Who will rid us of these troublesome whingers?

Yup:

At the risk of stating the obvious, one big reason the James Rosen and AP controversies have become front page news is that “the news” is a key stakeholder in the story itself. Replace ‘reporters from accredited outlets’ with ‘nihilistic hackers’ or ‘advocacy orgs’ and the tone of the coverage we’re reading, and questions we’re hearing, would be much, much different. Instead reporters are, quite naturally, behaving in both their normal journalistic capacities here and in their ancillary roles as trade association members — and so the whole thing has taken on much more valence with the press than we’ve come to expect when the DOJ is discovered taking liberties with its investigative powers.

That’s something everyone should consider the next time we learn a non-media figure has been subjected to secret, invasive federal subpoenas, etc. Until then, I’d note that in this case the coverage disparity is due in part to the fact that — to coin a recently misquoted White House official — the reporting does not reflect all relevant equities. 

Nope (because):

For myself, I’d say that what officials did to James Rosen falls on the wrong side of where I’d draw the line. Of the million shades of grey here, one of them covers the vast and murky terrain between cajoling sources and actively facilitating lawbreaking. I think the burden on federal law enforcement officials to demonstrate the latter should be very high before they start accusing reporters of criminal behavior in court. And in this case, if I were setting the standard, I’d say they didn’t meet it (though I don’t set the standard, and a federal judge apparently disagrees with me).  

Welcome to the real world:

If the burden isn’t high, then the difference between elegant and sloppy tradecraft, or well-heeled and struggling media outlet, might well become the difference between journalistic triumph and jail time.

 What, you think everybody who's in jail is a hardened criminal from which society must be kept safe?  That criminals are not journalists because journalists mean well and have the 1st Amendment on their side?

The law isn't really ambiguous about this, and it hasn't changed since 1979.  As for accusing journalists of criminal behavior, why should the burden be any greater on the federal government than it is on the government for any other person?  Equal protection means equal protection; it doesn't mean extra super special protection for a privileged class that thinks it has a magic shield in a constitutional amendment.  Otherwise anyone in possession of a gun can't be accused of the crime of possession of a firearm when they are a convicted felon, and anyone firing a gun has to be allowed to force the government to face a very high burden before accusing them of a crime involving use of a gun.

After all, it's in the Constitution, ain't it?

Ox.  Gored.  Whose.  It's not just for Oklahoma and politics, anymore.

This is getting tiresome.*

*and by the way:

That’s something everyone should consider the next time we learn a non-media figure has been subjected to secret, invasive federal subpoenas, etc. 

It's called a criminal investigation.  Lots of people undergo 'em all the time.  But as they aren't friends of yours, you obviously don't imagine it's a common practice of your government.  As I said before, welcome to the real world.

No whinging, please.

Speaking of shouting....

Courtesy of Southern Beale comes the full story behind this bit of nonsense:

Rep. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn., then quoted a verse from the 26th chapter of Matthew, saying the “poor will always be with us” in his defense of cuts to the food stamps program. 

Fincher said obligations to take care of the poor should be left to churches, not the government.

I actually heard that same argument from a man I admired (still did, afterwards; it's possible to admire people and know they are wrong about something), and even then (in college, lo these many feckless years ago), I knew the argument was as hollow as a clapper-less bell.

Let's turn to Matthew first:

While Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman who had an alabaster jar of very expensive myrrh came up to him and poured it over his head while he was reclining (at table).  When they saw this the disciples were annoyed, and said, "What good purpose is served by this waste?  After all, she could have sold it for a good price and given (the money) to the poor."

But Jesus saw through (their complaint) and said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman?  After all, she has done me a courtesy.  Remember, there will always be poor around; but I won't always be around.  After all, by pouring this myrrh on my body she has made me ready for burial.  So help me, wherever this good news is announced in all the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. (Matthew 26:6-13, SV)

So the admonition is not to leave the poor to another time, or another responsibility, or even to ignore them.  And to add a bit more context to this, Matthew 25:

When the son of Adam comes in his glory, accompanied by all his messengers, then he will occupy his glorious throne.  Then all peoples will be assembled before him, and he will separate them into groups, much  as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.  He'll place the sheep to his right and the goats to his left. Then the king will say to those at his right, 'Come, you who have the blessing of my Father, inherit the domain prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  You may remember, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a foreigner and you showed me hospitality; I was naked and you clothed me; I was ill and you visited  me; I was in prison and you came to see me.'

