Tagged: family
Commentary on the SCOTUS Affirmative Action dissent by Sotomayor
“The result of today’s decision is that a person’s skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion, but it cannot play a role in assessing that person’s individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment. That indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection,” dissents Justice Sotomayor (italics mine).
To what is she dissenting?
“In the wake of the Civil War, Congress proposed and the States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, providing that no State shall ‘deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.’ Amdt. 14, §1,” as opined by Justice Roberts (the Court).
Can you see the disagreement?
To help, let’s consider another document’s claim regarding race.
St. Paul wrote, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Forget, if you must, that the claim comes from an exclusive Christian teaching. No proselytizing here. But I want you to ask yourself if you can understand how Paul can list sets of two very real groups and then suggest that the very distinctions are abolished/overcome. Can you understand this concept of Paul’s/Christianity’s?
Good.
Justice Sotomayor cannot.
Justice Roberts can. But Justice Sotomayor cannot.
Justice Sotomayor writes over and over that because the constitution and its amendments and other SCOTUS opinions use words like “white” and “Mexican” that the law of the land is “race conscious”. This belief of hers is over and against the concept that the law is colorblind.
But I return again to the question I have posed. Is the simple use of words which delineate some people from others enough to transcend the otherwise transcendent belief that under some higher perspective, the delineations do not exist? Put another way, can the forest be lost for the leaves? Can the bigger point be missed? Or even, should the country have federal laws at all? Or should each dispute be brought before some local judge and the judge decide whatever they please?
The point Justice Sotomayor is pressing isn’t semantic.
When the border patrol is allowed to observe that some man around the border between the US and Mexico is Mexican-looking and subsequently act with suspicion towards him that they wouldn’t use with a “white” man, real people are involved. And when Harvard admissions folks are not allowed to ask, “Brown?”, real people are likewise involved.
The question, then, is are the two situations meaningfully the same situation when viewed from the perspective of “the Law”?
The answer is, “No.”
The reason for “no”, the reason they are distinct (despite both being similar in “gaining entrance” theme) is the constitution applies to US Citizens, not to any person, which is the very question the Border Patrol is tasked with helping to sort out in the first place.
Finally, as probably all of you know, the only question on my mind when I read Justice Sotomayor is, “Is she serious?”
If she were serious (and honest), then her sentences would read, “The result of today’s decision is that [all persons-of-earth-regardless-of-national-citizenship’s] skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion by the US Border Patrol, but it cannot play a role in assessing that person’s individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment. That indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection” (italics mine).
For that is her argument. And it is a serious argument, despite being flatly wrong as the 14th Amendment does not apply to every swinging dick which finds itself within the borders of this great country.
The Fallout Is Not The Attack: Stay Focused—Especially When The Devil Is Involved
When is the last time you read a definition of the word “number”? Probably never, right?
Have you ever read one of the earliest definitions? Also “no”. I get it.
Nichomachus of Gerasa, around the time of Jesus, wrote, “Number is limited multitude or a combination of units or a flow of quantity made up of units; and the first division of number is even and odd.”
His overall task (as he saw it) was to defend the study of abstractions, like math—for its own sake. He writes, “Evidently, the one which naturally exists before them all is superior and takes the place of origin and root and, as it were, of mother to the others.”
In sum, within “science”, since arithmetic is first, it is greatest. So study it, he argues.
What I want you to see in this is the concept of order. Geometry is second to arithmetic because we can’t speak of geometry without using arithmetic terms and concepts.
The reason I want you to focus on “order”, Christian, is that headlines today include the removal of the Bible from some public school libraries.
Like all news, this event is published with the hopes of being sensational. And it certainly is. (Though I suspect many of us who brush the dust off the cover of our Bibles from time to time would save much of the sacred content until our children are teenagers.)
But we need to temper this sensational event (and future iterations of it) with the knowledge that this banning of the Bible is merely fallout of the attack (largely successful) against the Bible that has been ongoing for at least decades.
I say again, order.
Time for the gut punch.
Do you read the Bible to your kids and family?
My daughter, H-, from my first marriage isn’t talking to me right now. She’s thirteen and lives in a different town. We used to read the Bible as a rule before reading anything else.
Now in my second marriage and family, I tried some dinner time Bible reading for while (maybe a month), but the nature of my job kept interrupting it and “life gets in the way”, so that went by the wayside. (Never discount the sheer difficulty of the Bible.)
