The Student’s Wager

05/11/2007, 11:47 am -- by | 3 Comments

At 11:21 this morning, I turned in the last final of my sophomore year of college. It feels pretty good to finally be done and have summer looming before me with its promises of outdoor fun, a multitude of refreshing beverages and gainful employment. However, as I look back, successfully completing this year of college seems a bit hollow. Of the 76 or so years the average American male lives, twenty of mine will be eaten up preparing for the future (3 or so of daycare/preschool, K-12, 4 years of undergrad) — that’s over a quarter of the average without including graduate work!

Completing this year has reminded me that every college guy like me is gambling a rather large portion of his life on the idea that the other 75% of his life on Earth will be worth more to him with a college degree than the 25% he’s traded pursuing one, never mind the loans to repay. That’s a significant wager, and it would be rather frightening if it didn’t pay off.

Of course, I still have my ace in the hole. It will go well for me, even if I become destitute, live in a cardboard box, pick up a touch of the consumption, run up a huge hospital bill and die. I know where I’ll end up in the end, and once I’m there, the results of the earthly wager won’t matter so much. Not everyone has that security, though.

The liberal arts program at an average university teaches students they are better off relying on their own ability to provide for their own security, severely limited as it may be, than to rely on a nebulous concept like God for their needs. After all, if you can’t see Him, how can you trust Him? Students who accept this lie leave the university unarmed to fight with hope against the injustice the world runs on, which eventually leaves many disillusioned, bitter and depressed. Not to be too sentimental, but if in the next few weeks you could think about the students graduating this time of year and pray for them a little, they may appreciate it someday. I know I will; I might have to work with some of these people!

Also, if you could pray that I don’t live in a box, that’d be super too. Thanks.

Bible Discussion — Genesis 37-39

05/9/2007, 11:30 am -- by | 5 Comments

This week, Bweinh.com looks at the next three chapters of the Bible, Genesis 37-39.

Previously in Genesis: 1-4 | 5-9 | 10-14 | 15-18 | 19-22 | 23-26 | 27-29 | 30-32 | 33-36

 
INTRODUCTION:
Rev. Tate:
The Rev. Barry Joe Tate is a graduate of Aurora University, proud father of five and the first to ever submit a Bweinh!tribution via fax. He makes his home in Benson, VT.

Jesus bore testimony to God’s ability to fix times and epochs by His own authority, and the Father declares, ‘Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned it, so it will stand . . . For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” Our passage is an illustration of these truths and a commentary on them.

David:
In this section the story of Joseph, “him that was separate from his brethren,” and the story of Judah, Tamar and the scarlet thread of redemption are shared.

Job:
Finally a clear hero emerges. In Joseph we see a man not doomed to the actions or attitudes of his father, and not prone to the pervasive evil that surrounds him. Patient, wise, generous, forgiving but unrelenting, Joseph is a man who attracts an audience by performing for an audience of One.

MC-B:
Yes! I remember this one!

Of course, I’d always thought it was written in the form of a musical:

 
SOMETHING YOU’D NEVER NOTICED BEFORE:
Steve:
Joseph never would have found his brothers that fateful day if it hadn’t been for that “certain man” who found him wandering in the field. What was that guy doing? Why did he care about a wandering teenager with a colorful coat? And how were the brothers able to eat after tossing Joseph down in the pit?

Chloe:
I had noticed this before, but I wanted to point it out — Reuben, despite his previous sin against his father (sleeping with his concubine), has a good heart. He tries his best to rescue his brother, and when he fails, he takes the blame on himself. Good man.

Josh:
After Jacob’s sons misled him to believe Joseph was dead (without ever actually saying it — the family tradition of elaborate deception lives on!), they then came to comfort him during his mourning. This has to be one of the most hollow gestures recorded in Scripture.

Rev. Tate:
37:8 reveals that his brothers hated Joseph for his dreams as well as for his words. When they heard the dreams, their hearts witnessed to them that the words were from God, so mixed in with hatred for Joseph was a hatred for God’s will. This insight is underscored when they boast, “let us see what will become of his dreams.”

MC-B:
According to the version I’m using, Joseph’s brothers only started plotting to kill him when they saw him in the distance. Murder of a family member wouldn’t seem to be something you do on a whim (even if you can see for miles, it’s still a pretty quick decision), but then I’ve never done it so I really can’t say.

