Daniel J. Summers » Charter Member of the VRWC

Presbyterians?  Methodists?  Catholics?  Wiccans?  You know the answer to that…

One of the fall’s most anticipated video games for the PlayStation 3, Sony’s “LittleBigPlanet,” had to be yanked from shelves at the last minute Monday because it might accidentally offend Muslims.

You can read the whole article here.  It seems that one of the songs has two lines that also appear in the Koran.  You know, I’d actually be happy if a popular video game had a song with a few lines from the Bible.  But, I guess since Christians don’t handle their offense the same way Muslims do, we just get to get offended.

(Not that I want censure of anything that may offend any religion - most religions can handle it.)

Our family had been toying with homeschooling for a while, and our move last year to an area where schools are either abysmal or exorbitantly expensive pushed us over the edge. Up to that point, we were able to send our children to classical Christian schools like Emerald Mountain Christian School and Cornerstone Christian Academy, where they were taught strong academics from a biblical worldview. These schools viewed their education as a ministry and involved parents in their children’s education, which enabled them to keep their tuition rates affordable. Not that a school like that doesn’t exist here, but we haven’t found it, and I imagine if it did, their waiting list would be a mile long.

Exhibit A is something I remember hearing about a while back, and I thought I had blogged about it then. However, I can’t find that post, so I guess I didn’t. How many of you remember turning in your paper or test, and getting it back looking like the teacher’s pen leaked all over it? I got a few of those, and I didn’t like it. So, what I did was apply myself to make sure it didn’t happen again. I much preferred the number 100 written at the top and circled - that was all the red I wanted to see on a paper or test.

But now, teachers are using purple pens to grade, not because they’re all Prince fans, but for the sole reason that red is too harsh. Too harsh? Check this out - the third paragraph in the story.

“I never use red to grade papers because it stands out like, ‘Oh, here’s what you did wrong.’ ” said Melanie Irvine, a third-grade teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary in Carlsbad. “Purple is a more approachable color.”

Approachable? When I was in school, we had a different kind of approachability. You could approach the teacher’s desk and respectfully ask her for help. However, once you turned something in, it got graded, a process by which the teach goes through and marks portions that do not meet the standards. Isn’t the point of grading a paper to show what you did wrong? But, I guess esteem is more important that education these days. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t just not care about kid’s feelings, but if a kid’s not getting the material, they need to buckle down and work until they do, a process historically inspired by getting a bloodied-up paper back.

Besides, how is that preparing them for setbacks in higher grades? A third-grade report on frogs is a lot easier than an eleventh-grade report on the circulatory system. If they’re not made to get it right in third grade, what happens when they’re juniors? And jump past school - I have yet to hear of a company giving it employees a “purple slip.” (Of course, who knows what we’ll have when this generation gets to be in charge…)

Exhibit B is the genesis for this post. In several school systems across the fruited plain, they now have a minimum score of 50 on their grading scale. Another hand-picked paragraph to illustrate the idiocy of this…

“It’s a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F,” says Douglas Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center, a Colorado-based educational think tank who has written on the topic. “The statistical tweak of saying the F is now 50 instead of zero is a tiny part of how we can have better grading practices to encourage student performance.”

Six times greater chance of getting an F? When did grades get equated with the spinning of a roulette wheel? And this is just a “statistical tweak”? Incredulous doesn’t even begin to express how I feel about this. Isn’t the point of testing in school to ensure that the students have absorbed a minimum level of the material they were presented? If there are 100 questions, and you miss 16, you get an 84. If you miss 27, you get a 73. If you miss 62, you get a 38. It’s simple math. However, is it? Once this is in there, how long is it until someone says “Well, if the minimum is 50, why don’t we just do our percentages based on that?” Then, if you miss 16, you get a 92; if you miss 27, you get an 87; and, if you miss 62, you get a 69. Hey, a D! That’s even more esteem-boosting than a 50-point minimum F!

