My Mall & News

Hitler Finds Out Michael Jackson Has Died

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:28:00 +0000

In bad taste and vulgar but funny.

Web Value Calculator

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:55:00 +0000

Web Site Outlook values Google at $2.41 billion, My Mall & News at somewhat less.

Happy July 4th

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:28:00 +0000

You need to see "The Deer Hunter" to appreciate the authenticity of this rendition of "God Bless America."

"Till our success/Be nobleness." Ray Charles and "America, The Beautiful."

Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land."

The Wonder and Glory of FAFSA

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:16:00 +0000

I'm starting to dig into getting college financial aid for the boys. Here is a great five minute tutorial.

Palin Quits

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:13:00 +0000

I think Palin will be indicted before the month is out-- the upshot of an investigation into the Palin Crime Family's use of state money for private contracting work. Her motive is her family? Hardly. Where was this motive when she was running for the White House? Her lila feeewings were hurt from Mr. Lettermen's naughty words? Will her lila feeewings be hurt from naughty words coming from Iran or North Korea? If she cannot stand the heat, she should go back to the kitchen, where she makes great moose.

I think she may have made a good director of publicity for Coca Cola, but, as Andrew Sullivan notes in the video below, it is frightening that anyone considers this person a credible potential leader of the free world.

Palin's Poetry

"If she cannot stand the heat, she should go back to the kitchen, where she makes great moose."

As I mentioned in another post, the blatant sexism in our country is pathetic.

What is sexist is the elevation of this (ahem) person to a position where she was seriously considered as a potential president, devoid as she was of any foreign policy expertise and even the ability to speak a simple and coherent declarative sentence. If she were twenty pounds heavier and twenty years older, do you think for a second that anyone would consider Palin for the presidency? You have your own blinders of bigotry on, especially the blinder that places ideological purity over endurance, integrity, common sense, and competence.

I had no idea that conservatives were so sensitive to "sexism". Could it be that you are grasping for a way to defend the indefensible?

My Mother's Family

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:14:00 +0000

The Frank and Jane White Family, Australia, 1920

My mother Lucinda is holding the flower.

From left to right: Francis, Hilary, Halley, Ruth, Lucinda, Joyce, Dick, Frank

Bad Writing Contest

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:05:00 +0000

This is the winner of the annual bad writing Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm

"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."

I Chat Calmly With a Conservative

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:31:00 +0000

This is too much fun.

He:

These turds are incredible. They wage an absolute unprovoked character assassination on all political enemies with little or no evidence, but demand their politicial and cultural heros be proven guilty in a court before admitting the obvious. These double standard laden morons are so completely twisted, so hypocritical and so sick I have reached the conclusion they are all mentally ill - seriously.

How is it these sickos get up in the morning and manage well enough to get through the day? Surely they must be locked up somewhere and given computer access only as a gesture of good will by their keepers....sick...sick...sick

Me:

Well, aren't you the one who is typing furiously from your mother's basement with you baseball cap on backwards and your jaw somewhat slack? Isn't it time to wrap up your homeschool assignment-- perhaps the Color the Ducky page? You do realize that political thought and discourse is an adult custom, and you still have a few years to go.

He:

I so enjoy these lame efforts at humor - all of which have been scribbled out before by your breathren....face it moron - you can;t defend yourself so you project your own lifestyle on others inhopes that it matters. You're just a case of empties, a phony and a wannabee charlatan who doesn't pack the gear to offer anything factual or at least original in your own defense...

Me:

Republican Whine List

Obama was not born in the US.
His birth certificate is a fake.
Obama is a muslim
Obama is an arab
Obama is a terrorist
Obama uses drugs
Obama bought the election
The 2008 election was rigged
Obama is trying to sell his Senate seat
He smokes cigarettes.
Remember when senators represented the public for state, national and international issues and were qualified to do that? Seems they were elected by the public, not appointed by some bureaucrat. It appears we now have acquired a "royalty" who believe in divine entitlement.
Obama fathered two black children in wedlock!
Obama is a fraud.
Obama will say anything and align himself with the lowest scum job Earth to get ahead.
Obama has dual citizenship and is disqualified of being president!
Obama is racist.
Obama asked for spicy mustard on his hamburger.
Obama's wife insults the poor with her choice of shoes.
Obama habitually thinks before he speaks. Very annoying.

He:

ZERo The Nothing is failing and N Korea would hate to loose him.
Yeah, every one of the leftist trash are sick and twisted, unfit to be called Americans as far as I can tell...

ZERo The Nothing, lying leftard ghetto trash crack head POS communist filth and the single greatest danger to America and freedom ever in the history of this nation.

Me:

I think you're foaming.

He:

I think that you are stupid, but than, stupidity is a prerequisite for being a leftard POS, isn't it?

ZERo The Nothing, lying leftist ghetto trash POS communist filth and the single greatest danger to America and freedom ever in the history of this country.

Me:

Isn't it time to launder your sheets and return to your kkk klavern?

He:

Seems like its time for you to get on back to your ghetto and business on your corner, crack head.

I think that you are stupid, but than, stupidity is a prerequisite for being a leftard POS, isn't it?

ZERo The Nothing, lying leftist ghetto trash POS communist filth and the single greatest danger to America and freedom ever in the history of this country.

Me:

What is POS?

He:

Are you a foreigner?

POS = Leftist = piece of shit..

Me:

Ah, so that what POS means. As a well-educated, church-going liberal, I find there is no need to resort to such gutter crudities to communicate. Naturally, our political superiority is in sync with our moral superiority.

He:

ROTFLMFAO.................know any more funny jokes? Thanks for the comedy.....lol

Me:

I think it puzzles and then destroys you when you realize the simple fact that Obama-- a black man-- is your intellectual, moral, and spiritual superior.

He:

ROTFLMFAO, again, your comedy is funny as it can be. Also full of untruths, first of which is the fact that ZERo is not a 'black man', his mother was a caucasian making him a zebra, bi racial, a halfrican-American, a mullato.ZERo, the Affirmative Action stooge is no ones 'intellectual, moral, and spiritual' superior, except for the stupid leftards that think that he is their 'Messiah'. You fools got snookered and all of America lost big time.

(Mercy! In the land of GOP, the man with one brain cell is king. So, at this point, I tip toe quietly, stage left, from this lovely thread.)

Representative Flake: Family Over Politics

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:38:00 +0000

"Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake is catching flak from conservatives for missing a key vote Friday on a "cap-and-trade" climate-change bill that is strongly opposed by the GOP. Flake also opposed the bill but said he had to skip the vote to be with his daughter, who was competing in the 2009 Junior Miss pageant in Mobile, Ala
.
"Obviously it was a tough decision to miss voting against the cap-andtrade bill," the District 6 representative said in a statement. "But I've let my daughter down enough over the years, and I felt I just couldn't let her down again."

No flak will come from me. Family must always comes before politics, business, charity, or religion. It is too easy to justify ever increasing sacrifices to your family in the name of "the people's business" or "humanity" or "God." However noble these ends are, the ends do not justify the means if those means involve the subordination of family to achieve those ends. Family comes first.

Jeff Flake did the right thing and he set a good example for all of us.

Letter to Dad - July 1, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:21:00 +0000

Nancy and the boys are looking forward to spending ten days in Chicago starting this Friday. They plan to see the Museum of Science and Industry, Lincoln Park, Zoo, Great America theme park, and relatives in the area. Zach plans to see Northwestern University, one of his college choices. We signed the boys up for their classes. Ben is now three years ahead of his peers in math, and will be taking a high school course—talent that surely didn’t come from me! I’ll probably spend the week moping around the house and trying to work down my honey-do list. Kitty will keep me company.

We’re happy that Peter will be joining his family shortly.

I’m glad you liked my reflections on the ethics of suicide. Like most of what I write, I wrote it quickly-- but it is really the result of many years of thinking, and it grew out of a project I gave myself at Willow Creek’s ironically name Camp Paradise, in Northern Michigan in 1987. My goal was to read through the entire Bible looking for my life-theme that “you matter to God”. One day at the camp, I saw what looked like a star slowly sweep almost parallel to the horizon and then ignite into a flare of orange and purple before descending into the woods miles away. The next day, the paper reported that a Soviet satellite had come through the atmosphere near where we camped. In Arizona, stars of the Milky Way spangle the firmament like salt strewn on onyx. I’m starting to teach my boys what little I know about astronomy. I can show them Pleides in the Taurus Constellation, Vega in Lyra, and Deneb in the constellation of the Swan. One night, I’ll show Zachary and Benjamin a haze of light in the constellation of Hercules. That haze is a great nebula—the light of 50,000 suns 30,000 light years away. In the Grand Canyon State, as in South Dakota, no one grows up without knowing size and distance. (I recall my awe when I saw the Canyon for the first time in 1992, at night under a full moon, the boundless chasm disappearing into a bottomless sea of black while the ridges and mesas were etched in silver and red.) Australia is also a home to vastness. In contrast to my urban experiences, where property is measured by the square foot, my cousin Barbara, the daughter of Uncle Frank White, live on an 11,500-acre cattle station in western Queensland. In the wilds of the western United States or eastern Australia, we learn the relative size of a person compared with the lay of the land. Under an immense sky, a man is small and at the mercy of God. And he is wrong if he thinks otherwise.

