Bill's Notes

Still in first place in the AL East -- and looking like a playoff team. The Devil Rays are the only major league baseball team that has never made the playoffs, and one of only four teams that have never made the World Series.

The other non-fall-classic teams are the Seattle Mariners, the Texas Rangers and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals. In the past couple two tree years, the Rockies and the Astros removed themselves from that club.

So I'm rooting for the Devil Rays, in their 11th season, to at least make the playoffs. Good for them.

That said, I've never actually met a Devil Rays fan. I'm sure there are some, somewhere. Or some bandwagon jumpers right now.

This essay, if you can get through the snobby opening, has some interesting things to say. Here are two choice quotes:

The ingroup/loyalty foundation supports virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice that can lead to dangerous nationalism, but in moderate doses a sense that "we are all one" is a recipe for high social capital and civic well-being. A recent study by Robert Putnam (titled E Pluribus Unum) found that ethnic diversity increases anomie and social isolation by decreasing people's sense of belonging to a shared community. Democrats should think carefully, therefore, about why they celebrate diversity. If the purpose of diversity programs is to fight racism and discrimination (worthy goals based on fairness concerns), then these goals might be better served by encouraging assimilation and a sense of shared identity.

The authority/respect foundation will be the hardest for Democrats to use. But even as liberal bumper stickers urge us to "question authority" and assert that "dissent is patriotic," Democrats can ask what needs this foundation serves, and then look for other ways to meet them. The authority foundation is all about maintaining social order, so any candidate seen to be "soft on crime" has disqualified himself, for many Americans, from being entrusted with the ultimate authority. Democrats would do well to read Durkheim and think about the quasi-religious importance of the criminal justice system. The miracle of turning individuals into groups can only be performed by groups that impose costs on cheaters and slackers. You can do this the authoritarian way (with strict rules and harsh penalties) or you can do it using the fairness/reciprocity foundation by stressing personal responsibility and the beneficence of the nation towards those who "work hard and play by the rules." But if you don't do it at all—if you seem to tolerate or enable cheaters and slackers — then you are committing a kind of sacrilege.

Hat tip: The Corner.

UPDATE: By the way, this essay to me really shows more why people vote Democratic. And I don't agree with a lot of it -- but it does have some insights. As a philosophical realist, it's fun to watch the nominalists struggle to read the shadows on the wall, you know, inside the cave.

As you know, I have some concerns about Sarah Palin as VP — though a lot of admiration as well. McCain made an exciting VP pick and Palin's changed the terms of the election.

Democrats loathing of her, of course, offers a mere side benefit. I have to admit their hostility surprised me. Now, most of us have known for a long time that for all the Democrats' talk about love and tolerance and diversity, they mean love and tolerance and diversity as long as you toe the party line. My rejection of abortion, and rejection of this groupthink, eventually drove me and many, many others out of the Democratic Party.

But shit — look at this hatefest. Sarah Palin's been accused of not being a woman, of being a religious right-wing nutjob, of only being qualified because she didn't have an abortion. After eight years of hating and slandering and loathing a decent-but-flawed man, Dubya, the Dems bare their fangs once again and reveal the poisonous loathing in their own souls.

What motivates it? Suppressed guilty conscience, I suspect. Reminds me of my days back in the Peace Corps: The Christian missionaries would have a peculiar effect on certain Peace Corps volunteers. Not the missionaries themselves — the PC volunteers were more than happy to accept their hospitality. It was the Gospel — whenever you talked to some of PCVs about what the missionaries were doing — preaching the Gospel of Christ and converting the locals from their native animism to Christianity, you'd get a surprising reaction. They'd get angry — out-of-proportion angry. Their faces would screw into a knot, their lips would flick spittle, even their teeth would get bared. And they'd express the deepest contempt and loathing you could imagine. I witnessed this on several occasions — out of control ranting and raving from people who were normally extremely nice and welcoming. But the Gospel of Christ, as it does with us believers, reveals us for who we are.

