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The religionist party - who'll be our Pastor-President?

Andrew Sullivan live-blogged the GOP presidential candidate debate on November 28. He had some interesting observations.

About the ultra-religionist Republican Party that Karl Rove helped bring about:

I'm not a fiscal liberal, or a supporter of the death penalty, or someone who believes that a candidacy for the presidency of the United States should be based on someone's religious faith. So Huckabee is not for me. But he is easily the most appealing candidate for the current big-spending, evangelical, Southern Republican party. I don't find his religious schtick in any way appealing. It's glib in one area where glibness really is inappropriate. To say something like "Jesus was far too smart to seek public office" may have a superficial appeal, but it is also a cheapening of Jesus' radical injunction to forswear worldly power and wealth. To use such a cheap line to score a laugh in a political debate is not something I find particularly admirable.
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[Y]ou can see why Huckabee is rising.... [H]e does have the most important qualification of anyone on stage: ["]A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.["]

Think of tonight as Rove's Frankenstein moment.

Sullivan rightly referred to the GOP as "a religiously-based organization," and pointed out that many in the GOP "believe that religion should define public institutions, including the military."

Here is a summary of what he feels "Bush and Rove have achieved"

the suspension of secular politics in the Republican party, and, by inference, the country as a whole. This has become, thanks to Bush and Rove, a religious contest. And that's why, in today's GOP, Huckabee is the proper leader. It's a church; and he's a minister. It's a match made in heaven.

Queen of Quagmire ... more lessons from the Brits

From The New York Review of Books:

"When the British needed a senior political officer in Basra during World War I, they appointed a forty-six-year-old woman" Gertrude Bell. From 1916 to 1926 she served there, helping create Iraq "in 1920 from the three Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, which were conquered and occupied by the British during World War I...."

She wrote almost as soon as she arrived in Basra in 1916: '...We rushed into the business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive political scheme.' [And]

The wild drive of discontented nationalism...and of discontented Islam...might have proved too much for us however far-seeing we had been; but that doesn't excuse us for having been blind.

Bell is...both the model of a policymaker and an example of the inescapable frailty and ineptitude on the part of Western powers in the face of all that is chaotic and uncertain in the fashion for "nation-building."

T.E. Lawrence ["Lawrence of Arabia"] was right to demand the withdrawal of every British soldier [from Iraq] and no stronger link between Britain and Iraq than existed between Britain and Canada. For the same reason, more language training and contact with the tribes, more troops and better counterinsurgency tactics—in short a more considered imperial approach—are equally unlikely to allow the US today to build a state in Iraq, in southern Afghanistan, or Iran. If Bell is a heroine, it is not as a visionary but as a witness to the absurdity and horror of building nations for peoples with other loyalties, models, and priorities.

(Photo: Gertrude Bell's grave at the Anglican Cemetery in Baghdad.)

Iraq: we broke it; we'll have to try to fix it.

The security situation in Iraq has improved for now, and decidedly so. Some refugees are returning. The number of civilian deaths are down...70% since June; the number of US military deaths are down significantly, too. Three reasons for the improvement are identified in "Inside The Surge" a great article by Jon Lee Anderson in the November 19 issue of The New Yorker. The reasons are:

1) The surge itself—which is, in part, an increase in US troop numbers in select areas in Iraq and a repositioning of troops "out of large bases and into Joint Security Stations—small outposts in [some of] Baghdad’s most dangerous districts," but not (yet?) in "Baghdad’s Shiite slums...which are controlled by Shiite militiamen."

2) The Mahdi freeze—Moqtada al-Sadr's decision in August "to order the Mahdi Army, which is believed to have been responsible for much of the Shiite-on-Sunni sectarian killing in and around Baghdad, to 'freeze' its activities for six months."

3) The Sunni Awakening—the decision by some Sunni tribesmen in the Anbar province "to ally themselves with the Americans and to fight against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia." In other words, the US acceptance of help from insurgents who used to attack them. (As one official told Anderson, "Some of these armed groups were, until yesterday...considered terrorists."

Thus, for a mix of reasons the US military (with some help from Coalition forces of other nations) are policing a civil war more successfully. (Meanwhile, things in Afghanistan have been worsening for months.)Many military analysts now say that we may well have to stay in Iraq with 100,000 to 150,000 men for another 5 to 10 years. This is a daunting prospect considering that the US government spends $15,000,000 per hour in Iraq as it is, and considering that if a conflict breaks out elsewhere in the world, the US may not be able to respond adequately with so many soldiers committed in Iraq.

