I spent most of the afternoon in New Jersey, but I got back in time to contemplate the utter devastation in New Orleans. There's not much I can do except give money, and fortunately, Glenn Reynolds made it easier by providing lots of links to the various charities. I decided to give to Catholic Charities, because I worked with them years ago in San Francisco (at the peak of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s), and they were great. I'm not Catholic, but I was impressed because they didn't proselytize, and they didn't judge anyone. On top of that, they didn't have the lavish offices and big salaries which some of the other, more media-savvy charities have. New Orleans is a heavily Catholic city, so I figured my money would go farther if I gave through Catholic Charities.

Not that I'm trying to convince anyone to use Catholic Charities, mind you.

Just GIVE.

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, FEMA has a comprehensive list of charities here.

I'm taking a bit of time not thinking about the Hurricane to address this delinking campaign against Glenn Reynolds. While I hate having to take something like this seriously (especially at such a time), I can't ignore it -- especially because one of my posts might have helped start the fire.

It's tough to know just how to analyze something like this, so I'll start by being as serious as I can under ths circumstances.

Glenn Reynolds dared to voice a couple of slightly sympathetic sentiments about the ACLU (even though he also criticized them). And he dared to actually side with them about the criminalization of glow sticks, and even had the gall to assist with a brief defending electronic music alleged to be drug related!

For these offenses, he's being subjected to a delinking campaign. For daring to deviate however slightly from someone's agenda.

I'm sorry but this is so silly it sounds like he's being...

SHUNNED!

For failure to demonize -- a crime almost as bad as not buying a particular brand of politically correct, shade-grown coffee.

Or even wearing a politically incorrect T-shirt!

The man behind the delinking campaign appears to be Jay Stephenson -- the primary author of the blog Stop the ACLU:

Glenn sends his readers here telling them we are delinking because he said that “demonizing the ACLU is silly.” We don’t think it is silly at all. And Glenn is entitled to his opinion. We just no longer wish to link to someone that supports an anti-American organization.

That's almost as bad as calling me a liberal! Or a conservative! Or accusing Glenn Reynolds of being behind the "RADICAL RIGHT-WING AGENDA." (No really; check it out.)

Not long ago, Eugene Volokh reviewed a letter he received from these same people, which he demonstrated to be misleading. His conclusion:

...stop calling them "criminal" for exercising their constitutional rights. Stop calling their lawsuits "frivolous" when the lawsuits bother you precisely because they may well prevail. Stop calling them "pro-terrorist" when there's absolutely no reason to think that they indeed favor terrorism, and lots of reason to think that they favor (whether soundly or misguidedly) legal rules -- such as limits on government power to search -- that unfortunately sometimes protect terrorists while at the same time protecting law-abiding citizens. (It's far from clear to me that random searches are going to do much good at stopping suicide bombers, or that bans on random searches will help terrorists; but I acknowledge that some constitutional rules that the ACLU defends do at times protect terrorists as well as protecting law-abiding citizens.)

What is in question here, indeed, is "the definition of freedom." There is lots of room for good faith disagreement about the scope of our freedoms. But that some people have a broader view than you do -- whether it relates to the right to bear arms, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to counsel, the right to spend one's money for political causes -- doesn't make them criminals, doesn't make them pro-criminal or pro-terrorist, and doesn't make their arguments frivolous.

Let me admit my biases here. I don't trust the ACLU, but even less do I trust the people who'd like to knock the ACLU out so they can crackdown on sexual freedom. That's a primary, stated goal of Alan Sears and the Alliance Defense Fund -- principal leaders of this charge.

I worry about the Second Amendment freedoms as much as my First Amendment freedoms, and my biggest single problem with the ACLU is their near total lack of support for gun owners' rights. (I'm also very worried about what seems excessive support for dangerous terrorists.) Nevertheless if Glenn (or someone like him) gets gun lovers and libertarians to infiltrate the ACLU and turn the place around, I think that would that be a good thing. For the country and for our freedom.

Not these delinking guys. They are unable to tolerate the slightest deviation from their singleminded campaign against the ACLU.

They promise links and more to all who delink the evil Glenn Reynolds:

If you agree, and delink Glenn let us know and we will add you to the list. If you have never linked to Glenn for whatever reason, we will add you to the list as well. If you have a post about this, send us a trackback and it will appear as a link below. If it gets big enough I’ll start a blogroll.

I can't help noticing that links to Alan Sears' book and his organization are prominently displayed by both Stop the ACLU.org (the parent site) and Stop the ACLU.com (the blog). Because I devoted most of a long post to Sears, and because the post was linked by Glenn not long before the delinking began, it has crossed my mind that the people supporting the book might have seen my post.

And not liked it.

Let me say right now that if anything I said in any way entered into their delinking thinking, I humbly offer my blog Classical Values to be officially delinked instead! (Yes, I'm willing to be the sacrificial lamb....) All those who delinked Glenn can blogroll him again, and then link me in order to delink me! (Don't laugh; it's happened before!)

But who, I must ask, are these people? There's a site (described as the parent organization) called Stop The ACLU.org, which features a link to Alan Sears' book's web site with a picture of the book prominently displayed, and both that site and the Stop the ACLU.com blog link Sears's organization, the Alliance Defense Fund, prominently.

The parent organization's director, Nedd Kareiva, is a member of the Constitution Party who has devoted himself singlemindedly to stopping the ACLU:

The Stop the ACLU Coalition has one goal: to end the ACLU's tangible existence. We will achieve this by every lawful means possible, including but not limited to:

1. boycotting all companes, corporations, foundations, lawyers, politicians and others who benefit financially from the ACLU or who donate to them

2. recruiting current ACLU supporters and members by sharing with them the ACLU's agenda for to America and urging them to join the Stop the ACLU Coalition

3. gathering millions of petitions to send to the ACLU to let them know the outrage across America against their agenda

4. marching unitedly across all ACLU offices across America and publicly showing massive opposition to the ACLU's harm of America; sharing and educating churches, synagogues and patriots all across our land, regardless of political party, the need to stand up to the ACLU

5. showing both moral and tangible support to people and groups who are plaintiffs or defendants in lawsuits with the ACLU

6. urging state and federal lawmakers to defund ACLU lawsuits and enact legislation preventing frivolous lawsuits such as litigation based on an individual or individuals claiming to be offended by prayers, religious symbols or other forms of Constitutionally permitted expressions.

To do so, visit the home page www.stoptheaclu.org and scroll about a fifth of the way down to where the image of the 10 Commandments is in the left margin. Follow the instructions on the page and ask your Congressmen to support Congressman John Hostettler's bills HR 2679 & HR 1100.

You can also go to Court Zero's web site (one of our supporters) to take action as well.

The second course of action is to demand your Congressmen and senators introduce and work to pass legislation to prevent the likes of the ACLU from bringing lawsuits from people who claim to simply be offended. Ask them to modify the ability to bring such litigation under the 1st Amendment's Establishment clause. Inserting a clause that would mandate the ACLU paying the opposing party's legal fees in the event of an adverse ruling would also be very helpful and stem the abuse that is going on in courts around the country. (Emphasis added.)

