no more posts. if you want conversation, i’m usually game for a pint. March 8, 2008
Posted by docgrubb in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
….Broken clocks, II March 1, 2008
Posted by docgrubb in religion.add a comment
I recently finished Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell, a Christian ghost story, of sorts. In it I was introduced to his theme of substitutionary love, which includes ”bearing one another’s burdens” beyond the external, to an inner, even mystical, degree. (I think the modern church, which includes myself, is sorrowfully unpracticed in this virtue/gift/fruit.) After Descent, I moved on to Essential Writings in…, some of his non-fiction, where the above theme and others (e.g. co-inherence) are elaborated. In actuality, Williams reintroduced substitution to the church (and named it), for he points out that the concept stretches all the way back to the desert fathers, and includes a quote from a follower of St. Anthony, who was quoting another: “It is right for a man to take up the burden for those who are akin (or near) to him…and, so to speak, to put his own soul in the place of that of his neighbor, and to become, if it were possible, a double man;…and he must suffer for him as he would for himself”. Of course, for Williams, it stretches further back, to the substitution, the Atonement, his “Divine Substitution”, an “Act as the root of all [exchange and substitution]“. And this does not mean that there were no Old Covenant examples; but, indeed, Christ’s was root and central.
Aside from recommending these two books, you may ask, where else am I heading with this? Just here. Williams, within the theme of ’substitution’, briefly broached another ancient topic: baptism for the dead. Like C.S. Lewis on Purgatory, Williams does not toss out unconsidered what other wise saints have believed in faith. So I set about ‘googling’ this very topic. Proponents of this practice point out St. Paul’s single mention of it, but not condemnation of it, in I Corinthians 15:29. And I discovered (showing my ignorance of modern religions) that there is only one “church” which actually practices it: the Mormon, or Latter Day Saints (LDS). And, I admit, they do seem to carry it to extremes. But in so doing, they at least practice what they believe. To wit: as Christians we proclaim an extra-universal God, transcending all dimensions, including time. And yet we pray as if He were as beholden to time as we are, never thinking or deigning to pray about things that have already happened. Now I’m not suggesting we ought to be asking God to alter accomplished history, as in reversing 9/11 or such. But for those secret things known only to God, we can, I believe, intercede after-the-fact. On my own part, I have prayed, for example, that an accomplished biopsy be reported as negative, knowing He has not only the power to heal, but to normalize tissue slides awaiting the pathologist’s microscope. And I have prayed, as you may have, for some of those recently deceased, that God would have particularly comforted them during their last hours or moments. But I confess, I have not yet laid hold of the faith to pray about things remotely past, or centuries old. Yet there seems no reason not to. Although there is no sense in our asking God to undo 9/11, what prevents the faithful from petitioning, for instance, for His extra comfort to those trapped in or fallen from the WTC, or even revealing Himself and spiritually saving? Nothing, I submit, other than a poverty of faith. If the reader knows otherwise, or something I’m overlooking, please share your comments.
Yes, the LDS is my second broken clock. Returning to baptism for the dead, I just don’t know in this regard whether the LDS (in concept, not in particulars) has its big hand and little hand on the correct time, or is way off the mark.
Broken clocks… February 29, 2008
Posted by docgrubb in religion.add a comment
[To elicit more comments, I suppose I'll need to consider either an off-the-wall or a controversial topic. I'll try the former first....maybe two of them.]
I read an interesting article yesterday, “Listening to Leviticus”, in the Feb. 27 issue of JAMA. (I do not belong to the AMA, but get it nonetheless.) It was by a surgeon, describing his travail over operating on a Jehovah’s Witness who would not accept blood products if needed. Though not one himself, he researched the subject that was complicating his comfort-zone. Among several citations, he uses Leviticus 17:10,11: “If anyone of the house of Israel or of aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
Now, at least for an exegetically-challenged mind like mine, this scripture raises two questions. One: since God is changeless, are not the things detestable to Him in the Old Testament still detestable today? (Were Yorkshiremen of yesteryear sinning with their blood-puddings?) I’m sure the broader question has been answered many times before, and that, as far as ‘not being under the Law’, there are differences between Temple ordinances, prohibitions, the Decalogue, &c. I just haven’t learned the definitive answer yet. But more on today’s focus is question Two: if the answer to One is ‘yes’, does receiving a transfusion amount to ‘eating’? (Does it amount to the same disrespect to this ‘life of the creature’ that apparently consuming it does?) Further, if it does, wouldn’t donating blood be nearly as blameworthy as receiving? Were my past visits to Hoxworth detestable, God forbid, rather than charitable? Then additional issues arise: marrow transplants, &c., &c.
