Entries from April 2008 ↓

I thought I was pretty up on contemporary culture for someone past the half century, but then I saw on “American Idol” that this guest artist (I can’t even remember her name!) was about to pass Elvis in some major milestone. Elvis! And I didn’t even notice her. When the Idols sang her songs, which the judges talked like were golden oldies, I knew none of them! Not that I missed anything, since they sounded to my ears like the most bombastic dreck. These songs made Elvis seem like Shostakovich.

Anyway, although I am not unlearned about popular music, I am way out of date. Not that an adult should be fixated on angst-ridden music for teenagers, but there can still be music out there that merits attention. I have a student, Nathan Martin, who is my tutor about today’s music. He burns me CD samplers of contemporary music that he thinks might interest me. I admit that some fine musicians are making good music today, though I can’t remember their names either.

Nathan is working with some other Patrick Henry College students on a webzine entitled Patrol. Go there for contemporary music criticism and good writing. I’ve added it to my blogroll. As a sample, I offer this account
of the recent demise of “CCM,” the contemporary Christian Music magazine that just went out of business, giving thoughtful insights about this frustrating genre.

Anne Applebaum writes about the London mayoral race, between a clownish upper-class Tory and the incumbent, a clownish Marxist. It has degenerated into a rather comical clash of personalities. She suggests that this is a picture of the post-ideological politics that many of us claim we want. In our postmodernist frame of mind, ideas do not matter (since there is no truth), so personality and entertaining shenanigans are all that is left. Here is what she says:

This is a personality contest, and a deeply unserious one at that: If the good people of London really thought their traffic mattered that much, Boris wouldn’t be a candidate and Ken would never have been elected in the first place. But it’s a competition nevertheless worth watching. This campaign could well be a blueprint for future elections since it is “post-modern,” and post-ideological, in the deepest sense: In a world in which “issues” are not the issue and no one takes political parties seriously anymore, there’s nothing left to talk about except who said what to whom and whose tongue was sharper while doing so.

Usually, we don’t have this problem in the United States, our politics being too partisan and our nation too divided to allow for it. But a glimpse of what it could be like is available in the form of the Democratic primary, which has also deteriorated, unsurprisingly, into a particularly nasty personality clash. Any long-drawn-out contest between two people who don’t — let’s face it — differ that much on fundamental issues will invariably turn into farce; whether it’s an amusing one, as in London, or a “bitter” one, as in Pennsylvania, depends on the characters of the candidates involved.

So three cheers, then, for ideological politics or at least for real clashes of ideas, and let’s hope our presidential election, when we get to it, includes some: At least ideologically divisive elections make everyone talk about things that matter.

I think she overstates the matter, or, perhaps like post-ideological Londoners, misses that there is a huge ideological divide between the conservative Tory and “Red Ken” who defends Stalin and who wanted to stage a rally celebrating Fidel Castro. Ideologies are still important, though perhaps the public is getting so postmodern they don’t even recognize them. Still, the reduction of politics to personality, image, and soap opera is probably the true postmodernist political legacy.

We’ve been talking about the price of wheat. Here is what is going on with corn and how the ethanol-fueled prices are affecting nearly every other kind of food:

People who use corn to feed cattle, hogs and chickens are being squeezed by high corn prices. On Monday, Tyson Foods reported its first loss in six quarters and said that its corn and soybean costs would increase by $600 million this year. Those who are able, such as egg producers, are passing those high corn costs along to consumers. The wholesale price of eggs in the first quarter soared 40 percent from a year earlier, according to the Agriculture Department. Meanwhile, retail prices of countless food items, from cereal to sodas to salad dressing, are being nudged upward by more expensive ingredients such as corn syrup and cornstarch.

Rising food prices have given Congress and the White House a sudden case of legislative indigestion. In 2005, the Republican-led Congress and President Bush backed a bill that required widespread ethanol use in motor fuels. Just four months ago, the Democratic-led Congress passed and Bush signed energy legislation that boosted the mandate for minimum corn-based ethanol use to 15 billion gallons, about 10 percent of motor fuel, by 2015. It was one of the most popular parts of the bill, appealing to farm-state lawmakers and to those worried about energy security and eager to substitute a home-grown energy source for a portion of U.S. petroleum imports. To help things along, motor-fuel blenders receive a 51 cent subsidy for every gallon of corn-based ethanol used through the end of 2010; this year, production could reach 8 billion gallons. . . .