Speaking of being offended, in the Stop the ACLU newsletter, Director Kareiva seems pretty offended by the sex life of the ACLU's director:

....the ACLU's Anthony Romero, an avowed and practicing homosexual, as its director for the past 4 years

Jay Stephenson (blogmaster and post writer at Stop the ACLU.com), also promotes his blog in his capacity as a FreePer named "Jay777." In one robust thread of his, he attacks the ACLU for supporting gay inmates who'd complained of being abused in prison, and he posted the original story:

LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles sheriff's department is investigating claims by the American Civil Liberties Union that gay inmates have been mistreated at a county jail.

The A-C-L-U claims about 20 gay inmates were forced to remove their clothes in a busy hallway July 19th at the Men's Central Jail while being called names and taunted with vulgar sexual language by some deputies.

The A-C-L-U wants anti-discrimination training for all deputies.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said jail supervisors launched an investigation two weeks ago. He said the department's Equity Oversight Panel, which investigates discrimination allegations against sheriff's employees, is also reviewing the claims.

To: Jay777

Those poor felons.

4 posted on 08/07/2005 1:47:17 PM PDT by SteveMcKing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
To: SteveMcKing

gay ones at that.

I just want to make it clear that I don’t condone what these guards are doing. The main reason I posted this was to prove a point. I hear the argument all the time about robust freedom of speech. I hear from the left that ALL speech must be protected or it all goes down the drain. I hear this in defending and sympathizing with our enemy, sex offenders, pedophiles, and burning the flag. But when it comes to gays, pro-lifers, and those of other races besides white people then it doesn’t apply.

It's clearly agenda driven.

5 posted on 08/07/2005 1:48:20 PM PDT by Jay777 (My personal blog: www.stoptheaclu.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies ]
To: Jay777

Abuse? These guys pay to stand around naked in bath houses. They should be charging the gay inmates for the experience.

I condone bad things that happen to bad people, and good things that happen to good folks. Details don't concern me in the least.

OH the horror, don't these guys stand around naked in bath houses or rest stops? What's the difference? ACLU disgusts me, if these were just regular white guys no mention of this would be made. Damn the ACLU to hell!

As to Glenn, there's that old saying that a man is judged by his enemies. . . Were I he, I'd consider it an honor.

As to actual demonization, I was quite taken by comment Jay Stephenson left at Rapture Ready:

....I see prophecy unfold daily. We fight evil in our own ways. My focus is on the ACLU.

By the way, I like all the references to the ACLU in this post. The HQ of the anti-Christ spirit in America.

And to think that Glenn said demonization was silly! There's nothing silly about this, because if the ACLU is the anti-Christ HQ, and Glenn Reynolds is an avowed, practicing minion of the ACLU, how far up the chain of beasts might this go?

Could it be, Glenn Reynolds, Anti-Christ?

In the past, I've carefully considered his status as an apocalyptic advocate of one party rule, but this? I mean, this is the real thing! It's, like, totally APOCALYPTIC!

Who said demonization was silly?

UPDATE (09/01/05): Perhaps I failed to make it clear that I think this delinking-for-failure-to-demonize campaign is silly. (I think it's pretty obvious what I think, and why, but it may not be as clear to others.)

Let me stress an important point I don't think should be missed -- and that is the manifest unfairness of spinning Glenn Reynolds as some sort of pro-ACLU hack.

Far from it! Here are some examples of remarks which I'd venture would be enough to get Glenn placed on some sort of ACLU "enemies list" (if such a thing exists):

Sarcastically ridiculed the ACLU;

Criticized the ACLU's stance on federalism;

Slammed the ACLU for Second Amendment hypocrisy, while wondering aloud how much media attention the burning of ACLU membership cards would get;

Sarcastically wondered whether the ACLU would get involved in defending conservative speech;

Called the ACLU "more and more a subsidiary of the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party";

Linked to Stop the ACLU -- and in a positive manner!

The above list is not intended to be exhaustive; they're just what I could find easily, and no doubt a left wing dirt digger could come up with more.

But (as if the genocidal T shirt wasn't enough) haven't I just proved to the world the true reality of Glenn Reynolds? Why is he allowed to masquerade as a liberal when the record shows he is little more than a bigot and a cracker?

What we ought to be asking is whether it's time for a left-wing delinking campaign.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh weighs in (in his customary fearless and articulate manner):

Given {the delinking campaign against Glenn Reynolds], I think that people ought to know that (1) I am working with the ACLU now on a free speech case in Michigan, (2) I've worked with them on opposing the anti-flagburning amendment and the victims' rights amendment, (3) I have defended them from what struck me as unwarranted attacks here, here, and (4) I have praised their positions here, here, and, I'm sure, elsewhere as well.

I have also criticized the ACLU's positions on other matters in places too numerous to mention (do a search for ACLU on this site and you'll find quite a few), as have my cobloggers. I think demonizing the ACLU, like lots of other over-the-top rhetoric, is indeed a bit silly and counterproductive, and tends to lead the demonizer into factual and logical errors. If you think this puts me in league with the demons, why, you know what to do.

MORE: And now for a little self disclosure. By way of explanation (if not apology), I must state for the record that I'm just not in the mood for PhotoShopping more law professors into Anti-Christs.

(Or Communists.)

AND MORE: A lingering, disturbing question in my mind is more along the lines of psychology than the merits of either the ACLU or the propriety of a delinking campaign. And that is:

why now?

The nation is in the middle of the worst horror since September 11, 2001. Might something about this horror have sparked a conflict between the rightist and libertarian elements of the blogosphere?

Or is it a coincidence?

Paul at Wizbang reports that there are an estimated 100,000 people trapped in New Orleans (which is of course in imminent danger of destruction by flooding). "Biblical," opines Paul. The 100,000 figure is confirmed here as well as in the Shreveport Times.

I don't know whether I'd use the expression "Biblical" (because of the emotional connotations and misinterpretation it carries), but I hate seeing people engaged in denial, and like everyone else I just want to know the truth. If it's true that "eighty percent" of a city of half a million were evacuated, then there are going to be serious problems getting the rest out.

Ominously, I just heard on the radio that "the body count is alleged to be in the thousands," and that "the news media are asleep."

(I hope this is not true, but what do I know?)

What else is there to do than hope and pray?

Again send money is the only thing I can think of.

UPDATE (08/31/05 -- 2:20 pm): Via Fox News, I just saw a report that the Mayor of New Orleans now says New Orleans casualties may number "in the hundreds, if not thousands."

MORE: As of 2:53 pm, the Mayor's statement is now reported as "probably thousands dead."

MORE (03:19 p.m.): Right now I am watching (on Fox News) the sad spectacle of people pouring onto freeways from flooded housing projects with nowhere to go (there's no place for them), without food or water, or protection from the sun in 90 degree heat, with police cars driving by saying nothing. (They tried to stop a police car with a human chain to no avail, and I just saw an officer ignore repeated pleading questions from reporter Fox's Shepherd Smith. It's disturbing to say the least.)

It makes me very angry that they can't even drop some food and water from a helicopter to these people.

I now see a military truck coming through with water.

