Rhea County, Tennessee commissioners unanimous: "We're a bunch of idiots"
On Tuesday, the Rhea County, Tennessee Commission passed a motion by an 8-0 margin...

asking its state representatives to introduce legislation that would allow the county to charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.

On Thursday, following nationwide coverage, the Rhea County, Tennessee Commission rescinded the motion by an 8-0 margin:

With an overflow crowd of vociferous supporters and foes of the homosexual lifestyle on hand, the commission filed in under police escort.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who made the original motion, moved it be rescinded. The vote was taken, and the commissioners quickly filed out - again under escort.

A good day's work, I guess. The comments about the initial vote at Newschannel 9 are by turns entertaining, scary, and inspiring... Good for many of them for speaking up. Incidentally, what's up with "lifestyle" all the time.

(Links via Inn of the Last Home; see also A Moveable Beast.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:18:00 AM -- |  

 
Missions from God
Via the ever-interesting Interfaith Nunnery, I was fascinated to read that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has written a quite remarkable review of His Dark Materials, a play based on the book series by Philip Pullman.* The play is apparently quite the rage in London. If it's half as good as the books, I can imagine why: reading them was a genuinely exciting, provocative, and fun reading experience for me, I can't recommend them enough.

His Dark Materials is a fantasy trilogy** set in an alternate but in some respects recognizable world where a "Church" with otherwise unspecified theological leanings is cast as a ruthless, near-Orwellian ruler of England and Europe. From an early aside in the first book (The Golden Compass):

Ever since Pope John Calvin had moved the seat of the Papacy to Geneva and set up the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the Church's power over every aspect of life had been absolute. (chapter 2)

That's by no means the only or even the most interesting aspect of Pullman's world -- my vote there would go to the daemons and the daemonless panserbjorne. But it's an integral part of Pullman's polemic about religion, which is skeptical to put it mildly, and hostile not to put too fine a point on it.

Williams' review, though, is such a neat reply to Pullman that ... I may re-read the series. From his conclusion:

A modern French Christian writer spoke about "purification by atheism" - meaning faith needed to be reminded regularly of the gods in which it should not believe. I think Pullman and Wright [who adapted the books to the stage --ed.] do this very effectively for the believer. I hope too that for the non-believing spectator, the question may somehow be raised of what exactly the God is in whom they don't believe.***

It was in the course of developing this response that Williams said something that really interested me:

But what kind of a church is it that lives in perpetual and murderous anxiety about the fate of its God?

What the story makes you see is that if you believe in a mortal God, who can win and lose his power, your religion will be saturated with anxiety - and so with violence. [...]

What would the Church look like, what would it inevitably be, if it believed only in a God who could be rendered powerless and killed, and needed unceasing protection? It would be a desperate, repressive tyranny. For Pullman, the Church evidently looks like this most of the time; it isn't surprising that the only God in view is the Authority.

An especially threadbare, embattled, vicious one might look like Al Qaeda. Williams' question reminded me of Paul Berman's discussion, in Terror and Liberalism, of Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual forefather of Al Qaeda. Berman describes Qutb's reaction to the 'catastrophe' that the Islamic Caliphate -- the rule on earth by the Prophet's successors -- had been ended by the secular Turkish state. Qutb believed that this portended the worst,

"a final offensive which is actually taking place now in all the Muslim countries... It is an effort to exterminate this religion as even a basic creed, and to replace it with secular conceptions having their own implications, values, institutions, and organizations." (Berman, ch. 4)

Cobbling together Islamic and European reactionary thought, Qutb called for a "vanguard" of the faithful, charged with waging jihad against false Muslims and outside corruption alike. And, in time, the calling to desperately defend an almighty god twisted itself into a worship of death for its own sake. Qutb, on martyrdom and jihad:

"But the death of those who are killed for the cause of God gives more impetus to the cause, which continues to thrive on their blood. Thus after their death they remain an active force in shaping the life of their community and giving it direction. It is in this sense that such people, having sacrificed their lives for the sake of God, retain their active existence in everyday life...

There is no real sense of loss in their death, since they continue to live." (Berman, ch. 4)

A philosophy like this would be tailor-made for self-appointed prophets with a taste for blood and divinely based power. Enter, years later, Bin Laden and Zawahiri, and their authority via ever-greater acts of terror as jihad.

Christianity could of course be equally murderous when it considered itself threatened. Consider, for instance, the fate of the Cathars, a Christian sect in Southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries. Catharism was brutally repressed by Pope Innocent III's Albigensian Crusade and the beginnings of the Inquisition. At Beziers alone, at least 20,000 were massacred, Cathars and Catholics alike. (When the fate of the non-Cathar inhabitants was protested, the attending papal legate famously said, "Kill them all. God will know his own.")

These kinds of examples might serve as the nucleus of a counterpoint for Mr. Pullman: one may wish religion were about Faith and Morality, but in practice it often turns out to be about Authority instead -- and Authority "on a mission from God" to boot.

