Quandaries

A discussion at Maggie's Farm:

A Politically Correct Zen Riddle

"One civil rights group is outraged at Bowdoin College’s outrageous punishment of students who dressed up as pilgrims and American Indians for a Thanksgiving party – calling it 'cultural appropriation'"

"Attorney General Eric Holder has issued an edict, through a memorandum, that cross dressing and transsexualism [are] now protected under federal civil rights laws which were designed to protect women from sex discrimination."

So is it punishable, or protected, conduct for a male to dress up as a female Pilgrim or Indian on Thanksgiving?

 Seems fair.  If a man can be a woman, why can't he be an Indian?

Reading Into Silence

Given the recent discussion of torture as practiced by the United States in the war on terror, Medievalists.net dug up a 2006 article called "Aquinas on Torture." It turns out, actually, that Aquinas said nothing whatsoever about the practice. It is an interesting ommission, the author argues:

Here we are faced with something that, for this writer at least, is something of an enigma. It does not appear that Aquinas approved of this practice. Nowhere does he defend it... [H]e neither defends or condemns the judicial institution of torture. The omission is curious, to say the least.... What are we to conclude? One is tempted to say that Aquinas “copped out,” that he ducked the question, perhaps because the temper of the times would not have tolerated an honest answer.

The torture of witnesses, as mandated in Roman law, involves inflicting pain on persons who are, at law, innocent of any crime. In his discussion of homicide, he absolutely rejects the killing of innocent persons. In the following question, concerned with “other injuries committed against persons” he does not raise the question of mutilating, beating or incarcerating the innocent. One likes to think that for him, the question could not arise: the context is clearly that of justice. Here, as with Aristotle, there is no question of “justifying” actions otherwise reprehensible on the basis of some greater good. Punishing the innocent is quite simply unjust. Hence there can be no justification for it.

Yet he was faced with an institution which was not only practiced, but legislated, both by the Church at the highest level, and by all contemporary civil societies.

There's a signal difference between the cases, which is that judicial torture is designed to compel confessions that will allow us to settle at law matters that have happened in the past; the American cases involve an attempt to prevent a harm in the future. The person under questioning may be presumed innocent, as there has been no trial: there may not even be a crime for which he might later be tried if the questioning is successful. Some of those taken and questioned were not even conspirators, but drivers or associates who may not know the significance of what they know. They might simply know something that could stop a crime, were it made known to the right people in the right hour.

So we're running right into the teeth of the problem that Aristotle is describing, and about which Aquinas was silent. But Aquinas does speak to the question of things we would consider torture in terms of correcting slaves.

Now it is unlawful to do a person a harm, except by way of punishment in the cause of justice. Again, no man justly punishes another, except one who is subject to his jurisdiction. Therefore it is not lawful for a man to strike another, unless he have some power over the one whom he strikes. And since the child is subject to the power of the parent, and the slave to the power of his master, a parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that instruction may be enforced by correction.

Then the question becomes one of whether we have proper jurisdiction to administer the correction -- as for example by explaining that it is improper to withhold information that might prevent a terrorist attack! Oddly enough, we seem to have decided that we have the right exactly where we don't have the jurisdiction: an American citizen is normally protected by the Eighth Amendment, whereas those captured in Afghanistan who are not and have never been American citizens (nor, perhaps, ever on American soil) are the ones we tend to use these techniques against.

I'm not sure we haven't gotten this one wrong all the way around. Some things can't be justified. If we feel we have to do it anyway, because the matter of preventing terrorist assaults is so grave, we should not think ourselves justified in doing it. We should think ourselves guilty of a sin, at least; and that's what confession is for.

Falling oil prices a problem?

We like the lower prices a the gas pump, but everyone's worried about the effect of the falling price of crude oil on the oil industry and the economy. So, as my husband observes, "You asked for a miracle to reduce the oil supply and I give you the D ... O ... T."

Speaking of channeling that fine old holiday movie "Die Hard," I'm reading the recently re-released 1979 novel on which the movie was loosely based, and enjoying it thoroughly. Empty-headed nonsense.

