Is the writing exam required? Yes, but ...

My story in the October Carolina Journal is top of the fold in the online edition today.

Colleges Assess Changes in SAT
Schools mixed in assessment of new Scholastic Assessment Test

By Hal Young
October 11, 2007

RALEIGH — The Scholastic Assessment Test has been a fixture in college admissions since the 1920s. The 2005 revision of the test eliminated the familiar analogies from the verbal section and increased the difficulty of reading selections and math problems to reflect heightened college entrance expectations.

The most significant change, though, was a new section to test writing skills, including a timed essay. Two years after the change, colleges in North Carolina are still divided on how to use the new writing scores, and many still expect their own essays from applicants.

An evolving standard

The SAT was developed in 1926 as a way to make college entrance exams more equitable nationwide. The College Board, which publishes the SAT, has updated the test several times as high school curricula and college requirements changed. The addition of a writing component had been in the works since the early 1990s, but implementation was delayed until technology was available to transmit the hundreds of thousands of handwritten essays to graders around the country.

Duke University was initially concerned whether the longer test might have an effect on student scores. The writing section lengthened the duration of the test from 150 minutes to well over three hours, and the typical Saturday morning SAT administration now lasts nearly four hours.

“There was not much research in the fatigue factor,” said Anne Sjostrom, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Duke University. “We wanted to be sensitive to that possibility.”

However, since the new section replaced a separate College Board writing test that Duke also required, Sjostrom said they did adopt the new scores quickly.

“We use it in much the same way that we used the SAT II subject test for writing,” she said. “There’s not a mathematical formula we plug into to determine whether a student is admitted to Duke. I don’t know of a case where that or any other score is the determining factor.”

Other colleges aren’t convinced yet. Heidi Fletcher, director of admissions at Meredith College, said the college is still collecting data from the new SAT. “We’re presently not using it for admissions decisions but we’re doing a lot of tracking on how freshmen do on English 111,” she said. “I love having some information on the writing skills of the students — if it’s accurate.”

Roger Jones, director of admissions for Belmont Abbey College, said “We’re taking a wait and see attitude. This is the first year it is has come into consideration at all.” Belmont Abbey only uses the score for “borderline cases,” he said, for applications that are designated for an admissions review committee.

Elon University, on the other hand, fully incorporated the SAT writing score into its admissions process this year. “Three years ago, when it was first announced, we said that we’d take two years and not use it for admissions or scholarship consideration. That’s exactly what we have done,” said Elon’s dean of admissions, Greg Zaiser. “What we tried to do was establish where students score who perform on the acceptable level for Elon admission.”

State schools are sending mixed signals. N.C. State’s website says, “NC State and all other public universities in North Carolina require scores for the writing section of the SAT or ACT” but counselors are telling students they are not using the scores for admissions.

The University of North Carolina goes further, saying UNC “will review writing scores and, in some cases, may choose to review the actual essay.” However, “At this point, we are not using the writing score for admissions decisions,” said Jennifer Cox Bell, an assistant admissions counselor. Does she foresee a change in policy? “I do not,” she said.

The SAT is still not enough

While schools place different emphases on the new SAT score, many still have their own essay requirements. UNC requires a separate essay, as does Duke. Many colleges have adopted the “Common Application” form, which was pioneered by Ivy League schools. This streamlines much of the process and includes another essay section as well.

Zaiser said the SAT’s writing test provides a different perspective than the application essay alone.

“It gives students an opportunity to show what they can do on a timed essay. On the personal essay, they can proofread it and make revisions,” he said. “By and large, we find that students who perform well at Elon also did well on the writing portion.”

Sjostrom said student GPAs at Duke correlate more closely with the strength of their high school curriculum, teachers’ recommendations, and factors other than test scores.

“It verifies that a holistic admissions process makes sense,” she said.

Watch Out, She's Pinking Heat

This Taurus 9mm semiautomatic pistol is available from Gander Mountain, price $429.99. There are also Remington shotguns with pink stocks (free pink hat with each purchase).

I'm wondering if a pink-handled pistol makes firearm ownership kinder and gentler or something. One year the legendary Lionel electric train line included a pastel-colored set for little sister; it wasn't a great success. My wife qualified in pistol marksmanship with a standard police-issue Smith & Wesson .32 revolver, thank you.

Can you imagine the chagrin of the would-be assailant who gets bagged by a sorority girl packing pink? In the words of one local perp (he attempted robbery at an ATM, but the young lady sandbagged him with her purse and a handicapped onlooker plugged him with a .22 pistol), "It ain't right, man." That's what he told the police when they took him into custody at the emergency room.

Meanwhile, old song titles are running through my head -- Pistol Packin' Mama, Annie Get Your Gun, the Beatles' Happiness is a Warm Gun. Or with a little re-writing for the commercial, the Go-Go's can sing Girls Just Want To Have Guns.

A Month of Sundays

My seven year old Seth burst into the kitchen this morning with the salutation, "What day is today?"

I told him it is considered good form to make your first greeting something along the lines of "Good morning, how are you doing?" But I let him know it's Monday. "Oh, that's right," he said, "it was Sunday yesterday."

Actually his moment of confusion has an excellent explanation. We got back yesterday evening from a three-day Father & Son Retreat put on by Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, convened on the rolling farmland of my friend Scott Brown, pastor at Hope. There were over two hundred dads and sons there (and a couple dozen wives and daughters who volunteered to help feed this crowd), some from as far away as Jacksonville, Florida and the Bronx.

Framing the enjoyment of tent camping, canoe races, archery, and the biggest tug-of-war I've ever been in -- two hundred feet of rope and sixty men to a team -- we had six sessions of serious, challenging, convicting teaching about what it means to be a godly father or a godly son, everything from dealing with specific temptations, to working together, to the call of true manhood as a witness of the Gospel. Really, really good -- the audio files should be posted online soon.

The preaching was held under a huge tent which Scott keeps up on the property; Hope holds outdoor services there on many occasions, and we have spent many hours there in sermons, Memorial Day picnics, and the most incredible wedding reception I ever attended. The weekend culminated with Sunday services with Hope, as well as contingents from our own church, South Smithfield Baptist Church; Southwest Wake Christian Assembly; and Eddie Burrough's congregation from Rocky Mount (sorry, Eddie, I didn't catch the name).

So it's not surprising that Seth lost count of the weekdays. Seven hours of sermons in three days sort of rounds out a month of Sundays, I guess.

All seven of our hats off to Scott, his fellow elders Eddie Burroughs, Dan Horn, Jason Dohm, and Steve Breagy, and the team which did yeomen's duty putting this event together. What a great weekend. Thanks, brethren.

From the Battlefield to the Boardroom

... and thence to the bookshelf. I just finished reading this thinnish paperback book, which I first saw in a large bookstore in Baton Rouge years ago and finally tracked down again at The Reader's Corner in Raleigh about eighteen months ago. This is a volume purporting to explain business management from the biography of Robert E. Lee.

Okay, I love Robert E. Lee, so I was interested.

After a long hiatus, I picked up the book, which I put down half-finished a long time back, and read the last third of it at a gallop. The author quotes extensively from Douglas Southall Freeman's biographies of General Lee, as well as several others. The anthology he creates makes the book worthwhile, to some extent; Freeman is an excellent writer and Lee is a fascinating character.

