One Nation Under God

On vacation, I was reading an old Newsweek from early May. The cover story was about military chaplains, and how they balance serving God in a time of war. I thought the Editor’s Desk piece by Jon Meacham, who has a background covering religious issues, was particularly interesting:

Historically, the most fervent of believers have often been the most bloodthirsty of warriors. [The Newsweek writers] note that religion can be a dangerous element in the lives of nations. From Saint Augustine to Shakespeare to Lincoln, some of history’s most searching thinkers and politicians have wrestled with the question of God and war, of how we can know for certain that the blood we are spilling is being shed in a just cause.

Which brings me to our national anthem. One of the verses of the Star-Spangled Banner that has long brought me pause is the fourth and final verse. (I know by heart the first and the last; the second and third in part.) It goes:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our Trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Again from Newsweek’s Meacham:

How can we tell when religion is playing too great a role in our politics, or in the decisions made by our leaders? Lincoln offers a useful test… He prayed…that he might see “the right as God gives to see the right”…He resisted seeing any political course of action as divinely ordained…Are [current and future leaders] curious and probing, believing, as Lincoln did, that “probably it is to be my lot to go on in a twilight, feeling and reasoning my way through life, as questioning, doubting Thomas did?”

Perhaps it is that discomfort, that questioning, that Abraham Lincoln felt in the midst of war that we ought to embrace. It is that thoughtfulness, that wariness, I believe, that best serves God and country.
***
Roger Ebert remembers his friend, and fellow movie critic, the late Joel Siegel

ROG

ROG

Jealous of Dick Cheney

When I was away, I found myself watching the news a lot. And a lot went on last week: airports in the UK threatened, the end of the immigration bill, significant Supreme Court rulings, more fires and floods, the surviving Beatles on Larry King (hey, it was important to me), Elizabeth Edwards in a dustup with someone. Watched CNN, MSNBC, even five minutes of FOX News before the gag reflex kicked in.

But my favorite story was about the Vice President, and I’ll tell you why. My wife works for a school consortium, but works at two other schools. She is bound by the rules, not only of the consortium, but of the individual schools as well. My company, the NYS Small Business Development Center, has reporting obligations to the State University of New York, the U.S. Small Business Administration, AND the Association of Small Business Development Centers. Dick Cheney, however, has found a way for us all to put that red tape behind him. When someone asks him who has been meeting in his office on his energy policy, he can claim executive privilege. When he’s asked to abide by an executive order to declare what secrets he’s holding, he becomes, as President of the U.S. Senate, a member of the legislative body.

This is BRILLIANT! I’m sure that my organization, and entities in the same situation, will now be able to say, “Oh, X, we don’t have to tell you that, because we also report to Y.” All of those calls for his impeachment or resignation will certainly now immediately cease.

Oh, and just yesterday, a prisoner in Cheneyland, Scooter Libby, got his jail time eliminated. “And justice for all” indeed.
ROG

ROG

As Lazy as Mrs. Lefty

Did you miss me? (And you say, how can I miss you when you never go away?) Well, I have been away, for a week, without access to a computer. Fortunately, my stealth poster was at it again. Thanks, SP! (Comic book characters with two words in their names were often referred to by their initials. This never made sense in Wonder Woman’s case, because it would take more syllables to say her initials – six – than her name – four.)

This does mean I haven’t read many of YOUR blogs, I haven’t heard Gordon’s podcast where he allegedly answers my questions, etc.

(Guess I know what patriotic activity I’ll be doing on Wednesday: surfing the net, while holding a flag, naturally.) Meanwhile, Kelly can do it…

Roger Owen Green —

[adjective]:

Benevolent to a fault

‘How will you be defined in the dictionary?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

Roger Owen Green’s Random Movie Quote:

‘I feel like the floor of a taxi cab.’

– Dr. Egon Spengler, Ghostbusters

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

You are Hard Harry from Pump up the Volume

You are shy, but once you overcome that you are inspirational to those around you. You are rebellious and like to push the authority figures buttons.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

I suddenly have the need to SEE Pump Up the Volume.

ROG

Canada Day 2007


July 1, 1867 was an important date in Canadian history. Do you know why? (For some reason, maybe because I was in junior high school during the centennial, I actually do.) If you don’t (and if you’re an American, you’re not alone), read all about Canada here. Play your Joni Mitchell, k.d. lang or Neil Young. (Anne Murray, if you must.) I think I’ll play my Tragically Hip. (Maybe some Blues Brothers as well, since Ottawa-born Dan Aykroyd turns 55 today.) Take a quiz.
ROG

ROG

Who You Callin’ A…. QUESTION

Ebony magazine has a July 2007 cover story, stories, actually, in which it proclaims that it “engages Black America in an honest examination of race, language and the culture of disrespect.” It’s interesting, because in the time I’ve been reading Ebony, and it’s been, off and on, since I was a kid, this is the first time in a very long time that the magazine has provided multiple stories on one topic. Throughout, there was a timeline of race and language, then a series of articles. Worth reading, at least in the library.

The one piece that intrigued me the most is the one that suggests that there are thinks a member of the tribe can say that an outsider (say, a white male like Don Imus talking about black women) cannot. There’s a guy of Polish descent who I’ve played racquetball with, and he has occasionally provided himself with an ethnic slur that I would never say myself. This is an obvious notion that reminds me of a story from my childhood:
My sister Leslie was teasing our sister Marcia on the school playground; it wasn’t very nice. But when one of Leslie’s male friends started teasing Marcia with the same words, Leslie slugged him.

So my question is this: What do you say in your tribe or tribes, however you define it (ethnicity, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, fraternity, sorority, family) that is verboten when it comes from the outside? I’m really curious about this, because, except for very good friends, who I can tell when they’ve done an air-headed thing, I’ve never been all that comfortable with that kind of talk.
***
A couple things other people I read have discovered that interested me greatly.
1. From the U.K.’s Chris Black wonders whether attacks on Barack Obama as not black enough from some black groups might not make him even more attractive to some white voters. For a pol from across the pond, I think Mr. Black is pretty astute about American politics. “Not black enough” always reminds me of a Joan Armatrading lyric (from the title cut of an A&M EP, “How Cruel”)
“I had somebody say once my black was way too black,
And someone answer she’s not black enough for me.”
(I guess I’m not the only one who came to that conclusion. There’s a slow-loading Blogspot blog, Seattle for Barack Obama, that used that very quote.) I’m not sold on Senator Obama, but these kinds of attacks make him more sympathetic, I think.
2. The guy in the overalls found this citation to a 1970 DC Comics survey, conducted by a groovy Flash and a Superman we can dig, asking their readers to rap about what they’re interested in reading about. (Rap meant something different in 1970.) Right there between “pollution” and “space flights” is “black people”. I think that in 1970, I probably would have been offended, but now, it’s just hysterical.

ROG

ROG
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