Jollity

C.S. Lewis believed that all old mythologies were shadows of the Christian truth, and liked to play with the influences on Earth of the five classical planets:  Mercury, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter.  In "That Hideous Strength," the angel-overseers in charge of each planet visit our hero and his group of insurgents in a country house on Earth, bringing their different influences in turn. Last to arrive is Jupiter:

Suddenly a greater spirit came--one whose influence tempered and almost transformed to his own quality the skill of leaping Mercury, the clearness of Mars, the subtler vibration of Venus, and even the numbing weight of Saturn.

In the kitchen his coming was felt.  No one afterwards knew how it happened, but somehow the kettle was put on, the hot toddy was brewed.   Arthur--the only musician among them--was bidden to get out his fiddle.  The chairs were pushed back, the floor cleared.   They danced.  What they danced no one could remember.   It was some round dance, no modern shuffling: it involved beating the floor, clapping of hands, leaping high.   And no one, while it lasted, thought himself or his fellows ridiculous.  It may, in fact, have been some village measure, not ill-suited to the tiled kitchen: the spirit in which they danced it was not so.   It seemed to each that the room was filled with kings and queens, that the wildness of their dance expressed heroic energy, and its quieter movements had seized the very spirit behind all noble ceremonies.

Upstairs his mighty beam turned the Blue Room into a blaze of lights.  Before the other angels a man might sink; before this he might die, but if he lived at all he would laugh. If you had caught one breath of the air that came from him, you would have felt yourself taller than before.  Though you were a cripple, your walk would have become stately: though a beggar, you would have worn your rags magnanimously.   Kingship and power and festal pomp and courtesy shot from him as sparks fly from an anvil.   The ringing of bells, the blowing of trumpets, the spreading out of banners are means used on earth to make a faint symbol of his quality.  It was like a long sunlit wave, creamy-crested and arched with emerald, that comes on nine feet tall, with roaring and with terror and unquenchable laughter.  It was like the first beginning of music in the halls of some king so high and at some festival so solemn that a tremor akin to fear runs through young hearts when they hear it.  For this was great Glund-Oyarsa, King of Kings, through whom the joy of creation principally blows across these fields of Arbol, known to men in old times as Jove and under that name, by fatal but not inexplicable misprision, confused with his Maker--so little did they dream by how many degrees the stair even of created being rises above him.

At his coming there was holiday in the Blue Room. The two mortals, momentarily caught up into the Gloria which those five excellent Natures perpetually sing, forgot for a time the lower and more immediate purpose of their meeting.

A Little Battalion

As we sort out a very difficult moment, a tradition holds.

For 32 years, Steinbrenner's Yankee Silver Shield Foundation has provided for the education of the children of New York City police officers, firemen and Port Authority employees who died in the line of duty, and will do so for the family of NYPD officer Rafael Ramos, gunned down by a cold-blooded killer Saturday along with his partner, Wenjian Liu [who had no children]....

Steinbrenner started his foundation in 1982 after seeing a news account of four children flanking their mother and folding an American flag at the funeral of their father, an NYPD officer who had been killed in the line of duty. "Who's going to take care of these kids," Steinbrenner asked his friend, former Olympian Jim Fuchs, who would run the foundation until his death, also in 2010. "We are."

At a moment when little in New York's civic culture seems to work, this still works.

Outside the Walls of Jerusalem

Looking back at the city from the Church of Scotland.

From the gardens of Gethsemane.

Between the Zion and Jaffa gates.

The last month of the year

This rousing old gospel Christmas tune is also a folk mnemonic for the months of the year.

Rockabilly Time

Even this close to Christmas, you have to make time for a little hot rodding.

Finally

It cries out for a caption contest, doesn't it?

The WSJ (Google link here) reports on a desperate need:

Frustrated by the dearth of holiday movies for ferret lovers, Alison Parker, a Vancouver-based filmmaker, directed “Santa’s Little Ferrets,” which she plans to start shopping to television networks early next year.  “If you’re a dog or cat person, you’re covered when it comes to holiday movies,” says Ms. Parker.  “There’s nothing out there for people who have ferrets.”

