But What Does The Former President Really Think?

Time Magazine reports:

“Michael Moore’s got to be the worst for me,” former President George
H.W. Bush tells TIME’s Hugh Sidey when asked about the low point of
this last term. “I mean, he’s such a slimeball and so atrocious. But I
love the fact now that the Democrats are not embracing him as theirs
anymore. He might not get invited to sit in Jimmy Carter’s box (at the
Democratic Convention) again. I wanted to get up my nerve to ask Jimmy
Carter at the Clinton thing (the opening of Bill Clinton’s library),
‘How did it feel being there with that marvelous friend of yours,
Michael Moore?’ and I didn’t dare do it.”

Gotta admire his plainspokenness!

Wish he had asked Carter, but I guess manners prevailed.

Hitler's Pope's Author Gets A Clue

Professor Bainbridge teaches:

In the latest Economist ($) we learn that John Cornwell has recanted the charges he made against Pope Pius XII’s conduct during the Holocaust:

As he admits, Hitler’s Pope

(1999), his biography of Pope Pius XII, lacked balance. “I would now

argue,” he says, “in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope,

that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to

judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under

the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”

It would be nice if Amazon’s editorial content for the book had some acknowledgement of Cornwell’s retraction of the very serious charges the book makes.

This is good news. Cornwell finally got a clue. Of course, it’s not much of a clue in view of his current book savaging John Paul II, but it’s something.

(Cowboy hat tip: Gleeful Extremist.)

Hitler’s Pope‘s Author Gets A Clue

Professor Bainbridge teaches:

In the latest Economist ($) we learn that John Cornwell has recanted the charges he made against Pope Pius XII’s conduct during the Holocaust:

As he admits, Hitler’s Pope
(1999), his biography of Pope Pius XII, lacked balance. “I would now
argue,” he says, “in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope,
that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to
judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under
the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”

It would be nice if Amazon’s editorial content for the book had some acknowledgement of Cornwell’s retraction of the very serious charges the book makes.

This is good news. Cornwell finally got a clue. Of course, it’s not much of a clue in view of his current book savaging John Paul II, but it’s something.

(Cowboy hat tip: Gleeful Extremist.)

A Burning Question?

Down yonder, a reader asks:

Jimmy,

Do you think one could argue that cigars and cigarettes are immoral?
The Catechism states that Tobacco, used in moderation, is morally
licit. However, cigarettes and cigars aren’t just tobacco, but tobacco
laced with poison (literally).

For the record, let’s quote the Catechism on this matter:

CCC 2290
The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse
of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by
drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the
road, at sea, or in the air.

This passage relates appears to recognize that the moderate use of tobacco (like the moderate use of the co-named items food, alcohol, or medicine) is morally licit under the virtue of temperance. (Certainly the Church has never suggested a general anti-tobacco policy to its members, despite hundreds of years of its common use in Christian circles.) The conclusion one would draw from the Catechism seems further confirmed by the fact that, regardless of the claims made regarding "addiction" and cigarettes, many people only occasionally smoke pipes and cigars and with no apparent ill effects (some even smoke cigarettes only occasionally).

It may not be politically correct to point this out, but it seems to be true.

Recognizing that, what about the claim that commercially-available tobaccos are "laced with poison."

To be blunt, this particular claim seems to be propaganda of the anti-smoking industry.

Whether or not something is a poison depends on the amount in which it is received. If you eat a pound of salt at one sitting, it will turn out to be quite toxic to your system. But salt itself is essential for life. Similarly, drink five gallons of alcohol in one sitting and you will most certainly die. But drink alcohol in moderate amounts and it actually improves health.

Quantity thus is everything. Any substance administered in sufficiently small quantities would seem to count–in those quantities–as a non-poison. No substance I know of would kill a person if present only in a single molecule.

If (per supposition, though recognizing that matters here are likely way over-inflated due to political correctness and bad science) contemporary tobacco products are "laced with [substances that in sufficient quantities become] poisons," this would mean that the amount of such products whose use would be moderate would grow smaller (but not vanish in an instant).

It therefore seems to me that the presence of chemicals in contemporary tobacco products that increases their potential toxicity thereby limits the amount of such products which can be moderately consumed, but it does not eliminate it.

In addition, I am quite suspicious about claims made in such regards. We have already seen that the claims regarding "second-hand smoke" are highly problematic, and so are many other clearly propagandistic communiques in this regard.

Here in California, for example, the anti-smoking industry aired TV commercials advertising the "fact" that cigarettes release X-number of "chemicals" into the air, as if cooking popcorn did not release a similar number of "chemicals" into the environment.

Take Off! . . . To The Great White North?