Then the righteous will say to him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and gave feed you or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we notice that you were a foreigner and extend hospitality to you?  Or naked and clothed you? When did we find you ill or in prison and come to visit you?'

And the king will respond to them, 'I swear to you, whatever you did for the most inconspicuous members of my family, you did for me as well.'

Next he will say to those at his left, 'You, condemned to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his messengers, get away from me!  You too may remember, I was hungry and you didn't give me anything to eat; I was thirsty and you refused me a drink; I was a foreigner and you failed to extend hospitality to me; naked and you didn't clothe me; ill and in prison and you didn't visit me.'

Then they will give him a similar reply: 'Lord, when did we notice that you were hungry or thirsty or a foreigner or naked or ill or in prison, and did not attempt to help you?'

He will then respond, 'I swear to you, whatever you didn't do for the most inconspicuous members of my family, you didn't do for me.'

The second group will then head for everlasting punishment, but the virtuous for everlasting life.  (Matthew 25: 31-46, SV)

Am I my brother's, and my sister's, keeper?  The answer is very clear.  I am.  Is the church my brother's and sister's keeper?  Perhaps.  That's a matter for ecclesiology.  Jesus doesn't put the burden on any institution (especially since the line between church and state didn't exist in his day).  But he doesn't let us off the hook, either; in either of these nearly back-to-back passages from the same gospel.  He also, however, doesn't exclude government from doing the job.  Jesus, after all, would not have challenged the words of Jeremiah:

Woe to him who says,
"I shall build myself a spacious palace
with airy roof chambers and
windows set in it.
It will be paneled with cedar
and painted with vermilion."
Though your cedar is so splendid,
does that prove you a king?
Think of your father: he ate and drank,
dealt justly and fairly; all went well with him.
He upheld the cause of the lowly and poor;
then all was well.
Did not this show he knew me? says the Lord.
But your eyes and your heart are set on naught but gain, set only on the innocent blood you can shed,
on the cruel acts of tyranny you perpetrate.  (Jeremiah 22: 14-17 (REB))

Those words are directed to the king; the one who is responsible for the people.  In our society, who is responsible for the people?  The church?  Which church?  Roman Catholic?  Baptist?  Lutheran?  Methodist?  UCC?  Church of God?  Church of God in Christ?  Jewish synagogues?  Muslim mosques?  Buddhist temples?

This could end up worse than leaving everything to the 50 states; there's even less coordination between houses of worship than there is between those "laboratories of democracy."

No, the whole idea is an absurdity, and Rep. Fincher is an ass.  He wants to deny responsibility for the most inconspicuous members of God's family, while claiming a privileged place for himself and his own in God's favor.

Southern Beale will enlighten you further on what kind of hypocrite he is.  I just wanted to point out he's not entitled to his own Bible, either.

"Glory!"

Now I'm worried this is going to get ugly.

At Eschaton yesterday and today, there were too many comments blaming the people of Moore, Oklahoma for the loss of life in the storm.  At the time, the death toll was reportedly 51, and expected to rise (the New York Times was reporting it at 91); the toll now has been reduced to 24, 7 of them children who drowned in a basement while seeking shelter.  The complaints were about things like lack of basements (which is not a storm shelter; and there are good reasons people in Oklahoma don't build them) and community storm shelters. Given the devastation of Moore, and the fact the tornado was on the ground for 40 minutes and 20 miles (Sen. Inhofe is right, that is extraordinary), the loss of life is truly minimal; although no person's death is minimal.  Blame was laid on governments that don't require shelters and Senators that deny climate change.  I thought it was an odd response, but I fear now this will become a trend:

By the way, here is the City Of Moore's official FAQ page about storm shelters and the like. I may be wrong, but this fairly reeks of defensiveness. The explanation for the lack of storm shelters seems economically prissy and more than a tad lame—people won't use them because they won't leave their pets behind? So, therefore, we don't build one? Really?—and the cruel irony of this tornado is that people were warned specifically not to "shelter in place" but, rather, to get in their cars and drive like hell. There is considerable real-time audio from local radio and TV to that effect. And this is a masterpiece of You're On Your Own, Jack:

 "What if I live in a mobile home?"

This means that you have additional responsibility for your safety, and that begins much earlier! Mobile homes typically do not offer good shelter from thunderstorm winds, and that means you should find shelter elsewhere—perhaps the house of family or friends. You need to plan your actions long before thunderstorms arrive, and leave early...don't wait until warnings are issued or the sirens are blowing to leave."

