The DC beat

Good for them, Congress passed the no-brainer legislation. Thanks to the voices of the families of 9/11 victims and President Bush's well-spent political capital, the House and Senate agreed to overhaul our nation's intelligence community.

The Christian Science Monitor takes a long look at what exactly these reforms will mean. The big items are the new Director of National Intelligence and the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. It won't all happen overnight, and we'll probably see some of the same bureaucratic problems we saw with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, but this was sorely needed. There were dissenters, with relevant arguments even. But those gaps can be filled in by the next Congress, which won't have to worry about going through the whole process of getting this bill to a vote, coming to a compromise bill between the House and Senate, and agreeing to put the new bill into law (which could have taken another year).

Instead, we have real legislation that seeks to prevent the 9/11 tragedy from ever happening again on American soil. If that's not worth blogging about, I don't know what is.

Roger's Park afterthoughts.

What does it mean to 'support our troops'?
Andrea Cooper writes some fantastic commentary here about her struggle to support American troops without condoning our administration's actions in the Iraq. It's good. And not overtly partisan. Just honest.

Said troops take Rumsfeld to town.
A town hall meeting in Kuwait between US troops and Donald Rumsfeld turned into a political bitch-slap for the Secretary of Defense, as troops voiced their honest concerns about problems with armor shortages, extended tours, antiquated equipment and paycheck delays. All in front of the national press. Oops. Thank God for a free press.

Meanwhile, in Moscow.
The same can't be said for Russia anymore, apparently. A Russian television anchor was suspended for sarcastic comments on the air about the earlier firing of another journalist who criticized the TV station. While the station is not owned directly by the Kremlin, it was purchased by a state-controlled gas company in 2001. And it seems certain editorial decisions have favored President Putin, foregoing journalistic integrity. So when people speak up, they lose their voice. Once again, thank God for a free press.

Parents go on strike, move to front yard.
I was sure this was from the Onion. But it's not. Mom and dad have been living in a tent in the front yard because they couldn't get their kids to help out with household chores. If TV cameras can't get your kids to do the dishes, I don't think anything can. I say good for them.

Got a parking ticket? Pay in toys.
So Boston is freaking awesome. For three days they let people pay for parking tickets with new toys as part of the Toys for Tots program. This is the best idea ever. But it should be all month long, and in every city in the country. Word.

a friendly ghost, part two

I'm going to be out for a couple of days, so I thought I'd post something warm and fuzzy to sit at the top.

An Indiana woman is auctioning her father's ghost on Ebay. No, this isn't another grilled cheese story. She's "selling" the ghost because her 6-year-old son is terrified it might haunt their house.

It just goes to show that while the world might be a mean place, most people aren't. How that works, I'll never know.

Rwanda, Rwanda

In 1994, full-scale genocide broke out in the African country of Rwanda as Hutu rebels gained control of the country. The United States pulled its people out at the first sign of trouble, and the United Nations took little action. Eventually the rebels were defeated, but only after they had murdered nearly a million Rwandans (no one knows for sure how many were killed; reports vary from 500,000 to over 1,000,000).

In the following years, Rwanda sent its army into neighboring Congo in efforts to find and kill the thousands of Hutus who were hiding somewhere within the eastern part of the country. Uganda lined up with Rwanda, while Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops in support of Congo. Another 3 million people died as a part of this African “civil war,” most due to famine and disease caused by the chaos of the conflict. Since 2002, a fragile peace has held sway over the region.

Just days ago, UN observers reported Rwandan forces had been sighted in the eastern Congo once again. They quickly retreated back to Rwanda, but the government has made it known that there will never be a real peace until the 8,000-10,000 Hutu rebels in Congo are brought to justice.

Yesterday, the head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, reported to the UN Security Council that unconfirmed reports have put some 3,000-8,000 Rwandan troops on the Rwanda-Congo border (initial statements suggested they were actually in Congolese territory).

