A Needle and the News in a Haystack

I find it significant that the placement of a national news story was done in two different ways in two different newspapers. Here is an excerpt from the way the Los Angeles Times reported a story featured on the first page of the national news section of last Sunday's newspaper:

“Agencies Say Iraq War Fuels Terror

The conflict spreads extremism and serves as a laboratory for deadly tactics, says a bleak analysis by 16 U.S. intelligence units.

By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
September 24, 2006

WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has made global terrorism worse by fanning Islamic radicalism and providing a training ground for lethal methods that are increasingly being exported to other countries, according to a sweeping assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

The classified document, which represents a consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, paints a considerably bleaker picture of the impact of the Iraq war than Bush administration or U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged publicly, according to officials familiar with the assessment.

"They conclude that the Iraq war has made it worse," said a government official familiar with the document who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly have described the war in Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism and argue that Americans are safer as a result of the administration's policies.”

Our local Republican-oriented newspaper, the San Diego Union Tribune, reported the story in about the same way (with Dick Cheney, the man who had earlier said that the insurgency was in its "last throes" left out of the story). But it buried the report on page A23, the inside of the last page in the section for national and international news. Apparently, our newspaper didn’t think this revelation was important enough to put on the front page.

Yet the next day, in Monday’s edition, the same local newspaper spread an article over two-thirds of the front page about Padre’s pitcher Trevor Hoffman’s record-setting 479 saves in his career. As you can see, we get "all the news that is fit to print". One just has to know where to look for it.

Living a Thousand Years

Have you heard about the new scientific group that calls itself the “immortalist movement?” They argue that because aging can be prevented and treated, people by the year 2026, barring any fatal accidents, can look forward to a life span of a least a thousand years. Not only that, but they will live with a healthy body and sharp mind most of the time.

Can you imagine some of the unintended consequences of such a life span?

You could retire at 55 and collect inflation-adjusted pensions for the next 945 years. Stop dreaming. More likely, you would work for some 700-800 years before retirement.

That lifetime warrantly on your muffler would be valid for up to a thousand years.

When the minister or rabbi intones, “Do you take this woman (or man) to be your lawful wedded...until death do you part?” Might you pause before you say “I do,” realizing that you might have to spend up to a thousand years with the same individual, no matter how much you might love them at that time?

You would spend your last 200 years in a nursing home.

When a 20-year-old person is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, he or she would be looking at spending the next 980 or more years in the lockup.

e.e. cummings once said “Being undead isn’t being alive.” Would more people just have more years to be undead?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “It is not the length of life (that counts), but depth of life.” Would people’s lives simply be longer but more shallow?

You would have more time to “find” yourself.

No longer would life be short and art long.

No longer would the biblical “three score and ten” apply to our lifespan.

You would have more years to examine your life to make it worth living.

“Don’t waste time” would not seem like such an urgent message.

Would the measure of a person’s life still not be the length of it, but how it had been spent?

What would one’s chances be of living the full length of a thousand years without a fatal accident? As someone once said, “Death hath a thousand doors to let out life.”

Would life still be an empty dream--just longer?

Would some people continue to get facelifts and breast implants over and over again to ward off the ravages of time and living?

Would 200-year old babes marry wealthy old Methuselahs in their 900’s because they love them?

As billions of more people are added to our population, would attitudes toward abortion change? Or would abortion become unnecessary?

Would the expression, “I’ll hate you for the rest of my life!” give people the additional years they desired in which to hate?

The writer said, “Life’s a short summer, man a flower. He dies--alas! soon he dies.” Would this sentiment still apply? Would life still be a “short summer”?

Did Morley have prescience when he said, “Every man of us has all the centuries in him”?

Can you think of more unintended consequences for extending life to a thousand years?

Do You Doodle?

Do you still doodle? I used to doodle a lot, but in recent years I haven’t been in as many situations that would bring out doodling. Doodling is a form of mindless sketching or aimless drawing while the doodler’s attention is focused elsewhere. The act of doodling often occurs while one is waiting for something unrelated to happen. Sometimes one doodles as a way of relieving stress and nervousness, and in school, college, and business meetings it is often employed as a way of relieving boredom during long lectures or extended meetings.

