WALLPAPERS(by munawar 9949935350)

What are the issues in the IRS/All Saints Pasadena case? They come down to the most basic troubles Americans have with understanding what the Bible genuinely says, how the Bush regime has stooped to distorting justice, and legitimate vs. illegitimate use of the church in politics.

First, there’s the issue of how the IRS has been used as a partisan weapon. We hear nothing about the IRS condemning the most flagrant of political church endorsements, the infamous Bush Fish. Similarly, the IRS’s campaign against church politics has unveiled remarkably little like the experience of the CrossLeft reader who left her church after a conservative preacher’s sermon on how all Democrats were going to Hell.

On the other side, liberal groups seem to suffer a statistically remarkable degree of persecution. The NAACP has recently met with similar assaults from the IRS for its political stakes. To let the IRS’s stance go without accusations of extremely inappropriate political motivation is corrupt governmental practice that calls for immediate investigation and oversight.

Another issue at stake here is the forced and arbitrary representation of the church in American society. The church, let us remember, was an unwilling pawn in the call to go to war. Muslims were “threatening Christian values.” America was defending those prerogatives of Western, Christian countries; “liberty and Democracy”. Bush, the war’s president, had ridden into office on a wave of “voting church-goers.” War and presidency alike were blamed on Mel Gibson, megachurches, and the evangelicals’ campaign to register all in the pews for the vote.

How ironic that a president who benefitted to grandly from the conservative Christian vote should preside quietly over the persecution of the liberal Christian vote. The media now have a chance to set the record straight: Christians did not, in overwhelming numbers, vote for Bush, nor does the Bush agenda of punishing the poor and indulging in wanton torture convene anything resembling a plan of Christian values.

A single church has now, across the nation, been published as representing non-Bush values, and being penalized for it. At stake here is not just freedom of speech, but the true and accurate depiction of Christianity in America. We are overdue for an explanation of why Christianity has been represented as pro-Bush, and the All Saints case has given America its first opportunity to face the angry truth.

The antiwar sermon preached at All Saints Pasadena went beyond a gesture of Free Speech: it was a gesture of Biblical honesty in the face of a culture that has indulged in corrupt, public distortions of the Bible.

All Saints Pasadena, like numerous others in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, have preached against war, specifically against war based on obvious deceit and use of the media to inflame racially and religiously tinged paranoia. A sermon for “peace” is doubly threatening to the Bush regime. Conservatives advance the claim that to be anti-war is to be anti-American and therefore anti-Christian. But with all Biblical evidence behind them, the All Saints clergy rightly preached that Christians necessarily worship a Prince of Peace. They made the case that this war in particular advanced no peaceful causes.

All Saints, that is, merely preached the Bible to the present day. The sound application of Biblical injunction to contemporary evidence is a terribly necessary item in the public debate.

The sermon at All Saints Pasadena represented the Bible in its true light, as opposed to real, graphic distortions of the Bible on behalf of contemporary politics, which flagrantly demand to be prosecuted under the IRS law.

Thousands of conservative churches preach against abortion and gay rights — similarly political, candidate-linked issues. In doing so they attempt to apply Biblical passages to contemporary issues. Bible-literate Christians realize that, of the hundreds of passages about poverty and peace-making in the Bible, a miniscule amount point to anything about sexuality or pre-birth mortality. The bulk of the Bible is on the side of peace. The interpretation of the Bible in the case of a present-day war is a necessary act for the Christian, not an excessive whinging of theological scruple.

This, then, is the test we must apply to the sermonizing preacher. The laws exist to keep obvious wrangling of religion for politics outside of the legal: Has the figure in the pulpit drawn obscure passages in the Bible into one long, twisted path of reasoning which endorses one candidate because he was born with a caul on his head? Or has the preacher rightly pointed to one of the great cruxes of his religion, and advanced a proposition about one of the most crucial moral concerns of the present day?

For according to the law, which acts rightly to defend a state free of theocracy, some lines must be drawn here. The incitement of violence against gay people or people of color or women, based on obscure passages in any holy book, is rightly regarded as hate speech in many countries: it ought to be in ours. But the application of a central theme of the Bible — peace-making, poverty, compassion — to the present day: this is *the* central mission of the Christian religion.

