iBeth

Tiny Houses

I *love* these Tumbleweed Tiny Houses.  If I were single, I would be looking for a way to move in. (via Gene)

N.O. Crimes Exaggerated

In her article "The Uses of Disaster," Rebecca Solnit points out that official post-disaster stories--characterized by victims rampaging out-of-control--often conflict with actual post-disaster events--characterized by survivors helping each other.   

Because disasters are accompanied by a breakdown  in authority, officials must emphasize the dangers of no-government-living in order to regain their control.  Yet post-Katrina, the official story was undercut by the fact that the biggest horror was created by government--the chaos at the convention center.  (I wrote a somewhat better summary of Solnit's article here.)

Now the LA Times reports that Bush and others are blaming the horrible convention center stories on media exaggeration:

"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Bush said Monday of the Superdome.

His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center.

What really happened, say officials, was that government officials were helping people at those centers, and the media just made it more difficult:

Bush, of the National Guard, said that reports of corpses at the Superdome filtered back to the facility via AM radio, undermining his struggle to keep morale up and maintain order.

"We had to convince people this was still the best place to be," Bush said. "What I saw in the Superdome was just tremendous amounts of people helping people."

But, Bush said, those stories received scant attention in newspapers or on television.

This story adds another dimension to Solnit's hypothesis.  In this case, the authorities regain control by turning the site of a failure into the site of a success . . . and by undermining the credibility of the media that helped spread mistrust of government.  Still, the official emphasis is placed on governmental actions rather than on civilians helping each other. 

Surprising Things About Jesus

At the suggestion of a priest*, I've been reading the gospel of Matthew.  What a different experience to read the story straight through, instead of in little bits and pieces, and to read it in the Contemporary English Version rather than the KJV.  Three things about Jesus surprised me:

1. Even his disciples didn't understand his parables all the time.  In fact, they asked him specifically why the heck he always spoke in parables (Matthew 13:10), and shortly afterwards, when Jesus told the parable about the weeds in the wheat field, his disciples followed him and basically said, "Psst! Jesus!  What did that mean, anyway?" (Matthew 13:36) 

This makes me feel a bit better, because a couple of the parables are, imo, confusing.  For example (Matthew 21:28-32) a man had two sons and he asked both of them to work in his vinyard.  The older son told him that he would not do it, but then changed his mind and did.  The younger son said he would, but didn't go.  Jesus asked, "Which one of the sons obeyed his father?"

"The older one," I thought to myself, and sure enough, Jesus' listeners answered the same.  Then Jesus told them, "You can be sure that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will!"  In other words, wrong answer.  But why?

2. Jesus became very crabby as the crucifixion approached. I don't blame him, of course, I was just surprised to see it.  There was the time he encountered a fig tree that didn't happen to have any fruit at the moment (Matthew 21: 18-22).  So he told the tree, "You will never again grow any fruit!" and the tree dried up.  That seems a trifle unfair, though it did impress the disciples.  Another time (Matthew 17:14-21), the disciples failed to heal a boy of epilepsy.  Jesus said to them, "You people are too stubborn to have any faith!  How much longer must I be with you?  Why do I have to put up with you?"    Ouch.

Until I read the story straight through, I didn't appreciate how Jesus changed from the "don't tell anyone" healer to the "go out there and spread the good news" leader to the "my God, why have you deserted me?" figure on the cross to the "I will be with you always, even until the end of the world" risen savior.

3. For all our claims to be a "Christian" nation, the U.S. has strayed pretty far from Jesus' teachings. 

Think about:

"God blesses those people who are humble.  The earth will belong to them!" (Matthew 5:5)

"I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you.  Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven.  He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. . . . You must always act like your Father in heaven." (Matthes 5:44-48)

"So if you are about to place your gift on the altar and remember that someone is angry with you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.  Make peace with that person, then come back and offer your gift to God." (Matthew 5:23)

"When you do good deeds, don't try to show off.  If you do, you won't get a reward from your Father in heaven." (Matthes 6:1) 

"Don't condemn others, and God won't condemn you." (Matthew 7:1)

"If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own!  Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. . . . It's terribly hard for rich people to get into the kingdom of heaven! In fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into God's kingdom."  (Matthew 19:21-23)

These teachings are difficult.  I don't know if I'm capable of following them in my own life, and when you look around at our war-making, poverty-riddled yet wealthy country, it's clear that the U.S. isn't doing it.   

In fact, I do not understand how the current self-righteous property-focused Republican party (as opposed to the classic "respect individuals" Republican party of yore) can consider itself to be the more "Christian" party, or how people proud of their Christianity can support that party. 

4. Jesus was open-minded.  This wasn't a surprise--I'm just sayin'.  What I've read of Matthew goes along with the Socinian's Reinterpretation of John 14:6.  The exclusionary overtones of that verse ("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through me")  is part of why I'm uncomfortable with the idea of baptism.  As fausto puts it, "if we can find glimpses of truth in many traditions and cultures, how can we affirm one that denies all the others?"  But he goes on to explain that John was not trying to set up a wall between his followers and all other truth-seekers:

[I]t would be a misinterpretation to understand those to be the verbatim words of Jesus, decreeing eternally as the one true God of Israel, that the only way to escape an eternity of burning torment in the afterlife is strict adherence to a set of abstruse doctrines about himself that would not even be defined until hundreds of years later by politically charged conferences of fallible men. Rather, it is John's attempt to illustrate Jesus' identity with the divine Logos, which the Greek philosophers believed to be present everywhere.

