Well, one of my favorite "freebie" papers still keeps publishing articles and letters on the torpedoed Marriage Amendment, so I keep writing letters in reply!
Citizen petitions are not mob rule. The Constitutional Convention wasted valuable legislative time because the Governor and legislative leaders refused to allow the Marriage Amendment to come to a vote. They only acted when forced to by the Supreme Judicial Court, and even then they kept delaying the vote until enough arms were twisted to achieve the Governor's favored outcome. Consequently, they allowed public swimming pools to remain unrepaired and unopened during the hottest days of summer, consistent with their general neglect of thornier problems like our bridges. As Wendell Woodman pointed out yesterday, these same legislators are trying to blame their egregious mismanagement of the Big Dig on a glue manufacturer for not demanding to know exactly how a customer was using a small order for a general purpose adhesive. So while I understand how it seems odd to today's letter writer that the legislature is being asked to cut itself out of the amendment process, that may be the only way they can discipline themselves to focus on their real job: serving the voters in practical ways instead of rewarding the Governor's campaign donors.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Things I love
Summer!
Music (See post entitled "Kairos v. Chronos)
http://www.ebtrr.com/ A living museum. Yes, you've heard this phrase before, but this is a WWI era shortline preserved in situ for decades.
Which of these posts do you love? Hate? Comments pleezzzzzz!
Music (See post entitled "Kairos v. Chronos)
http://www.ebtrr.com/ A living museum. Yes, you've heard this phrase before, but this is a WWI era shortline preserved in situ for decades.
Which of these posts do you love? Hate? Comments pleezzzzzz!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Sad but true
This week the Boston Globe smugly called for defunding of "abstinence only" sex ed. Maybe they have a tiny point, but here's my response:
Teaching a 14 year old girl how to become "My First Sexual Conquest" for an immature football player is hardly conducive to anyone’s health, mental or otherwise. Yet this is the flagship accomplishment of "scientific" sex education. I’m sure proponents of abstinence are more genuinely disappointed in "abstinence only" programs than activists like Julie F. Kay. But what is $200 million compared to the budget of even one teen movie that teaches boys that to "become a man" is to ask a girl for sex without promising anything—much less lifelong commitment—in return? A few micrometers of latex fail to turn this utterly selfish male act into anything remotely approaching responsible human sexuality. As a wide variety of authors have noted, from Mary Pipher to Wendy Shalit, the real beneficiaries of sexual "freedom" are not girls who give in to pressure, but rather boys who can’t handle the obligation of controlling their sexuality (except with the occasional condom). In fact they, and their enablers such as Ms. Kay, have become slaves to our basest instincts: conquest and domination. And Ms. Kay calls her resignation in the face of this horror "science"?
Refs: for Pipher: http://www.committment.com/ophelia.html
for Wendy Shalit, my hero: http://blogs.modestlyyours.net/modestly_yours/wendy_shalit/index.html
Teaching a 14 year old girl how to become "My First Sexual Conquest" for an immature football player is hardly conducive to anyone’s health, mental or otherwise. Yet this is the flagship accomplishment of "scientific" sex education. I’m sure proponents of abstinence are more genuinely disappointed in "abstinence only" programs than activists like Julie F. Kay. But what is $200 million compared to the budget of even one teen movie that teaches boys that to "become a man" is to ask a girl for sex without promising anything—much less lifelong commitment—in return? A few micrometers of latex fail to turn this utterly selfish male act into anything remotely approaching responsible human sexuality. As a wide variety of authors have noted, from Mary Pipher to Wendy Shalit, the real beneficiaries of sexual "freedom" are not girls who give in to pressure, but rather boys who can’t handle the obligation of controlling their sexuality (except with the occasional condom). In fact they, and their enablers such as Ms. Kay, have become slaves to our basest instincts: conquest and domination. And Ms. Kay calls her resignation in the face of this horror "science"?
Refs: for Pipher: http://www.committment.com/ophelia.html
for Wendy Shalit, my hero: http://blogs.modestlyyours.net/modestly_yours/wendy_shalit/index.html
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Precisely the opposite is true
To the editor, Boston Metro:
It couldn’t be more obvious that your editorial bias is shared with your owner, the New York Times. First there was the one sided article about lobbying via ice cream socials. Following yesterday’s less biased article, you published an interesting but very one sided letter, caricaturing the arguments for restoring marriage to its constitutional, pre-Goodridge state. Choosing the sex of one’s marriage partners is a new right, period. One voted into existence in 2003 by only four Massachusetts citizens— all of them unelected, unaccountable judges. This action is intolerable in a democracy. Your letter writer claims some sort of religious problem, perhaps insinuating that those who disagree with her think that God hates gays. Precisely the opposite is true (try John 3:16 and hundreds of other verses of universal love and acceptance). Sadly, macho types have done shameful and cruel things, in particular to gay men. That is utterly inexcusable, as are the cruel things that gays sometimes do to one another. But what does that have to do with the Constitution of a democracy? All citizens, not just four, are empowered to determine which values society will honor. The exclusion of values that are linked to morality from Sinai, and God’s universal love, is the worst sort of religious discrimination, aided and abetted in the pages of Metro this week.