But no one seems to care. Most nations are still smarting with guilt from their failure to act immediately after the first reports of genocide came out of Rwanda back in 1994. The world stood by and did nothing. And now, out of guilt, we find it hard to firmly criticize Rwanda as they flex their military muscle for another possible invasion of the Congo.

This is especially damning for evangelical Christians. For all our righteous indignation against the Sudan in their persecution of Sudanese Christians, we say relatively nothing when persecution occurs to non-Christians around the globe. Do we speak out for women’s rights in Muslim countries? Do we speak out against China’s occupation of Tibet? I sometimes wonder if our silence is because Rwanda and Congo are a black nation, with no familiar white faces or white casualties to draw sympathy from (even though 4 million people have died from genocide, famine and disease in the last decade). I hope this isn’t the case, but I fear it might very well be.

The UN is fairing no better, having a hard time lately keeping up with international crises. They failed to denounce the genocide and religious persecution in the Sudan. There has been little notice of the rise of opium trading in post-Taliban Afghanistan. And the implications of abuses within the Iraqi oil-for-food program are staggering (some $20 billion could have ended up in the wrong hands, portions of which might have found their way into the pockets of Iraqi insurgents). Suffice to say, even though the UN is urging Rwanda to show restraint and not proceed into the Congo, they no longer hold the moral higher ground to issue such statements.

Is this a time for the US to stop shouldering the bulk of the UNs budget? Probably not. But it should be an opportunity for the US and other nations to urge major reforms within the UN, moving it away from the Cold War detente model and towards an organization with a commitment to fighting terrorism and assisting third-world countries in their transition from colonial territories to stable democracies. This should not be the role of the US State Department or the DOD, where neocon dominance in Bush's inner circle gives priority to US interests. What we need is a more globally-minded way of thinking, and the UN is the perfect vehicle for such a model. If they are able to overcome their current problems, that is.

And as far as Christianity is concerned, we need to shoulder some of the blame for the state of affairs in sub-Saharan Africa. Our missionaries were the first white colonists to push into the continent, and as civil war, disease and famine have ravaged the countryside, pulling back has meant an erosion of proper teaching in some African churches.

Granted, the causes of these African conflicts are far more complex than simple Christian/Muslim skirmishes (as a few of them have been simplistically called). There are deeper tribal differences here at work; ones that the West was able to suppress during the time of colonialism. But in the years since giving sub-Saharan Africa political autonomy, the West has done little to ease their transition to democracy. Just as African churches don’t have the theological training they need, leaving some faithful Christians to the wolves, African governments were never given the political training they needed in order to govern effectively, leaving them to the wolves of civil war.

Who’s to blame? The Church? The US? The world? It’s such a mess that it’s impossible to say. But someone needs to step up before war breaks out in the Congo once again, bringing other African countries into a conflict that could reach across the entire continent. And destroy another 4 million lives in the process.


Latest from the wire services:
World Response Muted to Rwanda-Congo War (AP)
Rwanda Urged to Show Restraint In Congo (AP)
Thousands Uprooted by Clashes in East Congo (Reuters)

a friendly ghost is all i need

I’m having trouble loving the Holy Spirit.

We Christians have this wonderfully confusing idea that the God of the Bible is three persons in one being. Whatever that means. It’s not something we came to lightly. There were quite a few heresies along the way to this rather far-fetched version of deity. But eventually it just seemed to make the most sense of the Biblical message, which is, as follows:

God is one. There is only one God. The one God was known by the ancient Jewish people as Yahweh, or something akin to that. All other supposed deities, depending on what book of the Bible you happen to be reading, are either artificially heightened supernatural beings, even more artificially heightened mortals, or figments of an over-active, human imagination. So far so good.

