In light of all of the debate over the SOPA/PIPA controversy, I was delighted to see this lighthearted talk that takes a look at the math behind the claims that the music/movie industry makes about their losses due to copyright infringement.
TED Talk Tuesday part 3 coming around 6:00 today.
God Works in Mysterious Ways
Thanks so much to my friend Kristen Orr for a good reminder of the proper perspective on parenting. It is so good I’ll take the liberty to repost it here.
Sometimes the best lessons we can learn are from our kids. This morning I had my whole day planned out. We had two errands to run before heading over to a friend’s house to get together. As anyone can attest getting three kids (or any number of kids) out the door is not quick or easy. Well as with any day, it did not go as planned, but better. My first change was driving my husband to the park and ride so that he could pick up his bus that takes him to DC each day. The kids and I got home, ate breakfast, and prepared for our outing. I proceeded to make sure that each of the kids were ready to head out the door. Of course, I asked each of the kids to gather a toy to share with their friend. Mary gathered her two dolls and a purse. David insisted on bringing his legos, a set that was not built yet. I kindly and politely asked him to bring something other than legos suggesting even his new shark puppet, Sharky. Thankfully, my son is just as strong willed as his mommy is and vetoed my idea. I could say that I was calm and patient but my frustration was increasing quickly as the minutes were ticking away. Slowly those two errands were turning into one and then turned into zero. As I was on my march over to tell him sternly that it was time to go, something caused me to pause. As I stood outside his door and watched him, my heart was became reflective and instantly changed. I decided to pick up the pieces of my morning and start at the best place I could think of, my morning devotion time. I went to my room and picked up my Bible. As I was sitting there, praying and reading, David ran to me with Sharky in hand and climbed on my lap. His words began pouring out…”Mommy, I was praying about which toy to bring and I should not bring my legos. God told me to bring Sharky. I am going to listen to Him.” I just stopped because I knew God had just worked in my little boy’s heart in a way that my forcing would never have worked. He learned a life long lesson that will stick with him much longer than yelling or forcing his hand.
As I reflect upon my own son’s lesson I realize the power in the lesson for myself as well. First, of all God teaches us in his own timing. Sometimes we have to step back and wait for God to share His words and wisdom. The other lesson I gained was I need to step back and allow God to parent my children. He is the best parent and the best lessons I can learn are from Him. It is precious to watch your children gain understanding and wisdom in their own relationship with Christ. But it is even more wonderful to know that God, the perfect parent, is caring for my kids.
Attorney General Eric Holder
Sure, this isn’t quite the same deal as when President Bill Clinton wondered what the definition of “is” was. Still, reading this piece about the current administration’s justification of what they call “targeted killing” of high level Al Qaeda leaders. Here is the beginning of the piece from Talking Points Memo:
The Obama administration believes that executive branch reviews of evidence against suspected al-Qaeda leaders before they are targeted for killing meet the constitution’s “due process” requirement and that American citizenship alone doesn’t protect individuals from being killed, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech Monday.
“Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security,” Holder said. “The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.”
Broadly outlining the guidelines the Obama administration has used to conduct lethal drone stikes overseas, Holder said the U.S. government could legally target a senior operational al Qaeda leader who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans if the individual (1) posed an imminent threat of violence; (2) could not feasibly be captured; and (3) if the operation was conducted in line with war principles.
Such a use of lethal force against that type of individual, Holder said, wouldn’t violate the executive order banning assassinations or criminal statues because such an act would be in “self defense.” In remarks delivered at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, Holder also said that targeted killings are not “assassinations,” adding that the “use of that loaded term is misplaced” because assassinations are “unlawful killings” while targeted strikes are conducted lawfully.