Our Iraq adventure was an unwarranted invasion undertaken without proper post-invasion plans or an exit strategy. It was justified to the American people with false evidence and heated rhetoric parroted by an unquestioning corporate media establishment that serves the republic poorly. It was also a turning away from the fight against the original Al-Qaeda. (The man responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks is still at large, remember.) What is more, it remains today a cause celebre for terrorist recruiters and Muslim fundamentalist extremists worldwide. And it has left us more isolated from the rest of the world than we have ever been, more in debt, and militarily weaker.

Yet, there we are: in Iraq, like it or not. We broke Iraq, and we need to try to fix it. The sooner we can leave the better; the sooner we can turn security, anti-terrorism, economic development, and aid-related operations over to non-US institutions the better.

Some observers argue that there is a military solution in Iraq, and I agree only insofar as security on the ground is a prerequisite for the political dealings, compromises, and reconciliation work that will bring about the real, lasting solution. So, security is needed, therefore we should keep US troops there, right? Maybe, maybe not. When the British forces left Basra recently, violence in the area dropped 90%. So it's possible that removing our troops will actually bring stability, at least insofar as the troops themselves cease being targets (attacks decrease) and cease being one reason for young Iraqi men to arm themselves. However, I have a hard time believing that if the US withdrew quickly a new wave of Shiite-Sunni violence would not follow. But setting no schedules or benchmarks at all for a pullout is too far too far towards the extreme option of staying for an undefined period of time. What is more, remaining in Iraq does not seem to be motivating Iraqi political leaders to begin the necessary reconciliation and unity tasks before them, which they are pursuing only half-heartedly.

Do we stay or do we go? The answer is both and neither. We need to draw down the numbers and try to get others nations and multinational organizations involved, if that's possible. It's a complicated situation. It could have been avoided all along. And we're paying dearly for it. But, both the knee-jerk "out of Iraq now!" sentiment and the ill-defined "stay the course!" Bush administration motto are recklessly simplistic.

148 years ago today: Origin of Species published

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, by Charles Darwin was published on November 24, 1859 in Great Britain.

"Pick on Lesbians Day" man elected to school board -- superintendent resigns

From a a high school classmate of mine comes this article concerning the resignation of Tom Westerhaus, the schools superintendent of Prior Lake, Minnesota, following the election to the school board there of a disciplined former employee, Chris Lind:

In June, with Westerhaus' recommendation, the Prior Lake-Savage school board fired Lind, who worked as a campus supervisor at Prior Lake High School. Lind, a devout Christian, had been at the high school for four years. In that time, he had developed a reputation among students as an adult willing to befriend them and mentor them in their faith.

The district said it fired Lind for "job performance and insubordination" after receiving complaints about his talking to students on campus about their sexual orientation and telling a student that the day was "National Pick On Lesbians Day." The district also warned him about maintaining appropriate boundaries with students and the need to separate the role of supervisor of students from the role of friend.

Additional perspective via a conservative Christian blog.

Further reporting here provides additional background.

It seems to me that Mr. Lind almost certainly behaved in an unprofessional or immature manner in his previous position. Apparently it has been argued (not not confirmed perhaps) that Mr. Lind was offered direction on appropriate boundaries. Boundries between students and staff (or employees and managers for that matter) are vital to a proper learning (or work) environment. I think the comments of the local minister in support of Mr. Lind are ill-considered at best. Being a "nice guy" to some students (probably not to gay ones) and being willing to "mentor" students in their faith--activities that have a time and a place that are not public school time or a public school campus--hardly seem like an over-arching reasons for Mr. Lind to have been retained, as his supporters seem to imply that they were. Being a nice guy to those who seem willing to share his opinions--in a school board where many voters clearly do--has helped him get elected, no doubt. It does not change that simple fact that he demonstrated a lack of wisdom at best--insubordination at worst. What is more, the voters decided that that was okay. I don't see that Lind has much of a legal case at all--he was an employee at will; it was not a "right to work" situation, given the evidence at hand. However, he may be vindicative enough to sue anyway, just to cost others money.

It would seem as though the voters of this district care more about ideological purity and religious matters than professionalism, even in the public sphere, even in the realms of public administration and education.

Karl Marx would be very comfortable with that.

It seems to me that all of this could have been avoided if Lind had done his issues advocacy (arguably political activity) and proselytizing with students in the private sphere: grab a root beer at McDonald's after school and talk about it there, or invite a student to church. In an educational setting, why would concern for students be expressed relative to non-educational issues? It seems to me that Mr. Lind ought to have pursued a career as a youth pastor, not a public school campus supervisor.