All the while, I created a Bible study podcast, mostly to help me study, but also with the idea that it’s easy and anyone could use it.
But it has been probably a good year or so since I’ve opened the actual Bible with my family. (I do have an old children’s Bible type book that I made it a point to read in full to my toddler and I am still reading it to my 1 year old from time to time.)
Finally, I can tell you that my church-going parents read us the Bible less than 5 times while we were kids.
The banning of the Bible at public school libraries is fallout, folks. The real attack is on our hearts, “hearts” in the Biblical sense.
The fallout is not the attack. The attack is real. The devil is real.
But so is our champion, Jesus the Christ, Yahweh our God, and the Holy Spirit.
Don’t be distraught.
But surely use the sensational event the way the LORD intends you to—repent! Begin anew. Read the Bible to your family. Make time.
(Comment below if you want recommendations on where to start. I’d be happy to offer ideas.)
Follow-Up
Yesterday’s post, which I used to criticize some mom’s BS claim that she was “praising God in every situation, good and bad” after the shooting, garnered a welcome two commenters. Today I wanted to publish my response to the second commenter because I like it. Enjoy!
****
My declaring that this person’s reaction wasn’t sincere is not only an accurate assessment, but necessary. I’ll prove it to you.
Because I wrote this little blog, you related, “…because it’s a Christian school.”
Does any part of scripture ever suggest Christians or Christian institutions, or the People of God in general (Jews/Christians throughout scripture) are on this planet with any special protection? No, no it does not. Never.
Is this “no special protection even though we’re on the winning team” a problem? Nope. It’s good theology. (Literate theology.)
So some lady offers a BS/superficial response, I truthfully call it out. Now you truthfully respond. Let’s keep the truth coming.
Do you actually believe we should praise god that murder occurred? No, no you don’t. So just say it. “God, I love ya, but I’m not in the mood for praising you right now. Not when these kids are getting killed. Not when these freaks are killing kids. I’m confused. I thought a Christian school would be safe. Why won’t you protect even a Christian school? You have my attention Lord. Answer!”
I Hate That
Click bait, surely. But I don’t know how else to describe what happened.
I have two babies right now. A- is 2.5 and J- is 11 months. When A- was younger, I wanted to get her the classic shape sorter game/activity.
If you don’t know, they have many versions these days. The old red and blue one with yellow pieces is retro.
The one I decided upon is a blue dome with a knob or button thing on top that rotates the top half. So the shapes change each time the knob is depressed. A square/cube area becomes a top half triangle, bottom half cube. And the oval piece changes to top half concave thing, bottom half oval. You get the picture.
Anyhow, my wife and I have been embattled for some time now. (Not ever going to go into details here, sorry.) Almost every conversation becomes an argument. Well, I get on the floor with the babies tonight and start to play. I have been working a ton of late and this is a rare event these days.
I see my wife helping J- to put the cube in the cube space.
Good, I think.
Then I see her encouraging him to put in a wrong piece that happens to fit sideways into that same hole, but is clearly (by markings on the pieces themselves) not meant for that spot.
“That doesn’t fit there,” I exclaim, as if I believed the LORD could actually prevent J- from becoming Special Needs at this point.
“Yes it does,” my wife responds.
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. “It may fit, but you don’t train the baby to put it there. The entire point is the right piece to the right spot.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?? Because it seems like you just told me that ‘it fits’, even though it doesn’t?”
****
With Metallica’s new album and tour announcements, I have been mentioning to a coworker that I may text him some songs as he is uninitiated. I haven’t yet. It’s actually a daunting task to share something so intimate.
As I wait and consider songs, I found myself listening to the radio today, and a perfectly poetic—in the “eternally powerful” sense of the word—rock song came on. It’s main lyric is, “I hate everything about you/why do I love you?”
This got me thinking. I know exactly what he means. Not because I hate everything about my wife, but because it’s a killer lyric. Here’s my attempt at a killer lyric.
I want my wife to think/She never thinks anymore
I hate that my wife won’t think/When she does think, I have seen good results—like with most people/I think
Why won’t she think?
Teaching our son the wrong way to do the game is tantamount to abuse
Abuse/Not because the game matters—though it does
Abuse/But because other kids (her son for example) didn’t or don’t have games
Abuse/Because it’s a complete waste of an opportunity
Abuse/And I hate that
3 Reasons Youth Basketball Is Better Than Church
I am kinda the last Boy Scout. I am definitely one of the last pilots of the last male-only squadron of the USAF. And I think my generation was the last one which didn’t turn youth sports into the all-consuming beast that it is.
