks in the future. But everything else Camille says lacks much sense to me. There is no evidence that the attack was some how an attack on the West in the name of jihadism. Westerners died, but it appeared that the attack was aimed at regional greviances relating to India's northern border. I don't know of any Western policy makers liberal or otherwise who believe that reason and happy talk are enough to defeat terrorism. Obviously, defense, intelligence, economic aid, people to people contacts, and diplomacy are indispensable as well. I doubt that Isreal's desire to take military action against Iran or anyone else can be decoupled from US capabilities, including military operations and bases in the Middle East. Isreal's so-called desire to attack Iran may have as much credabilitywith Iran's so-called desire to have the bomb-- a lot of dangerous wordsaimed at riling up their respective constituancies. Finally, as a matter of ethics and international law, I deny that any country has the right to take preemptive military action, as such action is contingent on perceptions of intentionality. Just because I think you are dangerous, that doesn't entitle me to hit you. It does entitle meto be aware of the possibility that you may strike me and protect myself accordingly if you do. When I was at school, I read a study from the Rand Corporation for the Defense Department that proposed this as a response in a scenerio of nuclear conflict-- that it was more rational to absorb the first blow than to strike on the belief that an attack was imminent. The fact is that mutually assured destruction kept the peace through the Cold War, and I see no reason why MAD cannot continue to keep the peace so long as even enemy nations are held accountable as nations to terrorist entities that they harbor.

Animal Videos

Another reason why I like the internet.

My Kind of Town, Chicago Is

It was a bad day for Illinois, with Governor Blagojevich charged with corruption and the bankruptcy of the Tribune. The indictment is hair-raising, even for someone like myself who cut my journalistic teeth on Illinois politics.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/blagocharged.pdf


Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich allegedly spent significant timeweighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration a tbeing "stuck" as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of apossible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to himafter leaving public office; facilitating his wife's employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

I'm sure this scandal is just the tip of the iceburg. As to whether it will touch the new administration, only time will tell. My guess is that it will indirectly, and the Republicans must be happy at that prospect. My guess also is that the governor and his wife are going to get frog-walked to Stateville Prison. The Republicans can indeed reclaim their power but it must be on the basis of integrity and competence in contrast to the Democrats, and this may give them an opening.

But what is it about Illinois politics that is so conducive to corruption? I think it is the combination of entrenched machine politics-- the downstate Republican machine and the city Democratic machine and almost non-existent public financing laws and a compliant local media.

Craving Palin

The crowds that flock to see Palin wherever she goes have found something different in her: authenticity, charisma, and hope. Too bad these qualities are "different" in American politics, but the palpable craving for them explains much of people's continuing interest in her.

So says The Weekly Standard. But perhaps crowds flock to see Palin for the same reason they flock to see Joe-Joe the Dog Faced Man on the Alaska state fair's midway. She is pure entertainment and the comedy gift that keeps giving. But Sarah is an albatross that will haunt Republicans through the next few election cycles. Conservative social stands such as on abortion, crime, and welfare may well be in sync with what most Americans believe and I believe it is indeed possible to win a national election on such a platform. However, leaders of unimpeachable integrity and competence must articulate those stands as well as the kitchen-table concerns of average struggling Americans for them to compete with the Democrats. Palin falls short in those areas. Some minor scandals from her home state has dragged her down. And Sarah, an affirmative action selection if there ever was one, takes pride in her inability to speak simply and clearly.

My guess is that there will be a Palin boomlet in New Hampshire in 2012 that will soon fizzle when the Republican voters come to their senses.

Lede: Today's Word

A "lede" (to rhyme with greed) is a story's first sentence or paragraph that sets the mood or establishes the article's theme.

Read More.

The variant spelling to "lead" emerged to distinguish itself from the metal that was used by typesetters.

Sherri Viniard

Sherri Viniard, the Director of Public Relations for the Newton County School System, emailed a statement to 11Alive News Thursday that reads, in part: "Student safety is our primary concern, and although this was a toy gun, it is still a very serious offense and it is a violation of school rules. We will not tolerate weapons of any kind on school property.

This is in the wake of the arrest of a ten year old for having a cap gun in school. The boy was "charged with possessing a weapon on school property and with terroristic acts and threats."

Are there any thinking adults in the Newton Country School System of the great state of Georgia?

