Band Geeks: This One's For You

Happened to be in the kitchen making lunch this Sunday afternoon just in time to tune in to This American Life. Act Two features someone named Sarah Vowell, reminiscing about her days in high school marching band (begins 21 minutes into the podcast above).

Some laugh out loud moments. Brought back good memories of my own days as a Marina Viking band member, playing my clarinet, marching in place (no fancy dance moves on the field back then), wearing those extraordinarily ugly uniforms...Mr. Mason, really, what were you thinking? 

Black, gender-neutral slacks, a long stripe running thigh to ankle, something like this: 

Ridiculous, 2-foot tall, gender-neutral shakos (we couldn't have had a cute little cap with a plume on top?) perched awkwardly on the head, strapped tight below the chin: 

Dorky white spats pulled over shiny black gender-neutral shoes... 

Did I mention the uniforms were gender-neutral? Ugh. No wonder the boys didn't like me. They were checking out those cute drill team girls in their itty bitty short yellow dresses and white cowboy boots, hair pulled back neat and tidy in buns atop their heads, so perky and adorable. 

Ah well. High school! This essay by Sarah Vowell brought back so many memories, mostly good! So, to all my "band weirdo" friends out there: here's to us! 

Recommended Reading: This is my God: The Jewish Way of Life

Herman Wouk is a devoutly religious Jew. That said, he understands doubt. I love what he writes in the epilogue: 

Though I have lived as an observant Jew, I have never been able to pretend to religious certainties. I have found it impossible to join in cheerleading condemnations of Reform, Conservatism, and irreligious Zionism; and for all my too-frequent public speaking, I have never denounced the assimilators. The words of Tennyson: "There lives more faith in honest doubt believe me, than in half the creeds...."

Later in that same chapter he writes, "I was gambling my whole existence on one hunch: that being a Jew was not a trivial and somewhat inconvenient accident, but the best thing in my life; and that to be a Jew the soundest way was the classic way." 

Later still, he pauses to discuss the tendency among non-religious Jews in America to not train their children in Judaism. They justify this decision, Wouk writes, because they don't want to "warp" their children. "When they grow up," these parents argue, the children "can make their own choice." 

Wouk disagrees with their justification. He responds: 

This view dictates the most total warping [parents] can condemn a child to. They warm him to a lifetime of rationalizing his ignorance. What adult sits down among the school children to learn the Hebrew alphabet, the Torah, and the ways of Jewry? It is the easiest thing in the world to drop one's early religious training, as many of my readers know. It is sheer mountain-climbing to regain ground lost in childhood. It ought to occur to such parents that they may be wrong about the faith; that it makes no sense to cement their children into their own attitude of denial. Judaism was in my possession when I reached the point of wanting it--like arithmetic, like geography, like all the things I learned long before I had the slightest desire or need for them.

I read these words from the perspective of a person who was raised in an irreligious home but who, for some reason, believed in God and truly craved a religious identity. In time, I made my choice. To my parents' chagrin (mostly my dad's), I converted rather dramatically to Christianity at age 22, knowing next to nothing about that faith, and then devoted the rest of my life (to this point, at least) to Christianity. Might I have never become a Christian had I been raised as an observant Jew? 

I also read these words from the perspective of one who tried to instill Christian faith in her children. In retrospect, my attempts were rather feeble, especially when compared against the way observant Jews literally school their children, especially the boys, (za rabatu! to work!, as Herman Wouk's grandfather said to him immediately upon completing his bar mitzvah) in not just the Torah but also the Talmud. Was I afraid to insist on such rigor for fear of turning them off, driving them away? I think so. Maybe it's because I'm a first generation Christian who doesn't know what I was doing. How does this compare against generations of parents, and their parents, and their parents' parents, and so on, raising children the same way, the way it's always been done. I wasn't raised this way, and as a first generation Christian, I was muddling along, trying to figure things out while the clock was ticking.