Tom:
Joseph went from a brother in Dothan to a slave in Egypt in one verse.

Job:
The writer notes Joseph was sold by the Midianites, then tells us he was sold to Potiphar by the Ishmaelites. Since both were sons of Abraham by women other than Sarah, perhaps the Israelites couldn’t effectively discern between the sons of Midian and Ishmael — or perhaps the caravan was so intertwined that either definition would do.

Continued here!

Clash of the Titans XIX: Electoral College

05/4/2007, 2:30 pm -- by | 1 Comment

In this corner, defending the Electoral College, is Steve!

 And in this corner, attacking the Electoral College, is MC-B!

Like almost everything in the Constitution, the electoral college is brilliant. It is not an outdated relic that keeps power from the people, it is a better way. Its abolition would be tragic.

National Perspective
Anyone who wins the presidency now must have a wide-ranging base of support. A George Wallace-type candidate, with tremendous regional popularity but no national appeal, can never gain the necessary electoral votes — but in a pure democracy, he could win with a vast majority in only his home area.

And if only total votes mattered, no candidate would EVER visit Idaho, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, Kansas, or any state outside the top eight in population. Don’t California and Texas think highly enough of themselves as it is? The current system forces candidates to concentrate on our most closely divided states — which happen to be the ones most like the country as a whole.

Moderate Candidates
Our president has always come from the middle of the road, because success in our system requires substantial support from moderates. Compare that to a place like France — in 2002, a real live fascist made it to the finals of their two-step process. Eliminating the College could splinter the presidential race, making the winner more likely to come from the fringes. Pure democracies encourage balkanization, not compromise. But third-party candidates aren’t automatically excluded under our current system either! If H. Ross Perot hadn’t bizarrely abandoned the 1992 race, he might have won — remember, he actually LED some national polls in June.

Federalism
We are, after all, the United STATES. Congress has already stolen a lot from the governments closest to the people; let’s not make it worse by eliminating their most important national function. And issues that matter in South Carolina aren’t always vital in New Mexico; Alaska and Alabama face different challenges. Lumping all these perspectives together marginalizes the states — each deserves their own voice in electing the leader of the union they joined as equal partners.

Plus, if you thought the Florida recount was bad, imagine that horrific sideshow 50 times over. Fraud would be likely to increase too, if only because of the larger stakes involved.

Criticisms? Electors might vote for the wrong candidate, but most electors are party politicians or large contributors now anyway, so it’s not much of a danger. No majority in the College sends the election to the House, but they’re all elected at the same time as the president, so they’re as fair a way as any to break the tie.

Does the College reflect the strict will of the people? No — and that’s its best quality! Rather than permitting the danger of simple “majority rule,” our republic is set up specifically to protect our liberty from the power of pure democracy. As Founding Father James Madison wrote in Federalist 10, “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Amen. Let’s leave well enough alone.

It’s not terrorism, social security, or even ethanol; it’s the Electoral College, an issue whose importance pales in comparison to many serious issues we face. Reforming the Electoral College isn’t so urgent, but it will make America more democratic and preserve the will of the people.

The best reason to replace the Electoral College with direct election? It’s more democratic. In 1800, 1824, 1876 and 2000, we didn’t elect the candidate for whom most voters cast their ballot — the candidate who received the most electors won. But maybe this is a good thing. After all, we want candidates who win the national election to have broad support from across the country, not support focused in a few populous areas.

Of course, the 2000 electoral map (the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected) doesn’t show a broad, national consensus for either leader. It shows a contest pitting the Pacific Coast, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Rust Belt against the South and the Midwest. I’m not an expert on 19th-century electoral politics, but the 2000 example reveals the Electoral College does not necessarily lead to national consensus, but is capable of encouraging state-based regionalism.

Similarly, the Electoral College alone does not make politicians consider state-based interests, or even pay them lip service. This conclusion is borne out by statistical analysis — according to a study by George C. Edwards III, only 2 Gore speeches from June to October 2000 focused on particularly state-based interests (a senior drug plan in Florida and the estate tax in Iowa). Bush’s only state-focused speech during that time was in Washington on environmental protection. Since Washington has a greater number of electoral votes (11) than all but 14 others, it hardly fulfills the classic case of a small state that needs protecting against a tyrannical majority. The lack of recent focus on state interests reveals that our current system does not fulfill the ends to which it aspires, regardless of whether these ends are good.