Except that link doesn't go anywhere.  This is the City of Moore webpage on storm shelters, and this is what it says:

Non-Desirable Locations

If you don't live in a "reasonably-well constructed residence" - such as a mobile home - then we certainly would hope that you plan to leave your home and find shelter in a better location. This requires advance planning on your part! It also requires keeping a much sharper eye to deteriorating weather conditions! Have a family emergency plan, and don't hesitate in activating it. If your plan is to leave your home for better shelter, DO NOT WAIT UNTIL TORNADO WARNINGS ARE ISSUED to leave for shelter!

And what about community shelters?  Well, that's a longish bit, but again, it doesn't say what Mr. Pierce says it says:

"Community" Shelters
The City of Moore has no community (or "public") tornado shelters. This is due to two factors: Overall, people face less risk by taking shelter in a reasonably-well constructed residence! There is no public building in Moore which has a suitable location for a shelter. Yes, there is less overall risk by sheltering-in-place than by going to a community shelter. The average tornado warning time is generally only 10-15 minutes. That's just not enough time for a person to receive the warning, make a conscious decision to leave their home, gather the few things needed (family, keys, etc.), lock the house, get into the car, drive to a shelter (including possibly experiencing a traffic jam of others trying to get to the same shelter!), get out of the car, and make the way into the community shelter. In this scenario, there's a far greater likelihood of getting caught in your car when the tornado strikes! And experience proves that cars are NOT the place you want to be during severe weather events! On May 3, 1999, one of the most violent tornadoes ever recorded struck central Oklahoma, including the northwest part of Moore in its path. Warning for this event was outstanding - one research survey suggests that over 95% of the people in central Oklahoma knew of the tornado and its location. While many people evacuated, many others took shelter in their homes. The vast majority of these people...in fact all but three in Moore...survived! Their homes were destroyed, but the people survived. Emergency management and weather warning professionals see this as a testiment to the tornado safety rules have been advocated for years: "In homes or small buildings, go to the basement (if available) or to an interior room on the lowest floor, such as a closet or bathroom. Wrap yourself in overcoats or blankets to protect yourself from flying debris." May 3rd was an extremely unique event weatherwise. There has never been such a strong and violent tornado ever in the recorded history of the City of Moore. Statistically, there is only about a 1-2% chance of a tornado - of any size - striking Moore on any particular day during the spring. But of all tornados that do strike us (again, not very many historically), there's only a less than 1% chance of it being as strong and violent as what we experienced on May 3rd. Put another way, there's a very small likelihood of Moore being struck by a tornado. There's an extremely smaller chance of Moore experiencing another "May 3rd" type event. If we are struck again, it will very likely be by a much less intense storm. Sheltering in your residence - assuming it is a reasonably-well constructed home - is the best option. The opinion of our emergency management severe weather professionals is that community sheltering is not only not possible in our situation, but not advisable.

The highlighted bit sort of gets to my point:  people in "tornado alley," especially in the Plains states, do know something about surviving tornadoes.  I should also point out that the residents of Moore did have about 15 minutes notice that the storm was coming.   And I would note that one of the schools that was hit was actually a "reinforced building" meant to be an above ground shelter; and all the students in that building survived, despite the fact the building was destroyed.

Let me add, after experiencing the "traffic jam" that ran from Houston to Dallas during the run up to Hurricane Rita, the idea of a panicked race for shelter is not an idle concern.  Had that hurricane hit Houston instead of Beaumont and Lake Charles, the effects would have been devastating for those people stuck in their cars.  Sometimes "shelter in place" really is the best advice.

I'm more than a wee bit disconcerted by this desire to "blame the victims," especially when the victims are politically NOK.  This storm didn't strike Oklahoma because James Inhofe is a "climate denier" any more than God sent the storm to punish Oklahoma (or America in general) for its "sins."  And the loss of life is terrible, but the survival rate is a tribute to the people who live in this particular harm's way, and who know how to survive these storms.  These people have lost their houses, their property, in some cases their children and families; and we are going to start picking on the local government for not requiring what we think would have been adequate shelter?

Are ideas and things really that much more important than people?

Oklahoma

⁴ The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
⁵ The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶ He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.
⁷ The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.
⁸ The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.'

What can be said about Oklahoma, except to pray for the victims and survivors, and donate to the Red Cross?