Did you catch that? Holder said that targeted killings are not “assassinations”. I’m sorry, but the distinction is lost on me. He also says that due process does not have to involve the judicial branch. Once again, I could be missing something, but isn’t that they point of having a judicial branch? I really think this is a particularly troubling precedent, regardless of your opinion of the administration overall. Especially since a recent application of this principal was a targeted killing of an American citizen who was reportedly working for Al Qaeda. If we can suspend judiciary due process for an American citizen in this case, where do we draw the line? This seems a slippery slope to begin to go down. You can read the rest of the article here.
(HT: Corey Andreasen)
Does This Make You Cringe?
Yet another scathing review of the TSA’s methodology and general ineffectiveness. Originally pointed to this article by Adam Savage (of MythBusters fame) via Twitter. This post is from a former FBI agent and someone familiar with the air travel industry. Here is a piece of his critique:
TILTING AT WINDMILLS
The entire TSA paradigm is flawed. It requires an impossibility for it to succeed. For the TSA model to work, every single possible means of causing danger to an aircraft or its passengers must be eliminated. This is an impossibility. While passengers are being frisked and digitally strip-searched a few dozen yards away, cooks and dish washers at the local concourse “Chili’s” are using and cleaning butcher knives.While bomb-sniffing dogs are run past luggage, the beach at the departure end of LAX is largely unpatrolled, and anybody with a shoulder launched missile (you know the ones they regularly shoot down U.S. helicopters with in Afghanistan) could take out any plane of their choice. I am reticent to discuss anything further that would give anybody ideas. However, these two have had wide dissemination in the media but are by NO means the biggest threats.
I sometimes ruminate while standing in line waiting to take off my shoes, remove my belt, laptop, iPad, etc., etc., about the improvised weapons I saw in prisons and how hard they were to find. It’s fascinating what weapons prisoners can make out of plastic forks, newspapers and toothbrushes. Ask any prison guard if an inmate can make a weapon out of an everyday item, and how long it would take them. Approximately 99% of what the average traveler carries on a plane would be considered contraband in a maximum security prison, due to the fact that it can easily be converted into a weapon. Toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks, pens, pencils, anything with wire (iPod headset), any metal object which can be sharpened, etc., etc. is a potential weapon. Carried to its logical end, TSA policy would have to require passengers to travel naked or handcuffed. (Handcuffing is the required procedure for U.S. Marshalls transporting prisoners in government aircraft.)
TSA’s de facto policy to this point has been to react to the latest thing tried by a terrorist, which is invariably something that Al Qaeda identified as a technique not addressed by current screening. While this narrows Al Qaeda’s options, their list of attack ideas remains long and they are imaginative. Therefore, if TSA continues to react to each and every new thing tried, three things are certain:
- Nothing Al Qaeda tries will be caught the first time because it was designed around gaps in TSA security.
- It is impossible to eliminate all gaps in airline security.
- Airline security screening based on eliminating every vulnerability will therefore fail because it is impossible. But it will by necessity become increasingly onerous and invasive on the travelers.
In this TED Talk, Bryan Stevenson challenges his listeners to evaluate whether the current way that our criminal justice system is run is working. We spend billions of dollars, but rarely are willing to ask the hard questions about whether it is working. In short, I don’t think it is. Perhaps his best challenge: rather than asking whether the criminal deserves to die, why aren’t we asking whether we deserve to kill? Please take the time to watch this. I think we can do better for victims and criminals.
How is Scripture Illuminated to Us?
Over at the Pangea Blog on Patheos, Kurt Willems explores what he considers to be a flawed way of reading Scripture. He represents it by the concept of what Scripture “plainly” means to the reader. The idea seems reasonable. Why would God make Scripture “tricky” such that the meaning wasn’t clear? The problem with this technique is that this is an entirely egotistical approach to theology. The Bible was handed down to us, but it was not written only for us. It was written to an original audience, with divinely inspired timelessness. Let me give Willems’ take as he puts it:
I believe that this approach to the bible is flawed, which is why I often call it the “surface level approach.” It seems quite arrogant to assume that the Holy Scriptures are simplistic to understand and do not require us to do any homework. The problem is that we live with gaps in-between the text and us. For instance, there is a considerable communication gap between the original authors of the Scriptures and our 21st century culture. We all know what it is like to have a communication gap. Think about it. How many husbands get themselves in trouble for saying something that sounds like something totally different than what they actually had in mind.