As a side note, the idea that states need to be protected through the Electoral College at all is dubious. Small, low-population states still have many other ways to ensure their voices are heard and that their constituents are considered in passing legislation.

Even if the Electoral College made state interests more prominent, we might not benefit. Our government is consecrated to serve the people’s interests, rather than its own. Historically, one key vehicle to fulfill and preserve this relationship has been the use of states to aggregate the people’s interests. However, electing the President directly is more logistically feasible today than ever before. To claim states should maintain control in federal elections is to misrepresent the reasons the state was created in the first place: to protect the people from the federal government and ensure their will is represented there.

Since states have significantly limited value outside of this role, because the Electoral College has failed to elect the people’s choice in the past, and because the logistical possibility now exists to devolve more power to the people themselves, it would be beneficial to replace the Electoral College system with direct elections.

{democracy:32}

Operation Bweinh! Post

05/3/2007, 11:39 am -- by | 2 Comments

I have no idea what to post about this week. None.

Anyway, here are some interesting military projects and operations from the past I’ve been reading about recently.

1. Project Habakkuk — A British plan during WWII to build an aircraft carrier out of ice and wood pulp for North Atlantic combat. The idea was that the construction materials would keep the ship afloat even if it took on water. My question: what were the accommodations like? I can’t imagine it’d be very comfortable to sleep, work, or play in a giant refrigerated ice fortress, even by the Royal Navy’s admittedly low standards of comfort.

2. The New Swabian Expedition — Never to be outdone in ice-related military technology, Germany claimed a large portion of Anarctica as its very own for use in the procurement of whales to kill. No one ever recognized their claim, and Germany largely abandoned the plan. Of course, some will tell you the Third Reich never surrendered New Swabia and so it still lives on. However, these are the same kind of people who would tell you that Hitler himself is still alive and collaborating with the Illuminati and space lizards to take over the world.

3. The Color-Coded War Plans — These operations will be delivered in game format — which countries/regions/empires were the following operations developed against? No cheating!

War Plan Red:
War Plan Orange:
War Plan Yellow:
War Plan Green:
War Plan Indigo:
War Plan Violet:
War Plan Black:
War Plan Citron:
War Plan Silver:
War Plan Gold:

That’s all for now. Thanks for playing along this week; there’ll be more topical stuff next week, hopefully. Imagine this guy telling “yo mama” jokes at 8:30 every Friday morning in a Macroeconomics class and you’ll have a pretty good idea what every day of my semester has been like thus far.

Or at least every Friday morning.

Bible Discussion — Genesis 33-36

05/2/2007, 12:00 pm -- by | 7 Comments

This week, Bweinh.com looks at the next three chapters of the Bible, Genesis 33-36.

Previously in Genesis: 1-4 | 5-9 | 10-14 | 15-18 | 19-22 | 23-26 | 27-29 | 30-32

 
INTRODUCTION:
Maj. Jones:
I’m Major Doug Jones. My claim to fame which allows me to post as a guest contributor is that I am Josh’s father. I have served Jesus as a Salvation Army officer (pastor) for almost 31 years. I enjoy reading this weekly Bible discussion and hope to share something that will bless others as these bright young minds have been blessing me.

MC-B:
Another Old Testament story, another tale of rapes and massacres but also of the blessings and plans of God.

Steve:
Ups and downs, highs and lows, the book of Genesis has them all, as we see a happy reunion between Jacob and Esau, followed by unnecessary genocide.

Mike:
Jacob has been called back to Bethel. On the way, he has a meeting with Esau that God in his grace makes far more peaceful than it ought to be on the surface. After this, he arrives at Shechem and is tempted to stay there — the land is good and he figures he’s close enough to Bethel. But after his daughter is raped, Simeon and Levi gain revenge, forcing Jacob to leave and go to Bethel, where he meets God again.

David:
This is quite a homecoming for Jacob. God reaffirmed his name change to Israel, he suffered the loss of his wife, the birth of his most precious son, the death of Rebekah’s nurse and the death of his father. Oh, and his daughter gets raped and his sons commit murder. Plus Reuben sleeps with one of his concubines.

 
SOMETHING YOU’D NEVER NOTICED BEFORE:
Job:
With the feared coming of Esau, Jacob placed his wives and children in order of favoritism, with Rachel and Joseph in the safest position.