Typically, a doodle is created in relation to an emotion such as fear, disgust, anger, and so on. The act of doodling releases the emotional tension. Doing something physical while wrestling with a mental concern can be a form of stress reduction.

The most popular form of psychotherapy is not suited to some troubled teens, say Australian psychologists, who think teenage doodling might hold a few clues for developing more effective approaches. Louise Rèmond and colleagues from the Health Psychology Unit at the University of Technology, Sydney are investigating the use of doodling as part of an outreach program they run for troubled teens suffering from stress, anxiety and depression, as well as problems such as drug addition and abuse.

Perhaps you can remember when , as a young person in school, you used to engage in the harmless fun of aimless doodling to pass the time or to relieve the stresses you were under as a teenager. Back in May of 2002, an 11-year-old sixth grader was suspended from her suburban Pittsburgh school for doodling two hangman-style stick figures with arrows stuck through their heads. After receiving a “D” on her vocabulary test, she made a couple of doodles on the back of the test, expressing her feelings in a creative way. The names of a teacher and a substitute were scrawled underneath the doodles.

This young girl, an honor student, had followed her parents' advice to seek a catharsis for any negative feelings she might have had for a teacher by either writing about it or making a drawing. She chose to do a doodle. With the shooting at Columbine and the terror threat to the nation at a high level, students had been alerted to tell their teachers if they saw anything that could be interpreted as a threat. When one of the girl’s classmates saw the doodle, she reported it to the teacher. When school administrators were called in they contended that the doodles represented “a terrorist threat” and she was suspended.

Can you remember when you were in sixth grade? Did you ever doodle something that could have caused you to be suspended from school in today‘s world? One adult is reported to have said that, as a student, she had once done a doodle of her chemistry teacher with little beakers coming out of his head like horns with exploding Bunsen burners in the background. And in French class, she had doodled her French teacher with a large baguette in her derriere.

Should this young student have been disciplined for her doodling , or should she have been rewarded for showcasing her pent-up annoyance in such a peaceful and non-destructive manner?

Warriors for God

(Note: This is one of my more lengthy posts. It begins with a related excerpt from one of my previous posts and ends with a film trailer. I urge you to read the post all the way through and then to watch the film trailer)

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
(Excerpt from the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers")

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven (Matthew 18:10)

When I was growing up, I attended a small church where the congregation was made up of people who were interested in their own salvation. The word politics was never mentioned by the pastor. He might have scared the hell out of us with his descriptions of hellfire and damnation, but he also soothed us with the promise of our own personal salvation. Today, however, the role of religion has become so politicized, especially by the Religious Right, that religion seems to be less about God and personal salvation and more about raw political power and the ability to control the choices that other people might wish to make in their lives.

“While the United States is engaged in a war with Muslim fundamentalists who want to establish a theocracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is in danger of losing its own secular democracy to a certain brand of Christians who want the same thing here -except it will be a Christian theocracy.

“The theocratic right seeks to establish dominion, or control over society in the name of God. D. James Kennedy, Pastor of Coral Ridge Ministries, calls on his followers to exercise "godly dominion ... over every aspect ... of human society." At a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference in February, 2005, Kennedy said: Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.

“First of all, one should note who would be the "vice regents of God." Thus, if ever there should be an evangelical takeover of our democratic government and the establishment of a "christocracy" by the American version of the Taliban, our citizens, just as were the citizens of Afghanistan under the Taliban, would be told what to say, what to read, what to think, who to marry, who to like, and who to hate. Most literature would be banned. Certain art works would be destroyed. The heritage of the Enlightenment would vanish . The study of our universe would regress to the understanding that people had two thousand years ago. Women would lose all the civil rights they have gained over the past centuries. They would not be able to receive an education, seek employment, drive a car, inherit property, or have control over their own bodies. Women would be under the total control of the men in their society.” (From a previous post of mine titled “Establishing a Christocracy“.)

