Brother Can You Spare a Brew?

One of the several activities in what turned out to be a rather busy weekend-about-the-house was getting the latest batch of beer bottled.

Generally speaking, I homebrew because I enjoy the process and because I like the beer I make myself better than most of what I can find on the store shelves. However, it occurred to me recently -- while staring at the beer section and realizing the only six packs that looked good to me were priced at $7.99 and above -- that I should step up my production of standard cold-one-when-you-get-home-in-the-evening type beer, because it really is so much cheaper to brew your own than to buy.

This seemed like as good a challenge as any, and so the batch just bottled is Recession "In The Red" Ale, a fairly light (4-5% alcohol) red ale. Recipe as follows:

White Labs American Ale Yeast

7 lbs Extra Pale Malt Syrup

1 lb Crystal 120 Malt
1 lb Munich Malt
4oz Chocolate Malt

1oz Saaz hops (bittering)
0.5oz Saaz hops (flavor)
0.5oz Saaz hops (aroma)

(priming sugar, caps, etc.)

Bring the water to 150F, turn off the heat and let the grains steep for 30min. Remove the gains, bring the wort to a boil, add the malt syrup, bring to a boil again. Add bittering hops, boil for 45 minutes; add flavor hops, boil another 13 minutes; add aroma hops, boil 2 minutes. Pour into fermentor over ice, add cold water as needed to reach a little over 5 gallons, pitch yeast.

The goal was to bring the batch in under $35 total, which nets out to $4/six pack of finished beer. I hit the cost target right on the nose. And from the sample I tried today while bottling, it should be a solid hit in the flavor department as well -- well rounded maltiness well balanced with the refreshing Saaz hops. (Saaz is a Czech variety which you'd normally find in lagers.) It's also a very pleasing deep red/copper color.

To add to the thriftiness of the whole operation, and because so many of the good things in life involve grain and yeast, when I moved the beer from the primary fermentor into secondary after a week, I scooped out a half cup of the yeast/hop sludge at the bottom and mixed it in with a cup of flour and two cups of water to produce a starter. You keep the starter exactly like you do a sourdough starter -- scoop out half a cup or a cup to leaven a batch of bread, then add water and flour, let the starter sit out over night (covered) and then return it to the fridge. It doesn't have the sourdough taste, however, being brewer's yeast rather than wild. However, if you do as I did and start out with a full cup of the yeast/hops sludge from the bottom of your fermentor, you'll get a bit of a hops bitterness in your first batch or two of bread. The best way to work with this is by using some whole grains and such. Here's the recipe I used for the first batch:

2 cups rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 cups white bread flour
1.5 tsp salt
0.5 cups beer starter
1.5 cups water

This makes a thick dough, so you need to kneed it thoroughly. Then leave it out overnight to rise. It should have risen noticeably by morning, and it will continue to rise more rapidly through the day. 2hrs before you're going to bake it, lay it out on a pan or peal on a sheet of parchment paper, and shape it into a nice round loaf. Use a razor blade to slice a couple of slashed in the top. Spray it with a bit of oil, cover with plastic wrap, and leave it to rise for the last two hours. Then bake.

I can't speak clearly to the temperature, since I put the baking stone on the grill, set the grill to medium low, and baked the bread with the lid down (after it had taken 15min to get up to heat) for about twenty minutes. Which, incidentally, is a great way to bake during the summer, though it takes a little getting used to in order not to burn the bottom of things. Some day, in the future where I have lots more space and money to play with, I'd love to actually build a brick outdoor oven, but given that we're rapidly outgrowing out house, this does not seem to be the time for that.

Social Contract and Morality

Kyle Cupp has a brief post describing the dehumanizing moral effects of seeing human dignity and rights as springing entirely from a social contract (implied or explicit):

This reduction occurs when we understand and act upon our moral obligations to one another only within the framework of a social contract--when we limit our obligations to those who have entered into such contracts and consider ourselves obligated only to those who share our citizenship, have signed a treaty we have signed, or participate with us in some other contractual arrangement. I make this reduction when I don't care about torturing terrorists because they're not signers of the Geneva Conventions, when I wish to alienate the immigrant who enters my country against my country's laws, when I ignore my obligations to those not yet born because the laws of the land do not recognize their personhood, or when I insist that others shouldn't be given Constitutional rights when the rights I wish to withhold from them are basic human rights.

I think that he's right as far as he goes, but I don't think that his point that basic human rights and duties are inherent to humanity (rather than assumed via some sort of contract/relationship) is actually the point usually at dispute in our society. Rather, what seems often to be disputed is what the extent of basic human rights are -- and which "rights" are merely agreed civic rights which we grant explicitly via the social contract.

For instance, on the torture debate, it seems to me that the two camps hold different views about the extent of basic human rights -- not that one camp only believes in the social contract while the other believes in basic human rights. Essentially, those who are defending the use of "enhanced interrogation" on terror suspects assert that it is in keeping with basic human rights to user certain forms of physical punishment as coercion -- punishing someone for refusing to provide information which the interrogators think they need in order to achieve some common good. What this people are saying (and I disagree) is: "It is morally acceptable and in keeping with basic human rights to waterboard (or beat or keep in the dark, etc.) someone who refuses to answer questions which might save lives. However, we as a society have made an agreement both internally with respect to our citizens and externally with certain treaty signing powers that we will forgo this morally acceptable means of coercion when dealing with criminals or POWs because we consider this to be to the overall common good."

I would propose that the way of testing this claim of mine would be as follows: If those who support "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects really believe that human rights come only from the social contract and not from basic human rights of some sort, then clearly this would apply to things even more clearly in violation of basic human rights. Would they support:

- Selling them into slavery.
- Cutting out their eyes and tongues and then turning them loose.
- Having them drawn and quartered in the public square.