Pullman's books are about more than that: protecting childhood, the (desirability of an) afterlife, and what might be called the virtues of materialism are all themes. The trilogy's title comes from Book II of Milton's Paradise Lost:

Chaos Umpire sits,
And by decision more imbroiles the fray
By which he Reigns: next him high Arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wilde Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pondering his Voyage ...****

Mr. Pullman and the Archbishop had a public discussion of His Dark Materials on Monday. I'm with Sister Andrea: that's a discussion I'd have loved to attend.

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* As "Sister Andrea" writes, there are spoilers in the review -- all but inevitable, given the reviewer -- so handle with care.
** The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
*** Judging by his speech of a week earlier, Williams means Olivier Clement, a French Eastern Orthodox theologian. The idea of "atheism as purification" can also be traced to Simone Weil (via Naked Writing). According to some, Weil's beliefs and death echo those of the Cathars.
**** (Whoa, heavy! Couldn't resist. -- ed.) Via "His Dark Materials [an unofficial fansite]"

PS: I'd be remiss in not pointing out Michael Chabon's review of "His Dark Materials" in the New York Review of Books, and Gary Farber's interesting discussion of same. Gary also mentions the Archbishop's review, and was also impressed with Williams. I also should say that for detailed, knowledgeable discussion of Sayyid Qutb, you should visit Bill Allison's Ideofact blog.

UPDATE, 5/2: More, based on the transcript of the Pullman-Williams conversation. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:26:00 PM -- |  

 
Century City
I think I like it.

Yeah, it's another lawyer show, but one where the case is about a client trying to grow a clone to harvest its liver -- and give it to his other clone, being raised as his son. Set in 2030, there are some trite, standard scenes, but also some fairly well argued cases on both sides of the question, and the promise of more of the same. Here's a tentative "way to go!" to CBS. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:00:00 PM -- |  

 
New working definition of "gall"
There'll always be an England: the Guardian reports that

The Home Office is to appeal today against a court ruling that victims of notorious miscarriages of justice should not have to pay the bed-and-breakfast bill for their time in jail.

For example, Michael O'Brian of the "Cardiff Three," wrongly imprisoned for 11 years, was faced with having 37,000 pounds deducted from his wrongful imprisonment settlement. (via Harry's Place).

Heck, Amarillo, Texas does "better" (even if it did so kicking and screaming): even at the full 11,400 pounds per wrongful year (~$21,000), Mr. O'Brian would have been getting way less than the average Tulia, TX wrongful prisoner; the average settlement across 45 wrongfully imprisoned victims in that case was at least $28,000 per wrongful year* -- and a shameful bargain to Amarillo taxpayers at twice the price, I'd add.

Vincent Hickey, one of the "Bridgewater 4" (18 years) also affected by the appeal, commented

"I should have gone on hunger strike for longer than 44 days: then the bill would have been less."

Hickey's joking, of course; by the Home Office's logic, he should have starved himself to death -- that would have really saved some money.


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* $21K=(L)125/11; $28K=$5M/45/4, i.e., assuming all 45 went to jail for four years, which was not the case. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:27:00 PM -- |  

 
Yglesias on Spain
Here is a recent post by Matthew Yglesias , "Spain," in its entirety:

It's looking like some Islamists. For the record, anyone who think this may be the incident that forces Europeans to get serious about terrorism is a moron.

Most Europeans were plenty serious about terrorism before this happened. So was the Democratic Party. It was George W. Bush who, along with Jos? Maria Aznar, Tony Blair, and Silvio Berlusconi who decided that terrorism was such a serious problem that it should be pretty much ignored except insofar as it was a useful rhetorical prop for the selling of an unrelated war.

Working my way from the end of that statement:

'Unrelated' is unsupportable; Al Qaeda is not the only organization or style of terrorism possible. The concern that Saddam had WMD that could be used via state- or other-sponsored terrorism turns out to be unsupportable as well. But even discounting for the (unconscionable) spin and self-deception before the war, that was not known to a certainty in advance.

Invading Iraq does not mean anyone 'pretty much ignored' terrorism; anti-terrorism operations remained and remain ongoing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere in the world, including and often controversially here in the United States.

I certainly don't argue that Democrats aren't serious about terrorism. I am. I believe Kerry is, too.

"Most Europeans were plenty serious about terrorism" is a different matter, and depends on who the target is. I'll certainly stipulate that most Europeans were and are plenty serious about avoiding terrorism on their own soil, whether that helps or hinders Americans, Israelis, and others to avoid terrorism on theirs. This is not an argument about what most European governments are doing; most have indeed been 'serious' and have helped the United States materially with police work, military assistance, or both. Observing Germany and other countries, though, I have to say the underlying support among their electorates does seem less enthusiastic to me. Even supporting the U.S. war in Afghanistan nearly led to the German government's downfall, a lesson that had a clear effect on Schroeder's re-election campaign.

Obviously, the underlying concern is what impact the Madrid attacks will have on the elections in Spain.

Spaniards will be and always have been entitled to conclude that their country's participation in the Iraq war invited attacks, and that Aznar's party should not get their vote. But they could and should have drawn that conclusion, if so inclined, before the Madrid attacks, not after. If there are significant or even decisive numbers who change their vote on the basis of that attack, they will have given Al Qaedoid terrorists a "hack" into their own electoral system. Even Spaniards who were against the war -- apparently most of them -- should not welcome that prospect.

