I didn’t watch the Bush/Kerry debate tonight; I went out on a date with my best beau instead. Organizer Daughter taped the debate for me, and I may get around to watching it this weekend. However, I’ve already recieved a review from Eldest Daughter. She thinks Bush was defintely not looking good. She says he seemed tired and irritable. Also, the fact that both men talked past each other instead of addressing each other was irritating to Eldest Daughter. What do you all think? And does it really matter? I tend to believe most people have already made up their minds, and barring unforseen circumstances, the race is decided. I hope Bush wins by a landslide.
Archive | September 2004
Monk
We don’t watch much TV around here. The kids watch a little PBS in the afternoons, but that’s about it. Tonight we watched the first two episodes of the TV series Monk with Emmy award winning actor Tony Shaloub. I read a review in WORLD magazine and ordered from our DVD rental service. It was fun. Monk reminds me of the TV detectives of the past that I posted about here. There’s something endearing about quirky detectives like Columbo or Hercule Poirot or Nero Wolfe. They each have their limitations, even handicaps, but they manage not just to overcome those limitations but also use them to their advantage. Somehow the fact that Nero Wolfe is so fat and lazy that he hardly ever leaves his chair much less his house becomes an asset rather than a liability. Miss Marple uses her elderly insight into human nature and her fussy old lady persona to solve crimes that baffle the police. And Monk’s obsessive-compulsive disorder and his multiple phobias become both problems to be overcome and talents to be used. It’s not profound, but it is entertaining–which is more than I can say for any programs I’ve seen advertised on TV recently.
One More–On Moravian Marriages
I enquir’d concerning the Moravian Marriages, whether the Report was true that were by Lot? I was told that Lots were us’d only in particular Cases. That generally when a young Man found himself dispos’d to marry, he inform’d the Elders of his Class, who consulted the Elder Ladies that govern’d the Young Women. As these Elders of the different Sexes were well acquainted with the Tempers & Dispositions of their respective Pupils, they could best judge what Matches were suitable and their Judgments were generally acquiesc’d in. But if for example it should happen that two or three young Women were found to be equally proper for the young Man, the Lot was then recurr’d to. I objected, If the Matches are not made by the mutual Choice of the Parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. And so they may, answer’d my Informer, if you let the Parties chuse for themselves .–Which indeed I could not deny.
I find the idea of courtship marriages in our society attractive but confusing. How does one work out the details? This Moravian approach would work well in a closed community in which everyone was in agreement about the process. However, I can’t see how to implement any kind of courtship model in our society where even Christians are not in agreement about how it should work. I do see many problems with the dating marriage model that I grew up taking for granted. I’ve read several books about idea of courtship and about the problems with serial romance (dating); however, I still don’t know how to work out the courtship ideal in practice. I don’t want to go as far as an arranged Moravian marriage partly because I don’t live in a Moravian-style community where many Elders would pool their wisdom to decide these things under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Anybody got a good courtship story to share?
One More Timeless Observation from Ben Franklin
This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natured and cheerful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, &c. and in continual ill-humour; which put me in mind of a Sea-Captain, whose Rule it was to keep his Men constantly at Work; and his Mate once told him that they had done every thing, and there was nothing farther to employ them about; O, says he, make them scour the Anchor.
One of the problems with having children in Major Suburbia is that there is not enough “good Days work” to keep them all contented and in good humor. Young adults (ages 12-20) especially need good hard physical labor to keep them healthy and cheerful, but there’s not enough of it to go around. So we invented “exercise.” However, exercise doesn’t accomplish anything except self-improvement. I think Eldest Son, in particular, needs to build a log cabin or plant some corn and tend it. I could probably use the work myself.
More from Ben
From Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography:
In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself. You will see it perhaps often in this History. For even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should be proud of my Humility.–
Poor Ben! If only he could have come to our time and seen how we handle the pride problem. We simply rename it “self-esteem” and call it good. Instead of being proud of our humility, we’re proud of of our pride.
I read
I got this story from Norma at collectingmythoughts, and she got it from a book review of Kitty Kelley’s horrible book about the Bush family.
Laura Welch, the future first lady, was still a mystery to the Bush family on the day she married George W. in 1978. The Bush matriarch, Prescott’s widow, tried to interrogate her after the ceremony.
“What do you do?” the old lady asked her.
“I read,” Laura replied.
I love it! I’m going to steal Laura Bush’s line and use it the very next time someone asks me what I do.
Finally
The State Department designated Saudi Arabia as a “country of particular concern for religious freedom.” This is a country where:
No religion other than Islam may be practiced publicly, and all citizens must be Muslims. Churches and synagogues are illegal, though substantial numbers of foreign Christians live and work in the country. Muslims who convert to other religions can be put to death. Shiite Muslims are discriminated against; their clerics are detained and their testimony can be excluded in court proceedings.
However, in the past, our State Department has given Saudi Arabia a pass because of its strategic importance in the region. I doubt change in foreign poslicy will result from this designation, but at least it’s a start.
Adam Smith and the Duty of Government
I read this quotation from economist Adam Smith in our U.S. History text:
According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to … first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, so far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, and thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain…
The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter IX
So which presidential candidate is more likely to protect our society from violence and invasion, protect members of our society (including unborn babies) from injustice and oppression, and maintain the public works and institutions that are worth maintaining?
Better than Ben
Now this advice from the blog god-of -small-things is even better than Ben Franklin’s. Blogger Bob Smietana got this list of steps in presenting an argument for an article in Sojourners magazine, and he says it came from somewhere else before that. Wherever, it’s a good plan:
1. Show respect for all positions on an issue, and for those who hold opposing opinions.
2. Understand the opposing side so well that you can present its arguments as clearly as its proponents do.
3. Begin your sermon by presenting the opposing case’s position.
4. Then present your position, rooting your position in biblical soil, admitting your position’s downsides.
5. Confess your openness to changing your thinking, thus modeling the teachability you hope your people will demonstrate.
I especially like step #2. In order to really understand the opposing side of an argument, you must spend a great deal of time actually listening. I think this is the hardest thing to do. I am often tempted to immediately jump into a discussion with my wonderful, profound insights instead of listening. After all, I’ve thought about these things, and of course, I know what the other person is going to say before he says it. Lord, give me more humility–even when I’m right, especially when I’m sure I’m right.
Columbo or Socrates or Franklin?
Some call this the “Columbo method” of apologetics after the TV detective. Ben Franklin got it from Socrates, but he didn’t use the method for Christian apologetics but rather to gain his point in religious and political debates:
“I was charm’d with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt Contradiction, and positive Argumentation, and put on the humble Enquirer & Doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftsbury & Collins, become a real Doubter in many Points of our Religious Doctrine, I found this Method safest for my self & very embarrassing to those against whom I used it, therefore I took a Delight in it, practis’d it continually & grew very artful & expert in drawing People even of superior Knowledge into Concessions the Consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in Difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining Victories that neither my self nor my Cause always deserved. I continu’d this Method some few Years, but gradually left it, retaining only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence . . .”
This “humble questioner” approach can be helpful in putting people off their guard, but it does cut both ways. Answer carefully the questions unbelievers ask you. (I’ve been reading Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography for our American Literature class.)