In our understanding of the communication aspect of language, the concept of “units of thought” is critical. At its lowest level of detail, a word comprises a unit of thought. However, the meaning of the word, in the context of the author’s intent, is best understood when one moves up to higher level units of thought – those of sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books.

As John Holzmann shows us, another critical aspect of understanding the meaning to a passage of text, is that of grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. In Get Myself into trouble…, he bravely addresses that tenuous issue of Worship Songs.

Spelling, punctuation, grammar, the words themselves: they matter very much to me. And I realize they mean much more to me than they do to the average bear. That’s my training. That’s a discipline I have pursued since I was very young. I realize that the structural elements of language make a difference, and so I seek to use them to the best effect.

I am concerned that [our church], in its worship/singing on Sunday mornings, seems, often, to ignore these elements . . . to the detriment of meaning.

Among the various songs he takes aim at is Everything, by Tim Hughes.

…at the tail end of the song, we wind up singing a heretical pantheistic affirmation that God is everything [“You are everything”]–repeated at least four times over (though, as I recall, [our worship leader] encouraged the congregation to sing it 8 times). Please! God is not “everything.” He made all of creation. He made human beings. Etc. He is not the things He made.But then, after a pantheistic affirmation, finally, the song winds up repeating a kind of Hinduistic mantra, a meaningless jumble of words: “Jesus everything.” Four times over on the screen. Eight times over as a congregation:

Jesus everything. Jesus everything.
Jesus everything. Jesus everything.

As above: Whatever is that supposed to mean? . . . Or is it the intention of [our church] to advocate that its members enter into a kind of mindless euphoria through thoughtless repetition of meaningless–but holy-sounding–words?

How many of the worship songs we sing, on Sunday mornings, fall into the trap of pushing non-Christian (or even heretical) ideas at the expense of thinking through more theologically proper songs? Do we dumb-down our worship songs to accommodate a touchy-feely culture, or in response to a less intelligent society? Or both?

In the Middle Ages, stained glass was used to illustrate narratives of the Bible because the populace was largely illiterate (as was the case in most societies in history). Now, it seems, we purposely cater to a culture that, despite the means and ability, prefers to feel than to think.

Also reference Holzmann’s post, Hymns and praise songs: what’s the difference?.

From FoxNews (HT: Belmont Club),

The Obama administration is rethinking its course recommendations for students ahead of President Obama’s address to the the nation’s schoolchildren next week, rewriting its suggestions to teachers for student assignments on how to “help the president.”

(emphasis added)

From Hope & Change parents,

You’re certainly free to consider me paranoid. And I’m free to consider you naive.

In 1993, the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center occurred. In our complacency we could not conceive of the successful attempt, until it came to fruition.

Complacency equals Jeff Cooper’s Condition White, being unaware and unprepared.

Do not forget, and do not be complacent.

As planned, President Obama gave his speech to schoolchildren nationwide, on September 8th.

And as was widely reported, many parent’s (and conservative pundits) across the country expressed concern for the event.

And, as I expected, many people, liberal and conservative alike, are now gleefully reporting that President Obama’s speech was all about education and nothing about indoctrinating our children into Socialism (e.g., here and here).

Of course, these writers completely miss the point!

No one in their right mind would ever have considered pledging to serve Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush, the two other presidents, we’ve been reminded, who also gave speeches to schoolchildren across the nation. Yet, since last year, we have had to wallow through incessant hero worshiping genuflections to the one who brings his historic presidency to fruition, embarking upon a worldwide tour, delivering orations worthy of all the grandeur of our long lost savior returned, at last, to unite our land, our people, our globe. This cult of Obama is just that, sending tingling chills up people’s legs and causing others to liken him to “god”. Shouldn’t such adoration bestowed upon an elected leader at least give one, especially the Christian, cause for concern?

Others of us, the blind ones, have missed it completely, not unlike Aunt Eunice, who never gets the jokes at the family get-togethers. We could only see a pro-abortion Senator, with barely a measurable amount of negligible service, unpublished in the legal journals, who had previously organized… communities.