People are simply helping each other ("thousands of people coming for two days" as Smith said). Smith keeps asking what's happening, but he's not getting answers.

Says Smith: "Someone needs to come to Interstate 10, Exit 235, the Orleans exit! There are thousands of people here!"

I hope bureaucracy isn't standing in the way of common sense, and I'm glad it's on national TV.

MORE: I have no training in engineering, but I don't understand why dropping sand bags would fix the breached levee on Lake Pontchartrain. Earlier someone or another mentioned barges. The break is three blocks long, and I think they'd need to float in a series of barges to whatever length is needed, tie them together with cables, then cement them together to make a patch. I note that Lake Pontchartrain is only 12-14 feet deep, so the barges could simply be sunk into place once they're secured together, and if need be, a second "layer" floated in and sunk on top. (Tie them together, punch holes in them, sink them, and fill them in.)

I think any kid who'd played with a LEGO set would understand.

But what do I know?

UPDATE: I got Paul's name wrong and I now see that I also misread his use of the term "Biblical":

There'll be plenty of time to show off your 20/20 hindsight next week. For now, accept this for what it is... a natural disaster of biblical proportions.

Paul (who lives in the area) also has some solid advice on what to do:

If you want to do something, quit yer whining and do what blogs and bloggers do best... Use information to change the world.

99% of us have no idea how our neighborhoods did. Somebody try to find and compile (reliable) damage reports from specific neighborhoods. Sure it takes some local knowledge, but google maps will fill in the blanks. [Update: The levee broke and the whole damn town flooded so I guess we can check this one off the list.]

We don't know how FEMA works. Somebody read the news reports on what FEMA is doing and what it is not... Somebody read their site and distill it for those of us who don't have time for red tape.

Flood insurance? I know the feds handle it. Who do I need to talk to? What do they pay?

Every natural disaster I send the Red Cross my standard $100 donation. I have no idea how to get money from them. It is a grant or a loan?

If I don't actually cancel my phones and my bill is auto-debit do they still bill me?

If I shut off my phone will I lose my number?

Heck- Somebody make an "Evacuee survival guide" with laser precision information on how to get help without clicking 50 links or waiting on hold 2 hours. If you can save 25,000 people 5 hours of looking up the same information, think of the power in that!

Think of the simple things- Thousands of people lost their glasses. Somebody set up a website where they can coordinate donations of (known) prescription glasses from people who no longer need them. Get a freight company to donate the freight. I bet FedEx will give you an account number that will route all the glasses to some agency in New Orleans.

If you do something to help the victims, ping this post... If there is a lot of people helping out, Kevin will set up a post with the links. (I just volunteered him ;)

Think about it for a second from my chair... (I'm not whining but) I'm almost 40 years old.... Here is the sum total of all my worldly possessions: 4 pairs of shorts, 5 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of blue jeans, a box of family pictures, 2 flashlights, a piece of trench art my grandfather brought back from WWI and my father's hammer. (Hey, it means a lot to me!) That's it. Everything else is gone. And BTW, I'm unemployed.

I tell you that not to whine but to let you see the tree thru the forest. Multiply my situation by about a million. Stop and think about that... A million people homeless and unemployed.

If you're a blogger then (by near definition) you're a self proclaimed talented person. Prove it. They'll be plenty of time for punditry and pontification next month... In the mean time there is work to be done. Figure out how to help the victims.

Please (for the sake of all of us who actually understand the situation) please stop whining about the evacuation. It was a stunning success. Please stop saying that the levee at 17th street and Canal St. broke... There's no such place. (and no, FOXNews, even if there was such a place, I assure you, it would be on the south side of the lake and not the north side of the lake where you showed it on your map)

So here it is in a nutshell... Let's get some work done and play Monday morning quarterback sometime in early 2006. There's about million or so of us who would prefer it that way.

It's the same reason I try not to do too much war blogging. The thing is, if you say nothing, people assume you don't care.

But if you say something, people will say you don't know!

I'm a little embarrassed.

That's because John Beck (who's hosting this week's Carnival of the Vanities at his super blog Incite) ranked my post way too highly -- giving me second billing only to Laurence Simon's Carnival of the Cats! (This week's Carnival of the Cats is hosted by the charmingly named Annoying Little Twerp -- The Annoying Little Psycho Girl Next Door. I note that her picture looks disturbingly like Coco's boyfriend Tristan.)

Here's the justification John gave for assigning me such an undeservedly high ranking:

...unlike any other blogger featured here today, I know for a fact that Eric has good taste in German Brewhauses. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is an ideal criterion by which to judge a blogger.

And good taste in Carnivals! After seeming to regret that the Carnival contains "fewer than 50 posts," he methodically, humorously goes through 48 -- without so much as a burp!

(Which is fewer than the number of German brews he went through the other night, so I think John could have handled more!)

Anyway, I don't have the responsibility to review all 48, but the following stood out as particularly flavorful:

I realize that tastes in blog posts, like tastes in brews, will vary according to the individual drinker/reader, and so I seriously suggest you go directly to Incite, and drink to your heart's content!

In an Editor & Pubisher article titled "Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" a series of Times Picayune editorials are cited for the proposition that the devastation caused by the Hurricane should be blamed on ("Bush's") war in Iraq:

after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

“That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.”

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House....In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

It's a golden opportunity.

For political opportunists.

When I was twelve, I had a fever dream.

I saw a few things that couldn’t be real, and they frightened me.

Some background may be in order. What nobody knew when I first felt ill was that I was suffering from an infection of the meninges, the membranes that wrap around the brain and spinal cord. Meningitis...it’s not necessarily a death sentence, but for a while there it was definitely touch and go.

It happened much like this. I had gone home from school one Thursday afternoon with the worst headache of my life. Going straight to bed seemed like just the ticket. Aspirin proved totally useless, as did hot water bottles. All I could do was lie in bed and moan.

Friday morning, I felt no better. I pled illness to my parents and was allowed to stay home for the day. Unbeknownst to my parents, my mild 99 degree fever would eventually burgeon and grow strong, achieving a respectable 104 plus. Time passed.

Now, when your brain commences toasting itself, many interesting symptoms can manifest. For me, they would eventually include severe disorientation, vivid hallucinations, uncontrollable mood swings (mostly between despair and terror), intermittent memory loss, and of course, unconsciousness.

It was my great good fortune that the infection was bacterial, not viral, and that it was caught in time. After a diagnostic spinal tap, a course of intravenous antibiotics was promptly administered, and it worked beautifully. Within a couple of (for me, quite long) days, I was my old self again. Sort of. The kindly doctors had saved my life.

Naturally, I was weak as a kitten. I missed a couple of weeks of school and then spent most of spring break flat on my back. Much bed rest was prescribed. Normal life resumed when vacation ended, but I went back to school a different boy. My bout with delirium had left quite an impression on me. I thought about it at great length.

One thing about a fever dream is that it’s not like sleeping dreams. In sleeping dreams you often are aware in the back of your mind that you are, in fact, having a dream. Bad, scary things may happen but the logic of dreams is such that you often know there’s no real danger.