However, the additional commentary the author adds to try and make it relevant to modern corporate management is frequently unconnected with the biographical incidents it follows, and much of it is platitudinous to the point of nausea. I seem to recall Scott Adams talking about the vacuous content of most management books on the market ... specifically mentioning attempts to wrest historical figures into the world of 21st century corporations.

Recommendation: Never mind this book. Go straight for the Freeman, and draw your own conclusions about applications from Lee's life. Personally, I find biographies of honorable men inspiring enough without the "applications".

UPDATE 10/09/07: I couldn't find the book on Amazon when I posted this, so I checked the cover last night. The author is Bil Holton. Armed with the author's name, I just found the title was changed to From The Battlefield to the Bottom Line; I don't know if the content has changed.

Racing to Irrelevance

This is another lap in the race to see when we can manage broaden a definition into irrelevance. Anthony Fortunato is accused of a hate crime in his trial for the murder of Michael Sandy, a gay man.

Surprise! Fortunato announced today, on the witness stand, that he's gay, too.

Think that makes a difference? Forget about it.

Brooklyn prosecutors argue that Fortunato's sexual orientation is irrelevant. Under New York law, they said, defendants can be convicted of a hate crime even if they bear no actual hatred for their victim. ...

Queens prosecutors recently used the hate crimes statute to charge a man accused of trying to defraud several elderly victims ...

Gosh, I hate it when a prosecutor gets the bit in his teeth. How about this, legal scholars: If someone apparently murdered someone, why don't we try them for murder and not an additional thought crime?

I think I see what the intent of the law might have been, but this is positively Orwellian. A hateless hate crime. Somebody call the Ministry of Truth.

Of course, it's a short walk from here to an expanded definition that encompasses any crime; the mugger chose a victim smaller than himself, or less well-armed, or someone that appeared to have money, or someone who seemed unlikely to notice him lurking in the shadows. Aha, a crime that singled out small, unarmed, apparently affluent, and inattentive persons because of a perceived characteristic. A hate crime, Q.E.D. And maybe we back ourselves into the original definition of the crime, after all.

It reminds me of the time I was dismissed from a jury pool when a defendent was charged with drunk driving, even though he was never seen to drive the vehicle he was sitting in. "He was in 'actual physical control' of the vehicle, though," the attorneys explained. I told them sorry, I couldn't vote to convict someone of driving under the influence unless they were actually driving. Thank you, Mr. Young, you can go now.

Wilmington is Okay

At least that's the implication of Jeremiah 5:22.

‘ Do you not fear Me?’ says the LORD.
‘ Will you not tremble at My presence,
Who have placed the sand as the bound of the sea,
By a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass beyond it?
And though its waves toss to and fro, yet they cannot prevail;
Though they roar, yet they cannot pass over it.'

It's risky to be too dogmatic about interpreting prophecy, but this does sound like a refutation of too-anxious predictions of rising seas and global catastrophe. Note, it doesn't preclude storm surge.

Countdown to Surrender

... of the British at Yorktown. On September 30, 1781, the British evacuated their outer works and withdrew into the town's defenses. From then it was less than three weeks to the end of Cornwallis' war in the colonies.

One of my ancestors, Uriah Wright, served with the 1st Virginia Militia in the siege; at present I don't know if he was before Yorktown proper or across the river in front of Tarleton's position, but this site shows the two locations.

We Need More Helicopters After All

College Board, which publishes the SAT and AP exams, also conducted a survey of high school seniors' opinions on their parents' involvement in their college decisions. Guess what?

NEW YORK—Helicopter parents, so named because they hover like a helicopter over their children’s lives, were the focus of the first issue of studentPOLL published jointly in a new collaboration between the College Board and Art & Science Group. The findings of a national online survey of high school seniors conducted by the two organizations show that high school seniors are generally satisfied with the current level of their parents’ involvement in the college planning process. Ninety-five percent of students indicated that their parents were either “very involved” or “involved” in their college plans but, contrary to anecdotal suggestions, the students reported very little unwanted, intrusive behavior on the part of their parents. In fact, nearly 30 percent of students want more, not less, parental involvement.


In other words, at least 25% of the students indicated their parents are involved in the decision, and want them to be even more involved.


Detractors may call it "helicoptering" but in this case, it looks like responsible family life to me.

God's Pathway

Good and upright is the LORD;
Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.
The humble He guides in justice,
And the humble He teaches His way.
All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth,
To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.

-- Psalm 25:8-10

Bookstores Form The Rings of Smithfield

I have an offer to do a book review for publication but it's due this week, so I needed to get a copy of the book right away -- no second hand copies from Amazon this time. A search of the big bookstore chains yielded the head-scratching discovery that there are three Barnes & Nobles stores between 29.1 and 29.33 miles from Smithfield, and a fourth at 27.9 miles.

Borders has two stores located at 32.7 and 33.2 miles.

Books A Million is at 26.6 and 32.7 miles.

And if you go another two miles out, you can catch about three more stores.

In other words, there are no big bookstores within 25 miles, but eight of them in a band about five miles wide and thirty miles away, like rocks in the rings of Saturn. And they're not all in Raleigh, by any means. Go figure.

Home Educators of Rainbow Forest

Last Thursday Melanie and I spoke at a meeting sponsored by the Home Educators of Rainbow Forest, a group affiliated with a Baptist church just north of Roanoke, Virginia. We always appreciate the opportunity to meet and talk with other homeschoolers, and our thanks go to Jane Campbell, the organizer who invited us and coordinated the evening.

I promised the group that notes for our talks would be available online, and now they are -- follow the links below.

Strengthening the Homeschool Marriage

A House NOT Divided: Promoting Unity in the Homeschool Family

Again, thanks, Jane and all the leaders and members of HERF - it was a pleasure!

Strengthening the Homeschool Marriage

Notes from Hal & Melanie Young's presentation to
Home Educators of Rainbow Forest, Troutville, Virginia,
September 6, 2007

Homeschooling is a tremendous responsibility. Even when everything goes smoothly, the demands on a couple’s time and attention are great; and nothing ever goes as easily as first planned. How we manage the pressures of homeschooling will not only reflect how strong our marriage is to begin with, but will either provide greater strength or compounded stress.

