The Law of Time Magazine

Also, for a blast from the past (ht Krugman from NYTimes), read Time's double portrait of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna that picks Lauper to be around for the long haul.

"[Cyndi] has the whole package. But Madonna has the look."

The dreams of Winston Churchill

[In 1932, at the age of 58,] Winston Churchill's dreams, he tells his family, are often of his father who died prophesying Winston would be a failure (from Manchester's "The Last Lion").

Stalin, the will and the inability to change

From Robert Conquest’s “Stalin, Breaker of Nations” (mentioned in Mockingbird's interview with Whit Stillman).

One of [Stalin’s] outstanding characteristics was, in many respects, a profound mediocrity melded with a superhuman will-power. It is as though he had a very ordinary brain, but with some lobes extravagantly over-developed, like the horrible skulls in Dali’s early paintings.

On Soviet Psychology: [In] the postwar period, a new Soviet psychology, strongly opposed to Freudian and all other Western schools, accepted the [Ivan] Pavlovian idea, merely adding that the consciousness, as ‘animal’ behavior, could be conditioned by outside pressures, or more generally Marxist- notion that socio-economic relations determine consciousness. Like Lysekoist biology, it reflected the Stalinist doctrine that the new order was creating the ‘new Soviet man’ with characteristics different from, and superior to, those of others. This transformation of the human mind, of the human species, appears to have been among Stalin’s most powerful aims and conviction. (pg 299)

Describing Stalin’s Last Years: So Stalin enters his last phase, possessed even more than before by the demons of suspicion and implacability. He was beginning to have bouts of dizziness, and his psychological condition too continued to deteriorate. In 1951, in a moment of insight, Stalin actually said in front of Mikoyan and Khrushchev, though appearing not to notice them, ‘I’m finished, I trust no one, not even myself.’ His daughter writes that in these last years, he had forgotten all human attachments, he was tortured by fears which became a genuine persecution mania, and in the end his strong nerves gave way. But the mania was not a sick fantasy; he knew and understood that he was hated, and he knew why.

Chinese Weather and the War Between CONTROL and CHAOS

It was big news last summer, when through strategic “cloud-seeding” the Chinese were able to hold an Olympics without rain and Olympic marathoners were able to run without smog. This week, the “Beijing Weather Modification Office” has failed to control the weather on a major scale that has resulted in November snow across the typically arid north of China. The consequences have been 40 deaths, a few building collapses, and major delays at the airport.

As far as its relevance to Mockingbird, I am reminded that our own efforts also fail to produce the desired results in relation to God's law, and we are frequently reminded of the limited power of our works. As the Wall Street Journal reports on the Chinese weather-control efforts, “[Cloud Seeding] can augment precipitation, but only by perhaps 10 to 20%...its power is still limited.”

Theophilus North on the fears of servants and masters

Servants live in terror of being unjustly dismissed from a situation without a letter of recommendation. This usually takes the form of being charged with having stolen objects of value. As the reader knows I shrink from making a generalization, but when I do it's a bold one: persons endowed with enormous inherited wealth tend to be more than a little unbalanced. So would you or I. They know they are marginal citizens- a very small portion of the inhabitants of this industrious or idle, mostly starving, often much enduring, often rebellious world. They are haunted by the dread that what destiny, chance, or God has given them, destiny, chance, or God may as mysteriously withdraw. They are burdened by the problem of their merits. They assume (often with reason, often with none) that they are the object of envy (one of the uglier sins), of hatred or ridicule. They herd together for company. They know that something is wrong, but who began it? Where will it end? Hysteria lurks under the surface. (From Thornton Wilder's Theophilus North, ch.14)

Grace For The Lockerbie Bomber

On December 21, 1988 Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including all of the passengers and 11 people on the ground. It was a remarkably long time until authorities arrested their suspect, Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi. When finally jailed on Jan 31st, 2001, Mr Megrahi received a sentence of only 27 years, not nearly long enough for Americans (the predominate nationality of the passengers) who were/are used to sentences of 60, 80 and 180 years without parole for crimes like murder and rape. It seemed cruelly insufficient for the largest terrorist attack against Americans before September 11th.

The outcry against the sentence grew until nations began to impose their own sentences against Libya, e.g. sanctions from the United Nations and United States. Libya was able to satisfy their portion of their criminal debt by offering $10 million to each victim's family in return for the lifting of the sanctions and the removal of Libya from the U.S.'s list of foreign states sponsoring terrorism. With these conditions met, yet still Mr. Megrahi remained in jail proclaiming his innocence! (Another piece of the puzzle: Megrahi was tried along with a fellow Libyan who was not found guilty, and he has maintained his innocence throughout his entire jail term.)