Wife says: How do I look in this outfit.
Husband says: It looks ok.
Wife says: Ok… (she says with a tone). That’s about as good of an answer as calling me fat! You jerk!
This is a communication gap to the extreme! Now take this stupid analogy and imagine that there is also a language, cultural, and more than 2000 years in our communication gap; that is what we have when we approach the Bible.
Given the reality of this gap, we need to be careful not impose our ideas onto the text, even if they “make sense” to us. That does not mean that nothing is “plain” in the Bible, but over the past few years I have begun to realize that there is much more to the Scriptures than I had ever known. The bible contains several genres, some of which include: historical narrative (story), didactic literature (straight forward language), wisdom literature (timeless truths), prophetic literature (fore-telling or forth-telling), apocalyptic literature (imagery soaked), and poetry.
Not only so, but there is metaphors, word-pictures, hyperbole, humor, and many other rhetorical devises used throughout the 66 books. What I have come to realize is that if I am going to take the Bible as God’s inspired Word, I need to attempt to interpret every passage in light of the gaps, genres, and rhetoric that the Holy Spirit chose to employ in cooperation with the various human authors. To not attempt to read the Bible in such a way is to ignore God’s complexity, creativity, and incarnational nature.
I think that Willems is on to something here. To interpret each passage on its own merits as it “plainly” appears results in an extremely disjointed and inconsistent faith. Some passages seem to plainly support predestination, while others talk as if we have free will to choose to follow Christ. Most people feel that it is plain that Psalms and Proverbs are poetry, but there is disagreement about whether Genesis 1-3 is poetry or history. Those on each side claim that it is “plain” that they are correct. There must be something underlying our theology that unites these disparate passages in a way that yields a unified whole, rather than the disjointed and inconsistent faith that reads all passages “plainly”.
Even worse, some Christians force unity by reading their own prejudices into the text. Some of the founding fathers of our country spoke of “all men are created equal” while holding some men as slaves and unworthy of equality. They backed this up by choosing to interpret the short epistle of Philemon as plainly allowing slavery while interpreting away text that clearly indicated that all men (every nation, tongue, and tribe) were equal citizens of God’s Kingdom. It is all too easy to slip into this trap. I know I have in the past, and likely there are areas where this is still a struggle. I pray that God will reveal these areas to me and reveal to me the Truth.
I’d encourage each of us to look at Scripture more carefully. While it might seem more godly to look only for the “plain” meaning, I think it is offensive to God, and disrespectful of His Word, to treat Scripture as if it were simply a poorly written history textbook full of facts and figures but no nuance, no story, lacking in real literary skill. God is the greatest Author, certainly His Spirit is capable of much more than we have often credited Him with!
An Illustration of a Fracking Well
Unfortunately, while the science on natural gas fracking is clear, the public debate does not reflect this fact. Why? Here is a take from an op-ed piece in the NY Post by Jon Entine:
The academic face of the anti-fracking movement — Cornell marine ecologist Robert Howarth — increasingly looks like he’s willing to turn science into farce.
Last spring, the once-obscure professor became the go-to expert for anti-fracking journalists and lawmakers when he published a report claiming shale gas pollutes more than coal. The New York Times featured his study in two uncritical articles in one week, he was interviewed on dozens of talk shows — and the media echo chamber did the rest: He was a star.
Since then, other scientists have almost universally challenged his findings — but now he’s doubled down.
Last week, Howarth released another scientifically questionable study, now warning that fracking could push the world over a tipping point, sending temperatures irreversibly higher — an inflammatory and demonstrably incorrect assertion.