I. Husbands: Unity of Purpose

A. Not every couple is convinced about homeschooling in the same way or at the same time

B. The couple should strive to agree on this, though, especially the husband

1. OT law gave the husband responsibility even over his wife's vows (Num 30:3-15)
2. Husband needs to accept responsibility for the decision as the head of household (Eph 5:23)

C. Move from "Permission" to "Vision"

1. As a practical matter, generally Mom does the actual instruction
2. Dad should still look for opportunities to be involved
3. Biblical pattern places father in the forefront of teaching the home
a. God revealed Himself to Abraham because Abraham taught his household (Gen 18:17-19)
b. Fathers are commanded to teach God's law to their children (Deut 6:6-7)
c. Paul assumes the fathers are teachers (1 Th 2:11-12)

D. Avoid the "School Bus of the Mind"

1. Fathers may risk transferring "responsibility" from the school to their wife
2. Home education is never "someone else's problem" - both parents are responsible and accountable

II. Wives: Love and Respect

A. Husbands need the love and respect of their wives, not because they deserve it, but because God placed them in a difficult position - and God commands it! (Titus 2:4-5)

1. Avoid public criticism (Pr 31:11-12)
2. Avoid comparisons to other husbands

B. Acknowledge the husband's role and authority over the home school

1. The mother's authority over the children's education is delegated from father's (Deut 6:6-7)
2. Enlist his active prayer involvement as the family's "priest"

C. Remember the wife's role as "home-keeper" (oikourgos, Titus 2:5)

1. Not just "housekeeping", but making the home a haven
2. Ensure the home is a place of unconditional love

III. Husbands: Provision and Protection

A. Husbands are responsible not only to provide for their wives (1 Tim 5.8)but to understand them (1 Pet 3.7)

B. Consider your wife's needs in the context of homeschooling, too

1. Be open handed with the school budget
a. Trust your wife to shop for curriculum wisely
b. Think like a school administrator - all teachers need "professional development" and the right tools to do their job
c. Define "educational expense" broadly - all schools have overhead
2. Respect the physical and emotional demands homeschooling makes on your wife
a. Be willing to give her "space" to rest and recharge
b. Be willing to help with her responsibilities (home or school)
c. Don't accidentally add expectations to her burden (Matt 23:4, Acts 15:10)
3. Take active responsibility for your family's homeschooling decision
a. Be available to defend her from demanding friends, hostile neighbors or relatives, and so on
b. Also be alert to demanding friends, distracting opportunities, or even the impact of your own wishes

IV: Wives: Affection and Beauty

A. Husbands need protection against the sensual temptations of the world

B. Wives can provide that protection but it takes attention

1. Save some attention and energy for them
a. Designate quiet time for naps or "recharging" in the afternoon
b. Make time for quiet time with the Lord, too
c. Take a few minutes to prepare for their return home
2. Recognize that wives are called to balance their roles for children and husband
a. It is important to God as well as your family (Is 66:11-13)
b. "Alma Mater" means "nourishing mother"
c. God will provide the grace needed

This is not a period of life we struggle to get over with quickly -- the Lord's perspective is very different:

“Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe – all the words of this law;
For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life ..." (Dt 32:46-47b)

May we embrace it, and enjoy it in Him!

Established

Forever, O LORD,
Your word is settled in heaven.
Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
You established the earth, and it abides.
They continue this day according to Your ordinances,
For all are Your servants.

-- Psalm 118:89-91

Boondocking?

You learn something every day. I knew that Wal-Mart (and apparently some other big chain stores) allowed RV owners to park in their lots at night. Living a few miles from I-95 and halfway from Up North to Florida, we see lots of them when we make a late night diaper run. I didn't realize there was a name for the practice, in RV parlance -- "boondocking". Apparently there's some controversy in the camping community over it, but never mind.

However, the real catch of the day is this website which plots all of the Wal-Marts in North Carolina on a map. What a triumph of capitalism and private enterprise! It's enough to make Lou Dobbs cry.

The parent site also has a travel guide which shows you the food, lodging, gas, and yes, Wal-Marts, at each exit on the Interstate. Here's the mountains-to-the-sea guide to I-40 in North Carolina.

See, you knew it had to be out there somewhere.

Aargh !

Maybe everybody goes through this at one point or another. I'm on death watch for my PDA, which was splashed with coffee yesterday morning; probably less said, the better.

At least it wasn't something stupid like happened to my last cell phone. I'm not counting the one that went through the laundry, that's a separate issue altogether.

Maybe beloved wife's opinion is correct, at least as far as electronics ... coffee kills.

For what it's worth, the old Zire 71 has been on the injured list for at least a year and a half; there was a design issue with the internal cable from mother board to screen, and when I couldn't buy the replacement cable I found that a good firm slap ("Palm" to palm, you might say) would restore readibility. Still, I hate to see it go like this.

More free books online

I frequently find interesting and useful information in the Google Books feature, and I've also downloaded things from time to time from Project Gutenberg.

However, this evening I ran across FullBooks.com, which offers (they say) thousands of titles. A quick perusal shows quite a range, from sermon collections to Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, historical fiction by G. A. Henty, and essays and novels by 20th century authors. Downside -- they're listed by title only, and there's no search feature. However, there are probably quite a few that haven't made it to the other two sites yet.

Liberal and Conservative

National Review's Jonah Goldberg hits a beautifully balanced comparison:

Conservatives value economic liberty and moral security,

while the liberal values economic security and moral liberty.

The John Locke Foundation's Mitch Kokai expands it to explain that libertarians prefer liberty in both the moral and the economic spheres, hence their uneasy alliance with the conservative movement, depending on which aspect the conservative emphasizes.

I suppose there is another alternative, those who desire security in both spheres. Maybe that's the domain of the true international socialist of the Stalin/Mao variety -- for all their official godlessness, Communist governments are known for a certain prudity of morality.

Good and bad in the same hymn

We sang one at Bible study Wednesday evening which had both extremes in the lyrics.

Frederick Lehman's "The Love of God" has an excellent closing stanza:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were ev'ry stalk on earth a quill,
And ev'ry man a scribe by trade;
To write the love
of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll
contain the Whole,
though stretched from sky to sky

It's a very Biblical image, echoing the apostle John in his gospel.

However, the opening stanza suffers from terminology which is not just outdated, but very easily misunderstood:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches the lowest hell.

I'm a firm believer in keeping the original poetic language in older hymns as much as possible. However, the term "hell" today is pretty much reserved for profanity or a single, capital-H location. At the time this hymn was composed, certain dens of inquity were called "hells" (such as "a gambling hell"). With the change in usage since then, the hymn now seems to posit the love of God in the midst of Perdition, where it is not. At least, not since Christ preached to the spirits in prison, anyway.

Please Hold

Working in sales now I'm making a lot more work-related phone calls than I used to. It's given me a chance to become familiar with different systems' approach to the "hold" music.

One of my customers' wireless services apologizes for the delay and plays Vivaldi (The Four Seasons); my own service, of course, plays a series of clicks which, if nothing else, at least indicate that the phone hasn't died.

China Mobile, on the other side of the world, plays an electronic version of something pianistic -- beloved wife said she thought she recognized incidental music from Dr. Zhivago, which seems odd for a Communist government. Unfortunately they play it at about 85 decibels, which is a bit tough when you're wearing a headset and the first chords explode upon the ear.

Award for the worst music is the internal system of another customer. Near as I can tell, the music is only four measures before it repeats. If they answered the phone within five seconds, you might just hear the first repeat -- but they don't. That one can ruin your day if it goes on much longer.

I'll have to consult the beloved wife about the background music at the doctors' office this afternoon -- it was beach music, and I can't recall the song now, but it had a prominent line about "this is the end" or "it's killing me" -- something which seemed unproductive for a medical office.

The Fledgling is Back in the Nest

... and what's an hour delay on a twenty-two and a half hour journey?

All the bystanders at baggage claim burst into applause when he came down the escalator from the gate. Welcome home, John Calvin!

The Virtue of Non-Transparency

There is a value to transparency, of actually bearing the character you outwardly appear to carry. Esse quam videre.

However, that works best if you have a noble character to display. The transparency isn't all that great if it means you can see right through the sham.

