No, really.

Americans overall are far less likely to be killed with a firearm than they were when it was much more difficult to obtain a concealed-weapons permit, according to statistics collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control. But researchers have not been able to establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

In the 1980s and ’90s, as the concealed-carry movement gained steam, Americans were killed by others with guns at the rate of about 5.66 per 100,000 population. In this decade, the rate has fallen to just over 4.07 per 100,000, a 28 percent drop. The decline follows a fivefold increase in the number of “shall-issue” and unrestricted concealed-carry states from 1986 to 2006.

The highest gun homicide rate is in Washington, D.C., which has had the nation’s strictest gun-control laws for years and bans concealed carry: 20.50 deaths per 100,000 population, five times the general rate. The lowest rate, 1.12, is in Utah, which has such a liberal concealed weapons policy that most American adults can get a permit to carry a gun in Utah without even visiting the state.

This isn’t from some right-wing news source, this is from MSNBC, for cryin’ out loud. (But you have to wait until the last page of the article to get the above paragraphs and the link to the stats and comparative graphs.  This is MSNBC, after all.)

Here in Georgia, the town of Kennesaw passed a law that every head of household must own a gun.  It is not one that is enforced, but the law went on the books in 1982.  Crime started to go down, and 25 years later the crime rate was cut by more than half, with zero residents involved in fatal shootings.  Worth considering.

From George Weigel at First Things:

The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by teachers to rape by uncles to kidnapping-and-sex-trafficking. In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse. Forty to sixty percent were abused by family members, including stepfathers and live-in boyfriends of a child’s mother—thus suggesting that abused children are the principal victims of the sexual revolution, the breakdown of marriage, and the hook-up culture. Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft reports that 6-10 percent of public school students have been molested in recent years—some 290,000 between 1991 and 2000. According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priests—a phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops’ annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members).

Yet in a pattern exemplifying the dog’s behavior in Proverbs 26:11, the sexual abuse story in the global media is almost entirely a Catholic story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young, with hints of an ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today. That the vast majority of the abuse cases in the United States took place decades ago is of no consequence to this story line. For the narrative that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today) than it is about taking the Church down—and, eventually, out, both financially and as a credible voice in the public debate over public policy.

I guess one question would be, if the Pope’s fair game, why not the US Secretary of Education?  If not, why not?

Saturday night my wife and I went to the symphony. One of the pieces we heard was Symphony no. 4 by Sergei Prokofiev. In the program notes, one of the things we were informed about this symphony was that it borrowed heavily from an earlier work a ballet entitled The Prodigal Son. Furthermore we were informed that the third movement borrowed from a section of the ballet which introduced (for sex appeal) a seductive dance by a female dancer/love interest, added to the story to increase popularity apparently. So when the the third movement came around, I was expecting seductive or melodic patterns that would fit a seductive dance. Yet I got a surprise. The third movement, to my ears, was quirky humorous and, well, goofy. To my minds eye, the exotic dance would feature a grinning minx with strident makeup, mismatched pigtails, a flouncy dress, and a puckish grin and attitude.

Here’s my point. While this is on occasion what I might find captivating and perhaps seductive … I think of myself unusual in this regard. I’ll freely admit, for example, in the Magic Flute, I’m more interested in the Popageno/Popagena love story than Tamino/Pamina story. What do you think of humor and puckish elements as part of seduction?

My name is Jim and I am a coffeeholic. Yes I do love coffee, and although I enjoy the various combination drinks at Starbucks, I regularly enjoy a good, rich, dark roast.

Since I’ve begun working in environmental stewardship, I’ve been learning more about not just what makes good coffee, but what makes coffee good–as in fair and just, a positive impact on those who grow it, and gentle on the environment. But all of the labels–such as shade-grown, fair-trade, and bird-friendly–have been confusing to me, as they may be to you.

A post on coffee and community at the Flourish Blog is very helpful in sorting out how individuals and churches can make coffee hour a truly redemptive time.

On the church coffee hour, it reads:

The church coffee hour is already a ministry—a time of fellowship, connection, and service for people who need the love of God and the love of our brothers and sisters. Drinking conscientiously-produced coffee and tea simply extends that ministry to brothers and sisters we may not be able to meet and greet, but who are no less deserving of love and justice. When this service is viewed as a ministry, and not just a perk or an expectation, options open up for making it work.

Check it out.