After some backstory, Entine turns to the science and Howarth’s motivation:
In an interview, Howarth told me his goal was to make the anti-fracking movement mainstream and fashionable. He said he met with the Ithaca-based foundation two years ago, agreeing to produce a study challenging the conventional wisdom that shale gas is comparatively clean.
The polluting impact of shale gas revolves around one key issue: how much methane gas is released during extraction. Methane has more short-term global-warming impact than any other fossil fuel. Howarth emerged from academic nowhere when he claimed shale-gas wells leak like sieves, venting methane half the time, spewing 7 percent to 8 percent of reserves into the atmosphere.
“That’s absurd,” says Michael Levi, director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council of Foreign Relations. “Most methane gas is either ‘delivered to sales’ with no leakage, or it’s burnt off through flaring, which diminishes its greenhouse impact.”
Renowned geologist Lawrence Cathles, also at Cornell, who published a scathing deconstruction of Howarth’s paper this month, says that he “doesn’t document venting but what the industry calls ‘capture.’”
Almost every independent researcher — at the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Energy Department and numerous independent university teams — has slammed Howarth’s conclusions. At a minimum, the evidence suggests he either acted in bad faith or is ignorant of gas technology.
The core problem: Howarth uses Environmental Protection Agency estimates dating to 2007 — ancient data, given how quickly the technology is evolving.
Crucially, he fails to account for innovation. Gas lost through leakage is money lost, literally into thin air. For that reason, new wells are now “green completed” — meaning most leaking gas is captured and sold rather than vented.
Cathles notes the latest Devon study, now being verified by the EPA, documenting that shale gas is vented in only 5 percent of wells. The Energy Department estimates only 1 percent to 2 percent of methane is now lost during production.
Bottom line, almost all nonindustry-linked researchers believe Howarth exaggerates the impact of shale-gas leakage by 10 to 20 times. “His conclusions are more a politically charged articulation than a balanced scientific assessment,” Cathles says.
Howarth hired an aggressive PR firm, the Hastings Group, to promote his politicized viewpoint. Scientists aren’t buying it, but many journalists fall for the fear-mongering.
Howarth doesn’t have to convince anyone he’s right to devastate New York’s budding shale industry and put tens of thousands of jobs into question. He wins if he muddies the waters enough to give cautious Albany bureaucrats reason to stall.
Almost every news story now frames this issue as a standoff between equally valid scientific experts. In fact, it’s really a debate between science and ideology.
You can read the rest of the piece here.
10 as it is written,
“THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”
13 “THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE,
WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,”
“THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS”;
14 “WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS”;
15 “THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD,
16 DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS,
17 AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN.”
18 “THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.” (Romans 3.10-18 NASB)
I couldn’t help but think of this as I contemplated the death of Joe Paterno this weekend. I was intrigued, though not surprised, by the reaction. Some of my friends, many with ties to Penn State wanted to put aside the recent revelations about Paterno’s poor handling of what he has admitted he knew about the actions of Jerry Sandusky and simply praise the legend that we all thought we knew to be above critique as a man, if not as a coach. Others wanted to say all of that didn’t matter in the shadow of the Sandusky scandal. I can’t help but think that these extremes, while tempting, are simply easy alternatives to admitting that Paterno was a man, like all of us, who had good and bad times. He often made good decisions, and certainly should be applauded for not simply amassing his wealth for himself and seeking the bigger paycheck. He was faithful to Penn State, and donated millions back to the University.
On the other hand, we must admit that his ego has been reported to be large, especially late in his career. It has been a long time since Penn State has been relevant on the national stage in any consistent sense. Partially, this is due to Paterno’s entrenched opinions and unwillingness to change significantly. While the defenses have been consistently good, if not great, the offense has rarely been the envy of anyone. Coaches on his staff rarely were replaced, despite lackluster seasons. The insulated nature of the staff probably contributed to the culture that allegedly allowed Sandusky continued access to the program and facilities long after allegations of impropriety had caused him to be “banned” from the building.