Case in point: this morning my Beloved Wife was calling a university to set up a tour for my graduating son. The admissions counsellor was very curt in manner. Melanie started by asking if there were any special requirements for homeschooled applicants, and the counsellor shot back, "No. They follow the same rules as everybody else."

Hmm, opening gambit fell flat. What about appointments for a campus visit? "The secretary handles that, I don't have any idea about it."

Financial aid? "He has to have at least 1000 math and verbal on the SAT ..." the counsellor rattled off. Melanie interrupted, "He has 1570 math and verbal."

Ah! Suddenly the entire demeanor changed, the counsellor falling all over the room, calculating within about four sentences that she can all but promise a full scholarship if he applies.

What a difference four digits makes; it even makes the Brusque into the Accommodating.

I told Melanie she should start the conversation, "Hello, my son has 1570 on the SAT, and my name is ..." but she thought that would be overbearing. Maybe so, but it would certainly cut to the chase with some people. Would that just be transparency on our part?

One of South Carolina's wealthiest industrialists was a self-made man with a fortune built on cotton-processing machinery. The story is he used to enjoy dressing in his farming clothes to browse the big car lots -- located on land which he leased to them -- and after confirming the salesmen had no interest in his business, returning in his office suit and showing the same salesmen a huge roll of currency before walking out on them, letting them know that he had already been in once before that day.

Customer service skills apply in all kinds of business, and this admissions counsellor's manner was enough to lose the college a high-scoring candidate. The transparency in her case probably told us more than the college would have liked -- or gave a message the college never intended to convey.

Apropos

Devotions this morning included a reading that seemed appropriate for a friend undergoing some trials:

The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance.
He will not be afraid of evil tidings;
His heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
His heart is established;
He will not be afraid,
Until he sees his desire upon his enemies. ...

The wicked will see it and be grieved;
He will gnash his teeth and melt away;
The desire of the wicked shall perish.

-- Psalm 112:6b-8, 10

A Nearly-Hostile Takeover

Saturday on our way back from the beach we had an impromptu field trip to Moore's Creek battlefield. This 1776 clash between loyalist and patriot factions near Wilmington resulted in about 30 loyalists (and only one patriot) killed. More significantly, it prevented about 1500 loyalist volunteers from reaching Wilmington, where they were to join with Clinton and Cornwallis on their way to Charleston. The embarrassing failure of the British fleet to reduce Fort Moultrie convinced them to leave the south for later, concentrating their early efforts on the northern colonies.

The battlefield is well-maintained and accessible, and the progress of the engagement is easy to follow with the trails and markers. The visitor's center is small but thorough, and the new video presentation is good too (and available for sale in the bookstore).

What did fall short is the presentation by the park rangers. I don't know if it was the particular ranger leading our group, or if it is the official script prepared for this site, but we could only stay with him for the first 200 yards of the tour. The presentation seemed determined to prove that it was just simple fairness that Parliament imposed taxation on the colonies without representation, that the American colonists were simply sulky and petty to complain about their rights, and patriots like Samuel Adams were motivated by nothing but merchantile interests. (Yes, they brought Adams right into the swamps of Pender County, NC; go figure. It's a wonder global warming wasn't involved.)


My wife, bless her, pointed out that the actions of Parliament were a violation of the Magna Charta, and this was the fundamental law governing the relations between the sovereign and his subjects -- abrogated by the Crown's representatives. The ranger replied with a smile that the distance was so great and communication so slow that it simpy wasn't practical for the colonists to expect representation in Parliament.

"If they can get taxes over there, they can get a representative," my wife responded, with a ripple of approval from the rest of the group. As they walked on, my wife said to me, "He needs to read more original sources, not just the official text."


After two stops like this we decided it was time to take charge of our own experience, so we let the group walk on and my wife and I finished the presentation for our children. While we didn't have family at Moore's Creek per se -- though I guess the loyalist Colonel MacLeod may have been a relative -- we have read pretty extensively about the colonial and Revolutionary periods, and we do have our own patriot ancestors like Beat Rebsamen, the Swiss immigrant who was pardoned for his involvement with the S. C. Regulator movement, but then supplied the Colonials when the war came about; or Matthew and Christopher Singleton, who signed a Mecklenburg-type declaration in Camden District, S.C., only six weeks after Lexington and Concord; or the Wrights, Solomon and Uriah, father and son, who served in the Virginia militia -- Uriah, present for duty at the conclusion at Yorktown.


Thank you, we do know something about the causes of this war, and they run much deeper than an overreaction to a "reasonable" tax. And either Moore's Creek was a well-planned action on the part of citizen soldiery that shaped the subsequent events in the early war for our independence -- we have to remember this was ten months into the open hostilities --, or it was just a sad local tragedy that left thirty-one colonists dead for trivial political reasons.

I suppose since we're apologizing for history in other areas, we might as well send our humble regrets to the Queen and redesign our coinage to look like Canada's. Sorry, your majesty -- our bad.

It made me think about the ongoing fight of Doug Phillips and Vision Forum against creeping revisionism at places like Plymouth and Jamestown. Who writes these scripts for the National Park Service?

UPDATE 1: I had a very enlightening visit with the chief ranger at Cowpens National Battlefield the following week and posed that question to her. The answer is the ranger writes the script. This is by design; the Park Service provides certain basic historical facts which need to be covered, but the "interpretive rangers" (as opposed to "law enforcement" rangers) are free to put their own knowledge and experience into their presentations. This can be both boon and bane, as you might expect -- and as we have experienced.

UPDATE 2: The ranger I spoke with, incidentally, very graciously pointed out that Plymouth is not a NPS site, and she also had noticed the interesting change in interpretative emphasis to a modern Native American viewpoint. Jamestown is more complex, as there are three different entities in the same basic location, only one of which is Park Service.

UPDATE 3: Well, maybe we had kinfolk there after all. My mother ran into the past president of the Clan McLeod Society and through him I have been corresponding with a McLeod genealogist. It appears now that our McLeods may have been in the colonies, and in North Carolina, no less, at that time -- previously we believed the first in America arrived in 1792. Too early to say whether we had Loyalists among the McLeods, though I already know the German side of the family fought for the Tories at Ramseur's Mill.

Beach Books

I'm reading Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville. Really good stuff, actually; he observed, for instance, that while America (c. 1830) did not follow schools of philosophy like the fashionable thinkers of Europe did, at the same time they had arrived at a common frame of thinking. De Tocqueville said that there was nowhere that Decartes was less studied but more followed, as a practical matter.

A Question for Friday

I posted this over the Locker Room and got some interesting responses:

Have you ever completely worn out a book, either by re-reading, frequent reference, or simply by carrying it around constantly?

One thing is immediately plain -- the most earthshakingly signficant books are not the most frequently read, with the possible exception of the Bible. Most of them, I think, take a serious commitment in thought and time to read through the first time, while many of us bibliophiles read largely for recreation. For examples, here are the responses from --

The president of the leading conservative policy institute in North Carolina: Dune

A veteran media manager: The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made

A rising seminary student: Profiles in Audacity

The former chair of county council: Interviews with the Vampire

Me? I admit that the most abused volumes in our library are Swiss Family Robinson, All Creatures Great and Small, and Mennonite Country-Style Recipes & Kitchen Secrets.

Readers are welcome to add their own admissions in the comments!

