“Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph.  In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war (p.192).”

“It is also that no change of doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted.  For to change one’s mind, or even one’s policy, is a confession of weakness (p. 213).”

Makes one wonder if some of the inspiration for the Bush White House has been from the “pages” of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein.

Not only will I not be reading as many blogposts this week, I will also be posting less.  The last week of the term is here and I have a grading hemorrhage to resolve as well as proposals to write, courses to design, grades to submit, classrooms spaces to design, laptops for faculty, and probably a lot more I don’t know yet.

Cheers!

No doubt more than just a bad morning, but a life-changing incident. Here is the scene from my driveway looking west this morning.

It has been a long time since my last Lyme Log post and a lot of that has been because there have been no spikes of much of anything other than a consistent yuck.

Since January, I have had a sore, tenderness that feels like a mild case of strep throat right around my lymph node in my neck on the left side. It never goes away. I have finished another round of doxycycline and am still taking levaquin. If strep was in my system it would have been rooted out a long time ago.

My rib area right around my spleen still aches once in a while which is no fun either.

With a compromised immune system, I am wondering if these two things are related to it. They are somewhat new symptoms, especially the throat, but the spleen and lymph nodes are crucial for immunity.

Here is another new one: when I wake up or get on my feet after being off of them for a while, they hurt. It’s like a cramp after you hit the gym hard after having been out for a long time. You know how you feel when you wake up - your muscles tightened up like a drum. Well, that’s my feet every morning or every time I walks away from my desk.

The fact that I pulled my back out a couple of weeks ago does not help much at all, but that’s probably unrelated.

I mowed half the lawn today; my wife did not want me to mow any of it. I took a two hour nap and I am dizzy and tired anyway. Before the tick bite, I would spend a Saturday mowing the lawn, then digging out trees, maybe vacuuming or doing a few loads of laundry as well and feel tired, but that “good tired” after you just accomplished something.  Now I am just tired, pretty much always and usually after 2 pm which I call my “wall”.

I had about 15 vials of blood taken about two weeks ago for my doctor visit on May 5. Then we can see where I am. But this truly is a funky, hermetic, slippery, sneaky little disease that is a little bit different than the flu or something where you pop a few anti-biotics and are fine in two weeks. Comparing the two is like comparing the armies of Grenada and the U.S.

People always ask me if I am feeling better. It’s hard to tell them that some days I feel almost OK and others I feel like sleeping for a week.

Alexander Pruss tests Don Marquis’ argument concerning abortion under the notion of “future of value”.  The argument is becoming more standard and is rather powerful both in its logic and pragmatic ends.  Perhaps related are James’ McGrath’s discussion of moral absolutes and Ken Brown’s discussion of the same.

Atheism is Dead presents a case against the notion that we can infer on a purely naturalist basis a plausible foundation of value from which to make ethical decisions.  This is a clear weakness in the Dawkins argument which ignores the issue of value and reasonable value foundations altogether.

Mike Clawson draws our attention to a meeting that will be taking place between Soulforce and a group of pastors.  Such constructive conversations have to occur if we are going to work together despite a clear source of disruption and division in the church.  It is called the American Family Outing.  See also Queer Messages’ discussion of coming out which is also featured on their new podcast.  John Shuck reflects on a recent presentation and discussion of For the Bible Tells Me So.

Melissa Rogers brings us up to date on the issues surrounding the FLDS - the object cultic organization of Warren Jeffs.  The is a group in need of serious help as many will have to begin deprogramming to some extent soon.  See news about the raid and the compound also linked here.

Bob Cornwall discusses a really interesting interaction that occurred on a recent episode of Desperate Housewives between Lynette and Bree that deals with the issue of question faith.  “Faith shouldn’t be blind. You don’t threaten it by asking questions, you make it stronger.”  Lynette is a seeker and recent survivor of breast cancer and shows us what faith seeking understanding truly means in this episode.

John Stackhouse offers an argument contra complementarianism on any Trinitarian basis, much less any basis at all.

Chris Brady discusses recent issues surrounding a senior art project at Yale that graphically depicts the role of the female body in its relationship to abortion.  Is it art?  Is it academic freedom?  You decide.  Inside Higher Ed draws our attention to a project with four colleges to discuss secularism on college campuses.

Presbyterians Today presents some media picks and useful materials for incorporating these into education programs at churches.  Nice idea for summer programming I think.

There are two American social behaviors that bother me and that happen several times a day.

The Grin. At a college, the halls are always full of people.  The halls in my building are very long.  On many occasions during the day I will start walking down the hall and see someone off in the distance.  As we walk towards each other realizing that we will pass each other, a strange discomfort begins to brew.  I look away into a door of a classroom.  They do likewise.  Then the moment of truth: the pass.  And when that occurs you have a choice: look straight ahead and not acknowledge the person, look down at your shoes as if there is a problem to examine, or look at the person you are passing.  If you do look at the person, then what?  It is almost automatic that we grin.  It’s a meaningless grin.  We may also accompany it with a “Hi” or if we “know” the person on some level a “How are you?”

