Back in the day, at my blog New Covenant, I would periodically run a set of posts highlighting various current events or issues at hand, known as Rusty Nails. Similar to Mark’s Things Heard and Doug’s Friday Link Wrap-Up, I’ll be starting up a Stones Cry Out version of Rusty Nails.

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I’m looking through you. So, Sir Paul is happy to have a President who knows what a library is? Has Sir Paul become a U.S. citizen or is he simply giving us some unsolicited opinion? Anyway, maybe our current President knows what a library is, but he also thought:  we have 58 states, Switzerland has its own language, England and the U.K. are interchangeable, the word “Orion” is pronounced “Ore-EEon”, the U.S. constitution was written 22 centuries ago, the word “corpsman” is pronounced “corpse-man”, and… Please, Paul, stick to singing.

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Why do I need to learn math, after all, I’ll NEVER use it! Maybe. Or maybe not. It seems that 20% of borrowers with poor math skills experienced foreclosure, while only 5% of those with strong math skills did.

The inability to perform simple mathematical calculations is likely to negatively impact a borrower’s ability to manage a household budget. In addition, such an inability may adversely affect the borrower’s ability to choose the appropriate type of mortgage given his or her current financial status and expected future financial situation. Both of these scenarios would likely put a borrower at risk of falling behind on his or her mortgage.

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Well, then, take a numeracy quiz. Better yet, have your children take the quiz.

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What happens when the populace has more guns? 14,000,000 guns sold in the U.S. in 2009.

I think I’m going to start calling myself a progressive. If one labels place on the axis regarding social or cultural change … progressives want to move away from the status quo toward something new, conservatives are cautious about movement along that axis, and reactionaries also want cultural change … but back toward a past relationship. Conservatives in that light are at the zero point, the origin of a generic “social movement” metric. This is (in the light of prior discussion) not a “retconning” of the definition of progressive, reactionary, and conservative but indeed the standard ones. However it might be noted that in popular parlance, progressive and conservative have come to mean ill-defined but definite political party affiliations … and this is not the usage of these words I am applying here. The other meaning however is also well known and common and I don’t think there are really any alternatives words to use in their place.

Sometime past the topic of Honor/Shame cultures came up in a more sympathetic setting than I had experienced before. I think the so-called ‘conventional wisdom’ regarding H/S cultures is a confused message from the liberal academic establishment. The conventional wisdom is that their treatment of woman (and gays) is appalling and that life in these societies is horrible. Our news services flood us with messages giving us a feeling of superiority regarding our culture, with stories of older men marrying or abusing pre-teen and young women. Yet as was pointed out what is missing in those stories are numbers and any sense of comparison of different flaws which appear in our own society. That is to say, that yes, while women suffer some problems in those societies that is not necessarily the norm but that these are outliers or abuses that appear at the edges. On the other hand, in our society rape, murder, suicide and mental illnesses like depression which are apparently far rarer in those societies and serve the similar role of outliers and breakdowns at the edges of our society. The upshot is that if one sets aside these two sets of outliers people in the Western individualistic society are wealthier people in H/S/non-individualistic cultures are happier. Read the rest of this entry

Cities across the United States are officially boycotting the state of Arizona. Presumably because of its recently enacted state law, which enforces Federal law regarding alien status in our country. In Berkeley, a group of UC Berkeley students engaged in a hunger strike, ostensibly to force university administration to sanction illegal activity with the confines of the campus. It is, indeed, interesting to note this excerpt from the post,

Their initial protest target was Arizona’s new immigration law, which requires police to stop and question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.

No, the AZ law does not require police to stop anyone they suspect is here illegally. Consider this audio clip of an Arizona sheriff, regarding high speed pursuits during the past month.

The new AZ law is widely supported throughout the country, so one has to wonder why so many city governments are shoving their liberal views down the throats of their constituents?