"Africa"

Now shall my inward joys arise
And burst forth to a song!
A mighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue

God on His thirsty Zion hill
Some mercy-drops hath sown;
A solemn oath hath bound His love
To shower salvation down

Why do we then indulge our fears,
Suspicions, and complaints?
Is He a God? And does His grace
Grow weary of His saints?

Can a kind woman e'er forget
The infant of her womb?
Among a thousand tender thoughts
Her suckling hath no room?

Yet saith the Lord, "Should nature change,
And mothers, monsters prove,
Zion still dwells upon the Heart
Of everlasting love

"Deep on the palms of both My hands
I have engraved her name;
My hand shall raise her ruin'd walls
And build her broken frame."

-- "Africa", in The New England Psalm Singer by William Billings

=====

[According to Wikipedia, the tune "Africa" is by William Billings, but the lyrics are by Isaac Watts; I've always heard it referred to by Billings' hymn tune. The spelling and punctuation here are my own, from many, many playings of The King's Clerkes' album A Land of Pure Delight.

A very different rendition is this group of Sacred Harp singers belting it out at a Minnesota convention. The first stanza is the sol-fa vocalization -- standard practice for shaped-note sings --, so the understandable lyrics start on the first repeat. Listening to this spirited a capella version, I can very easily picture the church meetings of my ancestors, Rev. Henry Young in South Carolina and Rev. Isaac Miles in North Carolina, in the early 1800's.]

I Thought It Was Scandanavian

Matthew came in the kitchen asking for a definition of the word "svelte". It raised the question where the word comes from -- Svedish?

Actually, it comes from Latin, by way of Italian and then French. The original word is exvellere, meaning "to pull out of". And in the transition to Italian, somewhere the /ek/ was left off /eks-vel-ler-e/ ... leaving, in effect, 'svellere, which became first svelto and then svelte.

So who took the "ek" out of "x" ?

A Very Different Church Service

Our church recently finished a detailed study of the book of Matthew (a year and a half long) and we've starting a new study of Nehemiah. This week, instead of an introductory sermon, we simply read the whole book aloud, thirteen chapters.

This has precedent, incidentally -- in the book of Nehemiah itself:

So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month. Then he read from it in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate from morning until midday, before the men and women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.

(Nehemiah 8:2-3)

There are a lot of interesting things in this chapter, including not only precedent for extended public reading of Scripture, but also open air preaching, very long services on occasion, the inclusion of all ages in the common worship and teaching, the use of a shared platform and multiple teachers in a service, and exposition in addition to the reading. There are also examples of standing for the reading of Scripture, spontaneous verbal congregational response, emotional response to repentence and conviction, worship with lifted hands, worship with bowed heads, and teaching from the Law. And there's also the example of civil rulers not only participating in the service but promoting the significance of the day.

For what it's worth, there's also exhortations to celebrate holidays, to eat fat, to enjoy sweet drinks, and to share celebratory meals with those who couldn't prepare.

And what should be our response to a sermon on the Law?

For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

So the Levites quieted all the people, saying, “Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink, to send portions and rejoice greatly, because they understood the words that were declared to them.

(Nehemiah 8:9-12)

Outdoing Themselves, Unfortunately

I was returning from a quick business trip to Charlotte and needed supper on the road. Being somewhat in the wilds of south-central North Carolina the choices were a bit limited but I remembered the deli counter at Wal-Mart had prepared food that at least offered variety from the hamburger chains.

Sure enough, there were several possiblities on display, including one I tentatively matched with the menu board as "boneless buffalo wing bites" or something of that sort.


I asked the young woman behind the counter what "that" item was.


"Chicken chunks," she replied.


Really... She confirmed it when I repeated it back to her.


The price was okay and I've paid twice as much for worse food on many occasions, especially on business trips. "Chicken chunks" it is, I suppose, technically correct, like a butcher shop that advertises "pieces of dead animals", but it's not astute marketing.


Wal-Mart tops itself again, courtesy another untrained or inattentive employee. A shame, really; the "chunks" weren't bad.

Notes from the Carnival

Tami Fox is moderating the Carnival of Homeschooling this week and two on my blog roll are highlighted. Leading off is this tribute:

I have been captivated by a new blog, Number One Son Report, this summer. It is an account of a high school, homeschool student who is living and working in Asia this summer. This entry is one of the first entries on the blog, but I encourage you to read the rest of it as you have time. It has been fascinating for me to read Number One Son Report.

Later in the COH is this item:

Mamahadeen tells us, "Lots of folks have asked us how we have dared to allow our boys to grab some of the wonderful, but scary opportunities they've taken advantage of. It's because that's what we've aimed at from the beginning! This post describes some of the practical ways we've prepared our sons to stand like men earlier than our culture thinks possible," in her post, "Teaching Boys to be Men."

UPDATE 19:43 - Visits are way up at Number One Son today, and The Common Room has linked over there too. Mamahadeen got a boost as well. Observation: People actually do read and click through ...

Journalist In Chief

A journalist, after all, is technically one who records in a journal. We use it to refer to a reporter, a media type, but in fact, a committed diarist is also maintaining a journal. QED.

After years as a political commentator, though -- and I highly recommend Reagan In His Own Hand to sample this phase of his development -- the fortieth president was qualified as both, an astute observer and analyst of the political forces and persons around him, and here, one who kept a fascinating personal diary of his eight years as president.

I got to review The Reagan Diaries for the August issue of Carolina Journal, and I have to say this is one of the hardest I've had to write. The man was so quotable and entertaining I had real difficulties confining myself to a thousand words.

One comment I didn't work into the article was when Sam Donaldson asked him if he didn't share some responsibility for the recession of 1981-1982; the president said,

"Yes, I do. I was once a Democrat."

Another matter that comes up regularly enough is whether Reagan was really as religious as the Right likes to imagine; after all, they point out, he didn't attend church that much while he was president -- a true statement borne out by his diary. What skeptics don't acknowledge is the tremendous disruption caused by a visit from the president; the Reagans decided, reluctantly, that it was too much commotion for them to inflict on the congregation. On the occasions that they do get to worship, Reagan mentions how much he misses it and his desire to be there more often.

Never mind that he found himself in the emergency room, 69 years old with an assassin's bullet in his lung, praying for the gunman. There is an enlightening entry as Reagan considers his father-in-law's rapidly declining health:

Nancy is very depressed about her father's health and understandably so. I want so much to speak to him about faith. He's always been an Agnostic -- now I think he knows fear for probably the 1st time in his life. I believe this is a moment when he should turn to God and I want so much to help him do that. (May 19, 1982, p. 85)

That just isn't the comment of a lukewarm or half-hearted believer.

There is a wealth of interesting first-person material in this volume and I can only scratch the surface in my review. You can read it in the print edition of Carolina Journal here .

Tunes by William Billings

So I don't lose them, here is a collection of MIDI sequences of tunes by William Billings. These have a very Renaissance sound to them, more than the electric-piano tone I usually find in MIDI files.


There are several articles and comments about Billings himself at the top of the page, but persevere, the MIDI links are about half way down.


Here is Is Any Afflicted? in MIDI. The Choral Public Domain Library has the pdf version for singing parts but I don't have time to look them up for a link this evening.


You can also hear a few of his works sung by His Majestie's Clerkes (now Belle Voce) at The Art of the States website.

