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Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
John Updike has died of lung cancer. One of the great American novelists whose work should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century.

TIME obituary.

Powerline remembrance.

Updike read and was influence by the great Neo-Orthodox theologian Karl Barth. He even once remarked that Barth's theology "at one point in my life, seemed alone to be supporting it [my life]."

Here is an article from Theology Today that can serve as an introduction to Updike and Barth.

"Updike doesn't preach. He tells realistic stories with symbolic and theological overtones that, in effect, invite us to enter the discussion ourselves. Here we are invited to consider the goodness of our relationship with God. God's partnership with us in the covenant of grace disclosed in Christ does not, as has been said, solve our many problems. Yet, within our bloodsoaked world, it does give us a place to stand. Only goodness lives. But it does live. God is God and may be trusted to fill our lives with radiance and the world with joy. "

Here is another introduction to Updike as a Christian novelist with a Barthian perspective.

The novelist John Updike is a Christian, but not a Christian novelist in the sense that his work forces an explicitly Christian message onto the reader. On the contrary, precisely because Updike is a Christian he believes the novelist should portray the human condition with unsparing honesty, expressing his "basic duty to God" in writing "the most truthful and fullest books" he can.1 One therefore looks in vain for clear, morally uplifting, spiritually stirring messages in Updike's fiction. At the same time, a powerful theological dimension can be seen running through his work: subtle but profound, invisible yet constantly present, giving Updike's uninhibited report of the human condition a specifically Christian perspective.

John Updike, R.I.P.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Infidel Bloggers' Alliance recently reminded me of a jazz standard I had forgotten: Charles Mingus' beautiful elegy in tribute to Lester Young entitled Good Bye Pork Pie Hat.

This tune touches me deeply.

Here is Mingus himself, leading an all-star group at Montreux in 1975. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Mingus is the one on bass.

Lester Young was a saxophonist who came to prominence in the Count Basie Band. Here is a brief bio intro. Here a bit longer one.

Charles Mingus, the brilliant, troubled and troubling, bassist was one of the great jazz composers.

Joni Mitchell was attracted to his work, and here is her performance of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.
I have much to say about my trip to the Federal City. But, first, let me begin with an overview.

January 20, 2009. High Noon. There I was, standing with 1.8 million of my fellow Americans, wedged on the Mall between the Monument and the Memorial, with the Capitol as a backdrop, watching the 56th quadrennial American Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States.

My journey had been long and circuitous.

My pilgrimage began the day before in a parking lot on the campus of McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas. From there, eighteen of us flew 1200 miles from Austin to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, staying the night in College Park, Maryland, riding the Metro Green Line into the District the following morning, forced by overflow crowds to abandon the subway several stops short of our destination, walking west then north, then west then north again--and again, bellying around closed-off streets, eventually finding a clear artery onto the Mall.

There we stood, finally, on "America's front yard." But that famous pet name for the National Mall falls short of expressing the full power of the place, for the long stretch between Capitol Hill and the Potomac is not just a massive shared lawn--it is consecrated ground. We had arrived at the outer courtyard of the great temples of American democracy, independence, and our conception of justice, sprinkled throughout with shrines and tabernacles to our national accomplishments, sacrifices, heroes, and ideals.

We are suddenly quiet--even in the midst of the din of a million voices. Now we are ready to celebrate the most sacred rite in our political culture: the constitutionally prescribed installment of a popularly elected Chief Magistrate of the United States of America.

For all the rhetoric of bipartisanship, the crowd was primarily Democrats--not surprising and not necessarily unfitting. When Jimmy Carter appeared on the screen, they erupted with excitement and approval. When the Clintons came into focus, the boisterous multitudes screamed with glee. Bush-41 and Barbara: silence. Bush-43: snarling enmity. For the vast majority of these pilgrims, this is not a day to forgive easily or indiscriminately hail presidents in general. They had arrived with a palpable malice toward at least one. Perhaps one day they will feel more charitable toward Forty-Three--but this is not that moment. Again, no real surprise--and no offense taken.

The intermittent chant: O-bam-a. O-bam-a. O-bam-a.

An Aside: there is something unsettling about this brand of personal adulation. If this were a Republican crowd, it would be U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.

Rick Warren's invocation is long--but not offensive to the throng. The moment passes without comment.

Joe Biden becomes vice president. His voice is loud and clear, almost startling over the massive public address system.

There is a moment of high art. Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and other musical luminaries play a stringed ditty to sooth the savage beast and prolong the moment of anticipation. Is it live? Or is it Memorex? Memorex, as it turns out.

Then there is Aretha--and her hat, which is somehow perfectly befitting in the great collage.