Aznar has been no statesman by prematurely insisting that ETA was responsible for the Madrid atrocities; I hope Spanish voters don't compound the error by insisting that makes him responsible for bombs detonated by murderers. 9/11 happened before the Iraq war: proof enough that there will always be some 'reason' good enough for terrorists to commit atrocities, regardless of what the rest of us do or do not do. The people of Spain and Europe will invite more 3/11s, not prevent them, if they concede terror groups the power to influence their votes by bombing trains.

We may see just how serious about terrorism the Spanish people are with this election; it may be that I'm a 'moron' to hope they will not kneel to terrorists of any stripe. But I trust that most Spaniards will not give terrorists that satisfaction.


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UPDATE, 11PM: Oh, well. Anecdotal evidence from this article, and the reversal of fortune of the PP and the Socialist Party over the last week (BBC) are suggestive; there's the counter that it was Aznar's 'manipulations' that led to his party's defeat, but it's unlikely I'll see data disentangling that from reignited opposition to Spain's involvement in Iraq.

Meanwhile: Bravo, Ms. Henley and all the Little Offerings. The Spanish Embassy is right around the corner from the Foggy Bottom/GW Metro stop. I had the same difficulty finding it after work on Thursday, went about 4 blocks the wrong direction and couldn't find a flower store open by the time I found it. I'll take care of it tomorrow.

Among the more interesting blogger reactions: Sgt. Stryker says Aznar's party had it coming for ignoring the will of the people about Iraq. That would seem to overlook that his party was ahead until the attacks. Jim Henley suggests even if the PP had won, Aznar's successors might not have stuck with the US in Iraq -- a theory based >in part< on an article about rightist Spanish resentments about their lost empire. Seems a stretch to me, but read for yourself. Much of the rest of Henley's post is about the blown ETA call. But it was not (and still is not) unreasonable to suspect ETA/ETA splinter involvement: an ETA attack on a Madrid railroad station was foiled on Christmas Eve of last year, and explosives were intercepted in late February.

EDIT, 3/18: >in part< added, in response to a complaint by Jim Henley. He led with it, but there was certainly more than that to what he said. Which was basically that Rajoy appeared to soft-pedal Iraq in the campaign.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:45:00 AM -- |  

 
Gibson's passions

The Passion of the Christ revives, directly or by implication, almost every topos of anti-Judaism of the European Middle Ages.

Thus begins one of the most interesting discussions of Gibson's movie I've come across, by "Sister Andrea" of Interfaith Nunnery. It turns out that Gibson's account of Jesus' final days is drawn in large part not from the Bible, but on the Catholic lay traditions of passion plays and so-called meditationes vitae Christi -- "meditations on the life of Christ." In particular, an account by one Anne Katherine Emmerich looms large -- and modifies and elaborates the biblical stories in ways that tend to absolve Pontius Pilate and focus on the 'guilt' of the Jewish people. Read Ms. Andrea's post for yourself. She makes the essential point that

While the passion narrative requires suffering, guilt of Jews is not implicit in the form. A post-Nostra Aetate reading of the death of Jesus could easily keep the bloody torments that the form requires for the expiation of sin, while locating guilt either on Pilate or on the whole world, for whose sins Jesus Christ is purported to have died.

Ms. Andrea refers above to the Second Vatican Council's finding that neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during [Jesus'] passion.

I haven't seen the movie, and I'm not terribly eager to, so I don't have anything to add about it per se. But I've seen a number of Gibson's other movies, and I think they offer a perspective on this one: Gibson seems drawn to or at his best in movies in which his own character is martyred. In "Gallipoli," if I recall correctly, he's cut down by Turkish bullets in a senseless, self-sacrificing charge in a senseless, sacrificial battle. In "Lethal Weapon" he has to jam his own arm back into its socket, something that I'm informed (by the script, as I recall) is one of the most painful things imaginable; Gibson absorbs abundant other punishments as well. In "Braveheart" he tries to save his people, but is betrayed, and then drawn and quartered.

Some exceptions to this rule simply suggest a second rule. In "The Patriot," it is the death of his son that fuels Gibson's character's rage, and in "Ransom," his son's kidnapping triggers his sudden transformation into an avenging father.

Gibson seems to need a combination of righteous rage and searing physical or emotional pain to really make a role work for him; when that happens in the movies above, he's quite effective. But such roles may also fuel the need for ever greater doses of the "martyr drug." Perhaps this has culminated, for now, in what is by most accounts a singularly ugly depiction of the source of his faith. Good luck topping it, Mel.


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UPDATE, 12/7: Just found a site called Write Your Own Mel Gibson Movie 2.0. One choice: "He then decides to [go insane/go mad/go crazy] and seek revenge on the perpetrators."
UPDATE, 5/15/08: A lost comment pointed out that I did not in fact recall correctly -- in Gallipoli, it wasn't Gibson's character who died, but another one.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:15:00 AM -- |