The lesson? None of us is perfect. Some of us tend to overlook our shortcomings and dwell on the good we see in ourselves. Others are more prone to flagellate themselves over every failure and overlook their many good qualities. The truth is that we should keep both in mind. We should also keep in mind that all of the people around us have both as well. Even the biggest villain has some good attributes, and even the most saintly person we know has inner struggles we may never see. Have the revelations about Sandusky changed who Joe Paterno was? No. They have simply revealed things we didn’t know. We ought always to offer grace and mercy to those around us whose struggles are most visible, and refrain from sanctifying others when we know that they are human, and therefore have issues and struggles we know little about.
I leave the decision on his soul to the One who alone makes that determination, but I pray for mercy, as I would want were I in his position.
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Over at The Way of Improvement Leads Home today, John Fea offers a couple of links to takes on this, but also offers an analysis that agrees with mine, just from his perspective as an historian.
As a historian, I think that there are a few things we have to remember as we assess the legacy of Joe Paterno.
1. It is difficult to give a fair assessment of Paterno’s legacy while we are still caught up in the emotions of his death and the whole Sandusky affair.
2. When we put our confidence in people, whether they lived in the past or live in the present, we are likely to be inspired by them, but we are just as likely to be disappointed. There are no heroes in history–we are flawed human beings. There are no villains in history–we, in the eyes of God, all possess dignity and worth.
You can find his links here.
Frances Fox Piven Speaks at Messiah College
A few weeks ago Messiah College hosted Frances Fox Piven on our campus. While I had nothing to do with her appearance, and can’t even tell you definitely who invited her, I’ve certainly heard a lot of reaction to her appearance, including in the comments section of my piece about Dr. Peter Kerry Powers defense of her appearance in the Harrisburg Patriot-News. In light of the uproar, I wanted to post two additional responses from the Messiah community that counter misconceptions I have heard. Later today I’ll post a response to accusations that the liberal establishment at Messiah (which begs the question of whether there is such a thing here) forced the cancellation of a conservative speaker. This post is to highlight a letter to the editor posted on Lancaster Online (affiliated with several Lancaster, PA newpapers, so I am not sure which print editions it may have appeared in). Here is the letter from Messiah College trustee Kim Smith (find the original here):
TO THE EDITORS:
As a trustee of Messiah College, I wanted to publicly affirm the respectful manner in which Messiah students, educators and community guests demonstrated a core principle of a free society — the civil and active exchange of ideas — during the college’s American Democracy Lecture with Frances Fox Piven on Oct. 11.
Despite the intense controversy surrounding Piven, the audience engaged in spirited, thoughtful conversation with both Piven and each other — even in the midst of clear and passionate disagreement. Refuting the premise that college students are empty, easily influenced vessels, the Messiah students who attended asked well-informed, critical questions of Piven regarding her views.
This modeling of effective public engagement and civil discourse is central to preparing students to fulfill Messiah’s mission “to educate men and women toward maturity of intellect, character and Christian faith in preparation for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in church and society.”
Students and parents who do their homework on Messiah College will find that it is an authentically Christian campus community that is effectively educating and equipping future leaders who will bring respect and discernment to all corners of our increasingly polarized society.
Kim Smith
Manheim Township
Personally, I think this characterizes well what I would hope for. Students can think and engage ideas without being indoctrinated. They can ask speakers hard questions and disagree strongly with someone without becoming hateful. The irony here is that the outcry about Fox Piven speaking at Messiah has given her way more press than the talk itself would normally have received. Thanks to the many voices speaking vehemently against her appearance, she gained more press and notoriety than someone who has been out of the spotlight for so long should probably have received. Had there been no uproar, students would have engaged her, challenged her views, and walked away with a potentially valuable educational experience. As it is, students likely still got that part, but much time and energy has been wasted defending the very idea of listening to someone who has said some rather radical things.