Then the Oath (including the "stumble"). The new President is nothing if not a gracious man--in the big picture, this is very good news for the nation and carries a whole host of positive ramifications.

We are packed in--tighter and tighter as the climactic moment of transfer draws near. By the time Obama raises his hand we are pressed together snugly, straining to see through the smaller and smaller cracks in the wall of humanity. Every time Dianne Feinstein, master of ceremonies, gives permission for the audience to "sit down," the mob on the Mall roars with laughter and Bronx cheers.

Then the address: it is wonderfully traditional, subtlety stressing continuity over change. Inaugurations, of course, were not intended as victory parties; rather, they provide an institutional moment for renewal and re-dedication to the principles of the Revolution and the hard realities of constitutional governance. The lofty rhetoric of the address is properly replete with echoes of FDR and JFK and a host of other former chief executives and ancient Greeks and Romans. The newly remastered words roll over the crowd, plucking "mystic chords of memory connecting every living heart with every patriot's grave," perfectly tailored for ceremonial re-absorption into the collective American canon.

Early on in the speech, I am aware of a man in front of me. He is about my age. He is above-average height, with a relatively athletic build, and white. He is with his wife. They both carry themselves with a confidence that leads me to guess that they are comfortable professionals. I imagine both of them to be alumni of some prestigious institution of higher learning. By the end of the address, they will both be crying--and happily taking digital photographs of their tear-stained faces. But before that, the man is holding a small American flag above his head. Following a few early Obama oratorical high points, the man smiles down at his wife and observes, with great irony, "look at me; I am now a flag-waving American."

A flag-waving American? Who would have believed it--I think I hear him saying. Prior to this moment, the patriotic pose had been for simpletons--the last refuge of a scoundrel. Clearly, this man was much too sophisticated to "wave the flag." Men and women of great intellect had taught him long ago that the emotional exhortations to nationalism were ill-intentioned broad-axes designed to manipulate ignoramuses in Kansas and other backward parts of Red-State America.

But there this man stands, inches away from me, waving his American flag, and wiping away the tears of joy streaming down his face. God Bless America? Could this really be the land of the free? Could it be possible that the creed is NOT merely a lie manufactured and promulgated by rich white men to obscure the issues of exploitation, racism, sexism, and corporate greed.

My most optimistic hope: this really is a new day.

For all the hackneyed talk of "history in real time," this time and place presents Barack Obama with a truly unique opportunity. His presidency has the potential to usher in a watershed moment in our modern national life. Might this be the dawning of a new era in which the several generations of citizens hyper skeptical of the "mythic" American narrative reconnect with a less antagonistic view of the American past?

It is a heavy burden--much too much to ask any one man to carry in our current milieu of ironic detachment. Nevertheless, I choose to believe this President sees the danger of our collective loss of faith and plans on pursuing a rigorous agenda of renewal.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

Are we on the cusp of a New American Patriotism?

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray...."

My Prayer for US. My prayer for this President:

"With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in."

May God Bless this President. May God Bless America.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Don't miss reading Martian Mariner's recent post on Heath Ledger's posthumous win for his portrayal of The Joker. In his post, Mariner reflects on the difficulty of making Good interesting in fiction.

Mariner reminded me of Simone Weil's reflections on this problem. From her Notebooks:

Literature and Morality. Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. Therefore "imaginative literature" is either boring or immoral (or a mixture of both). It only escapes from this alternative if in some way it passes over to the side of reality through the power of art--and only genius can do that.

Her longest sustained attention to this problem is found in the essay "Morality and Literature." Here is the opening paragraph:

Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.

This problem attaches to fiction itself intrinsically, she asserts. This is because there are necessities and impossibilities in reality which do not obtain in fiction, any more than the law of gravity to which we are subject controls what is represented in a picture. In other words, precisely because fiction is separated from truth and its necessity it cannot make good interesting and is able to make evil attractive. (For Weil "fiction" is bigger than literature and includes most of our memory, hopes and dreams, etc. unless we are unflinchingly attached to truth.)

A genius, in his maturity, she thought, can overcome this limit of fiction, because the mature genius is able to write truth. Such genius is rare. In the West she lists

This sense of gravity, which only genius can impart, is found in the drama of Aeschylus and Sophocles, in certain plays of Shakespeare, in Racine's Phedre alone among French tragedies, in several comedies of Moliere, in the Grand Testament of Villon. There, good and evil appear in their truth.

She held writers (I don't think she ever considered movies) to the standard of truth. From her essay "The Responsibility of Writers":

Writers do not have to be professors of morals, but they do have to express the human condition. And nothing concerns human life so essentially, for every man at every moment, as good and evil. When literature becomes indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to to excellence.