But a fever dream can crawl right out of your head and into the real world, where it will sit, bold as brass, looking at you. And you needn’t be asleep to have one.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit it, even at this late date, but one of the things I saw was little men. Well, they weren’t exactly men. But they were most certainly little, and they were looking at me. They were sitting on the foot of my hospital bed, looking at me, and they were as real as real can be.

But, I get ahead of myself.

As I recall, my dad was the one who drove me to the hospital. I remember sprawling bonelessly across the back seat of his sedan, barely able to place one coherent thought on top of another. I remember him picking me up and carrying me into the building. It was the first time that he had lifted me off the ground in several years and I still remember the feel of it. I remember being put down on one of those examining room tables, the kind where a roll of crackly white paper extrudes to cover the table's surface. And then, with the exception of a singular occurrence, which I’ll touch on later, I don’t remember anything at all, for the next thirty odd hours.

When I finally came back to reality, it wasn’t all at once. There were a few stutters in the reboot process, leaving gaps in my memory of a few hours each. My first clear memory was past midnight, early Sunday morning. Or was it late Saturday? I wasn’t tracking too well.

I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. I was alone in a hospital room in the middle of the night, having temporarily misplaced the memories of my arrival. I was also tied to the bedstead, with minimal freedom of movement. All I could do was lie there and wonder what was going on.

Though I have no memory of my first day and a half of treatment, I was apparently thrashing about and hollering with a fair degree of vigor. It would seem that I was “fit to be tied”. So that was exactly what they did. Anyway, I was blacked out for most of that time, so I had no recollection of it at all. How had I arrived in this place? Where were my parents? Where was anybody?

After what seemed an eternity of miserable introspection, I began to notice something peculiar about my room. The ceiling kept expanding downward toward me. This struck me as bizarre and sinister. Ceilings should not thrust bulging paraboloidal extensions toward the occupants of their rooms. It was a bit like watching a gigantic amoeba. I tried reaching up toward it. I was certain I could have touched it if I hadn’t been tied down. It was that close.

Eventually, I noticed that threads of shiny green fiber were floating around in midair. They reminded me of spider silk, or thistledown, drifting here and there in the air currents. These threads slowly and subtly adhered to one another, forming bodies of greater and greater solidity. Eventually I realized that they were fish, silky green fish with ornate diaphanous fins, swimming about in the air above my bed.

Now, this troubled me deeply. The bulging ceiling, on the other hand, had ceased to be a problem. Close inspection had shown that it was a gigantic flexible lattice of construction paper, no doubt assembled as a decorative project by the schoolchildren whose treble voices were wafting into my room through the transom window. A window thoughtlessly left wide open, generating a draft, which in turn caused the lattice to undulate...

Of course, there was no transom. No breeze, either. No children. No bizarre construction paper project draped overhead. It was all just a little story my brain told itself, trying not to be afraid. I actually find that rather touching, today. In the midst of chaos, tumult, and unreason, there’s a little part of our brains that bravely soldiers on, trying its best to make sense of things. The flying fish however, proved an insuperable challenge for it.

Watching the fish, it occurred to me that I was probably hallucinating, which meant that I was probably very sick indeed, perhaps even dying. These thoughts preyed on my mind for quite some time. John M. Ford once observed that there are places where the night goes on forever, and boy was he right.

Eventually the morning did come, and with it, a measure of relief. I felt cooler. My head stopped hurting. Time began to flow normally again. In some mysterious, unfathomable way my parents showed up, not just then but also in retrospect (one of them had been close by me or in an adjacent room the entire time). And of course there were doctors, nurses, orderlies, the entire panoply of hospital humanity.

Explanations were made and I understood them. I had been very sick, out of my head sick, but I was getting better. I would be okay. This gave me a tremendous sense of relief. I would be okay!

However, as if to tweak me for unfounded optimism, my delirium managed to crank out a parting shot, those little not-men I mentioned earlier. They were the final vivid hallucination of my illness, so naturally I remember them best. Thinking that I was on the mend, I found their appearance especially disturbing. They were present in broad daylight, while I was awake.

The first one was an animated tiki carving, perhaps a foot and a half tall. It looked like it was made of palm wood, carved and stained red, with some ivory inlay work. And even though it had no real eyes, only carvings, it looked at me. I could feel that it had a mind, that it knew I was there, and it was perching on the end of my bed, staring at me.

In a way that wasn’t clear to me, this tiki-thing changed into something else. It became a wizened, leathery monkey-demon dressed in a blue-gray leather greatcoat (with ornamental ermine crescents, no less). Though it pretended to look the other way, I could see that it was watching me from the corners of its eyes.

Again, this was very distressing to me, and on more than one level. First, no one likes to be eyeballed by a monkey-demon, even under the best of circumstances. Second, and more importantly, I had thought that I was getting better. If this was true, then why was I still seeing things that couldn’t possibly be there? These creatures may sound utterly ridiculous as I describe them to you, but the sense of immediacy they projected was undeniable at the time. They looked so solid, so real in every detail. They didn’t seem at all dreamlike. They terrified me. So you can imagine with what a sense of relief I observed the monkey-demon transforming into my blue and white diamond-patterned pajama sleeve.

What an idiot I had been. I was staring at my own forearm! I had mistaken my own pajama-sleeved forearm for a Tibetan monkey-demon! And by the way, the creature really did give off a Tibetan vibe. It was unmistakable. Luckily, it wasn’t real. It was just an optical illusion, magnified by my illness. Just a bad dream after all. Here were my good old familiar pajamas, and I could safely go back to sleep, which after some consideration, I proceeded to do. When I awoke again, some hours later, I realized that I wasn’t wearing pajamas and never had been.

It was just that good, brave little brain part, still soldiering on. Well done, thou good and faithful cortex.

So what did I take away from all this, that hadn’t been there before? First and foremost, it made a skeptic of me regarding the validity of religious revelation. Not too surprising, I suppose, as I was already inclined that way. Though I had been brought up as a Christian, and was a devout believer till I was six or so, I had long since lapsed. Dinosaurs killed my faith. Galileo and Giordano Bruno helped them out a little. My hallucinations were the final coffin nail.

I'm not dogmatic about it. Perhaps there really is more to this world than what we perceive. In fact, taking the pedant's perspective, there most certainly is. But the fact that we can't see x-rays or infrared isn't what I'm talking about here. Rather, I'm talking about my distrust of, or disbelief in, what for lack of a better term I'll call the spirit world. My hallucinations helped make a materialist of me.

Sometimes, when people of faith have tried to explain their lives and choices to me, they have made an argument from personal experience. They've said they had a feeling. They sensed a presence. No, they didn’t actually hear the words of thunder or see the angel's wings unfolding in molten glory, but they had a very strong impression of presence and communication.

Well.

They had an impression.

It hardly seems fair, does it? The Israelites got Burning Bushes...Parted Seas...Pillars of Fire. When God spoke, he shouted, and there was no room for misunderstanding. As a child, I longed for that kind of certainty. I wanted my own Pillar of Fire. Not the Salt though. Please, not the Salt.

In place of that simple certainty, we moderns have had to settle for subtle inner voices, and our faith has evolved from received wisdom about "what everybody knows" into a kind of test of character. How well can we hold on to our faith, in the absence of clear and convincing evidence? Faith, we are now told, is belief without evidence.