Delightful

There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never with'ring flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heav'nly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

But tim'rous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea;
And linger, shivering, on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

O could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes;

Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.

==========

This is the title track of a favorite album of mine, A Land of Pure Delight. Unlike Moses, though, we have an expectation of more than just viewing.

Here's a link to the Billings tune "Jordan" on the album (Paul Hillier and His Majestie's Clerkes)

Busy This Week

Looking at the last post I see it's been a week already. It's been a busy one; our brightest new prospective customer has been in Atlanta for back-to-back trade shows the past two weeks and sending very encouraging reports from our samples he is showing. The latest was a scramble today to put together a novelty-sort of hanging tag to display one product on the retailer's shelves -- due to technical and timing difficulties, I had to run the tags 45 miles away, to the other side of Raleigh, to catch a late drop off for Monday delivery. But that was just last night and today ....

I've also been catching up on a few of the other accounts that had to coast a few days while we handled last minute issues with the new customer. There may be an interesting follow up to the school bus story as well.

Not to miss the family holiday on Thursday, either -- wife Melanie and I took the afternoon off to celebrate our 21st anniversary with a visit to Raven Rock park, a hike down to the Cape Fear River, then dinner at a favorite local Chinese restaurants. (Too bad we haven't found a good Shanghai dumpling nearby; the closest I've met is actually in Wadesboro, of all places)

In the meantime, I finished Dorothy Hughes' biography of Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Real Perry Mason. This was a re-read, but more interesting now that I'm writing more, considering a book project, and eagerly following my brother Davis' purchase of a publishing company (only thirteen days to closing now ...) Gardner was a prodigiously productive writer, turning out a full novel in four days or less, routinely, but at the cost of nearly anything resembling a family life. This is plainly and unblinkingly described in the book so there's a balance to the "wow".

Possibly more later including a movie review but I'm finishing preparation for a sermon tomorrow.

Sunday morning

Awake, my soul, in joyful lays,
And sing thy great Redeemer's praise:
He justly claims a song from me,
His lovingkindness is so free.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
His lovingkindness is so free.

He saw me ruined in the fall,
Yet loved me not withstanding all,
And saved me from my lost estate,
His lovingkindness is so great.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
His lovingkindness is so great.

Through mighty hosts of cruel foes,
Where earth and hell my way oppose,
He safely leads my soul along,
His lovingkindness is so strong.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
His lovingkindness is so strong.

So when I pass death's gloomy vale,
And life and mortal pow'rs shall fail,
O may my last expiring breath
His lovingkindness sing in death.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
His lovingkindness sing in death.

Then shall I mount, and soar away
To the bright world of endless day;
There shall I sing, with sweet surprise,
His lovingkindness in the skies,
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
His lovingkindness in the skies.

-- The Trinity Hymnal, no. 138

Inundated, sure, but not this way

Our celebration of Independence Day ended with an unplanned swim in Lake Wateree, as our family's aged dock gave way at the end of the fireworks. Thankful toward God, no one was seriously hurt, though plenty alarmed.

Wife Melanie has a fuller account on her blog Mamahadeen.

Nothing New

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.

There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-11


It strikes me that ignorance of history is not a uniquely American problem, nor is it modern. It is, however, a failure on the part of both the older generation as well as the younger.

Sunday Evening Late

Come, my soul, thou must be waking;
Now is breaking o'er the earth another day:
Come to him who made this splendor;
See thou render all thy feeble pow'rs can pay.

Thou, too, hail the light returning;
Ready burning be the incense of thy pow'rs;
For the night is safely ended,
God hath tended with his care thy helpless hours.

Pray that he may prosper ever
Each endeavor, when thine aim is good and true;
But that he may ever thwart thee,
And convert thee, when thou evil wouldst pursue.

Think that he thy ways beholdeth;
He unfoldeth ev'ry fault that lurks within;
Ev'ry stain of shame glossed over
Can discover, and discern each deed of sin.

Only God's free gifts abuse not,
Light refuse not, but his Spirit's voice obey;
Thou with him shalt dwell, beholding
Light enfolding all things in unclouded day.

-- The Trinity Hymnal, no. 334

Music to Fix Washers By

I'm on the floor repairing the washing machine and find my mood is captured pretty well by Karl Orff.

The MIDI sequence has a certain metallic percussion that reminds me of sheet metal.

UPDATE: Problem found -- change music to Handel.

UPDATE: Wow. The "large object filter" in front of the drain pump (three stores to find the tool) had a mass like a racquetball in it, something like an owl pellet with unknown objects inside. Further examination yielded a wire nut (my fault), an unidentified part of an Ertl toy, a 4-inch LEGO, and at the center of it all, a worn-out Scotchbrite pad ... all richly coated with blue-gray lint.

Well, that helped. No wonder it wouldn't drain.

But this one is "Number One Son"

"Charlie Chan" is a homeschooling parent we know whose "Number One Son" is working in Asia this summer. The blog is called "Number One Son Report" and I've added a link on the right.

Psalms and politics

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh made a connection between the demand for immigrant workers, 20 million of whom are here illegally, and the dearth of people created by our liberalization of abortion law in 1972 -- 23.8 million who would have been 18 years or older this year, according to statistics for 1973-1989 from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (

Psalm 94 speaks to this situation, and I'd be worried if I were part of the movement to keep abortion "safe and legal".

LORD, how long will the wicked,
How long will the wicked triumph? ...

They slay the widow and the stranger,
And murder the fatherless.

[My question - what percentage of abortions are performed on unwed mothers?]

Yet they say, “The LORD does not see,
Nor does the God of Jacob understand.” ...

Shall the throne of iniquity, which devises evil by law,
Have fellowship with You?
They gather together against the life of the righteous,
And condemn innocent blood. ...

The LORD our God shall cut them off.

(Psalm 94:3, 6, 20-21, 23)

Will candidates who think politics transcend morality please take note? Will voters?

I doubt he'll ever rank "Favorite Son"

Words fail me.

Our enemies wire Afghan children to be human bombs, but the man who wants to lead us in 2008 has a domestic problem: Ann Coulter uses "hurtful" language about him.

But for the grace of God, I'd start using some too.

A Vibration on the Web

You never know who will respond when your work goes online.

Recently I received two emails from a couple in Israel, responding to one of my articles in Carolina Journal. They were excited to read about a descendent of the Nigerian Ibo tribe, and said they were African Jews who were trying to connect up with distant cousins.

Okay, it wasn't about my scintillating writing or razor-keen analysis. They probably had their Google Alerts set for references to "Ibo", and ran across the pdf version of the story a few months after it was published. But it's still amazing to think that strangers in Israel read my article and found something worth follow-up. You truly never know what to expect.

The Mandarin Candidate

Election officials in districts with a high Chinese population are debating how to render candidates' names into Mandarin and Cantonese characters. The problem is that while Arab and Israeli names can be transliterated directly, to "spell" a Western name in Chinese requires someone to pick characters for words that sound like the Western syllables.

This page is an example of how it works. Barack Obama's name ends with the Mandarin word for "horse" -- ma. Easy, see?

But the characters retain their own meaning, too, which can result in the Asian equivalent of punning names in English -- like the rancher Bob Warr and the family counselor Marion Haste (HT: Car Talk).