It couldn’t be more obvious that your editorial bias is shared with your owner, the New York Times. First there was the one sided article about lobbying via ice cream socials. Following yesterday’s less biased article, you published an interesting but very one sided letter, caricaturing the arguments for restoring marriage to its constitutional, pre-Goodridge state. Choosing the sex of one’s marriage partners is a new right, period. One voted into existence in 2003 by only four Massachusetts citizens— all of them unelected, unaccountable judges. This action is intolerable in a democracy. Your letter writer claims some sort of religious problem, perhaps insinuating that those who disagree with her think that God hates gays. Precisely the opposite is true (try John 3:16 and hundreds of other verses of universal love and acceptance). Sadly, macho types have done shameful and cruel things, in particular to gay men. That is utterly inexcusable, as are the cruel things that gays sometimes do to one another. But what does that have to do with the Constitution of a democracy? All citizens, not just four, are empowered to determine which values society will honor. The exclusion of values that are linked to morality from Sinai, and God’s universal love, is the worst sort of religious discrimination, aided and abetted in the pages of Metro this week.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Kairos or Chronos
I just heard another excellent sermon--this one about the gift of the Sabbath rest. Among other points, our pastor captured the distinction between "passing time" chronos and "the right time" kairos.
Do you LOVE music? Are there pieces you find painfully beautiful? I once heard a woman preach a sermon where Bach’s Air on the G String was used as an [excellent] illustration preceding her insights on beauty. The week before, she asked a conductor who attended church for help in arranging the music. Later, he and I shared other pieces that rose to the heights of searing, heart rending beauty. He suggested some of the Shostakovich quartets; my choice was the slow moment of Faure’s last piano trio. But today, in snowy Boston, is a "Sibelius Day. " Even the few short minutes of "Andante Festivo" moved me to tears. Does that happen to you? Maybe when the trumpets enter in the last movement of his Symphony No. 2? What about the English horn at the beginning of the 6th Symphony? Can you listen to "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein" (Make, O Lord, my heart pure and clean) from Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" without weeping? Has the first note of "Aus Liebe" --- For Love [My Savior Died]--- ever made your eyes moist? That even surprised me, but I knew the soloist, and I knew she was singing of love that had transformed her. Do you have a favorite piece you can only hear in Heaven? The last duet from Turandot? I remember a dream about Heaven, where giant angels, looking like tall gray statues, were singing Bruckner’s "Te Deum. " That’s sometimes used as the finale to his 9th Symphony, once thought incomplete. I want to hear him conduct it, complete and perfect, in Heaven! Anton Bruckner will be there, he who dedicated his symphonies "To God, should He choose to accept them. " So, I was thinking that maybe I’d missed the heavenly premiere–but I don’t think I missed it at all. How’s that? Time only exists on earth. I think every moment in Heaven will be the first moment, when we see God face to face, and know as we are known. "You can’t subdivide infinity. " How can there be time without the sun? Heaven has no need of it, for the Lord Himself is the light, eternal and beyond time.
Do you LOVE music? Are there pieces you find painfully beautiful? I once heard a woman preach a sermon where Bach’s Air on the G String was used as an [excellent] illustration preceding her insights on beauty. The week before, she asked a conductor who attended church for help in arranging the music. Later, he and I shared other pieces that rose to the heights of searing, heart rending beauty. He suggested some of the Shostakovich quartets; my choice was the slow moment of Faure’s last piano trio. But today, in snowy Boston, is a "Sibelius Day. " Even the few short minutes of "Andante Festivo" moved me to tears. Does that happen to you? Maybe when the trumpets enter in the last movement of his Symphony No. 2? What about the English horn at the beginning of the 6th Symphony? Can you listen to "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein" (Make, O Lord, my heart pure and clean) from Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" without weeping? Has the first note of "Aus Liebe" --- For Love [My Savior Died]--- ever made your eyes moist? That even surprised me, but I knew the soloist, and I knew she was singing of love that had transformed her. Do you have a favorite piece you can only hear in Heaven? The last duet from Turandot? I remember a dream about Heaven, where giant angels, looking like tall gray statues, were singing Bruckner’s "Te Deum. " That’s sometimes used as the finale to his 9th Symphony, once thought incomplete. I want to hear him conduct it, complete and perfect, in Heaven! Anton Bruckner will be there, he who dedicated his symphonies "To God, should He choose to accept them. " So, I was thinking that maybe I’d missed the heavenly premiere–but I don’t think I missed it at all. How’s that? Time only exists on earth. I think every moment in Heaven will be the first moment, when we see God face to face, and know as we are known. "You can’t subdivide infinity. " How can there be time without the sun? Heaven has no need of it, for the Lord Himself is the light, eternal and beyond time.