If not, we must assume that this camp does indeed believe that all people have basic human rights, and indeed their conceptions of basic human rights are more generous than those of many (if not most) societies throughout history.

Now, I do think that Kyle points to a real moral danger. Human societies have a natural tendency towards having one set of rules for "our people" and another for "other people". And so it's important to challenge people to think about what rights are human rights and which ones are civic rights extended only via the social contract.

At the same time, among those prone to hysteria about rights violations, there is a great tendency to assume that all civic rights are basic human rights. So, for example, in the US a trial by a jury of peers is a civic right when accused of a crime -- a right that we as citizens are given via the explicit social contract of our country. However, while being treated justly (and not being punished injustly) are basic human rights -- trial by jury is clearly not. And yet in our society, which so often confuses our legal system with morality, it is quite common for people to consider any other means of dispensing justice than a jury trial to be "denying people their basic rights".

While the social contract is clearly not the only thing that gives us rights, it is by no means unacceptable for certain rights and duties to be explicitly stemming from the social contract and available only to citizens or legal residents -- not to those who are not members of the country.

Ideology and Economic Knowledge

Prof Daniel Klein of had a brief piece in the WSJ this week talking about how people's economic knowledge or ignorance breaks down by ideological lines.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.

Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.

Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.

In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.

The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.

Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

This is not strictly a matter of Klein having a right-leaning ideology, some topics which cleave strongly left/right among the general public are actually agreed on pretty widely by economists. (For more examples, click through to the paper Mankiw is linking to.)

If Klein had wanted to include something to challenge conservative sensibilities, however, he might have tried the followoing: "The Laffer Curve proves that lowering tax rates always results in higher tax revenues through economic growth." (unenlightened answer: agree)

How Not to Act

Some unsolicited advice for the mother in the store Tuesday afternoon: If a woman suddenly starts making a scene in the grocery store, and it turns out that her child is lost, and she wanders frantically down the aisles calling for him and almost crying, and the employees get involved and start searching for the boy, and finally someone finds and brings forward a Down's Syndrome child of about six:

You will squander all the goodwill and sympathy that any onlookers have built up for your if immediately you start scolding the child harshly for wandering off, and continue berating him until you've paid for your groceries and left the store.

That is all.

Review: Paul: From Tarsus to Redemption

I am not, as my more graphically astute friends and relatives can tell you, someone deeply immersed in comic books, graphic novels, or manga (the Japanese comic book genre). I've read a few classics like Maus, which every so often I find Eleanor having taken off the shelf and advise her that, "I know that's a comic book, honey, but it's actually for older people." And I've read the manga versions of some favorite anime series, such as Fullmetal Alchemist and Hikaru No Go. But if you're looking for a comic expert, I'm not your guy. Still, when we got an email asking if we'd be interesting in reviewing a manga for young teens based on the life of St. Paul, I was curious. (And, of course, there's always the lure of free books.) Though even as a kid I was always more of a prose guy than a comic reader (with the exception of having every Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side comic memorized) there were actually two Catholic comics that I had as a kid (I think a gift from one of my godparents) which I read enough times that I still have images from them bubble up in my mind when I read about the life of St. Francis or of John Paul II (the wonders of the internet: I haven't seen them in decades but herethey are.) So I'm conscious of how a well-done comic on a religious topic can be surprisingly formative even for a kid who's quite willing to read prose as well.



Paul: Tarsus to Redemption (Volume 1) is definitely written with a manga artistic influence, even sporting some Japanese characters on the front cover. Indeed, at first I flipped to the back assuming this would read back to front like traditional manga, but in this case manga is an influence, not a mimic. I'd put the art style as somewhat in between an American and a Japanese one.

The story picks up Paul as a young firebrand, the protege of a wise rabbi, but unwilling to listen to the rabbi's words of caution and peace. Paul's best friend is a converted Roman soldier, and the two of them are committed to protecting God's Truth from the perversions of the sect of the carpenter, by the sword if necessary.

We see Paul and his young firebrand friends taking it to the Christians, and in the early pages they have a violent altercation with a Christian man in front of his family which sets up the stage for regret and character conflict later in the story.

Soon enough, Paul and his droogies are tearing off towards Damascus for a bit more ultraviolence, when he's struck from his horse and hears the voice of God, thus beginning a journey of conversion and repentance.

After his conversion, we see Paul struggle with the knowledge of his own past violence, the feelings of betrayal that his firebrand friends have, the suspicion of the Christian community, and even what looks like a potential love interest.

Tarsus to Redemption works hard at making Paul's conflicts immediate and emotional, and fleshing out the story of his conversion into something that will be compelling to young readers. (I'd put the intended readership at perhaps 11-14, though our eight-year-old sat engrossed in it for some time, and I don't think it's inappropriate for young readers.)

The storytelling is a times rather telegraphic; I had a hard time reconciling the timeframe in some of the Jerusalem to Damascus and back again storyline. This is definitely not an overly talky comic, and Paul (like many a sensitive male anime character) spends his share of time staring darkly into the middle distance.

One story choice that struck me as a little surprising was the invention of an entirely fictional incident involving killing a Christian man rather than using the actual story of St. Stephen, at whose stoning Acts places Paul. That struck me as a bit of a missed opportunity in regards to helping kids reading this learn the Biblical story of Paul.

However, the story is definitely fast paced, and will keep a young reader riveted for an hour or two. The creators are planning at least two more volumes to complete the story of Paul, and are also launching a manga series about Judith.

