Air America: Air Ball?

I listened to Air America all day today. I know, I know... but sometimes I just need to know what the chattering class on the lefty side is saying.

Here is what I learned:

There's no point in impeaching Bush (still laughing at that one), since then Cheney would be president... and if he was impeached, it would be that creepy Speaker of the House, Haffert (no kidding, that's what the hosts said, and no one called in to correct them). So congratulating themselves on their hardheaded realism, both pundits and callers bravely moved on to more practical affairs... after discussing it for two hours. Good decision.

Cowboys were probably often gay in the old west, since women were in short supply. Further, those cowboys had a gal inside, just trying to get out. Some guy who styles himself a scholar (scholars rarely claim it for themselves....) even sang a song about it, while complaining that the FCC wouldn't let him air the true lyrical triumph in the song, the F-word. Too bad... it would have been the highlight of the song.

Now that Bush will appoint at least one new supreme court justice, personal liberty in America is under great threat, and the rights of minority groups and poor people will be trampled, with a probable reversal of the all the gains of the last 40 years... what paltry few have been made, of course.

Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, .... well, you get the idea.

Black people who choose not to carry "Black Power" signs (or Al Sharpton for president signs) in lefty protests outside black churches are "house negroes"... according to the two black hosts, of course. Clarence Thomas would be the worst possible Chief Justice.

The is no source of compassion, love, justice, etc., in the universe, except in so far as people "act" that way. Todays Unitarian Universalist clergy member/talk show host informed us that good only exists when people do it.

Bush gave his recent foreign policy speech about the Iraq war to the Fort Bragg special forces troops because they would applaud out of fear of reprisal. What can you expect from the worst president in history?

Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, ....

War is evil..... all war is evil.... of course, evil can't actually be defined, just as good can't be defined..... but all war is evil. Why DO those wascally tewwowists hate us so much? Well, mainly because Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, ....

The United States is an imperialist power with a history of doing evil around the world and to its own people, and most especially to all minorities. The United States is bent on seeking world domination, through a conspiracy of evil corporate giants, the military, and political insiders.

The newly refurbished, kinder, gentler left no longer hates the troops... just those nasty higher ups who manipulate them into serving on foreign shores.

40,000 troops (!!!!) have come back from Iraq with disabling physical injuries, mental illness and emotional distress.

Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar, Bush is a liar,

Well, some commentary on all of this:

It was truly thrilling to hear the left put up its best, if indeed that's what I heard today. These talk hosts make no attempt at all to educate their audiences with specifics. (I think some of them might excel at re-education... but that's another topic.) I must have heard the Bush-is-a-liar mantra hundreds of times in a few hours... with no specifics except that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (making liars of the entire world, of course).

There was not a single disagreeing caller, or maybe an actual conservative, on any of the shows I heard today. Not one. Does that mean we fascist types just don't listen? Or just can't get through? I don't know... but the contrast with center-right talk radio, which positively courts disagreeing callers, is huge. There is an enormous sense of preaching to the choir, and not working at making a case for the unconverted.

It seems to be enough to call names at the other side, repeat a few talking points, face no actual disagreement (reasoned or otherwise), take a few cheerleading calls, and call it a day.

No wonder Air America is going under, subsidized as it is. Perhaps center-right successful talk hosts should consider some discrete anonymous donations to keep it on the air.... since the comparison to the pros on the right is so much in their favor that Air America boils down to free adversting for the right.

Faith-Learning Integration and Music

I am the "faith integration mentor" for the School of Music at Azusa Pacific University, where I teach music theory, composition, commercial music and music technology.

I have several problems to solve in this role:

1) How to do it (faith integration in music) myself!

2) How to help my fellow music faculty navigate the institutional pressures to do this in some recognizable way while retaining their own personal integrity and professionalism in teaching.

3) How to communicate to faculty from other disciplines that, for the most part, approaches to faith/learning integration they've used won't work in music, or will work to music's detriment.

Along the way, some related issues arise:

What IS faith integration in music? Is this any different than the use of music as an evangelistic tool? Or is it just a theology of music?

There seem to be lots of people who are willing to say what faith integration is NOT, but aren't willing to say just what it IS. Why is this?

Over the next weeks, I expect to put several small postings here, discussing various aspects of all of this.

A starting supposition from which I'll proceed: music is utterly unique in the disciplines, in several ways, that make it unable to profit very much from approaches to faith integration that are used in other disciplines. Music is already so inherently integrative an activity (more about this in later posts) that in comparsion to already fragmented disciplines, music looks very integrated from the top.

We'll see how this goes... consider it an experiment in blogging.

I hope I don't blog down too soon.

W and the evil Wead

President Bush is heard on an audio tape acknowledging in a private conversation with (advisor to former President Bush) Doug Wead that he used marijuana but wouldn't admit it publicly for fear that a child would imitate his errors. Preliminary quotes are at Political Gateway. According to that site, Bush said:

"I woudn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."

I see nothing in context here that is particularly troublesome for Bush, given the certainty of the drunk driving arrest, and the possibility of cocaine use... neither of which have proven especially problematic for Bush, politically, although the timing of the release of the drunk driving charge (by a Dem operative) surely helped make the 2000 election dangerously close.