So now, here I am at age 56, attempting to learn about, discover, understand the Judaism my atheist Jewish father chose not to impose on his kids, and if possible, to try and reclaim a tiny piece of this amazing heritage. 

It isn't easy. I'm so ignorant, on so many levels. Wouk's analogy to mountain climbing is apt. I finished this book and realized I've barely reached the foothills. My ignorance is vast and widespread.

Nevertheless, I loved this book (you should see my marginalia). I will read it again. Maybe even again. I will ask my children to read it. I'm thinking of even sending it to my dad. Perhaps he'll read it and, in reading, be drawn to Herman Wouk's God.  

One "House of Horrors" or the Tip of the Iceberg?

The hand-wringing has begun.

Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic: "Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should be a Front Page Story." 

Kirsten Powers in USA Today: "Philadelphia Abortion Clinic Horror: We've Forgotten What Should be on Page One." 

CNN: Jake Tapper was the first to report on it, but Anderson Cooper is following in his wake. 

Others in the mainstream media are finally following suit. Have they been shamed to do so, as Friedersdorf suggests?

Why has the dominant media been silent? To those of us who oppose abortion, this is a no-brainer. Planned Parenthood, along with the powerful feminist lobby, has a vise-like grip on society and politics. To meddle in a woman's right to choose is to invite public scorn and humiliation, so public officials meekly look the other way, bury the reports, passively accept euphemistic language (ensuring fetal demise?), and obediently sidestep anything even remotely having to do with oversight.

"Ensuring fetal demise," by the way, is how Gosnell described the process of killing babies who survived an abortion, according to Friedersdorf's article. I prefer the clarity as used in the caption in the photo below, which was the caption provided by the Grand Jury report investigating the "Women's Medical Society" (another euphemism?) where these atrocities occurred.

So yes, we who care about the unborn are glad the story is finally getting the attention it deserves. But why do I suspect focusing on this story will not be enough? Certainly it's significant that this particular clinic will be shut down. Certainly it's important to recognize how poor women and minorities were being exploited by Gosnell. Certainly it's a relief that this monster will pay for his crimes and go to jail.

But will this story be about one rogue doctor, an aberration, or will larger questions be asked? Apparently agencies in Pennsylvania knew what was going on in Gosnell's clinic: The Pennsylvania Department of Health knew but did nothing "for political reasons." The Pennsylvania Department of State received complaints but either dismissed them or shelved the reports. The hospital at the University of Pennsylvania evidently treated numerous patients from Gosnell's botched abortions, but apparently asked no questions. The National Abortion Federation actually refused to certify Gosnell when he applied for membership (it was "the worst abortion clinic" they had ever inspected), but did not report the clinic.  

A hierarchy of oversight knew, but did nothing. Why? From the Grand Jury report:   

Bureaucratic inertia is not exactly news. We understand that. But we think this was something more. We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.

So let the hand-wringing begin, yes. The liberal media will likely focus on the poor and minority victims and not the unborn. Anything to pull back the curtain on this vile industry is a start. However,  I hope the investigation and subsequent analysis extends beyond the idea of one "rogue" doctor, because personally, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. If what happened in Pennsylvania went ignored, similar atrocities could be going on in clinics around the country without detection, especially since the abortion industry is basically untethered from any sort of accountability.  

Also, let's not forget that the pro-choice lobby wants no restrictions on abortion and that they strongly resist attempts to make partial birth abortion a crime. Let's also not forget that Barack Obama voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act back when he was a senator. I blogged about this back in 2008 here. 

So even as we recoil at the gruesome images and express outrage at the atrocities in this Pennsylvania clinic, it's important to keep in mind that the pro-choice lobby is and always has been about women, not the unborn. Well and good if the media reporting on this trial results in greater protection for women seeking an abortion. But if the unborn can still be aborted at any stage of development, including near term; and worse, if they're not protected if perchance they survive an abortion, then we'll have learned nothing from this exposé. 