Europeans-borne plague killed-off most Indians in New England before the Pilgrims got there

Did you know that a plague borne by Europeans killed off most native Americans in Massachusetts before the Pilgrims got there? "British fishermen had been fishing off Massachusetts for decades before the Pilgrims landed," James W. Loewen points out. They transmitted to the Native Americans probably what was bubonic plague (possibly small pox or the flu), and

within three years this plague wiped out between 90% and 96% of the inhabitants of southern New England. The Indian societies lay devastated. Only "the twentieth person is scarce left alive," wrote British eyewitness Robert Cushman, describing a death rate unknown in all previous human experience.

Smallpox epidemics followed.

These epidemics constituted perhaps the most important single geopolitical event of the first third of the 1600s, anywhere on the planet. They meant that the British would face no real Indian challenge for their first fifty years in America. Indeed, the plague helped cause the legendary warm reception Plymouth enjoyed in its first formative years from the Wampanoags. Massasoit needed to ally with the Pilgrims because the plague had so weakened his villages that he feared the Narragansetts to the west.

Charles Mann, author of 1491, summarizes it thus:

By the time [of] the Mayflower, Europeans had been visiting New England for more than a hundred years.... New England, [they] saw, was thickly settled and well defended. In 1605 and 1606 Samuel de Champlain visited Cape Cod, hoping to establish a French base. He abandoned the idea. Too many people already lived there. A year later Sir Ferdinando Gorges—British despite his name—tried to establish an English community in southern Maine. It had more founders than Plymouth and seems to have been better organized. Confronted by numerous well-armed local Indians, the settlers abandoned the project within months. The Indians at Plymouth would surely have been an equal obstacle to [the Pilgrims'] ramshackle expedition had disease not intervened.

"Let us base our unity on Jesus Christ as Lord."

From Pastor Dan at Street Prophets: blogger Bene Diction caught this story of a North Carolina church being booted out of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) for welcoming people who happened to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

Bene Diction also in a comment takes a strong stand for a progressive understanding of homosexulaity that is orthodox within the confines of an evangelical Protestantism that neither rejects real-world observation nor fetishizes particular knee-jerk readings of the bible tantamount to commiting a heresy of idolizing it:

The US is unique[ly] both facinated and repelled by sexuality, in a way few countries are.
Most western countries don’t have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy anymore.

Homosexuality is not a disease.
Being gay is not a sin.
Separating us into parts, spiritual, mental, flesh makes it easier for groups such as Exodus International to operate with impunity.
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Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality as we know and understand it today.
He talked about the deeper human issues, relationship, faithfulness, honour, honesty, love.
He reserved his admonitions for the same people Paul did, those that promote the power imbalance of sexual slavery and degredation of human beings.

I do not see a committed homosexual relationship as sinful.
I do not see my GLBT friends as any more broken than I am.
They are not suffering a disease that needs a cure.
I suspect we disagree.
While historically European and western countries didn’t give GLBT relationships legal standing, they existed, and they existed within the church. They continue to exist.

What a terrible terrible thing we do when we insist GLBT stop being who they are.

Nov. 16, 1532 - Pizarro takes Cajamarca in Inca Peru

On November 16, 1532, (475 years ago this year) Francisco Pizarro with only 168 soldiers, launched a surprise attack against against the Inca king, Atahuallpa, and his tribal commanders from within the city of Cajamarca. Though the city was defended by as many as 80,000 soldiers, Pizarro was victorious. The Spanish force used cavalry charges and volleys of muskets from behind cover. The Inca had encountered neither horses nor guns before. (Also, the Spanish wore steel armor, but the Inca had only slight leather armor.) The Spanish attack destroyed the command structure of the Inca. Thus were both the king and the city of Cajamarca able to be captured by so few men.

Pizarro, against his word, had the king executed 8 months later after a ransom had been paid for the monarch. The ransom of gold and silver was enough to fill the so-called "ransom room," which was 22' x 17', and 8' tall.

Nova aired an episode about the new light that research in Peru is shedding on the tale of the Inca empire's downfall.

Washroom wobblies

Click to enlarge.

Saucy blogging when you can't afford anything else

From Vanessa Grigoriadis's article about Gawker.com, published in New York Magazine.

[Blogging] has lent itself...perfectly to capturing the current ethos of young New York, which is overwhelmingly tipped toward anger, envy, and resentment at those who control the culture and apartments. “New York is a city for the rich by the rich, and all of us work at the mercy of rich people and their projects,” says Choire Sicha, Gawker’s top editor (he currently employs a staff of five full-time writers). “If you work at any publication in this town, you work for a millionaire or billionaire. In some ways, that’s functional, and it works as a feudal society. But what’s happened now, related to that, is that culture has dried up and blown away....”
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Youthful anxiety and generational angst about having been completely cheated out of ownership of Manhattan, and only sporadically gaining it in Brooklyn and Queens, has fostered a bloodlust for the heads of the douchebags who stole the city. It’s that old story of haves and have-nots, rewritten once again.