I know that the Jehovah’s Witness sect is unorthodox, even non-Christian to the consensus of the universal church. But “even a broken clock is right twice a day,” they say. As I get older, I find myself needing to reassess things I hitherto had always accepted without question. Is this just approaching dotage, or whiffs of eventual wisdom? I dunno; and please don’t tell me. But in re: to the preceding questions, I seek your input.
Up next: Broken clocks II…
Wm. F. Buckley….”Godspeed”. February 28, 2008
Posted by docgrubb in politics.add a comment
Yesterday the nation was saddened to learn of the passing of WFB,Jr. Follow the link below, and in reading it, honor the memory of two great men. Reagan’s paragraph four especially might be useful as an antidote for anyone afflicted with an Obama-trance.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/document/reagan200406100924.asp
Conspiracy theory….or Reality? February 26, 2008
Posted by docgrubb in economics.1 comment so far
Over a pint the other evening a friend hypothesized that, immediately a U.S. President assumes office, he is whisked into a room for lord-knows-how-many hours and is given the briefing called “This-is-the-way-it-really-is”. Subjects discussed therein are anyone’s guess, but, if such meetings occur, I’d wager the topic which follows is high on the list. And if true, even in part, would well be enough to drive us oftener to our cups.
Nowadays, if one reads accounts of Nineteenth Century political wrangling over budgets or appropriations, one is struck by an alien strangeness. The oddness lies in the political maneuvering, even scrounging, for revenues or funds to cover a proposed project or the cost of implementing some legislation. (An occasional maneuver becomes legendary, such as Disraeli’s acquisition of [a mere] four million pounds sterling to purchase a plurality of shares in the Suez Canal, and with it, better access to colonial India.) Then suddenly one realizes what feels so foreign: in those positively quaint days, government, by gum, paid as it went.
Did these amateur pols know nothing about borrowing? Why didn’t they crank up the printing presses when the cash ran low? What among the checks and balances caused this somber, thoroughly un-modern austerity? Were their hearts closed to the poor? Had they no military-industrial-complex to slake? What or who on earth stayed their hand – surely not the resplendent Empress Victoria?
The simple answer is: gold. Or, more precisely, the gold standard. It is elementary knowledge that when currency is backed or is interchangeable with a precious metal, then neither kings nor parliaments are free to print money in excess of the reserves thereof. Sure, governments in those days might borrow from time to time. But they did not and could not borrow to such an extent as to accrue a debt exceeding their gross national product or generate deficits rivaling the amount of their currency in circulation. So what has allowed the USA to do this? Those who have done even the most preliminary surfing on the issue already know. It began when FDR, early in the Depression, by executive order, eliminated the domestic gold standard. In the most unnatural of edicts, individual possession of non-jewelry gold was outlawed, and unbacked paper tender had to be accepted for all debts. This enabled the government to “spend us out of” the Depression. Unfortunately, gov’t enjoyed this new-found luxury, and did not revert back to the gold standard after the Depression. The international/ intergovernmental exchange for specie money (gold) continued, however. But meanwhile Americans themselves developed a penchant for borrowed wealth, for living beyond their means, importing more than they exported, and therefore the nation’s gold supply ran low. And so, completing the process, Pres. Nixon, in his ‘Nixon Shock’ of 1971, ended even the international “indirect” gold standard in place since Bretton Woods of 1944. Instead of disciplining government spending (stemming from Vietnam and Great Society social programs), he chose to chuck the foundation of human monies since time immemorial. Foreign nations then had US dollars not redeemable for gold, backed only by the “full faith and credit” of the US gov’t. Our currency became purely fiat money. Literally, it’s money “because we say it is.”
What happened after that is a sordid tale of imperialism and greed. To ensure that foreign nations continued to need the US dollar (USD) despite its fiat status, our gov’t devised a system whereby they coerced the Middle Eastern states into accepting only USDs in payment for oil. This policy of propping up and indeed making necessary our otherwise worthless currency has been called “dollar hegemony”, and books have been written about it. Some have speculated that this is the real reason behind the military interventions in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein was apparently accepting Euro’s in payment for oil, which, if other Arab states had followed, would have caused widespread dumping of the fragile USD by China, Japan, Russia, and many other holders of dollars. And so, our ‘conspiratists’ say, “look what happened to Saddam…” The peacenik liberals in 2002 were saying, “no blood for oil! ” But it may be they were not so far off. If these books and various internet sites are correct, it wasn’t so much oil we were interested in, as in maintaining the artificial value of the dollar.
The government has returned to deficit spending in the few-hundred billion dollar range. We also have a trade deficit of several hundred billion yearly. This amounts to around a thousand billion (one trillion) dollars a year that have to come from somewhere. The ONLY reason we have not seen substantial inflation, if not hyperinflation, has been the policy of dollar hegemony. If that policy becomes untenable for whatever reason (eg. public refusal to broaden or maintain Mideast military coercion, or the eventual depletion of Arab oil anyway) then an avalanche of dumped overseas dollars will flood the markets. And when supply far exceeds demand (pebbles, Canadian geese, post-iPod CD walkmans, psychology degrees, Edwards campaign buttons) the value of any commodity plummets.