Reporters act as if this is far too advanced and theological an interpretation for them to deal with. Indeed, it’s dangerous territory; to separate the great themes of religion from the small, seems — from a certain perspective — to apply the interpretive lens of the state on what constitutes correct morality. And the state cannot be held responsible for sorting correct theology from incorrect theology.

It’s time to rebuke the cowardliness of reporters who won’t take up theological issues. All Saints Pasadena is clearly on the side of theological tradition, Biblical interpretation, and the weight of the Christian religion. If the IRS persecutes All Saints Pasadena, it makes an assault on all those who reaad the Bible.

The law was written to give the IRS full excuse to abolish the likes of the BushFish and the arbitrary ilk of Tim le Haye who call Armageddon down on the United Nations. It was meant to reprimand arbitrary and unconscionable application of the Bible in obscure formulations to contemporary elections. The law meant to outlaw carped religion has been glibly skipped over in the case of the most offensive culprits, and it has been applied to the most innocent.

It is incredibly sad how loosely and ineptly we have articulated the central issues in this case. Left and Right speak not about church abuse of fringe issues, nor about presidential persecution of minorities, but about something as vague and omnipresent as “freedom of speech.”

On another NPR roundtable, the commentators defend All Saints Pasadena, saying, “if the purpose of the church isn’t to speak truth to power, what is it?” Well indeed. But the issues here go well beyond freedom of speech.

In the other corner, preaching something that sounds suspiciously American apple-pie-like as “separation of church and state,” are conservative seminary students, who argue that the churches shouldn’t endorse certain candidates at all. They argue for preaching family values, for preaching against abortion, and dozens of other issues which are linked to a very particular array of candidates. The IRS’s position is about churches “endorsing specific candidates.” These conservative legal scholars argue that All Saints should have educated its preachers better about the law. They make no bones over the vagueness of how “endorsing specific candidates” applies to biblically informed anti-war speech. They refuse to see the All Saints issue as an issue specific to a partisan cause or to the quandaries of political religion in which the Bush regime has placed us.

We must not be such fools. We must not merely let this slip away as a first-amendment issue. The status of Christianity in America, of morality in the public debate, of all the traditions of peace-making and social redemption of the poor: all this is at stake, and we must speak clearly now in order that the voice of progressive Christianity not be lost but be loudly defended against the madness of trifling scribblers.

-

All Things Considered has just reported a story on Ed Bacon’s church: “IRS Steps Up Scrutiny of Political Activity from Pulpit Web Extra Read Sermon That Sparked an IRS Probe”

You can read the sermon from All Saints Pasadena that sparked the IRS probe, read the IRS letter, and read the church’s response.

What are the issues in the IRS/All Saints Pasadena case? They come down to the most basic troubles Americans have with understanding what the Bible genuinely says, how the Bush regime has stooped to distorting justice, and legitimate vs. illegitimate use of the church in politics.

First, there’s the issue of how the IRS has been used as a partisan weapon. We hear nothing about the IRS condemning the most flagrant of political church endorsements, the infamous Bush Fish. Similarly, the IRS’s campaign against church politics has unveiled remarkably little like the experience of the CrossLeft reader who left her church after a conservative preacher’s sermon on how all Democrats were going to Hell.

On the other side, liberal groups seem to suffer a statistically remarkable degree of persecution. The NAACP has recently met with similar assaults from the IRS for its political stakes. To let the IRS’s stance go without accusations of extremely inappropriate political motivation is corrupt governmental practice that calls for immediate investigation and oversight.

Another issue at stake here is the forced and arbitrary representation of the church in American society. The church, let us remember, was an unwilling pawn in the call to go to war. Muslims were “threatening Christian values.” America was defending those prerogatives of Western, Christian countries; “liberty and Democracy”. Bush, the war’s president, had ridden into office on a wave of “voting church-goers.” War and presidency alike were blamed on Mel Gibson, megachurches, and the evangelicals’ campaign to register all in the pews for the vote.