Y’know all those bluestate Americans who were talking about moving to Canada after the election?

"NOT SO FAST," SAYS ONE BLUESTATER WHO’S ALREADY LIVING THERE.

Excerpts:

I moved to Canada after the 2000 election. Although I did it mainly for
career reasons — I got a job whose description read as though it had
been written precisely for my rather quirky background and interests —
at the time I found it gratifying to joke that I was leaving the United
States because of George W. Bush. It felt fine to think of myself as
someone who was actually going to make good on the standard
election-year threat to leave the country.

So I could certainly identify with the disappointed John Kerry
supporters who started fantasizing about moving to Canada after Nov. 2.
But after nearly four years as an American in the Great White North,
I’ve learned it’s not all beer and doughnuts. If you’re thinking about
coming to Canada, let me give you some advice: Don’t.

Although I enjoy my work and have made good friends in Toronto, I’ve
found life as an American expatriate in Canada difficult, frustrating
and even painful in ways that have surprised me.

In the wake of 9/11, after the initial shock wore off, it was common
to hear some Canadians voice the opinion that Americans had finally
gotten what they deserved. The attacks were just deserts for years of
interventionist U.S. foreign policy, the increasing inequality between
the world’s poorest nations and the wealthiest one on Earth, and a
generalized arrogance.

I heard similar views expressed after Nov. 2, when Americans were
perceived to have revealed their true selves and thus to "deserve" a
second Bush term.

Canadians often use metaphors to portray their relationship with the
United States. They describe Canada as "sleeping with an elephant."
Even when the elephant is at rest, they worry that it may suddenly roll
over. They liken Canada to a gawky teen-age girl with a hopeless crush
on the handsome and popular boy next door. You know, the one who
doesn’t even know she exists.

Part of what’s irksome about Canadian anti-Americanism and the
obsession with the United States is that it seems so corrosive to
Canada. Any country that defines itself through a negative ("Canada:
We’re not the United States") is doomed to an endless and repetitive
cycle of hand-wringing and angst. For example, Canadians often point to
their system of universal health care as the best example of what it
means to be Canadian (because the United States doesn’t provide it),
but this means that any effort to adjust or reform that system (which
is not perfect) precipitates a national identity crisis: To wit,
instituting co-payments or private MRI clinics will make Canada too
much like the United States.

The rush to make comparisons sometimes prevents meaningful
examination of the very real problems that Canada faces. As a Canadian
social advocate once told me, when her compatriots look at their own
societal problems, they are often satisfied once they can reassure
themselves that they’re better off than the United States. As long as
there’s still more homelessness, racism and income inequality to the
south, Canadians can continue to rest easy in their moral superiority.

(NOTE TO BILLYHW & OTHER CANADIAN READERS: Present company is obviously excepted!)

Saddest Songs Ever

There’s a bit in the final episode of Babylon 5 where Vir recounts a time when he and Londo (who is dead now) once heard the Pak’ma’ra singing.

The Pak’ma’ra are a vile, disgusting, Cthuloid race that nobody likes, and nobody knew they could sing, but they do–rarely and for religious reasons. Vir says that it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard,
full of sadness, and hope, wonder, and a terrible sense of loss. Londo was moved to tears.

He concludes:

When it
was over, Londo turned to me and said "There are
forty-nine gods in our pantheon, Vir; to tell you the truth I never
believed in any of them. But if only one of them exists, then God
sings with that voice." It’s funny. After everything we have been
through, all he did… I miss him.

I recently ran across a song that I hadn’t heard in ages: "Ashokan Farewell."

This song became famous in 1990 when Ken Burns used it as the main theme of his series The Civil War. It is a staggeringly beautiful theme, filled with sadness and hope and wonder and a terrible sense of loss.

Together with "Some Day Never Comes" by Creedence Clearwater Revival and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, et al., it’s one of the three saddest, most beautiful songs I know. (Though some of Mark Herd’s stuff comes close.)

Unlike the rest of the music Burns used in The Civil War, "Ashokan Farewell" is not a period piece. In fact, it was written in 1982 by a gentleman named Jay Ungar, who conducted a series of summer fiddle and dance workshops in Ashokan, New York. He describes how the song came about:

I composed Ashokan Farewell in 1982 shortly after the summer
programs had come to an end. I was experiencing a great feeling of loss
and longing for the lifestyle and the community of people that had
developed at Ashokan that summer. The transition from living in the
woods with a small group of people who needed little excuse to
celebrate the joy of living through music and dancing, back to life as
usual, with traffic, disturbing newscasts, "important" telephone calls
and impersonal relationships had been difficult. I was in tears when I
wrote Ashokan Farewell . I kept the tune to myself for months, slightly
embarrassed by the emotions that welled up whenever I played it.