Considering how densely populated the area was, and how huge and powerful the storm was, the loss of life is remarkably low.  Still, there is loss of life, and absolute devastation of personal property.

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

It ain't necessarily so....

So, I read this at ThinkProgress, and I found it perfectly appalling:

Carolyn Compton is in a three year-old relationship with a woman. According to Compton’s partner Page Price, Compton’s ex-husband rarely sees their two children and was also once charged with stalking Compton, a felony, although he eventually plead to a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing.

And yet, thanks to a Texas judge, Compton could lose custody of her children because she has the audacity to live with the woman she loves.

According to Price, Judge John Roach, a Republican who presides over a state trial court in McKinney, Texas, placed a so-called “morality clause” in Compton’s divorce papers. This clause forbids Compton having a person that she is not related to “by blood or marriage” at her home past 9pm when her children are present. Since Texas will not allow Compton to marry her partner, this means that she effectively cannot live with her partner so long as she retains custody over her children. Invoking the “morality clause,” Judge Roach gave Price 30 days to move out of Compton’s home.

Long, long ago I practiced family law in Texas, and I never encountered a "morality clause" like this.  So I went to the article ThinkProgress got their post from.  I thought maybe this was something new; but no, it's something very old:

 Ken Upton Jr., senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal’s Dallas office, said he is familiar with the case. He said morality clauses are rarely enforced and were historically used to prevent unmarried people from cohabitating with children present. Courts often include the clauses without people knowing, especially in conservative areas like Collin County, he said.

Well, that made more sense, because I practiced in a more "liberal" area of Texas, although I had some experience in the more conservative ones (buy me a beer sometime....).  Still, ThinkProgress went on to sound the alarm of doom and destruction:

 Compton can appeal Price’s decision, but her appeal will be heard by the notoriously conservative Texas court system. Ultimately, the question of whether Compton’s relationship with Price is entitled to the same dignity accorded to any other loving couple could rest with the United States Supreme Court.

That seemed a little excessive to me, because frankly in the larger metropolitan counties the judges aren't nearly as mossbound and this judge clearly is, and I don't recall the courts overturning those judges right and left and enforcing a 19th century doctrine on family "lifestyle."  And my memory wasn't wrong:

The couple can appeal the decision, which would likely be overturned. Upton said many appeals courts look at the relationship and if it causes any harm to the children in deciding whether to honor the morality clause. Being that the couple already lives together with a healthy environment for the kids, Upton said they stand a good chance to win on appeal.

If the couple decides to appeal, he said the case could set an example in Texas for how courts will interpret the clause for gay couples.

“This could be an important case in Texas,” he said. “I think it’s a case to watch.”

 So, yes, this case could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court; but that's rather like predicting you'll bowl a perfect game because you got a strike in the first frame.  A bit premature, so say the least.

Texas has a reputation for being hidebound and moss-covered, but it ain't necessarily so.  Dallas County elected a lesbian sheriff a few years back (who may still be in office).  Houston has a lesbian mayor (funny nobody every mentions that in the national press).  Most of the major metropolitan areas are more liberal than not (all the metro counties went for Obama in 2008; it was the rural vote that went Republican, and even the rural South Texas counties went Democratic).  It's a more purple state than is commonly assumed, in other words; and in matters of Family Law Texas isn't really hidebound at all.

I suspect Mr. Upton is right, and this "morals clause" will be struck out on appeal, probably at the appellate court level.  Funny ThinkProgress didn't read that far into the article, but assumed because it "knows" Texas, it knows what the outcome of this case will be.

Please don't do that.  We're the 2nd largest state in the country, but we're not the most neanderthal state in the country (even though we sometimes act like it).

Thanks in advance for reading the rest of the article next time, not just the headline.

The outer boroughs of Little Whinging

I like watching MSNBC at night.  It's become a habit.

But I'm giving it up until this AP 'scandal' is over and done with. 

Because now comes word that ABC was played like a fiddle by a bunch of GOP Congressional staffers, and is ABC burning those sources?

Not on your Nellie.

As Pierce asks:  "Who do you really serve? The country, or the liars in your BlackBerries?"

The whole basis of the "sanctity" of the protection of the press under the 1st Amendment is that the press is the "fourth estate" which serves the public interest by keeping an eye on the other three estates of government.

And the argument now is the DOJ has damaged the AP's ability to conduct business (don't take my word for it, consult kindly Dr. Maddow) because who is going to call the AP with a hot tip if they think the phone records are gonna be searched?  How, in other words, can the Fourth Estate function if it is going to be so hobbled?