How ironic that a president who benefitted to grandly from the conservative Christian vote should preside quietly over the persecution of the liberal Christian vote. The media now have a chance to set the record straight: Christians did not, in overwhelming numbers, vote for Bush, nor does the Bush agenda of punishing the poor and indulging in wanton torture convene anything resembling a plan of Christian values.

A single church has now, across the nation, been published as representing non-Bush values, and being penalized for it. At stake here is not just freedom of speech, but the true and accurate depiction of Christianity in America. We are overdue for an explanation of why Christianity has been represented as pro-Bush, and the All Saints case has given America its first opportunity to face the angry truth.

The antiwar sermon preached at All Saints Pasadena went beyond a gesture of Free Speech: it was a gesture of Biblical honesty in the face of a culture that has indulged in corrupt, public distortions of the Bible.

All Saints Pasadena, like numerous others in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, have preached against war, specifically against war based on obvious deceit and use of the media to inflame racially and religiously tinged paranoia. A sermon for “peace” is doubly threatening to the Bush regime. Conservatives advance the claim that to be anti-war is to be anti-American and therefore anti-Christian. But with all Biblical evidence behind them, the All Saints clergy rightly preached that Christians necessarily worship a Prince of Peace. They made the case that this war in particular advanced no peaceful causes.

All Saints, that is, merely preached the Bible to the present day. The sound application of Biblical injunction to contemporary evidence is a terribly necessary item in the public debate.

The sermon at All Saints Pasadena represented the Bible in its true light, as opposed to real, graphic distortions of the Bible on behalf of contemporary politics, which flagrantly demand to be prosecuted under the IRS law.

Thousands of conservative churches preach against abortion and gay rights — similarly political, candidate-linked issues. In doing so they attempt to apply Biblical passages to contemporary issues. Bible-literate Christians realize that, of the hundreds of passages about poverty and peace-making in the Bible, a miniscule amount point to anything about sexuality or pre-birth mortality. The bulk of the Bible is on the side of peace. The interpretation of the Bible in the case of a present-day war is a necessary act for the Christian, not an excessive whinging of theological scruple.

This, then, is the test we must apply to the sermonizing preacher. The laws exist to keep obvious wrangling of religion for politics outside of the legal: Has the figure in the pulpit drawn obscure passages in the Bible into one long, twisted path of reasoning which endorses one candidate because he was born with a caul on his head? Or has the preacher rightly pointed to one of the great cruxes of his religion, and advanced a proposition about one of the most crucial moral concerns of the present day?

For according to the law, which acts rightly to defend a state free of theocracy, some lines must be drawn here. The incitement of violence against gay people or people of color or women, based on obscure passages in any holy book, is rightly regarded as hate speech in many countries: it ought to be in ours. But the application of a central theme of the Bible — peace-making, poverty, compassion — to the present day: this is *the* central mission of the Christian religion.

Reporters act as if this is far too advanced and theological an interpretation for them to deal with. Indeed, it’s dangerous territory; to separate the great themes of religion from the small, seems — from a certain perspective — to apply the interpretive lens of the state on what constitutes correct morality. And the state cannot be held responsible for sorting correct theology from incorrect theology.

It’s time to rebuke the cowardliness of reporters who won’t take up theological issues. All Saints Pasadena is clearly on the side of theological tradition, Biblical interpretation, and the weight of the Christian religion. If the IRS persecutes All Saints Pasadena, it makes an assault on all those who reaad the Bible.

The law was written to give the IRS full excuse to abolish the likes of the BushFish and the arbitrary ilk of Tim le Haye who call Armageddon down on the United Nations. It was meant to reprimand arbitrary and unconscionable application of the Bible in obscure formulations to contemporary elections. The law meant to outlaw carped religion has been glibly skipped over in the case of the most offensive culprits, and it has been applied to the most innocent.

It is incredibly sad how loosely and ineptly we have articulated the central issues in this case. Left and Right speak not about church abuse of fringe issues, nor about presidential persecution of minorities, but about something as vague and omnipresent as “freedom of speech.”

On another NPR roundtable, the commentators defend All Saints Pasadena, saying, “if the purpose of the church isn’t to speak truth to power, what is it?” Well indeed. But the issues here go well beyond freedom of speech.