Blogoversary

It hardly seems like it, but the Darwins have been inhabiting the blogsphere for five years now. It doesn't seem like that long, though as I re-read our first post, I realize that we had only two children then -- though looking back I realize miss #3 was, as the saying goes, a gleam in her father's eye right around then. And here we are expecting our fifth to be born within the next few weeks.

I also remember, looking over the first month, that it took a while to get used to thinking in terms of blog posts. I'd find myself struggling for topics, whereas these days topics are no problem, but I struggle for time.

Still, three of those June 2005 posts remain among those I recall as my better ones, and am surprised to realize were written so long ago:

Population & Ideology

Send me your poor...

Your child's disabled?

I think at least once a year since starting I've toyed seriously with dropping blogging, as it's something that's hard to do half-way. It becomes a mentality after a while, with thoughts and observations always coming in the form of post ideas. However, the interaction itself is rather addictive. And I would certainly recommend to anyone with an interesting in writing the habit of writing for public consumption on a near daily basis.

Not just that, but there is a sense in which the virtual world becomes a real community over time. Indeed, some of our close friends locally are people we originally ran into via the blog. And it also allows distant friends to keep tabs on us.

So here's to five years, and I'm sure there will be many more. It's good to know you.

Fertility Morality

Peter Singer (yes, that Peter Singer) has a piece at the New York Times philosophy blog where he tries to grapple with the question of whether it is moral to reproduce. He spends most of the piece laying out arguments as to why we should choose not to have children due to the suffering that live involves, then at the end states (without much explanation) that he doesn't actually support the idea of voluntary extinction through refusal to reproduce because a would without people in it would not be as good -- though he never explains how he reaches this conclusion given what came before.

On the flip side, Jeff Mirus of CatholicCulture.org writes a piece on how Catholics are ready to change the culture because they actually have the theological and philosophical reason to believe that having children is a good thing.

Who shall inherit the earth?

Restin' Up

I do believe that at this point I know the majority of American women who've gone two weeks overdue, so it was rather a surprise to me when my midwife informed me at my 35-week visit last week that I ought to go on quasi-bed-rest because I'm already 1 1/2 cm. dilated and 50% effaced. ("Quasi-bed-rest" is a highly untechnical term that just means "put up your feet for half a day and don't irritate your cervix".) This isn't a long-term deal -- after 36 weeks, she'll deliver at home, but that still means I've got to sit around until Friday. For the first few days this was exciting, but the novelty has quickly worn off. The idea of putting up my feet is appealing, but there's some inherent conflict with my nesting urges. My periods of energy are in the morning and late at night -- the quiet times in the house -- whereas when I really have a strong desire to put up my feet is the mid-day period in which the children desire to charge around the house.

Also, I just can't suspend disbelief enough to think that baby would come this early, or next week, or the week after, or any time before her due date. I'm not feeling it. And yet, when my midwife, with her thirty years of experience, tells me to take it easy, I do start to wonder. And that's the irritating part, because I don't really want to go early, and it's unlikely that I will anyway, but man, it sure would be nice not to be pregnant for 4 1/2 more weeks.

The Rhyming Song

This one's for you, Dad!

More Decline in Detroit

The decline of Detroit holds an odd fascination for me. The abandonment of so much beautiful architecture rips my heart out -- I've longed all my life to live in such houses, and to see them fall into irreparable decay saddens me in a way that the meager offerings of modern housing are incapable of doing. Fortunately, the WSJ reliably runs a death-of-Detroit piece every few months; today's article is about the urban flight of Detroit's professional black class:

DETROIT—This shrinking city needs to hang on to people like Johnette Barham: taxpaying, middle-class professionals who invest in local real estate, work and play downtown, and make their home here.

Ms. Barham just left. And she's not coming back.

In seven years as a homeowner in Detroit, she endured more than 10 burglaries and break-ins at her house and a nearby rental property she owned. Still, she defied friends' pleas to leave as she fortified her home with locks, bars, alarms and a dog.

Then, a week before Christmas, someone torched the house and destroyed almost everything she owned.

In March, police arrested a suspect in connection with the case, someone who turned out to be remarkably easy to find. For Ms. Barham, the arrest came one crime too late. "I was constantly being targeted in a way I couldn't predict, in a way that couldn't be controlled by the police," she says. "I couldn't take it anymore."

Ms. Barham's journey from diehard to defector illustrates the precarious state of Detroit today. The city—which has shed roughly 1 million residents since the 1950s—is now losing the African-American professionals who had stayed steadfastly, almost defiantly, loyal.

Through decades of white flight and economic distress, these diehards have sustained the city's cultural institutions and allowed prime neighborhoods such as Indian Village and Palmer Woods to stave off the blight that infects large swaths of Detroit.

Today, frustrated by plummeting property values and high crime, many diehards have hit their breaking point. Their exodus is consigning borderline neighborhoods to full-blown blight and putting prime residential areas at risk. By some estimates, this year's Census will show a population drop of 150,000 people from the 951,000 people who lived within city limits in 2000. That would be roughly double the population loss in the 1990s, when black, middle-class flight began replacing white flight as the prevailing dynamic.

There are other signs the middle class is throwing in the towel. From 1999 to 2008, median household income in Detroit dropped nearly 25% to $28,730, after growing 17% in the 1990s, according to Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit that analyzes Census data for the city. Over that period, the proportion of owner-occupied homes fell to 39% from 49%, while the proportion of vacant homes nearly tripled to 28%.

A serious problem? A police force so understaffed and busy with major crime that petty theft, break-ins, and even arson fall through the cracks. Architecture is one thing, but how can any city survive if the people who pay the taxes don't feel safe enough to live there?