According to this story, Mitt Romney may be known as "Sticky Rice", while Fred! becomes "Virtue Soup".

I like that. Thompson could have been like the local candidate whose name was rendered "Imbecile". Make mine "Virtue Soup", please.

Busing of a Different Sort

Coming in the July issue of Carolina Journal:

Were these were used improperly ?

UPDATE: The story breaks July 3 in the online edition.

Principle Over Pragmatism

I wonder how many people have died because someone else made a "pragmatic" decision. In this case, at least three people lived because someone chose principle instead.

Sunday marked a momentous Father's Day for Ryan Morrison of Minnesota and Bryan Masche of Arizona. Both men recently had become fathers — to six babies each.

Their wives conceived using fertility drugs that increase the risk of multiple births, and both delivered sextuplets prematurely last week. All six Masche children are alive. Three of the Morrison children have died.

The couples have more in common than their sextuplets. Both rejected medical advice that they selectively reduce — abort — at least three fetuses to improve the health prospects of the others. As Morrison explained on www.morrison6.com, "We understand that the risk is high, but we also understand that these little ones are much more than six fetuses. Each one of them is a miracle given to us by God. He knows each one of them by name, and we will trust Him absolutely for their lives and health."

The other father shared this viewpoint:

When asked by Newsweek why they kept their sextuplets, Masche said, "We'd been trying for three years, and my wife had had two miscarriages. And how do you choose which heartbeat you want to stop? … God doesn't make mistakes. … He creates all life for a particular reason."

HT: NRO

Midnight, Sunday Morning

Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands, for our offenses given;
But now at God's right hand he stands and brings us life from heaven;
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
Loud songs of hallelujah.
Hallelujah!

It was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended;
The victory remained with life, the reign of death was ended;
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That death is swallowed up by death,
His sting is lost for ever.
Hallelujah!

Here the true Paschal Lamb we see, Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree—So strong his love!—to save us.
See, his blood doth mark our door;
Faith points to it, death passes o'er,
And Satan cannot harm us.
Hallelujah!

So let us keep the festival whereto the Lord invites us;
Christ is himself the Joy of all, the Sun that warms and lights us.
By his grace he doth impart
Eternal sunshine to the heart;
The night of sin is ended.
Hallelujah!

Then let us feast this joyful day on Christ, the Bread of heaven;
The Word of grace hath purged away the old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed,
He is our meat and drink indeed;
Faith lives upon no other.
Hallelujah!

-- The Trinity Hymnal, no. 207

New Links

The evolution of the sidebar continues. Recently I've added links for the day's reading from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, as well as my friend Scott Brown's pastoral blog, Scott Brown Online. Both are worth careful consideration!

Poetry That Doesn't Rhyme

I remember reading that, unlike most publishers, Bennett Cerf at Random House made a practice of reviewing every unsolicited manuscript that came "over the transom". Asked if they weren't uniformly worthless, he admitted that most of them were not publishable, "but one of them was Cry, The Beloved Country."

Eldest son John Calvin has been reading world literature in school and so we picked up Alan Paton's novel about apartheid-era South Africa. I started and finished it in just a couple of days while on a working vacation to our family's lake house. The language is lyrical and poetic, like Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, but unlike the latter, this was actually God-honoring, with much nobility in the two main characters, a poor black Anglican priest and a wealthy white landowner, brought together by a shared family tragedy.

Although there are many sad situations in this book, Paton gives an expectation and hope for the future of Africa and the protagonists he portrays, and his beautiful language and characterizations make this truly literature. Good art, good message, and a surprisingly enjoyable reading experience.

Advice From the Man Who Lived It

William Manchester -- The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone, 1932-1940.


This is the second book of a three-volume biography of Churchill. I picked up the only part that was available at a library book sale some time ago, and this was my second reading of it.


Everyone knows about Churchill's terse speech on the value of perserverence -- "Never give in. Never, never, never, never give in." I wasn't fully aware of how much he had lived it, and not in the obvious sense of long hours in the years of World War II -- Churchill spent more than a decade as a political pariah, abandoned by his party for his stand against independence for India, then finding himself completely out of step with the Conservatives' ruling factions of Stanley Baldwin and then Neville Chamberlain.


It was chilling to read how Chamberlain and his group kept themselves willfully blind about the intentions, and then the actions, of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. These British leaders, and some on our side as well, seemed willing to believe that life dominated by Fascism was preferable to one ruled by Communists, and that Hitler was preferable to Stalin in the long run. Pacifism was rampant, even though nearly twenty years had passed since the Armistace ended the Great War. As I read, the names Pelosi, Reid, Edwards, and Kennedy kept coming to mind; in fact, Ted Kennedy's father Joseph Kennedy, as U.S. ambassador to Britain at that time, was firmly convinced that England was a lost cause and Germany was the nation to deal with.


Churchill, through it all, gave speech after speech warning of the German militarism building up right in front of them, pouring out a river of editorials and opinion pieces for newspapers and magazines, and writing numerous volumes of history all the while. His private network of intelligence was more sensitive and accurate than even the government's, and he maintained what amounted to a private war room to stay abreast of the crumbling European situation.


It was only at the eleventh hour that Chamberlain was forced out of office, after the policies he promoted allowed the Nazis to take over first the Rhineland, then Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and at last the Low Countries. Churchill then went from pariah to messiah for the Conservatives, because he alone of the Tories was unhindered by the ruined hulk of appeasement -- only because Churchill had never given in, even when only five or six members of Parliament would stand with him. "Nevah!" indeed.

The Message for Conservatives

My first contribution for the Civitas Foundation's magazine Conservative Citizen appears in the Summer 2007 issue, available online here. I've exerpted it on my other blog, Five Points.

The basic message for conservatives still smarting over the 2006 elections?

Get over it and get to work.

Presidential Courage

I just sent in my review of Michael Beschloss's new book Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989.

This is scheduled for the July issue of Carolina Journal, which should be online about July 7th.

Edwards Not Responsible for Morality?

Sojourners sponsored a discussion of Democratic candidates' religious views on CNN last week. There are some very interesting comments made, as seen in the transcription in the New York Times.

Our own John Edwards was evasive as could be, and still managed to say more than he wanted to. For example, in this exchange he basically says that, as president, he is not responsible to follow the dictates of his conscience:


CNN's SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: "If you think something is morally wrong, though, you morally disagree with it, as president of the United States, don't you have a duty to go with your moral belief?"


JOHN EDWARDS: "No, I think that, first of all, my faith, my belief in Christ plays an enormous role in the way I view the world. But I think I also understand the distinction between my job as president of the United States, my responsibility to be respectful of and to embrace all faith beliefs in this country because we have many faith beliefs in America. And for that matter we have many faith beliefs in the world. And I think one of the problems that we've gotten into is some identification of the president of the United States with a particular faith belief as opposed to showing great respect for all faith beliefs."


Edwards changed the subject so quick it's a wonder he doesn't need a neck brace this week. Respect for other faiths does not mean denying the responsibility toward your own, even if you're president.

How about this comment that I summarize as


"Jesus: The poor you will always have with you. John Edwards: No, I can fix that."

JOHN EDWARDS: [E]verything I can do, everything in my power that I'm able to do, I will do to drive the issue of poverty in this presidential campaign so that everyone is required to talk about it. Because I think it is the great moral issue of our time. I've committed, actually, to an agenda of eliminating poverty over the next 30 years.