Thanks to Ms. Smith for standing up for the ability of our students to think. I really think that Messiah does something much, much better here by offering these chances to engage the other than we would should we choose to shelter our students away from the reality that such views exist. Maybe some students will be persuaded by her views, or those of others like her. If they are so easily persuaded, I would say that these students were never doing anything other than pretending to be conservative in the first place, so she has not won converts, she would simply have revealed the true views of our students. In that case, wouldn’t having her here have done the students, and all of us, the service of having the truth come out?
Long story short, if anyone (including parents) really think our students are that naive and gullible, I feel insulted. I give our students much more credit than that, and certainly hope that my kids are able to think well enough for themselves that I don’t feel threatened by them engaging new ideas with a critical mind.
TSA Official Ruben Orlando Benitez Under Arrest for Murder
Two stories I’ve read about the TSA lately, thanks to Josh Wood. First, the fact that this guy made it on a plane with a knife is disturbing (from the Salt Lake Tribune):
A 60-year-old Salt Lake City man is accused of threatening to slit the throat of a seatmate aboard a flight from Utah to Las Vegas on Sunday after becoming enraged over an armrest and leg space.
David Alan Anderson was charged in U.S. District Court on Tuesday with felony counts of having a dangerous weapon on an aircraft and retaliation against a federal law enforcement officer in connection with a tantrum he threw on Delta Air Lines Flight 2478 Sunday morning.
Anderson allegedly walked to his assigned seat, 5A, shortly before the plane’s scheduled 9:50 a.m. departure time. He sat in his seat and began elbowing the passenger in seat 5B in an attempt to “claim” the armrest between the two, according to a court complaint.
The passenger inched away from Anderson and allowed him to have the armrest, but Anderson then placed his foot on the passenger’s leg, the complaint states.
The passenger told Anderson, “Sir, you are going to have to move over.”
Five minutes later, the passenger glanced up to see Anderson staring at him, the complaint states.
Anderson allegedly told the passenger, “If I had a knife, I would slit your throat right now.”
The passenger alerted flight attendants, who saw that Anderson appeared to have an object cupped in his hands and also kept reaching into a bag, the complaint states.
Salt Lake City police officers were notified and discovered a Gerber folding knife with a 3.5-inch blade in Anderson’s carry-on bag, according to the complaint.
While police were transporting to the police station, he threatened the officers, charges allege.
Anderson allegedly told one cop, “I’ll find out where you live and cut your eyeballs and kill you,” the complaint states. He also told an FBI agent, “Your days are not long,” and “I’ll pull your eyeballs out,” according to the complaint.
He ended the conversation by saying, “It will give me a lot of pleasure to see you again, but you won’t see me, Bucko,” the complaint states.
Anderson is set to appear at a detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Paul Warner on Thursday. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on both counts.
I once accidentally carried a pocket knife through security at Harrisburg undetected. I found out about it when trying to get through security in Denver on my trip home. That wasn’t reassuring about the quality of HIA security. Still, I had hoped that things had improved since then. Guess not.
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The second story comes from the Clarion Ledger. Apparently an official in the Mississippi TSA has been arrested on suspicion of murder:
One of the top federal Transportation Security Administration officials in the state of Mississippi has been arrested in connection with the killing of TSA worker Stacey Wright.
On Sunday, D’Iberville police found Wright, 43, stabbed to death in her apartment there.
Authorities said Ruben Orlando Benitez, 45, who serves as assistant federal security director for screening for the TSA in Mississippi, has been arrested.
Bond has been set for $3 million by Justice Court Judge Albert Fountain.
Gee. For some reason the fact that this guy was in charge of helping to keep the flying public safe is not reassuring. What is it going to take for the TSA to do something that will help the public to have more faith?
I realize that two stories do not make the TSA as a whole criminals or negligent. In fact, I would guess that most of the TSA workers are wonderful people trying very hard to do their job and keep us safe without invading our privacy. It is just that the rules that are in place give too much power to agents who want to abuse their power, and requires agents to do things they are probably as uncomfortable with as we are!
No Longer Normal