Monday, April 16, 2007
What’s not worth preserving, and what must be preserved
See this link about Boston's City Hall, praised at its unveiling in the 1960's by the American Institue of Architects (AIA) and hardly anyone else:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.waltlockley.com/boston%2520city%2520hall/01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.waltlockley.com/boston%2520city%2520hall/bostoncityhall.htm&h=617&w=890&sz=67&hl=en&sig2=t1wIvCejx5qE74ALbecjPQ&start=10&tbnid=pdZf2iwxFxDCLM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=146&ei=GoIjRsOzD4OshQSz8vGRBQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522Boston%2Bcity%2Bhall%2522%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
I understand that some may want City Hall to stand as a tribute to the 1960’s. I beg to differ. Yale might be prudent in keeping a visually similar building on a university campus, but City Hall simply fails to serve the governed. As a compromise, perhaps the building can be preserved—if the AIA will purchase it—while we fill the lonely, impersonal expanse of City Hall Plaza with a functional and beautiful structure.
But a few blocks away, on Beacon Hill, is much that is far more worthy of preservation. Not just Chas. Bullfinch’s magnificent gold domed edifice, but the constitution enshrined therein, which each member of our government is sworn to uphold. Each is a servant of the same reluctant taxpayers that bought Scollay Square and built a concrete monstrosity in 1962. Forty-two years later, without the consent of the citizens, four members of the Supreme Judicial Court amended our constitution by fiat in the Goodridge decision. It is now up to the Legislature to permit the citizens to vote to undo that change via the Marriage Protection Amendment. I join the Legislature in wishing the best to my homosexual neighbors. My gay and straight friends would agree that I’m a quiet and gentle person myself. But marriage as an enduring union between one man and one women has been explicitly embraced by democratic societies for centuries. The thousands of citizens who have remained committed to their wives and husbands are an imperfect yet compelling reminder of the laws which unite us—and of the consent of the GOVERNed, not the GOVERNors, that protects us.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.waltlockley.com/boston%2520city%2520hall/01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.waltlockley.com/boston%2520city%2520hall/bostoncityhall.htm&h=617&w=890&sz=67&hl=en&sig2=t1wIvCejx5qE74ALbecjPQ&start=10&tbnid=pdZf2iwxFxDCLM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=146&ei=GoIjRsOzD4OshQSz8vGRBQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522Boston%2Bcity%2Bhall%2522%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
I understand that some may want City Hall to stand as a tribute to the 1960’s. I beg to differ. Yale might be prudent in keeping a visually similar building on a university campus, but City Hall simply fails to serve the governed. As a compromise, perhaps the building can be preserved—if the AIA will purchase it—while we fill the lonely, impersonal expanse of City Hall Plaza with a functional and beautiful structure.
But a few blocks away, on Beacon Hill, is much that is far more worthy of preservation. Not just Chas. Bullfinch’s magnificent gold domed edifice, but the constitution enshrined therein, which each member of our government is sworn to uphold. Each is a servant of the same reluctant taxpayers that bought Scollay Square and built a concrete monstrosity in 1962. Forty-two years later, without the consent of the citizens, four members of the Supreme Judicial Court amended our constitution by fiat in the Goodridge decision. It is now up to the Legislature to permit the citizens to vote to undo that change via the Marriage Protection Amendment. I join the Legislature in wishing the best to my homosexual neighbors. My gay and straight friends would agree that I’m a quiet and gentle person myself. But marriage as an enduring union between one man and one women has been explicitly embraced by democratic societies for centuries. The thousands of citizens who have remained committed to their wives and husbands are an imperfect yet compelling reminder of the laws which unite us—and of the consent of the GOVERNed, not the GOVERNors, that protects us.
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