From the New Mexico Independent. Actually, the headline reads,

Anti-gay marriage bill dies in committee

An excerpt,

An attempt to define marriage as between on [sic] man and one woman failed in the Senate Rules Committee Monday by a vote of 5-2.

It is indeed interesting to see how clarifying the definition of marriage, as being between one man and one woman, is twisted into being an anti-gay stance.

I suppose, to be fair, we should consider the proposed bill to also be anti-polygamy, since it referred to marriage between only one man and one woman. Perhaps the bill is anti-child as it excludes children from the equation. Anti-species? After all, there may be some individuals interested in marrying one of their pets. And, for all those narcissists out there, the bill is certainly anti-self since it would prohibit one from marrying themselves.

Joe Carter tells us, “No, Your Kid Can’t Paint Like Jackson Pollock”.

If this is a good representation of paintings [sic] by Jackson Pollock, then my reply would be:

Thank God!

The city of Chicago, in 1982, decided to forgo the Bill of Rights and banned law-abiding citizens from owning handguns. Otis McDonald, a 76 year-old resident of Chicago, appealed the law, claiming it left him vulnerable to criminals – criminals who, not surprisingly, ignore the gun ban. Currently, the Supreme Court is reviewing the appeal, with most analysts expecting a ruling on the side of the 2nd Amendment.

Starbucks will continue to allow law-abiding citizens to open-carry firearms while on their premises. Open-carry is the act of carrying a firearm on your person in a manner in which the firearm is not concealed. Were you aware that some states allow their law-abiding citizens to openly carry loaded firearms in certain public places?

On February 22nd, concealed carry of firearms, by law-abiding citizens, was reinstated in National Parks throughout the United States (subject to state laws concerning concealed carry). Concealed carry is the act of carrying a firearm on your person in a manner in which the firearm is hidden from view.

Are we seeing a trend?

Let’s assume that we all have the right to defend ourselves (the right to self-defense) if we, or our loved ones, are being attacked. Considering that the 2nd amendment gives law-abiding citizens the right to be armed, does it follow that such a condition (of having the right to self-defense) is permissible outside the confines of one’s own home?

Note that the stories I linked to, above, pertain to the actions of law-abiding citizens. Restricting the actions of the people, by law, only limits the actions of those who choose to follow said law (i.e., law-abiding citizens). Criminals, by their very nature, have always ignored the law – hence, that’s why they are criminals.

If you take a look at virtually all mass-shootings, you will note that they occur in “gun-free” zones (e.g., schools, military installations). You think there’s a reason for that? Doesn’t it make sense that, if Chicago bans guns, the criminal mind will think, “easy pickin’s”? Doesn’t it make sense that, if Starbucks allows open carry on its premises, the criminal mind will think, “um… not here, not now”? Doesn’t it make sense that, if concealed carry is allowed in National Parks, the criminal mind will think, “I wonder if that person is armed”?

As a gang-banger in Buffalo said, when asked what could be done to curtail the spike in homicides,

Buy a gun.

Yet gun hysteria remains.

New Mexico recently passed legislation regarding concealed carry in restaurants that served beer and wine. In a forum, at the New Mexico Independent, concerns were expressed over the fear of mixing alcohol and firearms. Yes, a good concern; and would restricting law-abiding citizens from carrying prevent law breakers from doing so? Forget the criminals, would we be safe from off-duty law enforcement officers in bars?

So, while al Qaeda praises the actions of the Fort Hood killer, we suspend a kindergartner for the dastardly crime of making a gun gesture with his hand. It’s time we take a rational look at gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.

That’s the conclusion of a study (if you wish to call it that) highlighted by CNN.

Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning — on the order of 6 to 11 points — and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people’s behaviors come to be.

The thing is, here’s how they define their terms.

The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines "liberal" in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people. It does not look at other factors that play into American political beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and gay rights.

"Liberals are more likely to be concerned about total strangers; conservatives are likely to be concerned with people they associate with," he said.

But even using their (extremely flawed) definition, conservatives are more likely to give to charity, and do charity themselves, than liberals.  We’ve covered that topic before, a long time ago, in regards to giving for those victims of the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in 2006; clearly people who are "genetically nonrelated".  And Rev. Don Sensing, for whom the hat tip goes (including the title of this post), makes one (of many) points against this study’s presuppositions and conclusions.