Pardon me if I don't weep for AP in this circumstance.  Let's say I'm a practicing lawyer and the DOJ decides I may be involved in a criminal investigation and they get my phone records.  Lawyers, like most modern professionals, live on their telephones.  If word gets out the DOJ is checking mine, how many clients might decide not to call me just because they don't want the DOJ seeing their number and wondering why they called me?  Do I have a 1st Amendment protection?

No.  Do I get people to go on cable TeeVee everynight, weeping and wailing about what this does to the 1st Amendment or my ability to do business?

Yeah, right.*

And where I might be sympathetic with such arguments, in light of ABC getting burned very badly, and apparently deciding access is STILL more important than the public need to know who's lying to us, I offer the whiners about the AP records search a nice cup of STFU.

'Cause nobody's above the law, and the 1st Amendment doesn't give the press any more privileges than the 2nd Amendment gives gun owners.


*Besides, as Lucy Dalglish at the journalism school at University of Maryland, College Park, told NPR this morning: 

"Technology is not your friend."

"If you have a source that you need to protect, stay off the Internet, stay off the phone, don't use your credit card," she explains.

Instead, she says, talk to your sources like spies do on TV — on a park bench, face to face.

There; was that so hard?

Please Stand By

I did this once before and it wasn't wholly successful, but I've added "word verification" to cut down on the spam comments I have to keep cleaning out.


I'll reset when I post something worthy of comment.  Probably only do this occasionally, when comments are flagging and the undergrowth is particularly thick.

Gettin' tired of coming in here and just deleting the stuff.  So, sorry if you get cut off.  Full access will return shortly.

--The Management

ADDING:  okay, that didn't last long.  But the axe will fall again if I have to keep cleaning up the troll droppings.

In which ideas get their due regard

So now comes news the DOJ has subpenaed records of phone calls made by AP employees from ATT (or the phone company; whoever, these days, is the central repository of telephone records).  And it is quelle scandale and tout le monde is in despair over the death of democracy and the end of freedom.

Which, of course, is what the "gun nuts" say every time anybody says "guns" and "law" in the same sentence; but tout le monde knows those people are NOK, and that this is serious because AP is definitely OK ("Our Kind") and besides, what's the point of being tout le monde if you don't act like it?

But here's the problem:

DOJ did not "secretly" take the records of AP away from AP.  They got copies of records of phone calls made by AP employees on dates certain, and what they got was records of phone numbers called and the duration of the phone calls, as well as time of day of the phone calls.  What they didn't get was the content of those calls, since that content was ephemeral and has now vanished into the ether, or wherever phone conversations go, and can't be retrieved even by magic (why didn't Harry Potter have a "call back" spell?).

But DOJ got those records from the entity which generated them (ATT?  I dunno these days, but for convention's sake....).  The phone company generates a record of every phone call you make.  The government, if it wants to, can look at those records.  You have no expectation of privacy in such matters, except to the extent the government has to get a subpoena (ideally) to see those records.  The government also needs a court order to wiretap your phone, so I guess you could say you have a limited right of privacy over your phone conversations.  But is this a fishing expedition?

Well, it would be if the DOJ were acting like Ken Starr and trying to justify its existence by finding evidence of a crime, any crime, to keep it in business.  But the DOJ is investigating a crime, the unauthorized release of classified information.  Now maybe Washington classifies everything including the phone book, but that's a defense in court, not a reason to never investigate leaks.  But tout le monde has gone mad over the issue; or, as I like to put it:  Ox.  Gored.  Whose.

Rachel Maddow last night opened her show comparing the DOJ getting records openly from ATT (or whoever) to the "Plumbers" of Watergate break-in fame.  Yeah, that's a sane comparison.  The same issues are involved.  A legally issued subpoena is the same thing as a bunch of yahoos breaking into private offices to get information.  The basis for this comparison?  The "plumbers" were trying to plug leaks of classified information, too.

So, you see, it's just like Watergate!

Now, this kind of request for records goes on constantly.  You can do it in civil cases, you can do it in criminal cases.  But you need a criminal case (to get a judge involved) or at least a grand jury investigation, to get a subpoena issued.  Almost by definition, that is not a "fishing expedition" (oh, it still can be, but let's not say every criminal investigation is a fishing expedition, or we will bring the entire criminal justice enterprise to a screeching halt).  The request was not made of the AP; they don't generate these records.  It was made about AP.  But just because AP is a "press agency," its activities are no more protected by the 1st Amendment than the average person's; or corporation's.