So we are reduced to grasping after feelings. I'm afraid that's just not enough for me.

I mean, I saw flying fish, and it wasn’t on the bloody Road to Mandalay, either. Does anyone believe those fish were really there?

I saw little man-things at the foot of my bed, and they looked just as real as my day nurse. Does anyone seriously entertain the notion that those creatures were really there? A week later, I realized I'd seen the tiki thing a year and a half earlier, at Disneyland. I don't know where the hell the monkey-demon came from.

If a few mites in the meninges can cause such spectacular apparitions, how then can we be be certain of other, equally improbable perceptions? Do our brains always have to run hot before we generate (tactfully, now) dubious inputs? I'll bet they don't.

That singular occurrence I mentioned earlier? I dreamt that I was floating in air, looking down at my own body. This was shortly after my dad brought me into the hospital. So, I guess I’ve had an out of body experience. I'm sorry to report that there was no white light, no tunnel, no welcoming presences. Nor did I feel any great sense of comfort or easeful rest. I was just hanging near the ceiling, looking down at myself. Then I lost myself, and the world, for the next day and a half.

Should I trust the evidence of my own senses and believe that my soul temporarily left my body? I think not. When I had recovered a bit in the following days, I recalled that peculiar vision and concluded that it was just a dream, my first major hallucination. A harbinger of the many more to come, most of which, mercifully, I will never recall. Reliable observers have assured me that I was not having a good time. They also inform me that I was intermittently lucid and capable of brief conversations. I don’t remember that at all. But if I accept the disembodied soul hypothesis as real, what then am I to make of the flying fish, the transom, and the little men? Nobody else saw them.

This puts me in a peculiar position. I have actually experienced one of the defining, gold-standard mystical experiences, and I just didn't believe it. There's no pleasing some people.

My tentative conclusion, then and now, is that we are our brains. When our brains stop working properly, so do we. Pneumococci invaded my brain-lining and the world went crazy. Reality went away, then came back twisted. In the following years, I've seen nothing that changes my mind about that.

We are our brains. Which has led me to certain other conclusions, some of which you know.

An opposing point of view...

I am a huge Leon Kass fan. He is a gentle, humble, kind and wise man. Knowing the he is a man of influence and significance is good for our human future. I sleep better knowing people like Dr. Kass are in this great debate of what it means to be human...

More here.

The ACLU seems to be one of those hot button issues about which it's riskier and riskier to speak one's mind freely. The email sent to Glenn Reynolds, while civil in tone, reminded me of the far less civil criticism accorded Eugene Volokh, because they're both evidence of an inability to disagree in a thinking manner. Instead of explaining what they disagree with, people are resort to labels, insulting characterizations, and (as with the email to Glenn) the equivalent of a boycott. (I think that "you lost another reader. Just now disappeared from my Bookmarks" is the equivalent of delinking a blog, and the gratuitous use of "another" is as presumptuous as it is insulting.) It's as if both Reynolds and Volokh committed thought unpardonable thought crimes; the former for daring to speak a kind word about the ACLU, and the latter for even speculating that some homosexuals might quite naturally want to encourage sexual "conversion" of gay-curious bi or heterosexuals.

It makes no difference what I think of the ACLU or converting people to homosexuality. What bothers me is this intellectually stultifying idea that you have to be careful lest you offend someone's sense of ideological purity, and you have to expect that they will not merely disagree with you, but they will call you names, do the equivalent of hang up on you (and other unfriendlier things), without even bothering to seriously address your argument.

There's a lack of serious thinking displayed by people who get roped into positions based on considerations like who holds them, whether the holder can be labeled "liberal" or "conservative," and whether they're in alignment with ideological laundry lists.

Over the years, expressing simultaneous support for gays and guns has often proved ideologically challenging for me, because these issues are (irrationally, in my view) seen as coming from different "sides" of the political "spectrum." (If you think it's bad now, you should have seen what it was like in the early 1980s....) While there's no logical reason why it isn't perfectly consistent to be just as opposed to gun control as penis control, the emotion-driven "bases" of the two major political camps don't see it that way. Only recently has the label of "gay gun nut" emerged, but even that makes light of a more serious problem: the constantly increasing ideological rigidity which attempts to hound people into compliance by means of exclusionary threats. Typically, these threats take the form of conservatives calling people "liberal" if they don't toe the line, and liberals calling people "conservative." Ordinary people don't want to lose their "friends," and they defend themselves by (lamely and ineffectively, in my opinion) explaining "Hey, I'm no liberal! I support the war!" or "I'm no conservative! I support gay rights!"

Eventually, I hope, people will realize that there is no need to defend against these labels, because there is a right to think what you want to think on each and every issue. When someone refuses to address your argument and instead resorts to labeling, that ought to be a clue that he is threatened by it, or is unable to address it on the merits. The resort to labeling is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate, to bully, and it indicates either a small mind, or massive insecurity. In any event, the problem is in the minds of the bullies, and not in the minds of those attempting to think freely.

As an example of how easy it can be to agree with the "wrong side," Atrios (someone I agree with maybe 10% of the time) voiced a sentiment today I agreed with wholeheartedly: that FCC regulation of cable is terribly wrong:

Yes, this is an awful idea. And, yes, sadly, the Democrats will likely end up being on the wrong side of it.

Please, just spend a few hundred billion on the biggest ad campaign in the history of the universe to tell parents how to use their goddamn v-chips.

this isn't just about not being offended. This is about using the power of the state to silence political views. "Good taste" is synonymous with Republicanism (which as we all know from watching how delegates dressed at the GOP convention is about as wrongheaded as you can get), and all other views must be excised from the public sphere lest they cause disagreement, which is tantamount to recrucifying Jesus just so you can stare at his peepee. Remember, folks - the most destructive and corrosive element in our republic are the people who think that the First Amendment applies to speech, rather than established facts like the Christian nature of the United States and abortion as the modern-day Holocaust.

Still, I agree with Atrios and Pandagon on their basic point about the FCC. (Not a new topic for this blog, either.) I've learned from experience that when you agree with someone who is in a definite ideological camp, such a point of agreement can serve as an entry point for ideological examination -- and by both sides!

Ideological leftists will naturally tend to see any agreement on any point as an invitation to agree with them on other points, while ideological rightists will see any agreement with the left as a sign of deviation, or weakness. ("Going wobbly" will do.) In this game of point scoring and laundry list checking, what tends to be forgotten is that there might be a person who thinks what he thinks independently, who isn't being herded or told to think by one side or another, and who might not want to be herded. Or graded.

Or excoriated as guilty.

(As if anything I've said absolves me for "vigorously championing an immoral war based on lies, supervised by a leadership class corrupted by ideological cowards and incompetents.")

UPDATE: Funny thing that I'd mention delinking, as there's now a conservative movement to do just that to Glenn (who, mouthful though it is) actually linked the delinking movement.

It strikes me as a very rude way to express disagreement. But as someone who's never delinked anyone, I guess I wouldn't understand.

Hey, the blog is back, and I'm really delighted! My blog's server seemed to be down for most of the morning, but whatever it is, I'm glad they fixed it.