There is star that shines brightly in the velvety black of the Arizona sky. It’s a symbol of our future, for one day our descendants may well pioneer among the stars as our fathers did in the Dakotas. And this star is a symbol of our past. Pointing upwards from the two stars, Merak and Dubhe, on the outer edge of the Big Dipper, the Pole Star is positioned one degree from the north celestial pole. This magnitude two star has guided mariners for hundreds of years, sparkling with constancy in the purpling dusk and the diamond night. It’s one star that will never fall. In Lamentations chapter three, clouds of gloom part to reveal a sunbeam of hope: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.” And the song that was sung so many times at Norbeck echoes those verses:

Thou changest not,
Thy compassions, they fail not:
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

As children, we would sing “This little light of mine/I’m going to let it shine.” And what others will see from our little light is our Christian heritage. (“We are all worms,” Winston Churchill said. “But some of us are glow-worms.”) Eloise and LeRoy Nelson, in their 1986 Christmas card, chart this legacy, our spiritual roots:

Jesus
Apostles
Early Church Fathers
Augustine
Ansgar
St. Francis
Martin Luther
Olaus Petri
Philip Spener
C. O. Rosenius
N. P. Wik

To which of course I should add Harold Wik.

My cousins conclude their card with these words: “And so we build our lives on the foundation of those who have come before us, just as our forebears built on the heritage passed on to them. And now it’s our duty to pass this on to our children—to be another link in the long chain that started with Jesus’ birth.” The Star in the East that twinkled over a manger 2,000 years ago and the Star of the North that guided the captains of ships that brought our ancestors to this country 100 years ago retain their meaning today. And, I hope, will do so for our children’s children until the end of time. It’s this guiding star from which came the name of the ship that took our maternal ancestors to America in 1869– the SS Guiding Star.

Here is some more of Our Story, written about five years ago.

Towards the end of their time in Malaysia, my parents helped the boat people that fled Viet Nam after the war came to an end. After about 70 years of combined service, they returned by way of Athens, Jerusalem, and Amsterdam to retire in the United States on May 17, 1982. “At Singapore, we changed planes for the flight to Athens where we spent four days,” my parents wrote in a circular shortly after their trip. “The main tourist attraction there is the Acropolis. Nearby was Mars Hill, which we climbed and read Paul’s sermon as recorded in Acts 17:22-34. We also visited the National Archeological Museum at Athens and took a bus trip to Delphi, a round trip of about 200 miles. On May 3, we flew to Tel Aviv and when the plane touched down many passengers clapped their hands. The next day, we took a guided walking tour outside the walls of the old city. On two occasions, we walked completely around the old walls. This takes about 45 minutes. On Sunday morning, we joined a large group of Christian worshipers at the Garden Tomb for a Sunday morning service, and were thankful that the tomb in which our Lord was laid is empty. Christ is risen! While we remained based at Jerusalem during our stay in Israel, we were able to visit such places as Bethlehem, Jericho, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and Masada by the Dead Sea. While we did not need to visit Israel to validate our Christian faith, the trip did add to our understanding of our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Mom and Dad later flew on to Amsterdam where they visited famous masterpieces in the National Art Museum and marveled at the beautiful tulip fields. I’m so glad that Mom and Dad were able to visit Israel as it puts a fitting cap on their many years of Christian service. “Truly goodness and mercy have been following us a family and will continue to do so,” they wrote in their last letter from Malaysia, dated April 25th. Thirteen days earlier, Paul and Joyce sent them a telegram informing them of their new grandchild: “PETER NATHANIAL BORN 723 AM APRIL 12 9 LBS 8 OZ 21-1/2 INCHES ALL ARE WELL LOVE PAUL AND JOYCE”. My parents noted in a letter to me that “we appreciate Joyce with her talents and high aspirations. She has put a lot of sparkle into our family.”
Today, both of my parents now in their 80s live active lives in Roslyn, a suburb north of Philadelphia, residing at their home at 1561 Birchwood Avenue. The death of Grandma left Mom money to buy the home. They paid $49,000 for the left side of the 25 year-old ranch duplex, on a lot 39 by 110 feet. Twenty years later, the other side of the duplex sold for about $150,000. Mom enjoys walking to Willow Grove Mall a few blocks away where she can greet a dozen or so of the regulars while Dad likes tending his garden in the back yard of tomatoes and lettuce. He also likes the routine, exercise, augmentation of income, and occasional opportunities for witnessing by working part-time removing trash from some local strip-malls. “Spud, I think you’re the only in the family who is still working,” Uncle Reyn wrote Dad in 1994. “The rest of us are unemployed and on welfare, all waiting for a raise in Social Security.” Ten years later, Dad was still toiling at his jobs at Regents Park and elsewhere. Mom and Dad are both involved in Berachah in Cheltenham, their local church, and the lives of their four children and seven grandchildren. (My sister Anne Birch and her family and brothers Paul and his family and Tim live in the area, all within about an hour of each other.)

On February 10th 2002, we honored their fifty years of marriage with a dinner of baked sugar-cured ham and chicken marsala at Williamson Restaurant in Horsham. Sister-in-law Joyce did much of the planning and constructed a beautiful album of photographs and letters from friends and relatives. “In a time where so much is expendable, it’s wonderful to look to something that has stood the test of time,” I wrote for my family. “Your fidelity through five decades is a model to Nancy and me. And, someday, Zachary and Benjamin will also look to your example with appreciation. Your life’s journey has taken you to distant lands and fantastic adventures. But, through it all, your love for each other as endured. And from your commitment to each other has come your love for us, and I remember with fondness your tender words and actions over the years. Bukit Sepit. Rawang. Chefoo. What memories those names evoke! Ivyland. Chicago. Scottsdale. Although separated by many miles, your love for us has never wavered. And so it is therefore right that we honor and celebrate fifty amazing years of marriage. Nancy, Zachary, and Benjamin also join me in expressing their love for you and in rejoicing in this celebration.”

In 1965, we left Malaysia for Australia by the ocean liner Oranje. Tangerine and blue paper streamers between us and those on the dock stretched and snapped as the ship pulled away. After my parent’s furlough, my parents left Paul and me at a home for missionary kids in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The law office of Grubb & Guest had my parents transfer guardianships to the Grays in the Orphan’s Court of Philadelphia County, “wherefore petitioners pray your Honorable Court to enter a Decree appointing the said Kenneth T. Gray as guardian of the persons of Philip G. Wik and Paul R. Wik.” The sign facing Jacksonville Road read Happy Hollow Farm, but no one called it that, especially after a neighborhood kid painted one day over the word Hollow, as if the farm was an institution for the “differently abled”. We called it “Ivyland”, after the name of the small town where we got our mail. The borough of Ivyland takes on aspects of a Victorian painting at Christmas time, with streets lit by luminaries, and skating and caroling. The boarding home was a colonial-era Georgian mansion on a country farm of about thirty acres. The walls were white with the classic green shutters that are familiar to many colonial homes in Bucks County. It had a two-acre lake fed by a stream that bisected the property, a large red barn with pigeons cooing in the rafters, horses and pastures, and between ten and fifteen other MKs. We went to the local public schools, and I graduated in 1973 from Council Rock High School, in Newtown. Although I was in the choir and the drama club (I was Edward in Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol), most of my extracurricular activities revolved around Ivyland, with my five-mile paper route and eight pet rabbits.

“I do not think you will have to do much to prepare the children for the new adjustment,” Kenneth Gray wrote to my parents in 1965. “We have animals (ten rabbits, six horses, chickens, ducks, goats, and cats) down here, and the barn and the family are usually sufficient drawing cards for the kids to spend a good deal of their free time down here. We’ve yet to see a child really homesick, for there is almost too much life throbbing around here for them to be lonely for more than an occasional moment.
“There have been trips to the shore, with hilarious times of riding the breakers or sunning on the sand—drinking in the beauty of the riot of color that is Longwood Gardens-- fountains, colored lights, and gorgeous flowers everywhere. Other times, we have gone to Philadelphia, and push buttons in the Benjamin Franklin museum, where there is a seemingly endless array of electrical gadgets to demonstrate some principle or other. All these activities afford wonderful opportunities to get to know the kids better, hearing their chatter and enjoying their enthusiasm.

“Your enthusiasm for the place is the best preparation that you can possibly give your kids. Keep in mind that the sacrifice is on your part far more than on theirs. Our family is very happy, and the kids adjust to life here at home in a wonderful way. You are the ones who take the gaff, and, believe me, we feel for you, but our field experience helps us to know that there is no real alternative worth considering. We have also had enough experience here at home to realize that the educating of children all the way through high school on the field is not without very serious problems for the children when they come home to the States for further education.”

We seemed to have adapted well to our new surroundings, as we read in a letter from Maybeth Gray to Aunt Elsie in 1967: “Paul and Philip both seem happily settled in. They obviously have a good time. The snow and ice-skating has been sheer joy to them, and it’s fun to see them laughing and shouting as they toboggan or skate or build snow forts. I was measuring and weighing Philip this evening—a ritual we go through on the night I wash their hair and he really is gaining and getting taller—at least an inch taller than last September and several pounds heavier too. He weighs 72 pounds now . . . Best wishes to you and your work and thank you so much for all your interest in the Wik boys. You have been so good to them and I know they really appreciate it.”