Although ethanol was once promoted as a way to slow climate change [so says the Post, tODD!], a study published in Science magazine Feb. 29 concluded that greenhouse-gas emissions from corn and even cellulosic ethanol “exceed or match those from fossil fuels and therefore produce no greenhouse benefits.”

More on the price explosion in food, which I think is much more serious than the high price of oil. See Emptying the Breadbasket. Here are some sample facts:

Last year, wheat cost $6 per bushel; this year, it’s $20. Farmers still don’t want to grow it, though, because it is riskier, subject to disease. Research to develop disease-resistance wheat has all but halted, since the public is irrationally scared of genetic alterations. And farmers can make even more money from soybeans (from the Chinese) and corn (from government-subsidized ethanol plants). Besides, the way the farm bill works, farmers can still get wheat subsidies even when they switch their acreages to corn! In the 1980s, half of the nation’s fields grew wheat. Now, only 10% do. Because of the low dollar and desperate foreign governments, our reserves are getting bought out. We now have the lowest amount of grain in storage since World War II, enough to last the world for 4 days.

Karate and Whatnot from VA makes this complaint:

Oh, and I can’t check Veith’s blog during lunch at work any more - it’s blocked by the company filters for having “adult/sexual content”! ROTFLOL! That’s GOT to be an IP-based filter instead of content-based! Anyway, my veneer just got thinner!

How can that be? We had the same problem here at Patrick Henry College, no less!, the filters blocking this blog. I’m wondering if there is some word posted somewhere that is triggering this, but I really am trying to be as pure as pure can be, above reproach and all that. And I hate the thought of losing readers to these filters.

Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with this? (tODD, thanks for letting me know about the spam filter Akismet. It’s working beautifully against that problem.)

Rev. William Cwirla offers some provocative and oddly encouraging thoughts about why divisions within a congregation or church body are, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “necessary.” See Blogosphere Underground: Devilish Distractions. A sample:

Dissensions and divisions have their root in our old Adamic flesh (Gal 5:20; 1 Tim 6:4; Titus 3:9). The old Adam loves to stir up trouble wherever he can find it. Dissensions and divisions in the church arise from false teachings and false teachers who subvert the Gospel (Rom 16:17; Jude 19). Paul’s desire for the Corinthian congregation is that it be united, of the same mind and judgment (1 Cor. 1:10). Yet Paul goes on to make this remarkable statement: “It is necessary that there be divisions (Gk: heresies) among you so that those who are proven might be manifest among you” (1 Cor 11:19). In other words, the soundness of a teacher is tested in the face of controversy, and divisions serve the purpose of showing who is proven.

Rev. Cwirla goes on to apply what this means and why. He does not praise church divisions, mind you, seeing them as sinful; and yet God uses them nonetheless.

The Pope has said that politicians who support abortion should not receive Communion. And yet, at his big masses in New York City and Washington, D.C., pro-abortion politicians from Nancy Pelosi to Rudy Giulianni took Communion. (Rudy should not have been allowed to anyway, due to his being in his third marriage.) This wasn’t Pope Benedict’s fault, who was not involved in the distribution; rather, it is being described as deliberate disobedience from the Archbishops of New York and Washington, who invited the politicians to the event, seated them prominently, and had them served Communion. See Robert D. Novak - For Pro-Choice Politicians, a Pass With the Pope - washingtonpost.com.

UPDATE: Now New York’s Cardinal Egan is saying that he had an “understanding” with the pro-abortion Giulianni that he would not receive the eucharist in NY parishes, but that he violated that agreement by receiving communion from the Pope. The Cardinal said that he would talk with the former mayor. See this. It still seems like this friendly arrangement–come see the pope, we’ve got great seats for you at Yankee Stadium, we’ll still hang out, we’re good buddies, just don’t take communion–stops short of actual church discipline.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is taking advantage of his notoriety, speaking at an NAACP event, being on Bill Moyer’s PBS show, and now speaking at the National Press Club, no less. Guarded by Nation of Islam operatives and basking in the limelight, he is unrepentant, repeating his charges that America deserved the 9/11 attacks, that the US government engineered the HIV virus to commit genocide against black people, etc., etc. Now he’s also saying that Muslims are saved. See Liveblogging Wright at the National Press Club. Doesn’t Rev. Wright see how he is hurting the campaign of his parishioner, Barack Obama?