Ungar’s tears have been mirrored in the eyes of thousands of others who have heard the song. Softer-edged than "Someday Never Comes" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," whose lyrics sharpen the sense of loss these songs convey, "Ashokan Farewell"’s lyricless-melody perfectly captures the bittersweet of nostalgia–the sense of beauty and loss, the desire to go back and experience things again–to see old friends and loved ones–as a rush of memories comes flooding back. Since the song in its original form has no lyrics, it is not bound to any particular plot. Your memories fill in the detail as the song moves you to contemplate what was . . . and no longer is.

But which may be again.

When Christ makes all things new.

LISTEN TO THE SONG (midi version, not fully orchestrated).

READ ABOUT THE SONG.

LYRICS TO THE SONG.

DOWNLOAD THE SONG.

Crichton on Overpopulation

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In
the 1970s the world will undergoe famines-hundreds of millions of
people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted
four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million
Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and
it now seems it isn’t ever going to happen. Nor is the population
explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In
1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by
2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and
falling. But nobody knows for sure.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

That Dream!

You know that dream where you’re back in college and it’s the end of the term is almost over and you suddenly realize that there’s this class you haven’t been to all semester? (Or, alternately, that you showed up in class one days and there’s a test that you haven’t studied for?)

I HATE that dream!

And I still get it–years after college.

So do my friends.

This leads me to wonder: What is it about college that produces this dream? Sure, college is an intense experience at a crucial, transitional time of life. But why do people have this dream so many years after college is over?

(BTW, sorry for spoiling future nightmares for any college-folk who are reading this but . . . this is what you have to look forward to–sometimes, anyway).

Human psychology is fundamentally the same in every age, though culture and circumstance do have their impacts. This leads me to think that people in other ages–before it was standard to go to college–likely had an equivalent dream. But what was it?

Perhaps in tribal societies, people who had long been made men had nightmares about being unprepared for the rites of manhood or something (and some of those could indeed be disturbing–like adult circumcision). Perhaps in societies where there are arranged marriages, people have anxiety dreams long after the fact about meeting their predestined spouse for the first time.

But such a predictable equivalent doesn’t appear in all cultures.

So that leaves me with a question.

No answers, just a question.

Collective brainpower, anyone?

Clueless Lefty Defends Hollywood Elite

USA Today recently carried an editorial by culture-poisoner Steven Levitan (responsible for writing such atrocities as Greg the Bunny, which combined cute puppets and raunchy humor in prime time) under the title Hollywood "Elite": We’re Not Villains.

As if!

Here’s some excerpt with responses:

Even though I’ve been a member of the "Liberal Hollywood Elite" for 15 years, I have never been invited to an orgy.

Presumably because you’re married.

Instead, I get invited to roughly three dozen charity events a year.

And how many of these involve abortion, homosexual "rights," and the Democratic Party?

Why, then, do so many conservatives hold us in the same esteem as the
proprietor of the local porn shop?

Porn? On the Hollywood view, what’s wrong with porn? Sure, out in the red states we disapprove of it, but what on earth do you in the snakepit see as wrong with it? Articulate a rational, Hollywood case against porn for me, please. (N.B., "It in some way diminishes boxoffice proceeds" doesn’t count.)

Are our morals and values so
different from the rest of America?

Yep. See former point.

I believe "Hollywood" is more like
middle America than many people imagine.

If by that you mean that people in Hollywood don’t have horns, I’m prepared to concede the point.

This was a typical weekend for us: Saturday, we went to our kids’
soccer games (one loss, one tie). Saturday night we took the kids to
see a movie (The Incredibles). Sunday, we went to a child’s birthday party. Sunday night, we had dinner at home.

You may have noticed there was no mention of church or Temple.

Now that you mention it . . . There’s one point of difference from Middle America.

I was raised Jewish, my wife was raised Catholic. Though we respect
each other’s heritage, and while many of our friends are deeply
religious, we have chosen to focus on our similarities, not our
differences.

In other words, by ceasing to practice any faith, you’re both a couple of sell-outs on the most single important subject in life and are trying to mask that fact to yourselves with pious-sounding pleasantries.

We teach our children compassion, charity,
honesty and the benefits of hard work. We teach them to help those who
aren’t as lucky as they are. I am confident that they will go into the
world with good morals and strong family values.

Not if you’re also filling their heads with family-undermining values on abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia. Let’s see how you feel about those values when you’re on your deathbed and your kids are itching to pull the plug lest you consume more of their inheritance with medical bills.