Christmas in Ivyland was special. Presents piled high around the towering Christmas tree. Outside, neighbors cut figure eights with us on the ice to the music of Broadway tunes, Strauss waltzes, and Gilbert and Sullivan:

My good little butter cup
My dear little butter cup

I earned a few battle wounds playing ice hockey, including stitches in my chin and a gouge in my leg.

To get a flavor of the holidays, here are excerpts from letters I wrote in 1970, 1971, and 1972:

“Two weeks ago, we decorated our ten foot evergreen tree with lights, tinsel, and colored balls,” I wrote in 1970. “A small layer of icy snow is on the ground with periodic flurries helps set the Christmas scene. We have had great fun sledding on the hills. The ice isn’t strong enough to skate on yet. Many people are home for the holidays from college. For Christmas, we had about 40 people eating here. My favorite gifts were the presents you gave me—clothes, games, gloves, a radio, and a book about a lioness called Born Free.

“Thank you so much for the gift of the art supplies,” I wrote in 1971. “We didn’t get any snow this Christmas. As a matter of fact, the temperature is about fifty degrees. We did the play The Christmas Carol at the intermediate school in Newtown. On Wednesday night, we put on the lay for the public. On Christmas Eve, we went to a candlelight service at church. When we came home, we opened our stockings. On Christmas day after diner, we opened our presents. I received many things but I especially liked the paint supplies you sent me.”

“I hope you had a merry Christmas in Malaysia,” I wrote in 1972. “On the 16th, the concert choir (in which I sing baritone) put on a Christmas concert. All the Christmas trimmings this year were homemade. Frankly, the result was a mess. Naturally, everyone likes their own creation of half-baked ginger-bread men, fermenting cherries, and roasted popcorn. Periodically, groups of carol singers would start to howl in front of our house. Once, a group of seven came caroling on horses. We woke up early on Christmas morning, ate breakfast, had our devotions, and opened our presents. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, we ate the annual Christmas bird. The Christmas in Ivyland, although quite enjoyable, is but a glimmer of the grand Christmas we had in August in Malaysia together!”

The Grays retired in 1971 to Stroud, Canada. In April, 1973, Ken lifted the oxygen mask off his face and said to Maybeth “Now I’m going home.” There was no funeral as Ken had made arrangements to donate his body to science, but there was a memorial service. In a letter to my parents at the time, I wrote “I shall always remember Uncle Ken for his dynamic, caring personality spiced with a pinch of whimsy. I shall never forget how he helped me countless times in school—on my science projects, on reports, and at home—weeding, seeding the corn, mowing, racking leaves. The fun we had in the snow on Christmas day, reading Dickens around the cackling fire at night, going to Canada’s Expo, New Hampshire’s White Hills, the New Jersey shore, Longwood Gardens, and the operettas in Philadelphia shall always remain in my memory, and I will feel a loss.”

In 1987, an Ivyland Alumni Fred Fry passed on Maybeth Gray’s address. (Leslie Lyle, Maybeth’s brother, was a missionary who traveled with Dad from Shanghai to Hong Kong.) “You get the sense from Fred’s letter that Ivyland casts long shadows over the lives of those who lived there,” I wrote to Maybeth. “That’s certainly true with me. On balance, however, I think the Ivyland experience was good for me. I probably wasn’t the easiest person to manage, and it must have been hard to run things-- taking care of a dozen kids with different abilities, ages, temperaments, and backgrounds, the mansion, and the farm. This is a roundabout way of saying ‘thank you’ for your contribution in raising me during my formative years.

“As time goes by, the past recedes into a misty nostalgia bringing back a collage of associations. Do you remember these snapshots from the past?

Sledding on the hill by the Big House
Canoeing, fishing, swimming, skating
Our pet cats, rabbits, and horses
Our dogs Dale (beagle), Rufus (Irish setter), and Friskie (mixed)
Building elaborate hay tunnels on the second floor of the barn
Chicken picking under a full moon
Uncle Ken playing “Red River Valley” on the living room piano
The mountain of presents around the fifteen-foot Christmas tree
The Gate House, where we would stay during furloughs
Dorney Park with its rickety wooden roller coaster
Salty breezes and taffy on Ocean City’s boardwalk
Sipping a malt at the Tanner Brothers Farm Store in Northampton
Strawberry and cherry picking on a blue and gold autumn day
Annual trips to downtown Philadelphia to see Gilbert & Sullivan
The Philadelphia Zoo and museums
Marcia Haynes, David Cox, Beth Carlson, David Almond
Canada geese swooping down over the lake in autumn
Summer vacations in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire

I’m sure we could go on forever.”

“What a surprise!” Maybeth wrote. “A delightful surprise! After these 16 or more years, it was just great to hear from you and get caught up on your life history so far!”

In the summer of 1972, my sister and I visited my parents in Malaysia. We visited many familiar places of our childhood, including Rawang, Chefoo, and Port Dickson. On the flight from Singapore to Bahrain, the British Caledonian Boeing 707 with its 197 passengers had to make an emergency landing at Changi airport because of a fuel line rupture. We spent a few days at the swank Imperial Hotel, before flying on to London. We visited Westminster Abbey, St. Mary’s, Number Ten Downing Street, The Mall, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and took a trip down the Thames before flying on to Philadelphia. In all, I’ve lived in Malaysia with my parents for just under nine years.

The mission sold Ivyland in 1982. The grounds have been subdivided, the barn razed, and the mansion remodeled. “It’s in a state of decay, with the old marble mantels long gone, paint pealing, extensive water damage, and an overall look of faded grandeur,” I wrote in 1993, before the remodeling began in earnest. “The lake hasn’t been maintained and is half empty. A paved road called Gwyn Lynn Drive meanders through the old horse pastures, now replaced by ten homes selling for $450,000 each. (The Big House is now 148 Gwyn Lynn Drive, but the entire property was 186 and then later 657 Jacksonville Road during my time.) The mansion is on one acre and an additional twelve acres of wetlands were sold to a doctor’s group for $350,000. (In the mid-50s, the OMF bought the farm for about $60,000 and by the mid-70 it was appraised for under $150,000.) Brambles and poison ivy cover the lawn. (When I had just arrived in Ivyland at the age of ten, I made the mistake of confusing the Malaysian vines with Pennsylvanian vines, and made good use of calamine lotion. I thought we should modify the name Ivyland by the word Poison!) Most of the old trees still exist and I could still see some of the remains of my old tree houses.”

I enjoyed climbing some of the two-hundred year trees. A row of mature oaks, pines, sycamores, and spruces mark the path of the original gravel road that now runs through the back yards of the houses that were built in the 1990s. I climbed some of these trees. The lake is now called Spring Mill Pond and no doubt it will someday be but a marsh. But, when I was a kid, it was perhaps six feet higher and far broader and wider, maintained by an input pipe from a dam at the far end of the property that has since washed away. What memories we have of that lake! I learned to swim in that lake and we had a diving board, dock from which to fish for Sunnies, home-made rafts, and canoes. The bottom of the lake was black goop and yellow algae spread across the lake as the summer months went by. But we still loved that lake with its willow trees and painted turtles. In contrast to the almost impassable brambles of today, a dozen horses would keep the pastures surrounding the lake trimmed to look like a park. In the winter time, we would sled down the hills from Almshouse Road toward the lake or skate and play ice-hockey with the kids from Traymore. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that sometimes hundreds of people would crowd that lake in the winter, while music played from loud-speakers throughout the day.

Towards Hunt Drive was the remains of an ancient carriage house. I used to find weathered nails amid the brick. When I went to Churchville Elementary, I would wait for the school bus at Hunt Drive and North Traymore Avenue. But for middle and high school, we would trek through the fall leaves to the end of the lane on Jacksonville Road. Two white stone pillars that no longer exist marked the entrance of our property. Moving leftward was the garden where we weeded carrots and cabbage, the 1950s era ranch called the Canfield House, a shed for tractors and plows, a gasoline fuel pump, and a large sixty-foot-high L-shaped barn. It was brown stone with red wooden walls trimmed in white and with massive interior beams. Further in the back was a pen for chick. At the bottom level of the barn were work shops, stalls for the horses, pens for the chickens, and cages for my rabbits. On the top level was bales of hay. Paul would drive the tractor that pulled the carts up the dirt ramp. We would often arrange these bales into tunnels, sometimes going down thirty feet. We used to play kick the can near the manure pile that was behind the barn. There was also more farm land for corn and potatoes. Continuing our walk in memory was the two-story brick Lane House, which was also of colonial-era vintage. We would stay here on furlough. Today, it has been resurfaced with brown-stone, but the walls used to be white plaster.

The gravel path ended in a circle around the Big House. The only other structures was a horse shed behind the barbed wire and a crumbling smoke house below the lake that is still a home to suckers and toads. I would mow this lawn and join the others in raking the fall leaves. Next to the dock with a diving board below the large Eastern White Pine that still exists were several picnic tables and canoes.