In the other corner, preaching something that sounds suspiciously American apple-pie-like as “separation of church and state,” are conservative seminary students, who argue that the churches shouldn’t endorse certain candidates at all. They argue for preaching family values, for preaching against abortion, and dozens of other issues which are linked to a very particular array of candidates. The IRS’s position is about churches “endorsing specific candidates.” These conservative legal scholars argue that All Saints should have educated its preachers better about the law. They make no bones over the vagueness of how “endorsing specific candidates” applies to biblically informed anti-war speech. They refuse to see the All Saints issue as an issue specific to a partisan cause or to the quandaries of political religion in which the Bush regime has placed us.

We must not be such fools. We must not merely let this slip away as a first-amendment issue. The status of Christianity in America, of morality in the public debate, of all the traditions of peace-making and social redemption of the poor: all this is at stake, and we must speak clearly now in order that the voice of progressive Christianity not be lost but be loudly defended against the madness of trifling scribblers.

-

All Things Considered has just reported a story on Ed Bacon’s church: “IRS Steps Up Scrutiny of Political Activity from Pulpit Web Extra Read Sermon That Sparked an IRS Probe”

You can read the sermon from All Saints Pasadena that sparked the IRS probe, read the IRS letter, and read the church’s response.

The Architecture Scholars love to hate suburbia. Tracts of little tract houses, block after block, their side-by-side roofs making “meaningless arrows” pointing to nowhere; their homes producing safe, walled cities where white-bread children are produced with factory-like perfection and similarity of mind.

This is the stereotype you’ll learn from many an urban studies class in the American university. Architecture professors rattle on with grim resignation about a nation which, they believe, has no taste, and has sacrificed community intermixing (in the traditional plan of mixed-use downtowns) to selfish isolation. Traditional pointy-roofs are the token of a homogeneity and tastelessness that they find revolting.

So it takes an outsider from the provinces to break with those expectations. Which is exactly what’s happening in a south-of-the-river, ghetto-fringing upscale development of Dallas, Texas, Kessler Woods.

Ironically, however, the new modern veneer comes in the same large-scale, large-tract developments as before. Sophisticated Dallas architects of intersecting slabs and floating glass staircases and native limestone encroachments — like Hammers + Partners — are essentially producing glorious icons set into the same isolated developments of isomorphic suburban retreat as populate other walled communities:

He currently has a midcentury modern home in North Dallas and said there’s an appeal to living in a neighborhood with the same architecture.

‘Aficionados a lot of times see a contemporary house they like, but because of the surroundings, there is a battle of styles going on,’ Mr. Moore said. ‘To be able to live in that aesthetic and walk the street and be surrounded by it is amazing to me.’

– Steve Brown, Dallas Morning News, “It’s a Mod, Mod World”

What’s so fascinating about this is the claim that modernist architecture sets up for itself. Berkeley Architecture stars like Stanley Saitowitz love to tout postmodernism’s ability to fit into its urban setting; indeed San Francisco urban planning boards mandate certain details of architectural design to force new buildings to adopt, wherever possible, bow windows and cornices in order to fit into the urban pattern set by the city’s major period of late nineteenth-century expansion. Postmodern architecture fits into the city framework and promotes a certain social view for the long-term: creating reusable frames in which residential and commercial uses can intermingle and shift, depending on the needs of future users.

Now “mid-century modern”, as its called, is bucking the promise of postmodernism in the greatest way. Rich native Texas limestone, to be sure, is used wherever possible, to be sure. And to be sure, these suburbs merely keep the pattern of most of those new developments around Dallas.

The first risk, of course, is the increasing social divisions implied by architecture that keeps to these strict patterns in an already socially divided city like Dallas, where the color line starts at the Trinity River. The community not far from these fantastic flights of glass and limestone has as much texture as a detective novelist or urban historian could wish for.

Walled communities insure that those of different incomes are kept far away. Social worlds will never meet on the terms of this kind of planning. This is architecture that can only tear down and gentrify large tracts of land.