Kermit Gosnell may or may not have been an aberration. But we won't know unless we pull the curtain further beyond the doors of this one clinic. We can hope the mainstream media will do their job. But I'm not holding my breath.

Obamacare: Own it, Democrats

Here's a news item: 

"Earlier this week, Health and Human Services head Kathleen Sebelius admitted that she didn't realize how complicated getting ObamaCare off the ground would be. Sebelius complained that 'no one fully anticipated' the difficulties involved in implementing ObamaCare, or how confusing it would be with the public" (article on Investors.com).

No one fully anticipated the difficulties? Really? How can she even say that with a straight face? Republicans were united in their opposition to the bill. What are they, chopped liver?

Not surprisingly, the misnamed affordable health care act is not affordable, after all. Neither is it all that Obama promised. In fact, most of the promises and assurances he made during the rush to pass this bill have now been found to be what most of us knew they were at the time: lies. 

Even that horrid woman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, admitted that the bill was so ponderous, Congress would have have to vote it into law before they could read it. Of course, she thought she was being clever at the time. What a charmer. 

Of all the farces, that's the most ludicrous.

So now, here we are three years after the law passed, Democrats are finally realizing the enormity of their mistake, the media are finally beginning to write about it (where were they three years ago, John Nolte at Breitbart.com wonders?), Barack Obama and his Democratic party are asking for still more money from the American people to fund his out-of-control spending habit, the deficit continues to balloon, and Kathleen Sebelius wants to blame those obstructionist Republicans? 

Stop. Stop it. This is your party's mess, Ms. Sebelius: own it. Then, kindly step aside and let sensible Republicans can clean up your mess. 

"ObamaCare Turns Three: 10 Disturbing Facts Americans Have Learned" (Investors Business Daily)

While Well-Meaning Liberals are Sleeping, the Uber-Left is Taking Over

This clip from MSNBC news host Melissa Harris-Perry is only 31 seconds, but you gotta hear it to believe it.



 Do my liberal family members even know what their side is saying? 

Listen: 

We have always had kind of a private notion of children: your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion that these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that our kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

Is she really saying what I think she's saying? My kids don't belong to me, they belong to the state? What country am I living in again? 

I have a hard time believing that my left-leaning family would actually agree with the reprehensible thing this despicable woman just said. Nevertheless, as far as I know, they seldom challenge the kind of big government, it-takes-a-village, nanny state, statist ideology being promoted by people like Harris-Perry and her ilk.

This, in my view, makes all liberals, regardless of whether or not they agree with everything the left says, complicit in the direction the far-left is taking this country. 

One of the criticisms Democrats love to hurl at Republicans is that the far-right is co-opting their party. Yet I wonder if the average, garden-variety liberal recognizes how the uber-left is co-opting their party?

Wake up, liberals. Hard left members on your side, like Harris-Perry, are steering this nation dangerously off course. It's time to wake up, speak up, and tell your people to shut up. 

Unless this is the direction you actually want us to go?

Update: Since I never watch MSNBC, I was under the impression that this Harris-Perry person was "just" a news host. Would that it were so. Unfortunately this is just a part-time gig. By day she's an academic, a professor of political science at Tulane University. Bad enough that she spews her leftist bile on TV for foolish liberals to swallow undigested, but the fact that she has naive twenty-somethings at her disposal is truly scary.  

Second update: Love Rich Lowry's comments on this same video clip. A few great lines:  

As the ultimate private institution, the family is a stubborn obstacle to the great collective effort. Insofar as people invest in their own families, they are holding out on the state and unacceptably privileging their own kids over the children of others. . . The truth is that parents are one of society’s most incorrigible sources of inequality. If you have two of them who stay married and are invested in your upbringing, you have hit life’s lottery. You will reap untold benefits denied to children who aren’t so lucky. That the family is so essential to the well-being of children has to be a constant source of frustration to the egalitarian statist, a reminder of the limits of his power.

Here's his article: "Your Kids Aren't Your Own," by Rich Lowry (National Review Online)