• Tracking left wing sexism and the VP candidate. And one foreigner looks at the race. And another.
• Russia and democratic movements. China too.
• Coming to grips with mysticism … I think many modern people hold to the Newman “quip” quoted.
• A book reviewed, good … but pricey, likely out of my price range alas.
• Afghan news.
• One of the best descriptions of race that I’ve seen, a non-existent conspiracy.
• One would think this would give supporters of Mr Obama pause, they are lock step on Middle East foreign policy with, uhm, him.
• Heh. Palin via Norris. And career parallels with Teddy Roosevelt, who was apparently tapped for VP after two years as Governor.
• A dissenting view of the arrests in St. Paul, from a liberal paper no less.
• Abstinence only sex-education … the results of a “gold plated” study finds … not what you’d expect.
• Microsoft being stupid … say it ain’t so.

A frequent commenter and blogger (his blog is here) Dan Trabue graciously sent me a copy of a book (that arrived with me away on vacation) that he finds to be a significant work describing his view on how Poverty and the Christian relate. In a short series of essays I’m going to compare, review, and contrast this pamphlet The Biblical View of Sabbath Economics by Chad Myers with a somewhat older work on basically the same topic. The the latter part of the 4th century St. Gregory of Nazianzus gave a lengthy oration “On the Poor”. It is these two works I’m going to compare.

Chad Myers according to the frontispiece has “worked for three decades in the field of non-violent activism for social justice, church renewal and radical discipleship.” Mr Myers has degrees in philosophy from UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union (also in Berkeley).”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus on the other hand was the most accomplished rhetorician of the 4th century Church. The piece “On the Poor” is the 14th oration that has been passed on from his era. His most famous orations, the so called 5 “theological orations” given in just a short interval from just outside of Constantinople was a major turning point forever cementing the Nicene tradition in the Church over the more popular (at the time) Arian heresy. If you today hew to the Nicean statement of faith … in part you owe it to the brilliant rhetoric of St. Gregory. It also should be noted that St. Gregory unlike his friend St. Basil (the Great) took a different approach to asceticism. He personally eschewed the monastic and extreme asceticism practiced by St. Basil and others around him. His asceticism was a more literary (and spiritual) asceticism of contemplation without embracing all or perhaps many of the rigors of the monastic life. It might be noted however, that he did take at an early age a vow of celibacy which he maintained throughout his life.

Both of these pieces have some similar conclusions. Both stress that charity is a primary virtue. However their methods, arguments and ultimately their conclusions are very disimilar.

I will also admit up front that I have a lot of difficulty giving Mr Myers work a fair reading. Stylistically he makes blanket assertions about, for example, the nature of the free market society which at best are a caricature of the market economy as told by a Marxist. In short, a lot of false statements are made about economic truths and conditions in markets and in pre-market, i.e., early Bibilical societies which need disentangling from his main argument. What is left after the dissection … is a question I can’t answer at this point of this study. It is indeed one of the questions that will need to be answered in this short series.

Amid Labor Day festivities and (if you read the blogs) Palin kerfuffles, something dramatic happened on the Iraqi front.

The U.S. military has handed over security control of the western province of Anbar to Iraqi forces.

The province was once a hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency, and the scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war.

The handover marks a major milestone in America’s strategy of turning security over to the Iraqis so U.S. troops can eventually go home.

In the ceremony Monday in the provincial capital of Ramadi, the top American commander in Anbar, Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly, said Al Qaeda has not been entirely defeated in Anbar. But he said, “their end is near.”

As Glenn Reynolds notes, a book he just got in the mail, “Losing Hurts Twice as Bad: The Four Stages to Moving Beyond Iraq”, was probably pitched before the surge.  Now it’s just an embarrassment. 

I read this post on the TalkLeft blog by “Big Tent Democrat” last Sunday.  It’s regarding the issues surrounding Sarah Palin’s reassigning of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, allegedly because he wouldn’t fire Palen’s sister’s estranged husband.  BTD takes fellow liberal blogger Josh Marshall to task for his coverage of the issue, specifically over the fact that Marshall seems to take all the accusations against Palin at face value (guilty until proven innocent) and Marshall’s contention that this kerfuffle may hurt Palin politically.

For starters, the Left seems to see this entirely in a political lens.  BTD notes:

Let’s face it, Marshall’s interest, and everybody’s for that matter, is almost entirely based on the political implications of this story. And here is what Marshall is missing – the story is likely to have little political implications for Sarah Palin. And if there are any, they are likely to be positive.

Quite an honest admission from BTD, who reiterates this point at the end of the post.  Not mentioned in this post or Marshall’s is that, while there has been an investigation opened into this, Palin hasn’t been subpoenaed — because she’s been so forthcoming!  This is another example of what I’ve noted before; Palin seems to be the kind of politician everybody says they’d like and wish there were more of.  And indeed this corruption-fighting, cooperative governor enjoys 80%+ approval from her constituents.