The second risk is related. As land gentrifies, the Latino communities south of the river will be pushed further away. Bad for brown folks who need to commute; but quite possibly, bad for white folks too. For these homes are expensive to get to and expensive to maintain. As we face the coming age of Peak Oil, since now half of the world’s natural resources are already gone while worldwide consumption steadily mounts, these homes won’t be feasible for use much longer.

A pity, because the new McMansions really are quite pretty, after all.

Related fantasy worlds:

• Celebrity modern architecture developments in furthest West Texas, from the Texas Observer

• Further on the gentrification of Dallas: Jim Schutze, “You Can Go Home Again,” Dallas Observer, Published: Thursday, May 18, 2000:
  

  It’s not that Oak Lawn was a bastion of rare and valuable architecture, anyway, but there were old-fashioned “community service” business strips with shoe-repair places and dime stores–things that spoke of a past of some kind. Their total erasure isn’t a moral wrong, according to Miller: It’s just that the template is lost, so everything there now feels instantaneous and thin the way it does in the suburbs.

• The extremely fascinating multiblog site, Metroblogging Dallas, which asks and answers questions like this one:
  

  Are some cities more romantic than others? Does the lifestyle certain cities lend themselves to make love more or less likely to strike and to survive when it does? How does Dallas rate as a love-conducive metro area?

Technorati Tags: cities, cities, urbanplanning, stratego, gentrification, class, architecture, neighborhoods, dallas

The Architecture Scholars love to hate suburbia. Tracts of little tract houses, block after block, their side-by-side roofs making “meaningless arrows” pointing to nowhere; their homes producing safe, walled cities where white-bread children are produced with factory-like perfection and similarity of mind.

This is the stereotype you’ll learn from many an urban studies class in the American university. Architecture professors rattle on with grim resignation about a nation which, they believe, has no taste, and has sacrificed community intermixing (in the traditional plan of mixed-use downtowns) to selfish isolation. Traditional pointy-roofs are the token of a homogeneity and tastelessness that they find revolting.

So it takes an outsider from the provinces to break with those expectations. Which is exactly what’s happening in a south-of-the-river, ghetto-fringing upscale development of Dallas, Texas, Kessler Woods.

Ironically, however, the new modern veneer comes in the same large-scale, large-tract developments as before. Sophisticated Dallas architects of intersecting slabs and floating glass staircases and native limestone encroachments — like Hammers + Partners — are essentially producing glorious icons set into the same isolated developments of isomorphic suburban retreat as populate other walled communities:

He currently has a midcentury modern home in North Dallas and said there’s an appeal to living in a neighborhood with the same architecture.

‘Aficionados a lot of times see a contemporary house they like, but because of the surroundings, there is a battle of styles going on,’ Mr. Moore said. ‘To be able to live in that aesthetic and walk the street and be surrounded by it is amazing to me.’

– Steve Brown, Dallas Morning News, “It’s a Mod, Mod World”

What’s so fascinating about this is the claim that modernist architecture sets up for itself. Berkeley Architecture stars like Stanley Saitowitz love to tout postmodernism’s ability to fit into its urban setting; indeed San Francisco urban planning boards mandate certain details of architectural design to force new buildings to adopt, wherever possible, bow windows and cornices in order to fit into the urban pattern set by the city’s major period of late nineteenth-century expansion. Postmodern architecture fits into the city framework and promotes a certain social view for the long-term: creating reusable frames in which residential and commercial uses can intermingle and shift, depending on the needs of future users.

Now “mid-century modern”, as its called, is bucking the promise of postmodernism in the greatest way. Rich native Texas limestone, to be sure, is used wherever possible, to be sure. And to be sure, these suburbs merely keep the pattern of most of those new developments around Dallas.

The first risk, of course, is the increasing social divisions implied by architecture that keeps to these strict patterns in an already socially divided city like Dallas, where the color line starts at the Trinity River. The community not far from these fantastic flights of glass and limestone has as much texture as a detective novelist or urban historian could wish for.

Walled communities insure that those of different incomes are kept far away. Social worlds will never meet on the terms of this kind of planning. This is architecture that can only tear down and gentrify large tracts of land.