Most of the article addresses the compulsion to dress up our animals in seasonal themes, which I understand very well.  My smallest dog always acts like she's cold, snuggling under blankets if the house falls below 72 degrees.   It seemed a perfect excuse to buy her an adorable little snowflake-patterned sweater this Christmas.  I can't quite decide if she likes it. She certainly objects to being put into it, but is the look she gives me afterward one of grateful warmth, mute anguish, or just her usual inscrutable googly-eyed stare?  My niece reports that her chihuahua loves being dressed and rolls over in anticipation.  This is not my experience.

“Treating a pet like a family member makes you feel really happy,” [pet stylist Dara Foster] says.  “If people could put a Christmas sweater on a fish, they would.”

Oh, don't count us out yet.  But I think my dogs would prefer finding some Christmas ferrets under the tree.   I'll never forget, some thirty years ago, watching a housemate's cat run up the trunk of a fully decorated Christmas tree, pursued by a single-minded visiting dog.

The Christian Quarter

Home of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Christian Quarter is both like and unlike the other quarters of the city.  

The Jerusalem Headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller.

Saint George and the Dragon.

A modest "palace."

The Zion Gate

The stone walls of Jerusalem were built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century. The Zion Gate is near the room of the Last Supper, and was chewed up (as you can see) during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. The Jews were pushed out of the Old City during this time.

When you have heard American politicians advocating for a 'two state solution' along the 'pre-1967 lines,' did you realize this meant telling the Jews that they had to give up the Old City of Jerusalem, the holiest site in their faith? I didn't realize it until last week.

It's already the case that the very holiest site of all, the Temple Mount, is denied to them. Even though it is Israeli territory, no Jew can go there and pray. Any Jew who wishes to go there must be accompanied by a policeman who is charged to remove them at the imam's orders, to be given the minute they start anything like a prayer on the Temple Mount. It is Israeli police who enforce these orders, on their own brethren.

Amazing stuff. The only parts of the Old City I didn't walk were the ones I was denied access to, by Israeli police, because I was not a Muslim.

The Jesus Story...

...as told by the tourist guidebooks in a hotel in Jerusalem.

It's not wrong, but how mysterious that explanation must seem if you don't happen to know the rest of the story.

How Grendel Stole Christmas

An amusing poem from The Heretic's Mirror:

Every Scylding in Heorot liked mead a lot,
But Grendel the beast, roaring outside did not.

Grendel hated Scyldings, the whole Danish clan.
Can I say why? I don’t think I can.

He spied on the Scyldings, he fumed and he wailed.
He watched as in Heorot they drank mead and drank ale.

“How can I hurt them, the king and his thanes?”
Alone in his barrow, it drove him insane.

Then he got an idea! An awful idea!
Grendel got a horrible, awful idea!

That fiendish old monster was up to no good.
He decided to kill them and gorge on their blood....

It's a funny poem, but that structure suggests that we have a lot of real-life Grendels in the world these days. Fortunately, we know what the answer to that problem looks like.

Not a tortured artist

I like to work on tiny things.

Here's a guy with an obsession that puts mine to shame, and on a huge scale, too.  He reminds me of what an old art history professor said about Matisse, that he had strong feelings about only one thing--painting--and painting was pure joy to him.

Making a splash

You know you've arrived on the national progressive scene when your impassioned plea to be excused from final exams at Harvard Law School (because social injustice bums you out) generates an argument in the comments section over whether it's meant as a parody.

A fine teacher

My friend's pianist son has finally started college, in the music department of our alma mater.  He's an intense and self-conscious young man with wildly romantic notions, so he over-reacted a bit recently when he felt he had underperformed a jury.  He immediately wrote a mea culpa to his advisor full of wild explanations of where his life and career might have begun to go off-track.  His humane and sensible advisor wrote back with this advice:

First of all, your jury, while quite under your best level of playing at present, did show some big improvements in important areas, especially more natural use of your body and in overall musicality of approach. Of course, I knew as you were playing that you were very uncomfortable internally and that the mistakes were getting you rattled. However, contrary to what you said, your sound was not bad except for some harshness at the beginning . . . .

Internal feelings not withstanding, your jury was from an expressive point of view quite decent and ALL of the faculty noted a fine improvement in overall artistry over their previous impressions of your playing. . . . These people are all good musicians, [name redacted], and I don’t think they would lie to you; you can read the jury sheets and they are all very complimentary. . . .