Seven Quick Takes

(Joint Post Edition)

1. Tycho Brahe was one of the great astronomers of the 16th century, a contemporary of Galileo and Kepler, and an all-around colorful character. He lost part of his nose in a duel, and had a metal prosthetic made (reportedly embellished with gold and silver) which he wore in its place. He is also reported to have had a tippling pet moose:

Lantgrave Wilhelm of Kassel in Germany, with whom Tycho Brahe had an extensive mail correspondence and astronomical discussions, asked Tycho in a letter 1591 about an animal he had heard about called "Rix", which was faster than a deer, but with smaller horns. Tycho replied that such an animal did not exist, but maybe he meant the norwegian animal called reindeer. Tycho wrote that he would check further details about such animals and if he could perhaps send one. He wrote that he had a young moose, that he could send if the Lantgrave would like. The Lantgrave replied that he had owned reindeers before but they had died of the heat, he also had a moose, which was tame and followed him like a dog. He would gladly accept a tame moose from Tycho, and would in such case reward Tycho with a riding horse for the trouble.

Tycho replies that he would order additional moose, and he would have sent his tame one, had it not died shortly before. It had been transported to the castle of Landskrona, a city close to Hven, to entertain a nobleman there. But it had happened that during the dinner, the moose had ascended the castle stairs and drunk of the beer in such amounts, that it had fallen down the stairs, and broken a leg. Despite the best care, the moose had died shortly thereafter. [source]

However, the most famous story about Tycho regards his death, and comes to us from his friend and fellow astronomy Kepler: Tycho had attended a banquet in Prague for the emperor Rudolph II, whom he served as imperial mathematician. The etiquette of the day required that none of the guests rise until the emperor did -- a stricture which Tycho followed despite having drunk deeply and suffering acutely from the call of nature. When he got home, he found he couldn't urinate, though he was in great pain. Nor was he able to for several days. When at last he was able to urinate a bit, it was tinged with blood. He died of a fever (with severe lower abdominal pain) several days later.

This would make Tycho the perfect warning to children reluctant to go to the bathroom before leaving for car trips, except that modern autopsies suggest that he may actually have died from mercury poisoning, perhaps from a medicine that he took to help his bladder ailment. (Darwin)

2. We had a chance to go see the movie Babies last week, and it was just good. Though the focus is mainly on the babies (natch), I couldn't help but observe what glimpses you got of the parents as seen through the eyes of a baby. I was struck by the unstudied beauty of the Mongolian and African mother, and, in the case of the Japanese mother, how meaningless trendy strollers and artfully tousled hair and hipper-than-thou clothes are to a baby. I thought the American parents a bit silly, but I suppose in Mongolia there are plenty of mothers who might protest that their babies aren't allowed to wander around farm animals unsupervised. Or, plenty of African families who would object that it's inaccurate to portray African life as a primitive Bronze-Age existence, and that their children aren't raised in the dirt, thank you very much.

But who cares? The point is the babies, and they're worth watching. As a parent, I recognized every moment of this movie. (MrsDarwin)

3. One of the odd sensations of having written a blog for so long is that every so often I'll go look up a post that I remember as being recent and fairly clever, and find to my shock that it was written 3-4 years ago. I had this sensation this week when looking up a post I'd written in praise of amateurs. (Darwin)

4. Darwin and I often encounter situations that leave us shaking our heads and saying, "I'm glad we're us." And here's a fine example of other couples being silly, from a WSJ article about married couples who spat about driving:

Beverly Floyd will never forget the worst argument she ever had with her husband—a fight that saw the couple screaming at each other and hurling insults of "crazy" and "psycho."

A spat about finances? The kids? Work? Nope. It was about which one of them should gas up the car.

The fireworks started when the couple pulled into a service station while on a return leg of a road trip. Already silently fuming that he hadn't offered to do his share of the driving, Ms. Floyd was astounded when her then-boyfriend didn't lift a finger to pump the gas. So she did it herself and paid for it. As she got back into the car, he handed her a $20 bill.

Bad idea. She threw it at him. He tossed it back at her. She ripped it up. He shredded the cash she kept in the ashtray. She ripped up the money in his wallet. All told, they destroyed about $200 in a matter of minutes. (They spent their evening trying to match serial numbers and tape the shredded pieces of money together.)

Well then. Darwin and I aren't given to fighting anyway, but we're both essentially serious enough that I can't see us ripping up legal tender to make a point about the psychological issues underlying who pumps the gas.

5. We all have our strange little hang-ups. One of mine is that I absolutely cannot rest when there is a fly in the house. This is awkward, because one of the favorite activities of my many offspring is standing with the door open trying to decide whether to go in or out. On reaching a decision, they go in the chosen direction, leaving the door open. (On my gravestone it will say, "Shut the door!") Thus, when I get home in the evening, the first thing I have to do (even if dinner is on the table) is take up the fly swatter and hunt down all the interlopers. Time is of the essence, if the sun goes down they don't congregate on the window anymore. (Darwin)

6. If you want to see a master actor at work, catch Alec Guiness playing eight very different roles in the classic Kind Hearts and Coronets. Here he is as three characters in rapid succession.

I really only looked up this clip because we've been cracking ourselves up all night by rasping out, "The enemy emerged from behind the kopje..." I post it for your amusement (except that I find it won't embed -- grr).

NOTE: YouTube and Google are not going to win themselves any fans with this new Google Ads deal clogging up videos.(MrsDarwin)

7. Young master Darwin (21 months) has learned, in rapid succession, how to climb out of his crib and how to open doors. Nothing is safe. There is, however, one approach to getting him down to bed that often works. Give him a doll to protect and his toy lightsaber, and he will often settle down with one under each arm. (Darwin)

Inventing Jesus

Ross Douthat has a good post on his NY Times blog responding to Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece on the search for "the historical Jesus".