Considering the horrible news like this (more here via Glenn Reynolds), I shouldn't complain about anything so trifling as a slowdown in blog service. The important thing is that it's fixed, and many other bloggers are back on line.

I hope this will help assist with the ability to communicate in the wake of hurricane devastation.

As Hurricane Katrina rages through the Gulf Coast, the usual top scientists and assorted experts are in a rush to blame global warming:

Warm ocean temperatures are a key ingredient for monster hurricanes, prompting some scientists to believe that global warming is exacerbating our storm troubles

By JEFFREY KLUGER

Posted Monday, Aug. 29, 2005
The people of New Orleans are surely not thinking about wind vortices, the coriolis effect or the dampness of the troposphere as they hunker down during hurricane Katrina this morning. They’re mostly thinking about the savage rains and 140 mph winds that have driven them from their homes. But it’s that meteorological arcana that’s made such a mess of the bayou, and to hear a lot of people tell it, we have only ourselves—and our global-warming ways—to blame.

It's all so predictable.

Almost scientific (from a political perspective that is).

The experts agree. And we know who is responsible, don't we?

It's all Bush's fault!

First he went after Iraqi cities . . .

UPDATE (06:45 p.m.): The global warming/blame-Bush meme is not limited to leftist blogs or Time magazine. It's already major enough for Fox News, where I just saw Brit Hume discussing it with Fred Barnes.

Sooner or later, you'd think people would get tired of it.

FWIW, I don't like the timing.

UPDATE (08/31/05): James K. Glassman exposes the opportunistic demagoguery which would blame this tragedy on "Global Warming":

....the response of environmental extremists fills me with what only can be called disgust. They have decided to exploit the death and devastation to win support for the failed Kyoto Protocol, which requires massive cutbacks in energy use to reduce, by a few tenths of a degree, surface warming projected 100 years from now.

Katrina has nothing to do with global warming. Nothing. It has everything to do with the immense forces of nature that have been unleashed many, many times before and the inability of humans, even the most brilliant engineers, to tame these forces.

Giant hurricanes are rare, but they are not new. And they are not increasing. To the contrary. Just go to the website of the National Hurricane Center and check out a table that lists hurricanes by category and decade.

I've been looking at television footage of looters, and while it's always horrible to see exploitation of tragedy for personal gain, people like Robert Kennedy Jr. ought to know better than to make comments like this:

"Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now -- Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children."

While I think a good case can be made for the proposition that there are many problems with the ACLU, couldn't their opponents have found a better author to write this book (The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values) than Alan Sears?

The latter is a leading crusader against what he believes are the two most ruinous evils to face America -- pornography and the evil homos -- and he (along with co-author Craig Osten) also wrote The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today -- a tract purporting to document such things as the "connection" between homosexuality and pedophilia (illogical on it's face, except for homosexual pedophiles), and a supposedly monolithic "gay agenda" -- the goals of which are shared by "homosexual activists." The agenda? According to the authors, it's a six point platform articulated by two little-known activists back in the 1980s. While I probably should have read through it by now, it somehow escaped my full attention until today, but I now feel duty-bound to report this agenda to my readers.

So here it is at last; the long awaited Official Homosexual Agenda:

1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and often as possible. (Through sheer perseverance the opposition will be worn down)
2. Portray gays as victims, not aggressive challengers.
3. Give homosexual protectors a “just” cause.
4. Make gays look good. (Notice that the media always makes the “gay” character the hero)
5. Make the victimizers look bad.
6. Solicit funds: the buck stops here (i.e., get corporate America and major foundations to financially support the homosexual cause). (p. 18)

Here's Alan Sears on censorship:

Enforcement of state and federal laws prohibiting the distribution of proscribed forms of pornography is not censorship.

I submit that the largest censorship organization in America is the ACLU and its allies with their long and ongoing effort of fear, intimidation and disinformation against religious liberty. Some radical groups even believe libel and slander should not be "censored." As I often say, "One man's censorship is another man's survival."

Q: How can the Church best combat pornography in the culture through the efforts of both clergy and laity?

Sears: First, as laity, let's first get on our knees and ask God to forgive us for our silence, to forgive us for our sin of omission and to forgive those who exploit others through this evil -- sins of commission.

Then we must get educated, get organized and demand that our state and community have laws as broad as the Constitution permits, and that those laws be promptly and vigorously enforced.

As to non-prosecutable forms of pornography, such as so-called men's magazines -- as if there is something manly about making women and their sacred bodies and gifts into disposable commodities for profit -- demand that your local merchants quit selling them. And be persistent until we make a difference.

Second, the Church itself must first be willing to confront and talk about this devastating issue because it is occurring within its own walls.

We need to ask our leaders to provide leadership and guidance as to God's beautiful plan for men, women and their sexual unity in marriage as well as instruction on the sin of other behaviors and the subject of the use and sale of pornography.

Individual clergy need to clearly present, without compromise, what God has to say on these matters involving personal purity and how, as individuals of faith, the laity can overcome pornography -- or, if needed, how to seek assistance in recovering from such devastating addictions.

Third, Church leaders need to implement focused and responsive small group ministries -- in concert with effective counseling ministries -- in which healthy accountability and confidential, personal care can spring forth, like life-giving water for the souls of each individual that chooses to become an intimate part of a group of people whose goals include moral, spiritual and personal purity.

The time to get involved is now -- before your family is affected, before your children are victimized by the pornographer who has no regard whatsoever for their God-given life or sexuality.

Here's more from Sears on pornographic temptations:

In multiple prosecutions of people involved in every level of the pornography trafficking industry, I learned firsthand, many times from hours of conversations with defendants and their counsel, of these individuals' real view of the First Amendment. It was a joke and a smoke screen.

I learned what the profiteering pornographers thought of the homosexual persons who were plied with every manner of video, magazine and appliance. To be blunt, the pornographers had nothing but disgust and ridicule for those who paid them hard cash.

In years of public speaking since that time, I have repeatedly referred to pornography as the "true hate literature" of our age, because of its hatred and exploitation of the human person, regardless of size, shape, color or gender.

It reduces human beings to valueless commodities to be ogled at and disposed of like used tissue. Sadly, many of the individuals whom the pornographers dispose of are vulnerable young men and women who engage in homosexual behavior.

I've met young homosexual men and women who were struggling with the issue of pornography and the various forms of sex trade outlets. These included the so-called gay bars, many of which we learned were often owned or controlled by exploitive heterosexuals and even criminal enterprises. These manipulative individuals and organizations just wanted to "make a buck" off the weaknesses of others.

I had the opportunity to talk with these men and women in depth about their pain, their heart needs and the role that this material played in their formation and their sexual behavior. Based on these years of experience with those trapped in homosexual behavior, I must continue to express real outrage at the merciless exploitation of those with homosexual urges and temptations.

I haven't sent the ACLU money for a while -- mainly because I abhor the ACLU's inconsistent failure to support the Second Amendment (as fundamental a liberty as those they do support), as well as their tendency to support radical Islamists. They're a bit shrill where it comes to certain leftist causes ("overly partisan in recent years" as Glenn put it).