Certainly, Matthew tells of a Jesus who appreciated faith in all people, even tax collectors and Canaanites.  I still haven't decided whether to be baptized, but I'm learning a lot.

*After feeling "in the way" during a few too many communion services, I finally talked to the priest at the Episcopal church I've been attending.  We had a very rewarding conversation, and he sent me home with a prayerbook and instructions to read the baptism service and the gospel of Matthew.

I Could Not Stomach It

Prairie Weather points to poet Sharon Olds' explanation for turning down a White House invitation:

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

Read her poetry here.  Today's favorite for me: "The Daughter Goes to Camp."

I think we can all relate to this

You know you're a parent, when . . .

... statements that would normally seem strange, are pretty normal.

Last night, when I was outside putting the cover on the grill, I could clearly hear my next door neighbor saying something to his kids - "DO NOT EAT THAT BOOK". Funny thing is, it really didn't phase me.

(via Furrygoat)

More Hilarious Cartoons

As the semester gets busier, Pratie Place gives us a good timely laugh with these cartoons.  Since I am [the last person in the blogosphere to] try Getting Things Done, I feel a lot like the "I have to make a little note" guy right now.

Price Gouging Is Good

Or at least, so says Jane Galt in this counter-intuitive piece. Definitely worth thinking about as Rita takes out another chunk of our energy infrastructure.  (via Economom)

The Uses of Disaster

I may be the last person in the blogosphere to comment on this, but I can't resist: The recent Harper's Magazine article on "The Uses of Disaster" is one of the most thought-provoking pieces I've read all year.  I'm going to summarize the main points below, but the original is much better!  Go read it!

Author Rebecca Solnit begins by noting that disaster after disaster is followed by the "surprising" phenomenon of people displaying human kindness and good sense.  In fact, one important aspect of disaster management is managing the many volunteers who show up to help.

But despite the many positive examples of post-disaster humanity--and Solnit lists many--the official story is that people cannot be trusted after a disaster, and that the government must step in and save us from our looting/pillaging/raping or helpless quivering selves.  Witness Katrina, in which comments like Brigadier General Gary Jones' "This place is going to look like Little Somalia . . . . We're going to go out and take this city back" compete with "innumerable stories of rescue, aid, and care by doctors, neighbors, strangers, and volunteers who arrived on their own boats, and in helicopters, buses, and trucks."  Solnit reminds us [emphasis mine]:

The most hellish image in New Orleans was not the battering waves of Lake Pontchartrain or even the homeless children wandering on raised highways. It was the forgotten thousands crammed into the fetid depths of the Superdome. And what most news outlets failed to report was that those infernos were not designed by the people within, nor did they represent the spontaneous eruption of nature red in tooth and claw. They were created by the authorities. The people within were not allowed to leave. The Convention Center and the Superdome became open prisons. “They won't let them walk out,” reported Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, in a radical departure from the script. “They got locked in there. And anyone who walks up out of that city now is turned around. You are not allowed to go to Gretna, Louisiana, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Over there, there's hope. Over there, there's electricity. Over there, there is food and water. But you cannot go from here to there. The government will not allow you to do it. It's a fact.” . . . That was not anarchy, nor was it civil society.

Solnit suggests that the Lord-of-the-Flies scenarios promulgated by the government are one facet of the "privatization" phenomenon in which citizens become consumers, and in which we fear one another and regard public life as a dangerous nuisance.  We react by living in secured spaces [and hoas!], communicate by electronic means, and acquire information from electronic media rather than from each other.

"When we look back at Katrina," she comments, "we may see that the that the greatest savagery was that of our public officials, who not only failed to provide the infrastructure, social services, and opportunities that would have significantly decreased the vulnerability of pre-hurricane New Orleans but who also, when disaster did occur, put their ideology before their people."

The Katrina comments were a post-script--the article was originally inspired by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  I'll be watching to see how well this analysis will fit post-Rita events. 

Creative Lawnmowing

An Omaha man has offended his neighbors by mowing a thirty-foot-long "two word expletive" into his lawn:

City prosecutor Marty Conboy said little can be done legally about the yard.

"There really is no criminal law that covers these kinds of vulgarities," Conboy said.

Conboy said it would be different if the homeowner threatened city employees by saying the expletive, but on the lawn, it's a passive statement protected by the First Amendment. . . . .

Ordinarily I believe real governments are better equipped to deal with problems than private governments, but this case would probably be different, if only because hoa rules tend to be more vague than the Omaha code that merely limits grass height to 10 inches or less. 

If it happened here, I suppose our hoa could sue.  Legal action might be too costly for our hoa though; I suspect we'd  need to pass a special assessment to deal with the problem, or to forego sheriff patrols, lighted entrance, and grass mowing.  Not that I would want to give my neighbors any ideas.  (Though some are certain that my house color sends the same message.)

Swedish Names

A friend's mom recently asked me for my sister's new married name.

I told her.  It's a five-syllable surname with vowel sounds that we don't have in English.  She frowned and asked, "Couldn't you have persuaded her to marry someone with an easy last name, like yours?"

"Well, I considered that," I said, "But I really like the man she married.  So I decided to let it go."