James Tabor, a professor of religious studies, in his 2006 book “The Jesus Dynasty,” takes surprisingly seriously the old Jewish idea that Jesus was known as the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier named Pantera—as well attested a tradition as any [emphasis mine — RD], occurring in Jewish texts of the second century, in which a Jesus ben Pantera makes several appearances, and the name is merely descriptive, not derogatory.

The whole problem with two centuries worth of historical Jesus scholarship is summed up in those seven words: “As well attested a tradition as any.” Because obviously if you don’t mind a little supernaturalism with your history, a story about Jesus being a Roman soldier’s bastard that dates from the second century — and late in the second century, at that — is dramatically less “well attested” than the well-known tradition (perhaps you’ve heard of it) that Jesus was born of a virgin married to Joseph the carpenter, which dates from the 70s or 80s A.D. at the latest, when the Gospels of Luke and Matthew were composed. Bracket the question of miracles, and there’s really no comparison: Giving the Roman soldier story equal weight with the accounts in Matthew and Luke is like saying that a tale about Abraham Lincoln that first surfaced in the 1970s has just as much credibility as a story that dates to the 1890s (and is associated with eyewitnesses to Lincoln’s life).

Now of course what Gopnik means by “well attested” is “well attested and non-miraculous,” which is fair enough so far as it goes. But this no-miracles criterion is why the historical Jesus project is such a spectacular dead end — because what would ordinarily be the most historically-credible sources for the life and times of Jesus Christ are absolutely soaked in supernaturalism, and if you throw them out you’re left with essentially idle speculations about Jesus ben Pantera and other phantoms that have no real historical grounding whatsoever.

Think about it this way: If the letters of Saint Paul (the earliest surviving Christian texts, by general consensus) and the synoptic gospels (the second-earliest) didn’t make such extraordinary claims about Jesus’s resurrection, his divinity, and so forth, no credible historian would waste much time parsing second-century apocrypha for clues about the “real” Jesus. They’d thank their lucky stars that the first-century Christians were such talented narrative writers, and spend most of their time trying to reconcile the discrepancies and resolve the contradictions in Matthew, Mark and Luke, while arguing amongst themselves about how much historical weight to give to the events and sayings recorded in John’s gospel. The gospel of Thomas would attract some modest attention; the later “lost gospels,” very little, save as evidence of how intra-Christian debates developed long after Jesus’s death. For the most part, the argument over how the Nazarene lived and died would revolve around competing interpretations of the existing Christian canon, and the rough accuracy of the synoptic narrative would be accepted by the vast majority of scholars. [read the rest]

I read the Gopnik piece a week or two ago and was struck by a similar feeling in regards to the futility of the exercise he was attempting. Gopnik and other secular scholars seem to come to the scriptures with the idea, "Well, we certainly know that Jesus wasn't, so let's throw all that stuff out and see what we can come up with." At that point, you're not really looking, you're inventing.

Smells Like Tight Harmony

For your Thursday. Courtesy of the awesome Embrethiliel at Shredded Cheddar comes a medley for all of us who listened to alternative radio in the '90s: The UC Men's Octet sings Nirvana.



I didn't care one way or the other for Nirvana, but I'd listen to these guys all night.

Enemies No Longer

The American Civil War was the bloodiest in our history, a total war of attrition waged on our own territory, which an at times none to congenial peace. It is, thus, all the more inspiring to read about the reunion which was held at Gettysburg in 1913, celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the war's bloodiest battles. An open invitation was made to all those who had served in either army, north or south, and been honorably discharged, and more than 50,000 men came to the three day event.

Personnel from the United States Army Quartermaster Corps and Engineer Corps arrived at Gettysburg National Military Park in 1912 to plan military and civilian support for the encampment. The engineers surveyed the field adjacent to the fields of "Pickett's Charge" where they laid out the arrangement for "The Great Camp", divided into areas for Union veterans and for Confederate veterans. Soldiers installed utility systems, erected hundreds of tents to house the veterans, built picnic tables, benches, and boardwalks throughout the camp. By the first of June the sprawling Great Camp occupied 280 acres, included 47 1/2 miles of avenues and company streets, was lit by 500 electric arc lights, and 32 bubbling ice water fountains were installed. Over 2,000 army cooks and bakers manned 173 field kitchens, ready to provide three hot meals per day for veterans and camp personnel alike....


The first veterans arrived on June 25 and within days the Great Camp swelled to overflowing. Every veteran was provided a cot and bedding in a tent that would hold eight men. Meals were served from a kitchen at the end of each company street and varied from fried chicken suppers to roast pork sandwiches with ice cream for desert. By the end of the reunion, the army kitchens had supplied over 688,000 meals to reunion participants. Invariably the days were hot and the thermometer topped 102 degrees on July 2. Heat exhaustion and physical fatigue resulted in hospitalization of several hundred veterans. Over 9,980 patients were treated by medical personnel for ailments ranging from heat exhaustion to stomach disorders. Remarkably, only nine veterans passed away during the week-long encampment. Despite the heat and often dusty conditions, nothing could keep the aged men in camp and hundreds wandered the battlefield. Many visited battle sites where they or their comrades had been fifty years before. Confederate veterans especially were pleased to find old cannon mounted on metal carriages to mark the locations where their batteries had been during that fateful battle. Invariably, the presence of khaki-clad US Army personnel caused a lot of excitement. The soldiers were there to guard camp supplies, give demonstrations, and provide services to the veterans who delighted themselves discussing the modern weapons of war. Many an aged veteran was eager to explain how much things had changed in fifty years to any soldier who was handy and army personnel were constantly entertained by the old soldiers at every turn. [source]

One of the major events of the reunion was a reenactment of Pickett's Charge. Confederate veterans assembled to walk the three-quarters-of-a-mile across open fields towards Union lines, retracing the charge which on which fifty years before 12,500 men had set out and suffered 50% casualties. As union veterans watched the men in gray approaching them across the field again, many eyes were far from dry. And as the Confederate veterans approached the wall, their old adversaries broke ranks and came forward to meet them, not with lead and steel this time, but with the embraces of friendship.