Tom:
Jacob starts off chapter 31 by hiding behind a bulwark of handmaids, wives, and children until Esau and his 400 men were close enough for Jacob to tell if his gifts of livestock had succeeded in pacifying the horde. What a little weasel.

Josh:
When Isaac called Esau in chapter 27 for his final blessing, it was largely because he felt his death would come soon. He certainly seemed pretty far gone — he couldn’t even recognize his own son. But in chapter 35 we learn Isaac survived the entire time Jacob was gone, a period spanning no less than twenty years.

Maj. Jones:
Running from Esau in chapter 28, Jacob ran into God at Bethel with his dream of the ladder. Now God has brought him back to Bethel to change his name to Israel.

Mike:
The random reference to Reuben sleeping with his father’s concubine, Bilhah.

MC-B:
Again, I only remember this story vaguely. How long until we get to Jonah and the whale?

Ouch. That long, huh?

Steve:
It’s quite clear that regardless of their bad decisions, Shechem loved Dinah very much. And interestingly, the author of Genesis refers to him as “more honorable than all the household of his father,” making Simeon and Levi’s behavior even worse.

David:
Rebekah’s nurse is travelling with Jacob, his mother’s nurse. She must have been of great age and great character to choose to sojourn with Jacob.

Continued here!

Can I interest you in some fine real estate?

04/26/2007, 11:30 am -- by | 3 Comments

Come right in. Please, sit down. What can I do for you folks today? Interested in buying some property, huh? Well, okay, we have a lovely house down on Park Street: oh, you wanted something a bit more unique? Hmm.

Well, maybe I can interest you in one of the most recent arrivals on the real estate scene. We’ve got a few plots that we’re practically giving away on Planet 581 c.

What is Planet 581 c? Well, according to CNN.com, it’s the most Earth-like planet that scientists have ever discovered. Well, yes, I suppose that technically Earth is more Earthlike than 581 c, but I thought that was implied. Okay, okay, I’m sorry, no need to get testy. Anyway, this planet is filled to overflowing with that sweet, sweet substance that we call liquid water. Do you have children? I’ll bet they’d love to jump off a swinging rope into some of 581 c’s cool, clear rivers and lakes. You don’t? That’s a shame. You look like great people.

Did I mention the fact that, on this planet, it’s your birthday every 13 days? By the time you’ve been there for twenty years, you’ll be about 561 years older on this planet, have 561 more years worth of birthday presents, and be able to absolutely destroy Jeanne Calment’s record. Think of that, folks: a place for your name in the Guinness Book of World Records, and all for the low price of this fine piece of property. I have to tell you, though, that buying anniversary presents could get a bit pricey (the 1000th Anniversary is the Bohrium Anniversary, by the way). Probably no problem for wealthy folks like you anyway, right?

This beauty of a planet is also just a quick flight from Earth at only 120 trillion miles away. That’s still more than far enough to keep the mother-in-law at bay, right sir? Oh, okay, that’s fine, no need to get offended.

Aliens? Well, we haven’t checked it out completely yet, but I can guarantee that 581 c is in one of the safest neighborhoods in the known universe; no known signs of life anywhere nearby means no crime, no vandalism, and no pollution. Well, yes, I suppose it might get a bit lonely, but who needs other people when you have each other, right?

Okay, well, you folks take some time to think about it. I can’t guarantee that we’ll have these plots when you make your decision; they’re going pretty quickly. If you decide you want to buy, you have my number.

Bible Discussion: Genesis 30-32

04/25/2007, 11:00 am -- by | 8 Comments

This week, Bweinh.com looks at the next three chapters of the Bible, Genesis 30-32.

Previous discussions from Genesis: 1-4 | 5-9 | 10-14 | 15-18 | 19-22 | 23-26 | 27-29

 
INTRODUCTION:
Rev. Joel:
Hi, I’m Rev. Joel Tom Tate, former RD of Shenawana Hall. Since I’m the pastor of the North Chittenden WESLEYAN church in North Chittenden, Vermont, you can consider yourself strangely informed.

The only profitable way to read this passage is with humility. If you read it as though it was written by and for primitive people you will find yourself resisting the obvious meaning and implications of the text.