But Big Tent Democrat goes over the accusations and the facts of the case and find no “there” there, which to me is the larger point.  So many on the left smell blood in the water, because it’s all political.  In the meantime, there’s no credit given for the unusual openness shown by Palin simply because she’s of the wrong party.

Hey liberals.  You’re watching the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and booing Jimmy Stewart (in a brilliant disguise).

UPDATE: John Hinderaker at PowerLine notes that the NY Times called itself “squeamish” about covering the John Edwards “love child” story, and had to (in their words) devote more time to the “big issues facing the country”.  But today, they had 3(!) front page stories on Bristol Palin.

Times’ Public Editor Clark Hoyt said of the Edwards coverage, “I do not think liberal bias had anything to do with it.”  I’m sure he said it with a straight face, too.

• From Mount Athos and St. Siluan … a prayer.
• One view of the political landscape.
• One of the more respectable bloggers falling down, I made the note that those who hold “Ms Palin wants creationism in the schools” are the journalistic equivalent of those who claim Mr Obama is a Muslim.
• Living life in Christ’s shadow.
• On Gustav and the death toll.
• One of Obama’s economic advisors.
• “Deep ecology“

It seems that some liberals are having a difficult time understanding what constitutes hypocrisy.

Consider the saga of Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter, and this blog post at ABC News,

To begin with, I’m not aware of any prominent Republicans stating that “everybody else doesn’t have any values.” To be sure, persons with alternative political affiliations hold values of some sort.

Yet I wonder exactly what type of accountability Mr. Wray would hold Sarah Palin to? It seems to me that, in her public statement on the issue, she made it clear that her daughter was choosing life for her unborn baby, that her daughter was going to get married to the child’s father, that her daughter would have the full support of her and her husband, and that their full support was needed now that her daughter would learn about the reality of having made choices that fell outside the realm of “family values”. It further seems to me that, rather than displaying hypocrisy, Palin is being fully consistent with the family values she claims to have. Honesty, love, commitment, and responsibility.

If Sarah Palin wished to be a hypocrite, she would have counseled her daughter to have a secret abortion, in order to preserve the family image, thereby allowing her to attend college (if she so desired) without the punishment of having to take care of a child at the same time.

It has been argued by many that the amazing inexperience of Mr Obama is now off the table, due to a similar lack of experience of Ms Palin (who it might be noted is not running for President). However, that inexperience factor is not “off the table”, it is turning out to be something of a political Trojan horse. The left is no longer as worried about talking about the experience factor. Where before they were actively sidestepping this topic, now instead they are talking about it.

Part of the problem is, the experience of Ms Palin and Mr Obama are roughly on a par. Both are about the same age. Both attended school. While Mr Obama supporters like to point to a distinguished Academic career of their candidate, it really isn’t so. He ostensibly took an Academic career after law school but … failed to publish (and if you talk to Academics you’ll find that for an Academic career publishing is not just a small matter). As well, he went into “community activism”, and his record at community organizing apparently was only distinguished by his ability to use this as a stepping stone to the next level, i.e., state office. Ms Palin by contrast did not seek public office (a far more commendable outlook from this onlookers point of view), but circumstances thrust it at her. From PTA to Mayor to Regulatory board to Governor she was thrust up not by dint of self promotion but instead by the fight against corruption.

The time Ms Palin and Mr Obama spent in actual public office is comparable, one might actually argue that the time that Mr Obama spent at the highest level (Senator in his case vs Governor for Ms Palin) is far less while because, alas within 6 months to a year of attaining his Senate seat he was campaigning full time for the Presidency … and thus missing out on actual Legislative experience. For what it’s worth, Mr Obama had 50% approval ratings as a State senator during that stint and Ms Palin prior to Mr McCain asking her to be on his ticket enjoyed 80+% approval ratings.

The point is, that far from taking “experience” off the table, it has gotten the left to bring it up. And, when they do, it is not a winning issue for them. So I’d argue that experience as a topic far from being “off the table” is even hotter because the left has been fooled into thinking it is now a safe topic.

• An excellent book review, so … get a copy today … I did.
• Ms Palin and the (liberal) creationism-in-schools meme, about as substantive (and as justified) as the Obama-as-muslim meme on the right. So look at it this way, consider yourself to be of the same stripe as those bloggers who repeated the Muslim meme if you yourself bought (and repeated) the creationism one. A common sense response to the two Palin “rumors.”
• Globalization and a part of the ugly downside.
• Vatican protest leads to mass demonstrations and violence … or not.
• The Redhunter compares the two VP picks.

Just what is John McCain up to?

