Future posts will be at TheHighPost.com where I will be teaming up with Mr. Joffre Swait of Floridian fame. Come visit us there!

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// posted by The Wino @ 1:10 PM

  I've a couple of links for you today. Maybe I'll post something thoughtful later, but maybe not. Oh, some friends of mine are thinking about opening a coffeeshop. Since most of you are coffee geeks please let me know your ONE most favoritest thing you like about your most favoritest coffeeshop. Please email me.

Oh, and I no longer work at Caribou. I currently deliver papers for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and am training to be a sales rep for AFLAC. You can start the duck jokes . . . NOW.

More linkes:
Do you think Putin wants Bush re-elected? He seems to be trying awful hard!

Speaking of Superman, has anyone seen these? I recommend you only click if you have a fast connection. I like 'em.

Oh, and regarding the beheading of Berg and the rumoured beheading of Johnson, if I get captured by Al Qaeda I want any one who loves me not to whine to the press, begging my captors to release me. These terrorists will not and the proper response should be one of willful opposition. If I get captured, I want my family to tell the Saudis and America to kill every terrorist they have in custody. This is how they want to play? Let's play by their rules and see how they like it. And if any of my loved ones get captured - that's exactly how I will respond.

Returning to my oft asked question, how does Thucydides relate to this? Remember the Melian speech! The strong do what they can, the weak bear what they must. And if the weak want to fight dirty, well then. Suck it up big boys. The least we can do is strip them naked, line them against a wall and have them shot by women. I too will curse them in my prayers.

And I wasn't going to say anything today.

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// posted by The Wino @ 10:53 AM

  This might seem late - or at least untimely in light of President Reagan's recent death and the necessary attention it merits - but I just came across a copy of World magazine from May 22 in which there is a "debate" between Michael Farris and Don Wildmon about the Marriage amendment. In a way I should have anticipated the content of the articles, especially as Farris was arguing "against" the amendment while Wildmon argues for it. But my hopes were raised with the subtitle to Farris' article: "Let's work on actually saving marriage, not be content to redefine it." As we bantered back and forth a few months back about the marriage amendment, I thought I'd review both articles and give my two cents worth. The "debate" is really two sides of the same coin. Mr. Wildmon says that it's a good start and we should work for more while Mr. Farris argues that it's not good enough and we should work for more. Substantively at issue is that the amendment tacitly or explicitly - depending on which wording gets passed, I presume - allows for civil unions while denying marriage.

The sum and substance of Mr. Farris' position is that the amendment merely defines marriage strictly, but allows for the nebulous category of civil unions. And I definitely affirm what he says several paragraphs in that we need to preserve the substance of marriage, not just the definition. I would fully agree with that statement, and even be willing to go to bat for Mr. Farris in other fronts if he doesn't mean something different than I do, even if we both affirm the exact same words. There are three points at which I differ with Mr. Farris in his thesis, that we must save the substance of marriage. A good Calvinist discussion! Three points! Or is it five points? What?

I disagree in how Mr. Farris wishes to define marriage to begin with. Mr. Farris begins his article with this statement, "The Massachusetts Supreme Court got one thing right. They said, 'In a real sense, there are three partners to every civil marriage: two willing spouses and an approving State.'" Now, if Mr. Farris is right, and marriage is a union of three partners, though hardly Trinitarian in my book, then he would be absolutely right in asserting that the state should help define and regulate what the union is. This of course is indicative of the mess we are in legally regarding marriage. It's nearly been reduced to a tax status with sentimental attachment. The lameness of civil unions can almost be likened to the British attempt to call a home a "domestic unit" in the 1930's. Churchill's response "Ah, domestic unit, sweet domestic unit, there's no place like domestic unit" was a more apt response than by complaining that they were changing the technical terminology. The problem homosexuals have with the term civil union might be along the same lines. It's boring. Technical. Ugly. And, as Queer Eye has typecast the New Gay Man, they want something stylish, maybe even a little traditional to describe their loving relationships. They look around and see the word Marriage with its attendant symbolism and legal status.

Ah, but is marriage a union of the state and two loving people? I thought it was a union of two loving people and a loving and holy God. "What God has joined together, let no man put assunder." Maybe I'm mistaken. Leaving the question of sacrament aside, who is uniting these two people? If it is the state, then by all means. Let 'em have it, 'mendment or no amendment. I don't care. But if there is a religious element involved, then what is that? If the Church becomes covenanatally connected to the couples. This of course creates a mess - one which I shan't wish to consider in light of the disparate denominations and their stances on things like covenant and Lesbian Eskimo Bishops. But perhaps Farris is looking for the cleanness that is evoked by a legal dictum. After all, if there are no gay marrages in the US, then it's a clean slate. But is it?