It seems that when we interact with people who are another presence, there is a certain unwritten obligation to acknowledge the other person’s existence.  Not looking at the person does not recognize them and non-recognition is the heart of being rude.  When we ask how someone is, we don’t really care and expect an acknowledgment of heath and good cheer.  If we truly cared and that stranger or mere acquaintance was having a rough row that day, we would not then be frustrated at the following obligation to discuss with them how horrible their life is at that moment.  So out of courtesy and to keep the social structure consistent - we grin.  A meaningless grin on the surface, but one that keeps things in order and of good cheer so that we can go about our business unfettered by such minor disruptions.

The Door. If you are entering a building or room where you know the door automatically closes behind you there is always a dilemma in a public place.  You open the door and automatically look behind you to see if anyone is coming.  If no one is coming it is often a relief.  If someone is following you within arm’s length, you will hold the door so that it does not slam back at them.  But what if they are several arm’s lengths behind you?  At what point is it acceptable to allow the door to close?  It is a hard bargain to make, especially after you have made eye contact with that person behind you.  When this happens, allowing the door to close right as they reach it seems rude.  But often you will hold the door causing a reaction from your follower.  They now feel obligated to quicken their pace and even jog to the door in order that you are not forced to stand there and wait.  This is then followed by…the grin and a “Thanks”.

Holding a door for someone has a more pragmatic value than “the grin”.  If we do not, it could actually cause harm if it slams shut on someone following us.  But it is the decision to hold it that forces the other person to run that is interesting.  Rather than help, it places a strange pressure of obligation on the follower to consent to your offer of grace.  If you do not help, you are rude.  If you do hold the door and force them to run, you are now placing an unneeded social obligation on them causing them to act rather unnaturally.  So holding the door, like the above, is not just about preventing a door from slamming shut on someone.  It is maintaining a social order that is of good cheer.

Often these are interactions that emerge without a pre-defined social structure or established boundaries and these behaviors establish these boundaries.  It is how we construct reality in idle space and time so that our experience coheres in a specific manner.  In these interactions it is to keep things of good cheer, to smooth out the ambiguity in the most palatable manner so that we do not offend those we encounter who disrupt our sense of space and time.  The very sensation of discomfort in these situations is evidence enough that our sense of space and time has been disrupted by the presence of the other person.  When idle space and time are disrupted by the presence of someone else, it demands that we construct that reality somehow in order to regulate our sense of discomfort and even anxiety.  Holding a door for someone, meaningless grins, saying “Hi” all do just that.

So what kinds of things do you do mostly unconsciously to smooth out social interactions and keep things of good cheer?  What do you do if you and one other person are at the bus stop, waiting for a hotel elevator, waiting in line at a book store when the clerk has to step away to check something, etc.?

I will never understand the kind of dogmatism that places a religious law or belief in a more important position than the very life of your child. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are a sect with rather crude dogmatic assertions.

In a brief application yesterday, Brian Murray, counsel for the HSE, told Ms Justice Mary Laffoy that the mother, a patient of Cork University Hospital, was 32-weeks pregnant and her expected babies are severely anaemic.

When advised about the need for a blood transfusion, the mother and her partner had made it clear they objected to the procedure.

Ms Justice Laffoy asked whether the objection was on religious grounds and Mr Murray replied that it was.

It is believed the parents, who cannot be named by court order, are non-nationals and are members of the Jehovah’s Witness Congregation.

And here is where it gets inconsistent and absurd. Not only are they adhering to an unquestioning religious dogma, it is a fundamentally implausible one. How is refusing medical care that has a good chance of saving your babies all that different from abortion? It is no different from watching your son or daughter choke to death from asthma as you withhold an aspirator from them that would save their life. Yet they cling to this absurd belief. Here is the Jehovah’s Witness position on abortion and other activities that are harmful:

Jehovah’s Witnesses do not practice abortion. They shun activities that risk human life, such as driving a car while under the influence of alcohol. They teach high standards of cleanliness, which prevents the spread of infections, diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and other diseases.

But if your babies need a transfusion to save their life, it is OK to refuse that and go with a substitute like, say, coke and tomatoes!

The good news is that the court in Ireland saw just a tad differently than the JW’s:

The HSE has said the “potentially critical” nature of the situation meant it had to get the court order now and could not wait until after the babies were born to seek it as that would take time and could risk the babies lives or health.

A consultant said transfusion “is almost certainly going to be medically necessary to save the lives of Babies C & D”.

The refusal of the mother to take Anti-D blood products herself or to allow blood be administered to the babies in her womb has placed the babies at risk of anaemia, which can lead to death, and has also risked them suffering jaundice, which can lead to deafness, cerebral palsy and lifelong severe disability, doctors told the court.

Once again we see that the government is needed to regulate the behaviors of stupid people. I could care less if their religion demanded that they put their babies in harm’s way. The fact is that these “parents” are guilty of being an accessories to attempted murder. Yet it is their religion that will no doubt keep them out of jail. That, and the outdated predominance of the genetic relationship as the immutable connection that defines parenthood. Sheer idiocy.