In the movie Jaws, when the fictional Captain Quint makes first contact with the great white, and the shark behaves unexpectedly, he tells Police Chief Brody, “I don’t know Chief, he’s very smart or very dumb.”

On McCain unexpectedly picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, Kirsten Powers wonders,

I can’t help wondering if this is a trap. The McCain camp watched and learned as Obama supporters offended Hillary supporters by their treatment of her. The McCainiacs had to know that this group is incapable of behaving, that Palin would bring out their worst instincts.

Ed Morrissey states,

This trap has two doors, as Powers notes, and the Obama campaign and its supporters fell through both of them. First, it didn’t take long to speak dismissively of Palin as a “beauty queen” and a “small-town” hick, even though she governs the state of Alaska and has a favorability rating in the 80s…

The bigger trap, though, was the knee-jerk attack on Palin’s experience. Calling her a “small-town mayor” only underscored Obama’s own woeful lack of experience…

and then wonders,

Did McCain set Obama up to fall into this trap? If so, then perhaps that more than anything demonstrates how poor a candidate Obama is and how much more masterful McCain can be. Would you rather have the man who set the trap dealing with our enemies abroad, or the man who fell into it?

At the Belmont Club, Richard Fernandez states,

…McCain will take risks, but only after figuring the odds.

…

He has the ability to wait patiently until his opponent commits himself to a move then ruthlessly strikes to exploit it. He gives nothing away to clue his opponent on which way he is going to turn. Then suddenly he snaps the stick. A collection of links by Glenn Reynolds reveals a sudden appreciation by McCain’s opponents of his unpredictability. Some are hesitating to criticize Palin’s relative youth and inexperience, lest they fall into the Trap. What trap? A classic AP head says it all: Analysis: Palin’s age, inexperience rival Obama’s.

He’s a 72 year-old Maverick who, it would appear, knows his way around.

Also see:

Mark Steyn’s The Hostess with the Moosest

HotAir’s Desperation from Democrats

In my recent travels abroad, of which I will indeed blog more (with photos) presently, one of the observations I had was that the urban/rural cultural divide is more important and pronounced than a lot of our other cultural splits.

With that in mind, one of the (unspoken objection) that a lot of (urban) liberal bloggers have to Gov Palin’s inclusion on the ticket is that by her resume and rhetoric she is not one of “them.” She doesn’t hang out with, is part of, or identifies with any group with which they associate. And that is problematic because they misread or fail to read her cultural cues.

There are a lot of non-urban voters out there with more rustic values and virtues and they see them in McCain’s running mate. Their failure to note that seems akin to color blindness. Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t poll well in the Democratic party today either, and that’s the point.

The urban liberal Hillary voter may be put of by Gov. Palin … but the suburban/rural female (and male) voters, I think might poll differently.

It has been also remarked that by putting Sarah Palin on the ticket, Mr McCain loses his line of attack on Mr Obama regarding “experience.” While I’m not entirely convinced that’s the case, it also might be noted that Mr Obama loses the “Change” line of attack as well. Mr Biden, Mr McCain are all old hand beltway denizen, and Mr Obama is a Haaaarvard educated lawyer and Senator. That is without even noting that Mr Obama’s actual voting record and policies are basic liberal/progressive boilerplate.

Real change is an outsider like Gov. Palin, who is not a lawyer, DC regular or “one of the club” in any way shape or form.

A commenter recently noted that there was a tape of Sarah Palen supporting Ted Steven’s pork project nicknames “The Bridge to Nowhere”.  A writer on a local group blog, “Peach Pundit” says she was for it before she was against it.  As one of their commenters notes, she was for state funding if the state wanted, and her speech in Dayton confirmed that. 

A conservative Republican woman for vice president: To note that SCO called for this more than a year ago.

Yesterday, before McCain’s VP announcement, the Democracy Project blog put put their top 10 reasons why she should be VP.  Definitely worth a look.  My favorites ones are 9, 7, 5 and 2, but read the whole list.

Not Romney, Pawlenty, and not Lieberman.  John McCain has made either party choice in November a historic one by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.  This is so big, the Drudge Report website is overwhelmed with readers (I can’t get a link in edgewise).

Aside from the obvious appeal to history, and the disenchanted Clinton voters, Palin brings experience.  “Experience?”, you may say, “She’s not even been governor a full 2 years.”  Indeed, but that’s 2 years more executive branch experience that the other 3 candidates — Obama, Biden and McCain — combined.  Prior to that (via Wikipedia):

• Became mayor of Wasilla, AK on a platform of cutting spending and taxes.  She did both, with cutting her salary being the first thing.
• Appointed by then-governor Murkowski to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission as the Ethics Commissioner.  She quit over ethics issues in her own party, so she’s not afraid to call it like she sees it.

The Wikipedia article has much more about her that I find absolutely excellent.  Great job, Senator McCain.