Rest assured, politics is at play here. Is it no wonder, then, that we have Nancy Pelosi instructing clergy what to tell their congregants?

From a comment:

In Mark’s post-modern relativistic world it appears almost impossible for anyone on the right to say anything untrue. Likewise there’s almost nothing Obama can say that can’t be ret-conned into a lie.

In the above, the accusation leveled at myself is likely a charge made reflexively whenever Mr Boonton (or likely any number of interlocutors from the left) sees someone on the right suggesting that a phrase or word can be taken in more than one way. This is noted in the wake of the particular history of post-modernism/quasi-Derridan theories of language and as a result of the rejection of the same by conservatives. The ironic thing here is that the accusation of this sort attempts to at the same time defend relativism, i.e., multiple meanings while at the same time force a particular meaning to be established.

Foucault and Derrida, as is my understanding, suggest that fixing and setting the meaning of words and phrases, fixing the primary hermenuetic if you will, is an act of power and that furthermore there is no intrinsic meanings for things beyond being an expression of power. While this is undoubtedly a simplification at the same time has the problem of getting the matter exactly wrong.

Meanings are fixed … but their particular assignment to particular words is not. When one says something the intention, the meaning is the one thing which is fixed and not a thing captured or expressed fundamentally in and via particular words. The act of speaking and then of hearing is a distortion on the original meaning (or web of meanings) which is being expressed. Conversation is one aid to the exercise of transmitting this which allows one to correct and refine the transmission. This is of course an exercise made more complicated by the fact that the idea reflected back is itself distorted by the act of expression by the receiver. If speaking is a lossy transmission of one’s thought to another. When you converse and try to get your meaning across, discussion is the act of trying to correct the image of your idea into another’s mind through the quadruple layers of distortion (thought -> spoken words then perceived words -> thoughts with a reflection).

What perchance does this have to do with the title selected for this particular essay? Well, in our political discourse peculiar (particular?) assumptions are made about what phrases mean which are normally misinterpreted by the other side and which make our discourse more contentious than it would normally be. One of the common irritants between parties then aligns along the continual frustration which this engenders. One says a thing to express one idea and by the other’s reaction and comments it is clearly misunderstood. Furthermore as one clarifies and attempts to more clearly state and restate the original point one either gets nowhere or the act of restatement is interpreted as an attempt at “changing” what one originally said.

Regarding the incident, at a Morgan Hill high school, in which several students were told they couldn’t wear shirts with the American Flag on Cinco de Mayo, Roger Ebert gives us this Leftish bit of wisdom,

Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July.

Or maybe not.

Via HotAir, NY mayor, and staunch anti-gun proponent, Michael Bloomberg recently speculated* that the bomber was someone upset about the healthcare [sic] bill. From the article,

Law enforcement officials don’t know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but at this point the Mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

“If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that,” Bloomberg said. “Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

Yet word comes in that Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, has been arrested after he attempted to flee to Dubai.

No word yet on whether any Tea Partiers were involved.

* actually, “speculate” is too generous.

Headline from Yahoo! News, Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. law. (see snapshot below)

In my opinion, before we demonize those who simply wish to enforce U.S. law, we should ask ourselves whether or not the U.S. law in question, as referenced by Doug, is just or unjust. If it is unjust, then we have no moral obligation to follow it. If it is just, then we have the moral obligation to follow it in a civil, rational manner.

From the New Mexico Independent, Tea partiers “predisposed to intolerance,” University of Washington study says.

A new study of race and politics released this week by the University of Washington reveals insight into how supporters of the tea party movement—the vast majority of whom are white—view blacks and Hispanics.

I’m wondering if the Left really is as scared of the Tea Partiers as the media paints them out to be. Still, you’ve got to wonder why people-of-color, in the Tea Party movement, are too stupid to see how intolerant the vast majority of whites they mingle with are. Nothing like race baiting.

And seriously, who still falls for the self-defeating tactic of name-calling someone, or group, as “intolerant”?