My point: Many of the far-left of the Democratic Party loathe the Gospel of Christ, and tend to attack people who try to live by its precepts. And that's why we see the ferocity, the bared fangs, the extreme rhetoric.

Now, lest some non-believers and reasonable-minded Dems miss my point — I'm not talking about everyone. There are non-believers who aren't offended by the Gospel of Christ. They risk ultimate salvation because they don't oppose Christ. Their souls, while missing some of the joys of Christ, are not filled with hate. I suspect when they see God, in this world or the next, they'll be filled with immeasurable joy at His existence, and eagerly accept Him as Lord, and realize they unknowingly followed Him when their obeyed the dictates of the God's word written on their hearts. And there are of course many many Democrats who aren't remotely filled with hate for Sarah Palin, or Christians — I'm not talking about them, either. So if this ain't about you, it ain't about you.

I didn't think Sarah Palin was good at all in Charlie Gibson's ABC News interview. She sounded like a student who had crammed for an exam, not like someone confident and well-versed in foreign policy.

Body language didn't help. She was leaning forward -- seeming anxious and even urgent. She wasn't funny or charming. She seemed really tight.

Television, as Marshall McLuhan explained, is a "cool medium." Essentially, it means that you need to be entertaining on television.

*****

In comparison to the other candidate, Barack Obama was much better on O'Reilly. In fact, I liked Obama -- in the personal sense, not the political sense. (Aside: If Obama keeps moving to the right, he's gonna be to the right of McCain in about a week. I'd actually consider voting for him, if it weren't for his abortion position.)

*****

One thing I've been thinking about is how competitive these races get. And the problem with competitive games -- and realistically, these campaigns have come to consist of too much entertainment and games -- is that you end up trying to win, instead of thinking about what you'll do if you govern.

Indeed, a lot of my frustration in the past 10 years, ever since the Clinton impeachment, is that the left's attacks on the right, and to a lesser extent, the right's attacks on the left, has sort of forced people into an either/or thinking that people neither agree with nor want. Nor is there a true dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans.

Hmm ... struggling with this thought. Let me put it this way: The Republican Party is not only the party of Reagan, we are also the party of Nixon, Ford and the Bushes. The latter might be called "Democrat lite." The former, though, was revolutionary -- strong national security, fiscal conservatism, federalism, a variety of social beliefs that involve around protecting the dignity of human life and equality under the law but is far more diverse than the Democrats give credit for, common sense constitutional hermeneutics, and a strong principle of libertarianism. The problem was even in Reagan's era, many Republicans, particularly senior ones in Congress, didn't support Reagan and worked to undercut him.

Democrat lite is fine as far as it goes, but tends to go wobbly economically and fiscally and we've continually struggled whenever we've had these Republican presidents. Nixon is an unrecognizable as a conservative by any standard. Ditto Ford. Bush I was a caretaker president who skillfully managed the end of the Cold War, but apparently was never on board with Reaganism and never believed it. Bush II was more of a Reaganite, but lacked the willingness to maintain fiscal discipline and frankly, competence.

*****

For the past eight years, we've had a president that's slow on his feet, who struggles to communicate, and who has been in over his head. Because of this, Bush has often had to be "handled," protected from the press, and still to carefully staged events. Dubya is supposedly very good at mixing with people off-camera, but simply can't do the television aspect of the job. One thing I insisted on is at least I wanted a president who could handle himself -- who could discuss things off-the-cuff without sounding like he's repeating talking points or trying to recall his coaching.

*****

Charlie Gibson asked Sarah Palin, paraphrasing here, does the U.S. have the right to cross Pakistan's boundaries to fight Al Qaeda with or without their permission. She flubbed the answer and never answered the question. Here's what I think would have been a better answer:

The answer's yes, with their permission; no, if they don't. The U.S. respects sovereign boundaries. That said, if any nation is unable to maintain that sovereignty and has an area where it is in incapable of preserving order and that area is used to stage attacks on us, then perhaps we have a right to fight them over the boundary without that government's permission.