Reporters cannot engage in criminal activity and claim a "freedom of the press" exemption.  They can be prosecuted for receiving classified material, but that's a bootless enterprise, and is the real reason the New York Times was not prosecuted by the Nixon Administration for publishing the Pentagon Papers (the public's "right to know" will generally win in the courtroom over the government's interest in national security, at least with a jury and/or public opinion).  And, by the way, Ms. Maddow, the issue in that case was prior restraint; not a subpoena of NYT reporters' phone records.  Reporters also cannot shield their sources from all investigation.

I remember a "Murphy Brown" episode, from the Poppy Bush era, where Candace Bergen's character went to jail for contempt of court because she wouldn't reveal a source, even under penalty of law ("sub poena;" it literally means "Under penalty").  It was "ripped from the headlines," as the saying goes, and reflected the state of the law then and now.  Reporters can refuse to give up their sources, but the 1st Amendment doesn't protect them from going to jail.  Other laws protect them from being tortured to give up that information (maybe 9/11 changed that, though....); but they don't get a "Get out of jail free" card, anymore than they get a "King's X" over any request for records held by a third party which might be relevant to a criminal investigation.

This is not, in other words, the end of civilization and the death of democracy.  Not unless you want to apply the same standards to drug lords and wife-beaters and child molesters and terrorists and all the other low-lifes we don't have much respect for.  Granted, the rights of low-lifes should be protected, too; but at some point criminal investigations have to proceed, and have to probe you in places you'd rather be left unprobed.  So when you find yourself on the receiving end of a criminal investigation, remember some people find themselves in that position on a regular basis.

Maybe because they are criminals; or maybe just because they are poor; or black; or black males who are poor.....

But they, of course, are not tout le monde.

If you will indulge me in an UPDATE:

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney batted away the notion that the Obama administration is behaving like Richard Nixon's.

"People who make those kinds of comparisons need to check their history," Carney said.

Try as he might, though, Carney has not been able to tamp down the idea that there is something "Nixonian" about the Justice Department's secret probe of the Associated Press.

And why can't Jay Carney tamp this comparison down? Perhaps because of those keeping it alive:  Brian Williams;  the lawyer for the New York Times in the Pentagon papers case; and the New York Times editorial board.

Tout le monde, in other words.

Wonkblog explains the critical issue here (apologies that this is presented so randomly):

The key here is a legal principle known as the “third party doctrine,” which says that users don’t have Fourth Amendment rights protecting information they voluntarily turn over to someone else. Courts have said that when you dial a phone number, you are voluntarily providing information to your phone company, which is then free to share it with the government.

This all dates back to a 1979 Supreme Court decision. Police had asked the phone company for information about the numbers dialed from a robbery suspect’s phone. The suspect objected, pointing to a famous 1967 ruling holding that the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant to record the audio of a phone call. He argued that the same principle ought to apply when the government records information about the numbers a suspect dials.

The Supreme Court rejected this argument. “We doubt that people in general entertain any actual expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial,” Justice Harry Blackmun wrote for the court. He pointed out that telephone customers are used to seeing numbers they’ve dialed on their monthly telephone bill.

 And, to be tedious, the crux of the biscuit:

 Journalists get a bit of a special deal here. The government has established special policies to guard against inappropriate surveillance of reporters. Before an FBI agent can seek a journalist’s call records, they must get special approval from the attorney general. But that’s merely a Justice Department policy, not a constitutional requirement. The policy could be changed in the future, and the lack of independent oversight makes abuses more likely.

The rest of the country doesn’t get even the modest procedural protection the government affords to journalists. The FBI likely didn’t need a warrant to obtain e-mail records that led to the identification of Paula Broadwell as the mistress of Gen. David Petraeus last year. Police officers have become increasingly aggressive in seeking records about the locations of suspects’ cell phones.

 Journalists get "a bit of a special deal here" because they own the megaphone, and that makes them tout le monde.  Which makes this "1st Amendment" argument sound more and more like the NRA on the 2nd Amendment....

(According to Democratic Underground, the "secret subpoenas" were issued by a grand jury investigating leaks regarding the capture of the "underwear bomber."  Yeah, just like the "Plumbers" in Watergate....)

"The chance won't come again...."