I realize that the 10-point splits for grades has been standard for a while, with an 11-point range for A and a 59-point range for F. However, the school I attended through 9th grade had the following scale:

• A - 100-94
• B - 93-87
• C - 86-80
• D - 79-75
• F - 74-0

Straight-A’s was something I always worked toward, and most of the time, I succeeded. I wasn’t the coolest person in school, or the most athletic, and depending on how one measures success, I haven’t been the most successful since then. However, in learning how to do what it took to make the grade, I gained an understanding of how to meet the expectations that had been set for me. I’m sure some of that is my personality - to this day, if I get a 98% on a 50-question test, my first thought is “What did I miss?”

Good grades are something that should be earned, not given, and they’re worth hard work to get them. That is what teachers should be teaching, instead of worrying about Johnny or Kathy’s self-esteem. I remember crying over grades I got that weren’t as high as I thought they should have been. That’s part of the process - we can’t eliminate everything bad about childhood. (Don’t even get me wound up about dodge-ball or sports with no scorekeeping…)

It’s not generous to give someone a grade they did not earn - it does a disservice to the student, the teacher, and any other teachers that may have that student in the future. Failing a class or a grade doesn’t mean you’re no good - that’s why there are provisions for retaking classes and years. I failed Calculus I the first two times I took it - but on the third try, I got a C. My professor didn’t give me the C, I earned the C. If my professor had given me a D on the first class, I would have moved on to Calculus II, and been completely lost. If that trend had continued through graduation, my employer would not have gotten what he thought he was getting.

So, my kids are homeschooled. There are expectations placed on them, and consequences if they don’t meet them. And you know what? For the most part, they meet them; if they don’t, we work on it until they do. They love it - they tell people they go to the best school ever! And, hey, I can’t help it if I’m in love with their teacher…

This past weekend during Sunday School, we briefly discussed the raid of the polygamist compound in Texas. During this discussion, one very good point was raised - those handling this situation need wisdom. Previously decided cases hold a lot of weight in the judicial realm, and while, by all accounts, what was going on at that ranch was illegal and immoral, they are claiming it is part of their religion. It is good that those people have been stopped - however, what is to stop the government from deciding that something most mainstream churches do is illegal?

That led the discussion to this story about a photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico who refused to photograph a “commitment ceremony” between two people of the same gender. There are lots of ironies in this story, and I would expect that this decision would be quickly vacated / overturned / made null. Can you really legally force someone to photograph an event that’s illegal by nature? However, if it stands, there are much more troubling questions, some of which we have already seen. In California, a Catholic-run hospital was sued for refusing to perform gender reassignment surgery, and the state has sued the US government over a provision that strips Federal funds from states that force medical practitioners to perform or refer abortions.

During the course of the discussion, I took the (somewhat unpopular) opinion that a business should have the right to refuse service to whomever the business owner wanted. (I also did that a bit strongly at one point - if you’re reading this, sorry about that.)  Someone asked “What if they say they’re not going to serve Jews?” My reply was that, if that was their stance, the word would get out, and those who found that abhorrent would also not patronize them, and they would go out of business. (And yes, I think I did actually use the word “abhorrent” in class… heh…) In further discussions with other people, including my wife, my position continued to be unpopular. I heard things like “What about people in the South not serving blacks?” and “I just think discrimination is wrong.”

I still cannot see the government requiring a private business to serve, sell, or perform any good, service, or person that the owner does not want. Why should I invest my money and time in an enterprise if the government is going to come and mandate to me how I do it? However, by the same token, I also feel that racial discrimination is bad. However, for anyone to say, unqualified, that “discrimination” is wrong simply doesn’t realize how much discrimination occurs on a day-to-day basis.

Let’s imagine I’m a photographer. I don’t like trying to get kids posed for a picture, so I create a policy of no more than one child per pose. That’s discrimination - I am discriminating against large families (though not completely - they’re just not going to get an entire family portrait from me). Maybe I don’t want to photograph some people because I feel they’re unattractive - do “Uglo-Americans” have a right to have me photograph them? Maybe I’m a really popular photographer, and I can’t be in two places at once. I’ll have to be discriminating in how I set up my schedule. There simply isn’t a scenario that convinces me that the government has an overriding interest in forcing me to photograph someone I don’t want to. The “right to photography” is nowhere in the Constitution.