The second risk is related. As land gentrifies, the Latino communities south of the river will be pushed further away. Bad for brown folks who need to commute; but quite possibly, bad for white folks too. For these homes are expensive to get to and expensive to maintain. As we face the coming age of Peak Oil, since now half of the world’s natural resources are already gone while worldwide consumption steadily mounts, these homes won’t be feasible for use much longer.

A pity, because the new McMansions really are quite pretty, after all.

Related fantasy worlds:

• Celebrity modern architecture developments in furthest West Texas, from the Texas Observer

• Further on the gentrification of Dallas: Jim Schutze, “You Can Go Home Again,” Dallas Observer, Published: Thursday, May 18, 2000:
  

  It’s not that Oak Lawn was a bastion of rare and valuable architecture, anyway, but there were old-fashioned “community service” business strips with shoe-repair places and dime stores–things that spoke of a past of some kind. Their total erasure isn’t a moral wrong, according to Miller: It’s just that the template is lost, so everything there now feels instantaneous and thin the way it does in the suburbs.

• The extremely fascinating multiblog site, Metroblogging Dallas, which asks and answers questions like this one:
  

  Are some cities more romantic than others? Does the lifestyle certain cities lend themselves to make love more or less likely to strike and to survive when it does? How does Dallas rate as a love-conducive metro area?

Technorati Tags: cities, cities, urbanplanning, stratego, gentrification, class, architecture, neighborhoods, dallas

Having spent a few weeks in England — nursed to health on the largesse of the National Health Service, gorging his mind on BBC WorldService, Le Monde Diplomatique, and The Guardia — my boyfriend has returned to California. James is suffering readjustment problems, to say the least:

And while I’m at it, in case you didn’t know, all your folky protest songs, your political poetry slams, and “die-ins” have zero effect on Washington policy; they may be genuine art, and may have the effect of bolstering the morale of the already-converted choir and that is a good thing, but please, let’s disillusion ourselves if we think they change anyone’s mind, i.e. have any real political effect.

Don’t get me wrong, I think such things are worthwhile within their limited sphere, but sometimes I can’t help thinking we mostly do these things because, for creative people, they are relatively easy.

They make us feel as if we’ve contributed something without having to do any distasteful work, and the applause and the attention makes us feel nice, as an added benefit.

– “6 Things I Hate About The Left”

No, no, no, it’s not just because he’s adorable and makes me feel happy about the world and quotes me for at least two whole lines! He also crisply summarizes that sinking feeling of ineffectuality that many of us have felt in California. Loving the diversity as we do, loving the t-shirts at work and the birkenstocks at the opera and the good sushi and friendly dragqueens, there’s still the problem of how we talk to the rest of the country. And whether we’re actually taking that project seriously — by talking to and changing a country that we’re capable of identifying as our own.

James’s culprit list starts: 1) Berkeley academics. 2) peace activists. 3) burning man groupies.

Those would comprise most of my friends and acquaintances, right there. Friends, everyone needs an existential self-examination session once every twelve months. That’s why the church has Lent! Do your eternal soul a favor, and face the “Are you an ineffectual whinge-monster” test today.

Having spent a few weeks in England — nursed to health on the largesse of the National Health Service, gorging his mind on BBC WorldService, Le Monde Diplomatique, and The Guardia — my boyfriend has returned to California. James is suffering readjustment problems, to say the least:

And while I’m at it, in case you didn’t know, all your folky protest songs, your political poetry slams, and “die-ins” have zero effect on Washington policy; they may be genuine art, and may have the effect of bolstering the morale of the already-converted choir and that is a good thing, but please, let’s disillusion ourselves if we think they change anyone’s mind, i.e. have any real political effect.

Don’t get me wrong, I think such things are worthwhile within their limited sphere, but sometimes I can’t help thinking we mostly do these things because, for creative people, they are relatively easy.

They make us feel as if we’ve contributed something without having to do any distasteful work, and the applause and the attention makes us feel nice, as an added benefit.

– “6 Things I Hate About The Left”

No, no, no, it’s not just because he’s adorable and makes me feel happy about the world and quotes me for at least two whole lines! He also crisply summarizes that sinking feeling of ineffectuality that many of us have felt in California. Loving the diversity as we do, loving the t-shirts at work and the birkenstocks at the opera and the good sushi and friendly dragqueens, there’s still the problem of how we talk to the rest of the country. And whether we’re actually taking that project seriously — by talking to and changing a country that we’re capable of identifying as our own.