As we open the door to the Big House, we would see a couch with perhaps the Daily Courier, Christian Science Monitor, and back editions of Popular Mechanics. To the left was the living room with its high ceilings, fireplace, many books, and a grand piano. Here is where we would celebrate Christmas. On the other side was the dining room with the marble fireplace. At Christmas time, Maybeth would thread the many cards together to deck the room. We would find letters from our parents and also lists of chores that would be posted each day on the bulletin board, such as “Pots & Pans” or the much dreaded “Eggs”. A staircase ascended to the rooms above. I was adept at sliding down the banisters from my room on the top floor near the roof floor by floor. Moving past the dining room was the powder room – a room that probably hasn’t changed much over the years—and the kitchen—a room that has probably changed a great deal. Ken would snip our hair here while Maybeth and Pat would bake the pies or mix the ice-tea. I remember the distinctive bang! of the screen door when I came in with by school books each days. Stairs for the servants would ascend from one side of the kitchen. On the other side, Dale, our friendly, corpulent beagle, would gaze into the fireplace. My bedroom was always on the top floor, while the girls enjoyed slightly more opulence in the floor beneath. In the back was a walk in freezer—an entire room kept to negative ten degrees. We also had shelves where we could keep our things, such as boots, gloves, and school books.

I enjoyed taking black and white pictures with my twin lens Yashika camera. But perhaps my favorite pastime was biking. I bought a red three-speed Schwinn and put it to good use, making money by distributing The Daily Intelligencer for a few years. I especially enjoyed going on bike hikes, sometimes as far away as New Hope and New Jersey. I bought quite a number of antiques at the flea markets in Lahaska and that honed my interest in American history. I biked with David Cox (whose father worked for twenty-one years among the Mien (Yao) of North Thailand after fighting piracy as a chief officer in the British Navy along the China coast before he joining the CIM). But generally I traveled alone, usually on the back roads that even today retain their verdant beauty. Sometimes, I just had to leave what my brother Tim calls “a feudalistic dreamland” with its weeding and its rules and peddle furiously with the brisk autumn wind in my face through flurries of gold and red leaves down the curving Dark Hollow Road to the Neshaminy Creek.

It is hard to believe that as I write this in 2005, some Ivyland alumni are now in their sixties. “I personally like it when my kids put my wheelchair close to the fire with my dentures close by so that I can munch on health snacks that Anne finds in Prevention Magazine,” Fred Fry writes, with tongue firmly in cheek. “As my head droops in exhaustion, usually about 6:30 or so, I drift off into my memories. Many of my fondest are from that era so many years ago in the big white house …or was it grey…with the Whites…or was it the Grays …? “ “Someone could, and should, write a book about Ivyland,” Fred continues “Is that native Bucks County resident, James Michener, still in business? Who built that big white house? Who lived in it between 1790 and 1958? Our era would occupy many chapters. Who took the marble mantles? Where did all the wood and stone from the barn go? Do the current occupants of those $450,000 homes even know that there was a time when an old John Deere tractor would drag a line of sleds through the snow on the sites where they now watch Oprah and water their petunias?

“I wonder if on some quiet mornings, their eyes play tricks on them and they think they see silent, misty figures up in the trees, riding horses, fishing off the dock, taking out the garbage, ice skating to the amplified Strauss waltzes, playing tackle football, painting shutters, doing dishes, putting together jigsaw puzzles, swimming, studying, driving trash to the dump in the cut-off Chevy, feeding a roly-poly beagle, playing capture-the-flag in the barn, walking the quarter mile to the bus stop at 6:45, gazing longingly at Bobbie Arbor, mowing the lawn a stocky balding bespectacled man doing his accounts at his desk in the hall, a woman in her mid-twenties doing laundry, a lady with her graying hair in a bun reading stories to her own infant daughter, spreading manure behind that same John Deere, celebrating twenty to thirty birthdays a year, stringing barbed wire and yes—slaughtering, picking, and gutting chickens. I wonder.

“If there were, they’d all have names that are very real—Maybeth and Ken, Bob, Peter, Bill, David, Wendy, Pierre, John and Josie, Ian, Doris, Ruth, Pat, John, Esther, Anne, Miriam, Marcia, Paul, Beth, Sue, Timothy, Pam, Margaret, David, James, Ralph, Kathryn, Ian, Sylvia, Rachel, and many, many more.”

“I loved the picture of your two little boys,” Maybeth wrote to me in January 1997. “I bet they are going to have a lot of fun playing together as the baby gets a bit older. Enjoy your children while they are young, for they do grow up so fast and before you know it they are leaving home. I’m fine as I go into my 84th year with no aches or pains, and just very thankful to God for good health. I do tire more easily though and am ready to go to bed when the time comes. It has been nice to hear from quite a number of our Ivyland gang and learn more of what they are doing. But I must stop. I did want to thank you so much for your newsletter and the picture of your darling boys. God bless you in the year 1997. Much love to you both and the boys. Love in Christ. Maybeth Gray.”

Three months later, I got a letter from John Cox. “I assume you will have heard about Maybeth Gray’s death on April 12,” he wrote. “Your letter was the first I heard of this and of course I feel a great deal of sadness,” I wrote back. “ My most recent letter was from January of this year, which I’ve enclosed. I was glad to have renewed our relationship over the past few years, giving me the chance to express my gratitude for her role in shaping my character and interests. Only last week I came across a paper Aunt Maybeth typed for me when I was in fifth grade. It says much for her as a Christian and a person that she is remembered fondly by so many people despite the passage of time—in my case about a quarter of a century. As one of the little boys, I only vaguely remember you. I of course recall Elizabeth and Peter, and I thought of David as one of my best friends. The shadows of Ivyland are long. And in the lingering gloaming, lights and shadows play in the kaleidoscope of memory: Uncle Ken reading “The Christmas Carol” by the fire and playing “Red River Valley” on the grand piano. Aunt Maybeth, much like the card she sent me, looking past her African Violets over the sloping green, watching us swim or play…chicken picking in the morning and an operetta in the evening…bike hikes and vacations, the barn and the lake … lots of work, lots of animals, lots of fun, some tears, but much joy as well.”

“She died on Saturday in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” John wrote. “I called a travel agent on Monday and explained the circumstances, requesting bereavement fare. She asked Maybeth’s relationship to me, and I said she was my foster mother. The agent said, “Let’s just make that “mother,” so I didn’t argue with her.

“People in Vancouver were extraordinarily kind. Pam, Esther, and I borrowed a pick-up truck from someone at Clarendon Court (where Maybeth had lived) and ran errands with it. One of them involved making photocopied enlargements of photographs that were to be displayed at the reception following the memorial service. One of these was in color, and we were unsure how to use to color copier at the little shop where we were doing the copying. The proprietor came over to help us and paused when she saw the picture. “I know that woman,” she said. Esther told her that it was her mother and that she had just died and why were making the copies. The woman gulped and showed us what we needed to do. When we went to pay for the copies the woman told Esther that she recently had cancer and chemotherapy. “Your mother was so kind to me,” she said. “No one else was such a comfort to me.” This from a complete stranger at a shop we just happened to walk into! Esther burst into tears, and the woman became very apologetic, but none of us could explain that the tears were not so much for sorrow as for this chance encounter with evidence of Maybeth’s unfailing goodness to everyone she met. What an amazing legacy.

“The memorial service was wonderful. We sang “I Sought the Lord and Afterward I Knew” and Pam played “Amazing Grace” very impressively on her violin, beautifully accompanied by a pianist from the church. Ian delivered a wonderful eulogy. And at the end of the service, we sang “How Firm a Foundation” to a traditional American melody (rather than Adeste Fidelis) that I remembered singing with Ken around the piano at Ivyland and that I have heard many times as one of the airs that Aaron Copeland weaves into “Appalachian Spring.” We sang all six stanzas, but for the last two Pam grabbed her violin and played along by ear, inventing descants and harmony as she went. Those of us sitting at the front had been doing pretty well for the first four stanzas but we all fell silent when Pam’s violin began to sing.

“It was an utterly satisfying trip, and I was glad I was able to make it. It was sad of course and I still feel sad at the loss of Maybeth, but it was triumphant and happy at the same time. Being whom I am and doing what I do, I inevitably think of something from Shakespeare at this juncture, so I’ll close with Prospero’s loving praise of Miranda in The Tempest, because it applies so perfectly to Maybeth: “She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her.”

We hope you continue to be well and remain in our fondest thoughts and prayers.

I laughed, I cried, I remember SO many of the people and events (the pond, ice skating, sledding, swimming, the chickens, etc.). In fact, I remember at least at one point there were 100 chickens at the OMF, and one of the chickens -- no one seemed to know which ONE it was among the others -- layed bloody eggs. We would buy our eggs from the OMF and were told to be aware of that fact. It struck me then and I began to sing that age old hymn (though this time directing it to the OMF Chickens): "There were 90 and 9 that safely lay..."