When you have school administrators, policemen, and judges that interpret the law autistically and literally without any sense of proportion, application, and common sense, than you should expect parents and students to look at such rules and the people that make and enforce them with corresponding contempt.

Awesome Photographs

. . .that looked like they were photoshopped but were not.

The Bible's View of Marriage

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

The Religious Case for Gay Marriage (Newsweek)

The textual counterpoint used by religious conservatives is that the Bible lays out a prescription for opposite-sex marriages, from Genesis 2, where God pairs Adam and Eve, through Ephesian 5, where the apostle Paul compares the relationship between husband and wife to the relationship between Jesus and the Church. My view is that the bias within the Bible is to marriage as we traditionally understand it, although the definition of marriage is implied rather than defined. However, as Newsweek notes, the Bible taken as a whole is more pluralistic than what most conservatives would allow. It is interesting that many of these same conservative would consider wine drinking sinful. And yet wine was the central element in the Wedding at Cana as well as at the the Last Supper. This again is an example where the Bible is used to support cultural and social biases rather than to illuminate spiritual truths.

Moving On

They entombed my mother yesterday at Whitemarsh Memorial Park in Ambler, Pennslyvania. I wasn't able to attend the funeral. But I've been to the well-landscape, 160 acre park twice before. A tree-lined drive leads up to the 174 foot Tower of Chimes and mausoleum where my mother now rest. The beauty of it is such that you will sometimes see weddings, proms, and picnickers on the grounds. I remember the rhododendrons, roses, and sculptures and seeing a bushy-tailed red fox scamper across our path when I visited the park one autumn day.

Mom was buried in a oak casket on the seventh and highest tier. It's a metaphor of my parents' life that they will be forever untouchable and unreachable-- closest to heaven and furthest from us in death as well as life.

The memorial service was held at my parent's church of a half century, Berarchah in Cheltenham. Sister-in-law Joyce Wik wrote the following bulletin for the service.

Lucinda Elizabeth Wik
October 12, 1918 - December 1, 2008

Much Beloved Wife
Treasured Mother
Precious Grandmother
Cherished Great-Grandmother

Lucinda Elizabeth Wik, 90, died Monday, December 1, 2008 at Calvary Fellowship Homes in Lancaster, PA. Born in Redland Bay, Queensland, Australia on October 12, 1918, she was the daughter of Frances and Jane Eliza (Fielding) White. Lucinda began her professional career as a nurse, rising to a position of authority at the Brisbane Women’s Hospital. She met her husband of 56 years, Harold T. Wik, on the mission field. Lucinda was a devoted Christian who served the Lord as a missionary with China Inland Mission, later called Overseas Missionary Fellowship, in China and West Malaysia from 1948 – 1982. During that time she was involved with pioneer Sunday school work, Bible correspondence, visitation, and Christian education. She demonstrated a deep love for the Chinese people among whom she ministered. She raised four precious children: Paul Raymond, Philip Granville, Anne Marie, and Timothy Alan. She became a naturalized American citizen on March 5, 1975. In 1982 she retired, living in Roslyn, PA until May 2008. She was an active member of Berachah Church, Cheltenham, leading women’s Bible studies, visiting shut-ins, and assisting in Vacation Bible School.

In addition to her husband, she will be greatly missed by her children Paul (Joyce) of Downingtown, PA, Philip (Nancy) of Scottsdale, AZ, Anne (Wayne) Birch of Hatboro, PA and Timothy of Elkins Park, PA. A sister, Ruth White of Redland Bay, Queensland, Australia, survives her, as do many loving nieces and nephews. Seven grandchildren: Timothy (Holly), Peter, Rebekah (Jacob) Sauer, David Birch, Zachary, Jennifer Birch, and Benjamin; and four great-grandchildren: Gregor, Lucinda, Valentine, and Karina will also miss her tender affection.

Lucinda was much more than a sum of her parts. Everyone who met her was captivated by her warm personality, her insightful wit, her compassionate character, her godly demeanor, and her servant’s heart. Until shortly before her entry into glory, she was working on making Christmas gifts for her grandchildren. She was a faithful prayer warrior who could be depended upon to call with words of encouragement as she prayed. She loved to laugh and bring joy to others. At CFH the staff called her “lovey-dovey.” We can say with confidence that she was greeted with the words “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord” as she entered heaven.

The family requests that contributions in Lucinda’s name be made to the Pocket Testament League, P.O. Box 800, Lititz, PA 17543. Online condolences may be made through the website: www.youngfuneralhome.com.