James’s culprit list starts: 1) Berkeley academics. 2) peace activists. 3) burning man groupies.

Those would comprise most of my friends and acquaintances, right there. Friends, everyone needs an existential self-examination session once every twelve months. That’s why the church has Lent! Do your eternal soul a favor, and face the “Are you an ineffectual whinge-monster” test today.

In Cambridge, we toss gently around the idea that there simply *is* no more military intelligence in the United States. By which we do not mean to impugn the IQs of the respected operators. Rather merely to point out that the CIA and its ilk have, despite their immense mapping strategies, networks, and mechanisms for collecting data, remarkably little oversight how that data is analyzed. As a result, there is remarkably little intelligence analysis in a concerted fashion. 500 analysts write a report on their country every day; scarcely any mechanism exists for sorting those reports into anything useful.

What exists, rather, is alongside this collection-machine, another machine for changing outcomes: a propaganda machine. This machine actually does depend on some cultural knowledge and some understanding of the cultures at stake. As a result, this wing of intelligence must actually be outsourced to young, freelance Oxford graduates with humanities degrees and little experience in the military or politics, as the article below begins to explain. Humanities graduates understand the value of visual propaganda.

What neither Oxford graduates nor CIA has grasped is the value of reliable sources of authoritative truth to social stability in democratic society. As Paul Fussell wrote about soldiers in the trench warfare of the first world war, superstition and myth spread like wildfire in a climate where there’s no reliable source for information; if one thing might be true, anything might be true. If anything might be true, then the angry Zawahiri - inspired Jihad press might just as well be true as the American press.

If the CIA has indeed entered the game of sewing mythic fabrications, they had better realize that their game has no zero sum and does not tend in the direction of reasonable outcomes, democratic societies, or well-behaved populaces: disinformation breeds more fanaticism and world views of a medieval to barbaric shape.

Lincoln Group dealings unmasked:

The recent disclosures that a Pentagon contractor in Iraq paid newspapers to print ‘good news’ articles written by American soldiers prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility and top military and White House officials disavowed any knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as ‘very troubled’ about the matter. The Pentagon is investigating.

But the work of the contractor, the Lincoln Group, was not a rogue operation. Hoping to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel.

– Carlotta Gall and Ruhullah Khapalwa, “Military’s Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive,” New York Times</blockquote

In Cambridge, we toss gently around the idea that there simply *is* no more military intelligence in the United States. By which we do not mean to impugn the IQs of the respected operators. Rather merely to point out that the CIA and its ilk have, despite their immense mapping strategies, networks, and mechanisms for collecting data, remarkably little oversight how that data is analyzed. As a result, there is remarkably little intelligence analysis in a concerted fashion. 500 analysts write a report on their country every day; scarcely any mechanism exists for sorting those reports into anything useful.

What exists, rather, is alongside this collection-machine, another machine for changing outcomes: a propaganda machine. This machine actually does depend on some cultural knowledge and some understanding of the cultures at stake. As a result, this wing of intelligence must actually be outsourced to young, freelance Oxford graduates with humanities degrees and little experience in the military or politics, as the article below begins to explain. Humanities graduates understand the value of visual propaganda.

What neither Oxford graduates nor CIA has grasped is the value of reliable sources of authoritative truth to social stability in democratic society. As Paul Fussell wrote about soldiers in the trench warfare of the first world war, superstition and myth spread like wildfire in a climate where there’s no reliable source for information; if one thing might be true, anything might be true. If anything might be true, then the angry Zawahiri - inspired Jihad press might just as well be true as the American press.

If the CIA has indeed entered the game of sewing mythic fabrications, they had better realize that their game has no zero sum and does not tend in the direction of reasonable outcomes, democratic societies, or well-behaved populaces: disinformation breeds more fanaticism and world views of a medieval to barbaric shape.

Lincoln Group dealings unmasked:

The recent disclosures that a Pentagon contractor in Iraq paid newspapers to print ‘good news’ articles written by American soldiers prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility and top military and White House officials disavowed any knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as ‘very troubled’ about the matter. The Pentagon is investigating.