Today, much to the horror of President Obama and the families of the victims, Mr. Megrahi was released on "Compassionate Grounds". Megrahi apparently has prostate cancer, and he was freed from the Scotland jail that was holding him so that he could spend the last three months of his life under house arrest in Libya. (See the video of the press conference -very good!)

Today, grace sides with the Scottish Justice Secretary's decision to free Mr. Megrahi and proclaims that retribution is a false hope. A jail sentence that expires upon death will not restore the world to pre-Lockerbie conditions. Furthermore, upon Mr. Megrahi's death, the victims' families will still wonder if Mr. Megrahi actually committed the crime. Will their hearts really be quieted upon his death? While the victims' families proclaim that justice has not been paid and that Mr Megrahi has not suffered enough to annul their pain, grace says that retribution is always insufficient and it will never really restore their hearts to their previous condition. Grace and compassion are the opposite of retribution. Grace believes that we all live in a place of receiving mercy from God and that the only truly sufficient payment was made on Calvary, for the sins of the world.

Countdown to Madmen Season 3

Madmen on denial:

What does denial mean? It means that the consequences are so dire that you cannot think about them. That’s the nature of the human mind and it’s a part of our condition and it’s timeless; it has nothing to do with the 1960s.

For more of this and the 10 most shocking moments of Seasons 1 and 2:

The 10 Most Shocking Moments From 'Mad Men' @ Yahoo! Video

Good News For People With Big Problems #3 "Check Out Any Time You Like (But You Can Never Leave): Depression, Addiction and the Christian Hope"

Last night, we tackled Big Problem #3 (sub-title: The Bondage of the Will), our inability to bridge the gap between how we ought to live and how we actually live. A problem that is especially highlighted when dealing with depression and addiction. To do so, we looked at the following sources:

From Dorothy Martyn’s “Beyond Deserving”:

In speaking of the indestructibility of what lies in the unconscious mind, he spoke of “paths...laid down once and for all, which never fall into disuse” and “are only capable of annihilation in the same sense as the ghosts in the underworld of the odyssey—ghosts which awoke to new life as soon as they tasted blood.” (Interpretation of Dreams) What is it that is apparently indestructible, being resurrected over and over? Why does a habitual gambler repeat again and again his doomed enterprise, even bringing himself and his entire family to utter destruction, when all probabilities are so heavily against his succeeding? Why does a dangerously obese person continue to eat ice cream or other weight aggravating foods in quantity, right in the face of medical warnings of illness and possible early death? This list could be expanded indefinitely.

From Romans 7:15

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

From Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan:

Nick Smith: I've always planned to be a failure anyway, that's why I plan to marry an extremely wealthy woman.

From Emily Dickinson:

"Speech"—is a prank of Parliament—
"Tears"—is a trick of the nerve—
But the Heart with the heaviest freight on—
Doesn't—always—move—

From AA’s Big Book:

But my friend sat before me, and he made the pointblank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was about to lock him up. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!

The Good News for this Big Problem is that Jesus came to "To open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness." (Is 42:7) We know that Jesus is a friend of those who are bound when we hear him say (very much in the same vein as the Dickinson poem), "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Green Shoots and the Law of the Stock Market

Many self-respecting optimists, especially those who are econ-optimists, are proclaiming to see “green shoots” and a return to the good ‘ole days. “The stimulus has worked,” people claim and justify the economy’s coming rebound by referencing housing starts and sales, oil and gas prices or something else. The stock market goes up and morale with it and then…a piece of bad news comes….and everybody falls back to square one and the Dow falls to 7000.

An editorial in the WSJ earlier this week explored the idea that there is a difference between reality and inflated expectations. They conclude that in the long-run, reality wins.

"Like it or not, the stock market is bigger than the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury. The stock market anticipates only future profits and prosperity, not government-funded starter fluid. You can only fool it for so long. Unless there are real corporate profits from sustainable economic growth, the stock market is not going to play along. It is the ultimate enforcer."

As opposed to message of the power of positive thinking, the Christian message also states that “Reality wins.” When Christians look at the world, we don’t believe that the stock market is the ultimate enforcer, but rather the law. It may be the 10 Commandments that act as the enforcer or it could be your marriage, job or fitness level, or any part of your life where you are found wanting. Eventually, the high-fives and exclamations of awesomeness are not enough and reality wins.

The Gospel proclaims love and forgiveness in the midst of our reality and an end to the “enforcer”.

“Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4

Powerlessness on Dr. Phil (ht Matt Magill)

After a discussion on snorting powder drink and the potential for maggot infestation of the nasal passages, Dr. Phil asks the eighth grader about controlling his own actions.

Phil: “What if you get back to school and your buddies are saying, ‘Hey, we got some alcohol over here at my friend’s house. Let’s spend the night, and we’ll do some drinking’?”

Sam pauses. “I might,” he says.

Phil: “Do you have the power or the desire to say no?”
Sam: “No, sir.”
“So what’s in your future? If you get a chance to get drunk, are you going to take it?”
“Probably.”
“If you get a chance to smoke dope, would you take it?”
“Probably.”

Christianity says, contrary to the world, that we have neither the power nor the desire to do good. The lack of will power is not with regard to vague actions but specific and precise things. It is about the lack of power and desire to say no to snorting powder drink or smoke dope, etc rather than the vague temptation of the world.

Financial Villains, Regulation, and St. Paul's understanding of the Law

In the review of the book “The Match King,” WSJ journalist, Chancellor, discusses how Bernie Madoff was not the first to commit fraud on Wall St (and will certainly not be the last!). The conclusion of his review echoes St. Paul's view of the law and its inability to engender what it commands.

“Regulation can do little to prevent this state of affairs (financial villainy, etc.) from repeating itself. Regulatory agencies were created to protect the world against future Ivar Kreugers (the Match King/1932 Financial Villain). Yet the same agencies failed to heed warnings about Bernard Madoff. Policymakers are now calling for new rules that, they say, will prevent future crises. The tragic, timely story of "The Match King" suggests that this is wishful thinking.”

From Romans 8:3- "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering."

'Twelve Angry Men' Produced in a Lebanese Prison and Everyone Abreacts

From a Wall Street Journal Theater Review:

Every Sunday for four months, inmates from the all-male prison, Roumieh, have performed an Arabic version of Reginald Rose's "12 Angry Men" (interspersed with their own music and personal testimonials). The actors are rapists and murderers. The prison's other inmates include the top al Qaeda convicts and leading suspects from Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's assassination.

The play's director is a woman from the outside, a non-inmate, and every week 200 people crowd into a small room in the Lebanese prison to watch the production. The audience consists of many people who have never been inside a prison. The play is performed in a black-box setting where the audience is right up close to the prisoners, and at times during the show, prisoners/actors pop out of the audience as a part of a scene. Remember the scene in the play when one of the jurors pulls out a pocket knife and stabs it into the table? This scene, too, is presented - although the knife used in this version: a butchers knife. The prison's electricity often cuts out during the production, and the director shouts "Blackout! Stay where you are," and then when the electricity comes back on, the play starts back up again....

My main point here is that EVERYONE is abreacting!! EVERYONE in the play and watching the play is releasing major emotions because of/through the play. There are incredible Gospel reactions: the prisoners are experiencing freedom and the audience is experiencing guilt.

A few quotes from the folks involved (the first being a priceless Dorothy Martyn-esque one from the director):

From the Director: "The Lebanese system, based on the French Napoleonic Code, has no trial by jury. Ms Daccache (the director) says the actors call 12 Angry Men 'fantasyland' because the play's event couldn't take place in Lebanon."

From an actor: "I hugged my mother for the first time in 18 years today. We're not allowed physical contact during normal visits. Until I joined this project, I had no friends, no hope. Since age 17, I'm serving a life sentence for murder..."

Another actor's testimony described by the WSJ writer: "...a convicted rapist tells his story, apologizes for the damage he caused everyone and himself. He didn't know any better, he says. He was a street boy and joined a militia as a kid for survival's sake."

From the audience: "By evening's end, the crowd is on the side of the performer-inmates, even though many admit their crimes during the various extratextual scenes."

More audience: "An older thespian swathed in silk scarves thanks the players, chokes back tears and says: 'You are not the only prisoners- we are prisoners in our country, in the whole region. You are us. We are you.'"

From MBird Conference 2009

From Thornton Wilder's The Angel That Troubled the Waters:

The Newcomer: Oh, in such an hour was I born, and doubly fearful to me is the flaw in my heart. Must I drag my shame, prince and singer, all the days more bowed than my neighbor?

The Angel (Stands a moment in silence): Without your wound, where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble in the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love's service only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back.

[PZ throws his paper off the pulpit]

The American Law

From a WSJ review of the 1935 essay "Puzzled America" by Sherwood Anderson, a description of the "American Theory of Life":

The notion that the United States is a uniquely open society, where the talented and industrious always have the chance to better their lot, is a central element of American self-understanding. The notion has been a prominent feature of American culture since the days of Ben Franklin, and it remains a core feature of the national ethos to this day. Indeed, in recent months the election of Barack Obama has reminded Americans of the promise that in the United States opportunity can be open to all.