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Farris wants to save marriage because it's the safe thing to do and runs to some polls to prove it. It's not risky conservatively. Enough people oppose gay marriage or civil unions that you can oppose it and still be thought normal. If you've read Thucydides (my how his name rings in my household!) you know about half measures and the results they generate. Like Athens at Corcyra, conservatives are attempting to get desired results without committing to a fight. They lack the Cajones to say homosexuality is wrong, a sin, and should be eliminated so they plant a flag for definition, for status, for legal dictum. Their opposition is the tepid "We don't want to have to like it, that's all we're saying." But this does accomplish two things. First, it glosses over the failures of the church in dealing with marriages. I know I've covered the issue several times about there being too many marriages put assunder by men. I'm not going to deal with that here. Second, it gives a safe position for people to be against homosexuality. They can be against gay marriage in their community because its just another delightfully selfish position. Marriage is ours and you can't have it. Not much different from the homosexual position which is, that we, the conservative family types, have it and they want in on the action. But back to Thucydides, all we're doing is poking them in the eye. They're now ready for a fight and we're saying, "Don't hurt me!" Half measures indeed. By attempting to protect the status quo we guarantee that we will lose. And status quo is Farris' position.

The position Mr. Wildmon argues for is even more tepid. He too is pro-family, etc, even plugs Patrick Henry, that good but far too politically-motivated college, but he is willing to compromise even on the amendment. I don't blame him - he discusses long and hard the difficulties in getting congresscritters to vote on such controversial things. But I'm left to wonder what the Musgrave FMA really accomplishes? Wildmon calls "homosexual marriage" a perversity. I differ with that statement. If homosexuals get married, that is not the perversity, but rather the cultural stamp of approval of perversity. And if that were the argument being brought forth for the amendment, that we as a culture - or at least the Christians in our culture - will not be tolerant, we will not approve such behavior (a la Leviticus 18 and I Corinthians 5) then I could get behind it. And if we vote for the Musgrave marriage amendment, then aren't we saying with Civil Unions that we give them our stamp of approval? On this I agree with Farris, there can be no compromise.

So. We are left with this: who creates marriage? God does, not the State. By assuming the State governs marriage, Farris gives them the authority to define it. All he can do is complain that he doesn't want homosexuals in his country getting married because it changes the landscape from the comfortable Reagan Era. Alas. We can't keep reminiscing about the 80's or the 50's or whenever the last good times were. They had their problems and they were met head on. The bad times, if you will, occur because we do not push back against the night. The light overcomes the darkness, not agrees to a truce. The death of Reagan should remind us of that. The best efforts by Wildmon and Farris, good hearted though they are, are weak and anemic. I guess I just find it a little bit queer that they are among the mighty heroes of the Christian Right.

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// posted by The Wino @ 10:16 AM

  "Marco Polo, If You Can" by William F. Buckley, Jr. is sort of a Tom Clancy meets Ian Flemming, related to Dorothy Sayers in style but set in real events among the 1950s. Imagine! Political-military intruige during the Eisenhower administration. Very nice - and different. The book starts out with a quote from Senator J. William Fulbright in 1975 which suggests that the U-2 incident in '59 might have been intentional. The book then takes off from there. Remember: apparently at the time neither the Soviets nor their missles could fly high enough to take out a U-2. So how did it go down? "No one will know whether it was accidental or intentional." At this point the facts merge with fiction and Buckley takes over. If you like his articles for National Review, you might like some of the novels he wrote in the 1980s. Blackford Oakes! What a name!

Its also the only book I can recall reading that had a comma in the title.

Speaking of Buckley, while reading his novel, I came across this article in which he discusses Kerry's campaing slogan, "Let America be America again". Apparently it comes from a Black American Poet in 1938. Here is one choice sentence from the man who is fun to read if only for his style. "There was little about America for the American Negro to celebrate in 1938 -- unless you are willing to accept the proposition of George Washington Carver. Mr. Carver, scientist and philosopher, the son of a slave, said that American blacks had this to celebrate: that they had been plucked from African forests, brought to America, and baptized into the liberating faith of Christianity, which was the springboard for their emancipation." Hmmm. Does he have a thing with commas? Six in that last sentence. Lessee subject, verb, multiple gerunds posing as objects, adjectives, . . . Yeah.

Speaking of Ian Fleming, Charles P. Van Someren - who really needs to get his own blog going - agrees, or did he say it? I don't remember - that James Bond is merely an American with a British accent as neither of us can imagine a real Brit ever being that flashy. The Tuxedos? The overwhelming style? It's like putting Stubbs barbecue sauce on Lamb Chops. Please! But of course we all love the voice, the accent.

Been thinking a lot about Reagan lately. Having grown up conservative, I'm very drawn to him and have mourned his death. No tears, but his passing did affect me. I wonder if it is because of the weight of my conservatism or the sentiments flowing from the likes of Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh touching some place very deeply rooted within me. In a very serious attempt to view all this in perspective of my Christianity, I'm more than a little skeptical with Pat Robertson talking about President Reagan's faith. I was surprised to see in his biography on the History Channel, his minister talking about it in relation to when Reagan was shot. The minister said he asked Reagan whether he was prepared for death and Reagan responded that he was because he trusted in Christ as his savior. It's scary that even in my Christianity I regard the History channel higher on the authoritative scale, while Pat Robertson ranks right below tea leaves. Farewell Mr. President. I miss your leadership and hope to see its likes again.

Nota bene, and strictly on an American level, I don't want Regan on the $10.00 bill. Hamilton needs to be there, lest we forget our founding. Without Hamilton we wouldn't be an economic power even today. I'm certain some of my Southern readers would prefer him on the $5. I might be fine with that or the dollar, after all, Lincoln does have the penny and Washington the quarter. My preference would be to see him on the $50 or the $100. He is far more deserving than either of those who currently hold those spots.

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// posted by The Wino @ 7:12 AM