Honest economists have long told us that the gold standard is the only true way to protect working people’s earnings from de facto theft by the gov’t via inflationary monetary policy. Resumed calls for a return to a standard by Ron Paul et al are raising public consciousness, but are about 30 years too late. We now have a gov’t debt over $9 trillion dollars, annual deficits over $400 billions, and foreign trade deficits over $700 billions, and we won’t go into personal indebtedness. And what are our official US gold reserves? A comparatively paltry $228 billion worth. Under the old Bretton Woods system, these present reserves would only cover about 3% of what we owe just to China (rumored at $7 trillion), and that’s with an exchange rate renegotiated up to the current price of gold at $935 an ounce (it was $35 under the past system, which would pay off all of 0.12% of what we owe them!).
Yes, as they said during Nixon’s time, “we are all Keynesians now.” Soon to be dirt poor Keynesians. Just today, January’s inflation figure was reported at a full 1%. That works out to a yearly of 12%, and it’s only just begun. Forget the wallets; get out the wheelbarrows.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/663618/posts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=SAL20061015&articleId=3490
http://www.kitco.com/commentary/old/Turk/turk_mar262006.htm
Bodies…The Exhibition January 22, 2008
Posted by docgrubb in culture.2 comments
After reading the Enquirer’s piece on the planned Museum Center exhibition, “Bodies…” (July 30), so many points come to mind that I don’t know where to begin. Allow me to outline:
1) The right to a proper burial, and the fear of not having one (in other words, to remain above ground, either as carrion for scavengers, or as a spectacle, like decapitated heads fastened to bridges in 17th century England) has remained a theme in the world’s literature from the time of the Bible to Beowulf to the present. These Chinese cadavers, who the show’s directors admit did not give consent prior to death, are denied this undeniably basic human dignity and right
.2) They are not only denied this dignity, but they are paraded (and not just they, but their exposed inward parts) in front of gawking spectators, who in paying for the ‘privilege’, are flooding the revenues of these museums and the shows’ owners and directors. This disrespect of bodies in exchange for mammon is akin to prostitution.
3) Dr. O’dell Owens, coroner, was quoted as saying, “This show is tasteful and respectful.” I must disagree with him. No matter how ‘tasteful’ the exhibit is, it cannot be respectful. For example, medical research done without consent (the first rule of ethical protocol) can still be well-written or even yield valuable results. But it can never be ethical.
4) These exhibits are neither art nor education. They must not pretend to be art, for even our increasingly coarsened culture would not permit humans to be used in such a way. And as far as being educational, I offer the following thoughts. Society has, by a precedent of reticent acquiescence out of necessity, allowed physicians, exercising professional humility, to dissect cadavers. This privilege has been granted only because those involved realized the limitations of merely two-dimensional depictions of anatomy in preparing surgeons and doctors for practice. My point is that these crowds of museum visitors, amazed and awed though they may be, have, for the most part, not yet exhausted the study of the two-dimensional. And even if they had, society does not have any onus to deliver the foregoing privileges to such a broad, unobligated group at the expense of another (the deceased.)
5) I admit that the ‘products’ of plastination have educational potential. But education implies study, or at least some concentration and memorization. At such an exhibition, the passing teenager yelling “neat!”, or the adult smoker viewing a diseased lung and gaining a momentary (gut-induced) introspection, etc, are all primarily sensational, not educational.
6) These misuses of human bodies will breach an ethical boundary which will not be able to be repaired, especially in the consciences of observing children. Can you imagine the confusion in children’s minds, after previously asking Daddy countless times, and being reassured that a particular ugliness or misfortune in a movie was “just pretend”, or that the horror in their nightmares just minutes before was “not real”, when this time they ask Daddy in the museum if these are real people, and he says…”YES!“? The child, here our moral superior, might then ask himself “who did this to them?”, “did it hurt?”, “is the bad guy being punished?”, or “and why is Daddy not upset?” Some children, to whom death itself is an abstraction, may not logically conclude that all this skinning and mutilation was not actually endured, having been post-mortem. So inside the museum, the child will just be confused. But what he will retain for good, burned on the canvas of his mind, are images of flayed human beings and dismembered limbs. As a society we are systematically desensitizing our children. But how far do we want to go?
7) The developer of plastination, Gunther von Hagens, is the son of a past official of the Nazi SS. From all appearances, he possesses, like Dr. Kevorkian, a macabre fascination with death. Besides his plastination, he has performed, for a paying audience, a ‘public’ autopsy, in violation of British law. Our own Museum Center, for sell-out crowds (and ticket sales), under the rubric of ‘education’, will be party to such men’s culture of death.