In context, Jesus was pointing out there were opportunities to do good in different ways at different times, and there was a fleeting opportunity to show honor to the Son of God. The unelaborated principle, I believe, is that poverty is a relative measure, and by implication, unless everyone is at the same level of affluence, there are going to be some with more and some with less. You only have to look at poverty in places like Panama, for example, to realize that the North American poor are better off than Central American poor; that doesn't make their situation good in either place, but it serves to illustrate the hubris of Edwards' assertion that he can make poverty go away, as if he could abolish "down" and leave only "up" as the permanent state of man.

Frankly, the only way Edwards can accomplish what he proposes is to institute the strictest of socialisms. No doubt he would echo communist apologists of an earlier era who said, "Of course it's not working -- it isn't worldwide yet."

Compare Edwards' statements with those from Barack Obama, which express his intention and sentiment for assisting the poor, but without the arrogance of the man from the UNC poverty center. The same solutions underlie Obama's plan, but there's no claim for Utopia rising.

Edwards is not doing himself favors with this line. But since when is that news?

The Call of the Entrepreneur

This new film from The Acton Institute is getting excellent reviews within conservative circles. I haven't seen the full thing yet but the trailer is outstanding. The Jesse Helms Center recently aired an advance copy to students at the North Carolinians for Home Education conference in Winston-Salem (my son's reaction here) and will be sponsoring theatre showings in several North Carolina cities in the coming months.

Can't wait.

Deeper and Louder

The family is reading in Spurgeon's Morning and Evening for our devotions, and often we're twelve hours ahead of ourselves, reading the same passage our son and elder brother is for the day. This evening we were reading the section for tomorrow morning, June 9, and it just felt like balm tonight:

Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through that upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help which God has vouchsafed them. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state, will come forward joyously, and say, "I will speak, not about myself, but to the honour of my God. He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings; and He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. The Lord hath done great things for me, whereof I am glad." ...

It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them ... The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through all, and preserved us until now.

-- Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, June 9: "The Lord hath done great things for us, where of we are glad", Psalm 126:3 (Cf Psalm 40:2-3).

Incidentally, I noticed the counter on the site at Calvin College says that just this particular online version of the book has been accessed more than 6.5 million times in the past two years.

Not Wowed by Hugh's Woo

I'll grant he may be a man with sincere religious faith, but I'm not wild about Mitt Romney. It may come as a revelation to Hugh Hewitt, too, but I don't think many of Hugh's fellow evangelicals appreciate being called "bigots" who are "not only un-American, but un-Christian" for missing this bandwagon, either. Frankly, I'm surprised and disappointed that Hewitt seems to think his readers can be bullied and insulted into an informed opinion that way. Is that how the electorate should be wooed, Hugh?

My review of Hewitt's book A Mormon in the White House? appeared in the May issue of Carolina Journal. I summarized it over here.

Guilty Errands

The N.C. General Assembly is considering a bill that would make it a punishable offense if you leave your 13-year-old in the car to watch a sleeping baby while you go inside to pick up a prescription.

Well, not explicitly, but read the bill and see if that's not one result. Links and a longer comment are on my political blog, Five Points.

Spiritual Question of the Day

Is it still fasting if you drink coffee?

Flaps Down

We heard from our traveler about 9:30 this morning that he was safely on the ground and in the company of his uncle. He said a 45-minute delay on the first flight made a challenging change in Detroit, with only sixty minutes between flights, but the short layover at Tokyo's Narita airport (an hour and fifteen minutes) apparently went without a hitch.

I was thinking of the flaps on the aircraft, but I suppose this also refers to our young eagle alighting, as well. Godspeed to him.

Pigskin and Paper

When Theodore Roosevelt left office, he planned a lengthy African safari to get out of the way of his successor's fledgling administration. His sister Corinne records in her book My Brother Theodore Roosevelt that as TR prepared to leave the White House, she offered to buy him "a real present". His request was a specially-bound collection of books because, as he said,

"Of course, I must take a good many books; I couldn't go anywhere, not even into the jungles of Africa without a good many books. But also, of course, they are not very likely to last in ordinary bindings, and so I want to have them all bound in pigskin ..." (p. 251)

Hence the legendary "pigskin library" now in the collections of Harvard University. Roosevelt wrote back from Africa that it had been "the utmost possible comfort and pleasure" to him. "Fond though I am of hunting and of wilderness life, I could not thoroughly enjoy either if I were not able, from time to time, to turn to my books." (p. 256)

So when Roosevelt headed for the wilds, what books did he want close at hand? Corinne gave the list -- starting with the Bible and the Apocrypha (why, being Dutch Reformed, TR specifically included the latter, I can't say). From there TR's tastes ranged to Homer's Odyssey, Spenser's Faerie Queene, Bret Harte and Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe, Macaulay and Shakespeare, Die Niebelungenlied, Sir Walter Scott, and The Federalist Papers. They included books on naval history, collections of poetry, Pilgrim's Progress and a biography of Frederick the Great.

The fifty or sixty titles are not a complete "Great Books" collection by any means -- they were just what TR wanted to take on his hunting trip.

My son John will be in Asia for three months, and like TR, he is a voracious reader. The long journey is intimidating enough, but a recently-returned friend advised that he found nearly zero reading material in English while he was there. That was my own observation from our visit in 2005; the only English-language bookstore I visited was heavy on economic treatises and teach-yourself-English guides.

Lacking a burro to carry John's luggage, we traded permanance for portability. I suggested some titles from our collection of paperbacks, but the final selection was my son's -- and we discovered the morning of departure that he had decided to fill out the rest of his weight limit with books.

So what's in John's "pigskin library"? A list as eclectic as TR's:

The Bible, both in English and Mandarin; a new Langerscheidt's English-Mandarin dictionary; Larry Burkett's Business by the Book; mysteries by Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey; and though they don't add any weight, he had downloaded e-text versions of Matthew Henry's Commentary, several books by J.C. Ryle, a number of G.A. Henty's historical novels, and for devotional reading, Spurgeon's Morning and Evening.

He also has my copy of Robert Axtell's book on cross-cultural etiquette called Do's and Taboos, with the Asian portions marked; a book by the Puritan Thomas Brooks which he and I planned to read together (he got the unmarked copy, though); Allan Drury's Senate novel Advise and Consent; an economics book by Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman; and John Murray's Principles of Conduct.

Maybe that will hold him.

John has a busy summer planned, and he may not have time to read more than his morning devotions and an occasional scan of the International Herald Tribune or something similar. Still, since he's had his last trip to the library until Labor Day, he had to make some provision. True bibliophiles will understand.

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Corinne Roosevelt Robinson's My Brother Theodore Roosevelt (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1921) can be read online or downloaded in pdf from Google Books. So can a multitude of other titles; I have to remember to look there first for the out-of-print volumes.

The Great Circle

Son John is on his way to China (should be arriving any minute now after a thirty-hour journey). His route as drawn by the Great Circle Mapper shows what we miss looking at the familiar Mercator Projection world map -- if you distort the scale on the axes, the shortest distance between two points (here, between Detroit and Tokyo) is not a straight line at all. You can try it with a globe and a piece of string if you don't get it.