A point frequently missed by the left (when charges like these are surfaced by hopeful Bush-bashers) is that the religous right believes in forgiveness, in the presence of obvious repentance. That doesn't mean that private sins must be publicly confessed in detail... thank God.

No one will be surprised that Bush smoked weed sometime, or that he chooses not to answer direct questions about it now. Is this a big revelation?

The tape transcripts I've seen so far reveal what we knew already.... that Bush is a man with ideals, who has practical perspectives on how to pursue them. Bush is tough and means what he says. He gets to the point. In other words, his current *public image* seems to fit the *private image* shown on the tapes.

In the meantime... I wonder if Doug Wead did weed? Sorry... couldn't resist.

The Bear Dances and Sings

CNN and FOX are covering the election in Iraq.

I can only stand in awe of the courage of these determined voters. Their sheer guts and commitment to show up at all should be a lesson to nay-sayers everywhere about what people in this part of the world really want. How many voters would show up in, say, Chicago, in a similar situation? I don't know... but these Iraqi voters deserve our very highest respect.

CNN's current online headline is "Iraqis vote amid scattered attacks". Roughly half the TV coverage from CNN seems to be about the attacks today, but a solid half is about the vote itself.

FOX's headline is "Iraq's Historic Vote Begins". The first paragragh tells of attacks, but also provides context: lots of voters, and many foiled attacks, as well as some successful ones. FOX's TV coverage is stressing the protection provided by Iraqi forces, police and military, directly around the polling places. FOX has shown many entire families, from elderly to young children (presumably not voting yet...), walking together to polling places... in some cases carrying Iraqi flags, showing thumbs up to the camera, etc.

Both cable networks have provided reasonable coverage on how many Iraqi women are voting, although it seems to have been inadvertent in one CNN report, where the reporter could not be heard over all the women talking in the polling place.

ABCNEWS is carrying a story stressing the attacks, predicting lack of Sunni turnout, stressing how bad the result of a low Sunni turnout will be, etc. Big shock. Little mention of who is providing the election security... mostly Iraqis around the polling places. All attacks listed in GREAT detail.

Another ABC article, IRAQI HISTORY MAY COLOR VIEWS OF ELECTION tries to downplay the importance of a successful election. I consider this to be evidence that the election must be going well in the eyes of the editors.

Rauch's Arithmetic

Hugh Hewitt has now posted the full text of Jonathon Rauch's article in Atlantic Monthly on the divisions in American political and social life. He's also posted Mr. Rauch's confession that some of his language in associating religious conservatism with violent behavior was, uh, intemporate. Kudo's to Mr. Rauch for admitting that, and doing so quickly.

I don't think his sorta mea culpa is adequate to explain his presentation, however, and in the quote below, I think he digs his hole a little deeper.

Mr. Rauch's article attempts to make the point that America is less divided than it seems, and that the two main political parties are more centrist than they seem at times, while remaining capable of absorbing those with more extreme views at election time.

Mr. Rauch makes some interesting points. Much of his position seems to be based on simply using different polls than are used by those who assert the deep division hypothesis, and by interpreting some of the same polls from a different perspective. Some of his points come from "focus group" studies that he thinks are superior to polls, at least some of the time. As always, what passes for the peculiar art of "qualitative research" is up for grabs... but Mr. Rauch seems to me to be cherry picking the data that fits his notion.

Everyone knows that polls are virtually never done in an ideological vacuum. With any polling question, it is possible to make some good guesses about assumptions that underly the question that the pollster is ostensibly asking. The biggest weaknesses of polls are that they have poor mechanisms for measuring how *strongly* a participant feels about an issue, and polls usually make little attempt to measure what a participant actually knows about the issue before eliciting an opinion.

Similarly, who ran the focus groups? What was their orientation politically/socially? Were two sets of focus groups run in parallel on the same topics, by people of oppositie perspectives? Were contrasting results tossed out? As a university professor who is exposed to all sorts of things that are called "research", I remain skeptical about all of the above.

It is possible, however, to infer some things from the polls that really matter, the elections, and from some pieces of data that no one disputes on either side of the political fence.

1) African-Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic, regardless of what individual answers they give on single topic polls. So do certain other ethnic groups, though the divide may be smaller.

2) Church goers (and those who identify strongly with religious traditions, even when their participation isn't perfect) vote two-to-one for Republicans.

3) The reverse (two-to-one non-church goers for Democrats) is also approximately correct.


Mr. Rauch says:

"The Republican Party has acquired its distinctively tart right-wing flavor largely because it has absorbed (in fact, to a significant extent has organizationally merged with) the religious right. As Hanna Rosin reports elsewhere in this package [elsewhere in the same Atlantic Monthly issue], religious conservatives are becoming more uniformly Republican even as their faiths and backgrounds grow more diverse."