I have fond memories of Uncle Ken and Aunt Maybeth, and of Pam (and her horse Charger). I also remember one of the smaller brown horses had a propensity to buck riders off! I also remember the manure pile outside the barn, and the fact that in the gloaming, the wretched pile became a beautiful pile of glittering fireflies! I also remember having sleep overs with Anne, and when I stayed over, I was expected to contribute to the chores of the day. I remember one time particularly: buttering countless pieces of bread to make grilled cheese sandwhiches in the oven! I also have fond memories of the barn, playing in and on the hay and the rope swing there. So much of what you wrote triggered memories I have that center on the OMF. I remember the "Happy Hollow Farms" sign as well along with the stigma attached to it. Hence, we always called it "The Mission" or "OMF." I remember the Mission lane, and the countless ruts (which were impossible to see in the rain, until l your vehicle was swallowed up)!

One of my last memories of your mother was when my family lived in Roslyn one street over from your folks. I went to visit with her one time when Anne was visiting. My husband and I were in the process of adopting from China, and I wondered if your mum could teach me to sing "Jesus loves me" in Chinese. I had learned part of it, but needed help remembering and with pronunciation. She delightedly obliged me, and sung that sweet song without hesitation or inhibition (wish I'd thought to tape it)! "Jesu Ai Wah."Thanks for sharing your musings and too your thoughts on suicide. Sometimes life can get awfully bleak, and then, unable to pray for ourselves we plead, "Holy Spirit, pray for me!"

Grace and Peace be yours in abundance,

Martha Hacken

Against Suicide: Why We Matter

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:08:00 +0000

This is part of a recent letter to my father in which I reflect on the roots and ethics of suicide.

Thanks for your recent letter, in which you make reference to an OMFer who recently hanged himself. Here is an essay I wrote on this topic when Zach was three months old now a decade and a half ago.

One of Nancy's favorite catch-phrases is "Who is better than me?" (Strictly speaking, the phrase should be "Who is better than I am?", but we're not strictly speaking!) Nancy's strong sense self-worth, which took a battering when she was a teenager as her parent's were divorcing, is one of her most attractive qualities. Our boys have clearly benefited from having a mother who is so self-assured, and I think that is the secret to Nancy's confidence in advocating and negotiating so effectively on behalf of our family. She is quick to note that the phrase doesn't mean that she is better than you or I. It simply means that from her perspective, she is the best and she would like nothing better than for you to also say without blushing as a mantra of self-esteem Who is better than me?

My self-esteem was flaccid when I was in grade school. As I did more and experienced more and achieved and failed and then achieved some more, my self-esteem grew. I think my self-esteem was also retarded by a theology that stressed our sinful nature, that we were conceived in iniquity, born in sin, and all we like sheep have gone astray and will continue to do so. There was the conflation of self-esteem with pride, the former having to do with a clear self-appraisal and the latter having to do with attaching excessive significance to status and achievements in comparison to others. There are dangers to pride, and that pride can go before a fall. False pride and any kind of boasting is a sign of low self-esteem rather than a healthy self-esteem, which merely set you up for manipulation by others. On the other hand, I think there is both a distinction and a relationship between our spiritual well-being and our psychological well-being. Damage to our self-worth damages us spiritually, although one can clearly have a strong self-esteem and can still be rotten to the core. But the mere fact of original sin in no way erodes the prevailing fact that we are forever children of a King and ambassadors of His kingdom. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, the lost son said to his Dad "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in they sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." But the father embraced his son, assuring him that he was still is on, and had a party. "It was fitting that we should make merry and be glad," the father said to his other son. "For this, thy brother, was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

So many Christians in particular lack a sense of self-worth to the point of depression. It is as if they have over internalized to their harm the hymn that God saves "a wretch like me." My thoughts when I hear "Amazing Grace" is that while I've done bad things in my life, I'm far from wretched. So perhaps it is worth asking: why do we matter?

All theology is, I think, a restatement of this song from our nursery days:

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
For I am weak but He is strong

But what does the Bible tells us and why is there warrant it that?

We matter because we were made whole. Genesis 1:27-28: “God created man in His own image, and in the mage of God created He him: male and female created He them. And God blessed them.”
We matter because Jesus died for us:

They stretch Him on a cross to die,
Our Lord who first stretched out the sky.

Whose countenance the cherubim dare not gaze on,
They spat on Him.

He prays for them “Father Forgive.”
For He was born so that all might live.

We matter because God has promised us peace of mind in the storms of life, the peace, as Pascal writes, of “being in a storm-tossed ship and knowing that it will not sink.”

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled.” John 14:27

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

“The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7

The Bible has a word of advice for all people who feel sad and alone. The word is: Rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” said Paul under more difficult circumstances than we face today. “Again I say rejoice.” That we matter is indeed warrant for the joy that cannot be dampened under any circumstances. Lift up your hearts. Be joyful. Be thankful. That advice is just as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. If we can accept nothing more about Christianity, I ask you to accept the proposition that you matter. For the jump from “I am” to “God is” isn’t nearly as great as the chasm that separates “I am nothing” to “I am someone.”

So how can we believe that we matter when we believe that we don’t matter? We do it by believing the affirmation of others, by seeking supportive relationships, but letting go of the negatives of life, by accepting our limits, by daring to say yes and by daring to say no, by closing some doors and knocking on other doors, and by treating ourselves kindly and gently.

A healthy self-esteem manifests itself in awareness of and love for others. Our personality is a blade that can either heal or kill. Oscar Wilde’s melodrama The Picture of Dorian Gray portrays the depravity of Dorian that was reflected in his painting but not in himself. Dorian surrenders his soul to be young. But it is the painting that corrodes with viciousness even as he retains his youth. And so as we look at the mirror, we see an image—but what is in and behind that image? Are we unaffected by pain, as Dorian was when his girlfriend Sibyl Vane killed herself? The outer world—what we falsely call the real world—is not nearly as dark and foreboding as our inner world. It’s this world of impulses and feelings that I write about in this section. We’re like spiders at the center of the web of existence, but it ought not to be for narcissistic reasons that we look inward. Rather, we do so that we can penetrate the consciousness of others. Like the surgeon who sees the skull behind the face, we must be able to perceive the soul behind the artifice. By understanding and mastering the forces that compel men and women to act as they do, we can through will or sometimes charm get what can not be achieved in ignorance.

From the 5th through the 12th grade, I was at a boarding home for missionary kids in Pennsylvania. Perhaps because they were former missionaries themselves, the first set of foster parents were exemplary. The second set were a young couple who came out of Arizona’s juvenile delinquency system. Suffice it to say that proof that they were in the wrong job was confirmed years later in the suicide of my foster mother, not privately and painlessly but publicly and painfully.

“I must admit that I found your conclusion that Josie’s suicide confirmed her unfitness for the parenting role a bit harsh to take,” my sister-in-law Joyce Wik writes. “Remember that Josie was on quite a bit of pain medication as a result of a car accident that had left her with permanent injuries. Who knows how that medicine affected her emotional and chemical balance?

“All my interactions with her were very positive. Of course, I was relating as one adult to another. She and I were not that far apart in age. The Ivyland alumni that came to her home obviously loved her fiercely.

“On the other hand, I did observe a somewhat adversarial feeling about the missionary parents. More than once she made comments that reflected her belief that the parents were wrong to ‘abandon’ their children. Perhaps some of that was communicated to the children too.”

In a letter from 1984, Joyce wrote that “a visit with the Reuters is always pleasant. They are still struggling financially. I wonder if they’ll ever really get on their feet. Josie has a permanent limp since the car accident two years ago. But they seem happy.” And so we continue to peal the onion looking for answers that elude us.

Just after I moved into my house in Lake in the Hills in 1990, I wrote that “the lake stretches in from of me like a huge backwards “C”. The apple tree is starting to blossom and most ice has gone. From my living room window, I can see on the peninsula the house in which a twenty year-old girl shot herself last week, two houses from mine. So there is pain even while surrounded by beauty.”

Here are two all too typical news clippings.

“Sitting on a bed of oak leaves in the woods behind school, Melissa and her twelve year old cousin finished their picnic lunch and swallowed the last of their wine. Twelve minutes before noon, a tiny white fleck of light appeared far down the railroad tracks. Ten seconds later, the crescendo of engines going 100 miles per hour. Amtrak 141 was on time. Melissa ran to the tracks, knelt between the rails, and clasped her hands in prayer. Her cousin, Pearl, tried to stop her, but Melissa had always been bigger and stronger. Melissa Courtney Putney made the sign of the cross. On that warm Tuesday mid-day last week in rural Maryland, a troubled eighth grader died.”

“Lynn Ann Miller, 13, an exceptionally bright but shy girl, worshipped television star Freddie Prinzie and kept his autographed picture of “Chico” close by her. When Prinze committed suicide, firing a bullet through his brain, Lynn Ann made up her mind. Three hours after Prinze was buried Monday, Lynn Ann took her father’s .38 caliber pistol while her parents were out of the house, put the gun to her right temple, and pulled the trigger.”

