Imagine the Quaker
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archives | newquaker.comSaturday, June 26, 2004
Cheney's wily world of words. I think Vice President Cheney is getting a bad rap after reports that he hurled the "F-bomb" at Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont during "picture day" on the Senate floor on Tuesday. According to new reports yesterday, Cheney turned to Leahy and scolded the Vermont senator for accusing him of war profiteering in Iraq through his ties with Halliburton. Leahy reminded the vice president that he had accused Democrats of being anti-Catholic in their opposition to some of Bush's judicial nominees. That's when Cheney is supposed to have said: "Go f‑‑k yourself."[1]
According to my confidential informant, what Cheney actually said was "Go visit the Austrian village of F*cking." This is a real place. In fact, recently the 150 residents there voted against changing the name of their village as an effort to thwart the frequent theft of the village's roadsign, mostly by British tourists. Said an exasperated spokesman: "Everyone here knows what it means in English, but for us F*cking is F*cking—and it's going to stay F*cking—even though the signs keep getting stolen."[2]1. Source: CNN, Reuters, June 25, 2004
2. Source: Ananova, June 8, 2004
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 2:40 PM
Friday, June 25, 2004
Letter to the Editor, Christianity Today:
I don't mean to belittle Bob Smietana's contribution (July 2004 issue: "When Does Personhood Begin?") to the wider issues involved in stem-cell research, in vitro fertilization, and abortion, but he really doesn't move us any further along.
The modern abortion debate used to be mired in infuriating banter over "when did life begin" and years were wasted as pro-life vocalists chased this red herring. Now Smietana apparently wants us to be led by the nose again as we chase the "when does personhood begin" debate. The person is nothing more than a philosophical construct of moral-legal theories; similarly, life is merely a line drawn by taxonomists. The human being is not simply any one of these things. We can bounce back and forth between life and person, and think that we're actually saying something, because being human has lost its sacredness and now gets shuffled among the other biological entities. As this biological entity, another object mingled with secular things, the human being is no longer a part of the inventory of revered objects. We seem to get away with debating life and person because they still have some sacred charge. I mean, who is against life? Who could be against the person? We could also frame these debates, as many have done, by using words such as "child," "infant," "mother," "father" and other terms that still carry the fairy dust of emotion, but we would continue to miss the point of the discussion in the first place. That point is to come to terms with our place in the Kingdom of God. Those who seek not this kingdom have another agenda entirely—in abortion, in stem-cell research, in assisted reproductive technologies, in judgments about the embryo, the fetus, and the mature organism. If our battle is with anyone, or anything, it is with this bioethics agenda.
Where Smietana's piece serves us best is in showing the wide disconnect among evangelical Christians as to the value of the human being in God's kingdom. I imagine that Satan simply delights in watching us stand still and argue among ourselves, as the profane world walks right past us, toward its own contrived end. We can't possibly change the heart and mind of the pagan if our own hearts and minds are stuck in the bog of a profane world view. What was it Paul said? Oh, yeah, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" [Rom 12:2]. Until Christians can achieve this thoughtful renewal, we are absolutely no use to a world that needs to hear our voices speaking directly, not talking one way but pointing to another.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 5:25 PM
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Guantanamo is not what we think it is. What we were led to believe was a detention center, basically a stark holding pen for suspected Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda operatives, may well be another cruel institution built on the model of the American civilian prison. The difference, however slight, is that the civilian prison houses convicts: the detention center at Guantanomo shrouds no one convicted of any crime.
And it gets creepy. Yesterday, ABC News published a report on the treatment of Army Spc Sean Baker of Georgetown, KY, who in January 2003 participated in a Guantanamo training drill by putting on an orange jumpsuit and posing as an "uncooperative" prisoner. Military police pounded him and choked him. Said Baker:"I could not breathe. So after a few seconds, I assume, I began to panic because I could not breathe, and I was trying to get [up] and they just, you know, they just escalated the force. They just torqued it up. And from that point, the individual that was behind me slammed my head against the steel floor a few times, several times. And split my head over the top of on top of my right eye. I tried to terminate the exercise by using the code word 'red' as was instructed to do by the platoon leader but the team would not respond. I repeated the word several times with no response."
The beating did not stop until the soldiers spotted his Army uniform underneath the prison jumpsuit. Baker was given a medical discharge. According to ABC News, official medical documents show "Baker sustained traumatic brain injury, leading to a complex seizure disorder." The Army says his injuries were minor. It has reopened a criminal investigation of the incident, but proclaims at the same time that it "treats all detainees humanely."
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 10:51 PM
Sunday, June 20, 2004
The other Reagan legacy. Democracy Now! has a transcript of its recent interview with Catholic priest Fr Miguel D'Escoto, who was Nicaragua's Foreign Minister under the Sandinista government in the 1980s. "Reagan Was the Butcher of My People" gives another bitter side to our memory of the former president.
Democracy Now! pioneers the largest public media collaboration in the US, airing on more than 225 North American stations, and is produced at the Downtown Community Television Center, in New York City's Chinatown district.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 1:49 AM
© Merle Harton, Jr. All rights reserved. Biblical references are NIV® unless otherwise noted.