But I venture towards reality.

Needless to say, since his inauguration, we have watched Obama attempt to make good on his promise to “spread the wealth around”, what with his trillion dollar economic extravaganza and plans for government run healthcare, expanding the federal government’s reach into the private sector.

The man is socialist through and through, and desires to increase the role of government in our lives.

So when he decides to speak to the children of America, I’m not expecting him to try and win the war; but I am on alert, and wary of each battle.

Christians: pray for President Obama

My friends at Stand to Reason, a Christian apologetics organization, like to use the catchphrase, “Truth is not ice cream.” It’s their way of sparking people’s thought processes about relativism within our culture. Essentially, they’re illustrating the difference subjective and objective truth. While we can have various subjective opinions about our best flavor of ice cream, such opinions have no bearing on the veracity of the objective truth about the healing properties of medicine.

But what about the state of being human? Does yours or my status, as that of being a living human being, rest on the subjective whim of other human beings?

In the late 1990s I was selected for jury duty and questioned regarding a murder case. The defendant was accused of battery against a woman – a pregnant woman. She survived, but her unborn child died. Thus, the murder case was regarding the death of her unborn child. During the juror interview process I expressed astonishment that we have laws that allow for an unborn child to be killed through abortion, yet also have laws which allow for the prosecution of those that kill an unborn child. It seems to me that such a combination of laws presents us with a logical contradiction, namely, that an unborn child is, at the same time, both a human being and not a human being. In such an ice cream world of thought, we end up seeing that whether or not someone is considered to have been murdered depends entirely on whether or not said someone is considered to be a human being.

So… who’s in charge of determining the humanity of the unborn?

The quandary of this contradiction, and its implications, can be seen in a couple of posts at the New Mexico Independent (see here and here). One may also want to refer to a list of the 36 states which have Fetal Homicide Laws.

What is truly scary to see, in the two posts referenced above, is not the inconsistency with which pro-abortion advocates apply their compassion but how, when faced with the quandary, inadvertently (it is hoped) venture into the realm of creating second class humans. From Santa Fe man accused of killing pregnant girlfriend has high-powered legal help, regarding the fetal homicide laws,

Such laws are strongly supported by anti-abortion groups and opposed by many in the pro-choice camp, who say they are part of a long-term plan to establish rights for fetuses—at the expense of rights for women—and overturn the right to an abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

Thus we are expected to refrain from establishing rights for the unborn in order to retain the right of women to kill their unborn? A civilized society can only accept such a proposition if, in fact, the unborn are not human.

The apologists at Stand to Reason have another saying they use, with regards to abortion, which comes to the point quite succinctly:  If the unborn child is not a human being, then no justification for abortion is necessary; and if the unborn child is a human being, then no justification for abortion is adequate.

Two provocative excerpts from Eric Chevlen, in an article at First Things.

It’s a mistake to think of health care as a right. It is not a right; it is a good. Freedom of speech, by contrast, is a right, as is freedom of religious belief. They are privileges that inure to individuals as a consequence of the primordial right, free will. That is why we see them as inalienable. The exercise of these rights does not depend on any action of government, but rather on its inaction. Government may not legitimately interfere with their exercise, but nothing mandates that the government provide us with printing press or chapel.

Health care is different. It is more akin to the other goods which sustain life: food, clothing, and shelter. A well-ordered society exists to protect its members from the unlawful taking of life, and is structured to facilitate its members’ acquisition of these goods.