Consider these data from September 2008:

Last Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice president, released his tax returns for the years 1998 to 2007. The returns revealed that in one year, 1999, Biden and his wife Jill gave $120 to charity out of an adjusted gross income of $210,979. In 2005, out of an adjusted gross income of $321,379, the Bidens gave $380. In nine out of the ten years for which tax returns were released, the Bidens gave less than $400 to charity; in the tenth year, 2007, when Biden was running for president, they gave $995 out of an adjusted gross income of $319,853.

That’s liberal Joe Biden, btw. What about conservative (well, comparatively) John McCain?

In 2007, the Arizona senator reported $405,409 in total income and contributed $105,467, or 26 percent of his total income, to charity.
In 2006, Mr. McCain said he had $358,414 in total income and donated $64,695, or 18 percent of his total income, to charity.

You really should read his whole disassembly of this sham.

Satan. A word which the LXX and translators of the Masoretic Old Testament chose different methods. A translator has two different choices when dealing with a proper name or title. Transliteration or translation … that is make the word sound the same, or literally translate the meaning of the title. The LXX more often than not used the latter method, thus translating for example Philistine (transliterated) as Allophyle (or “Other”) which is a translation. Similarly with Satan, the term “the slanderer” is used instead of the transliterated Satan. My thesis in the following is that there is a hermeneutic, all to common, which is best described as Satan’s (the slanderer’s) hermenuetic and that this in turn is to be set aside where and when ever one notices its use.

What then might be meant by Satan’s (or the slanderer’s) hermeneutic and what is the point of discussing such a thing? The term hermeneutic normally means how we extract meaning from text, but one might expand it to mean (as I do in this case) to mean how we extract meaning from any of a variety of forms of communication, i.e., including not just text but speech as well. Satan’s hermeneutic is then is when we (all too often) take the words of another, usually because of associations external to the topic at hand, and interpret them in the worst way we can find. We take the narrowest (or widest) or most literal (or most figurative) interpretation possible. Whatever way we can find to interpret their words in the most outrageous or most negative way possible is the meaning to which we attach their words.

This hermeneutic is often seen in discussions between parties arrive in a conversation with an implicit or explicit understanding that they have important or strong disagreements. Whether it is for lack of confidence in one’s one position,  a debaters desire to “win points” in an argument and not a seeking just to understand the other’s position, or just a customary discussion style seen in the blogging and debating environments. And I have to say, this is a failing (sin?) of which I participate fully in just as do my interlocutors in discussion threads.

The primary problem, not just that this is a Satanic hermeneutic and should therefore be avoided on principle, is that in my experience it has the opposite effect from the one intended. Time after time in discussions with parties on both sides resorting to this method my observation is that the ultimate effect of this discussion is that one comes away convinced more than before the conversation began of the correctness and mistakes of your and the other points in discussion.  The lesson here is obvious, … don’t do it. Instead of hunting for the most unreasonable interpretation of the others words, seek to find the core of their point and address that.

I’d like to pose a question to any out there who might support SSM. Allow me a moment to set the question up with some numbers.

The percentage of the population, based on a John Fund essay some years ago which I’m not going to dig up for y’all, offered that if finds that upwards 6% of the population are gay then in Canada, where SSM was legalized, then it was observed that about 6% of that gay population was availing itself of the opportunity to get married. This means that the SSM question affects just under .4% of the population. Conversely 94% of the population is not gay, and a considerably higher proportion of that population does get married. Within that larger set, a certain number of the marriages are “weak”, that is have significant difficulties in staying hitched. Today’s high divorce rate is a symptom of that fact.

Marriage itself is a institution and a practice which involves many things, including the relational aspect between the two individuals, the community, and immediate and extended family (that is kids). The arguments for SSM stress the first as being the primary aspect, i.e., that marriage is primarily a bond between two people in a loving and nurturing relationship. This argument consequentially reduces the emphasis on the other aspects of marriage. For the “weak” marriages above that in turn improves the chance of those marriages breaking up, because if marriage is “about” relationship and the relationship is sour or lost, then there is no point in continuing.

So here’s my question: If SSM were enacted, say federally, it seems quite plausible that the number of SSM marriage partners is roughly commensurate with increase in the number of children from broken families due to a new emphasis on the partner aspect of marriage. So, for argument, grant that these numbers are about the same, that is the number of people in new gay marriages is equal to the number of children abandoned to state care. If that were the case, would legalizing SSM still be the right thing to do?