Then came Jesus. At first, Jesus was reluctant to claim his divinity, liking to call himself the Son. But later, through that whole salvific act, he came out of the closet as it were, and poof! The early church was presented with a problem. How could Yahweh the Father and Jesus the Son both be God? Some said Jesus wasn’t all God. Others said we now had two Gods. Still other said that Jesus and Yahweh were separate manifestations of one being; that it was just a matter of our finite human perception. But the written testament was clear. God was one, and the Father and Son were both God, and both had been so eternally even prior to our meager existence.

But before that whole mess could be cleared up, some pinhead had to pipe up in defense of the Holy Spirit. According to those New Testament epistles, he’s just as much God as the other two. If the church hadn’t called a few special counsels, we might not be split among Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox these days, but between monotheists, ditheists and tritheists! Though as luck or providence would have it, those early church fathers did get together and scour the Scriptures for our modern understanding of God as three persons in one being.

Setting aside the total lack of clarity and whisperings of mystery and paradox for just a moment, let’s get back to my problem. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to love the Holy Spirit. The Father is easy. While he's burdened himself with a few questionable smitings of Israel’s neighbours here and there, he is the perfect example of the tender affection between parent and child. This is the widow who searched her house for the one lost coin, the shepherd who left his 99 to find the one, the father who danced for joy and ran to his sorry-ass prodigal son. How can you not love him?

Loving Jesus is easier. The man simply exuded love and affection from his pores -- from his every word and deed. Even when trading barbs with religious hypocrites he still had a righteous love about him, because they were his religious hypocrites, and he loved them just the same as anyone else. This is Son, who drew water from wells with Samaritans and spent his time with the outcasts of his day -- the hookers, the race-traitors, the leperous folk -- limbs and dignity falling to the floor. Perfect love existing perfectly as a witness for all those who've come since. It wouldn’t even matter if he were God; that it just so happens to be is another added bonus. Falling in love with Jesus every day is what makes the next dismal 24 hours bearable.

But then there’s the Holy Spirit. Maybe my problem is that there’s just not enough time to get to know him. He doesn’t really enter into the story until the book of Acts. Maybe it’s because he’s described as a spirit or ghost, and I get these feelings of coldness and clammy palms -- shivers like someone just walked over my grave. Sometimes, when I think of the Holy Spirit in maternal terms, as a female, it gets a bit easier. But I think I take the wind and water analogies a bit too far, and begin flirting with gaia or panentheism, and suddenly I’m a heretic. So I back track, and find myself once again not in love with the idea of loving a ghost.

I don’t know if this gets any easier with age, or if it’s a gender issue, or if I’m just a bit screwy in the head. But I want to love the trinity, and the entire trinity. The person of the Holy Spirit is too important theologically to just let it go. But embracing an idea and loving a person are two entirely different things. So I’ll continue to teeter between clamminess and heresy, hoping for those emotional moments during worship, and furiously deluding myself into believing that that’s the real Holy Spirit, setting reason and theology aside for a moment of self-hallucinatory, ecstatic satisfaction.

the fourth estate

President Bush does not like to talk. Strike that, President Bush does not like talking with reporters. Amendment, President Bush does not like talking with reporters when they ask him questions he doesn't like. Okay.

The Washington Post recently ran an excellent story about the White House press corps, and how thay've had to transform their entire way of thinking and reporting during Bush's presidency. Before you moan and groan, I'm gonna cut you off before you can got your knickers in a knot. I know, I know. If you're a lefty, you probably feel the press is too soft on Bush, and let's him get away with far too much. If you're a righty, you probably think the press is out to get Bush, and fails to cover the good that's come out of his presidency. But if, by some miraculous portent, you still feel the press represents the eyes and ears of the people, and has an obligation to keep the executive branch accountable, for the sake of public discourse, you'll like the piece. So go read it.

We sometimes forget how close the press corps is in proximity to the Oval Office. In some sense, they're our wingmen. And they have a distant intimacy with George W. Bush that might be more genuine than the friendships the president has with his supporters. What the press has to say has got to count for something. Otherwise, why have them there at all?