And then,

To claim that Congress will devise a new federal health care plan that will not involve rationing is like claiming that it will invent a triangle that doesn’t have three sides. Currently, within the private sector of health care, we have a large number of private insurance companies vying for the business of their customers. They ration health care on the basis of evidence-based medical necessity. The Obama health plan, the details of which are still being worked out, will also ration health care. The alternative to that is an accelerated escalation of aggregate health care costs. But the single-payer system to which Obama’s plan will lead will have no competitor and no pressing financial incentive to please its customers. No competitor for the single payer means no alternative for the patient. We can reasonably expect that a single-payer system of rationing will be largely implicit rather than explicit, and governed as much by cost and political considerations as by medical evidence. Such a system would likely combine the fiscal responsibility of the Postal Service, the customer friendliness of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and the smooth efficiency of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

I’ve been reading Rod Dreher, the Crunchy Conservative, for a few years now. While I’ve enjoyed most of his writing I’ve been taken aback, in the near past, with his increasing propensity to drift into some other-world region neither Right nor Left nor Libertarian nor… Crunchy. While such a position is not, in and of itself, reason to pull ranks, and while I can put up with most of his doom and gloom prognoses on issues such as the economy, a recent post of his, regarding the uproar pertaining to President Obama’s planned speech to schoolchildren nationwide is the last straw.

From Dreher,

A teacher in a Dallas suburban district just phoned the colleague of mine who works in the office next to mine. She’s a personal friend of his. He says she phoned from the break room at school, close to tears. She told him, “This is getting out of control. Parents are calling up the school and yelling at the principals. The principals are freaking out.”

All because the president of the United States is going to give an address on education to students.

Meanwhile, it took no time for a commenter on the Dallas Morning News editorial board blog to compare the president to Charles Manson. Which was followed by this:

This all sounds very familiar. Oh yea, Hitler was well liked by children. He could speak to them very well, and won them over. Hitler organized the youth as an army, complete with regiments. A boy could rise from the simple rank of just a boy to lead a squad, platoon, company, even a battalion. A girl could rise to become a leader. Even lead them into community organizers. Don’t drink any more of Obama’s Kool Aid. Wake up people.

Obama would be smart to release the text of his planned address to defuse the crazybomb on the Right. I doubt that will be enough. A Texas Republican friend this morning told me two things: a) not all conservatives agree with these people; and b) that said, this is the last straw for him, that he doesn’t want to be associated in any way with the GOP, which in his view has lost its collective mind.

No, Mr. Dreher, the furor is not because the President of the United States is going to give an address on education to students. It’s because people were sold a bill of goods when they naively thought hope and change was coming to our land (albeit, the globe) via the White House. Instead, we’ve seen a concerted effort to “spread the wealth around” with a decidedly socialist agenda. Citizens of the United States do not want government intruding into their lives and they especially do not want to let THEIR children become a captive audience to such culturally socialist mantras.

Consider this video that was shown to school children at an elementary school in Utah.

Our children should be taught about patriotism, responsibility, human rights, civic duty, and our rich history. They should not be expected to “pledge service to Barack Obama” (3:17 into the video above), or any other human, be they Democrat or Republican. Granted, the video above was not shown nationwide and is not part of the President’s planned presentation, yet one has to wonder why such a blatantly political video would be considered as acceptable to broadcast to public school children in the first place?

Parents are concerned because time has shown that increased government intrusion in the lives of its citizens results in less freedoms for said citizens. This is a president that has clearly demonstrated his desire to increase the federal government’s role in the private sector. That alone should be cause for concern when this administration expresses a desire to speak to the nation’s children – correction – the parent’s children.

Unfortunately, Dreher fails in his attempt to illustrate the utter craziness of the crazybomb Right with a blatantly disengenous comparison of his friend’s tearfully compassionate teacher with that of an anonymous foul-mouthed internet troll who compares Obama to Hitler.

So, adios Crunchy.

What is happening to the Left, the One, and their cherished socialist agenda? In Townhall meeting after Townhall meeting, we see the people voicing their opinions – and their opinions are decidedly against the moves the Obama administration are attempting to make (ref. here).

How has this come about?