I’ve mentioned how easily my own 12 year old went from 2 practices a week and five tournaments in 12 weeks, to Mon-Fri practices/games, in addition to the 5 weekend tournaments. It’s been crazy.
I’ve also mentioned how my attempts to join a church have been actively rebuffed. One church’s staff member actually told me I could watch but not speak at their Wednesday night youth service. Another church’s head deacon invited me to coffee to suggest now isn’t the time to join his church.
Keep in mind that I have a “Graduate Certificate In Biblical Studies” which means that I certainly care and also that I certainly have studied the Bible and Christian History (history and philosophy in general too) more than any rural Christian member (or Pastor) ever could dream to have. (Only slight hyperbole.)
I have done light internet research into the topic, “Youth Sports are better than church” and the only or main results are articles written by Christians which offer tips on how to navigate the two worlds.
That said, it’s time someone tell the truth.
Here are three reasons youth basketball is better than church.
1. Basketball is fun.
Attend any youth or children’s activity at a protestant Christian church and you’ll find adults trying to make said activity fun. Well, with basketball, it is fun.
2. Basketball, win or lose, instills youths with desirable life skills.
Attend any youth or children’s activity at a protestant Christian church and you’ll find adults trying to persuade kids that the Bible has eternal life skills within it. Well, with basketball, life skills (perseverance, growth, not to mention hand-eye coordination) appear like wetness with water. No advocate needed.
3. Basketball games provide a perfectly indirect (safe) way to make new friends, both for kids and parents (me).
Attend any youth or children’s activity at a protestant church and you will not find parents. If any parents are there, they are too occupied to talk, what with making speeches to kids that church is fun, and that church will endow them with life skills.
Put simply, as a Christian man and parent, now that I’m involved, honestly, I am not afraid to report that youth basketball is better than church. Sometimes the games are on Sundays. Sometimes not. I’m not recanting my faith; Jesus Christ is Lord forever and ever and ever. Glory. Hallelujah. Amen.
But I won’t ever feel guilty for recognizing that basketball is the better activity for my kids and I and skipping church.
Richer
I haven’t been shy in lamenting some recent marriage and family woes to you.
Today, I want to counter this and slightly elevate the conversation.
Back in 2019, as I took my step-son under my wing, you might say I went a bit overboard in used book buying.
eBay and I were quick friends and used book sets were my specialty. I bought the Children’s Book of Knowledge set, and all 10 annuals. (That’s thirty books.) I bought the Journey’s Through Bookland 10 volume set. And I even found a three volume Family Treasury of Children’s Classics set.
(That’s 43 books—he was 10.)
Anyhow, as my daughter, A-, who is now 2.5 yrs old, arrived, I began doing what I do, which is reading aloud from these classics.
The first volume of the Family Treasury opens with all—and I mean it is the actual collection—of classic nursery rhymes that we all struggle to find in Barnes and Noble’s.
A- is at the age when she is starting to talk and use multi-word phrases. Because I have a knack for these things, I began to test her the other day.
“Mary had a little-”
“AM” she concluded.
“Its fleece was white as-”
“NOOO!” she roared laughing.
Most of you have done similar and we should rightly be applauded.
The other day I came in from a long day of driving. My wife and step-son who, generally speaking, are opposed to learning are sneaking a quick movie since I wasn’t around to stop them.
Mission Impossible III is on the screen. One of my favorites.
I head to bed. I’m tired and not in the mood to point out that my step-son is still not ready for such a film.
The next day, my wife says to me out of the blue, “I didn’t ever know that’s why he said Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.”
To your ears, you probably would’ve heard her thick accent, and it’s very likely she didn’t even say what I wrote. But that’s what she meant.
Despite my having understanding of her meaning—regardless her actual words—I still had no clue what she was talking about.
“Huh?” I asked.
“What?” she asked.
“You said something about him saying Humpty Dumpty?”
Now at this moment in recent conversations, she will look at me and using all her feminine intuition do her best to determine whether I’m in earnest or whether I’m mocking her and usually conclude the latter by saying, “Never mind.”
But this time she said it again.
I still honestly had no idea what she was talking about. Like the Bible, she was not giving me to the antecedents I needed. Who was “he”, I wondered?
She finally said something that made me realize she was talking about the movie and then I recalled the scene was TC drops off the wall as a priest.