Which comes first:  the idea, or the person?

How do I describe this without giving away personal information about people who haven't chosen to be part of this blog's comments?  I'll do my best:

An elderly person in their 80's finds out someone they knew as a child has died, and in learning of the death, learns the deceased had a lesbian lover of many years standing.  Rather than condemn homosexuality, as this person was raised to do, the elderly person decides that homosexuality is not a "choice," and why should people be condemned for whom they love?  Why, in other words, shouldn't he grieve this death, and mourn with the family, rather than stand apart muttering darkly about the wages of sin?

Ideas come from people.  Even the ideas of Christianity came from Jesus of Nazareth; or Moses; or Abraham; or Isaiah; or Jeremiah.  I'm not trying to be exclusive here; you get the idea.  People come first, ideas later.

The idea cannot yield at every whim of society, every fresh breeze that blows through culture.  But neither can the idea be a stone wall, an immovable object waiting implacably for the irresistible force to encounter it.

If this blog has a motto, this is it:

 Ideas don't matter. 

Things don't matter. 

People matter.

Thanks be to God, who is indeed, making all things new; scary though that sometimes is.

Mother's Day 2013

So I came across this about today (although it's 3 years old):

I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or severely damaged children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one but Hallmark and See’s. There is no refuge — not at the horse races, movies, malls, museums. Even the turn-off-your-cellphone announcer is going to open by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day!” You could always hide in a nice seedy bar, I suppose. Or an ER.

And my first thought was how uncomfortable I was folding "Mother's Day" into the worship service on that Sunday morning in May.  It wasn't as bad as "Scout Sunday," when the colors were trooped down the main aisle of the nave and everyone all but saluted (false idols!).  It was worse than Father's Day, which wasn't much fun either (and, full disclosure, I actively dissuade my daughter from observing Father's Day in my own home; I always have, I always will.  I am not worthy.)

Mostly I didn't like it because it had no place on the liturgical calendar, and no real place in liturgical worship.  I wasn't a purist about worship, but worship is for contemplating and praising and seeking the presence of, God.  And Mother's Day is for...well, Hallmark and See's.

And it's not for people who aren't mothers; or who lost children in childbirth; or whose own mothers were horrors out of a badly written Gothic novel.  And no, that's not an idle statement:  I had a church member in the church I served as a student pastor whose history of family abuse made her not want to call God "Father," as in "Our Father, who art in heaven."  And I couldn't exactly disagree with her.

I'm sure she hated Father's Day like poison.

Not that the rest of us have to "suffer" because of one such unfortunate individual history; but then, excluding Mother's or Father's Day from the worship service isn't exactly my idea of suffering.  We don't have to put it on the back of someone else; we can just say it really has no place in public worship, and give people who do feel excluded on the day (especially from restaurants.  We took the Lovely Wife to lunch on Mother's Day once, a long time ago; we've never made the same mistake again.) a place to feel comfortably included.

Which, after all, is the purpose of the church; at least, in my ecclesiology.  I know that means welcoming the unbaptized and the unrepentant, and maybe even the unbelieving, but...so be it.

Here's hoping you don't feel the need to hide from the day, and that you understand those who might wish to.  And above all: don't misbehave!

ADDING:

Let me sharpen the irony by using this pre-publication update to note the history of Mother's Day, per Diana Butler Bass:

In May 1907, Anna Jarvis, a member of a Methodist congregation in Grafton, West Virginia, passed out 500 white carnations in church to commemorate the life of her mother. One year later, the same Methodist church created a special service to honor mothers. Many progressive and liberal Christian organizations--like the YMCA and the World Sunday School Association--picked up the cause and lobbied Congress to make Mother's Day a national holiday. And, in 1914, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson made it official and signed Mother's Day into law. Thus began the modern celebration of Mother's Day in the United States.

For some years, radical Protestant women had been agitating for a national Mother's Day hoping that it would further a progressive political agenda that favored issues related to women's lives. In the late 19th century, Julia Ward Howe (better know for the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") expressed this hope in her 1870 prose-poem, "A Mother's Day Proclamation" calling women to pacifism and political resistance....

 Now, if we could use Mother's Day for that purpose, or to further the kind of social justice Ann Jarvis favored:

...Anna Reeves Jarvis organized poor women in West Virginia into "Mothers' Work Day Clubs" to raise the issue of clean water and sanitation in relation to the lives of women and children. She also worked for universal access to medicine for the poor. Reeves Jarvis was also a pacifist who served both sides in the Civil War by working for camp sanitation and medical care for soldiers of the North and the South. 