Service of Memories

Welcome to family and friends Roy Eichner
Opening Prayer Roy Eichner
Hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness
Prayer of Comfort Pastor Brian Wood
New Testament Scripture Reading: I Thessalonians 4:13-18
Hymn: Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It!
Tributes from Friends Pastor Ron Vallette
Obituary Pastor Ron Vallette
Tributes from Family Members
o Jenny’s Poem
o Tim’s Poem
o Philip’s Epilogue
o Joyce’s Tribute
o Trio: Paul, Joyce, & Rebekah - It Is Well with My Soul
o In Lucinda’s own words – Three Poems
o Words from Harold

Hymn: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!
Old Testament Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55:1-13
Message Pastor Brian Wood

Guests are invited to share some light refreshments with the family in the Fellowship Hall immediately after the service. You may greet Harold and the family at that time.

The family would like to thank Pastors Brian Wood and Ron Vallette and the Berachah church family for their friendship over the years, their support during Lucinda’s infirmity, and their comfort offered at this time of her passing. Special thanks to those who have helped today: Roy Eichner for leading the singing, Peter Hilliard for providing the music, Nancy Matczak for organizing refreshments, and Bill Barry for set up.

The loss of a parent is no small thing. It's easy to feel that's an experience that has happened to no one before. But Mom wanted us to live in the now and the future while not forgetting the past. Several years ago, my Persian cat that I had for 16 years died. I grieved for Rex, as he had wrapped himself around my heart for such a long time and during a time when I was single. But after one year mom correctly rebuked me in my wallowing of grief. There is a time for tears and sadness, and each person will need to go through this process at their own pace. But, if Mom's life has any meaning at all, it is to celebrate life and family and not be bogged into a morass of looking backwards like Lot's wife. There will be a time to move on. For me, that time is not quite yet. However, perhaps the best thing I can do for myself and something that my mother would want for me to do is for me to embrace everything that has enriched my life-- the very things that I've tried to reflect on this blog-- my love for family, ideas, and nature. So that's what I will do, out of the deepest respect for my beloved mother.

Mom had strong literary skills and she always encouraged me in my writing. She kept diaries and journals for much of her life, corresponded weekly to friends and family from around the world, and loved and wrote poetry. The following poem that she wrote was read at the service on Saturday.

" Men must endure, their going hence even as their coming hither," writes Shakespeare, and my mother did so with stalwart grace. Perhaps the best epitaph that I can think of for my mother is another line from Shakespeare, from Prospero, in The Tempest, in praising his daughter Miranda: "Thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her."

Oogedy Boogedy: A Dissent

In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.

Pope Benedict, 2006

Lucinda Wik: 1918-2008

On December 1st, 2008, at 5:40 pm, while I held my mother's hand and as she was gazing at her husband of 56 years, her spirit took flight.

Read More.

A biography of my mother.

Lucinda Elizabeth Wik, 90, a retired Missionary for Overseas Missionary Fellowship, where she worked for 34 years, died Monday, December 1, 2008 at Calvary Fellowship Homes in Lancaster, PA. Mrs. Wik lived in Lancaster, but was previously a resident of Roslyn, PA. She was born in Redland Bay, Queensland, Australia and was the daughter of the late Francis and Jane Eliza (Fielding) White. She was a devoted Christian doing missionary work with her husband in China and West Malaysia retiring from the OMF family in 1982. Lucinda was also a nurse and a member of Berachah Church in Cheltenham, PA.

She is survived, in addition, to her husband Harold, by 3 sons; Paul R. (Joyce) of Downingtown, Philip G. (Nancy) of Scottsdale, AZ, Timothy A. Wik of Elkins Park, and a daughter, Anne M. (Wayne) Birch of Horsham. A sister, Ruth White of Redlands Bay, Queensland, Australia; 7 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren also survive her.

A Memorial Service will be held on Sat., Dec. 6, 2008, 3 P.M. at Berachah Church, 400 Ashbourn Rd, Cheltenham. Private Entombment will be in the Whitemarsh Mem'l Park in Ambler. A Memorial Service will be held in Lancaster at a later date. The family requests that in lieu of flowers contributions in Lucinda's name be made to Pocket Testament League, 11 Toll Gate Rd, Lititz, PA 17543.

Here is a guestbook in my mother's memory.