“Oh, you’re telling me that in the movie last night you finally understood why he said the Humpty Dumpty line, because A- says it all the time in our reading. Is that what you meant?”
“Yes.”
Keep in mind the relationship is still on edge.
I then say, “That’s what happens to everyone the more we read, Mistiye (or “Mee-stee-yay” which is the phonetic spelling of the Amharic (one Ethiopian language’s) word for “my wife”). Every new book adds to every other book. Reading makes everything better. That’s why I am always telling you to do it.”
A normal husband would stop there, probably acknowledging he had gone too far already.
“That’s what school did to the Bible for me. When I hear Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, which has the infamous ‘For God so loved the world’ line, I can no longer NOT hear the book of Numbers. I can’t even see how it means anything unless it is involved in what Numbers says.”
****
The question for you, dear reader, is what precisely happened to my wife in the Humpty Dumpty MI:3 moment? She didn’t get wiser. She didn’t get smarter. It wasn’t an increase in her knowledge. What was it?
So What That She Was Wrong?
So what that she was wrong? So what? She’s two and a half. How many times is little A- gonna be right at such a tender age?
Here’s how it started. A big winter storm was forecast to roll through over the night. (She couldn’t have known this, obviously.)
Then, this morning, as I surveyed the damage, I noticed it wasn’t quite as much snow as I feared, but I also knew more was on the way.
During breakfast, a certain sound, a bit like crackling, began as I monitored A-’s progress through her bowl of oatmeal and strawberries.
Focus in here: I wanted to test her meteorological knowledge. You see, she’s been the daughter of a pilot her entire life and school is always in session.
So I asked, casually, “What is that sound, A-?”
Simple enough question, right?
Apparently she hasn’t kept up her studies over winter break.
After turning towards the window, “Water?” was all that she could guess.
Much like you, when I heard this answer I naturally thought, “Wrong!”
To bring out the lesson, I got my phone, opened up ForeFlight, and read off the current METAR for the nearby airport, here redacted for national security purposes.
031415Z AUTO 01011G16KT 2 1/2SM UP OVC008 M03/M04 A2968 RMK A02
Obviously the only important part, the part she had neglected in her studies of late, was understanding just how broad a category “UP” was.
Sure, there is a certain sense in which precipitation of an unknown type and water are synonymous. But she was supposed to know the answer verbatim. Ver. Batim.
Maybe I’m being too hard on her. I don’t know.
So what that she was wrong? At least she heard the question. At least she considered it and gave an answer that reflected as much.
Vomit, A Joint Review of Triangle of Sadness and Ticket to Paradise
As I resumed Triangle last night, it happened to be at a scene when the seas were angry, dinner was served, and the passengers were beginning to vomit all over the place.
Apparently, my wife had said she was, in fact, not working last night, and next thing I know she is awkwardly standing in the room wondering what in the world I’m watching and why I am suppressing glee.
This holiday season has to be one of the worst of my life. Other’s have likely had worse moments, but on the whole, this one has been the worst. Stuff is just going poorly.
So I say, “Oh. Well, I don’t have to finish this. We can pick something else.”
She sits down and we begin the chore of scrolling.
I had in mind the new George Clooney rom-com, but said nothing.
After a good fifteen minutes and one false-start, she said, “There’s a new Julia Roberts-”
“-I was actually thinking the same thing.”
So I finally find it and we press play.
(Keep in mind, our relationship is at a low, and the film is about a divorced couple about to fall back in love.)
Within minutes, the law-degreed-college-graduate daughter—on a trip prior to starting a career as a lawyer—is lamenting to a random pool boy in some shit-hole country that she has to continue on the law path otherwise she’ll disappoint her…her…her parents.
That’s when I vomited. In my mind. And went to bed. Alone.
Goodnight, 2022.
Without Hesitation, I Pointed
I’ve had a short car ride to consider the matter and I have resolved that, next time, I will simply step out of line, open the luggage, and begin to rifle through the contents until you people learn.
But this morning, all I did was admit to myself that if it was a bomb, if today was the end, then I’d rather go out without panicking or making anyone else panic. And I was so close to the left-alone-luggage that I was actually happy that it would probably be instant, painless death, instead of painful injury, followed by opioid-addict life.