The Winter Olympics have barely gotten underway and I’ve already been asked, by my children, why some guy kinda looks like a girl and some girl kinda looks like a guy…

I have a back deck, and if you live in the suburbs, you probably do too. I wish I had a front porch. Kendra Juskus, in a terrific post at Flourish, explains why a front page is an important tool of community and of ministry.

She writes:

The porch is a physical space that is both personal to its owner and hospitable to guests and strangers. It is a threshold of community: neither a place of anonymity, nor of complete intimacy. It is a place where new connections are wrought and old connections are strengthened. One can be invited onto a front porch even as a passerby; it provides opportunities for welcoming the stranger.

Contrast the front porch with the back deck, an architectural feature that arose in American neighborhoods in the 1970s. The back deck is purely private, a sanctuary into which only the friends and relatives of the deck owner are admitted.

I’m pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something
important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn’t be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn’t.

There’s not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the “need” for abortions wasn’t so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow’s ad.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Hats off to Ms. Jenkins for calling out the intolerant critics on the Left who wish to demonize the Tebows. Though we may not agree on whether abortion is wrong we can at least agree that we can respectfully disagree with each other.

Imagine, if you will, a documentary being broadcast on PBS, the gist of which pertains to details surrounding an attack on the United States; an attack which claimed almost 3,000 American lives. Also imagine the producers of said documentary extolling the sacrifice made by those who took part, and perished, in the attack.

No, I’m not describing an apologetic for the events of 9/11, but the recent PBS NOVA episode, Killer Subs in Pearl Harbor. From NOVA’s website,

NOVA dives beneath the waters of Pearl Harbor to trace provocative new clues to one of the most tragic events of World War II—the sinking of the USS Arizona. More than 1,000 crew members perished in the greatest single loss of life in United States naval history. For decades, it has been thought that a bomb dropped by a Japanese aircraft sank the Arizona. But the discovery of a group of Japanese midget subs in and around Pearl Harbor has raised questions about the battleship’s final hours.

While the program primarily consisted of historical investigation, pertaining to the events of December 7, 1941, I was taken aback by remarks made at the conclusion of the episode in which the remains of one of the midget submarines was found. From the show transcript,

NARRATOR: Today Admiral Ueda visits the wreck of midget sub number 5 to honor the remains of pilot Sadamu Kamita and commander Masaji Yokoyama.

KAZUO UEDA: Mr. Kamita, here is your brother. Here is Mr. Dewa who accompanied you to Pearl Harbor.

NARRATOR: A cup full of sand is carefully removed from the seafloor, beneath the sealed control room of the midget sub, and given to Admiral Ueda to take home.

AKIRA IRIYE: The remains or the spirits of the dead, ah, from the submarine would now be reunited with the sand.

NARRATOR: Admiral Ueda presents the sand to Petty Officer Dewa. He brings it to a memorial service for Japanese sailors who lost their lives in midget submarines.

AKIRA IRIYE: The sand that was brought back from Hawaii is purified now, becomes Japanese soil, so to speak.

NARRATOR: For Kichiji Dewa, the mission is at last over. For Parks Stephenson, it’s always been about bringing the facts to light.

PARKS STEPHENSON: I want their accomplishment known, so that their sacrifice will have meaning.

NARRATOR: Time may yet uncover new details in the history of Pearl Harbor. And each step we take towards the truth of the heroic and tragic events of that day, not only honors the people who lived it, but serves future generations, as the real story is finally revealed.

(emphasis added)

Color me unimpressed, but I find no reason to honor, as sacrifice, the actions of those who were responsible for the deaths of 2,400 U.S. personnel, the subsequent deaths of those U.S. personnel who fought in the Pacific theater of World War II, and those civilians, throughout the Pacific, who fell to the bloody actions of the Empire of Japan at that time.

It seems to have become politically correct to view aggressors upon our land with a sympathetic hand, in some attempt to excuse their actions as either psychologically or culturally motivated or, worse yet, somehow caused by our own actions (read: WE are the guilty party). Indeed, Mark Steyn raised such issues in his book America Alone (which I reviewed, here). As I wrote,

Steyn quotes an Arabic proverb, “A falling camel attracts many knives,” and then applies it to Europe. It is falling and, as it falls, it continues to be attacked… We’ve feminized our approach through our multi-culturalism: we ask “why?”, we try to understand, we sympathize, we concede, and we apologize – and these are all seen as signs of weakness.