You Are A Priest Forever

We just returned from the priestly ordinations for the Diocese of Austin. Our new bishop, Joe Vasquez, ordained seven men, including one of our good friends, Fr. Matthew Kinney. It was a beautiful and moving experience -- Darwin had never been to an ordination before, and I'd only been to one, years ago. The church was absolutely packed almost an hour before Mass began, so many people were eager to attend.

Reading the biographies of the new priests, I found them a fascinating cross-section of the church. Several were late vocations. One knew his vocation in high school and pursued it right away. Two had been married -- one with three children, the other with six. One was from Africa, one from Korea. Some had seen military service. One had worked for Wal-Mart! They bring a breadth of experience and a wealth of grace to the church in central Texas.

Please pray for our new priests in Austin, and that God will continue to send us more vocations of the same caliber as these good men.

Fr. Matthew Kinney
Fr. Adrian Chishimba
Fr. Charlie Garza
Fr. Mark Hamlet
Fr. Wade Russell
Fr. John Kim
Fr. Steve Sauser

In Praise of Late Bloomers

I've been working my way through the first volume of Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative, which I've been enjoying quite a bit. While describing the ups and downs of Lincoln's career (the latter at least as frequent as the former) Foote remarks of the period from age forty to forty-five when Lincoln largely withdrew from public life and focused on his law practice while doing a great deal of reading of "the greats": Lincoln, like many great men, was a late bloomer.

For whatever reason, I always find this kind of thing reassuring. I frequently feel like there's a great deal more that I want to read and understand and write and do, and thus it's encouraging to hear that there's still time. Indeed, that it is unusual, in life, for people to already have their major accomplishments behind them by their forties.

Similarly, whenever I start to let myself get too frustrated about things at work, I recall an article I read a number of years ago which said that years of highest earnings in a man's career are from ages 50 to 55.

Foote himself was something of a late bloomer as a historian, starting his Narrative in his late 30s. The first volume was published when he was 42, and the last when he was 58. And the series did not reach its peak of popularity until he was in his early 70s, when he featured in Ken Burns' Civil War documentaries. Reading a little about Foote, I was particularly amused by this anecdote:

Foote labored to maintain his objectivity in the narrative despite his Southern upbringing. He deliberately avoided Lost Cause mythologizing in his work. He gained immense respect for such disparate figures as Ulysses Grant, William T. Sherman, Patrick Cleburne, and Edwin Stanton. He grew to despise such figures as Phil Sheridan and Joe Johnston. He considered United States President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest to be two authentic geniuses of the war. He stated this opinion once in conversation with one of General Forrest's granddaughters. She replied, after a pause, "You know, we never thought much of Mr. Lincoln in my family."

St. Francis de Sales on Anger

" Humble goodness is the virtue of virtues, very highly recommended by Our Lord. Hence we should practice it always and everywhere. Evil must be avoided, but calmly. Good must be done, but always serenely. Follow this rule: that which you can see be done in charity, do; what cannot be done without dispute, do not do. In other words, peace and tranquility of soul must always take preference over all actions."

"If possible, never become angry and always reject any pretext for allowing anger to gain admission to your heart, for once it has entered, you will no longer be able to banish it when you desire, or moderate it. If, however, you find that because of your weakness it has gained a foothold in your heart, summon all your will power and see that you set your heart at peace. But you must do so serenely, never violently."

"The means of overcoming anger are: 1. Forestall such feelings as much as possible, or at least banish them at once by thinking of something else. 2. In imitation of the Apostles when the storm arose on the sea, have recourse to God, Who will restore peace to your heart. 3. While you are boiling, do not talk nor offer any opposition concerning the point in question. 4. Strive to be humble and courteous towards the person with whom you feel angry, especially if he has shown resentment in any way.''

Too Hot To Handle

There is little more dull than hearing others recite their perceived slights, and so I was at first unsure if I should bother posting about this. Still, it may be very mildly interesting to others, and as a cached browser managed to return to me that which I had strongly believed to have been lost, I thought I might as well get a post out of the situation.

Blogger David Wheeler has a post the other day over at Vox Nova, in which he talked about the difficulties he had as the liaison between his parish council and the Cincinnati Archdiocese on "green" topics.

I don’t know why, but my parish approached me last year about becoming the parish liaison between our parish council committee and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Task Force on Climate Change. I guess it had something to do with the fact that I drive a Prius and use Buckeye Eco-Care on my lawn. But, honestly, I don’t know…

After a few meetings in Cincinnati, I finally had the opportunity to report back to our parish about what we as a parish are being asked to do about global warming by the hierarchy in the Church.

The gist is that several people on the parish council reacted very negatively to the diocese's suggestion that they become a flagship "green" parish, with solar panels, etc. Wheeler was frustrated that there was so much opposition to this, as he sees the command to be good stewards of the earth as a moral one.

Having spent time on a parish council, and feeling like I was able to give a fair approximation of why more conservative Catholics had trouble with the green=moral line of thinking, I left the following comment, and received the following response:

DarwinCatholic says:

May 26, 2010 at 12:43 pm

David,

FWIW, I would imagine that for many on the parish council who objected to the idea of being a “flagship green parish”, it seemed to them that that recommendation represented a tendency to focus on politics rather than morality. (And yes, I agree that the “how about if we frame greenness as supporting our troops” idea was downright moronic.)