A new book by Lauren Sandler titled “Righteous: Dispatches From the Evangelical Youth Movement”, published by Viking, and a just-released documentary film titled “Jesus Camp” both describe in great detail a movement to turn children into warriors for God. According to Sandler’s book, there is a camp in East Texas that has a year-long boot camp for young Christian teenagers that includes “Persecution Training”. In this course, the teenagers in camouflaged clothing are “ allowed little sleep or food , and run drills like crawling through sandy trenches and watery pits behind a team leader bearing a huge cross ....” It reminds one of the films of al-Qaeda fighters training for combat in Afghanistan

The "Jesus Camp" documentary is a revealing, unabashed look at the formation of tomorrow's "Army of God," with Evangelical Christian adults working to shape children into warriors for God. This movement is strong and getting stronger.

The documentary revolves around a Pentecostal minister who hosts a summer camp for children in North Dakota, and the sectarian Christian conservative families who send their children to this camp. The film constructs a subtle, yet damning narrative about a religious movement that isolates its children from mainstream culture, indoctrinates them into right-wing causes, and uses them as political props. Their goal is to end “secular life as non-believing Americans know it.” The children are home schooled by parents who want to shield their children from public schools, with one mother teaching the creation story and dismissing evolution as "just a theory," adding that "science doesn't prove anything."

And who is Becky Fischer? She is a kind of American madrassa who indoctrinates children and trains them to be warriors for God. She speaks of battles and warfare, important roles in culture wars, spiritual wars and other future fights. She also sets them straight on abortion, homosexuality and Harry Potter: He's a warlock, an enemy of God who would be put to death if Old Testament teachings were still observed.

Right wing political agendas and slogans are mixed with born again rituals that prepare the children to carry out their mission from God. The kids, around nine or ten years old, but some as young as six, recruited from various churches, are pliant, willing receptacles. They are instructed that evolution is being forced upon them by evil Godless secular humanists, that abortion must be stopped at all costs, that they must form an “army” to defeat the Godless influences, and that they must band together to insure that the right judges and politicians get into the courts and office. They also learn that global warming is a lie.

Awareness of the rest of the world is curtailed — one can only view or read that which agrees with the agenda. Naturally, the kids being so young, there is no questioning of any kind — they simply accept what grownups Fischer and the others say — they get pumped up, agitated, and they memorize right-wing and Jesus slogans and shout them back obediently. Because of peer pressure, no one strays or gets out of line even the slightest bit.

At one point Pastor Fischer instructs the children that they should be willing to die for Christ, and they obediently agree. She tells them that they are warriors for God. She may even use the word martyr, which has a shocking echo in the Middle East. I can see future suicide bombers for Jesus — the next step will be learning to fly planes into buildings. Of course, the grownups would say, “Oh no, we’re not like them” — but they admit that the principal difference is simply that “We’re right.”

In another scene a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush, with his trademark smirking smile, is brought out and the children are urged to identify — many of the little ones come forward and reverently touch his cardboard hands. These kids have been convinced that Bush is a holy prophet, and that they need to be ready to die for the conservative agenda.

They want to turn the United States into the "Christian" version of Iran or Saudi Arabia - a theocracy. The separation between church and state, already shaky with Bush in charge, is under full frontal assault by this bunch — and they are well organized, too. The megachurches tell their parishioners who to vote for, what judges to support, letters to write, and where they should stand on the issues.

When one sees religion perverted — in the U.S. or in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan or India, one wonders if the spiritual seeds, planted by visionaries and enlightened prophets like Jesus, Muhammad, and others, are just too volatile for large societies to deal with. One asks if religious visions are better off kept as a personal thing, or at least confined to a small group — otherwise the death and destruction sown by and in the name of religions more or less balances out their moral and personal virtues.

For a chilling trailer preview of the documentary film “Jesus Camp“, go to this site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RNfL6IVWCE

(I will not be making comments on this post. I have already had my say. Now it is your turn. I welcome comments on this post from bloggers of all religious and non-religious persuasions. All I ask is that all bloggers and their opinions be treated with respect. Abusive comments will be deleted.)

The Old and the News

The other night when my son and I were watching the local news on television at home, he looked at the new anchor newscaster and said, “Wow! She is hot, isn’t she?” I looked at him and said, “Yeah, they are all hot. They are all young, lovely, sexy, with perfectly coiffed hair. They are hot babes delivering cold news. I would rather see someone like Helen Thomas delivering hot news. That way I could concentrate on the news and not get distracted by the messenger bearing the news.” My son didn’t appear to agree. Am I getting old or what?