One year after I graduated, Donald Wilkerson ’77,a friend of mine and like me a missionary kid, lay down in front of a Chicago Western freight train at the Chase Street crossing in Wheaton after he broke up with his girlfriend. “We were sad to hear of the death of your fellow student during your Wheaton College days,” my parents wrote to me. “It’s hard to imagine the depths of disappointment that this lad was suffering. This tragedy need not have been. No matter how big the disappointment or overwhelming the problem our God is bigger than all these. He has provided a way of escape in the severest trial (I Corinthians 10:13) and we need not succumb to the lies and devices of the devil but should rather resist him. In times of crisis and calamity, our minds focus on the calamity. However, the Biblical corrective is to focus not on the problem but the problem solver: ‘Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith’ (Hebrews 12:2). Our hearts go out in sympathy to all those who are affected by this untimely incident.”

The pianist Arthur Rubinstein writes in his autobiography My Young Years a moment of despair when he tried to kill himself with a belt from a bathroom clothes hook. He pushed the chair away, the belt tore apart, and Rubenstein fell crying to the floor with a crash.

“When one stops crying, the suffering subsides, the same as when laughter dies, the fun is gone. And so, nature claiming its own, I began to feel hungry. “This time I shall have two sausages,” I decided.

“Out in the street, however, a sudden impulse made me stop. Something strange came over me, call it a revelation or a vision.

“I looked at everything around me with new eyes, as I had never seen any of it before. The street, the trees, the houses, dogs chasing each other, and the men and women, all looked different, and the noise of the great city—I was fascinated by it all. Life seems beautiful and worth living, even in prison or in a hospital, as long as you look at it that way.

“I felt as if I had been reborn.

“Well, on that night, right there in the street, on my way to Aschinger’s for my dinner de luxe, my brain was full of philosophical thoughts, and it resulted in a new conception of life and a new criterion of values, all for my private use. Let me say only in this chaos of thoughts I discovered the secret of happiness and I still cherish it: Love life for better or for worse, without conditions.”

There are people who kill themselves in the grip of insanity, and my sympathy goes to them and those they leave behind. Most people who commit suicide kills themselves quickly, but some die slowly, stunned over a long period of time by inertia. But I do strongly believe that if we’re cogent, we should never take our lives for any reason. I speak from experience when I say that suicide leaves a wake of grief that stretches decades. I don’t deny the complexity of reasons for suicide. I think it’s simplistic to say that suicide is the product of a diseased mind. But it appears that it is a combination of biological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual factors produce an inimical feeling about existence itself—a need to stop unbearable anguish-- by doing to escape being. There are answer—within us—from others—clergy, social workers, friends, psychologists, doctors—and also from our faith. But I do believe that suicide in the main is an act of selfishness masquerading as desperation. I believe that there are always options and there are always people that can provide us with options. But destructive hate turned inward is never an option.

Some people that kill themselves are insane—they have no mind, no cognition, no sense of proportion, no sense of past, present, and future, no values, no intentionality, and thusly no will that can prevent their own annhilation. However, I don’t think this is true with most people who kill themselves, and for such people I do think they are committing the unforgivable sin. “ According to Mark 3:28-29, there is but one unforgivable sin. “Verify I say unto you,” Jesus says, “All sins shall be forgiven unto the sins of men, and blasphemies with which they blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.” Some people interpret this verse as God’s condemnation against anyone who is impious or irreverent to God, Christianity, a creed, or the church. However, this interpretation puts the focus on the act of impiety, rather than the object of blasphemy, who is the Holy Spirit. According to John 14, Jesus leaves with us the Spirit’s indwelling. “And I will pray the Father. And he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.” And in chapter 16, we read “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” So, to the question, how do you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, I would say from these verses you do so by denying the comfort and truth that God provides. So it is not a denial of creeds or even God that is the greatest sin as much as it is our lack of confidence in the Holy Spirit that causes us to lose that faith in God and that faith in our own humanity.

William Buckley quotes in Execution Eve a last sermon by fifty-year old Charles Pinckey Luckey of the Middlebury Connecticut Congregational Church, perhaps one of the most moving credos of the Christian faith I’ve read. Two weeks after he read this letter, he died, on January 20, 1976, of Jakob-Creutzfelds disease.

“What does the Christian do when he stands over the abyss of his own death and the doctors have told him that disease is ravaging his brain and that his whole personality may be warped, twisted, changed? Then does the Christian have any right to self-destruction, especially when he knows that the changed personality may bring out some horrible beast in himself?

“Well, after 48 hours of self-searching and study, it comes to me that ultimately and finally the Christian has to always view life as a gift from God, and every precious bit of life was not earned but was by grace, lovingly bestowed upon him by his Creator, and it is not his to pick up and smash.

“And so I find the position of suicide untenable, not because I lack the courage to blow out my brains, but rather because of my deep, abiding faith in the Creator who put the brains there in the first place. And now the result is that I lie here blind on my bed and trusting in the sustaining, loving power of that great God who knew and loved me before I was fashioned in my mother’s womb.

“But I do not think it is wrong to pray for an early release from this diseased, ravaged carcass. Loving given to my congregation and to my friends if it seems in good taste”

“Three months ago, you came into our lives,” I wrote in my diary on May 24th, 1994, about my son Zachary. “Today, you’re a pink-cheeked boy with big, brown eyes and a cooing smile. We want to give you the world. But the world isn’t easy. Your peers will grow up in well-manicured neighborhoods, attend first-rate colleges, and flaunt the trappings of affluence. But there’s trouble in paradise. Last month, two girls gassed themselves after a party in a suburb not far from here. A local TV report documented a new fad among children called carving. Kids use acid, blades, and fire to mutilate themselves. We see young lives trashed by drug abuse, alcoholism, and depression. At the root of this lie a sickness of the soul called self-hate. Self-hate tries to claim that I’m worthless, undesirable, bad. And out of this soul death comes that most fundamental question of existence:

I.
Why?

To be or not to be, that is the question. What is the answer? Beloved child, there’s nothing we want to give you more than a foundation of granite self-esteem that can stand the stresses of life. “Give me a place to stand,” Archimedes said 2,000 years ago, “and I will move the world.” We want you to stand on a place of unconditional self-acceptance. We want you to accept yourself without condition, and thusly to accept others and life itself without condition. This we want you to know. You matter. You’re special. You’re wanted. Believe it. Hold on to it. Cling to it with the tenacity of a terrier. Make it part of you. You are because you are. Your existence needs no justification. It’s not based on achievement, what you look like, what you wear, what your grades are. You are—not because of what you do—but because you are. Dearest Zachary, here at home, you’re safe and free. Safe to have roots, free to have wings. Here you’re free to experiment, to make mistakes, to grow. Here you’re free to be you. Zachary, we love you!”

A Few Of My Favorite Things

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:35:00 +0000

Justice Thomas OKs Strip Searches

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Said Clarence Thomas in his dissent: "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments. Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

But wiser heads prevailed.

It's a strange conservative who consistently sides with the state in distinction to the individual.

Burglars Love Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and group e-mails can tip burglers when you are on vacation. Use discretion in telling your audience when you will be away from your home. Sometimes, a whisper in a wind-- a friend tells a friend who is not your friend-- can cost you.

Thinking About Michael

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:05:00 +0000

Andrew Sullivan

"There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life.

"But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell.

"I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.
I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours' and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out."

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:37:00 +0000

I asked my boy, a high-school freshmen, in the wake of Mark Sanford's field trip to Argentina if Governor Sanford was a Republican or a Democrat. Without a moment of hesitation, he said Republican. Spitzer, Edwards, and of course Clinton had their sexual misconduct, but the Republicans seem time and again to be the ones with the fidelity to their vows issue. Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig, David Vitter and John Ensign are but only a few of the Republicans who not only castigated others for their sins of the flesh but have sometimes orchestrated their political assasination.

Karma will also get you in the end.

So why is it that Republicans tend to be the sex vandals and wife cheaters?

Maybe Republicans are sexually wayward . . .

1. Because they marry young, and, as they years go by, their regrets lead them into other arms.

2. Because they don't know any better.

3. Because they stoke up on a haze of Viagara and alcohol.

4. Because they don't care what they do, so long as they believe the right things.

5. Because they are bored with the silliness and sameness of their sad existence.

6. Because their stpford Republican trophy wives drive them bats.

7. Because their slacker Republican kids aren't worth the trouble.

8. Because their church likes tales of redemption-- the more sordid the better.

9. Because they don't care how life is conceived, only that it is conceived.

10. Because they usually can get away with it.

Two Pop Icons Are Gone

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:45:00 +0000

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

Farrah Fawcett: 1947-2009

The Smithsonian Writes A Letter

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC
20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull."

We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.

However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it's modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it.

Without going into too much detail, let us say that: A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on. B. Clams don't have teeth. It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it's normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.

To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino."

Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum.

While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe Curator,
Antiquities

Blue-Collar/Intellectual Snobbery

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Letter to The New York Times Book Review

To the Editor:

As a “knowledge worker” who is all thumbs, I do not feel superior to people who work with their hands. I do not feel inferior to them, either, despite Matthew Crawford’s claim (described in Francis Fukuyama’s review of “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” June 7) that “most forms of real knowledge,” as Fukuyama writes, “come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects.” Rather than replacing intellectual snobbery with blue-collar snobbery, why can’t we recognize that the types of knowledge gained from struggling with material objects and from struggling with abstract arguments are equally “real”?