UPDATE: Here is a clue: It seems that Rev. Wright’s address at the National Press Club was arranged by Barbara Reynolds, an “enthusiastic” Clinton supporter!

ANOTHER UPDATE: But maybe not.

This article, The New Economics of Hunger, is both fascinating and sobering, showing just how interconnected the world’s economy has become and how good environmentalist intentions and arcane investments are translating into actual human beings starving to death. Killer quote: “food was becoming the new gold.”

Here is how the current food crisis happened: The wheat harvest worldwide was mediocre, making for tight though sufficient supplies. But Argentina and Russia decided to ban exports so they could keep their crops for themselves. That meant less wheat on the world market, sending prices up.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., our farmers–who account for half of the world’s grain exports!–had shifted a significant amount of their production from wheat to corn to take advantage of the federally-subsidized ethanol market , which consumes nearly 25% of the current corn supply. So less American wheat meant still higher prices. Foreign buyers, facing the prospect of hunger at home, bid it still higher. Because of the falling value of the dollar, foreigners bought more and more, stockpiling supplies. In the meantime, the collapse of the mortgage markets sent investors into grain markets! Bidding prices even higher!

Now, food shortages and high prices are destabilizing governments in Haiti, Bangladesh, and a dozen other countries. And, after years of progress in fighting hunger in these countries, starvation is back.

Remember J. R. Ewing? Southfork? Miss Ellie? We are at the 30th anniversary of “Dallas.” According to this article, How ‘Dallas’ Won the Cold War, the show with its evil oil tycoons and cutthroat capitalism, helped win the hearts and minds of the proletariat in communist countries. It happened along the lines of this priceless anecdote:

Joseph Stalin is said to have screened the 1940 movie “The Grapes of Wrath” in the Soviet Union to showcase the depredations of life under capitalism. Russian audiences watched the final scenes of the Okies’ westward trek aboard overladen, broken-down jalopies — and marveled that in the United States, even poor people had cars. “Dallas” functioned similarly.

Communist officials reasoned that the depradations of J. R. would teach their people the evils of capitalism. But, instead, Iron Curtain viewers saw the swimming pools, Cadillacs, and blockbuster business deals and lusted after them and the economic system that, for better and worse, made them possible.

As evident in last week’s blog about cricket, India makes for a good case study about the effect of pop culture on a traditionalist society. In this article about the struggles of India’s “untouchable” caste to break into the country’s “Bollywood” film industry–Bollywood No Longer A Dream Too Far for India’s Lower Castes - washingtonpost.com–we learn just how much the poor people are taken with the fantasies they see on screen:

Going to the air-conditioned cinema is a popular national pastime without parallel in this country, especially for low-caste laborers who work under India’s unforgiving sun — in construction, in farming, as cow herders and as fruit vendors. For Indians, most of whom subsist on less than $2 a day, the masala mixes of drama and dance are the ultimate escape.

So beloved are Hindi film stars that there are Hindu temples named after matinee idols. Political rallies always include a Bollywood starlet. Some political leaders are former actors. And in small-town theaters, audiences are so personally involved in the melodramas — often four hours long — that they whistle, clap, imitate dance moves and sing along with the songs.

“India is really a special place for film. It’s second only to religion in the way it occupies people’s minds and dreams,” said Barry John, a longtime drama teacher.

Florida lawmakers debate offering a Christian license plate:

I raise three questions:

(1) Do you think the state should approve this as an optional design, if people want to pay for it?

(2) Why do Christians today, when they finally DO get interested in expressing their faith through an artistic medium, have such a fondness for not the sublime or the beautiful but the tacky or banal?

(3) But wouldn’t this license plate be a witness tool, so that someone seeing the message as your car tears past them might get converted? (Hint: The answer is no. Explain why.)