Strange parallels.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn), who sits on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations looking into abuses in the UN's food-for-oil campaign with Iraq, has called for the resignation of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Maybe it's not a bad idea. Maybe it's not a good one. I don't know enough yet in order to have an opinion. But I think Sen. Coleman's reasons for Annan's resignation are interesting. He argues that even if Annan was not aware of abuses within the program, he should resign because they happened on his watch. And while he is yet Secretary-General, there can be no legitimate investigation by the UN into said abuses.

But let's take Sen. Coleman's comments and apply them to another situation: that of President George W. Bush. Here are quotes from the Senator, "modified" to reflect the situation here in the US (look to USA Today for the quotes in their original form).

[Note: Replaced words in boldface.]

"President Bush was at the helm of the US for all of the Iraqi conflict, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the US's utter failure to justify war in Iraq."

"...The most extensive fraud in the history of the US occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, as long as President Bush remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the political pressure put on the CIA, foreign intelligence errors and overestimates of available data that took place during the buildup to war in Iraq."

"...Any private company would have asked for his resignation. But the members of the board, in this case corporate America have all benefited from the US being in power."

Maybe it's not the best point-to-point analogy, but I think it really does go to show just how much political interests (i.e., party affiliations) impair our elected representatives' judgments. How can Sen. Coleman believe Annan's ability to govern be impaired while Pres. Bush's ability is not? I can only see three possible reasons.

1)He just wants another Sec-Gen in UN and will do anything to get him out, including fighting for a cause he really doesn't believe in. 2)He is able you put up with Bush's "impaired leadership" because impeachment or censorship against Pres. Bush would go no where and effectively kill the Senator's political career. 3) He really doesn't believe Bush did anything wrong in the buildup to the war in Iraq, and is ignoring the facts as best he can because his own conscience is "impaired" by his political ideology.

And that might be the most frightening reason of all, because it's indicative of a larger problem with conservatives all across the United States. We've put up with Bush because we can't see beyond our own conservative blinders.

Quotes of the night

On the resignation of Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security:

"Can I tell you today there are X number of incidents that we were able to thwart or prevent? Cannot. Am I fairly confident, confident that we probably have? Yes, I am, but it's still difficult to prove something unless I could point to a specific case."
~Tom Ridge, taking questions after his resignation speech

*******************

"Mission not....unaccomplished, presumably?"
~Jon Stewart, summarizing Ridge's statement

Around the World in [insert witty time-related comment here]

Ahoy maties! Join me as we take a peak around our fine-fangled globe. Let's do it.

First up, Africa! AIDS keeps on truckin' through this continent, leaving marketers scratching their heads in confusion. The UN AIDS Epidemic Update is estimating that an additional 3.1 million Africans will contract HIV over the next 365 days. Millions of Africans are still unaware of how HIV is contracted, and many more believe it can only be contracted from homosexuals and prostitutes! Not to mention the fact that some African males don't want to give up their sexual virility by entering into monogamous relationships. In the words of Grandpa Rice, "Oh boy..."

A hop-skip-and-a-jump-away to the Middle East, prisoners are running for public office! Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian in prison for attacks that killed 26 Israelis, has declared his candidacy for president in an election to replace the late Yasser Arafat. This coming at a time when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is clinging desperately to his majority in Israel's parliament.

But at least they don't have to worry about the Nazis, who are gaining small chunks of power in Germany. Apparently, the Third Reich is making a humble comeback in the land of beer and brauts. I don't even know what to say, other than whatthef!?!

And if you think I've got problems, take a gander at China! Someone forgot to mention this (my employer), and I can't understand why (money), because it's seems like a big deal (capital), and there's no reason for we here in America to ignore it (cheap labor), but some 4,500 mine workers have died in China over the past year. That's not a typo. 4,500! It's a good thing the Bush Administration and the U.N. keep such a tight reign on human rights violations in that country....Oh wait, I must have nodded off. It's official policy in the West to do nothing about China, otherwise we might not have enough cheap crap to sell on the day after Thanksgiving. Thank goodness for "looks-the-other-way" Bush!