Truth be told, I only treated the situation as terrorist-dramatic because I like to test myself. Sure, the lady who just decided to stop pulling her carry-on right next to the 40-min long TSA security line was BIPOC, brown to be exact. I’d guess from India. Huge strike against her, and for travel terrorism. But she had a child with her. And she clearly was pissed at her husband. He was—somehow—the one lagging on the trip through the airport. In my experience, men usually drag their wives. But given the end of the holiday weekend, and given the packed nature of the airport, all I guessed was that she was doing the classic dumb-wife move of being mad that they might miss their flight (perhaps it was even his fault) and then compounding that anger with the fact that her husband was not reacting with the emotional interest that she expected. When exactly did remaining calm become an undesirable quality?
Anyhow, taken together, I was not afraid, but I was shocked. Dumbfounded. Who is left on this planet that is stupid enough to walk away from a piece of luggage at an airport?
That’s why I say that next time I will just attempt to shame the person by exposing their messy undergarments to the general public. If they haven’t learned nicely, then shame is the only remaining tool, in my book.
Today, however, I was consoling H- who, when we reached the “end” of the security line and discovered it was double-wrapped in a way we had not experienced before, had begun to cry. Despite my later-proved-to-be-accurate claim that “we’ll be at the gate before they even begin boarding,” I couldn’t prevent the water works.
Anyhow, that is what distracted me from going the “open-luggage-to-shame” route, and instead just notice it—notice it and focus unrelentingly until a worker came by shouting instructions for the line who then added, “Whose is this?” All I could do was point. But I pointed with a force that said, “That dumb mother fucker over there.” Then I laughed to myself and low-talked to H-, “I pointed! Ha. Didn’t even blink. Just dimed them out. Funny.”
Guess maybe I, too, was getting tired of watching a woman make stupid decisions after a long holiday weekend with one.
Oh well. At least you and I are ready for next time.
Don’t wait. Find out for yourself if it’s a bomb.
Hack Life Out of the Wilderness; In a Word—Work Hard
I married a woman from Ethiopia.
For the purposes of this post, the single cultural trait in focus is polygamy. Ethiopians are only generations away from the practice of polygamy. The mooslims still do practice it.
This manifests itself in the fact that they currently live in multi-family homes. I don’t mean apartments, I mean one larger home wherein many family members are supported by a few family members. My wife might tell me, “There aren’t enough jobs, so only my brother works,” to describe this particular living arrangement.
In our family, my wife and I’s current blended family here in the good ol’ US of A, it has become clear that she does not want to work hard. The way this has appeared is that she has chosen to take a minimal wage, part-time, night shift job rather than be a stay-at-home mom with her two babies.
Don’t mis-hear me. I’m admitting, confessing, and asserting that being a stay-at-home mom with two babies is hard work—far harder than any minimal wage part-time work. I’m knocking my own wife, to support the archetypical stay-at-home wife.
She hasn’t quite said the following, but indirectly she has indicated that if we lived in Ethiopia, then our two babies would be passed around all day, every day. “Okay, I need a break, you watch them. Okay, I need a break, you watch them. Okay, I need a break, you watch them.” Then rinse and repeat until they find themselves passing around their own babies.
As the dad, as the father, as the patriarch of my family, I want my children to be the strongest adults possible. Warrior poets. Scholar athletes. I want fearless giants. To be sure, I want pilots. (Forgive me, I couldn’t resist.)
I’m here to tell you that fearless giants are not possible if raised like an Ethiopian, fearless giants are not possible if raised by polygamists.
In the passing around of the children, something else gets passed around—responsibility. And accountability. The lack of responsibility and accountability is the direct manifestation of laziness.
“He did what?! That’s not how I taught him when I had him for two minutes of every morning,” the third cousin, twice removed on the mother’s side says, feigning to be indignant.
I didn’t see it coming when I proposed this marriage, but nearly every day of my life, I see more and more why American culture is the dominant one on Planet Earth. Today, I see it in terms of monogamy as the one and only producer of giants. Polygamy went away, not because of the New Testament or because of some other philosophy. Polygamy dropped off the earth because its offspring were weak and incapable of hard work. Polygamy is not practiced by Americans because the children raised by only two people, by only one man and one woman are more capable adults. Where did Americans learn to work hard? The wilderness. Americans hacked life out of the wilderness. And that took hard work. You should thank your national ancestors.
Children need to see—from their first breaths—that hard work is good, hard work is rewarding, and hard work is rewarded. And children cannot see that if they don’t see their fathers and mothers working hard to raise them—all day, every day.
As for this fearless giant, this pilot, as for this American? I’m a man who believes in hard work. So I married a woman from Ethiopia.
Captain’s Log 