 That would be an observance worthy of a church service.  But I can do without the hearts and flowers and schmaltz, thank you very much.

Hammer time!

In which I take a lovely, simple melody (a/k/a a perfectly reasonable observation), and drive it right into the ground (musical accompaniment by Leo Kottke):

Indeed, Mr. Sagan's argument was, and the argument still is, that of a man with a hammer, to whom the whole world resembles a nail. The Bible is no more meant to be the answer to all things (i.e., truly cosmological) than science is; but once you make that mistake, as many do on either side of the question, then you tumble down the rabbit hole into arguments with Mr. Sagan.

 I know I tend to lean to far toward Gould and non-overlapping magisteria to your tastes, but obviously (given your making of this statement) you have to agree 100% with Gould to agree with the position stated above.

Not really.  Here is Gould on NOMA in a nutshell:

Religion is too important to too many people for any dismissal or denigration of the comfort still sought by many folks from theology. I may, for example, privately suspect that papal insistence on divine infusion of the soul represents a sop to our fears, a device for maintaining a belief in human superiority within an evolutionary world offering no privileged position to any creature. But I also know that souls represent a subject outside the magisterium of science. My world cannot prove or disprove such a notion, and the concept of souls cannot threaten or impact my domain. Moreover, while I cannot personally accept the Catholic view of souls, I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us.

Religion, IOW, is okay for those as likes it, so long as they keep it to themselves and at least tacitly acknowledge the supremacy of empiricism (i.e., "Science") to provide the real understanding of all things (like, say, "mind" (psychology) or humanity (anthropology), and stick with things science stopped giving a wet snap about sometime around the Enligthtenment (the soul, for example). So, we can't get rid of religion; might as well treat it like the red-headed stepchild.

Which is not something I would agree with, at all.

I can declare a complete disinterest in the empirical world without declaring a complete disinterest in the world.  Which is more important to my life:  that I know my wife loves me, or that I know how my car operates?  My knowledge of my wife's love is not based on empirical evidence.  If it were, it would be, as David Hume pointed out, a mere fact among facts, no more important to me than the weight of a particular stone.  But it is far more important to me than how my car operates.  For one to fail would be an inconvenience; for the other to fail, for me to be completely wrong in that knowledge, would utterly change my life in ways no mechanic (or hospital, if my failure is my knowledge of how to drive safely) could repair.

Are these non-overlapping magisteria?

Notice that even as Gould dismisses the concept of the soul as "a sop to our fears, a device for maintaining a belief in human superiority within an evolutionary world offering no privileged position to any creature," he provides a sop to the fear that science is not the superior source of knowledge, possession of which offers a privileged position to any human.  At least, a privileged position within human society, which is the only place privilege really matters.

Are these non-overlapping magisteria?  Or is this Rome letting the children of Abraham in Judea have their god and their Temple and their rituals, so long as that Passover event doesn't get out of hand (and the walls of the Governor's Palace provide a vantage point for watching the rabble in the Temple courtyard that once a year)?

I really don't see that the late Mr. Gould's idea is all that distant from the Scientism of the late Mr. Sagan. I can disregard them both with out dismissing modern science or my religious faith.*


*Funny and perhaps unimportant anecdote:  Science Friday today featured a Nobel-prize winning physicist (Saul Perlmutter) who tried to explain the Big Bang as being a point when there was no space between all the matter in the universe, but the universe was still infinite.  He pointed out the problem was not accepting this image, but accepting the idea of infinity, which he finally had to explain in terms that sounded very much like the usual explanation of the Christian Trinity:  it's a mystery you can't understand, but you have to start there to understand everything else about, well, Christianity or cosmology, apparently.  No one, in other words, can "understand" infinity; they just have to accept the concept to understand everything else science says about the cosmos.

NOMA, right?

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers..."

Ladies and gentlemen, the anarchist Cody Wilson:

In a letter to the student, Cody Wilson, a [U.S. State D]epartment official wrote that... posting the files [for the "printable gun"] may have released “technical data” without authorization [in violation of arms exporting regulations].... Mr. Wilson...said that he would try to claim an exemption for the regulations because on the Internet the files would be in the public domain.

Anarchy just ain't as simple as it used to be.

Oh, and he pulled down the files for the gun; 'cause, you know, libertarianism.  Or something.