Roger Kimball asks why anyone believes the NY Times about anything. He quotes fellow blogger Bob Owens to summarize:
[T]he bizarre emphasis of the New York Times upon veteran violence without the provision of context can be understood by remembering that Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the Times, once said during the Vietnam War that if a North Vietnamese soldier ran into an American soldier, he’d rather see the American soldier shot.
Commentary is publishing one of Buckley’s last essays, “Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me.” Here’s the start of it:
In the early months of l962, there was restiveness in certain political quarters of the Right. The concern was primarily the growing strength of the Soviet Union, and the reiteration by its leaders of their designs on the free world. Some of the actors keenly concerned felt that Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona was a natural leader in the days ahead.
But it seemed inconceivable that an anti-establishment gadfly like Goldwater could be nominated as the spokesman-head of a political party. And it was embarrassing that the only political organization in town that dared suggest this radical proposal—the GOP’s nominating Goldwater for President—was the John Birch Society.
The society had been founded in 1958 by an earnest and capable entrepreneur named Robert Welch, a candy man, who brought together little clusters of American conservatives, most of them businessmen. He demanded two undistracted days in exchange for his willingness to give his seminar on the Communist menace to the United States, which he believed was more thoroughgoing and far-reaching than anyone else in America could have conceived. His influence was near-hypnotic, and his ideas wild. He said Dwight D. Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy,” and that the government of the United States was “under operational control of the Communist party.” It was, he said in the summer of 1961, “50-70 percent” Communist-controlled.
Welch refused to divulge the size of the society’s membership, though he suggested it was as high as 100,000 and could reach a million. His method of organization caused general alarm. The society comprised a series of cells, no more than twenty people per cell. It was said that its members were directed to run in secret for local offices and to harass school boards and librarians on the matter of the Communist nature of the textbooks and other materials they used.
The society became a national cause célèbre—so much so, that a few of those anxious to universalize a draft-Goldwater movement aiming at a nomination for President in 1964 thought it best to do a little conspiratorial organizing of their own against it.
Several writers on Commentary’s blog, Contentions, are paying tribute to Buckley. Max Boot says, “He managed on a number of occasions to keep the conservative movement as a whole from lurching into loony-land.” The above essay is a case in point, I believe.
Elizabeth Brown reviews and anecdotes on Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Good Writing. I agree with the rule using “said” over any other dialogue verb. There’s not much point to using any other word. We say things far more than we affirm, allege, argue, assert, asseverate, aver, avouch, avow, claim, contend, declare, hold, maintain, state, voice, or vocalize.
Dude, what does asseverate mean? “To declare seriously or positively.”
William F. Buckley Jr. died last night. May his tribe continue to increase.
Tony Woodlief writes about writing and vocation.
One of the surest ways to determine if someone who wants to be a writer can, in fact, become a writer is to examine his output. I know more than a few people who want to be writers, but not so much that they actually write. . . . I write because I can’t help it. I write because sometimes, in the midst of it, I feel like I am doing what I was crafted to do.
My church hosted a great Michael Card concert last Saturday. His music is nothing like the song Lars described yesterday. He even sang my favorite song of his, one he said he wrote “at a professor” who argued for a more rational faith than Card was comfortable with. Card has always favored mystery and paradox, so when his professor argued for a list of concepts which one could assent to and thereby adopt Christian faith, Card bristled. So he wrote a song about Jesus and his clash with our understanding, called “God’s Own Fool,” which has the chorus
When we in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God’s own fool
For only the foolish can tell-
Believe the unbelievable
And come be a fool as well
YouTube has a video of it. I sang this song during a Sunday service a few years ago because it tied so well to the sermon. I think the Holy Spirit used it, but now that I say that, I can’t point to anything for evidence of that–perhaps, that’s not a proper perspective.
I wanted to pass on something Card mentioned during the concert. He is working with several others on The By/For Project, an effort to encourage Christian musicians to write music for the whole church for use in worship services free of restrictions. The site says, “Worship is a gift freely given. By/For projects are licensed under Creative Commons, so churches can freely use the art in worship and other artists can adapt and extend it. Removing profit motives can enrich both art and worship.”
The site also wants to remove the natural boundaries between Christians. “By/For believes the local church can strengthen and support fellow worshippers down the street, across town, and over oceans” by using the Internet to distribute recorded music, scores, and lyrics. There’s also a visual art angle on this too, which should bend some perspectives a bit.
Your local Starbucks will close at 5:30 today for “barista re-education.” Do not panic.
UPDATE: Dunkin’ Donuts in Chicago is offering free small lattes today from 1:00 to 10:00 p.m. I believe they are 99 cents in other parts of the country. McDonald’s is also trying to win over coffee drinkers during the Starbucks black out.
Doug Wilson talks numbers in a post today about an ugly part of our modern culture.
Numbers about this kind of thing, taken out of context in this way, are weapons. Consider Kinsey’s infamous lie about 10 percent of the population being homosexual, and that figure, apparently immortal now, is routinely used to make the rest of us “face facts,” and come to terms with what is obviously a fact of nature. It is in fact lying propaganda. In the same way, the raw fact that American has a 10 billion dollar a year porn problem is used by friends and foes of porn alike, the former to tell us, “resistance is futile, you will be assimilated,” and the latter to tell us if we don’t get off our keisters now, we are all going to be living in a seedier section of one of the Cities of the Plain in about three weeks.
From my point of view, our problem with this vice has more to do with the free and publicity side than the pay-per-view side. Why shouldn’t the current issue of Sports Illustrated and some celebrity gossip mags/pages considered part of this $10 billion industry?
Will Duquette became a Roman Catholic a while back, and now he’s uncovering his inner Benedictine monk. Make that oblate, not monk.
Some while ago, Jane had picked up a book, rather on a whim, called Monk Habits for Ordinary People, by a Presbyterian minister named Dennis Okholm. Okholm has, rather surprisingly, for twenty years been an oblate of Blue Cloud Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in South Dakota, and his purpose in writing the book was to make Benedictine spirituality accessible to other Protestants. I’d glanced at it at the time, but no more than that; a couple of days ago Jane reminded me of it, and I more or less devoured it.