Yes, and now this sympathetic sentiment is being expressed in our view of history. Oliver Stone recently remarked that,

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,

And when comparing two warring factions, motives and actions are melted into one as both the aggressor and those who are forced to fight to retain their freedom are seen as essentially the same. In the book, Flags of our Fathers, we are made witness to descriptions of the atrocities which occurred during the World War II battle of Iwo Jima. In a post I wrote for RedBlueChristian.com, I quoted the book’s author, James Bradley,

The Japanese army fought using the most ruthless tactics of any combatant in World War II. Their practice of “no surrender” meant they were unpredictable, as they fought far beyond the limits of a Westerner…

The Japanese soldier turned all Western logic on its head. If surrounded, a German would surrender; a Japanese would fight on. If wounded and disabled, an Englishman would allow himself to be taken prisoner; a Japanese would wait and blow himself and his captor up. The Marines could not treat the Japanese soldiers as they would hope to be treated. Their only choice was to exterminate him.

While the book was made into a movie, by Clint Eastwood, a companion movie, Letters from Iwo Jima, was also made and received more critical acclaim. Letters from Iwo Jima recounted the battle from the Japanese perspective, based on letters from the Japanese soldiers themselves. Hailed as an unprecedented demonstration of worldly citizenship, by Eastwood, the movie was also praised for humanizing “the enemy”, and paying honorable tribute to ill-fated men. Indeed, at ConversantLife.com, in a post listing the movie reviewer’s top 100 films of the 2000s, Letters from Iwo Jima is listed at #36 as an “other side of the story” companion piece to Flags of our Fathers.

Wow. I can’t wait to hear the “other side of the story” regarding Mohamed Atta and the other 18 terrorists responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

Our culture is deeply confused if it cannot distinguish between good and evil. To make such a distinction is not to diminish the humanity of the Japanese soldiers of World War II or of the Islamic terrorists of 9/11; such a distinction is, in fact, a deep recognition of the humanity of these individuals. Humans, created in the image of God can, and do, engage in evil acts. And the fact that there are two sides to a story does not mandate that both of those sides are valid.

From James Taranto’s “Best of the Web Today” column, a must-read column:

How did Barack Obama manage to kick off his presidency by making exactly the same disastrous mistake Bill Clinton made 16 years earlier? One answer is that Obama thought Clinton’s health-care errors were tactical rather than strategic, and that correcting these–by letting Congress write the bill, or by cutting deals with industry groups in exchange for their support–would be sufficient to ensure success.

But if Rep. Marion Berry is right, the answer may be as simple as sheer hubris. Berry, an Arkansas Democrat first elected in 1996, announced over the weekend that he won’t seek re-election. In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, reprinted by Politico, Berry, who was an “aye” in the House’s 220-215 vote for ObamaCare Nov. 7, recounts his unsuccessful efforts to persuade the White House to pursue more moderate policies:

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.”

“You’ve got me.” In fairness, one can see why Obama might have been overly impressed with himself. Here’s a guy who became president of the United States just four years out of the Illinois Senate, and along the way developed a cultlike following. It sounds as though Obama became a follower as well as figurehead of his own cult of personality. He overestimated the degree to which he was special as opposed to lucky–a very human failing.

Indeed, he’s only human.  His followers, however, bought into the image hook, line, sinker and fishing pole.  It was willful blindness, as they couched their ignorance in the heady thought of electing the first African-American President.  It was all about feeling good about what you were doing, rather than about policies and programs and party planks.  And now the Democrats are paying the price for promoting it.

As it turns out, Berry understated the peril in which Obama was placing Democrats–not just in a conservative area like the First District of Arkansas (where John McCain topped Obama, 59% to 38%), but even in Massachusetts (Obama 62%, McCain 36%), where last week the Democrats could not hold Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat. Even observers who have thought for some time that ObamaCare was bad news for Democrats were surprised that it was this bad.

Welcome to the real world, where even liberals are getting the idea that government is doing too much to try to “fix” things, many of which aren’t broken, and many of which the private sector can handle.  (Yes, those are poll results from last September, and they can certainly change, but the trend lines are really veering away from the “big government” mindset.)

Believing your own press is the worst thing that can afflict a politician, and Obama seems to have soaked it up.  This is why a liberal media can, indeed, sometimes hurt a Democrat; they butter him up with good press, and don’t reflect what the people think.  (It another proof that indeed the media lean liberal, causing this to happen.)  Then a Republican replaces Ted Kennedy and they’re shocked.

Good morning Democrats.  This your wake-up call.