FELICIA NIMUE ACKERMAN
Providence, R.I.

The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.

Iran: What's Next?

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:41:00 +0000

Reuters asks the right questions.

ARE IRANIANS LIKELY TO OBEY KHAMENEI'S ORDERS TO STOP THE DEMONSTRATIONS?

HAS THE REGIME LOST LEGITIMACY AND IF SO CAN IT REGAIN IT?

KHAMENEI'S MESSAGE WAS BACKDOWN OR CRACKDOWN, BUT CAN THEY AFFORD THE REPERCUSSIONS OF A CRACKDOWN?

WILL THESE EVENTS FORCE U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA TO ABANDON HIS POLICY OF ENGAGEMENT WITH IRAN?

DOES KHAMENEI HAVE THE SUPPORT OF SENIOR IRANIAN CLERICS?

My view is as follows. Democracy and civil rights are worthy universal aspirations. But, in the case of Iran, we need to be careful for what we wish. Political instability in this volatile region can have unknown, significant, randomizing implications to the rest of the world. One of those implications can be increased terrorism and world-wide economic dislocation. Furthermore, I'm skeptical as to how truely democratic is the opposition. The US needs to stay out of even symbolic support of any faction in Iran at this time. Iran remains a dangerous country, and political instability is making it more dangerous.

Teach Your Children Well

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:25:00 +0000

A great father's day song.

Letter to My Dad June 12

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:14:00 +0000

I write to my father at least weekly, who lives in a retirement home in Lancaster, Pennslvania.

Dear Dad,

The calendar reminds me that your 93rd birthday is soon arriving. I dropped a package in the mail, which perhaps you will get sometime next week. Here is my account of your earliest days.

“Births were routine matters that caused little excitement because they happened every two years,” Reyn writes. “Babies were welcome because no expense was involved. New infants came free (F.O.B) with no payment for prenatal care, hospital fees, or doctor’s bills. In our case, Mrs. Steffenson who lived 2 ½ miles north of us acted as midwife and ushered us into the world. The absence of doctors may explain why we were all so healthy.” Dad was born June 22, 1916, in the southwest corner of the first floor of the Millard home. His birth certificate lists his father as Nicholas Wik, age 41 from Sweden, and Emma C. Olson, age 39 from Iowa. Lena Steffenson is listed as the midwife.

A picture taken about 1917 shows Dad with a fluff of hair and his mouth open in amazement. The girls look sweetly mischievous, and the older boys look handsome but bored. In another early picture, Dad with his tousled hair is a twin of our three-year-old Benjamin. Elvera holds younger brother Nick, who looks like a cherubic Santa Claus.

A family committee sometimes picked names for the babies. (“The naming committee is news to me,” Viola writes. “I was told that Mom chose our first names and Dad our second ones. They considered ‘Ella’ for me but went with ‘Viola.’ ”) I once thought dad’s middle name was a salute to Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the Victorian poet buried in Westminster Abbey. But the romance of that name deflated when I found that Dad was called Tennyson because he was the tenth child, just as Viola was given a middle name of Octavia, the “sweetheart of Rome”, because she was the eighth child.”

I note also that father’s day arrives this year one day before your birthday. So happy father’s day as well.

We were at a pot luck yesterday at church mainly to recognize the efforts of the work team that Zach was involved in. He was involved in painting at an institution for the blind. They sent back a thank you letter with an overlay in Braille. He also worked at an animal shelter as well. Zach got a certificate for being a “cutie pie”—perhaps because he is so cheerful.
Nancy interviewed for another job at the high school on Thursday.

The book on COs was finally published, and I’ve mailed that to you. I wrote the following to Dr. Steven Taylor: “I just wanted to let you know that I received your book Acts of Conscience. All I can say is wow! What an impressive volume it is! In fact, I spent much of the evening reading it. It is well-written, thoughtful, and majesterial in its scholarship. I'm passing this along to my father as a birthday present, as he turns 93 this month.

“I was watching a documentary last night on the Tiananmen Square massacre. In reflecting on your point that acts of conscience by the WWII COs had little lasting institutional impact, the same could be said for the Beijing University students who lost their lives in 1989. And yet in both cases the potency of their ideas-- the idea of conscience and the idea of freedom-- continues to have enduring significance.

“Thanks again for your book and your scholarship. It has been my pleasure to have a small part in it.”

He responded:

“I'm delighted to learn that you like the book. I do think the lessons of the book can be generalized to various persons who have committed acts of conscience in the name of benefiting humanity. Thanks again for your help. Please send my regards to your father. ”

Here is an e-mail from Richard and Jean.

“It has been awhile since we've communicated with you re: Grace so thought perhaps an update would be timely. She has continued to improve in the lung area. She is still on oxygen at all times but there is no evidence of pneumonia at this point. On Monday of this week she moved back into the Health Care Center-the same room 204 that she was in before the hospitalization in March. She felt she could not live out her life in a hospital so it was her choice to move. While the care is not quite the same with the staff ratio being almost one on one in the hospital, she is being cared for. She is completely dependent on staff for all her personal needs. Her phone has been reinstated to her old number, so she can be reached at 605-598-4236. Her mail is still being forwarded to Steve's so Janet brings her mail and helps her open and read it. We do appreciate all your cards, letters and prayerful thoughts. She really is an "amazing" Grace. God Bless you all.”

Finally, here is a bit more of your story.

On May 1, 1946, Dad arrived in Shanghai and proceeded by rail to Chengchow, Honan province. He worked with a Mennonite relief organization on several agricultural projects, such as teaching students how to use tractors and raising milk cows. A Mennonite bulletin from 1947 describes Dad as “the fellow that eats and sleeps Chinese. Harold is our agricultural man. When he first arrived, he was assigned to the tractor project. Later, he was put on the agricultural and cotton loans. Now he is working on the heifer project.” Uncle Frank White, an Australian army officer, worked with Dad in China when Dad was serving in the Friends ambulance unit. “Australia had sent some cows as a present to China as the Japs had left nothing,” Frank writes. “One of the cows died and Harold who had a degree in animal husbandry was asked to go out with me to try and determine the cause of death—accident, exotic disease, or sabotage. To our horror and dismay, Chinese butchers had already skinning the cow with the carcass a welter of blood and gore lying on the raw side of the skin with the butchers hastily slicing off chunks of meat and packing it into buckets to sell to an unsuspecting public. To the best of my memory, we were unable to determine the cause of death.”

In 1981, Dad got a letter from James Liu from the Hengyang, Hunan Province, the People’s Republic of China. Lieu worked with Dad in the China Relief Unit, and he and his wife Hazel taught Dad Chinese. “When we saw you for the last time, that was in Shanghai,” Lieu writes. “In 1951, we went back to Hengyang and continued to work in the orphanage. After the liberation, Hazel was asked to work in one of the hospitals and I was asked to teach in one of the high schools. We are not young any more. Hazel is 70 years old and I am 77 years old. We want to live for Jesus during the rest of our lives.”

“In 1946, the United States sent General George C. Marshall to China to reconcile the Nationalists and the Communists,” I write in my book How to Do Business With the People’s Republic of China. “Marshall’s efforts continued until 1947 when he announced abandonment of his mediation. The U.S. State Department ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from China. The civil war became more widespread. Battle raged not only for gaining territories but also for winning allegiance of populations. Within three year, the Communists forced the Kuomintang to set up a truncated regime on Taiwan. In January 1949, the Communists took Beijing without a fight." The Communist takeover of China forced Dad’s evacuation back to Shanghai in 1948. “We received good treatment at the hands of the Communists,” Dad wrote in 1947 from Kaifeng. “There is little doubt in my mind but that far reaching agrarian reforms are in order in China, and that the central government is failing in meeting the needs of the people. Nevertheless, resort to armed revolution and bloodshed as an accepted method in extending an economic or political ideology contrary to the prevailing one is, in my opinion, morally indefensible.” In 1979, Dad wrote that the “takeover was relatively bloodless as the Nationalist forces by then had little heart to resist the onslaught of the Communist armies. The CIM, which was the largest Protestant mission working in China, suffered no casualties as a result of the Communist takeover, though a number of the missionaries were held under house arrest, some like Arthur Miller for a few years.” The Chinese, Dad notes, are “patient, resilient, hard-working people. Many have learned to live with little.”

Dad was accepted into the China Inland Mission in February 1949, three months before China fell to the Communists. “We were happy to have an interview with you at our headquarter staff meeting yesterday, and after further prayer, we are prepared to accept your application and receive you as a member of the China Inland Mission”, writes Bishop Frank Houghton, the general director. You can sense Dad’s exaltation and excitement as he anticipates his adventure, in a letter written from Shanghai to Aunt Viola and Uncle Henry in February, 1949. “Greetings over the way and brace yourself for some news relative to my application to the China Inland Mission. Read—here it is … They have accepted me!” Dad ends the letter noting that “relations with my best girl are looking good. I’m now looking for the Lord to send her out to China.” In March 1951, Dad left China and three months later went to Malaya, which was then a British colony.