But I think they may be getting some inadvertent help from Alan Sears. If the ACLU wanted to play Karl Rove for a day and select an enemy most likely to produce a pro-ACLU backlash, they'd have been hard pressed to do better.

(Well, there's always Fred Phelps. But I'm not sure he's literate enough or credible enough. Politics remains the art of the possible.)

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post. Welcome all!

MORE: A commenter below drew my attention to some highly critical, insulting comments directed at Eugene Volokh (left at these posts) accusing him of anti-gay bigotry. That kind of thing is at least as appalling as the nonsense spouted by Sears. I had written two posts attempting to grapple with the conversion issues Professor Volokh raised, but I think calling him "homophobic" for his honest speculations is beyond the pale.

Am I alone in thinking that it's getting harder and harder to just think whatever it is you think -- without being slammed by various thought police for ideological errors?

(I still try to think of the blogosphere as a place where reasoned disagreement is possible.)

UPDATE (08/30/05): Follow up post here.

This week's RINO Sightings Carnival is posted at Big Cat Chronicles. Host Roaring Tiger begins with the results of his research into RINOs -- and rhinos:

we RINOs get our moderate reputation because our animal counterpart is a gentle giant, despite his aggressive reputation. Don’t let his size fool you into thinking he’s slow, though, because rhinos are agile blokes and are quite the chargers when needed — just like their human counterparts. And because of their size, adult rhinos have no natural predators, although babies are at risk from tigers, lions, or hyenas — and you can expect RINOs to be equally protective of the young and underdogs.

I also delved into the totemic meaning of rhinos and discovered they carry the spiritual medicine of connecting to ancient wisdom and of its proper use, as well as knowledge of the self. As you can clearly see, that means everyone should pay particular attention to what we RINOs say because we know about... well... damn near everything.

And so, if you want to know damn near everything about everything, I suggest you go and read damn near every post!

Here are a few:

I can't link to damn near everything, so go read the rest!

Si vis pacem para bellum. (If you want peace, prepare for war.)

- Roman Maxim.

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.
- Ernest Hemingway,
- Douglas MacArthur

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.

-- Leon Trotsky

In an earlier post, I was bothered by hidden implications I saw in the phrase "willingness to learn." The idea that "learning" should be redefined to mean not so much learning, but actually agreeing with people strikes me as such a distortion of the definition of learning, that I thought I should, er, learn more! (I mean, there were -- and still are -- places where people are sent to learn how to agree called "reeducation camps.")

These concerns were on my mind as I stumbled onto an entirely new method of learning which is based on Intentional Communication (IC):

Intentional Communication is a dimensional tool for self-reflection, offering training support for effective conflict transformation across the divides of perception. It is dimensional in the sense that it includes the complexity of human development in its assessments. When we communicate with each other, we take into consideration our ability to be present to the exchange based on a combination of identity factors on the personal, social and cultural levels.

IC is used in Opening of the Heart workshops and communities in focused settings for interfaith, business and dialogue trainings, and in communication curriculum for the classroom. The intention of these programs is to enable adults and children to recognize the interconnected nature of our world and understand that personal responsibility and global responsibility are inseparable.

More probably, they'd say it means I'm intentionally not listening. Because, of course, we cannot intentionally communicate unless we intentionally listen. Here's the definition of Intentional Listening.

Intentional Listening offers training to explore the intention of our listening to one another and to self, leading to enhanced awareness about responsible choice and action.We develop the skill to stay present and examine supportive conditions for good listening in the physical, emotional and mental realms.

Beyond the gift of listening we can take steps toward a fuller life by examining the place where we are meeting challenge and conflict. We discover that sustainable reconciliation is strengthened through the inclusion of marginalized voices, mutual support and right action at a place where perspectives come together.

Opening ourselves to humanizing the other is one step in the full listening process. Intentional Listening brings in additional steps introducing us to listening that includes accountability and the potential to respond to what we learn. This approach opens a door to listening through which we embrace mutual values and ethics, leading to support for all parties who may be caught in cycles of violence.

Through this we cultivate insight and skills that enable us to be more effective communicators, change-makers and healers. And most of all, we learn that the giving of listening with fullness to others offers an opportunity of unique significance for each of us.

"Intentional Listening skills practice supports the full expression of others, and beyond the listening as witness teaches us to how to take a clear and powerful stand for ourselves, without increasing polarization."

Remember, in order to intentionally listen, you can't just open your ears; you must open your heart, and listen to another person's heart:

Letting Youth Have a Voice in a Silencing World

The concept of voice and all of its dimensions will be explored. The workshop will focus on the necessary principles and skills needed for the creation of safe voice space for youth. Examples of the primary themes to be addressed include the following:

Definitions of voice and voice space, i.e. verbal, non-verbal voice;

Seeing, feeling, and hearing what words can not express;

the role of art in giving voice;

Communication styles that hinder safe voice space;

Communication styles that allow for safe voice space;

Skills needed to hear what youth are really saying;

Skills needed to empower the voice of youth;Translating metaphor into the voice of the heart;

Skills for giving youth the gift of awareness of their own voice.

The above concepts will be thoroughly addressed within the context of a safe, trusting, engaging and respectful learning community.

The organization which has devoted itself to intentional communication is fanning out all over the country in a campaign to get teachers to show a documentary move called "Voices in Wartime."

The film -- which purports to be an "educational effort" replete with seminars and teacher training -- actually originated with a group of anti-war activists who considered themselves snubbed by Laura Bush. (I suspect that the First Lady failed to intentionally communicate, failed to intentionally listen, and worst of all, failed to open her heart to provide the requisite "safe voice space.")

What bothers me about all of this is that they're marketing this antiwar film as unbiased. Of course, if you disagree with them, I'm sure they'd think it means you're not listening.

I watched the film, and it failed utterly to convince me that war is always wrong, that war is never the answer, or that problems can be solved by "intentionally communicating."

Query: didn't Neville Chamberlain try intentionally communicating with Hitler? Didn't he listen with his heart?

I think their fundamental mistake is in forgetting that most wars start not because of the mere presence of an aggressor, but because of a lack of preparedness for war. (As MacArthur said, "undefended wealth.") Which means that if you aren't capable of self defense, you're a likely target for attack. (Hitler, of course, thought he could get away with it.)

As I say the above, I realize that this is my opinion, and even if it is shared by such modern figures as MacArthur as well as the ancients, that does not make it right.

Opinion is not fact, and I don't offer my opinion as fact -- no matter how much I might believe in it, or how much support it finds in history.

But the promoters of "Voices in Wartime" don't seem to understand the difference between fact and opinion. Instead, they behave as if their view of war is some sort of inherent truth.

Perhaps they should try a little intentional listening to the other side, because a good argument can be made that they're actually encouraging the very thing they claim to oppose.

The bad guys -- the aggressors -- would then attack. Which means war would have been triggered by naive attempts to prevent it.

New Orleans is one of my favorite cities, and I am shocked to see the scope of the disaster which is rapidly descending on it.

A monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward New Orleans on Sunday with 160-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the below-sea-level city and prayers for those who remained to face a doomsday scenario.

"Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side," Nancy Noble said as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one- way traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. "It's very frightening."

Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching top winds of 175 mph before weakening slightly on a path to hit New Orleans around sunrise Monday. That would make it the city's first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.

It doesn't seem as if enough is being done, and I agree with Glenn Reynolds that this might be a result of overhyping previous hurricanes.

Glenn has collected some of the best links, so go there for information.

I was going to relax and enjoy HBO's new "Rome" series, but this is very disturbing. Can't do much more than hope and pray.

(I notice that even James Wolcott has retracted his previous post.)

MORE: Glenn Reynolds points out that Wolcott's supposedly pulled pro-Hurricane post is still there.

Normally, I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (because sometimes a deleted post remains on the server until the blog's "rebuild" goes through). Except there's a troubling addition -- in the form of this introduction:

(THIS HAS PROVEN TO BE MY MOST POPULAR POST AMONG RIGHTWING BLOGGERS. I HAVE COME TO CONSIDER IT MY GIFT TO THEM--OR YOU, IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE ONE OF 'THEM.' WHENEVER A NEW STORM BREWS, I FEEL CONFIDENT YOU WILL RETURN HERE TO QUOTE IT YET AGAIN.

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU DISCOVERING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME, HOLD ON TO YOUR PHONY INDIGNATION AND LET IT WARM YOU THROUGH THE DARK DAYS AHEAD.

KISSES AND TWINKLING THOUGHTS FROM ME,
JW)

(Could it be that he's doing this for the attention?)

After discussing the hoopla over the "new ruralism" and such things as the "fluffy mountain lion syndrome," spoilsport Glenn Reynolds made the following insensitive remark:

Nobody's going to want to settle in a place where they're worried about kids being eaten.

Not only are we going to reintroduce predators, but there's a new movement: people belong in zoos:

LONDON - At the London Zoo, you can talk to the animals - and now some of them talk back.

Held within a rocky enclosure and barely clothed, eight British men and women monkeyed around yesterday for an amused, bemused crowd behind a sign reading "Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment."

The captives in the Human Zoo exhibit sunned themselves on a rock ledge, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, and some waved. A signboard informed visitors about the species' habitat, worldwide distribution and threats.

Visitors stopped to point and laugh, and several children could be heard asking, "Why are there people in there?"

London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills said that was exactly the question the zoo wanted to answer.

"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate," Wills said. It also, she conceded, lets them "have a gawk at people."

LONDON (AFP) - London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition -- eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty.

The "Human Zoo" is intended to show the basic nature of human beings as they frolick throughout the August bank holiday weekend.

"We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communicate the importance of man's place in the planet's ecosystem," London Zoo said.

The scantily-clad volunteers will be treated as animals and kept amused at the central London zoo with games and music.

The spectacle of five of the planet's most advanced great ape species hanging about in swimwear on Bear Mountain, the 91-year-old Grade II-listed terraces that once housed polar bears and grizzlies, is the opening salvo in a campaign by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which runs the zoo, to highlight humanity's status as a "plague species". Nearly 15,600 separate species are believed to be threatened with extinction caused by human activity.

To underline the point, displays outside the enclosure comparing humans with chimpanzees and gorillas note that more humans are born every hour than the existing population of the two other apes.

Managers were unapologetic about their selection of eight largely trim and shapely specimens, including an international kick-boxer and a professional dancer, to ensure maximum publicity by cavorting around the enclosure during open hours over the bank holiday weekend.

Simon Rayner, ZSL's communications manager, who dreamt up the idea, said: "The point is to jolt people into recognising the impact of human beings on their environment and that of other animals. We are saying, 'Look, here are humans stripped down and treated exactly the same way as other animals'. We are the same and the way we treat all animals has consequences."

As I said in my discussion of "predator" salesmanship tactics, new ideas take time!

UPDATE: Here's the picture of our future:

Personally, I think the Eloi were cuter. But these things are all a matter of, um, taste.

MORE: This "see the bad humans at the zoo" meme fits quite well into the current theme of children teaching parents -- breathlessly explored in today's Inquirer:

....in addition to teaching their parents how to deal with new technologies, kids today also are teaching them profound ethical lessons about protecting the natural world and respecting themselves and others. Here are some of the examples I have heard from schoolchildren that go beyond technology or popular culture: A girl: "I taught my mom to recycle." A boy: "I taught my dad to enjoy rap." A boy: "I taught my mom to be independent." A girl: "I taught my dad not to interrupt me." A boy: "I taught my dad not to make cracks about gays."

Regarding willingness to learn, the author offers a new definition slogan:

The slogan I use is, "You are not what you know but what you are willing to learn." Willingness to learn demands respect for others across difference. Puzzling and even disturbing ideas are invitations to curiosity, and the greater the difference the more there may be to be learned. The world is a rain forest of variety full of promise that is at risk of being lost. If one teenager could give his father an appreciation of rap, another may be interestingly articulate about body piercing and baggy clothes. I have argued that the willingness to learn is a form of spirituality. It is a stance of humility, because there is so much to be learned.

And, of course, this discussion begs the question of who taught the children what "they" are teaching their parents.

In fact, I'd love to learn more!

MORE: I just, um, learned that the Mary Catherine Bateson, the author of the above, is the daughter of Margaret Mead. (Some of her famous quotes are assembled here.)

UPDATE: Similar "education" here.

UPDATE: Thank you Glenn Reynolds for the InstaLanche! Welcome all.

BTW, I agree with Glenn's final observation about armed property owners. What's being forgotten by the people promoting this sentimentalized view of nature is that self defense itself is natural. For humans, of course, it takes the form of being armed.

UPDATE (08/29/05): Readers might enjoy my latest post, which further explores "willingness to learn."

Tom Lasseter's reports from Iraq are frequently spiced with Vietnam references, and he really can't be accused of making this stuff up -- because he uses direct quotes from the soldiers themselves. From today's Inquirer:

"I don't think of this in terms of winning," said Col. Stephen Davis, who commands a task force of about 5,000 Marines in an area of 24,000 square miles in the western portion of Anbar.

Americans following the war from home are frustrated, he acknowledged.

"They want finality," Davis added. "They want a fight for the town and in the end the guy with the white hat wins."

That's unlikely in Anbar, Davis said. He expects the insurgency to last for years, hitting U.S. and Iraqi forces with quick ambushes, bombs and mines. Roadside bombs have hit vehicles Davis was riding in three times this year already.

"We understand counterinsurgency... . We paid for these lessons in blood in Vietnam," Davis said. "You'll get killed on a nice day when everything is quiet."

"If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for... . Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is."

Major Visconti is quoted again along with Marine Captain James Haunty in an accompanying piece titled "Inability to pin down foe severely stresses troops":

"I tell the guys not to lose their humanity over here, because it's easy to do," said Marine Capt. James Haunty, 27, of Columbus, Ohio. "I tell them not to turn into Col. Kurtz."

Haunty was referring to a character in the Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now, in which Kurtz has a mental breakdown and raises a private army to fight the war as he sees fit. That character was loosely based on one in Joseph Conrad's novella set in colonial Africa, Heart of Darkness.

Asked for an example of the kind of pressure that cou