An interesting contrast of how the media covered two different protests (apologies to the media cameraman who intentionally shook his camera).

In Arizona, if you are a law abiding citizen, you will soon have the same rights as criminals. Governor Jan Brewer recently signed into law a bill which will allow people without a permit to carry a concealed weapon (i.e., a gun). The law, which should take effect in July or August, allows people to forgo the background checks and classes currently required for a concealed carry weapon permit. Arizona now joins Alaska and Vermont as the only states to allow concealed carry without a permit.

In other words, law abiding citizens, concerned with their own self defense, can now do what criminals ALREADY do! – namely – walk around armed.

Jim Finnegan, writing in the Naples (Florida) News, was responding to some folks who had commented on his original article on the Catholic Church priest child abuse cases.  Apparently, some folks read his words and though he was saying something directly opposite to them.  In his follow-up, he first had to give the obligatory disclaimers that he’s not excusing anyone, but he quoted some information that puts this all in perspective.

Charol Shakeshaft, a researcher of a little remembered 2004 study for the U.S. Department of Eduction [sic] on the physical sexual abuse of students in schools, pointed out " the physical sexual abuse of students in schools, is likely more than 100 times the abuse of Priests." I am sure this is easy to Google for the entire study should you wish.

Shakeshaft also pointed out that "nearly 9.6% of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometimes durin [sic] their school career." Creditable accounts of Priestly abuse occured [sic] from but 1.7% of the total Priests in the U.S. Thankfully, Shakeshaft’s study is now being revisited by news commentators seeking to restore some sense of proportion to the media’s aggressive coverage of the Catholic Church.

While Priestly sex abuse can never be mitigated by these figures, they do point out the gross imbalance, and bring question to the motives of the news media that are pouring resources into digging up decades old dirt on the Church. Sadly,the nerative [sic] that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure now the safest environment for young people in America today

Aside from Finnegan’s need for a spell checker, this does point out a stark double standard in play, by both liberals and the media (apologies for the repetition).  Just going by numbers, you’d think there would be more coverage about abuse in schools, which (if you don’t homeschool) have a mandatory attendance requirement, vs. church, which is entirely voluntary.  Not to mention the fact that the school abuse continues while…

The facts show that Priestly sex abuse is a phenomenon that spiked in the mid 1960’s into the 1980’s. This at the time that the "anything goes" sexual revolution began. These are the old cases that the media has chosen to resurrect in their recent attacks on the Church.

Again, none of this should be construed as excusing anyone of these horrible deeds.  But a little perspective is in order, and the media, since it goes against "the narrative", is simply not providing it. 

A passage I read some time ago in Bruce Malina’s book (The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels) which considers anthropological research and its implications for New Testament hermeneutics and reading has been resurfacing on occasion over the last few weeks. I haven’t got it at hand for an exact quote, but basically it goes along with TANSTAAFL and some of the trade-offs we in our culture fail to acknowledge, in fact if correct, also points out some of the denial implicit in our coverage and reporting on Middle Eastern and, well, other cultures.

Here is the statement. Honor/Shame societies, which describe the culture in which 70% of the world exists today have a number of obvious contrasts with Western liberal societies. As we have seen in the last few centuries, market driven liberal societies have enormous capacity for economic growth when compared to honor/shame societies. However, TANSFAAFL comes into play. People in general are happier in an honor/shame environment. Suicide is markedly decreased and as well murder, rape and other such crimes of personal violence are far less common.

Our reporting today highlights and focuses on incidents of child marriage and abuse, the rapes and honor killings of close clan and family members over events which in our society be not an outrage. What they miss within our society (apparently) overall levels of murder and rape and likely even incest are far lower … as well as suicide and mental illnesses.

So, should I research this further? Find the quote, check his references, and dig for backup independent statistics? Or (what is more likely) even if true it wouldn’t matter. Well?