Steve:
It’s hard for me to understand the female characters of Genesis, because I can’t possibly grasp how vitally important it was — for status and survival — for them to bear male children. Cattiness, competition, fighting over a man — all that I can grasp without any problem. But Rachel’s rage and desperation, not just at being outdone by her sister, but at failing at what was then the primary task of a woman, is very foreign.

Mike:
Jacob wrestles with those who would deceive him and those who would bless him.

 
SOMETHING YOU’D NEVER NOTICED BEFORE:
Job:
The Scripture says, “And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing.” Jacob had made deceit his own little Canaanite cottage industry, and while credit needs to be given to Moses for never painting any of the patriarchs in too good a light, it is interesting that in this verse (and this verse alone) the writer of Genesis gently reminds us that, hey, it was just an Aramean getting deceived, not a member of the chosen tribe.

David:
“And God remembered Rachel…” I have memories of myself spying the clock at work and realizing, “Agh! I forgot to pick Rachel (my daughter) up from school!” I’m sure it really wasn’t like that for God here, although it may have felt that way to Rachel.

Mike:
Bilhah bore a son as a surrogate for Rachel, and it was referred to as “bearing upon [Rachel’s] knees.” Apparently, the adoptive mother caught the baby so that from moment one, the child would imprint with the adoptive mother. How beautiful for Rachel — how difficult for Bilhah!

Josh:
I’m somewhat surprised it took Laban an entire week to catch Jacob. Jacob only had a 2-3 day head start, and all his possessions, women, children, and animals to keep track of. Jacob must have really been pushing his crew to get away.

Rev. Joel:
Jacob was the first gigolo, his sexual services being purchased with a bunch of roots.

Tom:
Rachel used her “moon time” to get away with something. It might have been the first time, but it would not be the last.

Steve:
Jacob refers to God as the “God of [his] father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac.” The “Fear of Isaac” is an interesting way to identify God, especially if we remember that little story about Abraham, Isaac and the sacrifice.

Continued here!

Introducing MC-B

04/19/2007, 3:46 pm -- by | 3 Comments

Hello, everyone. I don’t have the benefit of knowing all of the Bweinh.com contributors in the real world, and I also have yet to meet many of our readers. For these reasons, I’ve decided my first contribution will be something of an intellectual history and biography, and I’ll save the angry rants for next time.

Before we set out, though, I would like to point out that there is at least an 83.7% chance that this history will contain only one use of the phrase “raisin poop,” and that’s already happened. Apologies all around, and now we may begin.

I’m fairly sure that among the first political books I read was Al Franken’s Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, updated with new material for the era. Politics was so simple to understand as a youth; rich fat men took everything that the poor, Dickensian, coal-smudged lower class had to buy yachts, and every trace of political hatred was concealed beneath a thin, crunchy coating of humorous insults and semi-witty barbs. This conceptualization of politics was further ingrained in me through my household, but lest I write something disrespectful of my parents, I’ll end this line of thought now. Suffice to say that I once got into an argument with my mother about whether the 1970s-80s backlash against progressivism was the fault of hippies, and she responded by asking me if the Holocaust was the fault of the Jews. Godwin’s Law in action, though not online.

Still, I grew up a young progressive, bravely fighting the conservative machine that dominated upstate New York. I remember Mr. Haley (my semi-legendary high school history teacher) placing a non-monetary bet with a rookie teacher that the next student who approached them would identify him/herself as a Republican. I was the next person to the front of the room, so Mr. Haley lost the bet and I won a hearty “Welcome to the good side.”

But then I got to college.

My chosen freshman seminar was “Peace, Power and Sustainability.” From the title, I expected at least some of the course to be about peace or power, which reveals something about my naiveté regarding the priorities of private liberal arts institutions. The course consisted primarily of synthesizing peace studies with environmental concerns. On the plus side, I met some very interesting people, but my eyes got a lot of exercise that semester from extensive rolling, as I realized that many who leaned the same way as I did politically were also the most overbearing and annoying people I’d ever met. Around the same time, I started taking economics courses, and found out the rich were rich because they were good at what they did. Since then I’ve argued with many anti-globalizationists who still want to keep their iPods.

So now you know why I haven’t committed myself toward one party or the other — I can’t accept enough of what either tells me. Also, my faith probably has a great deal to do with my political beliefs and I suspect that, in this respect, I will be in good company on Bweinh!

Hopefully future articles will be easier to understand because of this exercise, and also a bit less dull. If not, give me a mulligan and we’ll start over fresh next time.

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