Now - let’s put the brakes on that and look at the government. While I believe that a business owner has the right to discriminate pretty much however he or she feels like, I also just as strongly believe that the government should not be in the discrimination business. Equal protection under the law should be just that - equal. Firefighters should (and do) respond just as quickly to fires in desirable neighborhoods as they do to fires in undesirable neighborhoods. Everyone should (and does) have access to their legislators, and the right to vote for the ones they think will best represent them. Everyone should have access to government-run educational facilities, with the same requirements for everyone. (OK, we need to work on that last one…) The bottom line is, government should not discriminate on anything other than merit and scarcity (i.e., we can’t give everyone $1k if we don’t have it).

But, in reality, this isn’t the way it is; I alluded to it above regarding education. When the government starts trying to play identity games, “level the playing field,” or any other sort of tinkering, they invariably get it wrong. According to the NM government, this photographer “violated human rights” by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. Would the pastors of my church be guilty of the same if they refused to officiate one? In finding this photographer guilty of discrimination, the state is, in effect, discriminating against her free exercise of religion. (See? Every choice is discrimination!) This is the danger of giving the government the power to decide what’s “good” discrimination versus what’s “bad” discrimination.

The solution? From my view, I believe that there are very powerful forces at work in the economic marketplace. Eliminating “Jim Crow” laws was a good thing - they were a violation of the equal protection clause. Forcing state-run universities to integrate was a good thing - again, equal access to government resources. Forcing businesses to cater to those to whom they do not wish to cater? That’s bad. Sure, I believe that businesses shouldn’t discriminate based on race - but is it the government’s place to tell them they can’t? Some people think that discrimination based on gender is wrong; in fact, a few years back, there was a big kerfuffle over Augusta National not allowing women to become members. How many of those people would advocate my joining Curves? It’s all perspective, and because one person’s perspective may be different than another’s, the government should stay out of it.

To me, this is a heart thing. Sure, you can pass a law and make people comply, but all you’ve done is made people upset by forcing them to do something that they didn’t want to do. I believe in giving people enough rope so that they can hang themselves (figuratively speaking, of course) - if someone wants to open a racially-discriminatory business, that’s their own stupidity in eliminating a big chunk of their potential customer base. If someone wants to open the “No Purple Pants Club” and refuse to admit anyone wearing purple pants - well, it’s their money and time they’re pouring into the business. And, if someone wants to refuse to provide their goods and services to those they find morally reprehensible, more power to ‘em.

In each of these cases, one of two things will happen. One, they may flourish as a business, which will prove there was a market for their goods and services, even without the people they excluded. Two, they will fail, and learn via the “school of hard knocks” that they shouldn’t restrict their pool of potential customers. Either way, the business owner gets out of his business exactly what he put into it, and I really don’t have a problem with that.

Do you spend 28 minutes a day commuting? Doing housework? Reading e-mail? If so, you’ve got the time to listen to the Bible. Faith Comes by Hearing has created a dramatized reading of the New Testament, that can be completed in 40 days, 28 minutes each day. Starting February 11th, running through Good Friday on March 21st, Albuquerque is encouraged to listen - and you don’t have to be in Albuquerque to do it, either! They offer a free download on their website - I encourage each of you to join me in listening to the Bible over 40 days.

There will be a list on this blog of the chapters that make up each day - at the top of the page, just below the Verse of the Day, there will be an entry with that day’s chapters. Also, if you’re using Linux, I was not able to get the free download to work. However, I did get my paws on an actual CD, and you can download the ISO here. (Please try to get it from them first - only download this if you can’t.)

There is something that has been bugging me, and thanks to an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, I’m getting around to addressing it. Here is the transcript which we’ll be discussing - a strong language warning is in effect. (Quoted portions here will be sanitized.) I’ll state up front that Bill Maher is a comedian, so I understand that some of this is his schtick. I’ll also state that I’m not picking on him, just using what he said as an example of an argument I’ve heard hundreds of time. The argument is this - current practitioners of Christianity have it all wrong. Jesus was accepting and loving, not full of hate like today’s Christians.

We’ll start with Maher’s monologue…

And finally, New Rule: If the choice in ‘08 is between Rudy and Hillary, “values voters” must do the Christian thing and choose Hillary. Of course, I think all religion is nuts, but at least she practices it the way Jesus suggested: privately. Like a Dick Cheney energy meeting.