You are right in having high standards, wanting only the best level for yourself. You are also partially right in being disappointed with your showing today and in knowing that you cannot claim a professional level of public performance with these kinds of mistakes. You must keep in mind, though, where you are pianistically at the moment and also that the players in the school who are consistently free of errors slave away at the instrument six hours a day or more at present and have done so for many years prior to coming into the school. You have not focused so single-mindedly on the piano, although you have cultivated other areas in compensation--intellect, general musical knowledge and artistic creativity. There is plenty of good stuff to build upon. . . . There will be successes such as your first master class performance and disappointments too. Expect a bumpy ride as a matter of course. It will take a tremendous amount of will for you to succeed at this. The important thing is to stay centered--treat both success and failure as the impostors that they really are. . . .

Your email is very soul searching and thoughtful, but I think there is a simpler explanation to what happened today. It is not so much that you played the wrong repertoire or are on the wrong path (although mindless practicing is obviously bad and more mental practicing indeed is an important piece of the puzzle for you). My feeling at present is that you simply need more experience performing to get used to nervous pressure. Just get up and do it. Your hyper-active mind can be your enemy--I would advise you not to overanalyze situations like this. And of course, we will roll up our sleeves and figure out what repertoire and technique you must do now to make you a stronger player.

. . . Above all, don’t let any one uncomfortable performance stop you. It is only one performance. If you played this same jury again tomorrow, there would be a good chance that you would ace it. You know what your real level is at present and more experience will narrow the gap between intention and result.

I admire this teacher's balance between encouragement and discipline.  He's not likely to let his sensitive but driven young charge fall into either discouragement or complacency.

Handmade law

Perhaps inspired by the Williams-Sonoma catalogue rant, Cassandra sent me this mission statement from an artisanal attorney.  I think I'd have been better suited to practicing law if it had been like this:

Are you tired of large corporate law firms making the same cookie cutter litigation? Do you fondly remember a time when quality mattered in law suits, when there was art and craftsmanship in every court motion filed, when company records were drafted using the traditional methods and tools? If you have become dissatisfied with mass-produced legal representation, stop by my scriveners shop; for I am an artisanal attorney.

* * *

How is an artisanal attorney different from any other attorney? Like other artisans, I pay close attention to my ingredients and process; I am intimately involved in all stages of creation. Other attorneys print their documents on paper they buy in mass-produced boxes, tens of thousands of sheets at a time, using ink that mechanically jets onto the page. I make my own paper by hand, using the traditional methods of 14th-century book publishers, who printed their works on linen and vellum. The flax for the linen grows along the sides of a nearby swimming hole, and the plants’ growth is influenced by the laughter of children in the summer, when I pick it by hand. . . .

And all the law is imported from Portugal.

Gaudete Sunday

Roman-era Mosaic from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

I am still in Jerusalem.  Today I heard a Latin Mass sung in a stone church by a minor order of brothers charged with keeping the sacred places in this city.  I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Tomb of King David, and a room vaulted by Crusaders because they believed it to be the hall of the Last Supper.  Yesterday I heard a Mass, or their equivalent, by the Armenian church which remains quite important here.  They have a tremendously beautiful form.  Later I walked by the garden of Gethsemane, through the Valley of Kings, and to the Mount of Olives.  

Look for me to return home toward the end of the week.  Greetings, though:  I wish you well this third Sunday of Advent.

"What-Ebola?" Czar

Have you noticed that, ever since we got an Ebola Czar, the disease has practically disappeared from the news?  From the American news, anyway.  As you can see from this Guardian summary page, there are still plenty of stories, including new patients in the U.S.  This page, from late October, noted the 10,000th Ebola case, but an update later in the story shows that number has since increased to nearly 18,000.

I guess that's what happens when you put a PR specialist in charge of handling an epidemic.  The problem gets fixed one way or another.

Poisoned nets

Beginning a roundup of Saturday Rocket Science links:

Since the turn of the millennium, worldwide deaths from malaria have been cut almost in half, largely through the use of mosquito nets treated with long-lasting insecticide.