Mr. Rauch seems to be trying to have it two ways. On the one hand, he wants to identify the "religious right" as occupying an "extremist" position in the Republican party, somewhat analogous to what he wants us to think of leftists like Michael Moore in the Democratic party. (This seems to exclude members of the religious right from consideration as "centrists", or, as Hugh likes to say, members of the "center right".) On the other hand, he seems to undercut his own position (fatally, I think) by acknowledging that what he calls the "religious right" has unprecedented power in the modern Republican party, and is indeed now the ideological center of that party... as Democrats keep pointing out (in their confusion, thinking it benefits them).

Where is Mr. Rauch's observation that "the Democratic party has acquired its distinctively tart left-wing flavor largely because it has absorbed (in fact, to a significant extent has organizationally merged with) the secular left"? Well... he didn't make it. But I just did... using his words from the quote above.

Mr. Rauch does not mention a single example from the left of a "fringe group" being welcomed into the Democratic party and becoming its new center. That's because no such example exists. It is difficult to *name* an ideological center to the party, other than the phrase "secular left", which is rejected by party mavens as pejorative. All that is necessary is to note the willingness of the "religious right" to accept *that* label, and the identity crisis of the left is made clear.

Underlying all of this is a significant problem for Democrats, namely that there is no true ideological center that unites its various factions. It frequently appears to be a coalition of single issue voters, each with a particular complaint against the traditional American status quo, whose single issues are not related in any obvious way. There seems very much to be an attitude of "I'll cheer for your single issue if you'll cheer for mine".

What will happen in modern electoral politics if even one third to one half of *church going* African-Amercians begin to vote with their natural ideological allies, namely the modern Republican party? Or if religious Hispanics do the same?

The MSM has done a fabulous job of controlling the information received by these groups up to now... but that dominance of communication channels is fading, and as these "minority groups" come to realize that Republicans offer school choice and other education reforms, real economic opportunity, strong family policies and life affirming attitudes, some in these groups can (and I think will) change their voting patterns.

I'll be interested to read Mr. Rauch's response to that change... in about 10-20 years. Who will be the "moderates" then?

I'd be fascinated to see Mr. Rauch rewrite his article (if he really believes his thesis) in the way I rewrote his quote above... just reversing all the language referring to parties and left/right labels, and see if he can find examples that make it all make as much sense to him as those he used. If he can't do that.... well, maybe the differences are as real between the "centers" of each party as it seems to some of us. The fact that he didn't do it that way in the first place, regardless of his protestations of human frailty now, is telling.

Jonathon Rauch's Innumeracy

Atlantic Monthly's Jonathan Rauch (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200501/rauch) appears to struggle with basic arithmetic.

“On balance it is probably healthier if religious conservatives are inside the political system than if they operate as insurgents and provocateurs on the outside. Better they should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics. The same is true of the left. The clashes over civil rights and Vietnam turned into street warfare partly because activists were locked out of their own party establishments and had to fight, literally, to be heard. When Michael Moore receives a hero’s welcome at the Democratic National Convention, we moderates grumble; but if the parties engage fierce activists while marginalizing tame centrists, that is probably better for the social peace than the other way around.”

This seems to be a peculiar sort of innumeracy. "Religious conservatives", by Mr. Rauch's definition, make up about half the modern Republican party.... or more. Their influence is not proportional to their willingness to do violence as a disgruntled minority (or it would be exceedingly small, since only the very crazy few are violent.... and they are by definition not really "religious conservatives," anyway). Instead, the influence of "religious conservatives" is proportional to their numbers, i.e., a majority of the party, or something very close to it.

"Religious conservatives" did not attain their influence through marches (though some have marched, in both the civil rights and pro-life movements). Nor was power gained by intimidation, the promotion of any kind of violence, or any other sort of "acting out." Mr. Rauch seems to assume some kind of proportionality of the number of (presumably conservative right) potential abortion clinic bombers to (presumably liberal left) street fighting war protesters of bygone years.... some of whom are back.

Hmm... if this proportionality were true, few abortion clinics would have been left standing in America even before the 1994 Republican congressional victories, after 20 years of having been mostly "ignored" by both parties.

Some leftists will paint pro-life demonstrators with the same brush as the 1960's anti-war activists... as if there were some moral or tactical parity. The fact seems to be that main-stream media have given mostly negative coverage to pro-life "protest", while positive media coverage of the perspectives of anti-war activists is a large part of what led to their (execrable) successes.

Mr. Rauch tries a real fast one in his commingling of civil rights protests with anti-war protests. The former had a high proportion of "religious conservatives" and were virtually non-violent on the part of the protesters (in no small part *because* of religious belief), while the latter emanated largely from the left, clearly used violence and provocation of it as a tool, and were part of the early "culture wars."

The comparison of the influence of "religous conservatives" in the Republican party to Michael Moore's reception at the Democratic convention is *exactly* backwards. In contrast to "moderate Democrats" grumbling about (extreme leftist) Moore, it was Republican conservatives grumbling about the lionizing of "Republican moderates" at the Republican convention.

Mr. Rauch can't count, apparently. He also doesn't appreciate the fundamental position of people who believe in something as quaint as right and wrong... namely that they are unwilling to do wrong in order to achieve what is right.