As for why many “conservative” Catholics are not more eager to lead in applying environmentalism and other social teachings — and speaking as something of an insider to the conservative approach in this case — I think it has a lot to do with people finding it hard to envision environmentalism in the sort of moral terms they are used to. What most Catholics active in their parish are concerned about are basics of personal morality: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cheat, don’t use violence unjustly, don’t have sex before marriage, don’t get divorced, don’t commit adultery, don’t use porn, don’t use birth control, don’t have an abortion, etc. The moral framing of these rules is simple and clear: Action X is wrong because it violates natural and moral principle Y.

Environmental concerns seem harder to fit into that kind of formulation, especially because they seem so relative. So using rechargeable batteries is “more moral” than using one-use ones. But is it even more moral simply not to use the sound system? Does plugging in and recharging the batteries really use much less resources than buying new ones? Is using a solar panel more moral than using the electric grid? Is just setting the A/C to 80 instead of 76 better than using the solar panels, since after all building solar panels themselves is a messy and energy consuming process, which the panels themselves may not actually prevent enough pollution to justify?

These are all very relative trade-off discussions, and so while I think you would probably get little disagreement from most conservative Catholics that “be good stewards of God’s creation” is a moral law, most would not tend to see the choice between disposeable and rechargeable batteries as a moral choice, with one option being sinful and the other virtuous.

I think also, for political reasons, people are often concerned that there’s something very mee-too-ish about showy “green” measures by churches. Almost as if to say to a segment of society, “Sure, I know you disapprove of what we say about marriage and birth control and abortion — but look, we’ll be pretty quiet about that and talk about solar panels instead! Do we fit in now?”

---------------------
drdwheelerreed says:

May 26, 2010 at 1:04 pm

Good thoughts DarwinCatholic… but this brings me back to what my colleague said, “If we Catholic would’ve just obeyed our Scriptural mandate to take care of the earth… then these discussion would be irrelevant… we wouldn’t even be having them…”

David

Later in the day, when I checked back, I saw the above, plus a number of other comments, including several from a conservative commenter questioning whether there was in fact a scientific consensus over global warming, and Wheeler's responses to those comments, which cited Al Gore's writing several times. I left the following reply:

DarwinCatholic says:

May 26, 2010 at 5:16 pm

but this brings me back to what my colleague said, “If we Catholic would’ve just obeyed our Scriptural mandate to take care of the earth… then these discussion would be irrelevant… we wouldn’t even be having them…”

Well, this assumes a couple of things. For instance, I doubt that many people say, “If I thought we had a duty to take care of the earth, I would do so, but since we don’t I’m going to actively work to trash it.” Most people probably argue that they do a moderately good job of taking care of the earth, and it’s not entirely clear that some of the most popular “green” activities (building wind farms, putting up solar panels, driving hybrids) are necessarily less hard on the environment than simply using less. For instance, though China has an absolutely terrible record in regards to pollution (example) the fact that China is overall much poorer than the US means that the average Chinese actually has far less impact on the environment than the average US environmentalist. And similarly, Al Gore’s lifestyle is much more polluting than mine — though he buys “carbon offsets” and I don’t.

Nor is human impact on the environment a result only of technology. Humans were pretty clearly responsible for the extinction of a large number of species in Europe, America and Australia in the period 20-40 thousand years ago, and the combination of deforestation and soil exhaustion is believed to be a major cause of the “dark age” at the end of the Bronze Age around 1000 BC.

“And Global warming IS the scientific consensus.”

False.

That has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond scientific scrutiny.

I think, Theresa, one can certainly argue about how much of global warming is actually caused by human activity (rather than natural cycles), to what extent continuing emissions trends will actually impact the climate (or whether natural dampening factors will kick in), and to what extent the amounts of change that we are likely, as a society, to be able to achieve would make any difference in the trend. However, I don’t think we can really deny that there is a scientific consensus, at this time, among those in the field, that global warming is real.

That said, scientific consensus and reality do not have a one to one correlation by any stretch, and many environmental advocates (Al Gore very much an offender in this regard) tend to distort the scientific consensus in order to make it more exciting and serve their own ends.

As you can clearly see, something is going on… something is causing the snow and ice to melt.

This is DATA, what used to be accepted among critical thinkers as FACTS! Today, opinion has become God, and facts, well… I guess we don’t use Reason anymore… maybe we don’t even use Faith…

The point is… you can disagree with global warming, but you’ve got to come up with an alternative to why glaciers are melting… and you’ve got to come up with an alternative as to what we’re going to do about it!

While your passion is admirable, it is at times the argument of amateurs that gives a movement a bad name. For instance, in regards to questions like “Why are the glaciers melting” someone can simply point out that through the majority of the history of life on earth there have not been glaciers. We are, still, at a period of abnormally high glaciation compared to Earth’s overall norm — an interglacial period in an ice age. And Earth has, at times, sustained CO2 levels significantly higher than what we currently have, with no damage to it as a planet. Compared to other disasters that have afflicted life on this planet (Permian/Triassic extinctions, KT impact, etc.) the effects of human civilization on this planet are as nothing.

Further, some popular environmentalists (such as Al Gore) tend to make statements about weather effects and speed of climate change which are drastically out of keeping with anything the IPCC puts out. For instance, claims that “catastrophic weather” has gotten worse because of global warming are very, very hard to sustain by any real data.

What should, however, concern people is not that we will destroy “the planet” but that our civilization as currently organized relies on the earth’s climate patterns not changing very much, regardless of whether than change is natural or anthropocentric. Comparatively sudden changes could result in widespread displacement or hunger, if they came, regardless of their origin. But the planet, qua planet, will be just fine.