Friends in the Midwest often ask me what it’s
like to raise a family in Los Angeles. I say it’s just like where they
are, but warmer and with more traffic. I also tell them people here
seem a bit more tolerant of those who are different.

So . . . you’re showing your superior tolerance of others by making an unflattering remark about Midwesterners?

My wife and I are friends with several gay
couples, many of whom have been together for 20-plus years.

And this is supposed to convince me that you’re not morally warped and that you’re setting a good example for your children?

I have no problem befriending individuals who struggle with homosexual temptations. In fact, that’s praiseworthy. They lead a hard life, and they need support. But to befriend with no note of disappoval openly gay "couples" is to affirm them in an objectively disordered lifestyle.

While I can
joke that that’s a rare accomplishment even for heterosexual couples
here, in fact, many people have been together that long.

About fifty or sixty.

What puzzles
me, though, is why Britney Spears can get drunk and then married for 55
hours in Vegas and have more rights than a successful, loving gay
couple who have been together for a quarter century.

As if this snark-ument is supposed to convince anybody! One, Britney Spears’ "marriage" has ANNULMENT written all over it. Two, Vegas marriage laws are atrocious anyway (hardly representative of "family values"). Three, one can’t judge the legal status of a marriage at the time it is contracted by a fact that isn’t known at the time (i.e., how long it will last). And four, at least Britney wasn’t (to our knowledge) grossly violating the laws of biology.

Expecting universal agreement at a dinner party
just before the election, I voiced this view [i.e., that Kerry was to be voted for] rather passionately, only
to learn that half of the room was voting for President Bush. Huh? In
liberal Hollywood?

So . . . you’re acknowledging that you did expect Hollywood to be out of step with where the election showed most Americans to be?

Also, with a sampling size this small, I’d put more faith in the exit polls that showed Kerry winning on election day. Just how blue was your county on November 2?

But what about the accusation that Hollywood is
trying to advance its liberal agenda? Well, the fact is, while the
creative community admittedly leans left,

A notable admission!

Hollywood has become a
corporate town. Middle America may only see celebrities, but the real
power here lies with the heads of studios and networks. In the old
days, studio and network presidents answered to no one. Today, they
report to corporate boards and shareholders — not exactly a bunch of
lefties.

Which is why y’all don’t try to foist on America a constant diet of Fahrenheit 9/11s and Last Temptations of Christ.

Sorry, Medved has already ably documented the fact that Hollywood sinks huge amounts of money in unprofitable loser movies that can be explained only by cultural bias.

The point is, this town can’t be summed up with
one ideology. To label and dismiss us, to vilify us, is to wrongly
assume that politically there exists an "us." In fact, we are just a
group of very different people, most of us trying to raise our
families, joined by the desire to grab an audience.

You’ve already admitted that there are several "us"es in Hollywood. While one can dispute the leanings of the boardmembers and the studio heads who approve the filth with which you–and by that I mean you personally–have filled screens, you have already admitted that "the creative community admittedly leans left." Since it is the creative community (not the studio heads) that rush out into the press to advocate evil causes and candidates, you have little cause to complain about the impression of Hollywood that they generate for Midwesterners. If it helps you, parse criticisms of the "Hollywood elite" as criticisms of "the creative community."

It pains me that our nation is so divided.

Somewhere, I hear violins playing.

So,
during the next four years, I’m going to try to better understand the
so-called Christian Right that views Hollywood as the enemy.

Good! Try taking this blog entry as a starting point!

Much like
in my marriage, I’m going to focus on our similarities, because I
believe, from the bottom of my heart, that if we try, we can find
common ground.

No. This is precisely wrong. The problem is not failure to appreciate our similarities; it is the reality of our differences. You (presumably) believe that baby-killing via abortion should be allowed. I do not. As long as you hold the opinion that you do, our differences are irreconcilable, and no amount of "focusing on our similarities" will smooth things over.

Either you switch on the subject of baby-killing . . . or you’re the enemy.

The fact that we are similar in that we both lack horns counts for precisely nothing as long as you support the legalized murder of more than a million kids a year.

As far as I’m concerned, you’re not just from a different planet. You’re from a different universe–where the murder of the most defenseless members of society is wrapped in a cloak of false compassion.

God, I sound like such a liberal.

Yes.

Yes, you do.

Crichton On "Second-Hand Smoke"

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible

for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking

adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of

thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven

studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and

that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of

1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action

by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine,

for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association

at the 95% coinfidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They

then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen.

This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans

on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned

public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the

Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the

nation’s third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer

Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand

smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.

In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had

"committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had

"disregarded information and made findings on selective information."

The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our

science….there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly

recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of

health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps

science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that

Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.

Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A

large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have

well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read,

for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At

this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand

smoke.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.