In October 1948, Mom went to China under the China Inland Mission, later renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. In 1949, Mom wrote that “I was walking to school alone and the hot morning sun was shining brightly. As I was nearing the market place, the familiar sound of a battle plane made my ears prick up. Immediately, there were loud reports of defensive ack-ack fire. In no time the street cleared. I saw a woman quickly dart across the street to collect her children who were unconcernedly continuing their game of marbles. On other occasions, I have watched the bombs dropping. They would come down with a thundering noise above the roar of the engines, thick volumes of dark smoke marking the spot where they had fallen.” Mom saw “two large excavations where thirteen graves had been dislodged and large trees cut down” and also saw a plane crash. Mom supervised hospital wards and was also in charge of training Chinese girls. Mom and Dad met in a language school in Shanghai. They learned Mandarin and then later the Hakka dialect used by the Southern Chinese. On July 20th 1951, Dad was engaged to Mom.

My parent’s letters, now fragile and yellowing after fifty years, evokes a romance conducted with a literary flair that has today all but vanished. “Leisurely, our boat cuts her way through the calm blue seas so that traveling becomes a delight,” Mom wrote on June 23, 1951. “The scenery yesterday was a particular joy as we skirted by the islands at a very close distance. Much could be seen of the islanders in their huts surrounded by the coconut plantations while on the hill slopes farming seems to be the order of the day.

“Yesterday morning, my waking thoughts were of you and this continued throughout the whole day as I remembered your birthday. To say that I have missed you is putting it mildly. The Lord has been good to us in allowing us to have three weeks crammed full of happiness."

“Darling, you know that I would account it a small thing to circumvent the globe if that seemed necessary,” Dad wrote shortly afterwards. “I trust that God will be directing you clearly in respect to the timing of your coming to this land.

Darling, I think that you will love living here in this land. I am really beginning to fall in love with the place. So do come soon my love to share the wonders of this land with me. It’s God’s mission field for us, and my heart is really not hankering after another.”

“This is truly the happiest of all days for me,” Mom wrote from Australia on July 20, 1951. “The Lord has been good in making it clear that you are His choice so that I need not hesitate longer in answering your question. How I would love to be with you at this moment while I whisper clearly in your ear “Yes.” Harold, darling, I do belong to you and you belong to me because of Him.

“As long as I live, I will have a testimony to give concerning the Lord’s guidance as He began to unite our hearts. I cannot help but love you and now long for the day when we will share each other in a more perfect way.

“Even while I write this letter, I am wearing the ring (precious to us both) which will continue to remind me that you are not very far away, at least in thoughts.”

We hope you continue to be well and remain in our fondest thoughts and prayers.

Much Love.

State Secrets

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:09:00 +0000

The CIA's rendition and torture program is not a "state secret." It's a national disgrace.

We must not protect torturers and their enablers from accountability for their actions. And we must not let the government hide behind the overly-broad use of state secrets.

Ask your representative to co-sponsor the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009 and limit the claim of "state secrets" to specific evidence.

Lettermen and Palin

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:56:00 +0000

It may be my age, but I don't entirely get Lettermen, with humor that is more sophomoric and ironic than knee-slapping and funny. And Lettermen, unlike Leno and O'Brian and in an earlier era Carson, would not be the kind of person I would want at my BBQ. Nor would I want the right-wing, swarmy Dennis Miller either, who reminds me of the kind of creep who hangs out at adult stores or children's playgrounds. That said, I don't understand the sudden conversion to political correctness from the right with talk of boycotts and firings. So long as the advertisers get their numbers, neither Miller nor Lettermen are going anywhere. I've never seen such touching sensitivity from FoxNation on feminist or class issues. So here is my small suggestion to all those folks who are in a lather about either Lettermen or Imus, either Miller or O'Brian exercising their First Amendment rights:

TURN THE CHANNEL!

Says a reader:

As with most people who are foolish enough to support liberal ideas, you fail to understand that the First Amendment (as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights) ONLY restricts the actions of the United States government.

Ah, yes. A a cafeteria conservative, ever appealing to the freedom of speech clause of the constitution only when it suit you.

Since you clearly don't know anything about the First Amendment, let me help you and the other home schoolers out.

Private citizens are permitted-- not restrained-- by the first amendment to say what they want, within the bounds of what is otherwise lawful, i.e. as regards to sedition or obscenity. The First Amendment applies to individuals, corporations, states, and the government. It doesn't only restrict the federal government. Here is the wording:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "

Right after the clause "freedom of speech" is "or of the press"-- which is scarcely a government function. The First Amendment doesn't innoculate individuals from tort liability for libel or slander, but the Supreme Court has set a low standard in regards to public officials such as Mrs. Palin. Generally, Palin is fair game for any kind of abusive or unfair speech because she is a public official. It is a gray area whether or not her children are fair game. As a matter of law, that can be addressed under libel or slander laws. As a matter of tactical politics as well as basic ethics, any kind of attacks on politican's children should be off limits.

Here is Wikipedia analysis:

"The nature of American defamation law was vitally changed by the Supreme Court in 1964, in deciding New York Times Co. v. Sullivan 376 U.S. 254 (1964). The New York Times had published an advertisement indicating that officials in Montgomery, Alabama had acted violently in suppressing the protests of African-Americans during the Civil rights movement. The Montgomery Police Commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, sued the Times for libel on the grounds that the advertisement damaged his reputation. The Supreme Court unanimously overruled the $500,000 judgment against the Times. Justice William J. Brennan suggested that public officials may sue for libel only if the publisher published the statements in question with "actual malice."

"The actual malice standard applies to both public officials and public figures, including celebrities. Though the details vary from state to state, private individuals normally need only to prove negligence on the part of the defendant.

"In Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Association, Inc. v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6 (1970), the Supreme Court ruled that a Greenbelt News Review article, which quoted a visitor to a city council meeting who characterized Bresler's aggressive stance in negotiating with the city as "blackmail", was not libelous since nobody could believe anyone was claiming that Bresler had committed the crime of blackmail and that the statement was essentially hyperbole (i.e., obviously an opinion).

"The Supreme Court ruled in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. 418 U.S. 323 (1974), opinions could not be considered defamatory. It is thus permissible to suggest, for instance, that someone is a bad lawyer, but not permissible to falsely declare that the lawyer is ignorant of the law: the former constitutes a statement of values, but the latter is a statement alleging a fact."

I'm not sure why the word "liberal" is used as a prejorative as it was foolish liberals that wrote the constitution in the first place, and it is conservatives such as the mullahs of Iran who do not want such foolish, new-fangled liberal ideas as free speech to prevail.

The fact is that right-wing talk radio, the forums (such as this one) and Fox cable have this kind of stuff on daily abd 24-7. I think it does debase the dialogue and tactically the low road isn't the place where you want to be. But that is a fact of today's politics. What does the Bible say about taking the log out of your eye? Lettermen is a mere speck compared to Limburgh, Rush, Hannity, Beck, Palin, Fox, and any number of forums, all spewing their hate, with some of it crossing the line into inference about assasinations of liberal politicans.

"In a harried, fragmented, media-addled time, there is an invigorating simplicity to this political fundamentalism. It is comforting to hold fast to hallowed values, to defend tradition against the slackness of relativism and hedonism. But when the tone darkens toward a rhetoric of purgation and annihilation, there is reason for alarm. Two days after watching "Seven Days in May," I was utterly horrified to hear Dallas-based talk show host Mark Davis, subbing for Rush Limbaugh, laughingly and approvingly read a passage from a Dallas magazine article by CBS sportscaster David Feherty claiming that "any U.S. soldier," given a gun with two bullets and stuck in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, would use both bullets on Pelosi and strangle the other two."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/05/13/7_days_in_may/

There is the saying that you don't wrestle with pigs because you get dirty and the pigs likes it. It seems to me that lip-stick covered pigs like nothing better than this kind of rhetoric. Kerry and some of the previous presidential candidates made a critical error of judgment in not answering these kind of attacks in kind and at once. And, since the Republicans are now a minority party lacking any kind of leadership at all, I expect that this kind of snarking will continue from them for as long as I can see, making it blue skies for the Democratic Party.

So, yes, there is indeed hypocrisy. But most of it comes from the right.

Uighur Terrorists in Bermuda?

noreply@blogger.com (My Mall and News) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:49:00 +0000

Says a reader:

These uighurs are terrorists and nothing more. What other possible reason could they have for being in Afghanistan during US operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Tourism? Picnicing?

Me:

Can you please make an effort to research the facts before your spout off? There is such a thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Further, and this concept may be totally new to you, there is such a thing as a presumption of innocence and due process.

Here are the facts.

http://m.npr.org/news.jsp?key=516195&rc=in&p=0

"The four were among a group of Uighurs -- members of a Turkic ethnic group from China's Xinjiang province -- who fled China in the summer of 2001, claiming religious persecution. They slipped across the border into Afghanistan. Later, they crossed into Pakistan, where they were swept up by Pakistani security services. They were eventually jailed in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.The Uighurs were later declared innocent of terrorism, and the U.S. has been trying to place them somewhere ever since. Returning them to China would probably mean torture."