Several hours later, both of those comments of mine had been deleted, and the thread closed, though oddly enough his reply to me remains in place. I'm not really sure why the comments suddenly were perceived to cross that threshold over which blog owners feel they cannot allow people to tread. But if nothing else it does certainly seem to be an example of how touchy people can become once they start demanding that people "look at the facts" and explain them.

Orphan Openings: The Unequal Marriage

Few would have disputed that Maria-Lucia was one of the most beautiful girls in the village, with fine, dark hair, delicate features, skin like new-skimmed cream, and full lips that smiled often, showing even teeth. As she neared womanhood, the legs and arms which had been merely thin assumed the subtle curves which drew men's eyes, and her waist and bosom the less subtle curves that held them. Yet she had no pretensions about her, was quiet and dutiful towards her elders and devout to just such a degree as to seem a "good girl", but without excess. And so there was surprisingly little jealousy directed towards her, until the time of her marriage.

Her offense, when it came, was not of the usual and forgivable sort. Had she married a rich old man, heads would have nodded indulgently as they observed that she was very pretty after all, and from a poor family, and so who would blame her? Many voices would have "hoped she would be happy." Similar hopes would have been expressed had she married one of the more attractive young men -- hopefully in the sort of hurried fashion which would allow people to meditate with satisfaction that beauty was not an unmixed blessing, and be thankful for their own daughters' virtue.

Opinion was, thus, outraged to see itself defied when Maria married Giuseppe. He was a quiet man, five years her senior, with no living family left. His farm was small and his looks were plain almost to the point of ugliness, with very large ears and nose, and a mouth that drooped as if sad, though when he spoke it almost always with cheer and kindness. His hair was naturally disordered, his skin burnt brown with many days under the sun, his shoulders slightly stooped, his arms long and his pace very slightly shuffling, such that when they were first seen entering the parish church together after the marriage (which had been small, with only the families and a few friends in attendance) one sharp tongue remarked afterward, "With his looks next to hers, it looked as if he were a pet ape moping along behind her."

Though the marriage had seemed sudden enough -- or at least, if they had spent much time together in the months beforehand, few had marked it -- few could imagine it was because of necessity, save for a few who darkly muttered that she must have come to grief with a man who wouldn't marry her, and only Giuseppe would take her in that condition. Time, however, proved this not to be the case. There was, of course, speculation that she must be unhappy. And that fall Giuseppe found more than the usual number of young men coming to see if he needed hired laborers for the harvest -- though if he suspected that they had actually come in hopes of finding his wife eager for other male company around the farm, he gave no definite sign of the knowledge as he turned them away.

Though Giuseppe's farm was no more remote than most, they were treated almost as if they lived on the other side of the river, in La Rocca, and if they were mentioned at all it was with the observation, "But surely the children will be ugly."

But that was not in fact to be the case.

A Frank Breech of Trust, revisited.

No, baby #5 is not breech, thank God! She seems to be firmly head down here at 33 1/2 weeks. But, for whatever reason, the post I put up in 2008 about Jack being breech is one of our biggest Google hits, so I'm reposting it for whoever is out there looking for info on breech babies.

So we're at 36 weeks now. Everything is in readiness for the home birth. I've got my kit, I've packed all the supplies I need where the midwives can find them easily, I've cleaned my room and the bathroom. We're all set except for one thing: baby has flipped breech.

The problem with this is that these days, not so many people want to deliver a breech baby vaginally. My midwife, with almost thirty years' experience, has only assisted at three or four breech births. Doctors are reluctant to allow vaginal breech births because of the slight risk of the cord getting pinched and cutting off oxygen to the baby -- and I'll grant that, if it happens to your baby, the statistics on the low incidence of occurrence mean nothing. So we're looking at opposite ends of the medical intervention spectrum -- if baby flips head-down, we can have a home birth; if he stays breech, we have to go to the hospital and have a c-section. Needless to say, I'm rooting for the former.


It turns out there are various methods for encouraging a baby to rotate, one of which is for the mother to lay pretty much upside down. This is about as uncomfortable as it looks (though less uncomfortable than a c-section, I keep telling myself). The awkward part is not in maintaining the position for twenty minutes at a time, but in getting into it in the first place. Baby does respond, especially when I put a bag of ice on his head to encourage him to wriggle away up toward the pelvis. (Image from SpinningBabies.com)

Other low-intervention methods include massage, chiropractic adjustment (though my friends tell me that no chiropractor will see you without an x-ray, which seems counterproductive in this case), acupuncture, and swimming. I have a massage scheduled for this weekend, and I'm going to need it after laying on my neck and shoulders for twenty minutes at a stretch. I also have an appointment with a doctor to discuss external version, should the at-home fixes fail. This involves the doctor rotating the baby from the outside, sounds to be quite painful ("Like ligaments tearing," the midwife suggested), and needs to be done after 37 weeks in a hospital with ultrasound monitoring in case baby gets tangled up in his cord and needs an immediate c-section. I'm praying we don't have to take it that far.

UPDATE 1/27/10: This post seems to get a lot of traffic from people searching for information about breech babies, so I'll let you know how it turned out: Acupunture and massage, though relaxing, did nothing for me. Nor did hanging upside down or floating in water. In the end I went in at 37 weeks for a version. It was successful and amazingly fast -- I'm still talking about it a year and a half later. Since this was my fourth, my muscles were sufficiently relaxed for the OB to get a good grip.

The version wasn't painless, but I didn't find it agonizing. He had to grab pretty deep to get under baby, and I had to consciously breathe and keep my muscles relaxed. But it went by quickly, and at the end I had a head-down baby!

Jack was born at home on 9/11/08.