However, it would have to be done with extreme care, and any decisions would heavily depend on the facts on the ground. It wouldn't be the first choice -- it would involve a lot of diplomacy first -- plus military aid, U.N. and ally consultation, etc. It would be the absolute last choice.

In other words, crossing someone's boundaries is an act of war. Before we do that, we'd have to admit we're in a state of war with that country.

For 13 years, this was a personal holiday for me. On Sept. 10, 1988, I got drunk for the last time. My first full 24 hours sober was Sept. 11, and through the grace of God and the fellowship of AA, it's been that way ever since. Today, I am thinking of Ephesians I:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Heh. CBS's newest season of Survivor is set in Gabon. Apparently it ws filmed in Nyonie and Ekwata in the Wonga-Wongue Presidential Reserve. I remember Lope and the one near the coast, but I don't remember those towns ... stand by, I'm looking them up.

OK, Nyomie is on the coast in that area of the country no one goes to -- that block of rainforest south of the Gabon Estuary and north of Port Gentil. It makes sense to put the show there -- it's not far from Libreville by helicopter and the crew could get there easily (by air or boat -- not over land).

Kinda funny. Spent a week in Mayumba, which is a coastal town very similar to Nyomie. Doubt I'll watch the show -- it'll just make me nostalgic. Oops. Too late. I'm thinking about Chez Barra, the bar the Peace Corps volunteers hung out at next to our training site, INJS. It was apres LaLaLa -- yeah, that was the name of the quarter -- La La La, in the very south of the city. Once again, I've forgotten the name of the bar at the end of the street. It wasn't Bar Sans Nom -- that was something else, and it was not my fault I was there.

Good times. And I remember them.

(Hat tip: The Corner.)

CBC News (the first C is for Canada) printed the following column recently. What you'll notice is columnist Heather Mallick's perfect contempt. Quoting liberally:

[Sarah Palin] added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right [...]

It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. [...]

Palin was not a sure choice, not even for the stolidly Republican ladies branch of Citizens for a Tackier America. No, she isn't even female really. She's a type, and she comes in male form too. [...]

White trash — not trailer trash, that's something different — is rural, loud, proudly unlettered (like Bush himself), suspicious of the urban, frankly disbelieving of the foreign, and a fan of the American cliché of authenticity. The semiotics are pure Palin: a sturdy body, clothes that are clinging yet boxy and a voice that could peel the plastic seal off your new microwave.

Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. [...]

Palin has it all, along with being vicious and profoundly dishonest. [...]

The conventioneers are nothing like the rich men who run the party, and that's the mystery of the hick vote. They'd be much better served by the Democrats. I know Thomas Frank answered this in What's the Matter with Kansas?; I know that red states vote Republican on social issues to give themselves the only self-esteem available to their broken, economically abused existence. [...]

When Palin and Rudy Giuliani sneered at Obama's years of "community organizing" — they said it like "rectal fissure" — the audience ewww-ed with them. Republicans dream of a personal future that involves only household staff, not equals who need to be persuaded to vote.

So I'm trying to imagine the pain of realizing, as they all must at some point, that it is not going to happen for them. It's the green light at the end of the dock. It's the ship that never comes in, gals, as Palin would put it. But she won't because the lie works for her. It helps her scramble, without compassion, above all those other tense no-hoper ladies in the audience. [...]

Think, Heather, think like a Republican! The Skeptics, shall I call them, are my base, and I'll pander to them as ardently as the Republican patriarchs tease their white female marginals.

Well, Heather, that was a lot to share. It takes courage to reveal such sneering contempt for a good portion of humanity. I'm reminded of the lines from the book of Sirach:

Should you draw a sword against a friend, despair not, it can be undone.
Should you speak sharply to a friend, fear not, you can be reconciled.
But a contemptuous insult, a confidence broken, or a treacherous attack will drive away any friend.

Contempt is a kind of emotional cancer — it damages the soul of the speaker far more than the listener. This is HunterSThompson-esque vilification, but without the wit. I guess some people never quite mature out of junior high school -- putting down the kids whose parents lived in trailers or ridiculing those who think differently. Tut-tut.