I’ll certainly grant him one thing - though Hillary’s husband is a louse, they are both still married in their first marriage. But, apart from that, the only time Hillary goes to church is when there’s a good photo op, whereas Giuliani has not pretended to be religious.

Plus, she’s raised an admirable daughter, while Rudy’s kids couldn’t hate him more if they were New York City firefighters.

And let’s not forget, Hillary didn’t commit adultery. Her husband did. And afterwards, she did the Christian thing and forgave him. And then she had a GPS unit implanted in his {manhood}. But the important thing is, she forgave him!

I included these just for a chuckle or two. He does make a few good points. Some may speculate about whether her forgiveness was politically calculated or not, but regardless, she did forgive him, even after the one reason given in Scripture as allowing divorce (more on that later).

Now, I bring all this up because this weekend in Washington is the “Values Voters Convention.” Three days of peace, love and hypocrisy. Where the Republican frontrunners will spend the week kissing the {backsides} of 2,000 social conservatives who despise liberals, homosexuals, Muslims, Mexicans and Nobel Prize winners. And who believe the sound of a condom wrapper being opened makes angels die.

Now we start with the elitism and name-calling. I listen to and read conservative commentary, I am friends with many conservatives, and I consider myself to be a conservative as well. I don’t despise liberals, though I do despise their viewpoints. I don’t despise homosexuals. I’ll admit that I’m a little apprehensive of Muslims, but living and working around them for four months while I was deployed certainly helped ease that apprehension. I have no problems with Mexicans at all - however, I believe they should emigrate to this country according to our laws. And the last line isn’t even worthy of a comment.

It’s kind of like a “Star Trek” convention, only the virgins are angry–and they think outer space is just a theory. So, Ann Coulter, if you’ve got any more “{queer}” jokes, this is the room for you.

On the contrary, most “values voters” are not virgins; they just ascribe to God’s version of sexuality. And, they know that outer space isn’t just a theory; God created it. And, most conservatives I know can parse words well enough to realize that what Ann Coulter was making fun of the railroading of Isaiah Washington and the lack of manliness of John Edwards - not using the slur against Edwards.

Moving along…

And I know that if you can look at the war in Iraq, the melting environments and the descent of America into “idiocracy,” and still think our biggest problems are boobies during the Super Bowl and the “war on Christmas,” then you don’t have values, you have issues.

We disagree on the war in Iraq. Global warming is a religion, not science, and information keeps coming out every week disproving this religion, with it’s “indulgences” in the form of carbon credits. Conservatives are also concerned about the lack of knowledge amongst the public, which is why we are in favor of trying other alternatives to the proven failed government school system. Broadcast standards are what they are - whine all you want, that’s why your show is on HBO. And the “war on Christmas” is an assault on freedom of religion, one of the bedrock principles of this country. I’ll agree, “we” have issues, but by “we” I mean this entire nation.

If you had “values,” you’d draw the line at torture. But a startling number of people who call themselves Christians don’t. And I’m pretty sure if you asked, “What would Jesus veto,” it wouldn’t be health care for sick kids.

Sure, we’ll draw the line at torture - but not your definition of torture, which is “pretty much anything that makes the detainee uncomfortable.” And I’m pretty sure Jesus would have vetoed this latest S-CHIP bill, which isn’t health care for sick kids, it’s health insurance for middle-class kids.

Let me take this opportunity for a rabbit-trail rant. What is it with liberals and dishonest euphemisms? “Taxes” become “contributions”, health “insurance” becomes health “care”, “religion” becomes “hate” (unless it’s Islam, then it’s hallowed and is not to be trifled with), and “interrogation” is “torture”. As the Godfather has said, “Words mean things.” If they were honest about their agenda, the public would never buy it. Who here is against “health care for children”? (crickets chirping) Who here is against “taxpayer (that’s you and me, by the way)-funded health insurance for children of middle-class families through age 25″? (show of hands) That’s what I thought.

But back to Bill - here it is, folks, his grand finale…

Why, it’s almost like “values voters” don’t really believe Jesus was right about anything. [in mock attack ad voice] “Jesus Christ: wrong on gays, wrong on taxes, wrong on torture, and wrong for America.”