From Richard Fernandez,

Somebody believes the left is losing the public policy debate because they’ve got all the flagship institutions. And that’s a liability. Umair Haque, writing in a Harvard Business Publishing article, argues that the right, like al-Qaeda has mastered the art of “5th generation warfare” and is swarming all over the left. He notices that liberals have been losing the debate lately and tries to analyze why. The problem with the left, he seems to think, is that they are responding from a center, sending talking points out to a periphery, whereas the right has discovered how to attack swiftly, from a plethora of directions and in depth. The right is inside their OODA loop and Haque realizes that if this goes on long enough, the left will lose…

Is the swarm simply a swastika-laden Astroturf tactic of the Right, per Nancy Pelosi? Fernandez doesn’t buy such conspiracy theories,

The Republican leadership was in fact the first victim of the revolt from below. Only after the “5th generation” war had ripped through the comfortable assumptions of business as usual did it break out to face the left. To think that the current unrest is the creation of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would be to make a fundamental mistake. Those figures are simply its beneficiaries — and its beneficiaries by accident. If Haque really wants to fight 5G, I would like to propose a different set of rules.

1. Listen to the people;
2. Believe that truth is something to be discovered in dialogue with the public; that the debate is never “over” simply because the great and good say so;
3. Consider it possible that all men, including small businessmen, plumbers, rubes from Alaska, cleaning women who say their prayers at mealtimes — are in some fundamental way the equal of graduates of Harvard Law School and know as much about life and death as Dr. Zeke Emmanuel;
4. Accept that facts do matter because reality is authored by something larger than government, greater than the Congress and more lasting than any administration;
5. That all efforts to “attack the base” will ultimately fail because a government by the people, of the people and for the people will never perish from the earth; and
6. Realize that these precepts are obvious on the face of it though there are none so blind as they who will not see.

I would add that the Republican leadership had also better realize the following:

1. The revolt from below does not necessarily indicate that the people support Republicans vs. Democrats;
2. If they attempt to travel down the same spend-easy path, as liberals tend to rush into, they too will find themselves under harsh criticism (aka peaceful revolt);
3. The people, by and large, are repulsed by any political party’s attempts to increase government intrusion into their lives.

And here we have Obama attempting to salvage a concern about the track record the government has with regards to mis-managing just about anything it lays its hands on. In his own words, “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems” (emphasis added).

One thing is becoming increasingly evident, as more of Obama’s impromptu exchanges surface – he has a most difficult time presenting himself in a coherent manner. Perhaps the Left was correct in their concerns about Sarah Palin’s lack of experience, because we’re certainly seeing Obama demonstrate his.

Interesting, to compare these two photos, one of President Obama, and the other of President Bush.

Further commentary at American Thinker (HT: Ron’s Bloviating),

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking.

From Dawn Eden, regarding Sonia Sotomayor’s thinking on stare decisis which, apparently, varies depending on whether or not the ruling has to do with abortion. Eden states,

As I wrote when liveblogging this exchange, apparently, when the subject is antitrust law, Sotomayor is perfectly comfortable with admitting that new information must be taken into account. But when the subject is abortion law, she doesn’t want to even discuss whether a change in “factual findings” is relevant.

From current Vice President Joe Biden,

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

Now, the essential liberal complaint against Sarah Palin is that she is simply too ignorantly stupid to be our Vice President, much less President.

Remind me again… how is Joe Biden a better choice?

Update: watch for yourself. I’m reminded of when Orange County, California went bankrupt, in 1990s, and the proposed “solution” was to levy a special tax. You see, this is the way liberal socialists think… government will solve the problem if they have enough money.

Funny how Sonia Sotomayor, the “wise Latina”, doesn’t know if one has a right to self defense, doesn’t seem to think that owning a gun is an individual right, yet believes the Constitution magically guarantees women the right to kill their unborn child…

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, mankind’s first trip to the moon.

At Wechoosethemoon.org, you can follow a virtual recreation of the entire mission, beginning at approximately 6 a.m. Eastern, 16 July.

Also, check NASA’s web page dedicated to the anniversary.

Have a great Independence Day!

– image: © 2009 A. R. Lopez; Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Missouri