But the work of the contractor, the Lincoln Group, was not a rogue operation. Hoping to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel.

– Carlotta Gall and Ruhullah Khapalwa, “Military’s Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive,” New York Times</blockquote

Poofy screwdrivers, for girls only.

Technorati Tags: england, photos, kitsch, gender

Poofy screwdrivers, for girls only.

Technorati Tags: england, photos, kitsch, gender

Call for the therapy state:

Most of it is piecemeal and still relatively small-scale, but the old liberal concept that the emotional life of citizens is no business of the state is crumbling.

It raises the prospect of a future politics where emotional wellbeing could be as important a remit of state public health policy as our physical wellbeing.

In 10 years’ time, alongside ‘five fruit and veg a day’, our kids could be chanting comparable mantras for daily emotional wellbeing: do some exercise, do someone a good turn, count your blessings, laugh, savour beauty.

We might also be discussing how to regulate emotional pollution in much the way we now discuss environmental pollution.

Top of the list would be advertising, which is bad for our emotional health. It induces dissatisfaction with its invidious comparisons with an affluent elite. Television is not much better for us with its disproportionate volume of violence and fraught relationships. It makes people unhappy, less creative and cuts them off from emotionally healthy activities such as sport or seeing friends.

Meanwhile, there would be a strong rationale to increase subsidies for festivals, parks, theatres, community groups, amateur dramatics, choirs, sports clubs and lots of other lovely things.

– Madeleine Bunting, “Consumer capitalism is making us ill - we need a therapy state”, Guardian Unlimited Politics

Call for the therapy state:

Most of it is piecemeal and still relatively small-scale, but the old liberal concept that the emotional life of citizens is no business of the state is crumbling.

It raises the prospect of a future politics where emotional wellbeing could be as important a remit of state public health policy as our physical wellbeing.

In 10 years’ time, alongside ‘five fruit and veg a day’, our kids could be chanting comparable mantras for daily emotional wellbeing: do some exercise, do someone a good turn, count your blessings, laugh, savour beauty.

We might also be discussing how to regulate emotional pollution in much the way we now discuss environmental pollution.

Top of the list would be advertising, which is bad for our emotional health. It induces dissatisfaction with its invidious comparisons with an affluent elite. Television is not much better for us with its disproportionate volume of violence and fraught relationships. It makes people unhappy, less creative and cuts them off from emotionally healthy activities such as sport or seeing friends.

Meanwhile, there would be a strong rationale to increase subsidies for festivals, parks, theatres, community groups, amateur dramatics, choirs, sports clubs and lots of other lovely things.

– Madeleine Bunting, “Consumer capitalism is making us ill - we need a therapy state”, Guardian Unlimited Politics

‘We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.’

The reason, it turned out, was drugs: these “holy warriors” are taking drugs to get high before attacks. It true, as we pushed into the town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.

BZ is not your typical substance of abuse. It’s a hallucinogenic chemical weapon.”

– Defense Tech: Insurgents Using Chem Weapons - On Themselves?

‘We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.’

The reason, it turned out, was drugs: these “holy warriors” are taking drugs to get high before attacks. It true, as we pushed into the town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.

BZ is not your typical substance of abuse. It’s a hallucinogenic chemical weapon.”

– Defense Tech: Insurgents Using Chem Weapons - On Themselves?

Some people have developed the idea that higher mathematics and science have little to do with the Bible or Christian life. They think that because physics deals with scientific facts, or because it is not pervaded with evolutionary ideas, there is no need to study it from a Christian perspective.

This kind of thinking ignores a number of important facts to the Christian: First, all secular science is pervaded by mechanistic, naturalistic and evolutionistic philosophy. Learning that the laws of mechanics as they pertain to a baseball in flight are just the natural consequences of the way matter came together denies the wisdom and power of our Creator God. . .

Second, physics as taught in the schools of the world contradicts the processes that shaped the world we see today.

Trying to believe both secular physics and the Bible leaves you in a state of confusion that will weaken your faith in God’s Word.

– from “Undernews”