Then it is discussed what effect the "American Theory" had on people during the Depression:

[In Anderson's travels around America during the Great Depression, he] found the people he met to be imprisoned by what he called the "American theory of life"--a celebration of personal ambition that now seems cruelly inappropriate. "We Americans have all been taught from childhood," Anderson wrote, "that it is a sort of moral obligation (editors note: the law) for each of us to rise, to get up in the world." In the crisis of the Depression, however, that belief appeared absurd. The United States confronted what Anderson called "a crisis of belief."

Wow!!! Read the whole article!! The author of the review (from Wesleyan University) has a really full and amazing understanding of the law! He rightly notices that the "American Spirit" or "American Theory of Life" rather than helping people during the Depression to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", etc. actually imprisoned them and paralyized them. With all the discussion about how America emerged from the Great Depression, it was not the law of the "American Spirit" that rescued us!

Assimilation of Negativity

From PZ's Who Will Deliver Us?

"Assimilation of negativity" refers to a person's willing, painful embrace of the sorrows of life, of himself and his flaws, in coexistence, almost union, with his confidence, aspirations, and joys.

It is the opposite of splitting- the phenomenon of distancing our conscious self from unacceptable feelings and experiences to such an extent that a fissure opens between the conscious self and the unconscious self.

With reality knocking at the door, the age-old message persists - "Accentuate the Positive!!", if you don't, there is no way to survive.

The message of the Gospel - of God unjustly crediting us as good - allows us to unsplit (break down the wall, let the shark back in the water) and deal with the real troubles that we have long cordoned off and do so without being crushed and devoured.

Where Have All The Resolutions Gone?

We are entering Week Four of the New Year and the time when people should be giving up or failing at their New Year's resolutions...but did they ever begin? Last year I proclaimed my resolution on this blog in response to the abundance of over-achieving and strong-willed resolutions that surrounded New York's Wall Street Culture. I was anxiously awaiting this year’s pronouncements and goals, but nothing every came. This year, it seems like no one has any resolutions!

--Only one person in my office is brushing his teeth at lunch (and even he isn’t flossing!).

--The gyms are no fuller than they were after Thanksgiving.

--The park is empty (busy on sunny days of course, but on the dark cold nights when only the obsessed marathoners and people motivated by resolutions are out there…all there is is crickets).

I will note that I am slightly comforted by the fact that the Manhattan Half-marathon is at capacity for this weekend, but I will be sure to check the actual number of finishers to see the percentage of actual finishers compared to those who signed up.

Have things gotten so bad in New York that people have even given up having resolutions?

The Bond Market talks Original Sin

The short story here is that developing counties are no longer able to issue debt in their own currency, but have to issue in dollars. When a developing country issues debt in dollars, they can no longer print their own currency to pay off the debt, but they need to redeem it with dollars.

Issuing debt in foreign currency is deemed an 'original sin'. In the event that your debt is denominated in a currency other than your own (or gold) and your currency begins to depreciate, the debt service payments can become unpayable.

Many of the developing countries that used to be able to issue debt in their own currency are no longer able to do so and therefore are subject to an outside or foreign currency.

As far as the Gospel is concerned, Christians believe that we do not have the right currency to make the payment and relativism does not truely atone. Jesus' payment on the other hand is sufficient to redeem.

Suicide on Wall Street

The notion that men were jumping out of buildings after the collapse of the stock market in 1929 if mainly false. There were instances of major financiers committing suicide after the fact and then during the 30s there was a rise in the suicide rate from 14 to 17 per 100,000.

The WSJ had a very frank article yesterday in the Money section about a Bear, Stearns and Co Managing Director and a couple others that have committed suicide in the recent months. The article describes that the man came face to face with his greatest fear that, "Despite years of hard work, [he] still felt he had nothing to show for it."

Chile has a NEW public holiday on Friday and it isn't Halloween.

Our offices will be closed on Friday in Chile...

Happy Reformation Day.

More on the Wall Street Deregulation Debate...

Subtitle: Lack of control drives people to demand more of the law.

From a WSJ editorial discussing the blame game calls for more regulation following the breakdown of the financial system:

So why blame deregulation and small government? The social psychologist Gustav Jahoda says that unreasonable beliefs often arise in circumstances where people lack control and need to believe in something to get them through a highly stressful situation.

At this point, when people call for more regulation, they are believing that more law is the answer (a highly unreasonable belief indeed!).