Speaking of our homeland, we all know about how Carlos M. Gutierrez has been nominated as Bush's next secretary of commerce. No beef against Gutierrez, but if you read the fine print, you'll see that a number of top-flight economists have declined to join the Bush administration's economic team due to the fact that historically, they haven't had a hand in shaping policy, only rah-rah-rooting for policy set from on high. In other words, Bush doesn't want smart people with new ideas, he wants cheerleaders who will defend his policies, no matter how ludicrous they may seem!

Finally, if you read this before 6:30 EST (5:30 CST), make your way over to the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, as he spends his last night behind the anchor desk. The man is a peach; send him out with a bang.

Thanks for taking a trip on the old J-train (take that Toby Mac), and enjoy the rest of your day at Cedar Point, America's roller coast!

Those who can't, teach.

In 1996 California and her voters decided to allow marijuana to be allowed for medicinal purposes. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the case of Californian women, who use the drug to alleviate chronic pain. The federal government (under the auspices of the Attorney General) is challenging California voters. At stake is whether or not the federal government can impose its will on states when the Constitution doesn't give it the specific right to.

Federal drug law prohibits the use of marijuana under any condition. Opponents of the medical use of cannabis argue that since the FDA hasn't found marijuana to alleviate pain better or worse than drugs already on the market, it shouldn't be allowed for use by doctors. The glaringly obvious problem with their argument is (correct me if I'm wrong), the FDA cannot do a full-blown study on the medical feasibility of marijuana because of federal regulations against its use. Who decides that the FDA could use it for a scientific study? Congress I would assume. If that is the case, I don't see representatives from the heartland rushing to allow the FDA to further the cause of science with a study on a hippie drug. That's not the way we do things here in America.

That isn't to say that all conservatives are siding against California. Many state's rights advocates across the country are hoping for a ruling that would allow Californians to continue to use the drug, not because they agree that marijuana should be legalized, but because they're looking to roll back the federal government's power when it concerns its relationship to the states. This is a balance of power issue between Washington and local government.

The fight then is not between doctors/patients and the FDA/DEA. The fight is actually between the rights of states to experiment with social policy without the federal government butting in. It's not so much a libertarian issue as it is an issue of federalism.

The argument for the medical use of marijuana is that 1) it is not being sold or bought (the patients in question receive it free of charge); and 2) It takes place within one state, without crossing state lines (making it difficult to define it as "drug trafficking"). Under the Constitution, the federal government can regulate commerce between states (or interstate commerce). But marijuana used in this case was grown by local co-opts, to be used free-of-charge, for specific medicinal purposes.

A ruling against the state of California would set a dangerous precedent. It gives the federal government another inch of power which it hungers for so haphazardly. It allows the federal government power over intrastate commerce where the law of the Beltway over-rides the law of states and commonwealths. And it seems to announce, rather arrogantly I might add, that states have little room to experiment with social policy where it conflicts with policy handed down from Washington, aka Perfect-ville, USA.

Logically, the best judges of social policy would be the states, and not the Supreme Court. Federal social policies should allowed to be adapted by local communities because they have the a greater know-how of what things need fixing and how to go about fixing them. A one-size-fits-all policy on the medical use of marijuana is at the very least romantically ignorant, and at the most, imperial hubris.

If there is a way for the Supreme Court to rule in opposition to the medical use of marijuana without trampling states rights, I would be all for it. But it doesn't seem our Supreme Court has the type of legendary minds who have the ability to unearth those badly-needed, history making compromises.

Or if they do exist, their better angels are drowned out by the temptation to draw even more power away from the people, and towards the all-seeing eye and ever-lengthening arm of the Court, states rights be damned.