Perhaps the power of The Dark Knight comes from its attention to the reality of good and evil, even if the writers and director lacked the genius to make good more interesting than evil.
I recently watched The Dark Knight, which is simply a fascinating movie. Also recently, Heath Ledger was posthumously awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. I have no doubt that Ledger was a brilliant actor; the depth of roles he played with subtle skill attests to his talent and hard work.

However, if he were able to make an acceptance speech, I think he would have to thank the evil nature of the character of the Joker right after he thanked his folks and the director.

Blaise Pascal once wrote that "Evil is easy, and has infinite forms; good is almost unique." The Joker was, in a sense, easy - he embodied a particular type of evil, the evil of unchecked, merciless chaos. He was also a tempting evil - the greatest tragedy in the film is that the Joker is able to corrupt the "White Knight", Harvey Dent. Batman bends, but does not break, under similar temptation. But even though he carries out sophisticated plans in pursuit of his corrupting aims, Ledger's Joker seems constantly unhinged and capable of anything -- except for good.

Batman IS capable of good. In a sense, he is capable of no evil, although he breaks societal norms to do his good. And so, compared to the Joker, Batman seems pretty boring.

And Batman is actually a pretty complex hero, capable of doubt and able to empathize with the criminal mind. This separates him from a character who is more gooder in a way -- Superman. Superman is downright boring. We always know what he's going to do: The Right Thing, as defined by Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The evil minds have all of the originality in the Superman series. When more good guys are needed, they're just variations on the theme - Wonder Woman, Superboy, etc. They're as predictable as Superman.

Don't get me wrong, I like Superman, for that very reason. But it's easy to see why the acting award goes to the bad guy.

Post Script: An interesting research puzzle for someone would be to determine if there have been more "good" characters to win acting awards or "evil" characters, or if there has been a trend toward one or the other. Or, if during times of national crisis, one type gets the nod over the other, etc.
January is the month for National Sanctity of Life Day, the month of Roe v Wade. It is a day to remember those killed by abortion, and to pledge ourselves to lives that affirm the rights and importance of other human beings, including the unborn.

News links.

Here is the text of President Bush's Proclamation of January 18 as the 2009 Sanctity of Life Day.

National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2009
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world. We also underscore our dedication to heeding this message of conscience by speaking up for the weak and voiceless among us.

The most basic duty of government is to protect the life of the innocent. My Administration has been committed to building a culture of life by vigorously promoting adoption and parental notification laws, opposing Federal funding for abortions overseas, encouraging teen abstinence, and funding crisis pregnancy programs. In 2002, I was honored to sign into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which extends legal protection to children who survive an abortion attempt. I signed legislation in 2003 to ban the cruel practice of partial-birth abortion, and that law represents our commitment to building a culture of life in America. Also, I was proud to sign the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, which allows authorities to charge a person who causes death or injury to a child in the womb with a separate offense in addition to any charges relating to the mother.

America is a caring Nation, and our values should guide us as we harness the gifts of science. In our zeal for new treatments and cures, we must never abandon our fundamental morals. We can achieve the great breakthroughs we all seek with reverence for the gift of life.

The sanctity of life is written in the hearts of all men and women. On this day and throughout the year, we aspire to build a society in which every child is welcome in life and protected in law. We also encourage more of our fellow Americans to join our just and noble cause. History tells us that with a cause rooted in our deepest principles and appealing to the best instincts of our citizens, we will prevail.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 18, 2009, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH


President Bush has been consistently pro-life in regard to abortion, including fetal tissue research.

Obama? I assume we will see the lifting of restrictions on federal money for abortions CNN story, , loss of protection for those health care providers opposed to abotion and lifting of federal funding restriction of fetal tissue research Bishops' Concern, less emphasis on abstinence, nomination of judges who will in no way threaten Roe v Wade, opposition to parental notification laws, and cessation of support for the Born Alive legislation.

Obama's record on abortion is appalling. He did not oppose killing infants who survived partial-birth abortions.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Christopher Hitchens writes in Vanity Fair to tell the truth about free speech in the West: it is dying because those who should be its champions fear violent Islam.

Read the essay.

These are among the things that have happened, and have become depressingly taken for granted, since the fatwa of the ayatollah. We live now in a climate where every publisher and editor and politician has to weigh in advance the possibility of violent Muslim reprisal.

Most readers are aware that Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 concerns the burning of books. What you may not know, unless you have read it, is that Bradbury's future society began to burn books after it was granted that everyone has a right not to be offended.