Here’s a passage I’ve heard I don’t know how many times, used to prove this exact point. It’s from John 8, where the people brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. Their law said she should be stoned, but they wanted to see what Jesus would say. We’ll look at verses 3-11 from the Holman Christian Standard Bible (click the link to read them, if you think I’m quoting them incorrectly, or to read it in a different translation).

³ Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center. ⁴ “Teacher,” they said to Him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. ⁵ In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?” ⁶ They asked this to trap Him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse Him.

Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with His finger. ⁷ When they persisted in questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Oooh, that’s good! That’s usually where the argument ends. “You’re not sinless, so who are you to ‘cast stones’ at me?” They interpret “casting stones” as “saying what I’m doing is wrong.” Rather than excusing sin, though, this is a prohibition against meting out punishment. Casting stones was executing a death-sentence judgment against someone. But there’s more!

⁸ Then He stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. ⁹ When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men. Only He was left, with the woman in the center. ¹⁰ When Jesus stood up, He said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ “No one, Lord,” she answered.

“Neither do I condemn you,” said Jesus.

“But look! Jesus SAID ‘I don’t condemn you’!!!” Again, calling a sin a sin is not condemnation. But, there’s one part of this verse that conveniently gets snipped, and it’s the part that we as Christians believe is the most important part.

“Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

The emphasis in the above is, of course, mine. Jesus did not condemn her, but He also did not say that what she was doing was “just the way she was, and we should accept it” or “fine with Him as long as she wasn’t hurting anyone else.” He forgave, then gave her the charge of turning away from that sin. That is the truly beautiful part of this story - we don’t have to continue sinning, to continue to be a slave to sin, once we have met the saving power of Christ.

In logic, a “straw man” is a fallacious argument of an opponent’s position that is misconstrued but argued as fact. That is what people who espouse these arguments are doing. They are setting up a straw man of this religion that Jesus never taught, so they can tear down our practice of it. They’re wrong, and we should call them on it. There is a difference between being meek and defending the faith.

So, the next time someone tells you what Jesus would do, (as Paul Harvey would say) now you know the rest of the story.

There just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. Sadly, one of the casualties is original content for my blog (although I am working on something that I hope to have ready in a few days). Until then, here’s another round-up of interesting things I found scattered around the web.

First up, from the American Thinker, we have Randall Hoven with “Media Dishonesty Matters.” In this tome, he details 101 incidents of plagiarism, failure to disclose conflicts of interest, and instances of journalists creating news out of thin air. This should probably count as three or four links, but we’ll keep pressing on.

Next up, LaShawn Barber asks Barack Obama this pointed question - “What Faith Is This?” He has claimed that his faith guides his public life, yet he voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion. That’s a good question.

Moving on, Dennis Prager of TownHall.com (among other places) asks another, somewhat rhetorical question - “So What?” In it, he, a devout Jew, explains why he is not offended in the least over Ann Coulter’s latest statement that Jews need to be “perfected” by accepting Christ. He also explains why labeling her statements as anti-Semitism does a disservice to the efforts to eliminate anti-Semitism.

Finally, I usually wrap up with some humor - but this one will inspire a different emotion. I may be the last person in the world to find out about this song, but I’ve got to share it. Tim McGraw’s “If You’re Reading This” is a tribute to men and women in uniform, and is a tear-jerking classic.

Another busy time, another installment of “Plagiarism Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery”. See, when we re-blog here, we’re honest and up-front.

First up is an article about the cost of illegal immigration for Los Angeles County for one month, from radio talk show host and author Neal Boortz. The numbers are staggering.

Next up, a link to a pundit I never thought I’d link to, except as a set up to refute. However, Susan Estrich and I agree on this issue, which she details in “A Weak Moment for Women in Banning Larry Summers“. (I don’t agree that what he originally said was wrong - but the rest of it is spot-on.)

Via Morgan Freeberg, we have reports that “A Quiet Triumph May Be Brewing“. Could it be that we’ve come up with a way to get most remaining al-Qaeda in the same place, then send them to their 72 virgins (or raisins, depending on the translation)?

And finally, we wrap up with some humor. Rachel Lucas learned to make thought and speech bubbles in PhotoShop, and produced a masterpiece she calls “Three Men and a Hillary“. (Language warning in effect for the comments on that post…)